Fox News host Dana Perino on advice from George W. Bush

Dana Perino, co-host of the popular Fox News panel show “The Five,” has never taken her success for granted.

Throughout her career that started with stints as a local TV reporter and a staff assistant in Congress, she’s acknowledged the guidance she’s received from people along the way, including former President George W. Bush, who asked her to become White House press secretary right when she was on the cusp of leaving government service behind.

The move was a major turning point for Perino, as standing behind the lectern in the White House briefing room has long been a fast track to a TV news job. She eventually became a Fox News fixture, advancing from a contributor in 2009 to co-hosting three hours daily between “The Five” and the daytime newscast “America’s Newsroom” with Bill Hemmer.

Perino has made mentoring part of her personal brand. In 2009, she co-founded Minute Mentoring, an organization that sets up rapid-fire meetings for young women seeking career help. She’s looking to reach a wider audience with her new book, “I Wish Someone Had Told Me … The Best Advice for Building a Great Career,” which draws on her experiences and those of her friends and Fox News colleagues. There are dozens of anecdotes about humbling first jobs and dealing with rejection.

Perino’s previous books also offered career advice. But she’s found the need for counsel doesn’t end after landing a big job. “Folks whom I mentored going into their first jobs are still asking me for advice as they take senior executive positions and juggle the work/life balance with multiple children and aging parents,” she writes in the introduction of the new Fox News Books title.

Perino, 52, is among the less strident Republican voices on Fox News. (She notably stuck to the facts on the 2020 presidential election results when other hosts indulged President Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, leading to a settlement in a costly defamation suit against the network from voting machine company Dominion with a second one pending.)

The Colorado native’s analysis typically draws on her own White House experience rather than any loyalty to MAGA. She takes the same reflective approach in her book, which she recently discussed over a Zoom call.

There is a lot of very traditional career advice in this book, with instructions on how to dress and talk in the workplace (avoid clothes that are too tight, no vocal fry or uptalking, one drink limit at the office party). Is it difficult to mentor now because we’re in an age where younger people seem more than anything else to want to be themselves? Is there any risk today in trying to tell people how to do these things?

Right now, most of the bosses that young people are going to be working for are either baby boomers or Gen X and now it’s sort of aging millennials and they all think differently and they all grew up with a different way of communicating depending on what technology was available. But there are some fundamental principles that remain true no matter what. Let’s say you do something nice for a young person, maybe you meet with them and they write you a thank-you note. And all of these young people that were not taught to write in cursive and their handwriting looks to me like from a much younger person than what they are, I just have to keep in mind that they weren’t taught to write in cursive, so of course it looks a little different. So just trying to give people a little bit more grace depending on where they are in life. And that goes both ways.

Has the move toward working from home made it more challenging?

I am surprised and quite troubled about how many young people are self-isolating still and partly because it’s uncomfortable to go to a networking event or go out there and try to meet somebody. But they really want to meet somebody. You have to go out and participate in the world.

Is it trickier to be a mentor in the media business when there is so much contraction going on? How realistic do you need to be when there are clearly fewer positions out there like yours?

I do sometimes second-guess myself. When I meet young people who say they want to do what I do, I’m thrilled that they want that. A career like this isn’t instantaneous now. I had a young woman — she’s just graduating high school — she said to me that she’s going to Colby College and she wants to study journalism. I made a face and I said I don’t think you have to study journalism. Journalism will always be here I hope. But I think you could study something else and then maybe minor in journalism. The late Charles Krauthammer said study history or philosophy, learn how to think, learn how to write and then try to figure out a way if that’s still what you want to do. I don’t know whether everyone always feels this way, but Bill Hemmer and I talk about how we are glad we are in the careers that we are in now at the time that we’re in.

So if you were a mentor to President Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt and you heard her say something in a press conference that was not correct — such as when she said a tariff is not a tax — what would you say to her?

I’ve been friends with almost all of the White House secretaries and I always keep my advice to them private. Also I will never proactively reach out to say, “You should have said this or that” or “Here’s how to better handle that.” I will never do that, but I am here if they want to call me. I will tell you one piece of advice I gave Karoline at the beginning is that she’s got a great smile and she should use it and it is OK to lighten up every once in a while.

Former president George W. Bush sounds like he was a pretty good boss. How was he as a mentor?

He gave me some really good advice over the years and continues to this day. He loves career coaching. When I was struggling with what I should do after I left the White House and I was doing too many things at once, he encouraged me to start my own business. I had 100 reasons why I thought that wasn’t a good idea. I remember he said, “You have to ask yourself, ‘What is the worst thing that could happen?’” I use that advice and pass it on to a lot of people too. Especially younger women can kind of bubble up with anxiety and fear, it’s almost paralyzing, and when you start asking, “What is the worst thing that could happen?” they realize it’s actually not that bad.

Do you speak with him much about the current president?

No.

Why has he kept such a low profile?

He was very, very happy to step off the stage. I know there are some people that wish that he would maybe speak more. But he’s super comfortable with keeping any advice or commentary private. If President Trump were to call — which I don’t know if he ever does; I don’t ask that — he would keep it quiet. He doesn’t seek the limelight.

“The Five,” a daily roundtable on Fox News, was the most-watched cable news program for the second consecutive year.

(Fox News)

“The Five” is now one of the most–watched programs in all of television. What is the secret sauce that makes it work?

Story choice. A well-rounded hour of different types of topics. News of the day. Pop culture. Something funny. We have maintained an ability to keep teasing one another and respecting each other and still laughing. Even if we have a raucous fight about tariffs, and we do, we still laugh in the commercial breaks. That is consistently the same and I wish I could tell you what the secret sauce was because if we could bottle that and sell it, we would probably do very well financially.