Trump Cancels Jan. 6 Press Conference After Fox News’ Laura Ingraham Signals It’s a Bad Idea

Trump initially planned to host a press conference on the anniversary of the deadly Capitol riot

Laura Ingraham
Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday canceled his plans for a Thursday press conference to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the deadly Capitol riot. His sudden reversal came less than 24 hours after Fox News’ Laura Ingraham questioned on-air whether it was a good idea to hold the event that day.

“In light of the total bias and dishonesty of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Democrats, two failed Republicans, and the Fake News Media, I am canceling the January 6th Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, and instead will discuss many of those important topics at my rally on Saturday, January 15th, in Arizona—It will be a big crowd!” he said in an emailed statement released through his Save America PAC. (The former president has been banned from all major social media platforms since the riot, which happened after some of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.)

He attacked Democrats and the media, as well as the ongoing Congressional investigation into the riot, and maintained that his supporters were rightfully in Washington, D.C., to protest “the fraud” of the election. Since November 2020, Trump has baselessly claimed that widespread election fraud led to his defeat by Biden, who was sworn in two weeks after the riot.

On Monday’s “Ingraham Angle,” conservative host Ingraham spoke to Republican Rep. Jim Banks and said of Jan. 6, “Some things were horrific that happened and shouldn’t have happened that day.”

“Is it smart for President Trump to do a rally on that particular day, versus next week or the week before?” she asked.

Banks, for his part, said he thought Trump had “important things to say” that day, but not all Republican lawmakers agreed. According to Axios, Sen. Lindsey Graham personally urged Trump to avoid the “peril” of a news conference on the anniversary of the event, which left five people dead.

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