CNN’s Stelter and Acosta Bash Hannity Over Jan. 6 Texts: ‘If I Were a Sean Hannity Fan Club Member, I’d Want My Money Back’
CNN’s Jim Acosta and Brian Stelter took a swing at Fox News host Sean Hannity on Saturday, accusing him of saying different things about Jan. 6 in private versus on-air.
The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 released more text messages between Hannity and former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, in which he wrote “no more stolen election talk” as part of a five-point plan for dealing with former President Donald Trump after Jan. 6.
Texts between Hannity and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were previously revealed by the committee.
“It seems like everything that we learn that’s new about how much these Fox personalities and hosts were intertwined with people inside the White House, it just gets more and more remarkable,” Acosta said. “And I guess my question is do the viewers of Fox not know about this? Because it seems me that would cut, I mean, to the core of a very important issue in how, you know, so many of them just frauds.”
“I’ve known Hannity for 15 years, we used to be buddies,” Stelter replied. “Let’s just pretend I’m the head of the Sean Hannity fan club, okay? If I were the head of the Sean Hannity fan club, I’d be really offended because he has kept his fans in the dark.”
Stelter continued, claiming Hannity has tried “to be the guardrails, try to stop Trump from destroying everything, but on-air, he’s letting his guests crash the car.”
“He never told the audience about what he was saying in private, he never told the audience he was conspiring with Kayleigh McEnany to try to control Trump,” Stelter said. “So if I were a Sean Hannity fan club member, I’d want my money back. I would be ticked off.”
The Jan. 6 committee sought information from both Hannity and McEnany, the latter of whom appeared before the panel virtually on Jan. 12.
Hannity previously rebuked committee member Liz Cheney (R-WY) for publicly reading text messages he sent Meadows, calling it “a weak attempt to smear yours truly.”
“I said to Mark Meadows the exact same thing I was saying live on the radio at that time and on TV that night on January 6th and well beyond January 6th,” he said. “And by the way, where is the outrage in the media over my private text messages being released again publicly? Do we believe in privacy in this country? Apparently not.”
Acosta then brought up Hannity’s recent interview with the former president, claiming that “he’s a Trump adviser all over again.”
“He’s trying to figure out a way to get Trump back into the Oval Office and yet he was texting to Kayleigh McEnany that we’ve got to keep the crazies away from him and that the 25th Amendment is real,” Acosta said.
“It shows how far Hannity has fallen, and it also shows how little Trump respects Hannity,” Stelter said.
Watch above, via CNN
