One day after threatening Republican lawmakers who might support a birpartisan border security compromise, Unofficial Chief of Staff Sean Hannity suddenly gave his approval for Donald Trump to support it, so long as Trump follows a few suggestions.

Hannity’s change of heart about the border security compromise

You may recall that when the news of the agreement was announced Monday night, Hannity waved his hands around in nearly-frantic disapproval as he tried to bully Republicans out of going along with the agreement that would prevent the government from shutting down:

HANNITY: 1.3 billion? That’s not a - not even a wall, a barrier? I’m going to tell this tonight, we will get back into this tomorrow. Any Republican that supports this garbage compromise, you will have to explain.

But after a likely bedtime chat with Trump, Hannity changed his tune without explanation. Last night, Hannity announced he’d be just fine with the bill – with a couple of "ifs" that Hannity laid out for Trump to follow: taking money from elsewhere to pay for the wall Americans don’t want and that Mexico is supposed to pay for.

HANNITY: Nobody should be happy [with the compromise].

The president has every right to be angry. The so-called compromise is typical of the D.C. sewer and swamp, and its level of funding for security and safety of the American people is pathetic.

It’s almost as if lawmakers in Washington, from the comfort of their own, oh, walled homes, they don’t realize the horrors of sex trafficking, even young girls put into prostitution, human trafficking, the drug trafficking, 90 percent of our heroin comes across that southern border. It occurs every single day of every week of every month of every year. It’s almost as if they just don’t care.

Actually, it’s Hannity who looks like he doesn’t care, because this is a load of BS. Most drugs come into the country via ports of entry, not over the un-walled border. Ditto for human trafficking. So Hannity is either deliberately lying or too eager to regurgitate Trump’s rhetoric to care about doing more to prevent the very evils he claims to care about.

After this tough-on-immigration showboating, Hannity gave his blessing to the compromise:

HANNITY: Now, there is another solution, maybe even a better solution. I’m not as concerned or some other conservatives if the president signs the bill, but there are a couple of ifs. Step one, the president decides he wants to sign the compromise, which would guarantee the $1.375 billion down payment for the wall, OK, that money can be used immediately.

Now, if he takes step two, which is the president utilizing money he has identified, some $900 million, for additional construction, that is already available for the administration’s discretion. That would be about $2.3 billion, but the important third step needs to happen simultaneously. And that would be the president would need to declare a national emergency. This is the time. That is a necessity.

FACT CHECK: There is no “national emergency” at the border. The Pentagon said so and they would certainly know better than Long Island/Naples, Florida Hannity (who never served this country), more than a thousand miles away. And if there is one, why hasn’t Hannity's Beloved Birther declared it already?

Perhaps sensing that he might come under fire from his fellow conservatives, Hannity tossed off his “regular guy” hat and put on his “I’m in with the in crowd” hat. While he was at it, Hannity played a legal expert on TV.

HANNITY: And the president, I think I know him very well, telegraphed that very thing just today. We just heard him indicate a common plan that he would find the other monies, on top of whatever Congress gives him. That would allow the administration to access to billions more in wall funding.

By the way, the national emergency would be challenged, as we always see with the Democrats, a little judge shopping in California or Oregon or Hawaii, and then they’ll go to the Ninth Circuit, and then because of all of the constitutional issues involved, being number one in emergency, separation of powers, the president’s role as our commander-in-chief, I think the president is on very firm legal grounds given the national security risks that are stemming from a poor southern border.

Additionally, the president has even further authority, which the Supreme Court, I’m sure, would look at, and that would be a real law, 10 USC 284, that gives the president, in other words, the executive branch, the authority for the construction of roads and fences and the installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.

As Media Matters noted, Hannity’s counsel is in line with comments made on Fox & Friends earlier in the day. And lo and behold! Trump has apparently decided to do exactly what his Fox News cabinet has advised.

Hannity also lied about Americans’ views on immigration

After saying, “I always shoot straight with you,” Hannity announced, “The vast majority of the American people, look at the CBS News poll, they support him, 72 percent of Americans agree with the president and his policies on immigration.”

FACT CHECK: That was 72 percent of the people watching Trump’s State of the Union address, a group that was much more Republican than Americans as a whole. In reality, the majority of Americans oppose Trump’s wall.

Hannity concluded his immigration lie-a-palooza with an abortion falsehood

Before moving on, Waterboard Weasel Hannity joined the Fox News assault on a woman’s right to choose:

HANNITY: Radical socialist Democrats, they are calling walls immoral. They now advocate even for infanticide during the birth process, nine months into pregnancy.

As NewsHounds’ Priscilla has so clearly explained, no Democrats are supporting, much less advocating, for infanticide. Yet Fox News keeps allowing, and seems to encourage, this lie to be repeated over and over.

Crossposted from Newshounds