'Down payment' for 'fan service': Trump's Kennedy Center picks flagged by analyst

President Donald Trump gave a pair of key Fox News hosts covering him coveted appointments to the board that runs the Kennedy Center — setting up yet another massive conflict of interest in a presidency infamous for them, wrote Jeremy Barr for The Washington Post.

The anchors, Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo, have a long history of favorable coverage of the president. Bartiromo in particular was a significant proponent of Trump's 2020 election conspiracy theories, and some of her evidence of election fraud came from a woman who claimed she obtained it through "time travel" — something that formed a key point of evidence in Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against the network.

"Trump has a long history of recruiting appointees from Fox News, who traditionally severed their employment with the network upon being picked," wrote Barr. "What made Friday’s announcement unique was that Bartiromo and Ingraham will be keeping their Fox jobs, meaning they will be serving on the board at the discretion of the president while simultaneously covering his administration, creating a potential conflict of interest."

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Indeed, he noted, former Fox News contributor Jonah Goldberg, a conservative often critical of Trump, flatly told the Post, “This is a reward for services rendered or a down payment on continued fan service going forward.”

Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center, one of the nation's most prestigious performing arts venues, has already had a massive impact. The bookings already appear to have taken a political slant, with the International Pride Orchestra of San Francisco being summarily disinvited from a planned performance.

Meanwhile, the Kennedy Center has seen a precipitous collapse in ticket sales since Trump assumed control of the board and stacked it with his own allies, and some massively popular performances, like Lin-Manuel Miranda's smash hit musical "Hamilton," have withdrawn from bookings.