https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/29/hannitys-ugly-meltdown-romney-wanting-truth-is-trump-hatred/

By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer

Jan. 29, 2020 at 10:02 a.m. EST

It was inevitable that the Cult of Trump would ultimately settle here. Any Republican who dares to acknowledge the relevance of facts outside the disinformation bubble that President Trump and his propagandists have constructed in his defense -- facts they are unable to control -- can only be driven by Trump “hatred.”

Fox News’s Sean Hannity staged a spectacular meltdown at Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Tuesday night, over Romney’s desire to hear testimony from John Bolton, the former national security adviser whose forthcoming book relates that Trump didn’t want to release nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine until its president carried out Trump’s political bidding.

Hannity’s performance illustrates how preposterously weak Trump’s defenses have become, and how heavily they depend on insulating Trump’s extraordinary corruption, and the lies justifying it, from contrary facts and legitimate outside scrutiny.

Notably, this comes after Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona became a Trump-movement hero for staging her own ugly outburst at a reporter who politely asked whether she wanted to hear new witnesses and evidence at Trump’s impeachment trial.

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