Matthew Shaer

Among Sean Hannity’s critics, his relationship with President Donald Trump is frequently depicted as nakedly and sycophantically transactional — one career entertainer grabbing onto the coattails of another and hanging on for dear life. But people close to the president and Hannity say this caricature vastly oversimplifies the complicated and evolving alliance between the two men and misunderstands the degree to which Trump, as candidate and president, has come to Hannity’s positions, rather than the other way around.