Hannity raged against Biden, criticizing his inaugural speech – which received bipartisan praise and which Hannity’s colleague Chris Wallace, one of Fox’s top anchors, said was “the best” inaugural speech he “ever heard” – as “truly normal “and saying so” sounded like an uninspired student council speech. “
Hannity went on to call Biden “weak” and “with cognitive difficulties” – two themes that he and other allies of former President Donald Trump pressed hard during the campaign and that voters vehemently rejected – before saying that he felt he needed to “throw up” “after watching news coverage of the inauguration.
The previous hour, Carlson had focused on Biden’s denunciation of white supremacy and domestic terrorism, which the president vowed to face and defeat.
“These are America’s enemies, we must fight a war against them,” said Carlson, mocking Biden’s promise to face extremists.
It was a not-so-subtle suggestion that Biden and the Democrats could use the power of the federal government to improperly target their political opponents.
The other arms of the right-wing media were not much more friendly.
Newsmax TV, the right-wing cable channel that promoted the lie that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, ran segments on Thursday night criticizing Biden’s “radical immigration agenda” and saying he had “contradicted[ed] in a ‘unifying’ speech. “
Rush Limbaugh, the king of conservative radio, said Biden’s speech may have been “one of the least memorable inaugural speeches ever.”
Limbaugh framed the speech thus for his audience: “In this speech Biden called us domestic terrorists and then asked for unity in the same breath.”
On the right-wing web, Breitbart featured front-page headlines on Thursday referring to Biden as “JOE GLOBALIST” and declaring “CORPORATISTS SALIVATE” in his presidency.
The headline on the far-right Gateway Pundit website on Wednesday falsely claimed that the election had been “stolen” from Trump.