Fox News host Sean Hannity tried multiple times on Wednesday to ridicule Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for supposedly pandering to Hispanic voters by playing the pop smash “Despacito,” only to undercut his own attempts with unforced errors each time.
Amid concerns that Biden is hemorrhaging support among Hispanic voters, especially in Florida, the former vice president made his first campaign appearance in the Sunshine State on Tuesday. Marking the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, Biden kicked off his speech by firing up “Despacito” on his phone, even dancing along to it a bit.
The moment quickly went viral, with critics quickly pouncing and accusing the presidential hopeful of blatantly pandering to Hispanic voters. Biden supporters, meanwhile, fired back that Luis Fonsi, the 2017 hit’s singer and writer, introduced Biden at the event and even encouraged the candidate to “dance a little bit” after playing the song.
ADVERTISEMENT
During Hannity’s radio program on Wednesday, first highlighted by former Daily Beast video editor Timothy Burke, the Fox News host—an informal adviser and confidant of President Donald Trump—teased an upcoming segment about the viral moment. Unfortunately, he got one little thing wrong.
“I’ll play a montage—they’re going to isolate this Ricky Martin song ‘Despacito,’” Hannity declared. “You know, my staff is having too much fun today and they’re like, ‘You know what the song is, right?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know. It’s Ricky Martin!’”
Hannity then spoke at length about how Martin is an “incredible performer” who had the “entire culture” loving his music and then “stayed out of the public eye for a while,” though the Fox host “had no idea why.” (Paradoxically, Martin was also at the Biden event in Florida, alongside Fonsi and actress Eva Longoria.)
Hours later, the pro-Trump star kicked off his Fox News primetime program by once again looking to ridicule Biden over the moment—and once again flubbing it.
“Be prepared to crawl out of your skin because yesterday Joe Biden was trying so hard to pander for Hispanic Americans to vote for him in Florida that he actually started a speech by playing, well, it’s a song called ‘Despacito’ which is on his cellphone,” he exclaimed. “It’s a well known song and some great singers there.”
Despite properly pronouncing the song title that afternoon, this time around the Fox host pronounced it as “Duh-SPAH-seh-toe.”
Hannity quickly corrected himself after playing a clip of Biden, accurately pronouncing “Despacito” and informing his viewers that he “actually studied español” before tossing out a few Spanish words as proof.
Hannity wasn’t the only one to get tripped up while trying to own Biden over the awkward moment. In two separate instances, Trump tweeted a fake video of Biden—using footage of him from the Florida event—bopping along to N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police.” Twitter eventually tagged the video the president shares as “manipulated media.”
