How fake is Fox News host Sean Hannity on GOP Senate candidate Kathy Barnette's viability?
Hannity gets *** three stars for fake news
On May 13 Sean Hannity tweeted, “Kathy Barnette cannot win a general election in PA.” And he posted a video of his Fox News commentary from earlier in the week about the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania.
Hannity said in 2020 Barnette “was not a serious candidate” in her Philadelphia area congressional race because she lost to the incumbent Democrat by 19 points. But Barnette was 8 points closer than the previous Republican candidate in her district. In 2018 that same Democrat was not an incumbent and defeated the Republican candidate by 27 points.
Hannity said it’s “very disturbing” Barnette “makes no distinction between Islam and radical Islam. She wants to cancel the whole religion.” He displayed a headline from Business Insider that said Barnette “has called for banning Islam in America.” Hannity said, “Trashing an entire religion? I don’t think that’s going to get anybody elected to any office anywhere and it will hurt her in a statewide election.”
It seems hypocritical for Hannity to eschew Barnette for that reason, considering his unwavering support for Donald Trump, who in December 2015 called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Trump won the state of Pennsylvania in 2016.
Hannity criticized a Barnette tweet from July 2016 that seemed to imply Islamic terrorists want Democrats to win elections in America because Democrats make it easier for them to kill Americans. But in January 2017 RealClearPolitics reported Hannity said, “Democrats, overpaid celebrities, the mainstream media that are so lazy, they are willing to endanger your lives…The next time a radical Islamist from abroad yells Allahu akbar and kills innocent Americans, you will have blood on your hands!”
Hannity then played an anti-Barnette campaign commercial that stated Barnette “wants to build a statue of Barack Obama right next to the one of Abraham Lincoln on Capitol Hill.” Why would Hannity be very disturbed that Barnette, a black American, wanted to build a statue of the first black president next to the president who freed black Americans from slavery?
Hannity criticized Barnette’s public misgivings about candidate Donald Trump before he won the Republican nomination for president in 2016. He said she has “holes in her resume,” including work as an adjunct professor and military veteran.
On May 11 Jack Posobiec tweeted, “Kathy Barnette has just sent me her photos of her military records, both Army Reserve and National Guard.”
On May 13 Todd Starnes tweeted, “Just spoke with the head of communications and marketing at Judson University in Illinois. She confirmed that @Kathy4Truth was an adjunct at the school. Perhaps folks should consider fact-checking before slinging mud.”
Barnette posted answers to other questions about her military record, education history, work history and residency to her Twitter account.
Republican activists like Richard Grenell, former Acting Director of National Intelligence under President Trump, have also spread fabrications about Barnette. Grenell tried to portray her as a BLM supporter and advocate for defunding police. But the tweet he tried using to do that was tied to a video in which Barnette blamed BLM for the increase in black victims of violence and in which she said, “Defunding the police is stupid people!”
As shown in another video clip he tweeted, Hannity interviewed former Trump chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and Mark Meadows and said Barnette is “clearly unelectable” and “nobody vetted her.” Priebus agreed and denigrated Barnette. Meadows said, “The people of Pennsylvania will do their own vetting… Never underestimate the wisdom of voters.”