Sean Hannity is hosting a Donald Trump town hall on Fox News. Here's why it's a waste of time

Fox News is hosting a town hall with Donald Trump on Thursday, moderated by Sean Hannity.

Who in their right mind would watch such a thing?

Seriously, has there ever been a bunch more deserving of each other? It’s perfect in its imperfection: a liar and his stooge on a network publicly revealed to hold truth a few rungs below profit.

A meeting of the minds it’s not.

I’m generally a get-them-on-the-record person, but Trump’s recent CNN town hall has changed my mind. This is a worthless exercise, journalistically unsound and lacking in news value. There’s no reason anyone who doesn’t wear a MAGA hat (or cover politics or media) should watch it.

And that, frankly, is a serious problem.

National media made Kari Lake a star: Why that's dangerous

What time is Trump's town hall on Fox News?

If you must watch, the town hall, which will be prerecorded in Iowa, is scheduled to be shown on Fox News at 6 p.m. June 1. What a joke.

I know, I know, I recently argued that CNN should broadcast its town hall with Trump, on the grounds that he is the former president, the leading Republican candidate for 2024 and as such should be put on the record about his many lies and misleading statements.

OK, nobody’s perfect.

Why no one needs to watch a Trump town hall

What I was counting on, as was everyone who made that argument, was moderator Kaitlan Collins being able to keep Trump somewhat in check and push back on his lies. She did her best, but as the event made clear, that is an impossible task.

Plus, stocking the audience with Trump supporters made it sound like one of Trump’s unhinged political rallies. When Trump ridiculed E. Jean Carroll, whom the day before he had been found liable of sexually assaulting, the audience cheered and laughed.

Throw in Trump’s repeated lies that the 2020 election was rigged against him, and it was an unmitigated disaster for CNN, and for anyone holding out hope for democracy.

So now Hannity’s going to fix things? Give me a break.

The de facto president of the Trump fan club is not likely to call Trump out on his lies. There’s a first time for everything, maybe, but not this.

12 News' Lin Sue Flood moved on: 'I loved what I did. But I really love what I do now'

Hannity's previous interviews with Trump aren't encouraging

In 2018, Hannity appeared onstage at a Trump rally before the midterm elections. Pointing to the media covering the event, Hannity — a host for what is ostensibly a news channel, though “news” is doing a lot of work in that description — said to the gathered throng, “By the way, all those people in the back are fake news.”

In 2020, since Fox was hosting the Super Bowl, Hannity landed the traditional pregame interview with the president — Trump, at the time. (Fox had the most recent Super Bowl, but after much Sturm und Drang, Joe Biden didn’t sit for an interview with the network.)

No one expected Hannity to uphold any sort of journalistic standards. And he did not disappoint on that front. He basically let Trump say whatever he wanted. Truth took a holiday, as it so often does when Trump speaks. Hannity might as well wear a cheerleader sweater with a big “T” on the front when he does this kind of thing.

In March, after a rumored soft ban on Trump, the former president returned to Fox News for an interview conducted by — guess who? — Hannity. To be fair, Tucker Carlson also interviewed Trump on the network a couple of weeks later. But he’s gone from Fox News, so he couldn’t host the town hall with Trump.

Maybe he’ll conduct it on Twitter spaces or something. And maybe he can ask Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis for advice on how not to do it.

After the Dominion lawsuit, is Fox News doubling down?

Hannity often claims he is not a journalist. You’ll get no argument here. He’s a Trump toady.

Texts revealed during the Dominion Voting Systems Inc. lawsuit against Fox News — the network settled for a whopping $787.5 million — showed Hannity working with the White House before the 2020 election in an attempt to get Trump reelected.

Collins is a real journalist, and she couldn’t rein Trump in. It’s unclear how anyone could. Why should we think Hannity will even try? And if he won't push back and get at some kind of truth, why should anyone who is not already in the tank for the network or, more importantly, for Trump bother to watch?

Kris Pickel gone from Arizona's Family: 'I ought to get fired more often'

How to watch Donald Trump's town hall on Fox News with Sean Hannity

6 p.m. Arizona time on Thursday, June 1, on Fox News.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

Subscribe to azcentral.com today. What are you waiting for?

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How to watch Fox News' Donald Trump town hall. And why you shouldn't