Conservative Fox News commentator Sean Hannity invited liberal-leaning Hollywood actor Sean Penn onto his television program this week for an unlikely conversation over the pair’s shared affection for Russian president Vladimir Zelensky, and distaste for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“I made a phone call to you. I read that you were there, and the story interested me,” Hannity said after welcoming Penn. “If you were on this set 99 out of 100 times, we probably would be in full disagreement, right?”
“No question about that,” Penn said. The actor went on to recount that his first words to Hannity during their telephone call were “I don’t trust you.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t trust me?” Hannity asked. “Yeah,” Penn replied, “there’s a lot of reasons I don’t trust you.”
The actor became visibly moved as he went on to state, “I don’t think that I’ve got time to indulge my lack of trust, which becomes a petty thing as people, and babies, are being vaporized,” Penn said. “And that these people are fighting for the very dreams that are the aspirations of all of us Americans. We talked about that, too, and we agreed on that.”
The conversation eventually turned to Penn and Hannity’s mutual affection for Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, and distaste for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When Hannity asked if Putin should be killed, Penn responded, “I don’t want to invest in the conversation, not that I don’t have it privately about my feelings about what direct action should happen to a leader that does that. But if there is a god, there will be vengeance beyond all possible comprehension.”
After Hannity lamented the decision of Ukraine to turn over Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia, Penn interjected, “Even countries that have nuclear weapons can remain intimidated to use them, and we are seeing that now with our own country. And I fear what that legacy is going to be.”
During the conversation, Hannity repeatedly asked Penn “Do you trust me now more than you did? Do you trust me? Did I keep my word?” Penn replied that Hannity had, in fact, kept his word.
“So, why don’t you trust me?” Hannity pressed.
“You know what happens,” Penn replied. “There’s a lot of physical therapy necessary after a big car accident.”
Hannity has previously called for the U.S. to blow Putin “off the face of the Earth” with nuclear weapons if the Russians used chemical weapons in Ukraine.
“If Vladimir Putin wanted to negotiate, he would have done it a long time ago,” Hannity said. “He’s not willing to, and if he wants to use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, he’s got to know that his entire country is going to get blown off the face of the Earth.”
“I pray to God we never get to that point, but it’s always been a threat,” the Fox News host continued. “And it remains a threat here, and we can’t cower in fear based on fact that we’ve had Mutually Assured Destruction pretty much for all our lifetime.”
