Donald Trump just found out that because he's not the guy in the Oval Office anymore, that the media is under no contract or law to cover his vile, anti-democratic authoritarian bleating. His big January 6th anniversary speech for tomorrow has been canceled because he's being starved of attention...finally.
Former President Trump is scrapping a planned news conference on the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The former president had planned to use the Thursday news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., as counterprogramming for a scheduled prayer service at the Capitol to commemorate the events of Jan. 6.
In a statement, Trump blamed the House select committee charged with investigating the Jan. 6 riot for the cancellation. He said he would instead touch on many of the themes he had planned to discuss at the news conference during a rally in Arizona set for Jan. 15.
“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.
The WIN THE MORNING 2.0 team posits that GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham and FOX news host Laura Ingraham got to Trump and changed his mind.
Before Donald Trump canceled his planned Jan. 6 press conference, several key allies — including hardline Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — made clear they thought it was a bad idea to invite the national media to Mar-a-Lago to mark the deadly riot.
Why it matters: Trump would have inevitably used his press conference Thursday to portray the rioters as political prisoners, whitewash their actions that day and lie about a "stolen election." Divisions had widened between the former president and congressional Republican leaders over how to handle the anniversary. Trump — like his most fervent allies — wanted to go on offense.
Congressional leaders wanted to narrowly condemn the rioters, avoid criticizing Trump or assigning any responsibility to him and quickly pivot to attacking Democrats over their handling of the Jan. 6 investigation.
I'm not saying that Trump being talked out of a self-aggrandizing tirade carried on national TV is a breakthrough, but it's also clear that a lot of Republicans saw this as ludicrously damaging to their re-election chances, too. They are right to believe that the biggest single obstacle to regaining control of the House and Senate is in fact Trump's big fat mouth.
Besides, Trump will make an ass of himself next week, on Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. It could very well be a situation where the GOP wished Trump had vomited up his stored bile on the 6th instead.
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