Sean Hannity claimed acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney didn’t know what he was talking about when he admitted that Donald Trump had engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine by withholding aid and pressuring the country to do his political dirty work. Not long after, Mulvaney claimed the media misconstrued what he had plainly said.

The New York Times highlighted Mulvaney’s incriminating comments at a briefing today:

QUESTION: So the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason that he ordered to withhold funding to Ukraine?

MULVANEY: The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation, and that is absolutely appropriate.

…

QUESTION: But to be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo. It is, funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happened as well.

MULVANEY: We do — we do that all the time with foreign policy. We were holding up money at the same time for, what was it, the Northern Triangle countries. We were holding up aid at the Northern Triangle countries so that they — so that they would change their policies on immigration.

____________

MULVANEY: And I have news for everybody. Get over it. There is going to be political influence in foreign policy.

Not surprisingly, Mulvaney’s remarks “sent Washington into turmoil as Democrats and some Republicans said they were deeply damaging to Mr. Trump,” The New York Times reported.

Trump’s unofficial chief of staff and official a** kisser Sean Hannity claimed Mulvaney didn’t know what he was talking about. Never mind that Mulvaney was reportedly the one who blocked the aid, that one of his top aides was on that now-infamous July 25th call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Mulvaney didn’t seem to show any concern about the call until after the whistleblower report surfaced and triggered the impeachment inquiry,” according to The Washington Post.

But Hannity always knows better. He knows the law better than special counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller; he knew better than meteorologists the path of Hurricane Dorian; and now he knows better about the aid to Ukraine. On his radio show today, Media Matters caught him saying this:

HANNITY: [W]hat is Mulvaney even talking about? I just think he's dumb, I really do. I don't even think he knows what he's talking about. That's my take on it. 

...

I guess the truth is complicated. This is what, you know -- this is why, I think, some of these people are so stupid. Read the transcript. We don't need a non-whistleblower whistleblower. You don't need a chief of staff's idiotic interpretation of things, when the president and the president of Ukraine and everybody else can read it all themselves. That's what's amazing. [My emphases added]

Hannity’s show airs 3-6 PM ET. Although it’s not clear when during his show Hannity made those comments, by 5:55 PM, The Washington Post reported that Mulvaney had issued a statement accusing the press of misconstruing his remarks.

“Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election,” he said. “The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server. The only reasons we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption.”

Mulvaney’s full briefing can be seen here.

Listen to Hannity attack Mulvaney below, from the October 17, 2019 The Sean Hannity Show, via Media Matters. Then share your thoughts on how much longer you think Mulvaney will have his job.

(Hannity image via screen grab)