Sean Patrick Hannity (born December 30, 1961) is an American conservative television presenter, broadcaster and writer. He hosts The Sean Hannity Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio show, has hosted a self-titled political commentary program on Fox News since 2009, and co-hosted the original Fox News debate show Hannity & Colmes with Alan Colmes from the network's founding in 1996 to 2009. Hannity worked as a general contractor and volunteered as a talk show host at UC Santa Barbara in 1989. He later joined WVNN in Athens, Alabama, and shortly afterward, WGST in Atlanta. After leaving WGST, he worked at WABC in New York until 2013. Since 2014, Hannity has worked at WOR. In 1996, Hannity and Alan Colmes co-hosted Hannity & Colmes on Fox. After Colmes announced his departure in January 2008, Hannity merged the Hannity & Colmes show into Hannity. Hannity has said he is not a journalist, and he has been characterized as a propagandist. He has promoted conspiracy theories, such as "birtherism" (claims that then-President Barack Obama was not a legitimate U.S. citizen), falsehoods about Hillary Clinton's health, and false claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Hannity was an early supporter of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election and often acted as an unofficial spokesman for him. When Trump was president, White House advisors characterized Hannity as the "shadow" chief of staff, and he reportedly phoned the White House and spoke to Trump most weeknights. According to Forbes, by 2018 Hannity had become one of the most-watched hosts in cable news and most-listened-to hosts in talk radio, due in part to his closeness and access to Trump. He privately urged Trump administration officials before and during the January 6 United States Capitol attack to cease some of their efforts to retain the presidency and to urge Trump's supporters to leave the Capitol. Hannity was among the hosts named in the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network defamation lawsuit for broadcasting false statements about the plaintiff company's voting machines that Fox News settled for $787.5 million and required Fox News to acknowledge that the broadcast statements were false. Hannity has an honorary degree from Liberty University. He won awards from the National Association of Broadcasters in 2003 and 2007. He has written three New York Times best-selling books: Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism (2002), Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism (2004), and Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda (2010), and released a fourth, Live Free or Die, in 2020.