Fox News host Laura Ingraham clashed with analyst Juan Williams after he accused her of embracing former President Donald Trump’s false claims the 2020 election was stolen, during a heated segment on the first night of the Democratic National Convention.
Fox News, of course, was sued for defamation by two voting systems companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, for promoting Trump’s false claims about the election. Fox settled with Dominion for a historic $787.5 million. The suit for Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7 billion from Fox, is ongoing.
On a segment of The Ingraham Angle Monday night, Williams debated Ingraham and Kellyanne Conway about the state of the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
After a discussion about which party was more united, Ingraham brought up voting access in the United States and sought to contrast it with the security measures in place at the United Center in Chicago, where the DNC was being held.
“In blue states across the country, you don’t have to show an ID to vote, right?” Ingraham asked Williams. “But to get into this arena you had to show your ID eight times! So Democrats want to protect themselves when push comes to shove. But they don’t want to protect the integrity of the vote, and the voting booth. What does that say about their real priorities? Protect themselves. Yeah. We know what that says.”
“Oh I see. Are you lining up with Trump and saying there was voter fraud and 2020 was a bogus election?” asked Williams. “You’re going back to the big steal? Come on Laura! You can do better. This is not good.”
Ingraham jumped in and spoke over Williams, saying, “you can yell but apparently you don’t understand the argument. Voter ID versus ID to get in here. Get out!”
“Don’t try to put words in my mouth,” she continued, as the two shouted over each other. “ID, it’s a simple concept.”
“And you have to do it to register to vote anywhere in America,” Williams said. “You don’t have evidence of any fraud!”
Since Fox was hit with the pair of massive defamation suits, commentary questioning the 2020 election has been treated mostly as taboo on its airwaves. The network fired Lou Dobbs, a prominent booster of election conspiracy theories, and stopped inviting Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, both proponents of the lies, on the air.
In private text messages released as part of the Dominion lawsuit, Fox’s prime time stars, including Ingraham, privately expressed doubts about the election claims.
“Sidney is a complete nut,” Ingraham said in one message to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in which the two were discussing the election claims. “No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”
Watch above, via Fox News.
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