Trump awkwardly praises Sean Hannity, Ainsley Earhardt relationship live on-air
Trump took time to discuss Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his federal takeover of Washington D.C. with an increased police presence and more personal matters during an Aug. 19 appearance on the right-leaning cable network's morning program "Fox & Friends," which Earhardt cohosts.
"There's a guy named Sean Hannity. He might take a very lovely young lady that he knows very, very well to dinner in Washington and they don't have to – she's sitting right next to you by the way – I don't want to get him in trouble so I better explain exactly," Trump said. "We don't want any secrets here."
Fox News' Sean Hannity, Ainsley Earhardt got engaged over Christmas holiday
Trump continued, telling Earhardt and her cohost Lawrence Jones, as well as guest host Charlie Hurt, that "that's the greatest relationship," referring to the "Light Within Me" author, 48, and "Hannity" host, 63, who announced their engagement late last year.
In his live comments, Trump was seemingly saying that D.C. is now safer for the Fox stars to go on dates.
"I also am not breaking any news. This could be the most important thing I've said. But let me tell you, those are two great – Ainsley and Sean – great people. When they go out to dinner, I don't want to see them get mugged," Trump added. "Now they can go out (in D.C.), they can hold hands, they can walk down the street, they're both superstars."
After Trump said that he wants "to know who makes more money," Jones (who tried to interject multiple times) then changed the subject.
USA TODAY reached out to reps for Fox, Hannity and Earhardt for comment.
Lawrence Jones will join 'Fox & Friends' as permanent co-host
The cable-TV anchors got engaged over the Christmas holiday, revealing the news to their employer in a Dec. 26 interview.
Hannity proposed to Earhardt at their home church, a reflection of the shared faith that brought the lovebirds together. The couple said that they received the blessing of their children, who "couldn't be happier" for them."We are overjoyed and so thankful to our families for all of their love and support during this wonderful time in our lives," the couple told Fox.
In a Dec. 27 Truth Social post, Trump congratulated the couple on the engagement: "Great news about Sean and Ainsley. They are officially engaged to be married! There are no finer people than these, and there will be no finer couple. Congratulations to both - A deal made in HEAVEN!!!"
Hannity was previously married to Jill Rhodes from 1993 to 2019, and has two children – a son and daughter – from the relationship. Earhardt was previously married to former Clemson University quarterback Will Proctor from 2012 to 2019, and they have one daughter. Earhardt's first marriage was to Kevin McKinney, from 2005 to 2009.
The couple said at the time that they "still get along well" with their previous spouses. "Everyone is supportive of each other," the duo told Fox News. "We actually made them aware this was happening ahead of time."
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump moves to use the levers of presidential power to help his party in the 2026 midterms
President Donald Trump has made clear in recent weeks that he's willing to use the vast powers of his office to prevent his party from losing control of Congress in next year's midterm elections. Some of the steps Trump has taken to intervene in the election are typical, but controversial, political maneuvers taken to his trademark extremes. That includes pushing Republican lawmakers in Texas and other conservative-controlled states to redraw their legislative maps to expand the number of U.S. House seats favorable to the GOP. Others involve the direct use of official presidential power in ways that have no modern precedent, such as ordering his Department of Justice to investigate the main liberal fundraising entity, ActBlue. The department also is demanding the detailed voter files from each state in an apparent attempt to look for ineligible voters on a vast scale. And on Monday, Trump posted a falsehood-filled rant on social media pledging to lead a 'movement' to outlaw voting machines and mail balloting, the latter of which has become a mainstay of Democratic voting since Trump pushed Republicans to avoid it in 2020 — before flipping on the issue ahead of last year's presidential election. The individual actions add up to an unprecedented attempt by a sitting president to interfere in a critical election before it's even held, moves that have raised alarms among those concerned about the future of U.S. democracy. 'Those are actions that you don't see in healthy democracies,' said Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization that has sued the Trump administration. 'Those are actions you see in authoritarian states.' Trump has already tried to overturn an election Bassin noted that presidents routinely stump for their party in midterm elections and try to bolster incumbents by steering projects and support to their districts. But he said Trump's history is part of what's driving alarm about the midterms. He referenced Trump's attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which ended with a violent assault on the Capitol by his supporters. 