Fox News host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity attempted to make the argument Tuesday night that the president’s infamous “do us a favor though” line during his July 25 call to the Ukrainian president was nothing more than Trump using a favorite go-to phrase.
Reacting to the bombshell congressional testimony of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor that revealed Trump made military aid contingent on the Ukrainian president publicly pledging to investigate the Bidens and the 2016 election, Hannity groused about the House Democrats’ “Soviet-style” hearings before claiming the president did nothing wrong.
“No quid pro quo, whatsoever,” Hannity said. “Now where is the crime here? Where? The favor, ‘I need a favor.’ It has nothing to do with Creepy, Sleepy, Crazy, Uncle Joe Biden, and nothing to do with the 2020 elections!”
ADVERTISEMENT
Claiming that there was proof that Ukrainian officials tried to help Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton win in 2016, Hannity went on to say Americans “should all be thanking President Trump for getting to the bottom of the DNC colluding with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 elections to help Hillary.”
Hannity then circled back to Trump’s Ukraine call and his use of the phrase “do us a favor though” before discussing the Bidens and CrowdStrike server conspiracy.
“And let’s be clear, the term ‘do us a favor’? Well, we all have go-to phrases,” Hannity, described as Trump’s shadow chief of staff, said. “You know, I say, ‘you know,’ a lot. The president uses them all the time. Kind of a verbal aside.”
The Fox News star proceeded to play a clip of Trump uttering the word “favor” a few times, claiming this proved his point.
“It’s like ‘big league” for the president,” he added, mentioning a well-known (and much-debated) catchphrase of the president’s.
“So to recap,” Hannity concluded. “The term “do me a favor,” that’s a phrase the president uses, we’ve identified, hundreds of times.”