Hannity Says He's Been Unable to Book Hour Special With Cruz for Last 10 Days

Fox News host Sean Hannity said on Thursday night that he had been unable to book an hour-special with Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on his program for the last 10 days.

The conservative personality made the announcement amid accusations from Twitter followers that he was only giving airtime to billionaire Donald Trump.

Hannity said he has been trying to give the Texas senator a full hour on his cable-news show, but was told by his campaign "they could not make it work."

A spokesperson for the Cruz campaign did note that the senator was on Hannity's program Monday. That interview lasted about 12 minutes.

However, before that interview aired, Cruz raid response director Brian Phillips suggested it might have been the candidate's last appearance on the show.

Later, a Fox News spokesperson told CNN that Hannity spoke with the Cruz campaign after and made peace.

Cruz has suggested in the last few months that the media is, in part, responsible for the rise of Trump. He has cited a statistic from MediaQuant which found that Trump has received nearly $2 billion in free media this election cycle.

Cruz tried to make that argument during a CNN town hall earlier this week, but was met with a sharp rebuttal form host Anderson Cooper.

“How many hours of free media does CNN and Fox and every other station — you let him call in. And for a year he got $2 billion in free media,” Cruz said at the time.

“We’ve asked you for interviews pretty much every day and you’ve declined every offer on my program,” Cooper shot back.

Cooper and Hannity are not the only members of the media to express frustration booking Cruz. Earlier this year, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said he had been trying to book the Texas senator for weeks to no avail. Cruz later appeared on his program.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to include information on Cruz's Monday "Hannity" appearance.

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