Sean Patrick Hannity was born on December 30,1961 and is an American talk show host, conservative political commentator, and author.
101 Facts About Sean Hannity
Sean Hannity is the host of The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has hosted a commentary program, Hannity, on Fox News, since 2009.
Sean Hannity later joined WVNN in Athens, Alabama and shortly afterward, WGST in Atlanta.
Sean Hannity has received several awards and honors, including an honorary degree from Liberty University.
Sean Hannity has written three New York Times best-selling books: Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism; Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism; and Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda, and released a fourth, Live Free or Die, in 2020.
Sean Hannity has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, such as "birtherism", claims regarding the murder of Seth Rich, and falsehoods about Hillary Clinton's health.
Sean Hannity was an early supporter of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Sean Hannity often acted as an unofficial spokesman for the president, criticizing the media and attacking Robert Mueller's inquiry into Russian interference in Trump's election.
Sean Hannity reportedly spoke to Trump on the phone most weeknights.
Sean Hannity spoke at the president's lectern during a Trump rally, and White House advisors characterized him as the "shadow" chief of staff.
Sean Hannity was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lillian and Hugh Sean Hannity.
Sean Hannity was the youngest of four siblings and the only boy.
Sean Hannity grew up in Franklin Square, New York on Long Island.
Sean Hannity's parents were initially supporters of President John F Kennedy, eventually growing more Republican in their views as time went on, though they resisted being overtly political at home.
Sean Hannity attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Hempstead, New York and St Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale, New York.
Sean Hannity attended New York University and Adelphi University, but did not graduate from either.
In 1982, Sean Hannity started a house-painting business and a few years later, worked as a building contractor in Santa Barbara, California.
Sean Hannity hosted his first talk radio show in 1989 at the volunteer college station at UC Santa Barbara, KCSB-FM, while working as a general contractor.
Sean Hannity's weekly show on KCSB was canceled after less than a year after a controversy.
Later that year, Sean Hannity left WGST for New York, where WABC had him substitute for their afternoon drive time host during Christmas week.
Sean Hannity was on WABC's afternoon time slot from January 1998.
Sean Hannity's radio program is a conservative political talk show that features Sean Hannity's opinions and ideology related to current issues and politicians.
The Sean Hannity Show began national syndication on September 10,2001, on more than five hundred stations nationwide.
In 2004, Sean Hannity signed a $25million five-year contract extension with ABC Radio to continue the show until 2009.
In June 2007, ABC Radio was sold to Citadel Communications and in the summer of 2008, Sean Hannity was signed for a $100million five-year contract.
Sean Hannity was ranked No 2 in Talkers Magazine's 2017 Heavy Hundred and was listed as No 72 on Forbes' "Celebrity 100" list in 2013.
Sean Hannity signed a long-term contract to remain with Premiere Networks in September 2013.
At the beginning of 2014, Sean Hannity signed contracts to air on several Salem Communications stations including WDTK Detroit, WIND Chicago, WWRC Washington, DC, and KSKY Dallas.
Sean Hannity presented the conservative point of view with Colmes providing the liberal viewpoint.
Sean Hannity said if the Catholic Church were to excommunicate him over his support for contraception, he would join Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church.
In January 2007, Sean Hannity began a new Sunday night television show on Fox News, Sean Hannity's America.
Sean Hannity has said he is too busy to write many books, and dictated a lot of his own two books into a tape recorder while driving in to do his radio show.
Sean Hannity wrote his third book, Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda, which was released by HarperCollins in March 2010.
In 2020, Sean Hannity released his fourth book, Live Free or Die.
From 2003 until 2010, Sean Hannity hosted country music-themed "Freedom Concerts" to raise money for charity.
The FTC complaint alleges that Sean Hannity was "falsely promoting that all concert proceeds would be donated to a scholarship fund for the children of those killed or wounded in war".
