Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked media figures this week for what she described as glee at the prospect of former President Trump having a mug shot taken in Georgia.
“These people are sick,” Ingraham said on her nightly program Wednesday evening. “How is a mug shot of the former president in any way necessary or in any way good for America?”
A grand jury in Georgia last week indicted Trump, along with more than a dozen of his lawyers and associates, in connection with his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Law enforcement officials in Georgia have told local media outlets they are not ruling out the possibility of a mug shot of the former president being taken when he is booked on the charges.
“It doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mug shot ready for you,” Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat told reporters last week. “Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices.”
Ingraham, during her segment Wednesday evening, played clips from other cable news channels showing anchors and pundits reporting on the fact that the general public could soon see a mug shot of the former president, a development that would serve as yet another unprecedented moment in American history.
“Are they really worried that he’s going to disappear into the general population or — as a 2024 candidate for president — he’s going to leave the country?” Ingraham asked. “I half expect them to push for his bail to be set at a billion dollars. That’ll show him. The sick fantasy never ends.”
Ingraham’s comments come as Trump weighs whether to attend the first GOP debate next week, which Fox is hosting.
Trump has for months complained about the coverage of him on Fox, which features a number of pro-Trump commentators including Ingraham and Sean Hannity.
Trump on Thursday morning blasted the network’s flagship morning program “Fox & Friends” over a segment on polling and took particular issue with how the photos the network had selected of him made him look.