Laura Ingraham Reportedly “Under Serious Consideration” For Trump’s White House Press Secretary

The Hill: Ingraham Is Under Serious Consideration To Be Trump’s White House Press Secretary. The Hill reported that Fox News contributor and radio host Laura Ingraham, who “has expressed interest in the role,” is “under serious consideration to be Donald Trump’s White House press secretary.” From a November 12 Hill article:

Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham is under serious consideration to be Donald Trump's White House press secretary, according to two sources with direct knowledge.



Trump appreciated Ingraham's loyalty through the campaign. A former white-collar defense attorney and Supreme Court law clerk, Ingraham helped Trump with debate preparation. She also campaigned on his behalf and offered occasional strategic advice.



With the possible exceptions of Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Breitbart, no media figure or outlet did more to promote Trump's candidacy than Ingraham.



She used her profile as a Fox News contributor, her nationally syndicated radio show and her website LifeZette.com to advocate on his behalf. Trump also tapped into Ingraham's years of dirt-digging on the Clintons to sharpen his attacks on the Democratic nominee.



Ingraham would not comment for this article. A source familiar told The Hill that she's in contact with people in Trump's inner circle and has expressed interest in the role.



The president-elect and his inner circle hold Ingraham in the highest esteem. They view her as tough, admire her rhetorical skills, and believe she'd powerfully convey Trump's anti-establishment message. [The Hill, 11/12/16]

Ingraham Has Singled Out Hispanic Media Outlets And Journalists For Attacks

Ingraham: Univision And Telemundo Are “Toxic” “Hispanic-Centric Outlets” That “Revile The American Experience.” Ingraham accused Univision and Telemundo of not encouraging “objectivity in reporting or even a positive worldview toward the American experience,” and claimed that they “revile the American experience.” From the November 4 edition of The Laura Ingraham Show:

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Mass migration, especially Latino migration, illegal or legal, has transformed previously solid Republican stronghold counties into Democrat-leaning counties or solidly Democrat counties. And why? You can ask yourself why is that? So Latinos are just going to be more knee-jerk liberal? Well, they come from countries where big government is a way of life, and often times they left corrupt governments, and now they think they're in the United States, and the government's going to do a lot more for them and be more benevolent. And sadly, our public schools don't assimilate people into the country as -- they used to have actually a role in instilling civic pride and patriotism. That's out the window. And add to that the toxic effect of Univision and Telemundo, which are overwhelmingly left-leaning media outlets. These are not media outlets that encourage objectivity in reporting or even a positive worldview toward the American experience. No, no, no, no, no. These are Hispanic-centric networks that I think in many ways, and we've talked about this before, revile the American experience, and I think even encourage the understanding that we're living on stolen land. So the idea that, like, Univision or Telemundo are going to be great agents of assimilation into the way the framers understood our balance of powers and checks and balances in Washington, forget about it. You're not going to learn about Adam Smith on Univision. This is a left-wing outlet, and it's going to propagate left-wing views. [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 11/4/16]

Ingraham Mocked Jose Diaz-Balart For Translating For Spanish-Speaking Guest. Ingraham mocked anchor Jose Diaz-Balart for translating for a Spanish-speaking guest on his MSNBC show in 2014, saying, “I can’t even follow what he’s saying because it’s so herky-jerky. Are we sure he’s a native Spanish speaker?” [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 9/23/14]

Ingraham Pushed Claim That “Spanish Language Media” Are Teaching Undocumented Immigrants “How To Avoid Deportation.” Ingraham cited a Washington Times piece to claim that “Spanish language media … are teaching illegals how to avoid deportation.” [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 2/24/16]

Ingraham Attacked Jorge Ramos For Opposing Border Wall. After playing an exchange between Jorge Ramos and Sean Hannity about Trump’s comments that many Mexicans are criminals, Ingraham dismissed Ramos as a “typical leftist” and criticized him for arguing that a border wall is against American values. From the March 24 edition of Courtside Entertainment Group’s The Laura Ingraham Show:

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): He's a typical leftist, Ramos. He will talk over the question. So the question was very simple, that Hannity kept asking. Do you acknowledge that there is illegal immigrant crime in the United States and some of these crimes are horrific? Kept asking him. It took to the very end of the segment, very end -- this segment went on and on -- took to the very end of this segment to get any type of answer out of Ramos. It was just unbelievable. And at the very end he finally, “well yes, there are some crimes, but it's not American values to build walls and to talk in these terms. It's not American values.” Jorge Ramos is lecturing us about American values. He's an American citizen now. [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 3/24/16]

Ingraham: Univision Is Keeping People From Learning English. Ingraham suggested that Spanish language media outlets are preventing people from learning English by “catering to keeping [people] speaking just Spanish.” From the October 12, 2015, edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor:

BILL O'REILLY (HOST): I don't mind the tutoring but it's got to be a discipline where English has to be the language that --

LAURA INGRAHAM: But it's not.