'The one thing we know for certain from experience in 2020 is that this is a person who will use every measure and try every tactic to stay in power, regardless of the outcome of an election,' Bassin said. He noted that in 2020, Trump was checked by elected Republicans in Congress and statehouses who refused to bend the rules, along with members of his own administration and even military leaders who distanced themselves from the defeated incumbent. In his second term, the president has locked down near-total loyalty from the GOP and stacked the administration with loyalists. The incumbent president's party normally loses seats in Congress during midterm elections. That's what happened to Trump in 2018, when Democrats won enough seats to take back the House of Representatives, stymieing the president's agenda and eventually leading to his two impeachments. Trump has said he doesn't want a repeat. He also has argued that his actions are actually attempts to preserve democracy. Repeating baseless allegations of fraud, he said Monday during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that 'you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots.' Earlier this month, Trump said that, because he handily won Texas in the 2024 presidential election, 'we are entitled to five more seats.' An attempt to engineer GOP control of the US House Republicans currently have a three-seat margin in the House of Representatives. Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to create up to five new winnable GOP seats and is lobbying other red states, including Indiana and Missouri, to take similar steps to pad the margin even more. The Texas Legislature is likely to vote on its map on Wednesday. There's no guarantee that Trump's gambit will work, but also no legal prohibition against fiddling with maps in those states for partisan advantage. In response, California Democrats are moving forward with their own redistricting effort as a way to counter Republicans in Texas. Mid-decade map adjustments have happened before, though usually in response to court orders rather than presidents openly hoping to manufacture more seats for their party. Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford University, said there's a chance the redrawing of House districts won't succeed as Trump anticipates — but could end up motivating Democratic voters. Still, Diamond said he's concerned. 'It's the overall pattern that's alarming and that the reason to do this is for pure partisan advantage,' he said of Trump's tactic. Diamond noted that in 2019 he wrote a book about a '12-step' process to turn a democracy into an autocracy, and 'the last step in the process is to rig the electoral process.' The Justice Department acts on Trump's priorities Trump has required loyalty from all levels of his administration and demanded that the Department of Justice follow his directives. One of those was to probe ActBlue, an online portal that raised hundreds of millions of dollars in small-dollar donations for Democratic candidates over two decades. The site was so successful that Republicans launched a similar venture, called WinRed. Trump, notably, did not order a federal probe into WinRed. Trump's appointees at the Department of Justice also have demanded voting data from at least 19 states, as Trump continues to insist he actually won the 2020 election and proposed a special prosecutor to investigate that year's vote tally. Much as he did before winning the 2024 election, Trump has baselessly implied that Democrats may rig upcoming vote counts against him. In at least two of those states, California and Minnesota, the DOJ followed up with election officials last week, threatening legal action if they didn't hand over their voter registration lists by this Thursday, according to letters shared with The Associated Press. Neither state — both controlled by Democrats — has responded publicly. Attempts to interfere with voting and elections Trump's threat this week to end mail voting and do away with voting machines is just his latest attempt to sway how elections are run. An executive order he signed earlier this year sought documented proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes, though much of it has been blocked by courts. In the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to reverse his 2020 loss, Trump's allies proposed having the military seize voting machines to investigate purported fraud, even though Trump's own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing. The Constitution says states and Congress, rather than the president, set the rules for elections, so it's unclear what Trump could do to make his promises a reality. But election officials saw them as an obvious sign of his 2026 interests. 'Let's see this for what it really is: An attempt to change voting going into the midterms because he's afraid the Republicans will lose,' wrote Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, on X. The president has very few levers to influence an election Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the idea of seizing voting machines in 2020 was a sign of how few levers the president has to influence an election, not of his power. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are run by states and only Congress can 'alter' the procedures — and, even then, for federal races alone. 'It's a deeply decentralized system,' Muller said. There are fewer legal constraints on presidential powers, such as criminal investigations and deployment of law enforcement and military resources, Muller noted. But, he added, people usually err in forecasting election catastrophes. He noted that in 2022 and 2024, a wide range of experts braced for violence, disruption and attempts to overturn losses by Trump allies, and no serious threats materialized. 'One lesson I've learned in decades of doing this is people are often preparing for the last election rather than what actually happens in the new ones,' Muller said. ___
