UPDATED: McEnany, Fox News talks on pause

Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in financial disclosure documents published Tuesday indicated that she had an agreement in place to join Fox News this month, but a source familiar with the matter says those discussions are now paused.

McEnany listed an “employment agreement with Fox News, starting work in January” on her termination report upon leaving the government. The report was obtained and published by watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

A Fox News spokesperson said McEnany “is not currently an employee or contributor” at the network.

McEnany and Fox held initial conversations after the 2020 election about a role, but those discussions were paused, according to a source familiar with the matter. The network does remain open to hiring her in the future, the source said, given it does “not condone cancel culture.”

McEnany did not respond to a request for comment.

Should the former press secretary land at Fox News, it would mark the latest instance of a Trump administration official joining the conservative-leaning network.

One of McEnany’s predecessors, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, took a role as a Fox News contributor after leaving the White House in 2019. Sanders has since launched a bid for Arkansas governor and is no longer working at the network.

Senior Trump adviser Hope Hicks took a job at Fox Corp. upon leaving the White House in 2018, only to return to working for Trump later in his term.

Trump had also hired Bill Shine from Fox News to work as White House communications director ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Former Trump administration officials John Bolton, Scott Atlas and others made frequent appearances on the network before joining the government.

McEnany previously worked as a contributor at CNN and as a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee before taking the press secretary job in the spring of 2020. 

She was a fierce and unflinching advocate of the president in her taxpayer-funded role, defending him from the podium through his missteps in the coronavirus pandemic response, his forceful removal of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square for a photo op and his efforts to sow doubt about the outcome of the 2020 election.

McEnany made frequent appearances on Fox News over the past two years, including several on prime-time opinion programming where she pushed unsubstantiated claims about widespread election fraud.

Trump himself had been at odds with Fox in the weeks before and after the election, regularly complaining that the outlet was not being sufficiently supportive of him. 

Updated at 1:04 p.m.