Sean Hannity has had cameo appearances in film and television, having a brief voiceover in The Siege as an unseen reporter, and appearing in Atlas Shrugged: Part II and the second season of House of Cards as himself.
Sean Hannity executive produced and appeared in the 2017 film Let There Be Light, which stars Kevin Sorbo.
Sean Hannity purchased some of the homes with the help of loans from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and most are in working-class neighborhoods.
Sean Hannity often promotes conspiracy theories without explicitly endorsing them, unlike Alex Jones.
The New Yorker wrote in 2019 that Sean Hannity had "[spewed] baseless conspiracy theories with impunity".
Trump attacked the Gold Star father, and Sean Hannity stood by him.
Sean Hannity additionally defended the Trump administration's false claim that Trump's inauguration crowd was the biggest ever.
Sean Hannity has been criticized as being overly favorable to the candidacy of Donald Trump, and granting Trump more airtime than other presidential candidates during the 2016 primaries.
Sean Hannity admitted to favoring Republican candidates, though without indicating a preference for Donald Trump over Ted Cruz.
Jim Rutenberg commented in August 2016 that Sean Hannity is "not only Mr Trump's biggest media booster; he veers into the role of adviser," citing sources who said Sean Hannity spent months offering suggestions to Trump and his campaign on strategy and messaging.
Sean Hannity has feuded with several conservatives who oppose Trump, including National Reviews Jonah Goldberg, Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist Bret Stephens, and National Review editor Rich Lowry.
Sean Hannity repeatedly claimed that Clinton had very serious medical problems and that the media was covering them up.
Sean Hannity misrepresented photos of Clinton to give the impression that she had secret medical problems.
Sean Hannity shared a photo from the fake news site Gateway Pundit and falsely claimed that it showed her Secret Service agent holding a diazepam pen intended to treat seizures, when he in fact was holding a small flashlight.
Sean Hannity booked doctors on his show to discuss Clinton's health; although these people had never personally examined Clinton, they made alarmist statements about her state of health which turned out to be false.
At one point, Sean Hannity promoted an unsubstantiated report that Clinton had been drunk at a rally; at another point, he suggested that Clinton was drunk and that her campaign needed to "sober her up".
Sean Hannity described the circumstances regarding Obama's birth certificate as "odd".
Sean Hannity defended and promoted those who questioned Obama's citizenship of the US, such as Donald Trump.
Sean Hannity invited Trump to his show while Trump was a leader in the birther movement; during an interview with Sean Hannity, Trump said Obama "could have easily have come from Kenya, or someplace".
In May 2017, Sean Hannity became a prominent promoter of the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party had a DNC staffer killed.
Sean Hannity came under criticism during the 2016 presidential election for false claims about election rigging during interviews.
Sean Hannity responded to this by citing Mitt Romney's failure in the 2012 United States presidential election to obtain any votes in 59 of 1,687 Philadelphia voting districts as proof of election rigging.
In 2022, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack is investigating what Sean Hannity may have known in advance.
The Washington Post reported in May 2022 that Sean Hannity participated in a conference call days after the 2020 presidential election that focused on strategies for challenging the legitimacy of the vote.
Sean Hannity has advocated the QAnon and "deep state" conspiracy theories.
Sean Hannity has described the deep state as a "Shadow Government" and "Deep state swamp of Obama holdovers and DC lifers".
Later that month, Sean Hannity said NBC News was part of the deep state.
Sean Hannity criticized the Obama administration for failing to apprehend Assange.
In 2016, after Wikileaks published leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee, Sean Hannity praised Assange for showing "how corrupt, dishonest and phony our government is".
In February 2017, Sean Hannity retweeted a WikiLeaks tweet linking to an article by the conspiracy website Gateway Pundit, claiming that John McCain was a "globalist war criminal".
In May 2017, Sean Hannity made an offer to Assange to guest host his Fox News TV show.
Sean Hannity developed a close relationship with Trump during the election and has become even closer during his presidency.
