Fox News personality Laura Ingraham—usually one of former Republican President Donald Trump's biggest supporters—said Americans might be ready “to turn the page” on him as he weighs whether to run for the presidency again, even as federal authorities ramp up their investigations into his alleged criminality.
Ingraham's striking statement came as Trump continues to face heavy scrutiny in the days since he alerted the world that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had executed a search warrant for his Mar-a-Lago estate.
In the days since the search, sources said Trump was in possession of classified material—including nuclear secrets—that prompted the intelligence community to voice concerns about national security and the possibility classified government secrets could prove a boon to foreign adversaries and even allies.
To hear Ingraham tell it, it might be time for Republicans to throw their support behind another politician who shares Trump's politics but not his baggage.
You can hear what she said in the audio below.
During an appearance on longtime Fox contributor Lisa Boothe's podcast, Ingraham said:
"People conflate Trump with people’s overall sense of happiness in the country. Donald Trump’s been a friend of mine for 25 years, and I’m always very open about this on my show. But, you know we’ll see whether that’s what the country wants."
“The country I think is so exhausted. They’re exhausted by the battle, the constant battle, that they may believe that, well, maybe it’s time to turn the page if we can get someone who has all Trump’s policies, who’s not Trump.”
“The country I think is so exhausted. They’re exhausted by the battle, the constant battle, that they may believe that, well, maybe it’s time to turn the page if we can get someone who has all Trump’s policies, who’s not Trump.”
Ingraham went on to add the issue is not entirely about Trump but "about the views that Trump now brought to the floor for the Republican Party."
She added Republicans had been averse to some of his policy decisions when he was in office.
“They don’t like his views, they don’t like the fact that he called out the military for their failures, that he wanted us to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan. That he wanted to treat China and our trade relationship with China in a much — it was smarter, but much different way than the globalists preferred."
"And they certainly didn’t like the fact that he sent all those illegal immigrants back to Mexico with that Remain in Mexico.”
Ingraham's comments soon went viral, sparking a conversation about Trump's future as well as her own complicity in parroting his lies about the 2020 general election and backing him for years despite his many scandals.
Ingraham has been called out in the past for "spreading lies" about the January 6 insurrection, continuing to air conspiracies about the integrity of the electoral process even after privately denouncing the attack.
In December 2021, the House Select Committee investigating the attack—which took place after a mob of Trump's supporters stormed the United States Capitol on the false premise the election had been stolen—released text messages from Fox News hosts showing they'd condemned the attack in private.
None of the Fox hosts who sent messages to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the attack–Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and Sean Hannity–acknowledged the messages on their programs the evening after the contents of their texts were revealed.
Ingraham, for instance, told Meadows the “President needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”
Although Trump has not made a formal announcement, most prognosticators believe he will run for office again in 2024.
In recent months, Trump has relentlessly teased a third run for the White House, even suggesting he would declare ahead of the midterm elections in November. Many have speculated the FBI's search of Mar-A-Lago may have moved up that timeline in Trump's mind.
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