Hannity repeated false claim that Reagan oversaw "longest period of peacetime growth"

On the July 6 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity again repeated the false claim that former President Ronald Reagan oversaw "the longest period of peacetime growth in American history." In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented when Hannity previously made this claim, the longest period of peacetime economic growth in U.S. history occurred between March 1991 and March 2001, largely during President Bill Clinton's term in office.

Hannity made his false claim during a discussion of Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense initiative, proposed in the mid-1980s. To highlight Democrats' opposition to Reagan's initiative at the time, Hannity played an audio clip of a comment by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) criticizing the economic effects of Reagan's policies.

From the July 6 broadcast of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:

INOUYE [audio clip]: I believe he [Reagan] did so because he is afraid that his excessive defense budget will be trimmed by the Congress and because he wants to take our attention off of the economic disasters brought on by his policies.

HANNITY: Yeah, the longest period of peacetime growth in American history. Twenty-two million new jobs created, Senator.

—M.S.