NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Christopher Hahn is one of Fox News’ most prominent liberal voices, and he’s been sharing his viewpoints on the conservative-leaning network for nearly a decade.
Fox News is not typically associated with prominent liberal voices; only a few are regular contributors or appear as frequent guests. The network is known to have the most prominent prime-time conservative opinion shows in cable news, including Tucker Carlson Tonight, Hannity, and The Ingraham Angle. Hahn, who espouses few values in common with Fox prime-time personalities, frequently appears on all of these shows where he staunchly defends his position.
“They don’t need a progressive who’s going to be conservative,” Hahn said of his unwillingness to bend further right for a more conservative audience. Hahn, who calls himself the “aggressive progressive,” told the Washington Examiner that he goes on the conservative-leaning network to try and make both fellow on-air personalities, as well as viewers, think about what’s going on in the news.
Knowing that he won’t convince the entire audience to shift their political positions and ideologies, the former aide to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer aims to convince “1%” of them. “This country is so evenly divided politically that a 1 or 2% shift is a big thing,” he said of the possibility that his opposing viewpoints could change the minds of voters from his platform at Fox.
Hahn, 47, went on to explain that despite having differing opinions, he’s never had “anything but love” for the people who work for Fox News, and specifically pointed to his relationships with fellow network contributor Dan Bongino as well as host Judge Jeanine Pirro.
“There are fewer and fewer people willing to [go on networks with an opposing slant],” he stated. “I think you should talk to people you disagree with.”
Hahn has been on the network since making his debut back in 2010. Over the last nine years, he said going from the Obama administration to the Trump presidency was not the biggest factor in shifts the network has made during that time, rather, he pointed to Roger Ailes’s departure as the main catalyst for change.
He called Ailes a “very ideological man” and explained that there was “more consistency among the show” during his tenure as chairman and CEO of Fox News, which ended in July 2016 after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.
Hahn later expressed sadness about Shepard Smith’s departure from the network and pointed to Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum as two network anchors who could face the ire of President Trump without Smith. Wallace has already been attacked by Trump, with the president saying he liked Wallace’s father — former 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace more.
His two most memorable moments on the network both came earlier this fall on back-to-back nights. On Sept. 23, Hahn appeared on The Story with Martha MacCallum alongside the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles to debate the climate change plan and activism of Greta Thunberg, 16. Hahn lost his composure when Knowles called the teenager, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s and has struggled with anxiety and depression, “mentally ill.”
Hahn told the Washington Examiner that he felt defensive about Thunberg because one of his two children is around the same age.
The next night he appeared on The Ingraham Angle with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Andy McCarthy, a network contributor. Giuliani and Hahn exchanged angry words towards one another. Hahn felt like he was quoting the former New York City mayor, while Giuliani felt as those Hahn was misrepresenting his statements.
During the testy exchange, Hahn mentioned that he and Giuliani used to work close to each other in NYC did so on 9/11. He told Giuliani that he was making him “sad,” and it “makes all New Yorkers sad.”
“I’m not rooting for [Giuliani] to go to jail. I hope he did nothing wrong. It appears to me that he is mixed up in something very bad,” he told the Washington Examiner slightly a month after that segment took place. He also said he was “very disturbed by Giuliani’s behavior” and added that the former mayor would’ve had a bridge named after him in the city after his death had he not become involved with the president.
