Report: President Trump and Sean Hannity talk nearly every weeknight

Jessica Estepa | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump and Hannity reportedly have bedtime phone calls most nights Fox News host Sean Hannity and President Trump may be a lot closer than anyone imagined, according to New York Magazine, having bedtime phone calls with each other most weeknights. Nathan Rousseau Smith has the details.

Good night, Mr. President.

President Trump and Sean Hannity reportedly speak after the Fox News host wraps up taping his show most weeknights, according to a new report.

New York magazine reports that their phone conversations, a way to "decompress" at the end of the day, range from discussing the "witch hunt" against the president to "gabbing like old girlfriends about media gossip and whose show sucks and who's getting killed in the ratings and who's winning."

So, why? According to New York, Hannity serves as someone for the president to seek "outside affirmation."

"Generally, the feeling is that Sean is the leader of the outside kitchen cabinet," an unnamed White House official told the magazine.

The story also tries to explain Hannity's legal relationship to Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer who paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000. It comes down to Hannity being a big fan of Trump's.

"Why would anybody be nice to Cohen? Because he was 'Trump's lawyer, so Hannity sees that and he assumes, If Trump thinks he's smart, then he's smart!" one source, named as being "close to the president," said.

The two had met during Hannity's early years on Fox, and Hannity gave Trump a place to discuss the conspiracy theory about where then-President Obama was born. But John Gomez, a friend of Hannity's, said the two didn't truly become friends until the 2016 presidential election.

Hannity, among a small group of non-White House officials who are allowed to call the president, was also said to fill the political void left behind by Steve Bannon, Trump's flamboyant ex-strategist.

"Sean Hannity understands the basic issues of economic nationalism and 'America First' foreign policy at a deeper level than the august staff of Jonathan Chait and the f-----' clowns at New York magazine," Bannon told the magazine.

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