People on the internet are scratching their heads following a very weird exchange between Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.
During the handover between their shows last night, Ingraham relentlessly ribbed Hannity for launching a cosmetics line after complimenting his skin. Taking the bait, Hannity then countered by talking about how much he hits people, or something.
The whole thing read as deeply passive aggressive while also trading in weirdly antiquated ideas about masculinity that seemed weird and cringey even for Fox News.
See the extremely strange back-and-forth below.
The cringe increases exponentially with each passing second of this clip.pic.twitter.com/F4Y8h9s2OO— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1632967754
Perhaps you have to be a regular Fox News viewer to have the full scope of what exactly these two were going on about, but the whole thing was off--from both Ingraham and Hannity's tone to the actual content of the conversation itself.
Ingraham started things off by making fun of Hannity, ostensibly (it's honestly hard to tell) for wearing so much makeup.
"I think that cosmetics line you're about to launch is going to be very popular."
When Hannity responded quizzically, Ingraham kept going.
"Yeah you have a cosmetics line right? I saw that somewhere. It's like a -- you have an astringent and a buffing thing you're doing? ...Your skin looks beautiful!"
Hannity then demurred, citing as evidence of his masculinity the fact that he does a lot of hitting? Of things? Or people? Or something? While making punching motions in the air, Hannity said:
"Have you not seen, you know... hitting and hitting and hitting and elbows and punching, this is what I do all day.... That's all I do is I hit, all day, for an hour and a half."
Hannity is apparently an avid fan of MMA and has discussed his MMA-style workouts on his show before, so perhaps it was a reference to that. In any case, Ingraham simply continued accusatorily pointing out how good his skin looks.
"I don't know what you're doing... it's exfoliating ... it looks fantastic!"
Hannity, seemingly in full masculinity panic now, responded by claiming not to know what the word "exfoliating" means.
So to sum up: Laura Ingraham made fun of Sean Hannity for wearing makeup like literally every person who has ever worked in television in the entire history of the medium has done, and Hannity responded by talking about how much he punches things, because makeup is for girls, and Hannity is a big strong man.
Or something. We think? Honestly who knows, but we're not the only ones confused--most of Twitter was like "LOLWAT"
\u201cMe? A make up line? Good skin? Nah nah nah, I\u2019m getting my face punched, elbowed all day that\u2019s all I do is get my face punched. All day for like an hour and a half.\u201d— joey legalese (@joey legalese) 1632968820
Hannity loves to brag about his 'fighting skills' pic.twitter.com/eC5q1DRfe0— MadMerlin\u2728 (@MadMerlin\u2728) 1632971963
oh wow. is she trying to insult him?— Laura Rozen (@Laura Rozen) 1632968012
I want the minute of my life back that I just spent watching thatpic.twitter.com/87GGMuKt4s— Amanda Catherine (@Amanda Catherine) 1632973050
He's trying so hard to be butch while she's exfoliating him. It's almost as if she despises him, maybe the ad revenues are getting tight.— Rollo Bickelo \ud83c\udfa9\ud83c\udf49\u2614\ud83c\udf78 (@Rollo Bickelo \ud83c\udfa9\ud83c\udf49\u2614\ud83c\udf78) 1632972070
They are having two completely different conversations. The Murdochs better get someone down the studio to change their batteries.— Democratic Tweeter (@Democratic Tweeter) 1632968459
Listen.. you just have to pretend to like each other for literally 3 seconds.https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1443397493706956802\u00a0\u2026— _aa_ (@_aa_) 1632968285
It's cool watching @seanhannity pound his hands together to try and show he doesn't have a cosmetics line.\n\nIt's also cool watching two people show they have no sense of humor.https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1443397493706956802\u00a0\u2026— Robert Elisberg (@Robert Elisberg) 1633014186
Dear lordhttps://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1443397493706956802\u00a0\u2026— Farrukh K. Pitafi (@Farrukh K. Pitafi) 1632980267
Somehow, Sean leaped from rumors about his cosmetics line to bragging about MMA skills \n\n https://youtu.be/eoQXtdnfJYg\u00a0 https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1443397493706956802\u00a0\u2026pic.twitter.com/iBz09sQpZo— Bad Fox Graphics (@Bad Fox Graphics) 1632968622
For an even stranger twist, makeup and makeup accessories are among the myriad products the ultra manly Hannity sells on his website. So if you like buying cosmetics from dudes with weird masculinity issues about cosmetics, now you know where to go...