Ainsley Earhardt

Ainsley Earhardt (born September 20, 1976) is an American Fox News television personality and author. She is the co-host of Fox & Friends.

Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as a young child Earhardt moved with her family to the Foxcroft area of Charlotte, North Carolina. She attended Sharon Elementary School. Earhardt's family moved to the Columbia, South Carolina, area when she was still in elementary school. Earhardt graduated from Spring Valley High School in 1995.

After high school, she attended Florida State University (FSU), majoring in biology. She then transferred to the University of South Carolina where she graduated with a bachelor of arts degree (B.A.) in Journalism.

Earhardt was hired as a reporter for WLTX-News 19, the local CBS station in Columbia, South Carolina, before she graduated from USC.From 2000 to 2004 she worked as the morning and noon anchor. She traveled to New York City after the September 11 attacks to cover South Carolina middle school students' raising nearly half a million dollars for firefighters to buy a new fire truck to replace one lost at the World Trade Center site.

In 2005, Earhardt moved to San Antonio, Texas, and anchored weekday newscasts of KENS-TV Eyewitness News This Morning (5:00–7:30 a.m.) and Eyewitness News at Noon. While living in Texas, she completed the Austin, Texas half-marathon, went skydiving with the U.S. Army's Golden Knights and, at the Air Force Academy, flew in an F-16 with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.

Earhardt has written two children's books (Take Heart, My Child and Through Your Eyes) and a memoir, The Light Within Me.

Fox News

Earhardt moved to New York City and began at Fox News Channel in 2007. Earhardt has stated that she "did not know the first thing about politics" before she was hired by Roger Ailes to work at Fox News. She is the co-host of Fox & Friends. She has appeared on Hannity with her own segment called "Ainsley Across America". Since joining the network, she has also co-hosted Fox and Friends Weekend, Fox's All-American New Year's Eve, America's News Headquarters, been a panelist on The Live Desk and appeared on Greg Gutfeld's Red Eye.

Earhardt has stated that she is a fair journalist who wants "to ask tough questions" and "does not want to come across as being in the tank for" the Trump administration. During her tenure on the show Fox & Friends, Trump tweeted about the show more than 100 times in the first eight months of his presidency. Earhardt has interviewed both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. During a 2018 interview, she praised Trump for threatening former FBI Director James Comey with nonexistent audio recordings, stating it "was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest" in congressional hearings. In an interview with Mike Pence, she described the Paris Climate Agreement as "unfair" to the United States.

In 2017, Earhardt falsely claimed that "5.7 million... illegal immigrants might have voted" in the 2008 election.

In August 2018, Earhardt stated incorrectly on Fox and Friends that the U.S. defeat of "communist Japan" was an event that had made "America great".(When the U.S. defeated Japan in World War II, Japan was actually an imperial regime and an Axis nation.) Another host tried to mask her blunder, but it soon went viral.

In May 2019, Earhardt criticized "the liberal media", saying that Republicans will not run for office anymore "because they know the liberal media is going to take them down." In October 2018, after The New York Times documented how Trump obtained nearly half a billion dollars from his father through "dubious tax schemes" and possible tax fraud, Earhardt accused the Times of "bashing" Trump's father.

According to Business Insider, "few subjects animate [Earhardt] more than stories about alleged attacks on Christianity." When a Missouri sheriff's department was criticized for putting "In God We Trust" decals on their squad cars, Earhardt defended the sheriff's department, asking "What about the majority? I'm so tired of protecting the rights of the minority. What about the rest of the country?"

In January 2020, after Trump ordered a lethal strike on Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps General Qasem Soleimani and asserted that information from the intelligence community revealed that the attack was necessary, Earhardt defended the administration against requests that the basis for the attack be made public. Previously, Earhardt had shown considerable distrust of the intelligence community during Trump's presidency; she had also advanced "deep state" conspiracy theories.

Earhardt's first marriage to Kevin McKinney in April 2005 ended in divorce in 2009. In October 2012, Earhardt married former Clemson University quarterback Will Proctor. They have one child. After six years of marriage, Proctor filed for divorce in October 2018 after Earhardt announced their separation amid allegations that he had been unfaithful. Earhardt is a Christian.