At first, Sean Hannity had no idea how to react to the bombshell news that President Donald Trump tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last June but was rebuffed by his own White House counsel Don McGahn.

The Fox News host spent the first part of his show ignoring the story completely, instead focusing, as he is wont to do, on Hillary Clinton’s emails. It wasn’t until about 17 minutes into his hour-long show that Hannity deigned to spend a cool 53 seconds on the revelations that were dominating CNN and MSNBC Thursday night.

According to Hannity, Trump has “nothing to hide” regarding the Russia investigation. He noted that the president and his team are happily cooperating with Mueller “and his merry band of Democrat donors.”

Tonight, he said, “they’re trying to change the story.” At this very hour, Hannity said, “The New York Times is trying to distract you.”

“They have a story that Trump wanted Mueller fired sometime last June,” he continued, referring to Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt’s scoop. “Our sources — and I’ve checked in with many of them — they’re not confirming that tonight.”

That comment from Hannity came back to bite him by the end of the show when he was forced to admit that Fox News’ Ed Henry had, in fact, confirmed the Times’ reporting.

“Yeah, maybe Donald Trump wanted to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller for conflict,” Hannity said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Does he not have a right to raise those questions?” Then, he cut to footage of a car chase.

This, of course, was no surprise given that the host has repeatedly called for Mueller’s investigation to be terminated.

Hannity’s shameless pivot echoed the words of his Fox colleague Jesse Watters, who said after Trump’s “shithole countries” comment went public, “I think it’s either fake news or if it’s true, this is how the forgotten men and women in America talk at the bar.”