Report: Trump Allows Fox News Host to Sit in, Consult on Oval Office Meetings

You could say Fox Business host Lou Dobbs is an admirer of Donald Trump’s.

Dobbs would be of the Sean Hannity/Jeanine Pirro-level of Trump sycophancy.

Trump, as is his way, has a particularly admiration for anyone who shows mindless devotion to him. That would explain his tweets that usually follow whatever Fox News just talked about.

Dobbs has been tweet-quoted by Trump quite a bit, and apparently, it goes beyond just social media mentions.

Indeed, much of this can describe Trump’s relationships with various other television personalities. What sets Dobbs apart is the degree to which the president views him as a political and populism godfather, the #MAGA Socrates to Trump’s Plato.

As such, Dobbs doesn’t get to just interview and socialize with the president, he is involved in some of the administration’s more sensitive discussions. During the first year of the Trump era, the president has patched Dobbs in via speakerphone to multiple meetings in the Oval Office so that he could offer his two cents, according to three sources familiar with these conversations. Trump will ask Dobbs for his opinion before and after his senior aides or Cabinet members have spoken. Occasionally, he will cut off an official so the Fox Business host can jump in.

Picture Sean Hannity telling John Kelly what to do. It could happen.

Dobbs apparently gets to call in to meetings on issues such as trade and tax policy, speaking as an equal with administration officials.

During the more intense days of the tax-bill push, Trump made sure to have his White House personal secretary get Dobbs on the line. And toward the conclusion of one memorable meeting, when the line was disconnected and Dobbs said farewell, Trump looked up, smiled, and simply told the room, “Love Lou.”

“He cherishes Lou,” a senior White House official told The Daily Beast. And the feeling is, evidently, quite mutual.

Dobbs has apparently remade himself into this nationalist-populist icon, and according to a source, before he left CNN for Fox, he checked out footage of Bill O’Reilly, in order to mimic his style.

He did the same thing in 2007 for his radio broadcast, studying the mannerisms and style of hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck.

In the intervening years, Dobbs became one of the most prominent figures in the Fox family as it has embraced Trump’s economic and immigration agenda. And he has been given the green light to pump out as much pro-Trump agitprop as possible in large part because he’s so successful. One former higher-up who still occasionally talks to Dobbs said the veteran anchor gets little direction from executives at Fox Business, who aren’t inclined to mess with his format because of the show’s strong ratings. Dobbs has been the top-rated business network host for almost two years.

“Nobody with… leverage is left at Fox,” another former exec told The Daily Beast, when asked why Dobbs is allowed to serve as a booster for Trump so openly. “And if they are, they’re either looking to leave or lazy. Or they believe in the cause.”

Besides a distinct distaste for immigrants and a lean towards birtherism, Dobbs has more in common with Trump: Steve Bannon.

According to the report, Bannon attempted to talk Dobbs into running for president back in 2010. Dobbs wasn’t feeling it, so he refused.

“Dobbs is pretty strong on immigration enforcement issues… so better that the president listen to him than his son-in-law or his daughter,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a leading activist for a stricter immigration system in the U.S., told The Daily Beast. “Dobbs has been talking about immigration for years. He has a certain body of knowledge that other advisers, even people working in the administration, don’t have.”

Krikorian added, “Dobbs tapped into a pool of dissatisfaction [among] the public that already existed. And Trump tapped into it.”

Ann Coulter is also a fan. She told the Daily Beast that she preferred Trump watch no TV, except Lou Dobbs.

Appearing with Dobbs, Coulter slammed President Trump for changing and not keeping his campaign promises.

Dobbs vigorously defended his pal.

“Affirmation complexes are never attractive and unfortunately I believe there is some truth to the fact that there are those in the White House who would like to guide him toward this liberal fantasy that is a nightmare for America and has proved to be such for our middle class, which has been dwindling for the past 20 years,” Dobbs replied. “Under this president, they’re starting to grow and money is starting to come in and we’re starting to see housing prices rise.”

I’m going to guess that was before trade wars and his attacks on businesses like Amazon.

It’s rather disturbing that for the price of praise, anybody can get a high placed consulting position with this president.

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