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Tag: sean hannity
Sean Hannity

Hannity Blames Democrats For Failure To Repeal Arizona's 1864 Abortion Law

Sean Hannity urged Arizona Republicans to repeal the near-total abortion ban a court imposed on the swing state in order to contain the political damage to Donald Trump and the GOP. Hours later, after they refused to do so, he deceived his Fox News viewers by blaming Democrats.

Republicans are reeling after the Arizona Supreme Court jolted the national and state political environment on Tuesday by restoring an 1864 state law banning abortion in nearly all cases. Trump, who took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade’s constitutional protections for abortion and said on Monday before the ruling that states “will” determine abortion law, subsequently claimed on Wednesday that the court had gone too far. Kari Lake, the leading GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Arizona, and other Republicans in tough races are walking back their past positions to condemn the ruling.

Hannity waited until after Trump spoke out to take a position on the ruling, finally responding on Wednesday night with the ludicrous suggestion that Arizona Democrats were deliberately sabotaging efforts to repeal the law for partisan gain.

“Trump opposes the law and this ruling,” he said. “And you know what? Arizona’s governor is a Democrat. The state’s attorney general is a Democrat. The state legislature is almost evenly divided. If Democrats — you want to get rid of the law, well, you have a chance right now to get rid of it. And I would advise you, get rid of it!”

The Fox host concluded, “They would rather use it as a political tool ahead of November.”

Hannity’s statement that “the state legislature is almost evenly divided” is almost comically deceptive. Republicans have majorities in both the state House and the state Senate, and earlier that day, Arizona’s GOP lawmakers blocked Democratic efforts to roll back the law in each chamber. Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican currently facing a competitive primary, told Axios “that he wouldn't support a repeal and wouldn't permit a vote on it.”

Hannity knows that Republicans control the fate of the state’s 1864 abortion ban. Speaking on his radio show Wednesday afternoon, he urged Arizona’s Republican officials to “change the law now.”

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): There's a lot to get into. Although, honestly, it's — it's more simple than people think. And I know the media, the mob, and everybody in between is just freaking out over this Arizona Supreme Court decision, which literally goes back to a 160-year-old near-total abortion ban without exceptions for rape, incest, mother's life, any of that. It was even before Arizona was a state. And there's no Republican that supports this, but that's what — Whoopi Goldberg says Republicans want to bring slavery back following the decision. I'm like, OK. Here we go. The demagoging never ends. The lying, the distortion, the misinformation, the propaganda. This is what needs to happen. This is my message for all of you elected state Republican leaders out there in Arizona. Get your act together. Change the law now, and that means every Republican has to stay united, and you better understand where the people in this country are on the issue of abortion. Putting aside over 50% of abortions are now done with the pill, put that aside. And what you need to do is follow the Dobbs decision, 15 weeks, follow the first-trimester decision, whatever it is. And then you've got to force your Democratic governor, Hobbs, to sign a bill that says no late-term abortions, no abortions based on gender or race. I talked to Arizona — former Arizona AG Brnovich. He had some great ideas. You know, find a point of where a viability restriction would be palpable to the overwhelming number of people in your state, and stand up and do your job and get it done now.

“This is my message for all of you elected state Republican leaders out there in Arizona,” Hannity said. “Get your act together. Change the law now, and that means every Republican has to stay united, and you better understand where the people in this country are on the issue of abortion.”

But it turns out that when your political movement treats abortion as murder and calls for banning it “from the moment of conception,” some people who actually believe that — rather than pretending to so Republicans can win elections and cut taxes for rich people — won’t play along.

Arizona’s abortion ban is entirely the fault of Republicans. All six U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe and open the door to such policies were appointed under a Republican president, including three Trump nominees confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate. GOP governors appointed every member of the Arizona Supreme Court, which was expanded by Republicans in 2016.

But the political consequences of their actions are devastating for the GOP, so the party’s candidates are running away from them while propagandists like Hannity try to deceive the public about who is to blame.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Sean Hannity

After Touting Russia's Biden Bribe Tale, Hannity Runs For Cover

Fox News host Sean Hannity has repeatedly tried to downplay what the arrest of FBI informant Alexander Smirnov means for the Republican Party’s impeachment case against President Joe Biden. But Hannity’s current minimization effort belies the central role he assigned Smirnov’s story as he sought to build an impeachment case around the president’s son in 2023.

