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The Fox host has outsized prominence in the world of right-wing commentary, and his statement that he was giving Moore 24 hours to explain himself before Hannity turned against him echoed across conservative sites. Wednesday afternoon, a story on his ultimatum was still the second-most read headline on Breitbart, a site that has strongly supported Moore.
The Daily Caller also did a story on Hannity, which has racked up more than a thousand comments on the site.
"We literally ran with just the hammer-headline 'HANNITY'S ULTIMATUM' on the post," emailed Daily Caller Editor in Chief Geoff Ingersoll. His audience is so dialed into Hannity, he said, that "we didn't have to write a traditional headline for the audience to understand what it meant in context and click in."
Hannity's statement seemed to resonate with conservatives across the ideological spectrum: Last night, Redstate.com posted the headline, "WHOA! Sean Hannity Just Sent A Serious Warning To Roy Moore!" It remains in the site's most popular stories list.
Even The Gateway Pundit, a conspiracy-minded site that has stood with Moore, linked to a headline about Hannity's turn.
"For me, the judge has 24 hours," Hannity said at the end of his show on Tuesday. "He must immediately and fully come up with a satisfactory explanation for your inconsistencies that I just showed. You must remove any doubt. If he can't do that, then Judge Moore needs to get out of this race."
Before Tuesday, Hannity had been a defender of Moore, and advertisers like Keurig, Volvo and Realtor.com pulled spots from his show during that period. Just hours before he turned against Moore, Hannity made nice with Keurig after previously appearing to encourage his followers to boycott and/or smash the brand's coffee makers.
The Fox host was not the only prominent member of the movement that swept Donald Trump to power - and has buoyed Roy Moore through his senate campaign - to ditch the embattled candidate. Ann Coulter and Matt Drudge have also tossed Moore overboard, leaving Breitbart as the most notable holdout.
On Monday, Coulter told conservative radio show host Howie Carr that she'd given up on Moore and believed he should be replaced by Rep. Mo Brooks, whom Moore defeated in the primary.
"I think we have to deal with making lemonade out of lemons," the conservative commentator said.
And this morning, the Drudge Report posted a large banner headline: "Bannon Turns on Judge Whore."
The headline linked to a Daily Beast story that reported that Steve Bannon, who is executive chairman of Breitbart, was considering his options on Moore, and did not actually say whether the former top White House advisor had decided to officially abandon the candidate. Conflicting reports have emerged on Bannon's stance, with some saying he remains committed to Moore and others implying that he is preparing an escape route. On Monday, it seemed like the tide at Breitbart may have started to turn when it ran a headline sympathetic to one of the accusers, but that same day, in an interview to POLITICO, Breitbart Editor in Chief Alex Marlow continued to cast doubt on the five women's allegations.
Breitbart has already dispatched two reporters to Alabama, and Marlow later emailed to say that he was sending a third, though he declined to name who that might be.
Another holdout has been Rush Limbaugh, who criticized Republicans for abandoning Moore and, curiously, pointed out on his show Tuesday that Moore was a Democrat at the time he allegedly pursued the teenagers.
Last night, on his primetime Fox News show, Tucker Carlson did not outright abandon Moore, but indicated he may be moving in that direction. He called it "impossible" to currently determine whether the allegations lobbied against Moore were true, but called on the Senate GOP candidate to dial back the outright denials and provide a clearer explanation for the claims.
"Who is telling the truth? At this point it's impossible to know for sure," he said. "Here's what we do know for sure: Roy Moore should respond to specific allegations with specific explanations. It's not enough to say people don't like him for what he believes."
The final member of the Fox News primetime lineup, Laura Ingraham, has denounced the actions Moore stands accused of, while declining to outright withdraw her support for the candidate. On Tuesday's program, Ingraham hosted Juanita Broaddrick, who accused former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s of sexual assault, and suggested she "should be taken just as seriously" as Moore's accusers.
This morning, Fox & Friends only briefly showed clips of Moore speaking, and mentioned the controversy just three times during Wednesday's three hour program. The show, which President Trump is known to watch on weekday mornings, has largely avoided the controversy, devoting limited time to covering the allegations since they first broke last Thursday.
The show did bring on well-known conservative writer Ben Shapiro, though, who said that he did not think Moore should serve if elected.
"I think it's a disaster for the Republican Party if a man who has incredible accusations that he has not rebutted of child molestation is seated as a U.S. senator" Shapiro said.
Comment: Hannity's segment on Moore:
There are a couple issues to disentangle here. 1) Did Moore date young women in their mid-to-late teens? Moore equivocates here, but then says he never dated anyone without their parents' permission. That sounds like a hedged admission. But then, that was more normal back then than it is now (please excuse Vice's obvious partisanship at the link provided). 2) Are the claims of sexual abuse legitimate? They may be. Or, he may have dated some of these women, and they are now making false accusations for political purposes. Or, some of the claims may be fabricated completely.
Moore responded to Hannity's ultimatum with this tweet, where he alleges that the signature on the yearbook is forged (copied from the accuser's 1999 divorce case dismissal, over which Moore presided). Hannity read Moore's letter in his response here:
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