Sean Hannity and his Fox News colleagues leave Matt Gaetz for dead

[DonViejo]

Hannity campaigned with Gaetz in 2018, praising him as the Mickey Mantle of Congress

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ & ERIC HANANOKI

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ROB SAVILLO

PUBLISHED 04/07/21 4:20 PM EDT

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) owes his political rise to Fox News. Politicians gain power in the modern GOP by grabbing and holding the attention of the base, and the easiest way to do that is through its most trusted media outlet. The Florida backbencher understands this structure and gained a national profile in his first two terms by fervently supporting Donald Trump and denouncing the former president’s foes in near-constant appearances on the right-wing network. He also won the favor of Trump himself, who watches Fox regularly and appreciated the congressman’s zeal. It seems, however, that Fox has now abandoned Gaetz at his moment of greatest need.

Gaetz has been engulfed in scandal following The New York Times’ March 30 report that he has been under federal investigation for alleged sex trafficking. The congressman has spent the last week denying that he had sex with a minor or paid women of legal age for sex, declining to comment on reports that he showed nude photos of women he claimed to have had sex with to other members on the House floor, and drawing lackluster defenses from colleagues speaking on the record and descriptions of “cartoonishly scandalous” behavior anonymously. But Fox devoted a mere 45 minutes to the Gaetz saga through Tuesday -- and nearly three-quarters of that coverage came in the first 24 hours, with the network providing sparse coverage of subsequent revelations.

Perhaps the most notable absence from Gaetz’s defense is prime-time host Sean Hannity. Even as Gaetz responded to the allegations by spinning the sort of convoluted tale of deep state conspiracy and right-wing victimhood that seems tailor-made for Hannity’s program, the Fox star has seemingly left him for dead.

Gaetz is a Hannity fixture. Since August 2017, he made 127 appearances on the program, roughly 41% of the 310 interviews he gave the network overall (including a disastrous turn on Tucker Carlson Tonight to respond to the initial Times report), according to Media Matters’ database of weekday programming. Gaetz is the 11th most-frequent Hannity guest over that period, and ranks second to Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) among guests who have not served as paid Fox contributors.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/sean-hannity-and-his-fox-news-colleagues-leave-matt-gaetz-dead

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. And yet,

Trump behaved pervishly with underage girls, by his own admission, and it was never a problem.

[TheBlackAdder]

2. Burn! Burn! Trust Matt to be all soggy!

.

.

[FoxNewsSucks]

3. "... in 2018, praising him as the Mickey Mantle of Congress"

I had no idea Mickey Mantle was a giant skeevy perv.