Nearly every night after Sean Hannity ends his Fox News TV hour of cheerleading for Donald Trump, Hannity calls the White House for a bedtime chat in which he advises the commander in chief on strategy and tactics.

We already knew that Trump and Hannity are so close that some aides dubbed him the unofficial chief of staff but a new, must-read article in New York Magazine by Olivia Nuzzi reveals more details about just how far into Trump's bed Hannity has climbed.

Hannity was always someone where, if you were a Republican and you went on his show, it would be the easiest interview possible,” a person who worked on the campaign of one of Trump’s Republican-primary rivals told me. “It was legitimately impossible to get jammed up by Sean Hannity. It wasn’t even something you’d consider. It was the softball of softball interviews.”

But almost as soon as Trump announced his candidacy, in June 2015, Hannity’s reputation changed: “I think it was just the star angle. He was just wowed by Trump’s star factor more so than anything else. Sean Hannity’s the world’s biggest starfucker. It was just kind of crazy how he went from being someone who everyone tried to have at their launch events to have a full-hour puff piece to someone who people were like, Oh, we can’t really go on. We’re not gonna get a fair shake because he’s so pro-Trump.”

The article also reveals, perhaps unintentionally, just how big a hypocrite Hannity is. Nuzzi doesn’t go into it, but Hannity is doing exactly what he complained endlessly about the “Obama-mania media” doing and much, much more. It’s doubtful that any member of the media had the kind of cozy relationship with Obama that Hannity has with Trump.

In addition to their bedtime chats, the two often speak during the day, according to Nuzzi. They don’t usually talk in the morning when Trump is busy watching TV and tweeting, however.

“Generally, the feeling is that Sean is the leader of the outside kitchen cabinet,” one White House official said, echoing other staffers (current and removed). I was told by one person that Hannity “fills the political void” left by Steve Bannon, a statement Bannon seemed to agree with: “Sean Hannity understands the basic issues of economic nationalism and ‘America First’ foreign policy at a deeper level than the august staff of Jonathan Chait and the fuckin’ clowns at New York Magazine,” he said. The White House official assessed the influence of White House officials and other administration personnel as exactly equal to that of Fox News.

[…]

Hannity admits to advising Trump, but on the air, he’s repeatedly mocked suggestions that he functions as an unofficial chief of staff and criticized the “fake-news media” for not bothering to reach out to him for the truth (a spokesperson for Fox News declined multiple interview requests for this article on Hannity’s behalf).

[…]

On the phone, he and the president alternate between the “witch hunt!” and gabbing like old girlfriends about media gossip and whose show sucks and who’s getting killed in the ratings and who’s winning (Hannity, and therefore Trump) and sports and Kanye West, all of it sprinkled with a staccato fuck … fucking … fucked … fucker. “He’s not a systematic thinker at all. He’s not an ideologue,” one person who knows both men said of Hannity. “He gives tactical advice versus strategic advice.”

So what about Hannity’s relationship with Trump fixer/attorney Michael Cohen? Nuzzi suggests that Hannity’s explanation(s), that he informally sought Cohen’s advice about real estate, is all there is to it. Hannity’s a “total suck-up,” one source is quoted as saying. Another says that because Trump thinks Cohen is smart, so does Hannity.

But I’m more inclined to believe Michael Avenatti on this. On MSNBC, he and attorney Jill Wine-Banks theorized that the reason Cohen named Hannity as the third of three clients has nothing to do with legal advice but with concealing material with Hannity’s name on it. As I’ve repeatedly stated, Hannity could have both informally sought Cohen’s advice and been involved in Cohen matters that had nothing to do with being a client.

Nuzzi’s article only adds to my suspicion that that was the case.

Watch Hannity carefully parse his words about the extent of his “professional relationship” with Cohen in an Extra interview below: