Unfortunately for Sean Hannity, Donald Trump’s excuse for suggesting he wanted to hit NYC DA Alvin Bragg with a baseball bat was jaw-droppingly ridiculous.
As you probably already know, Trump posted on his social media platform a composite photo showing himself holding a baseball bat, suggesting he was about to gleefully swing it and hit District Attorney Bragg, who Trump claimed was going to indict him last week. Spoiler alert: It didn’t happen. What did happen is that Bragg received a death threat letter with white powder that, thank goodness, was non-hazardous. It was just one of several hundred recent threats aimed at Bragg and his office, NBC News reported.
Probably of more concern to Hannity and, possibly, Trump, was a scathing editorial by the New York Post editorial board about Trump’s “Bat Hit Crazy” behavior. “After riling up rioters, cheering for a coup, and agreeing that his vice president needed to be hanged, he’s back to making violent threats against fellow Americans,” the editorial stated.
It's no secret the Murdochs want to be done with Trump but as I’ve written before, that doesn’t mean they will be. The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple nailed it when he wrote that the Murdochs “won’t be ‘done’ with Trump until his chief propagandist, Sean Hannity, is done with Trump.”
And, as last night’s interview proved, Hannity is not done with Trump and, thus, neither is Fox News.
Did Hannity collude with Trump on his “baseball bat” rehab effort?
Hannity was probably caught between his boss and his Bedtime BFF last night. But it sure looked like Hannity had a plan to help his favorite P***y Grabber do some remedial public relations on the baseball hat pic.
But first, Hannity took his own swipe at Bragg: “Alvin Bragg's weak and politically charged case against Donald Trump has now imploded, just as President Trump's poll numbers continue to rise.”
FACT CHECK: Like the rest of us, Hannity has no idea if the case has imploded. And rising poll numbers or not, Trump remains highly disliked.
But clearly, Hannity thought it important to rehab the baseball bat pic.
HANNITY: So, here's my question -- so all this information that came out in your favor, you talked about death and destruction. And then you -- the baseball bat picture --
TRUMP: Yeah.
HANNITY: -- next to Alvin Bragg, and you did take that down.
And my only question: why open yourself up to criticism?
Trump could have said he was so furious at Bragg that he made an error in judgment that he rectified as soon as he realized his mistake. He could have said he had meant it as a bad joke that he quickly realized was inappropriate, used his Fox appearance to make a heartfelt apology and talked about how nobody should ever engage in violence. Instead, Trump came up with a set of stupid and unbelievable excuses that not even Hannity seemed to buy.
TRUMP: You have to understand that when the story was put up, I put up a story, we didn't see pictures. We put a story that was very exculpatory, very good story from the standpoint of what we're talking about. And they put up a picture of me.
And, you know, where I was holding the bat? It was at the White House -- make America, buy America, because I did a lot of buy America things. And this was a company that makes baseball bats.
Then they put next to that picture a picture of Alvin Bragg.
I didn't do it. They did it. The -- I guess the people that do the paper, or somebody put pictures together, but I was holding a baseball bat in order to promote made in America.
HANNITY: It wasn't on your post at Truth Social?
TRUMP: No. What they did is we posted the story, but they had a picture up and then they put a picture up, or the picture was put up that nobody noticed or saw, or that nobody thought was bad. These were two separate pictures.
I was promoting made in America. You make these baseball bats instead of sending over to Japan and China and all other places where they're made. This was a company, a good company that makes baseball bats and other things like that in America.
They took that picture from the White House, and they put it up and then they put a picture of Alvin Bragg up. I will say this with death and destruction -- I didn't say death and destruction. I said I'm afraid.
HANNITY: The possibility -- yeah.
TRUMP: I said I'm afraid that if they do this, which is a fake prosecution, where my worse enemies say that he's totally innocent. I mean, I can't believe -- people that have never been positive to me or defended me, that don't like me, they're in the other side of the world. These are people that said, you can't do this prosecution. It will cause tremendous problems.
I didn't say do something bad. I say I'm afraid that people will do something because people are very angry about it.
After a discussion about the legal case Trump, Hannity returned to his effort to acquit his buddy of any wrongdoing over the bat pic:
HANNITY: But let me be clear, so you did not post the picture of you with a baseball bat in the Oval Office next to the picture with Bragg. Somebody else did that?
TRUMP: I posted a very positive article –
HANNITY: Yeah.
TRUMP: -- and whatever picture they put up, they put up -- my people didn't put up the picture. I think the picture maybe was either in the article or was put in the article later. But again, that was a baseball bat to promote "made in America", companies making America. Don't go to Japan to buy --
HANNITY: But you know how it was interpreted.
TRUMP: Well, because that's the fake news media, Sean.
HANNITY: Yeah.
TRUMP: That's what they do.
HANNITY: All right. Let me ask you this –
But before Hannity could get in his next question, Trump engaged in a long, hate-filled whine about his victimhood:
TRUMP: They take anything you can say, anything you say and they say the opposite.
The Democrats are genius at a few things. They are horrible at foreign relations. They're horrible at policy. They are horrible at everything.
They are good at a number of things though -- misinformation or disinformation, depending on your definition, but both. They give misinformation.
Look at what they said about "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax. I watch Schiff, shifty Schiff, getting up in Congress and repeating my conversation that was totally wrong because I didn't tell him we had the phone call taped.
So, he totally -- then I said, oh, good, we'll sue him and we'll take him down. They said you're not allowed to sue because he's allowed to lie in the halls of Congress. So, he got up and reported a total low fake conversation.
But they go misinformation. Russia, Russia, Russia was misinformation or disinformation.
You can watch Trump claim to know nothing about his disgraceful post that he only tacitly acknowledges was a mistake below, from the March 27, 2023 Hannity.