Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Thursday morning lashed out at President Trump as Congress’ new bipartisan border-security bill, which does not include funding for the wall, headed to his desk. “So the president has his hand forced to sign a 1,159 page bill that we KNOW is filled with amnesty, PORK and wiggle room? Total SCAM! @realDonald Trump wasn’t elected for this,” she wrote. “This bill must NOT be signed by @realDonald Trump.”
Ingraham later referred to the bill as “tantamount to an illegal immigration ‘stimulus’” and “de facto amnesty to any ‘sponsor,’ family member or “potential sponsor” of an unaccompanied minor.” In what appeared to be a threat to pull her support from the president, she wrote, Remember, @realDonald Trump signed that #omnibus last year, on promise he’d get his wall funding. They lied to him. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...”
Earlier this week, Ingraham’s Fox News colleague and fellow Trump booster Sean Hannity urged Republicans not to support what he called a “garbage compromise” on border security. But the following night, he appeared to be giving the president permission to sign it, explaining he isn’t “as concerned as some other conservatives if the president signs the bill” as long as he also declares a national emergency to fund the wall.
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The last time someone as influential in Trump’s orbit as Ingraham threatened to pull her support if he caved on his promise to build the border wall, it was Ann Coulter, who said that without the wall, “Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever.”
Following those comments last December, Trump refused to sign Congress’ budget deal, prompting the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. If he declines to sign the new agreement, the government will be forced into partial shutdown once again at the end of this week.
