"Fox & Friends First" co-host Carley Shimkus and her husband Peter Buchignani have welcomed their second baby boy, and the Fox News morning crew wasted no time sharing the news on air.
Fox News correspondent Ashely Strohmier broke the announcement Monday during the network's morning programming, confirming that Shimkus, 39, had given birth to a son named Harrison. Strohmier told viewers that both mother and baby were doing well.
Harrison joins the couple's first son, Brock, who is three years old. Shimkus and Buchignani welcomed Brock in January 2023. The growing family now numbers four, a milestone that drew warm reactions from Shimkus's colleagues across the Fox News lineup.
Shimkus started at Fox News in 2009 as a production assistant. She worked behind the scenes for more than a decade before stepping into the co-host chair on "Fox & Friends First" in 2021. That arc, entry-level staffer to one of the network's most visible morning roles, is the kind of career trajectory that resonates with viewers who value hard work over credentialism.
She and Buchignani, who works in sales and played football at Princeton, began dating in 2013. They married two years later in New Jersey. The New York Post reported that Shimkus announced her pregnancy in March, telling her audience the baby would be due at the end of July.
Shimkus shared her excitement at the time in a way that was characteristically straightforward. Fox News hosts have long been open about the personal milestones and hardships that shape their lives off-camera, and Shimkus was no exception.
She said during her pregnancy announcement:
"My husband and I and Brock, my son, who's now three, are so excited. Baby number two is going to be due at the end of July."
When she later revealed the baby's sex, Shimkus offered a simple hope for her two boys:
"I pray that they're going to be the best of friends throughout their whole entire life."
Strohmier delivered the birth news with visible enthusiasm, telling Fox News viewers that Harrison and Brock looked strikingly alike and that Shimkus herself looked great. Ainsley Earhardt, who visited Shimkus in the hospital on the second day after the birth, offered her own account of the new mom's condition.
Earhardt said:
"Our assistant, we walked into the hospital room on day two, and she looked amazing. Without a stitch of makeup on, looked amazing, and she's holding this baby."
Brian Kilmeade steered the conversation toward practical matters, and a friendly rivalry between two states. He noted that Buchignani, a former Princeton football player, would be thrilled with two boys. Then Kilmeade raised a question familiar to any young family in New York City: where to raise the kids.
Kilmeade put it bluntly:
"So now they got to make a decision. The big decision is, Steve, does Carley go to New Jersey or Long Island? Because she's got to get out of the city."
Steve Doocy did not hesitate. He made his case for the Garden State, pointing out that Shimkus's family is already in New Jersey. Fox News anchors are rarely shy about sharing their opinions, even on a colleague's real estate decisions.
Doocy declared:
"She's got to go to Jersey. Her family's in New Jersey, come on! We had the World Cup!"
The lighthearted exchange captured something the morning show's loyal audience already knows: the "Fox & Friends" team treats each other's milestones like their own. In an era when cable news often feels defined by conflict and crisis, a segment celebrating a new baby is a reminder that the people behind the desk have lives that look a lot like the viewers watching at home.
Two boys, a family weighing its next move, and a mom who worked her way up from behind the camera to in front of it. That is a story worth celebrating, no political argument required.
