Sean Hannity gets his comeuppance from a guest on his own show
Sean Hannity has been one of the most reliable purveyors of misinformation on the right for the last two decades – sometimes even with deadly results as he parroted a number of conspiracies and blatant lies about COVID at the height of the pandemic. He was also one of the earliest right-wing pundits to fawn over Vladimir Putin, so it’s hardly a surprise that he’s still pushing propaganda from Russia to a large audience on his nightly Fox News program.
On Wednesday night, however, things didn’t quite go according to plan. Hannity decided to amplify a QAnon conspiracy about secret biolabs in Ukraine being run by Anthony Fauci. It should be enough of a red flag that Russia and QAnon are using the same talking points about Ukraine. Hannity brought on correspondent Jennifer Griffin as an expert to back up his claim that the purpose of these biolabs found in Ukraine was unclear.
Griffin wasn’t having it though. There’s been reports that Russia may try to concoct a false flag incident involving a chemical or biological attack that they will try to then blame on Ukraine to justify amplifying the war – and Griffin shot down Hannity accordingly, in front of a Trumper heavy audience, putting him on notice that the labs in question are relics of the Soviet era and the U.S. has been heavily involved in working with the Ukrainian government to sterilize those labs.
Essentially, the point Griffin made is why is Hannity yet again willing to believe the Russians over intelligence brought from the Pentagon, particularly when this isn’t even the first time the Russians have concocted a conspiracy involving bioweapons? The GOP might be doing all it can to scrub its love of the Kremlin from their image but Wednesday’s broadcast makes it clear that they’re not even close to renouncing Putin or his bidding, as much as they want us to think otherwise.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making