After the government alleged Smirnov had lied to the bureau in claiming that Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden had each received a $5 million foreign bribe, recorded in a 2020 FBI FD-1023 form, Hannity first responded on his Fox show by calling the informant’s story “a very, very small part of what is the large body of evidence in the Biden impeachment inquiry.” In subsequent broadcasts, he criticized the notion that “this one piece of the puzzle negate[s]” the rest of the GOP’s narrative, and described Smirnov’s tale as “only one tiny piece of the case against what I call the Biden family and the Biden family syndicate.”

But Hannity kept Smirnov’s claims front-and-center from May 3, 2023 — when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) launched the story by publicly demanding the FBI produce an FD-1023 “alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national” by an unnamed “whistleblower,” since revealed as Smirnov — through the end of the year, Media Matters data show. During that period, 33 percent of all Hannity segments about Hunter Biden and 50 percent of Hannity’s monologues about the president’s son mentioned Smirnov’s bribe allegation.

On his Fox show the night Grassley and Comer issued their press release, Hannity declared that this “brand-new, legally protected, highly credible whistleblower disclosure might end up being the biggest story of the year.” He touted the “bombshell disclosure” as describing “the very definition of a high crime, also a serious felony, that if proven true could result in impeachment [and] possible imprisonment of Joe Biden, your president.” He went on to describe the form as “smoking-gun evidence.”

Hannity was similarly enthralled when Grassley released a version of the FD-1023 on July 20, 2023.

“There are now real and growing concerns that your president, the president of our country, is compromised,” Hannity said on his Fox show that night, arguing that through the form, Joe Biden had been “very credibly accused of public corruption on a scale this country has never seen before.” Hannity's crony, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, went on to accuse Joe Biden of a variety of crimes, including “bribery and treason,” which he stressed “are impeachable offenses in addition to being felonies. So, you know, this is a blockbuster scandal that could doom Biden's presidency.”

The following week, Hannity aired a one-hour special detailing the case against Joe Biden. Here’s how it began:

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): And welcome to the special edition of Hannity this Friday night, “Biden’s bribery allegations.”

Now, tonight, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, has been accused by a credible FBI source of taking foreign cash in exchange for policy decisions. In other words, you call that bribery.

Hannity was so obsessed with Smirnov’s claims because they appeared to support the conspiracy theory he’s been pursuing for the last five years — that Joe Biden, as vice president, forced the Ukrainian government to fire the country’s top prosecutor for personal pecuniary reasons, in this case because of a supposed bribe extended by one of his son’s employers.

The Fox host helped make that bogus narrative — debunked during then-President Donald Trump’s own impeachment — into the heart of the House GOP’s impeachment case. As that case now collapses, they all look like credulous morons at best, and willing partners in a Russian intelligence operation at worst.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Sean Hannity

Why Sean Hannity's GOP 'Abortion Strategy' Won't Work

Sean Hannity is a Republican Party operative with close ties to Donald Trump and other Republican leaders, and with the approval of the network’s executives, he explicitly uses his Fox News show as a platform to help its candidates win elections. So his Tuesday night meltdown, in which he blamed the GOP’s string of defeats that day on its unpopular opposition to abortion rights, bears careful scrutiny.

Hannity put his finger on what he considered the problem as results rolled in showing a series of Democratic victories.

“Democrats are trying to scare women into thinking Republicans don't want abortion legal under any circumstances,” he said.

The host and his guests urged Republicans to coalesce around banning abortion beginning at 15 weeks, which Hannity argued would be less risky politically, and focusing attention on right-wing lies about the purportedly extreme positions of Democrats.

Hannity, who says he is “pro-life,” has repeatedly sought to limit the political damage caused to the Republican Party when its Supreme Court nominees overturned the protections for abortion rights that had been enshrined in Roe v. Wade in their 2022 decision. He instructed Republican Senate candidates to dodge questions about the subject during the 2022 cycle, only for his hand-picked nominees to falter. Hannity carefully led newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to say that he didn’t intend for Congress to take action on abortion this term during Johnson’s first interview in that role last month, and the issue didn’t come up at all during Hannity’s on-air pep rally for House Republicans last week.

