The misery of 2016 has recently endeared left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore to Sean Hannity. Wednesday night, the Fox News host heaped rare praise on the erstwhile anti-Bush activist during his radio show.
Plugging his “working class roots,” Hannity praised the activist’s new documentary, “Michael Moore in Trumpland”, which predicts victory for the presidential candidate. Stopping just short of labeling him a great American, an incredulous Hannity told his listeners that he couldn’t “believe I’m saying this [but] Michael Moore gets it.”
But while populism has made these strange bedfellows, there was a time before Trump when the two weren’t nearly as close.
Before he handed over his microphone to the nominee, Hannity loved to loath the hefty demonstrator. His 13 million listeners regularly heard about Moore, who Hannity would often dismiss as a “narcissistic LA elite” and regularly snub as “fat slob.”
In one recent and memorable 2015 episode of his Fox News show, Hannity even laughed at the idea of strangling Moore (or perhaps just putting him into a non-lethal sleeper hold) after he criticized the film, “American Sniper.” The television personality quipped with veterans about the idea of the film’s antagonist, deceased Navy Seal Chris Kyle, using his “choke-out skills” on the author.
“If Chris was still walking around today and was with Michael Moore, he would be glad to put Michael Moore to sleep,” Jason Redman quipped.
“Wouldn’t take that long,” Hannity shot back, “if he could get his arm around his neck!”
Moore hasn’t always been cordial with Hannity, either. During a publicity tour in 2009, the director came on Hannity’s television show to promote his film, “Capitalism, a Love Story.” Instead Moore pushed Hannity on whether the host was a good Christian and went to church.
Somewhat heated back and forths aren’t unusual for pundits on opposite sides of the political spectrum. But it illustrates how far Hannity will go in order to win new Trump disciples during the last days of the campaign.
Both agree that a globalist elite created Trump. Both believe a populist wave will carry him to victory. While Hannity anticipates and Moore dreads that outcome, the duo may have helped jump start the Republican nominee’s ailing campaign.
Wednesday night, Trump tweeted a link to Moore’s movie trailer, predicting his victory. Making the rounds on Twitter, it has racked up nearly 800,000 views.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