JUAN WILLIAMS: I agree with you and in my own home -- remember I grew up -- I was born in Panama. My mom and dad spoke Spanish. But you know what, my mom said you have got to learn English. To be a success in America you must learn that.

INGRAHAM: Right. But Juan -- did you have Univision --

O'REILLY: All right. Let's give Laura the last word. Go.

INGRAHAM: Did you have Univision catering to keeping you speaking just Spanish --

WILLIAMS: No. Absolutely not.

INGRAHAM: Today -- Juan, let me finish. Today there are a lot of people making a lot of money keeping people speaking their own languages. No to say people aren't learning English, of course they are. But we have to talk about the limited resources we have to take care of the indigent people here who are native born, poor people, working class people who've seen their jobs eroded and their opportunities diminished. Immigration is great but it has to work for the people who are here. [Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 10/12/15, via Nexis]

Ingraham Has A History Of Railing Against “Elite,” “Biased” Journalists

Talking About “Folks On TV,” Ingraham Said “Now It Is Our Time To Put Them On Trial.” During her speech at a November 6 Trump rally in Leesburg, Virginia, Ingraham admonished “folks on TV” who said the Trump campaign wouldn’t succeed, saying, “these are the same people who have ridiculed and mocked the American people for just about too long, don't you think? And now it is our time to put them on trial. It is our time to be counted, not ridiculed. It is our time to be heard, and no one, I really think other than Donald Trump could have done this.” [YouTube, 11/7/16]

Ingraham: Journalists Are “Post-American.” Ingraham called “the Hillary media … really post-American.” She explained, “I say they're post-American because they don't really care, it turns out, whether America goes down the tubes. I mean, I really don't think they care because if they cared, they would actually be covering the relevant stories of the day,” such as Hillary Clinton’s emails. [Fox News, Hannity, 8/11/16, via Nexis]

Ingraham: Media “Gearing Up To Destroy” Trump And “Most Of Conservatism.” Ingraham accused the media of “gearing up to destroy not just Trump, but to take down with Trump most of conservatism.” [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 10/19/16]

Ingraham: “If Trump Wins There’s Going To Be A Lot Of People In The Media Wearing Black The Next Day.” On the October 28 edition of her radio show, Ingraham said, “If Trump wins there’s going to be a lot of people in the media wearing black the next day, they’re going to have black bunting behind them.” [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 10/28/16]

Ingraham Dismissed Trump’s Refusal To Condemn KKK As A “Media Concoction.” Laura Ingraham defended Trump from criticism by Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) concerning Trump’s initial refusal to disavow support from the Ku Klux Klan. On the October 28 edition of her radio show, Ingraham called the controversy a “media concoction” surrounding Trump’s “supposed refusal to disavow the KKK,” and claimed Trump did not disavow the Klan immediately because “he was insulted by the question, as he should be.” [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 10/28/16]

Ingraham Wrote That Broadcast Networks And NY Times Were “Quasi-Monopoly” That Are “Run By Elites For Elites.” In her 2008 book Power to the People, Ingraham writes under the heading “Breaking the Liberal Monopoly”:

Today, unlike in the past, we don’t have to rely on CBS, NBC, ABC, or the New York Times for the news. That quasi-monopoly -- run by the elites for the elites -- is now happily broken thanks to countless new media outlets. Hundreds of talk radio shows, thousands of news Web sites, and tens of thousands of blogs now spread news, information, a diversity of opinion, and even expert investigative reporting all around the world. [Power to the People, page 234]

Ingraham: Presidential Debate Moderators Were Trying To Ensure Trump Defeat. Before the second presidential debate, Ingraham said she would advise Trump that “the moderators are there to ensure that you lose the presidential election.” From the October 6 edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): We've got a town hall debate, a little different obviously. You've got two moderators apparently arguing over who gets to beat up Donald Trump this time, who gets to be the third wheel trashing Trump and attacking him. But putting that aside, what is the approach? What is Laura Ingraham's best advice for Donald Trump going into this type of format?



