They don't know reality...

Laura Ingraham says that Biden will be president: 'This constitutes living in reality'

Tim Elfrink

For weeks after most media outlets declared that Joe Biden had won the presidential election, Fox News opinion hosts have continued airing unfounded claims of massive voter fraud and arguing that President Donald Trump could succeed in his long-shot legal battles to remain in the White House.

On Monday night, though, after Trump finally submitted to an official government transition to Biden, Laura Ingraham sounded a different note. While arguing that there are still "serious questions" about the election and stating that she backs Trump's continued legal challenges, Ingraham urged viewers to prepare for Biden to become president.

"Unless the legal situation changes in a dramatic and frankly an unlikely manner, Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20," Ingraham said on "The Ingraham Angle."

She later added, "To say this constitutes living in reality. And if I offered you a false reality, if I told you that there was an excellent, phenomenal chance that the Supreme Court was going to step in and deliver a victory to President Trump, I would be lying to you."

Her message clashed notably with fellow Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night. Carlson didn't mention Trump's decision to allow Biden's transition. Instead, he claimed that the "2020 presidential election was not fair" and alleged that Democrats had "rigged the election" by expanding mail-in balloting during the pandemic. His monologue was later shared by Trump in a post that Twitter flagged with a disclaimer.

Ingraham has sounded similar themes for weeks, regularly leaning into the unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that have driven Trump's legal fights in key swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Earlier this month, Ingraham interviewed an anonymous Nevada poll worker, hidden behind a silhouette, who claimed without evidence that she had seen people inside a "Biden van" marking ballots ripped from mail-in envelopes.

On Monday, though, Ingraham told viewers that Biden's victory was all but inevitable.

"As unpleasant and disappointing as these past three weeks have been to so many of us, as much as we wish things were different, this is where things stand tonight," Ingraham said.

But she did argue that Trump should continue his legal challenges, which have been roundly rejected in multiple courts.

"To say this does not mean I don't think that the election was rife with problems and potential fraud. And to say this does not constitute being a sellout to the conservative populist movement," she said. "And it does not mean that I disagree at all with the president's right and obligation to pursue all legitimate legal challenges to this outcome."