(PatriotWise.com)- After pressure from allies both in Washington and in the media, former President Donald Trump decided to cancel a planned press conference on January 6 at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
A report by Axios said that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Fox News host Laura Ingraham both told the former president that they felt inviting the national news media to his resort on the one-year anniversary of the attacks on the U.S. Capitol building would be a bad idea.
Axios reports that Trump was planning to use the planned press conference to portray the people who stormed the Capitol building as political prisoners. He also was likely to continue spreading his message about the 2020 presidential election being “stolen.”
Apparently, some divisions within Trump’s circle had formed in recent weeks about how they should commemorate the anniversary of the now-infamous January 6 attacks on the Capitol — if at all. Trump seemed to favor going on the offensive.
Many leaders in Congress allegedly preferred to condemn the rioters, but narrowly, while avoiding any criticism of Trump or assigning any responsibility for the attacks to him. Axios reported they wanted to then quickly shift the message to any attack on Democrats for how they’re handling the January 6 investigation in the House.
Still, the media outlet reports that Republican leaders in both the House and Senate had no involvement at all in planning the event Trump had planned to host on Thursday. In fact, they were allegedly all relieved when Trump made the announcement that he’d be cancelling his planned press conference.
Graham is a close personal ally of Trump and frequently golfs with him. He confirmed to Axios that while he was golfing with the former president in West Palm Beach over the weekend, he discussed cancelling the planned press conference for Thursday.
In fact, Graham said that Trump himself was the one to bring up the topic, saying “there could be peril in doing a news conference … Best to focus on election reform instead.”
Ingraham, who’s another influential ally of Trump’s, made her thoughts on the matter public when she said on her TV show Monday night that she believed it would be a bad idea for Trump to hold a press conference on the anniversary of the attacks at the U.S. Capitol building.
She was interviewing Indiana Representative Jim Banks, when she asked him the leading question:
“Some things were horrific that happened and shouldn’t have happened that day … Is it smart for President Trump to do a rally on that particular day, versus next week or the week before?”
Banks wouldn’t specifically say he’d advise Trump to not hold the event that day. In fact, his response was the opposite of that. He said he would “welcome” Trump holding the press conference on January 6, explaining:
“President Trump has important things to say on Thursday, on January 6 … Like so many others, I’m looking forward to hearing what President Trump has to say.”