LAURA INGRAHAM: Understand that the moderators aren't really moderators. The moderators are there to ensure that you lose the presidential election. That's the goal. So just know that going in. They're not your friends. They're probably not going to be fair. So don't even worry about that. And when people are recognized in the audience, and I understand they're thinking of giving a question to a child who is undocumented and the child might ask what's going to happen to me, those types of questions are likely. [Fox News, Hannity, 10/6/16]

Ingraham: Major Media Outlets Are “Essentially A Super-Duper-PAC For Hillary.” After Sean Hannity rattled off a string of media outlets that he called an extension of “the Clinton press office,” Ingraham called them “all part of what is essentially a super-duper PAC for Hillary.” From the October 12 edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Laura, let's start with you. It's NBC. It's CNBC. It's Univision. CNN - - they're giving questions before a town hall. It's literally -- let's see, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, all an extension in every way imaginable of the Clinton press office! Now, I said…

LAURA INGRAHAM: All these media outlets, Sean, that you just rattled off -- they're all part of what is essentially a super-duper- PAC for Hillary, OK? This is beyond the super-PAC. This is more influential than any super-PAC because it controls what people see and what people hear and what people read.

And the way campaigns are framed -- it's still very important. Even with the internet and even with talk radio and FOX, the way the mainstream media frames stories and rallies and news cycles still has an enormous, I think, influence on the way especially younger people feel, people who aren't all that steeped in politics, who just maybe take a quick read of things.

And it's everything that we always thought and confirmed in these Wikileaks e-mails, and it's going to simply lead to more cynicism about the press, more distrust toward the mainstream media. And you know, they're -- they're -- I think they're hoping to get some more tapes on Trump so they can take the spotlight off themselves. But as usual, the finger's always pointed back at you. [Fox News, Hannity, 10/12/16, via Nexis]

Ingraham: “There Are A Lot Of People In The Media Who Look Down Their Noses At The Voters.” Ingraham accused journalists of thinking of voters as stupid and “vulgarians.” From the May 2 edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Is it that the establishment types are losing grip on power and access, and they would rather Hillary win so they could wave their finger at the people -- in the people's face say, we told you? That they don't like the way people in this country have decided to vote after a very long, over a years-long process of selecting a candidate?

LAURA INGRAHAM: I think -- I think that's part of it. I think there are a lot of people in the media who look down their noses at the voters. And the voters are stupid, the voters don't know Rousseau, the voters haven't memorized the Federalist Papers, the voters maybe themselves are vulgarians. I think it's a very strange way to try to save or transform the country back to first principles to say, you know something, it doesn't matter, Hillary and Trump are just the same person. So if they're on the stage together, Sean, and they're debating each other in the fall, we're supposed to believe they're the same person. This argument makes -- literally makes no sense. You know, people have evolved on issues, frankly, including some of the people who don't like Trump very much, they've evolved on issues. A lot of them are pretty critical of Reagan in the '70s until they came around to that. So, you know, this idea that Trump is doing this as a lark or because he's a narcissist -- I mean, he had a much better life, I'm sure, and more fun life before all of this. I mean, I don't know why he would have put himself through this to do a big switcheroo when he got into the White House. It's ludicrous. [Fox News, Hannity, 5/2/16, via Nexis]

Ingraham Attacked PBS And Bill Moyers As An Unpatriotic Drain On Public Funds. In her 2013 book Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the Media are Subverting America, Ingraham criticized the public funding of PBS and suggested that PBS host Bill Moyers was unpatriotic for criticizing the tradition of American lawmakers wearing American flag lapel pins. From her book:

It’s bad enough that the majority in major news organizations (newspapers, magazines, television networks) are left-wing, but it’s even worse when we the taxpayers are subsidizing the bias. PBS’s Bill Moyers is an elite cheerleader who masquerades as a defender of the little guy. One thing that really gets Moyers going is the flag—specifically, when journalists or politicians wear flag pins on their jackets or dresses. “When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread,” he intoned during a February 2003 broadcast of his program Now. During this program Moyers actually wore a flag pin as a protest of sorts, saying “more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running websites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American.” That’s your tax dollars at work, Mr. and Mrs. America, because you pay for Moyers’s perch at the government-subsidized Public Broadcasting Service. Would the sensitive Mr. Moyers have a problem if reporters or top White House officials wore a UN flag lapel pin instead? And does he have a similar visceral reaction to celebrities who wear colored ribbons for breast cancer or AIDS? Is it any wonder that Moyers is the toast of the New York literary set, a favorite speaker at universities coast to coast? [Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the Media are Subverting America]

