Sean Hannity has endorsed Florida Trump-worshipper Ron DeSantis for governor, joined the rest of Fox News in giving him oodles of free air time and now the host who hilariously claims to “always be fair and balanced” will actually be campaigning with DeSantis.

As Ellen noted in May, Fox has gotten behind DeSantis to the tune of more than $7 million in free airtime. That’s not counting the invaluable endorsements of Hannity and host Laura Ingraham.

DeSantis is such a zealous opponent of the Russia investigation, it leads me to wonder what he’s so afraid it might uncover. Naturally, however, his obstructionist tactics on Mueller, coupled with demands to investigate Democrats Hillary Clinton and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has made him a hero to Trump ... and to Fox News.

A devastating report by Politico found that “Since announcing his bid in January, DeSantis has been given frequent access to Fox’s best real estate — including Fox & Friends, Laura Ingraham, and the Hannity show — or been prominently mentioned across the network roughly 100 times, according to TV Eyes, a television monitoring service.”

DeSantis’ cohort, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a fellow Floridian and Trump-worshipping Fox fave (who is running for re-election) is also scheduled to appear with Hannity at each event. Media Matters has the details:

The right-wing host is scheduled to do three campaign events on July 2 with DeSantis and Gaetz, who is a “special guest.” Tickets for the events are free.

Both DeSantis and Gaetz are frequent guests on Fox News and have integrated the network into their respective campaigns.

Gaetz posted a June 27 promotional video for one of the stops that featured Hannity praising Gaetz on his Fox News program. The video was paid for by Gaetz’s congressional campaign. In the past, Fox News objected to a political campaign that used network footage in an advertisement. (Update: The Gaetz campaign has removed the video from its Facebook post. Media Matters downloaded the video before this piece went live; the video can be found here.) 

A lot has been said about the Foxification of the Trump administration. But this is a reminder that the network also plays a disturbing role in the Republican party at large.