Sean Hannity Called Hillary "President Clinton" & Twitter Lost It
A familiar pattern reemerged on Monday night, Oct. 30, during the airing of Sean Hannity's primetime show on Fox News, and it instantly became a huge topic of discussion on Twitter. That patter is simple: On a day that President Donald Trump's administration saw unflattering news make headlines, Sean Hannity devoted his show to criticizing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the lack on investigation into her "crimes." This time, however, the show's coverage was noted by a wave of tweets about Hannity calling Hillary "President Clinton," after the host mistakenly said during the airing,
This is what the media will ignore. This is what matters. These are the facts. This is where the evidence comes in. What did Hil―what did President Clinton. Or, uh, President Clinton wannabe, President Obama and key members of the administration—what did they know about the Uranium One scandal?
The host then went on to assert that a disproportionate amount of scrutiny is devoted to the Trump campaign, compared to Clinton, is proof that the country is experience a justice-related crisis.
Hannity said,
Will we have equal justice under the law? Or will America just be a banana republic, corrupt at its core? That is what is at stake tonight. America has a choice: We can have equal justice for everyone, or we can live in a country where if you have the right politics, you stand for the right left-wing positions, you can sell out your country and you can get away with it.
Hannity's talk about a crisis fell on deaf ears, though, to people who gleefully pointed out the obvious gaffe of him using the term "President Clinton."
Here are just some of the tweets that had fun at Hannity's expense.
Hannity himself acknowledged the gaffe in a tweet that boasted about his show's ratings while sarcastically remarking, "I should be fired!"
Uranium One "scandal" that Hannity has repeatedly revolved his show around refers to a deal that saw a Canadian company called Uranium purchased by a Russian company, Rosatom.
The deal gave Russians access to a large amount of uranium that could be mined in the United States. Because uranium has connotations of nuclear power — and, by extension, nuclear weapons — the deal is viewed by some to have not been in the best interest of America.
The deal attracted even further scrutiny after the New York Times reported a number of facts that prompted questions of whether Hillary and Bill Clinton benefited inappropriately during the period the transaction took place.
According to the 2015 report, the co-founders of Uranium One were donors of former President Clinton. The Times also reported that while the sale of the company to Russians was being conducted, the co-founders donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, then the Secretary of State, sat on a board that approved the sale.
For critics of Clinton, the deal is proof of corruption.
Hannity said on Monday night,
Does America have equal justice under the law? It appears tonight the answer is no. Because from everything we now know, there's one justice system for the Clintons, the left, liberals and all their cronies, and another one for everyone else in America.
However, eight other members who served as heads of departments under the Obama administration — including the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense — also approved the sale of Uranium.
In addition, the Department of Justice has not opened a criminal investigation into the nature of the sale, the way it has concerning potential ties between Russian efforts to influence the election and the Trump campaign.
That opinion hosts on Fox News spend a disproportionate amount of time focusing on the story, compared to other networks, has drawn a specific criticism that Fox indulges in delusion.
One of the people that echoed this criticism? Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state said during a dinner this past weekend,
It does strike me that, in the last few days at least, Fox News seems to think that’s where I live, in the White House. Because they spend a disproportionate amount of their time talking about impeaching me.
Hannity's slip-up isn't the first time a personality has mistakenly refered to Hillary Clinton as the president.
Just days before, as news broke that the Department of Justice's Russia investigation would result in indictments, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said during a Fox News broadcast that what people should really be focusing on are the crimes of the "Clinton administration."
