Fox News Host Interviews DHS Secretary Kristi Noem While Riding Horsies

Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones took political theater to a remarkable new level when he interviewed newly confirmed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem while riding horseback.

If Jones’s border theatrics ring a bell, it might be because of the mockery he received for donning a TAC vest while filing a report from the US-Mexico border, despite his insistence that Border Patrol made him wear it.

Jones was not in the New York studio Monday morning, reporting from the southern border before an interview with Sec of Defense and former Fox & Friends colleague Pete Hegseth. Part of the reason for Jones being at the US-Mexico border in Texas was for an exclusive and behind-the-scenes tour of the border with Noem.

Jones conducted his interview with the DHS secretary while both were on horseback for reasons not explained on the show at the time of this post. Noem has become a meme herself for her “ICE costume” while participating in illegal immigration raids in New York City.

Now, there is no question about the value of an interview with a newly named cabinet secretary, especially someone as newsworthy as Secretary Noem, who is playing a key role in President Donald Trump’s promise to engage in the mass deportation of undocumented/illegal immigrants currently in the United States. It is worth noting that Jones is from Texas, looked comfortable riding a horse, and this was an exclusive interview with a key figure in the Trump administration.

And sure, horseback interviews aren’t unprecedented — 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker, for example, was in the saddle for much of a 2019 segment that had a Yellowstone flair. But that was a very low-stakes piece about rodeo cowboys — very different from the more urgent news happening at the border.

In this case, the decision to interview place Jones atop a horse made clear the priority of the piece was political theatrics, rather than news value. The predictable soft-ball questions that came revealed that, as one would expect from the right-of-center and very Pro-Trump Fox & Friends, reaffirmed Jones’s place as an opinion host in service of promoting the Trump agenda and not asking any tough questions at all, which is why he is so very popular with President Trump, and therefore, his Fox News career is on the trajectory it is.

After a brief portion of the interview aired as a tease for a later segment, Jones earned praise from his colleagues for doing the interview while riding a horse.

“Great interview on the horse!” said Ainsley Earhardt as Jones wrapped the segment; Steve Doocy said, “Giddy up!” and Brian Kilmeade compared it to a popular television series, 1883. Yeah. “You should have seen the camera guy backwards on the horse,” Doocy also joked. Still, no explanation why the interview was on a horse, though clearly, it was compelling cable news programming.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.