Laura Ingraham Claims To Have Opposed Iran War 'From Day One' (She's Lying)
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham said on her September 21 show that she opposed President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, a position that would almost certainly come as a surprise to her viewers. Those who had watched her show in early March, as the Trump administration launched its war against Iran alongside Israel, heard something very different.
“I've not been for the war in Iran,” Ingraham said. “I'm not happy with high gas prices — I see a lot of other good trends, but I'm not happy with those at all.” She added that she’d been opposed to it “from day one."
Ingraham’s revisionist history is self-serving, as public opinion about the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran sinks and the MAGA movement lurches toward whatever form it may take after Trump is no longer sitting in the Oval Office.
It is true that prior to Trump launching the war on February 28, Ingraham was mildly skeptical of it by Fox News standards.
On January 12, Ingraham said, “We know that America does not have the best track record when it comes to regime change in the Middle East, so that can’t really be the goal here."
During an interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on January 14, she said about a war in Iran: “How does that help the average American who is still struggling to pay some bills?”
On the eve of the war on February 27, Ingraham worried about the possible spike in “energy prices, which could be affected if we get into some really protracted engagement in Iran."
Ingraham gets on board with the Iran war
None of that is a full-throated denunciation, of course, but it does evince some small degree of reluctance.
Within days, Ingraham’s weathervane had caught the breeze and her tone was markedly more hawkish. Her March 2 show was a full endorsement of Trump’s war of aggression.
“Only a few days into military strikes, none of the major objections to this action withstand serious scrutiny,” Ingraham said.
This is not a “pointless war,” she said, adding: “Trump has given us no indication that he is going to betray his supporters by asking them to make unnecessary sacrifices.”
Her guest and Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump falsely claimed that Iran was “very clearly on the path to making another nuclear weapon,” and Ingraham fueled baseless and Islamophobic speculation “about sleeper cells in the U.S.”
On March 5, Ingraham declared: “Trump has already won in Iran.”
On March 25, she cautioned that the conflict with Iran could be creating “a series of cascading problems for the region, including maybe outside the region — political problems for the president in a midterm election year.” Later in the episode, she warned that voters are “very impatient for victory,” and polling suggests “the American people are sending a message to President Trump that it's time to put the focus back on the home front.”
But by March 31, Ingraham had fully reverted to the Fox News neocon mean.
“Why are people calling this a quagmire after a month?” she wondered. “Trump is taking some big risks. But, with big risks come great rewards. Eliminating the Iranian threat is a gift to future generations.”
Ingraham has not been the loudest voice at Fox News in favor of the Iran war. But to claim she has opposed it “from day one” is a self-serving fantasy.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
