[INGRAHAM] God bless you and God bless the United States of America.
That’s Laura Ingraham.
[INGRAHAM] That looked horrible and it screwed me up at the beginning of the segment.
Fox News host, author, radio personality, LeBron James hater, and proud owner of a minivan.
[INGRAHAM] By the way, I happen to love my minivan, it rocks.
Laura Anne Ingraham was born in the early sixties in Glastonbury, Connecticut.
Her father, who her brother says was a nazi-sympathizer,
worked for Pratt & Whitney, an aerospace manufacturing company.
Ingraham says her mother, the daughter of Polish immigrants, waited tables until she was 73.
Ingraham attended Dartmouth College in the 80s
where she was the first female editor of The Dartmouth Review,
a conservative student newspaper.
According to a 1984 New York Times piece, the paper had been criticized for
‘articles deriding blacks, women and minorities.’
For one story in the paper, Ingraham reportedly sent an undercover reporter posing as someone questioning their sexuality
to a private support group for closeted students on campus.
Ingraham’s clandestine reporter recorded the meeting and published excerpts from it,
including students describing their sexual experiences and their sexual identities.
Ingraham also reportedly sent the tapes of the meeting to the students’ parents
and described those in the meeting as ‘cheerleaders for latent campus sodomites’.
[INGRAHAM] I love seeing students making a difference on college campuses
[INGRAHAM] that are supposed to be places where free exchange of ideas take place
[INGRAHAM] except when you happen to be a conservative and you’re trying to make point,
[INGRAHAM] so the Review is a good training ground.
The Review’s faculty advisor, Jeffrey Hart,
described Ingraham as having
[INGRAHAM] Girls will be boys and boys will be girls.
[INGRAHAM] Creating a safe, supportive school environment for trans, intersex, gender variant,
[INGRAHAM] and gender questioning youth.
[INGRAHAM] If you’re confused, well buy a vowel with me because I have no idea what’s going on.
After graduating from Dartmouth in 1985 with a degree and tons of extracurricular experience in homophobia,
Ingraham became a speechwriter in the Reagan administration for Secretary of Education, William Bennett.
She left Washington to attend law school at the University of Virginia
and drive around Charlottesville in a Honda hatchback with a vanity license plate that read “FARRIGHT”.
After graduating law school, she clerked for the Second Circuit Court in New York
and went back to Washington, clerking for Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
After a stint with Thomas, Ingraham went to work as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer
for the law firm Skadden Arps,
where she defended giant corporations.
In 1998, Ingraham attended several parties - including John McCain's holiday bash -
where her plus 1 was none other than infamous beer fan Brett Kavanaugh.
[INGRAHAM] SIGH
[INGRAHAM] At Skadden I learned that you shouldn’t get accused of anything,
[INGRAHAM] because if you’re just accused, it can ruin your life.
After making connections and strides as a young republican,
Ingraham was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in 1995
for a story on young conservative minds.
Around this time, George Conway, now married to Kellyanne Conway,
was pursuing Ingraham.
He invited Ingraham on all-expense-paid ski trips and island holidays
before striking gold with the hilarious Kellyanne Conway.
[KELLYANNE] But you know everyone’s wondering about my leg.
[KELLYANNE] It’s the first thing they ask:
[KELLYANNE] Kellyanne, what happened to your leg?
[KELLYANNE] I’m like well everyone heard I was going to be in this comedy show and they were like ‘break a leg’, so I did.
[KELLYANNE] And you think dumbs-uhh—blondes are dumb.
Ingraham left the law after realizing that she - according to her website -
[INGRAHAM] I’m a recovering lawyer. I’m Laura Ingraham and I was a lawyer. Yes.
In 1996, she joined MSNBC as an on-air political “friend” as her website says the network put it.
In 1998, she was given her own show on MSNBC:
“Watch It! With Laura Ingraham”
where she discussed the Clinton administration and played Bob Dylan,
famous artist made popular by sticking it to fascism through protest songs,
during commercial breaks.
Dylan played on, but it was all over for Ingraham.