Hannity’s reticence is relatively canny — abortion rights played a major role in GOP defeats across the country on Tuesday, and if Republicans can’t somehow defuse the issue, it threatens the party’s political success in the 2024 elections. A new Navigator Survey poll shows Democrats in a dominant position in battleground districts, with majorities saying that the GOP position is “too extreme” and would lead to national abortion restrictions, that the Democratic position is not extreme, and that voters want abortion to be legal in all or most circumstances.

Hannity is an influential figure within the GOP, and it’s possible that Republicans will try to publicly position themselves in line with his suggested remedy. But his proposed cure for the party’s ills is nonsensical — indeed, as Hannity was speaking, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s identical plan to use a 15-week ban to hold the state House and take over the state Senate was going up in flames.

Voters have not been somehow fooled by Democrats into believing that Republicans support banning abortion. Voters rightfully don’t trust Republican intentions because Republicans say they want to ban abortion, and they generally use whatever political power they obtain to prevent as many abortions as they can.

The text of the party’s most recent platform claims that “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed” and calls for a constitutional amendment that would ban all abortions by granting 14th Amendment rights to fetuses.

Johnson says that “life begins at conception” and called abortion a “holocaust,” and he has sponsored national abortion bans beginning as early as six weeks. Anti-abortion activists are gleeful at the prospect of his leadership if the party regains the Senate and the White House.

But Republicans at the state level do not generally stop with 15-week abortion bans — they push the envelope as far as their legislative majorities allow. That has meant a total abortion ban in 13 states, nine caused via “trigger” laws which took effect immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In Florida, Republican state legislators passed and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 15-week abortion ban in 2022. Then, after DeSantis won reelection and Republicans increased their majorities, they went back and established a six-week ban.

And in addition to making abortion illegal within their states, far-right legislators have enacted laws which create bounties for private citizens who file lawsuits against anyone who knowingly “aids or abets” an abortion and ban helping a minor leave the state to obtain abortion care. There are countless stories about the devastating impacts these laws have already had on women and girls placed in dire situations.

Nor do Republicans confine their efforts to states where they win majorities. The right-wing movement’s lawyers, with the help of Trump-appointed judges, are currently trying to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, which would effectively institute a nationwide ban on a drug currently used in more than half of U.S. abortions. If their effort succeeds, they will likely deploy a similar strategy against an alternative drug, misoprostol. Meanwhile, in Congress, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-MS) is blocking hundreds of military promotions — to cheers from the right — in hopes of forcing the Biden administration to end a policy that reimburses service members for out-of-state travel to receive abortions.

And of course, the reason Republican legislators have been able to pass state-level abortion bans and threaten to pass national ones is that Trump and a Republican Senate added the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe in the first place.

The good news for Republicans is that Trump, the party’s likely presidential nominee, has very few genuine policy convictions, and recognizes that the issue poses a danger to his prospects in a general election. He was noticeably cagey in a September interview when asked about what type of abortion legislation he’d support, stating vaguely that he “would sit down with both sides and I'd negotiate something, and we'll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years,” and criticized his rival DeSantis’ six-week ban.

But that led to a chorus of criticism from Trump’s primary opponents, anti-abortion groups, and right-wing pundits, to which Trump later responded by crowing, “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.” And there are signs that a Hannity-esque strategy of downplaying the party’s unpopular abortion stance could face fury from right-wing media figures who make their money by loudly proclaiming stands that appeal to a tiny, fervent minority.

If interviewers and debate moderators do their jobs, Trump should face a slew of questions between now and next year’s election where the desired answers of right-wing anti-abortion activists and average Americans diverge. Journalists have a responsibility to try to elicit a clearer position not only about what type of abortion bans he’d sign or veto, but about what he would do on federal regulatory issues like the availability of abortion medications.

“Polls are now closed in several key states, where close races could serve as maybe a small preview of coming attractions for the 2024 election,” Hannity said on Tuesday night, before the carnage for the GOP became apparent. That’s true, and support for abortion rights is a big part of the reason why.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

GOP Hack Hannity Stages A Live Pep Rally For House Republicans

GOP Hack Hannity Stages A Live Pep Rally For House Republicans

Fox News star and sometime GOP operative Sean Hannity hosted a unity pep rally for House Republicans on Wednesday night, interviewing new Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and members of his leadership team before a cheering crowd of caucus members live from Capitol Hill.