New York Post
8 minutes ago
- New York Post
Russia launches largest strike on Ukraine in weeks following Trump's call with Putin — as war's civilian death toll nears 13,000
WASHINGTON — Russian dictator Vladimir Putin ordered the largest drone strike on Ukraine in a month on Monday night — just as he hung up the phone with President Trump in a call discussing next steps for peace. As Trump celebrated his significant progress toward ending Russia's war on Ukraine in White House meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Monday, Moscow launched 270 drones and 10 missiles into the war-torn neighbor's territory. It came after at least 14 civilians were killed and more than 50 others were injured in a similar Russian strike ahead of the Monday meeting. Advertisement Among the dead was an entire family, including two children — ages one and 15 — their parents and grandmother, according to the Ukrainian government. They were at home in Kharkiv — roughly 15 miles from the Russian border — in the middle of the night when the fatal blast happened. 'An ordinary apartment block … families with small children, a children's playground, a residential compound,' neighbor Olena Yakusheva told Reuters on Monday while fighting back tears. 3 Ukrainian firefighters search for survivors in a damaged building after a Russian airstrike on Aug. 18, 2025. Anadolu via Getty Images Advertisement That assault added to the war's already horrifying death toll of nearly 13,000 civilians — including 569 children — since Russia invaded in February 2022, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office data shared with The Post. Put in perspective, that's more than four times the civilian toll of the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks. 'Several children were killed,' Zelensky's top advisor Andriy Yermak told The Post on Monday. 'How is that possible if [Putin] sat and committed to Trump: 'Yes, I am ready for peace.'' 3 An elderly woman stands with her dog near a damaged brick wall in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, after a Russian airstrike Monday night. Anadolu via Getty Images Advertisement '[Putin] is a liar — a professional liar,' he added. Trump has previously expressed frustration over Putin launching aerial attacks hours after promising the US president of his desire for peace, but he had not spoken out about the latest attack as of Tuesday afternoon. 'I go home, I tell the first lady, 'You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.' She said, 'Oh, really? Another city was just hit,'' he said in July, recounting a call earlier this summer. 'We get a lot of bulls–t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,' he said another time. Advertisement Last month was the deadliest since Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine three and a half years ago. In July alone, 286 civilians were killed and another 1,388, according to official data. 3 Ukrainian firefighters search for survivors after a Russian air strike on a residential building after a Russian airstrike in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine on Aug. 19. 2025. Anadolu via Getty Images It was the second month in a row that Russia had reached an all-time high in the number of civilians killed during the course of its full-scale war. Also in July, Russia set a new record of 728 drones launched in a single night, blasting past its prior record of 337 set in March. While roughly 60% of the civilian deaths have occurred in communities near the front lines, the remaining 40% have happened far from the war's center, including in the capital city of Kyiv, according to a Monday United Nations report.
USA Today
8 minutes ago
- USA Today
Tulsi Gabbard revokes security clearances of 37 former intelligence officials
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced on Aug. 19 that President Donald Trump had directed her office to revoke security clearances from 37 former intelligence officials for 'politicizing and manipulating intelligence.' 'Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold,' she wrote in an X post that contained a memo her office had sent out. 'In doing so, they undermine our national security, the safety and security of the American people and the foundational principles of our democratic republic.' The former officials who are all accused of 'leaking classified intelligence without authorization,' include Biden administration officials Emily Horne, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, and Dilpreet Sidhu, who served as a deputy chief of staff at the National Security Council. Last month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report that claimed to demonstrate how the former President Barack Obama and his national security Cabinet had 'manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup' against Trump after he had defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016. Obama's office dismissed the claims as another example of the constant "nonsense and misinformation" that emanates out of the White House. 'Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes," Obama's office said in a statement on July 22. 'These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.' Rubio now serves as Trump's secretary of state. On his first day in office, Trump revoked the security clearance of his former national security adviser John Bolton as well as his Secret Service protection.
