Former Fox News Contributor Morgan Ortagus Replaces Another Former Fox Personality as State Department Spokesperson

The U.S. State Department went back to the well when hiring its next spokesperson. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday they have hired Morgan Ortagus to replace former spokeswoman Heather Nauert. Both Ortagus and Nauert are former personalities on the Fox News Channel.

Ortagus, a Navy reserve officer, has foreign policy experience with her background as a spokeswoman with the U.S. Agency for International Development, working many months of public diplomacy in Baghdad, Iraq during President George W. Bush's administration in 2007.

"I am pleased to welcome Morgan Ortagus as our new State Department Spokesperson," Pompeo said in a statement Wednesday. "Morgan brings outstanding credentials and a record of public service to the position. She has worked her entire career in financial services, consulting, and diplomacy."

In 2016 she said eventual-President Donald Trump had "an isolationist foreign policy approach," according to CNN. She also called Trump's mockery of disabled people "disgusting."

Ortagus, 36, reportedly turned down previous offers to work in the Trump administration, but accepted the the state department job just one week after penning an op-ed that praised Ivanka Trump's efforts with The Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, CNN stated.

Nauert had been a regular on Fox News since the late 1990s as a host and eventual contributor before taking over the role as spokeswoman for the State Department in April 2017.

Last December, Trump nominated Nauert to replace Nikki Haley as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, but she withdrew her name in February 2019. Nauert has left the Trump administration in its entirety, according to TV Newser.

Ortagus doesn't have as much on-air TV personality time as Nauert, but she's no stranger to working foreign policy, communications and the press. The former Miss Florida contestant analyzed national security and American policy for Fox News and the Fox Business Network. She worked in the Treasury Department as an analyst during the Barack Obama administration, according to CNN. During that time, she worked in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She has also worked as a press coordinator in Florida.

"She spent over a year in Saudi Arabia as the deputy Treasury attache and has a lot of expertise in the Middle East, on countering terrorism finance and intelligence," CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd said.