After Politico reported Monday night on a draft opinion indicating the Supreme Court is moving toward overturning Roe v. Wade, two Fox News contributors dubbed the leak of that draft to the press—which is indeed unprecedented—an “insurrection” against the court.
Sean Hannity spent most of his primetime hour reacting to the report, first turning to Fox colleague and lawyer Shannon Bream, then moderating a three-man panel that included Fox contributors Ari Fleischer and Mike Huckabee.
“Make no mistake, Sean. This is an insurrection against the Supreme Court,” Fleischer, who served as White House press secretary for the George W. Bush administration, said.
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“I’ve already seen people on the left celebrating this leaker, calling him brave, trying to throw a Hail Mary to stop the ruling from being issued,” Fleischer continued. “The Supreme Court seemed to be the last institution standing that had internal integrity. This is an insurrection against the court and it needs to be found who did it and whatever legal means can be taken against them needs to be taken.”
Hannity responded by calling Fleischer’s comments “powerful,” then turned to Huckabee for his input.
“I am so glad that Ari used the term ‘insurrection.’ That’s exactly what it is,” the former Arkansas governor said. Huckabee then made a direct comparison to the Jan. 6 insurrection, which resulted in several deaths.
“This is an insurrection not by some guy from some state who got hot under the collar and went to D.C. and got overheated at a rally,” Huckabee said, downplaying the Capitol riot. “This is an insurrection by a person who is paid for by the taxpayers and who has a duty under his particular job and employment to keep his mouth shut, and he didn’t do it. So it’s an egregious form, if you will, of insurrection, and I hope that everyone will use that term, because if what happened Jan. 6 was an insurrection, this absolutely is an insurrection.”
Hannity neither agreed nor disagreed but again called those words “powerful.” And Fleischer’s and Huckabee’s general message was repeated later that night on Fox, when GOP lawyer Harmeet Dhillon called the Politico report an “insurrection-level event.”