[INGRAHAM] I was at MSNBC and then no longer at MSNBC- I was not renewed.
The network cancelled the show after just 17 months.
In 2001, Ingraham launched The Laura Ingraham Show, a nationally syndicated radio show.
[INGRAHAM] Okay, who left the sharpies here?
[INGRAHAM] Why is the Sharpie box open and on my desk?
[INGRAHAM] Okay, did someone use my honey?
[INGRAHAM] Because the honey is down to here and it used to—
Her success in radio eventually paved the way to her very own segment on Bill O’Reilly’s show,
The Ingraham Angle, where Bill O’Reilly constantly berated her.
[O'REILLY] Wait wait wait - no, no, we’re going to get very specific as I told you—
[INGRAHAM]- yeah I am going to get specific if you let me talk, I’ll get specific. Can I finish my sentence?
[O'REILLY] No.
[O'REILLY] You are a blind ideologue, even if somebody’s nice to you, you won’t admit it
[O'REILLY] Talk about a Kool-Aid drinker! Come on!
But she managed to sometimes get a few words in, words Fox News loved.
And she was given her own show in October of 2017
after Bill O’Reilly resigned in the wake of multiple sexual harassment allegations.
[HANNITY] The debut, Laura Ingraham live, The Ingraham Angle.
[HANNITY] And I’m so proud of you and happy for you- wish you all the success.
She’s been stirring things up ever since.
[INGRAHAM] So keep the political commentary to yourself, or as someone once said: Shut up and dribble.
Of course, Lebron went on to open a school for at-risk third and fourth graders.
Free tuition, free uniforms, free breakfast, lunch, and snacks, free transportation,
a bike and a helmet, access to a food pantry for their family, and guaranteed tuition for all graduates to the University of Akron.
Laura Ingraham just continued doing what she’s best at:
[INGRAHAM] Because in some parts of the country, it does seem like the America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore.
[INGRAHAM] Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people.
[INGRAHAM] And they’re changes none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like.
[INGRAHAM] From Virginia to California, we see stark examples of how radically - in some ways - the country has changed.
[INGRAHAM] Now, much of this is related to both illegal and in some cases legal immigration,
[INGRAHAM] that of course progressives love.
Ingraham, who adopted three children from Guatemala and Russia,
and whose mother was a daughter of Polish immigrants,
claimed this segment wasn’t racist.
But the racists thought it was.
David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, applauded the segment as
She didn’t say his name, but the next night Ingraham called Duke a racist freak
who doesn’t share her views about the views they share.
It took severe backlash for her to get to this point.
Ingraham, who is the author of ‘Shut Up & Sing,’
a commentary on why entertainers should not express their political beliefs,
seems to have shifted her tone when entertainers share her political beliefs.
During the Obama era, Ingraham went after Michelle Obama for inviting Common, “a foul mouthed poet"
to the White House.
And she attacked the Obama administration for inviting Beyonce and Jay Z to the White House.
[INGRAHAM] Who can forget about Beyonce and Jay Z in the situation room?
[INGRAHAM] That made me feel good about America's national security, yeah.
But under Trump, Ingraham seems to be okay with ‘foul mouthed poets’
who she once thought should just ‘shut up & sing’.
[INGRAHAM] Who would’ve thought that a bad boy like Kim Kardashian’s husband could be the catalyst for an honest discussion
[INGRAHAM] about the coerced conformity of thought the celebrity culture imposed on all of us.
Ingraham’s pattern of attacking the Obamas, but praising the Trumps for the exact same things is nothing new to her.
[INGRAHAM] May I ask a question about Michelle?
[INGRAHAM] Does this woman have an allergic reaction to sleeves?
[INGRAHAM] And now, get this,
[INGRAHAM] according to some in the media, she can’t even decorate the White House for Christmas properly.
For a brief moment, Ingraham was reportedly considered as press secretary,
after Spicer departed and Scaramucci was fired.
But she felt she would be more helpful to the administration in her current position,
according to her friends that she definitely has.
So, she stayed at Fox and worked for Trump simultaneously,
amplifying the President’s rhetoric to the masses five nights a week.