BISMARCK, N.D. — Tommy Fisher’s ambitious plan to win a border wall contract included what could be the next best thing to making a pitch directly to President Donald Trump himself — talking to him through his favorite cable TV channel, Fox News.
And it just may have worked.
Fisher’s North Dakota-based firm was awarded a $400 million contract this week to build 31 miles of wall in Arizona after he made numerous appearances on Fox, repeating a Trumpian boast that he could build the wall, faster, better and cheaper than anyone else. It didn’t seem to matter that Fisher’s firm had little experience with such construction, a checkered environmental record and a previous proposal rejected.
“Hopefully the president will see this,” Fisher said in April on a Fox News morning show, among a slew of appearances on the channel that also included spots with Maria Bartiromo and Laura Ingraham. “He’s a guy who says he can cut through bureaucracy, and this is an emergency and that’s what needs to be done.”
