Sean Hannity baselessly blamed Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters for a shooting in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland Thursday. Yet Hannity and his beloved Donald Trump, not Waters, have a long history of inflammatory rhetoric attacking the press.

To be clear, we don’t know yet who the shooter is nor the motive but Hannity doesn’t need no stinking facts to use tragedy for political gain. Hannity even smeared the media while he was at it.

Media Matters caught Hannity's remarks on his radio show (my emphases added):

HANNITY: It's so sad that there are so many sick, demented, and evil people in this world. It really is sad. You know, imagine you go to work and this is what you're dealing with today, some crazy person comes in -- and I'm not turning this into a gun debate, I know that's where the media will be in 30 seconds from now. That's not it. You know, as I've always said, I mean honestly -- I've been saying now for days that something horrible was going to happen because of the rhetoric. Really [Rep.] Maxine [Waters]? You want people to create -- "call your friends, get in their faces," and Obama said that, too. "Get in their faces, call them out, call your friends, get protesters, follow them into restaurants and shopping malls," and wherever else she said.

But it is Hannity’s bedtime BFF, Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called the press “the enemy of the American people.” Two weeks ago, just after returning from his meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, Trump suggested CNN and NBC are “Our Country’s biggest enemy.”

Hannity has been an eager helpmate in Trump’s demonization.

When Trump tweeted a mock video of himself beating up someone labeled “CNN,” Hannity cheered:

This is a typical example of how Hannity talks about the media these days:

HANNITY: The media has been corrupt and lying to you, the America people. At the end of the day they are nothing but propagandist, an extension of the Democratic Party and tin foil hat conspiracy theorists that are so pathologically locked in their hate of President Trump they don't know any better at this point.

Monday night, Hannity was delighted by a crowd shouting taunts at CNN reporter Jim Acosta. “Best newscast they ever did, actually," Hannity said.

I wonder how amused Hannity would be if a crowd of liberals shouted taunts at him that way.

But yeah, I’m sure the Maryland shooter got the idea from Waters, who never said anything attacking the press or endorsing violence. Unlike Hannity’s beloved.

Listen to Hannity blame Waters for the Maryland newsroom shooting above, from the June 28, 2018 The Sean Hannity Show, via Media Matters.

Originally posted at NewsHounds.us

Editor's Update:

Maxine Waters has cancelled appearances in Texas and Alabama due to "one very serious death threat" made against her.