Sean Hannity stirred controversy in April 2018 when it was revealed that he shared a lawyer, Michael Cohen, with Trump.
Lastly, Sean Hannity tweeted that his discussions with Cohen were "almost exclusively" about real estate.
In June 2019, Sean Hannity expressed outrage at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's comment that she would like to see Trump "in prison".
Sean Hannity played the most important role in persuading Trump to pardon the convicted murderer and war criminal Clint Lorance.
Sean Hannity has expressed skepticism of the US intelligence community's view that Russia hacked the Democratic National Convention's emails during the 2016 election and has promoted various conspiracy theories.
Sean Hannity has described the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, as well as James Comey's tenure as FBI Director, as "one giant incestuous circle of corruption".
Sean Hannity asserted that there were three connected "Deep State crime families" actively "trying to take down the president".
In March 2018, Sean Hannity attacked Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying his career was "anything but impeccable".
Sean Hannity said Mueller was friends with former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and that he "cannot be expected to honestly investigate scandals that his friends are directly involved in".
Sean Hannity later asserted that his action was not pre-planned, and Fox News stated it "does not condone any talent participating in campaign events".
Sean Hannity claimed that Mueller had been involved in the corrupt dealings of several FBI agents in connection with Boston, Massachusetts crime boss Whitey Bulger.
The federal judge who presided over a lawsuit concerning the corrupt dealings said Sean Hannity's claims were unsubstantiated and that Mueller was never accused of any wrongdoing nor even mentioned during the proceedings.
In June 2018, after reports that Mueller's probe had asked witnesses to turn their personal phones over to investigators for examination, Sean Hannity sarcastically suggested on air to the witnesses that they "follow Hillary Clinton's lead" and destroy their personal phones so they cannot be examined.
In May 2019, after Mueller gave a statement saying the Special Counsel investigation did not exonerate Trump of crimes, Sean Hannity said Mueller was "basically full of crap" and did not know the law.
In May 2017, Sean Hannity paid a tribute to Ailes after he died.
Sean Hannity called AIDS a "gay disease" and said the media was hiding salient information from the public.
In 2017, Sean Hannity said he regretted the comments and that they were "ignorant and embarrassing".
Sean Hannity opposed amnesty for undocumented immigrants; however, in 2012 he said he had evolved on the issue and favored a "pathway to citizenship".
Sean Hannity left the Catholic Church in 2019, citing "too much institutionalized corruption".
Sean Hannity has warned of sharia law coming to the United States.
Sean Hannity opposed the building of Park51, a mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site.
Sean Hannity promoted the idea of "Islamic training camps right here in America", which were based on an unsubstantiated "documentary" by the Christian Action Network.
In 2006, Sean Hannity was critical of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to US Congress, being sworn into office with an oath on a Quran.
In 2009, Sean Hannity said he supported enhanced interrogation, a euphemism for torture.
In 2017, Sean Hannity continued to advocate for waterboarding, raising the example of using it against a kidnapper.
Sean Hannity frequently invites critics of climate science onto his shows.
Sean Hannity promoted the falsehood that the Affordable Care Act would create so-called "death panels".
For instance, Sean Hannity falsely alleged several times that Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus had said Social Security could be "insolvent in two years" due to the Affordable Care Act.
In June 2019, Sean Hannity called on Trump to "bomb the hell of out Iran" after Iran shot down a US drone.
From 2015 into 2018, Fox News broadcast extensive coverage of an alleged scandal surrounding the sale of Uranium One to Russian interests, which Sean Hannity characterized as "one of the biggest scandals in American history".
In July 2021, on live television, Sean Hannity encouraged the audience to consider vaccination.
Sean Hannity met Jill Rhodes in 1991 when he worked at WVNN in Huntsville, Alabama and she was a political columnist for the Huntsville Times.
Sean Hannity has two children from his marriage to Rhodes: a son, Patrick, born in 1998, and daughter, Merri, born in 2001.