Dan Abrams Says Hannity’s Brutal Katie Zacharia Interview Was a White House ‘Set-Up’

Dan Abrams suggested that President Donald Trump or another top White House official likely enlisted Fox News host Sean Hannity to grill former Press Secretary Katie Zacharia on Thursday night, setting the stage for her ouster the following day.

On his SiriusXM radio show Friday, the Mediaite founder said he had planned to predict Zacharia’s departure based on her back-to-back disastrous appearances on Hannity Thursday night and Fox & Friends Friday morning.

“Sean Hannity has never done a tough interview with a Trump administration official who they like, right?” he continued. “I mean, Sean admits it, right? He doesn’t pretend to be a journalist. He is a Trump supporter.”

Abrams argued that Hannity’s unusually tough questioning was no coincidence.

“When you watch the interview that happened last night, it was clear she’s done because that interview was clearly a set-up,” he claimed. “Clearly, either Trump or someone else high up in the administration asked Hannity to do it. Why? So they could pave the way to give her the boot today.”

He noted that Hannity had initially defended Zacharia’s widely mocked debut briefing Tuesday, calling it “perfectly normal” and dismissing criticism of her performance as “nasty.”

But on Thursday night, the Fox News host, also a friend of the president, pressed her over the briefing which lasted just 14 minutes and featured only three questions. Most importantly, according to Abrams, Hannity had criticized the media for questioning her status as a lawyer the day before and yet confronted her about that very issue and failing the bar exam the next day.

“It wasn’t just asking her questions about the press conference; it was asking her questions about her credentials,” Abrams said. “There are a lot of people in this administration whose credentials are either suspect, or there are things in their past that have been problematic. Sean Hannity would never ask them about it. Never.”

On Friday morning, Fox & Friends host Lawrence Jones also pressed hard Zacharia on whether she still had Trump’s confidence.

Hours later, Trump acknowledged that Hannity had been “a little bit tough” on Zacharia and told reporters he had encouraged her to reconsider the job.

Minutes afterward, Fox News reported that Zacharia was “transitioning out” of her role after just five days.

Fox News pushed back vigorously on the idea that anyone other than Hannity called the shots for the interview.

“Sean Hannity decides who he interviews and what he asks his guests, period,” Fox News said in a statement to Mediaite. “That’s been true for three decades, through several administrations, and that authenticity is why he’s been number one for nearly 30 years.”

A Fox News source added that insiders at the network “pushed back on any notion of a kill order or sanctioned hit. It was clear by the end of this week that she did herself in with her own performance. If you can’t answer simple questions about your credentials, that speaks volumes.”

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