Forget about 2020; one Fox News host tells Trump: Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host long aligned with the former president, says it’s time for Trump to stop talking about the 2020 election.
What Should Donald Trump Do About 2020? Nothing Says Fox News
Donald Trump, it’s fair to say, is not done talking about the 2020 election.
Laura Ingraham has campaign advice for Trump. Her number one tip: “Stop talking about 2020. It’s over. Enough.” (Video: Fox News) pic.twitter.com/2RY1z5gfuJ
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) March 23, 2023
He brings it up all time, whether at rallies or on Truth Social, and he continues to insist that the election was stolen from him.
Even as he runs for president in 2024, and faces legal jeopardy on multiple fronts related to his post-election conduct in 2020, Trump always brings up that race.
One longtime ally thinks he should stop.
Enter Laura Ingraham
Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host, and longtime conservative lawyer and pundit who is such a Trump backer that she actually spoke at the Republican convention in 2016, said this week that Trump should stop talking about 2020.
“If I were Trump and running his campaign I’d strongly urge him to stop talking about 2020. It’s over. Enough,” the host said this week on her show, per The Daily Beast.
“Marinating in old claims of election fraud will not win over a single voter in any state that he needs to win in 2024 and it gives DeSantis an opening to say, ‘Why take a chance on a guy who just complained after the fact about early voting and ballot harvesting, instead of beating Biden on both fronts?’”
Ingraham had other advice for Trump in his next campaign: “Explain how you’ll rebuild the economy” and reassure voters that you can win.” In addition, she suggested that Trump hire a staff that encourages “great discipline,” run against the Democrats rather than the media, and “drop the nicknames and petty personal stuff.”
Will Trump Listen?
Asking Trump not to talk about 2020 is a tall order, but asking him to conduct a presidential campaign with either derisive nicknames or “petty personal stuff” is practically an impossible one.
Ingraham had advice for Gov. Ron DeSantis as well.
“He’s going to need to convince voters that he can take the Florida story and win nationally, that he won’t be the guy on election night complaining that he lost because he got cheated. That he’ll win by such a large margin, even sleazy Democrats won’t be able to overcome it.”
Fox Has Problems
The advice comes as Ingraham’s employer, Fox News, is in hot water over their own claims about the 2020 election. The network has been sued for $1.6 billion by Dominion Voting System over claims that appeared on the channel, and that suit has led to the release of embarrassing communications in which both on-air talent and executives are revealed to have not believed the claims that were being made on television at the same time.
Texts released as part of the case, per the New York Times, show Ingraham admitting to colleagues that she wasn’t sure what to do on the air in the weeks after President Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election but Trump was still contesting the results.
“What are we all going to do tmrw night?” Ingraham asked her colleagues. She later said, “my anger at the news channel is pronounced.”
Later on, Ingraham texted colleagues that “we are all officially working for an organization that hates us,” after the Fox News decision desk had first called Arizona for Biden on election night, and later called Biden the winner of the election. This greatly upset Fox’s audience, some of whom turned to other channels, like Newsmax and One American News, which were more willing to entertain bogus election claims.
“I think the three of us have enormous power,” Ingraham texted to Carlson and Hannity. “We have more power than we know or exercise.”
Chairman Rupert Murdoch went on to state, in an email to a colleague, that “maybe Sean and Laura went too far,” referring to Ingraham and Sean Hannity.
Expertise and Experience: Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
