Hannity told me his removal was “deserved”; in retrospect, he said, his statements were “ignorant and embarrassing.” His views on same-sex marriage, he stressed, were now “libertarian,” and he has gay friends. “The worst thing you can do to Sean Hannity,” Shine told me, “is remind him of his first day.” Hannity was stiff and “petrified,” in his own recollection, prone to tensing up in front of the camera. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyWhen Colmes left “Hannity & Colmes” in 2009, the program was rebranded as just “Hannity,” and dressed up in American-flag-inspired graphics. The Fox C.E.O., Hannity told me, “was a father figure,” and in 2016, Hannity vociferously defended his boss in the face of sexual-harassment allegations. “I say this just very objectively: I thought the question was patently unfair,” Hannity told me.

Source: New York Times November 28, 2017 09:56 UTC