Ingraham Has Accused Media Of Covering Up Facts About Immigration

Ingraham: “The Media Are Willing Partners Of The Pro-Illegal Alien Lobby.” Ingraham wrote in her book Shut Up and Sing that media outlets are “willing partners of the pro-illegal alien lobby” by reporting on problems faced by immigrants:

Given the attitudes of the elites—and the disproportionate influence they have in American life—it is hardly surprising that we constantly hear calls from politicians for blanket amnesty of “undocumented workers.” The phrase “undocumented workers” was created by the immigration lobby to supplant the more accurate term—“illegal aliens.” Clever, but despite what Bill Maher thinks, America is not that stupid. The media are willing partners of the pro-illegal alien lobby, when they showcase tearjerker stories about illegals who cross the border. They do it so they can send money home to their poverty-stricken native village and support their sick grandparents. Take this example from Kelly McEvers reporting for NPR from Jakarta: “Timbull Adrian Sahad left his cruise ship after ten months, and then worked in factories and restaurants in Philadelphia. Earlier this year, Sahad heard about the new program that required him to register with the INS. He immediately caught a plane back to Jakarta for fear of being jailed or deported. He reunited with his wife, who works in an Indonesian factory for about an eighth of what he made in the U.S. Sahad himself is having trouble finding work.” Mr. Sahad: “We are not terrorists. We love to stay in the United States for work, for the money. American people don’t like the job like in—you know, one hour, six dollar or seven dollars. Only us, illegal people, you know?”

If only the “mainstream media” spent as much time alerting the public to the other side of the issue—including the recent lawsuit filed by Mexico in a Texas court against citizen groups in the United States that took steps to protect their private land from trespassing by Mexican illegals. Imagine that, our citizens actually defending their property against intrusion and trashing! Our good friend Mexico strikes again. [Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the Media are Subverting America]

Ingraham: “Media Elites Are Effectively Engaged In A Cover-Up” To Hide Facts About Immigration. Ingraham accused media of covering up facts of undocumented immigration. From her book Shut Up and Sing:

One other problem resulting from elite indifference to illegal immigration is that most Americans have no clue how serious a problem it is. It is not too much to say that media elites are effectively engaged in a cover-up to prevent the widespread anger that would undoubtedly result if the facts were widely known. In a country of roughly 300 million people, there are 10 million illegal aliens registered by official data-keepers (and probably several million more). The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that each year there is a net increase in illegal immigrants of 500,000—enough to make a fair-sized city. At current rates of immigration, America’s population will explode from today’s 300 million to 450 million in fifty years time. [Shut Up and Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the Media are Subverting America]

Ingraham Has Also Criticized Trump Chief Of Staff Pick Reince Priebus

Trump Announces Reince Priebus As His White House Chief Of Staff. Reporters were sent a statement from the office of the president-elect announcing that RNC chairman Reince Priebus is Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff.

Now official- @Reince will be Chief of Staff, while Bannon is chief strategist and senior counselor. pic.twitter.com/fq95YFehBh

— Candace Smith (@CandaceSmith_) November 13, 2016

[Twitter, 11/13/16]

Ingraham Attacked “Brainiac” Reince Priebus For “Trying To Scare Off” Competition To Rubio And Bush. On the December 11 edition of her radio show, Ingraham criticized Republican establishment figures -- specifically RNC chairman Reince Priebus -- for “trying to get people to drop out to pave the way for Marco, or for Jeb’s people”:

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): See, all the brainiacs over at the RNC, all the brainiacs like Reince Priebus, God bless them but they've, they all thought they were going to be so clever and tamping down a populist surge. They spent so much time trying to figure out a strategy for, in my mind, stopping the people from having much say over the process. They wanted a strategy to limit debates. Oh, we can't have all this infighting. Did you ever come to think that maybe, maybe the establishment, as long as it doesn't listen to the people, is just itching for a fight from the people? Why not actually work with the people? This is what I do not understand. They sit behind closed doors, at these fancy restaurants on Capitol Hill, and then they leak the details to Bob Costa. Because they are trying to scare off the candidates, trying to get people to drop out to pave the way for Marco, or for Jeb's people.



[...]



INGRAHAM: They don't listen on trade, on immigration, and even on this issue of limiting people coming into the country. They decide, OK let's just demonize Trump, let's demonize Trump and then we'll demonize the whole populist movement, as a bunch of racists, xenophobics, (inaudible), low information people. They're all dumb, they're all stupid, and we're going to figure it all out at the convention. And this piece merely reconfirms what I've been thinking for a long time, that the establishment refuses to listen to the people. [Courtside Entertainment Group, The Laura Ingraham Show, 12/11/15]