Updated

Fox News' Sean Hannity opened Monday's edition of "Hannity" with a monologue attacking the mainstream media's criticism of President Donald Trump for skipping the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner.

"Really?" Hannity asked. "He’s supposed to go hang out with all of you, the elitists?"

Instead of attending the gala, Trump held a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pa., where he joked that the media and celebrities were "consoling each other in a hotel ballroom."

"The mainstream media utterly despises President Trump, it’s dripping from every word they say," Hannity said. "They can’t stand him, and in the end, they would rather throw him out of office."

The host also said that the mainstream media was out to "destroy anybody else, like me, [or] anybody in the media that dares agree with him and supports him."

However, Hannity promised that Trump was "going to sit back and let these attacks go unchallenged. He’s going to call out the media’s extreme bias, including right to their faces."