While it’s somewhat interesting to know that Sean Hannity denies having provided interview questions in advance of an October interview with Donald Trump, as was reported by Michael Wolff today, anyone who watched the interview could see that questions had almost nothing to do with it.
In what was described by The Hollywood Reporter as an "extracted column about his time in the White House based on the reporting included in Fire and Fury [his new book], Wolff wrote about how the Trump White House steered Trump away from a 60 Minutes interview, apparently because he was not competent enough.
[W]ith his daughter and son-in-law sidelined by their legal problems, Hope Hicks, Trump’s 29-year-old personal aide and confidant, became, practically speaking, his most powerful White House advisor. … Hicks’ primary function was to tend to the Trump ego, to reassure him, to protect him, to buffer him, to soothe him. It was Hicks who, attentive to his lapses and repetitions, urged him to forgo an interview that was set to open the 60 Minutes fall season. Instead, the interview went to Fox News’ Sean Hannity who, White House insiders happily explained, was willing to supply the questions beforehand. Indeed, the plan was to have all interviewers going forward provide the questions.
In a later THR article, Hannity denied the report:
Hannity said it didn’t happen that way. He also denied that he once said that he would leave Fox News and “go work full time for Trump because nothing was more important than for Trump to succeed.”
In a statement through a spokesperson on Thursday, Hannity responded: “I never provided questions ahead of time to President Trump and never said I was going to quit my longtime, successful TV and radio career to work for his administration.”
There are serious questions about Wolff's credibility and this will certainly raise more.
Yet I wonder what the definition of “provided questions ahead of time” and “working full time for Trump” may have meant to each party. Because I could easily see Hannity getting together with the White House on areas and topics to be discussed without providing the exact wording of questions. Similarly, did “work full time for Trump” mean actually taking a job in the administration or was it hyperbole for how Hannity runs his broadcasts?
Regardless, Hannity’s interview with Trump certainly looked more like an effort by a Trump aide than anything resembling journalism. I described it in my post as a “smooch-arama” in which every “question” was “designed to promote a Trump talking point, rather than elicit any information, all against a backdrop of a cheering or booing crowd depending on whether the subject was about a Trump ally or opponent.”
In other words, whether Trump was tipped off in advance or not probably would have made no difference in the outcome. Making Trump look good was the job Hannity was really there to do - regardless of who actually paid him.
You can see for yourself below, in Part One of the Hannity show's October 11, 2017 interview.
Wolff in introducing his book admits:
“Many of the accounts of what has happened in the Trump White House are in conflict with one another; many, in Trumpian fashion, are baldly untrue. Those conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book. Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances, I have through a consistency in accounts and through sources I have come to trust, settled on a version of events I believe to be true.”
That said, so far the book largely rings true to me (and confirms many media reports). Largely because it’s broken down in chunks of anecdotes which I read as being pulled off of notes. A completely fictional account would be smoother and more complete.
The argument will be based on Wolff’s above admission that even if his notes were 100% accurate of the accounts provided by Trumpians and 100% accurate in their transfer to his book you’re dealing with liars aggressively jockeying for position in Trump’s Machiavellian White House. So certainly his book may contain lies but that’s more of a reflection on Trump’s inner circle than Wolff though I don’t get the impression he stuck to strict multiple source journalism standards for every anecdote.
And, as Wolff notes, Trump is such a serial liar his self-serving tweets only boost sales. Trump appears to be projecting and even then only pretends to refute a small fraction of Wolff’s anecdotes. There’s an entire chapter on Jarvanka. Have Ivanka and hubby refuted anything in the book? Bannon?
Take the White House claim he was blocked meeting with Trump. Maybe in the White House but it’s interesting Wolff notes in his introduction his book kicked off (before it was even a project?) with him meeting with Trump in Trump Tower in late May 2016.
Further, I so far I haven’t seen where Wolff is claiming to have met Trump in the White House. He’s depending on the experiences of his inner circle in dealing with our Dear Leader post election.
The old hawk knows no other network would hire him, so he is stuck with the Foxies until his retirement from the network. Given what’s coming down the pipeline his foreseen retirement may not happen.
The Stop Hannity Express says Pie is slick as oil. He knows how to cover his tracks very well. That’s why he’s gotten away with a lot of stuff throughout his miserable years.
He uses his audience as a weapon against his enemies. A master of manipulation to his gullible audience.
NOTE TO HANNITY
Deny, deny, deny. Long suffering employees at this satanic network know you very well, you Omen.