Sean Hannity, host of the Sean Hannity Show on Fox News, was asked how he would moderate the November 2023 debate between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate, and California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was not a presidential candidate.
Hannity said he would stay in the background and let DeSantis and Newsom do the talking.
“The less of me, probably, the better,” he said.
https://www.aol.com/sean-hannity-aims-keep-opinion-182000229.html
Rarely, if ever, in his decades-long television career had Hannity expressed such revealing self-awareness.
Hannity’s calling card as a talk show host and political commentator is his ability to say whatever comes to what passes for his mind and not give a whit about whether anything he says is factual.
Hannity makes up stuff and repeats it over and over again, telling his viewers and listeners what they want to hear. This has made him one of the highest-paid bloviators in the United States.
He’s 250 pounds of manure in a 200-pound bag.
If he were a piece of equipment, he would be a manure spreader.
If he were a human being, he would be a manure spreader.
Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation for $1.6, alleging that Fox News, including its on-air personalities such as Hannity, repeatedly made the baseless claim that the election technology company had switched votes from President Donald Trump to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, giving Biden the election.
Fox News settled the suit before going to trial for $787 million.
In a deposition, Hannity said he didn’t believe “for one second” the lies perpetuated by Trump and his associates, but went on the air with the claim without raising any questions about their credibility.
And why did he do that?
Because it was what his viewers wanted to hear.
And yet, as NPR reported, Hannity invited on his program Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who currently faces seven criminal charges, including violating Georgia’s RICO act, conspiring to commit election fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the state.
On Nov. 30, 2020, Hannity gave a live mic to Powell, who had previously claimed, according to the Daily Beast, that Dominion Voting had conspired with “the dead Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, liberal philanthropist George Soros, communist Chinese money, and the CIA.”
https://www.npr.org/2022/12/22/1144926308/fox-news-sean-hannity-dominion-lawsuit-trump
Tucker Carlson, Hannity’s colleague at Fox News, wanted nothing to do with Powell and refused to put her on the air.
Not Hannity.
SEE SIDNEY POWELL
Hannity knew she was lying but gave her a prime-time audience to perpetuate what the Daily Beast called “Powell’s wacko claims.”
“I did not believe it for a second,” Hannity said under oath.
If Hannity knew she was lying, why did he put her on the air and, once she was on the air, why did he not question her about the claims with probing questions such as:
“When did you go off your meds and is there anyone I can call who can take you back to your room?”
Here is the video of Hannity’s interview with Powell:
Hannity appears to believe everything she says.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sean-hannity-admits-he-never-believed-sidney-powells-wacko-claims
Hannity, who said he did not believe the claims of election fraud, exchanged texts with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows where he agreed to corroborate the administration’s claims of election fraud.
When Hannity was asked to comment, he said he was not a journalist, thus relieving himself of the tremendous responsible that comes with reporting information factually.
But what about the responsibility as a human being to act responsibly, ethically, and honestly?
Hannity said he wasn’t a human being either.
Perhaps no one in the news media is exposed as a liar by fact-checking organizations as much as Sean Hannity.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?category=&ruling=false&speaker=sean-hannity
https://www.factcheck.org/person/sean-hannity/
https://www.snopes.com/tag/sean-hannity/
Hannity also is a con man.
Which bring us to Hannity’s charitable work with Freedom Alliance.
Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts,” which he emceed, raised money to pay for college for the children of soldiers who died in service and to pay the medical bills of injured veterans.
What a guy!
Conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel called the charity a “huge scam.” She investigated the tax returns of Freedom Alliance and discovered that Hannity raised $11 million but only $400,000 – or less than 20 percent — went to the children of dead soldiers or to injured veterans. Schlussel was told “that Hannity demands a private jet and a fleet of Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs to transport him to the concerts.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2010/03/19/is-sean-hannitys-charity-a-scam
The Center for Responsibility and Ethics asked the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Freedom Alliance and its Freedom Concerts “for falsely promoting that all concert proceeds would be donated to a scholarship fund for the children of those killed or wounded in war,” Politico reported.
“Hannity has promoted the concerts on his show, making statements such as, ‘Every penny, 100 percent of the donations are applied to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund,’” the center said in a statement in March 2010.
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/03/crew-flags-hannity-concert-series-035160
A nonpartisan watchdog organization dropped its rating for Freedom Alliance from four stars to two stars after the complaint was filed.
https://www.salon.com/2010/04/02/watchdog_2/
The Freedom Alliance has long dropped Hannity from its website.
Donald Trump and Sean Hannity are good friends who reportedly talked most nights when Trump was in the White House.
White House staffers referred to Trump as the president “’shadow’ chief of staff.”
Hannity also is Trump’s great apologist, who will defend the president when the president says that if elected, he will be a dictator.
Hannity, moderating a town hall with Trump in early December 2023, asked the former president twice if he would “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people.”
The answer should have been, “No, Sean, what gave you that idea?”
But it wasn’t.
He referred instead to those prosecuting the president.
“You mean like they’re using right now,” Trump said.
Hannity then pushed back at Trump asking him to “promise that he would never abuse power as retribution against anyone.”
The answer should have been, “Of course I won’t abuse power or seek retribution. This would contradict everything that makes America the greatest country in the world.”
But that’s not what he said.
“Except for day one,” Trump said.
But this tone was in sharp contrast to what Trump had said in other speeches and interviews where he said he would weaponize the government to seek retribution against his political enemies.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/trump-threatens-indict-challengers-president-again
