Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham react to the release of their Jan. 6 texts to the Trump White House, calling it an invasion of privacy

The Daily Beast

"After waiting an entire day to come up with a coordinated response following a wave of backlash, Fox News stars Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade, and Laura Ingraham finally addressed the damning texts of them begging White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to get then-President Donald Trump to halt the Jan. 6 Capitol riot," reports The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona. "According to Hannity and Ingraham, it was a disturbing invasion of privacy that their texts with a prominent figure were shared by the House Jan. 6 committee. At the same time, there is nothing at all contradictory about these messages and they were consistent about condemning the Trump-inspired rioters, publicly and privately. Along the way, they were given a big assist by Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who laughably claimed that the messages were 'exculpatory' for the three Fox News hosts and 'were a tribute to the people who wrote them.'" As Baragona notes, "Fox News viewers were left in the dark on Monday and most of Tuesday about the hosts’ text messages to Meadows. Ingraham and Hannity did not address the topic on Monday night—despite Hannity hosting Meadows on his show—and it didn’t earn a mention during Tuesday’s three-hour Fox & Friends broadcast. Fox News correspondent Chad Pergram eventually broke the news on-air Tuesday afternoon, noting that 'Laura, Sean, and Brian all say they stand by what they texted to Meadows privately and what they talked about on the air publicly.'" ALSO: What Fox News hosts said privately vs. publicly on Jan. 6.