Trump likely to name ex-Fox News executive White House communications director
President Trump is likely to name former Fox News co-president Bill Shine to be his new communications director, a position left open when Hope Hicks left the White House at the end of March.
Shine and Mr. Trump met Wednesday to finalize the deal. Mr. Trump has mulled hiring Shine for the job for months, but there was a time when he believed he did not need a communications director and could essentially handle the job himself. Recently though, Mr. Trump has been reconsidering. He sees Shine as someone who can bring some organization and management to the communications team and who knows TV at the highest level in terms of talent and production – another priority for Mr. Trump.
Shine, a longtime ally of the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, resigned from Fox News just over a year ago as the cable network was beset by charges of sexual harassment and discrimination, and accusations against Ailes and Fox News host Bill O'Reilly resulted in their ouster from the company. While he was never directly accused of the kind of behavior that ended Ailes' and O'Reilly's careers at Fox News, he was, the Associated Press noted, seen as vulnerable because some claimed he looked the other way when staffers came to him with reports of harassment or discrimination.