- A new book describes private conversations that Fox News host Sean Hannity had with friends, in which he expressed anger over what he heard from President Donald Trump.
- “Sometime in the Trump age, Hannity gained weight and sprang up unreasonably, which some members of his inner circle blamed on Trump-related stress,” Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, wrote in “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, “set to be published next week.
- The book – a piece of which was published Thursday by Vanity Fair – says Hannity told a colleague, “If you heard what I heard, you would also take up arms.”
- “I can barely get a word in,” Hannity told another confidant about his talks with Trump, Stelter wrote.
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Opinion host Sean Hannity, Fox News, looked forward to an escape from President Donald Trump’s monuments over the phone early, CNN’s new book Brian Stelter reports.
“Sometime in the Trump age, Hannity gained weight and sprang up incessantly, which some members of his inner circle blamed on Trump-related stress,” Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, wrote in his new book, “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, “set to be published by Simon & Schuster on Tuesday.
The book – a piece of which was published in Vanity Fair on Thursday – says Hannity told a colleague, “If you heard what I heard, you would also take up arms.”
Stelter said he speaks to more than 140 employees at Fox News and 180 former employees and people “with direct ties to the network” for the book.
The book focuses on Trump’s relationship with Hannity – ‘the’ shadow president of the president ‘, as he was known around the White House,’ Stelter wrote.
The access that Hannity had enjoyed also came with some downsides, Stelter sources said.
“Hannity advised Trump at all hours of the day; one of his confidants said the president treated Hannity like Melania, a woman in a sexual marriage,” he wrote. “He probably treated Hannity better than Melania.”
For all his coverage of the pro-Trump on his 21-hour show, Hannity, the longest-serving Fox News anchor, has private grip on the president, the book says.
“‘Hannity would tell you, off-off the record, that Trump is a bats — crazy person,’ ‘one of his colleagues said,’ Stelter wrote, adding that another friend told him, ‘Hannity has opposed told me more than once, ‘he’s crazy.’ “
Hannity also told a colleague that in his conversations with Trump, “I barely get a word,” the book says.
Trump, who often programs Fox News live, would also talk to Hannity as a fan.
“Trump was just like the rest of Hannity’s viewers: He wanted more of Gregg Jarrett on the show, more of Dan Bongino, more of Newt Gingrich – the deadliest frogs possible,” Stelter wrote.
