In recent years Fox Business News host Lou Dobbs has taken an increasingly hardline stance on immigration. So it's no surprise the President Donald Trump, whose administration's "zero-tolerance" policy lead to the separation of families at the border, is a fan of Dobbs.
But according to a report in The Washington Post, Dobbs frequently advises the President.
"The Dobbs-Trump mind" as they term it means that Dobbs has more access to the President than most official advisors and government entities.
For example, Trump recently let Dobbs listen in on a meeting on economic policy with the Council of Economic Advisers.
"Day by day, the relationship between the bombastic president and the cranky anchorman has become an object of curiosity and amusement. But it is also something much more profound," the Washington Post writes.
Dobbs helped shape some of Trump's most extreme policies at the border, the Post notes.
“I respect his commentary — I would say, based not on my talking to him but my listening, that he feels very strongly about strength at the border, and so do I,” Trump told The Post.
The two men apparently talk almost every day on most weeks.
Ironically, both are obsessed with quelling immigration to the US -- yet both are married to immigrants themselves. Dobbs is married to a Mexican-American woman.
And it's not common practice to plug media figures into high-level meetings with advisors.
"This behavior by President Trump is certainly odd,” said Jason Furman, who chaired the council under Obama from 2013 to 2017, told the Post.
Former White House advisor Steve Bannon also weighed in. "While the president and Lou are friendly, it’s not like his relationship with a lot of other people in the media who like him,” said Bannon. “This is about policy. They’re completely in sync on immigration and trade and what that all means for wages and how the Republican elite has failed."
