Fox News’s Sean Hannity hit back at former President Barack Obama for implying that the network pushes “propaganda.”
Obama, in his Tuesday video endorsing his former No. 2 Joe Biden for president, warned that the right-leaning network would present a major obstacle for the Democratic Party’s attempt to retake the White House in November. Although he didn’t name Fox News specifically, the implication was clear given his history with the network.
“He can’t get Fox News out of his head. He can’t. We live in his mind. He takes a shot at Fox again, me, yours truly. I live in his mind. I don’t know why, but take a look,” Hannity explained on his show later that night before airing an excerpt from the endorsement video.
“He is not talking about the real propaganda networks. We’ve been saying this for months, there are no more moderates inside the Democratic Party,” the prime-time anchor continued.
“He’s acknowledging it. Radical group, extreme, socialist, Democrats that have fully adopted the madness of Green New Deal policies from the radical left,” Hannity said. “Even in the middle of a global pandemic, former President Obama — look at that — he can’t stop attacking Fox News after all these years. We are alive and well in his mind, and for some reason, he never liked me.”
The show then aired a montage of Obama referencing Hannity at campaign events while the chyron read, “FLASHBACK: OBAMA’S ‘HANNITY’ OBSESSION.”
In his endorsement video, the former president accused Fox News of promoting “propaganda” and of having “little regard for the truth.”
“So, our country’s future hangs on this election. And it won’t be easy. The other side has a massive war chest. The other side has a propaganda network with little regard for the truth,” he said.
The relationship between Obama and Fox News during his presidency was defined early on.
“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn in a 2009 interview, then-White House communications director and now a senior campaign staffer for Biden. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
