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Did Hannity just say Trump was never qualified to be president? [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-10-13  

Fox News host Sean Hannity has long been one of Donald Trump’s biggest boosters. In 2018, The Washington Post reported on the almost daily phone calls between the two men. In 2022, the House select committee on the Jan. 6 riot revealed text messages in which Hannity offered advice to Trump and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. So an exchange between Hannity and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Thursday night in which Hannity questioned Ramaswamy’s qualification to be president is eyebrow-raising, to say the least.

Hannity and Ramaswamy both bully their way through conversations, talking over people until they can dominate the moment, so as they got into it, a transcript of the conversation would be one “crosstalk” note after another, with occasional words breaking through. This is two intensely unlikeable people being unlikeable toward each other.

But because it’s Hannity’s show, he gets the last word. When Ramaswamy wouldn’t shut up, Hannity got that last word by cutting away and giving himself the floor, uninterruptible. “I think it’s asinine to think somebody that worked in the defense industry should not be qualified to be president,” he said. “I think people that never held public office, like you, maybe they’re not qualified to be president.”

x Hannity, after dumping Vivek Ramaswamy following a VERY heated exchange: "I think people who never held public office, like you, maybe they’re not qualified to be president!"



Yes, Hannity actually said that. pic.twitter.com/Eh0pgTmOWp — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 13, 2023

I’m sorry, but what? It’s something special to hear Hannity say that, even if you know that hypocrisy never matters to people like him.

That “defense industry” comment comes from the fact that when the conversation broke down, they were ostensibly talking about Ramaswamy’s recent comments that some Republicans are showing “selective moral outrage” over the Hamas attacks on Israel—outrage that Ramaswamy suggested is due to “financial and corrupting influences.” So Hannity was saying that “somebody that worked in the defense industry” is definitely qualified to be president—Ramaswamy later tweeted, “This interview was sponsored by @NikkiHaley”—while someone “that never held public office, like you, maybe they’re not qualified to be president.”

Of course, you know who else ran for president despite never having held public office? Hannity’s favorite: Donald Trump. And even if Hannity can’t see it, Ramaswamy is the most Trumpy of non-Trump candidates. Through the crosstalk of this exchange, Hannity was assailing Ramaswamy because “you [Ramaswamy] go on these shows, people quote your exact words, and you deny your own words.” That’s a Trump play, too.

There we go: Hannity thinks it’s a problem when candidates deny that they said what they said, and he thinks people who haven’t held public office aren’t qualified to be president. That sounds an awful lot like Hannity, in his heart of hearts, doesn’t think Trump was qualified. But because he’s Sean Hannity, hard-right Fox News personality, he doesn’t care when it comes to his buddy Donald.

Sign the petition: Hold Trump accountable without delay.

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