Fox News anchor Sean Hannity’s new interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, which was conducted in London’s Ecuadorian embassy on Monday, won’t air until Tuesday evening. Yet that didn’t stop the Fox News Channel from distributing choice excerpts from the pair’s conversation late Monday night. After all, the two antagonists turned besties spent a good chunk of it discussing President-elect Donald Trump’s favorite subject to forget — Russia’s alleged hacking of the election he won.
According to The Hill, Assange charged President Barack Obama and his outgoing staff with “trying to delegitimize the Trump administration as it goes into the White House.” While reiterating the claim that the Obama administration wants Americans to think “President-elect Trump is not a legitimate president,” Assange went on the defensive when Hannity asked whether or not Russia was the source of Wikileaks’ hacked documents.
“Our source is not a state party,” he argued, “so the answer for our interactions is no”:
“Our publications had wide uptake by the American people, they’re all true,” Assange continued. “But that’s not the allegation that’s being presented by the Obama White House.”
Aside from the focus on Russia and whether or not Trump’s election victory was legitimate, Assange and Hannity also discussed the prevalence of Wikileaks’ involvement in the 2016 presidential race. The former was especially amused when the Fox News personality asked whether or not he thought his organization had affected the outcome of the election.
“Who knows, it’s impossible to tell,” said Assange, adding: “But if it did, the accusation is that the true statements of Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, and the DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz, their true statements is what changed the election.”
The new interview will air during a special edition of Hannity at 10 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel.
(Via The Hill)