What is happening with Perino?
Dana Perino is an American political pundit and author who was the 26th White House Press Secretary under George W. Bush, serving from 2007 to 2009. In addition, she co-hosts The Five, works as a book publishing executive at Random House, and provides political commentary for Fox News. In October 2017, Perino started hosting The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino on Fox News. In early 2021, she and Bill Hemmer co-anchored America’s Newsroom.
How old is Perino?
Dana is 53 years old as of 9 May 2025. She was born on 9 May 1972 in Evanston, Wyoming, United States.
What is the age difference between Perino and her husband?
Perino first met her future husband, English-born Peter McMahon, who is 18 years older in August 1997. They got married in 1998. Peter McMahon and Perino. Thus began their long-distance relationship, which had its fair share of challenges. McMahon was located in England, whereas Perino established her career in Washington, D.C. Beyond that, Perino was concerned about informing her friends and family that she had started dating a man 18 years her senior, she claims.14 May 2025
Perino tells PEOPLE that her partnership served as a solid basis while she handled some major career changes in the years that followed. The pair moved to San Diego in 1999, where she worked in public relations. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she returned to Washington, D.C. to work in communications for the Bush administration.
Perino Education
She went to Ponderosa High School in Parker, a suburb southeast of Denver. Perino graduated from Colorado State University Pueblo with a bachelor’s degree in mass communications and majors in political science and Spanish. She was a member of the university’s forensics team and worked for KTSC-TV, the Rocky Mountain PBS affiliate located on campus. She also worked at KCCY-FM on the 2-6 a.m. shift. Perino went on to get a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois Springfield.
What does Perino do for a living?
Andy Card, the White House chief of staff, hired Perino two months after the September 11 attacks. In 2002, she served as associate director of communications for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Perino worked as Deputy Press Secretary from 2005 to 2007. From March 27 to April 30, 2007, she served as Acting White House Press Secretary while Tony Snow was undergoing treatment for colon cancer.
On August 31, 2007, President George W. Bush stated that Snow would retire his position due to health issues, and Perino would take his place. Perino was Assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary from September 14, 2007, to the end of the Bush administration in January 2009.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a television journalist, threw two shoes at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad on December 14, 2008. Bush escaped both, but Perino’s eye was wounded by a microphone stand during the chaos surrounding al-Zaidi’s capture.
After leaving the White House, Perino became a political pundit for Fox News. She is a regular co-host of the chat show The Five. President Barack Obama nominated her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an organization that oversees government-sponsored foreign broadcasting, in November 2009. She was approved by the Senate on June 30, 2010.
She began teaching a part-time political communications course at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University in 2010. The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., announced in March 2011 that Perino had become the editorial director of its book imprint, Crown Forum. However, she has since resigned from this role.
Co-hosted with Chris Stirewalt, Perino’s podcast Perino & Stirewalt: I’ll Tell You What debuted as a weekly limited series on the Fox News Channel on September 18, 2016. Up to Stirewalt’s termination from the network following the 2020 presidential election, a new episode was broadcast every week.
She appeared as a guest host on Fox News’ late-night talk show Gutfeld! in 2022, and she is still a regular fill-in host for Greg Gutfeld as of 2023. In August 2023, it was reported that Perino would broadcast a new podcast called Perino on Politics on Fox News Radio before of the 2024 presidential election.
On August 30, 2023, Fox News Media announced that Perino would moderate the second GOP presidential primary debate on Fox Business, with Stuart Varney and Ilia Calderón. Toward the end of the debate, she requested that the contestants “vote [one of their fellow candidates] off the island.”
With the exception of Chris Christie, who later declined to disclose whose name he wrote down as a few contenders started to criticize the issue, none of the candidates were willing to accept her offer. The audience laughed in response. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, flatly denied the inquiry. During the “Power Players” week of Jeopardy! in May 2012, Perino faced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and David Faber of CNBC.