Donald Trump’s disgraceful interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, leveraging the backdrop of the graves of fallen soldiers on the hallowed beaches of Normandy, just keeps getting worse. In the midst of his D-Day commemoration rant about that “jerk” Chuck Schumer, the “nasty, vindictive, horrible” Nancy Pelosi, and that war veteran “fool” Robert Mueller, Trump explicitly told Ingraham that he was delaying the sacred ceremony—which included hundreds of veterans who helped turn back the spread of Hitler’s violent fascism—in order to talk to Fox News viewers.
“These people are so amazing, and what they don’t realize is that, I’m holding them up because of this interview. But that’s because it’s you,” Trump said, relishing his own petty display of power. “By the way, congratulations on your ratings,” Trump added, in case the tacky wasn’t glaring enough already.
Indeed, the ceremony was delayed by 15 minutes, though French President Emmanuel Macron was also a late arrival. Trump was likely devastated to learn that he hadn’t been the sole source of everyone’s inconvenience. But when his interview stunt was widely reported by the press, the conservative news machine went to work to clear Trump of the blame for what everyone else but him understood were simply horrific optics.
One of his chief defenders was Ingraham herself, telling her own viewers following the segment that Trump “supposedly held up the entire D-Day ceremony” in order to do the interview with her. “That is patently false,” she assured them, explaining that they had ended the interview when they heard Macron’s helicopter arriving.
Only Trump did tell her viewers exactly that. “I’m holding them up because of this interview,” he said.
Oh my—who to believe: Trump or Ingraham? Was Ingraham calling Trump a liar? What a simply terrible day for Faux Newsies. Crisis.
You can watch the video below.