Sean Hannity, an avid hawk and sycophant to President Donald Trump, had largely abandoned discussions of the floundering Iran war in recent weeks. But on Wednesday night, he engaged with the conflict on his Fox primetime show for the first time since late July — and lamented that Trump is not getting sufficient “credit” for his purported success there.
Trump’s administration has spent the past several months in negotiations premised around the U.S. giving Iran sufficient economic benefits to convince them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with the Iranian nuclear program that was theoretically the crux of Trump’s decision to launch the war in the first place relegated to nebulous future discussions. With those negotiations apparently going nowhere and Trump himself moving on from them, Hannity has decided to move straight to celebrating Trump’s purported victory.
“Under President Trump’s strong leadership, America is once again leading on the world stage,” Hannity introduced the segment. “By the way, it never gets credit — Iran will never have a nuclear weapon thanks to Donald Trump. Does anyone ever give him credit for that?” (Then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard submitted testimony in March that Iran had no nuclear enrichment capability, and a U.S. intelligence assessment reportedly found in May that the war had not affected “the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon.”)
Hannity claimed that “Iran has suffered yet another economic setback” via the United Arab Emirates’ announcement that it was cutting off trade ties, saying that Trump “expressed optimism over the situation with Iran” earlier that day. He then aired a clip in which Trump responded to a question about whether he planned to reopen stalled negotiations with Iran by saying: “Maybe at some point, but right now, I think the situation is so good, but maybe at some point. Look, it's very simple.”
The Fox host added, “They are breaking financially. But Iran is not the only regime that the president is holding to account. As he indicated, a meeting with North Korean supreme leader — he's back — little rocket man, Kim Jong-un could come later this year.”
Hannity did not explain how Trump was “holding to account” the North Korean regime by gifting its dictator with a personal meeting after ordering the curtailment of planned U.S.-South Korean joint naval exercises on the grounds that those exercises were “very insulting” to Kim, who the president said “likes me.”
The host then turned to Kevin Corke — who is nominally a news correspondent — to deliver an upbeat report on Trump’s “busy” foreign policy with Iran, North Korea, and Canada. Corke concluded: “And I want you to consider this, Sean, consider all of that that I just shared and compare it to the previous president. And it is unmistakable that we have a president now who is clearly very hard at work for all of us, Sean.”
Hannity’s on-air push to attack Iran reportedly helped sway Trump’s decision to launch the war in February. The Fox host had promised his audience that the fight would be quick and easy, predicting on his March 30 radio show that “it’s going to be on the verge of wrapping up no later than three weeks from today.”
But since July 23, when Hannity predicted Trump was about to order a massive assault on Iran — only for Trump to pull back — the host had pulled back his coverage of the war. Hannity’s only extensive discussion of the Iran war on his Fox show between that segment and Wednesday’s show came during an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he aired on July 28, according to a review of the Nexis database.
While Hannity was addressing the ongoing war in the Middle East only in passing mentions on his Fox show, Trump again threatened a massive attack before again backing down; transits through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital channel for global trade, remained limited; Iran and Oman closed in on a deal that would impose transit fees for passage through the strait; and reports circulated about poor living conditions on a U.S. aircraft carrier that were due in part to successful Iranian strikes on a U.S. base in Bahrain.
Meanwhile, Fox's Hannity devoted 11 segments and 46 minutes of coverage to the WNBA between July 28 and August 19, according to a Media Matters review.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
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