"You cut the head of the snake off, and you kill the snake. And right now, the snake is Vladimir Putin," Hannity said on his podcast.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File
Fox News host Sean Hannity has suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin be assassinated and that NATO should bomb Russian troops, implying that this would help solve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
"What we really need in this crisis, more than anything else, is a worldwide condemnation," Hannity said on the Wednesday episode of "The Sean Hannity Show."
"And it's a simple new rule that if you invade an innocent sovereign country, and you kill innocent men, women, and children, you don't deserve to live. That's the bottom line."
Pretending to be someone else raising a point, Hannity said: "'Well, Hannity, we have an executive order that prohibits assassination of foreign leaders,' and I'm like, 'You cut the head of the snake off, and you kill the snake.'"
"And right now, the snake is Vladimir Putin," he added.
Hannity was referencing a 1976 executive order signed by then-President Gerald Ford, which bars the US government from conducting political assassinations.
The Fox News host doubled down on the idea of a Putin assassination in a tweet on Thursday, writing: "I added that anyone who invades a sovereign country (even one with a history of corruption like Ukraine,) and kills innocent men, woman and children like Putin has, they forfeit their right to lead a country, and they deserve to be taken out by any means necessary."
In the same podcast, Hannity suggested that NATO bomb the Russians and take out the "entire Mother Russian convoy" in Ukraine.
"You know, if we can see on satellite imagery where the convoy is, I don't know, maybe some smart country, maybe NATO might take some of their fighter jets, or maybe they can use some drone strikes and take out the whole damn convoy. And then nobody takes credit for it, so then Putin won't know who to hit back," Hannity said.
"'Well, he's threatening nuclear weapons, Hannity, you're talking about nuclear war.' I'm not talking about nuclear war, nor would I support one American boot on the ground here. But at what point is this gonna end?" he added.
Experts told The Washington Post that an assassination of Putin or a NATO bombing would not resolve the crisis in Ukraine.
"If the Americans assassinate Putin, they will make him a martyr at home rather than allowing his cult of lies, impunity, arrogance, egomania, and inhumanity to undo him," said Steven Fish, a political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley, per The Post.
"There is no poetic justice in our assassinating Putin and doing so would not discredit Putinism in Russia and around the world."
Rachel VanLandingham, a professor and national security law expert at Southwestern Law School, told The Post that bombing Russia would only be a good idea if NATO is willing to enter into World War III.
"It is foolishly naive to believe that just because Putin doesn't know who hit him he won't respond with significant armed force against a NATO ally — look at the threats he's already made," VanLandingham said, per The Post.
