Next week, Laura Ingraham will take over one of the most coveted spots on cable television: 10 p.m. on Fox News.
Recently, Ingraham, 53, attended a fund-raiser for Kelli Ward, the Republican primary challenger to Senator Jeff Flake in Arizona, reports The New York Times. He is a strong critic of President Donald Trump.
“Since we are in the south, I can say bless his heart, but it’s time to melt the snowflake,” she said, according to The Times. The crowd booed, and people started chanting “Build that wall!” A week after her visit, Flake announced he was out of the race.
#MeltSnowFlake Accomplished. Boehner, Cantor, Corker, Flake…
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) October 24, 2017
Fox News hosts are usually not allowed to stump for candidates. Ingraham, however, has not started her show yet, so was granted an exception. She is a strong Trump supporter and one of the first commentators to endorse him, disagrees adamantly with open borders, and an ardent nationalist. She told The Times that she wants to represent “the working-class, populist sensibility that is the beating heart of the Republican party right now.”
Charlie Skyes, a longtime conservative radio host and MSNBC analyst, said that Ingraham is about as “hard-core a Trump defender as they could have put on air at this point.” According to Skyes, that’s what Fox viewers want right now: “Trump red meat.”
Ingraham is also a confidant of Trump’s. As an early supporter, she got a prime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention. She now talks to the president a few times a month, reports The Times. Sometimes she’ll call him, sometimes, he’ll call her.
But she is not afraid to criticize Trump when she feels like he is wrong, such as the “snail’s pace” of staff appointments or when he steps “on his own messages at times,” reports The Times. She thinks there will be times where Trump gets “irked” by what she says during her slot.
“We are friends, but friends tell friends when they go off course. And I’m sure he’ll tell me when he thinks I’m deviating from what’s proper and thoughtful. And I’ll do the same with him,” she said, according to The Times.
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