House Republicans spent much of October embroiled in chaos. After a handful of disgruntled members voted to dethrone then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for forging a deal to fund the government, the caucus cycled through a series of potential replacements who failed to garner sufficient support to take over the post. The exhausted members finally settled on Johnson last week, but his early days have been rough going: GOP resolutions to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) both failed on Wednesday, the party’s proposed bill for military aid to Israel is dead on arrival in the Senate, and the clock is ticking down toward a government shutdown.

Enter Hannity, who has a lengthy record of prioritizing the political success of the GOP over all other considerations. The Fox host, who originally endorsed network favorite Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for the speakership but backed off as Jordan’s bid faltered, has rallied to Johnson’s side and is urging the fractured caucus to unite.

Hannity’s Wednesday performance was a pitch for his own future relevance. He sought to ingratiate himself with the newly minted speaker, who he admitted not knowing well, while encouraging the assembled members to remain focused on issues that bring them together — which were coincidentally the same subjects that he regularly highlights on his show.

It goes without saying that nothing about Fox’s hourlong propaganda fest would have been considered ethically acceptable on any news network.

“Make no mistake: With just 369 days until the 2024 election, House Republicans — and I’m saying to all of you in this room and all of you that are watching at home — you will succeed together or you will fail together,” he pitched at the top of his opening monologue. “There won't be some winners and some losers. The only people that will really lose if you lose are the American people.”

Hannity decried “divisive infighting,” telling members to “put aside personal grudges, individual agendas” to “deliver big on issues” like “border security,” “energy independence,” “fiscal sanity,” “law and order,” “the rule of law,” and “moral clarity in this time of terrorism.”

He then, somewhat contradictorily, told the crowd of GOP representatives that they can’t enact legislation with a Democratic Senate and White House, but should instead “stop Joe Biden’s radical agenda,” “investigate his corruption,” and “force Democrats to show their true colors in a series of very important votes, put them on the record.”

At the conclusion of his monologue, he instructed the members to “give a warm welcome to your new speaker, Mike Johnson.” After the crowd cheered, he commented, “Well, I certainly know my place in the people’s house, because you got a much better reception than I did.”

“That’s not true,” Johnson replied. “If they had seen it before you began, you’re a rock star here.”

Hannity let Johnson quickly skip past the failed votes against Tlaib and Santos and pivot to a happier message about party unity, before spending the balance of their interview responding to clips from members of the Biden administration discussing border security.

Indeed, the throughline Wednesday night was Hannity’s consistent focus on issues like border security which he believes unify the party without alienating the public. There were no questions about abortion, or health care, or the 2020 election and 2021 insurrection, where the party’s position is unpopular and Republicans fracture. Nor did the Fox host force his guests to lay out how deeply they want to cut spending and who those cuts will impact. And Donald Trump's name wasn't mentioned a single time the entire show.

Instead, Hannity asked Johson and House leadership team members Reps. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Tom Emmer (R-MN) about the border, the prospect of domestic terrorism, the purported weaponization of government, and “the cognitive state of Joe Biden.”

Committee chairs Jordan, James Comer (R-KY), and Jason Smith (R-MO) took turns describing the course of their Biden investigations in language familiar to Hannity fans but impenetrable to normal people, which Johnson suggested would lead to the president’s impeachment.

And Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Kat Cammack (R-FL) described the GOP’s effort to push back on Biden’s proposal for an emergency package that includes military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, aid to Palestinian and Israeli civilians, and border security, including a plug for House Republicans’ deficit-boosting IRS cuts to aid wealthy tax cheats.

Hannity asked the audience of members questions at times, calling for shows of hands. He noted that no one raised their hand when he asked if “Joe Biden is cognitively strong enough to be our president,” and that all of them did when he asked if the Biden investigations are “headed” toward impeachment. There were also hands raised and cries of “yes” when he asked the crowd, “Do you believe we’ve given too much money to Ukraine?”

The final segment turned any subtext of the show to text. Hannity brought on Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Byron Donalds (R-FL) and asked if the party would succeed if members focused on the issues discussed on the show that night. Both agreed that they would.

Then Hannity touted Johnson’s “great fundraising week” and closed by asking him, “Can you look in the camera and assure every conservative and Republican in the country that that main agenda can get done and will get done?”

“That is going to be our agenda and we're going to deliver for the people and govern well,” Johnson replied. “And I think that we’ll be able to grow our majority when we do that.”

That’s certainly Hannity’s plan. As for what will happen on all the other issues — getting those answers might require something closer to journalism.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.