NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
- Fox News' Sean Hannity helped write a Trump campaign ad in 2020, a forthcoming book reports.
- The spot cost $1.5 million to make and only aired once on Hannity's show, per reporter Michael Bender.
- Hannity categorically denied being involved in writing the ad.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity helped write a TV advertisement for former President Donald Trump's reelection campaign, according to a forthcoming book by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender.
Bender shared this news about Hannity in a short excerpt of his book, titled "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost," published Tuesday morning in Punchbowl News.
Hannity, who holds the primetime 9 p.m. weeknight slot on Fox News, has previously found himself in hot water for his coziness with the Trump campaign. He event got in trouble for appearing at a Missouri Trump rally in 2018. But he categorically denied having a hand in the ad when interviewed for Bender's book.
"The world knows that Sean Hannity supports Donald Trump. But my involvement specifically in the campaign – no. I was not involved that much. Anybody who said that is full of shit," Hannity said.
Read more: We identified the 125 people and institutions most responsible for Donald Trump's rise to power and his norm-busting behavior that tested the boundaries of the US government and its institutions
The TV spot, which Bender reported cost $1.5 million to make, portrayed President Joe Biden as a monster-like "47-year swamp creature."
Bender wrote that "inside the campaign, the spot was mocked mercilessly-mostly because of the dramatic, over-the-top language and a message that seemed to value quantity over quality," with Trump campaign officials referring to the TV ad as "Hannity" or the "Hannity-written spot."
The Trump campaign ultimately "deemed it so useless that they limited it to exactly one show: Hannity," Bender wrote, adding that "if Trump and Hannity watched the spot on television - and were satisfied enough to stop asking about the commercial - that seemed to be the best result of the ad."
Bender's book "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost" is being published by Twelve Books and will be released on August 10.