The division on the political right has continued to widen despite the fact that Republicans control both the White House and all of Congress. After Fox News host Sean Hannity shared a Fake News Story about John McCain, the senator decided to fire back.
McCain on Hannity
Over the last year and a half, the Republican party has been split in their support of Donald Trump. During the 2016 presidential election, opposition to the billionaire real estate mogul grew on the right, with the "Never Trump" movement becoming so vocal that they staged a walkout during the Republican National Convention.
In addition to the "Never Trump" faction, other Republicans and conservatives begrudgingly gave their support to Trump, but have been vocal in their opposition. On Wednesday night, Trump-supporting Sean Hannity posted a link to a fake news story about Sen. John McCain, who has voiced his opposition to Trump at times in the past. As reported on February 23, McCain's team is not happy.
Sean Hannity Shares Tweet of Fake News Story Calling John McCain 'War Criminal' https://t.co/oqS7OEyfJp pic.twitter.com/dEEyIAOYUe
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 23, 2017
Late Wednesday night, Fox News' Sean Hannity took to his Twitter account to share a story from the right-wing website "The Gateway Pundit" that claimed to have documents exposing John McCain as a "globalist war criminal" who was accepting donations from Russia.
Not long after the tweet was sent, Mediaite debunked the contents of the story in question, which led to Hannity pulling his tweet hours later. Despite this, an offical statement from McCain's officers was released in response to the allegations.
Spox for @SenJohnMcCain responds to @seanhannity: "It is unfortunate that Sean Hannity would attack Sen John McCain over a fake news story" pic.twitter.com/g7qpQrOe86
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) February 23, 2017
"It is unfortunate that Sean Hannity would attack Sen John McCain over a fake news story," the statement read, before adding, "It's wrong and he (Hannity) should correct the record." Within minutes, Hannity went back to his Twitter account and issued an apology to the senator.
"I retweeted an inaccurate article. My apologies to @SenJohnMcCain," Hannity tweeted.
I retweeted an inaccurate article. My apologies to @SenJohnMcCain.
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) February 23, 2017
Moving forward
This isn't the first time that John McCain has clashed with Donald Trump and those who support him in the right-wing media.
During the early part of the election, the former host of "The Apprentice" smeared McCain's time in the military, saying "he's not a war hero" because he was captured as a POW during the Vietnam War.
