Watch Hannity urgently change the subject from Trump's constitutional crisis to a car chase

Just hours after the New York Times published a bombshell report about Donald Trump ordering White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Fox News host Sean Hannity went on air to do what he does best: throw shiny objects at the screen and yell things about Hillary Clinton.

In a segment that has to be seen to believed, Hannity told his viewers that the New York Times was trying to distract them from more important news — like Hillary Clinton’s emails, which were featured in his opening monologue. He then questioned whether the report about Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller was even true.

“At this hour, the New York Times is trying to distract you,” Hannity said. “They have a story that Trump wanted Mueller fired some time last June and our sources — and I’ve checked in with many of them — they’ve not confirmed that tonight.”

He continued, asking, “How many times has the New York Times and others gotten it wrong?”

But a short time later, Hannity was forced to walk back his own reporting and admit to viewers that Fox News sources had confirmed the New York Times’ story.

“All right, so we have sources tonight just confirming to Ed Henry that, maybe, yeah, Donald Trump wanted to fire the special counsel for conflict,” Hannity said. “Does he not have the right to raise those questions?”

Clearly not wanting to distract from the most pressing news of the evening, Hannity shrugged off the bombshell revelation.

“We’ll deal with this tomorrow,” he said, before pivoting to live footage of a high-speed car chase in Arizona.

Sean Hannity: The New York Times is trying to distract you. They say Trump tried to fire Mueller, but our sources aren’t confirming that!

Sean Hannity, minutes later: Alright, yeah, maybe our sources confirm Trump wanted to fire Mueller. But so what? That’s his right. Anywho… pic.twitter.com/yUIt7Un56d

— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 26, 2018

As one of Trump’s most reliable apologists, Hannity can always be counted on to defend, deflect, and deny even in the face of the most damning evidence against Trump. And he knows his audience well — which explains why he used his opening monologue to obsessively rant about Hillary Clinton and spout off deep state conspiracy theories.

Even with that track record, Hannity managed to outdo himself Thursday night. When forced to admit that the report was true, the best rebuttal he could come up with was to suggest that Trump hadn’t done anything wrong because he had the “right” to fire Mueller — a defense that even the Fox News host didn’t seem to believe.

Hannity made a valiant effort, but no car chase is exciting enough to distract from the slow-motion train wreck that has become the Trump presidency.