Hannity Celebrates Trump Crowd Heckling Jim Acosta With ‘CNN Sucks’: ‘They’re Not Wrong’

Sean Hannity just can’t quit CNN.

Since Donald Trump labeled the cable news network “Fake News,” the Fox News star and Trump megabooster has devoted an obscene amount of airtime to attacking CNN and the journalists that work there. One of his favorite targets has been CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who has become Public Enemy #1 in the MAGAsphere largely due to his combative exchanges with Trump and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

After Acosta found himself the subject of brutal heckling by the crowd at Trump’s Tampa rally Tuesday night, Hannity cheered on the rallygoers for their verbal attacks. At the same time, he lectured Acosta through the TV screen, telling the veteran reporter that he’s a “liberal partisan hack” who deserves the harsh treatment he’s received due to the “abusive” way he’s treated the president.

“So tonight while President Trump slammed rightly Democrats, many in the crowd actually called out the abuse by press in the country,” Hannity said during his opening monologue Tuesday night. “In fact, many Floridians in attendance let Jim Acosta know exactly what they felt about his network’s partisan abusive biased coverage.”

After playing a clip of the crowd shouting “CNN sucks” at Acosta as he tried to deliver a live report, Hannity declared that “they aren’t wrong — it’s not false.”

“I’m actually going to give your network some advice, if you have an open mind and an open heart, maybe a little humility” Hannity added. “The people of this country are screaming at you for a reason. They don’t like your unfair, abusively biased treatment of the President of the United States.”

This led to Hannity teeing up a montage of what was described as Acosta’s “lowlights,” featuring the CNN correspondent tangling with Sanders and providing observations on the air. The Fox News opinion host then scolded Acosta for giving his opinion at times.

“Jim Acosta, that’s called opinion,” Hannity exclaimed. “And you are extremely rude. Oh, and a liberal partisan hack. That’s why Americans don’t trust you or Fake News CNN.”

Hannity concluded his tirade against Acosta by stating “you are not reporting facts, you are giving an opinion” before informing him he could get an interview with Trump if he were “a little fair” and stopped “doubling down on the hysterical coverage.”

Hannity cheering on the heckling of Acosta comes a few weeks after a number of Fox commentators and hosts decried the lack of civility displayed towards Acosta by another Trump rally crowd, who acted much in the same manner we saw Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Acosta tweeted out some of what he witnessed firsthand from Trump supporters and expressed concern that “the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt.”

Just a sample of the sad scene we faced at the Trump rally in Tampa. I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt. We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy. pic.twitter.com/IhSRw5Ui3R

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) August 1, 2018