While hundreds of veterans gathered in France on Thursday waiting for commemorations to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day to begin, President Trump sat nearby and joked with Fox News host Laura Ingraham about how he was “holding up” the ceremony to do an interview with her.
It was later claimed that the 15-minute delay was caused not by Trump’s affinity for Fox News, as many had believed, but French President Emmanuel Macron’s late arrival.
Trump, however, appeared to believe and even delight in the idea that he was the primary cause of the delay during his friendly chat with Ingraham.
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“Listen to those incredible people back there,” Trump said, motioning towards the ceremony stage. “These people are so amazing, and what they don’t realize is that, I’m holding them up because of this interview. But that’s because it’s you.”
“By the way, congratulations on your ratings,” the president added.
After airing the pre-taped interview on her program Thursday night, The Ingraham Angle host wanted her viewers to know that regardless of what the president had just said in the segment they’d watched, it was not true that he held up the ceremony.
“By the way, some of you may have heard or read that President Trump supposedly held up the entire D-Day ceremony in order to do this interview with me,” Ingraham exclaimed. “That is patently false. Fake news.”
She added: “Our cue to end the interview is when we heard the Macron helicopter approaching. And that is what we did. The interview ended before Macron landed. In fact, President Trump was on the lawn waiting for President Macron who was, himself, just a few minutes late.”
