Morning Joe co-host ridicules Hannity's freakout over Pelosi saying Trump belongs in prison: 'Irony meter’ melted down ‘like Chernobyl'

Fox News host Sean Hannity freaked out over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) calling for President Donald Trump's imprisonment -- and MSNBC's Willie Geist was astonished.

Pelosi said earlier this week that she remained uninterested in impeachment, but would prefer Trump be voted out next year and prosecuted and put in prison.

"Speaker Pelosi now apparently telling senior Democrats that she'd like to see Trump behind bars," Hannity informed viewers.

"Based on no actual crimes," he continued, "she wants a political opponent locked up in prison? That happens in banana republics -- beyond despicable behavior. And by the way, they would literally turn, in many ways, the USA into a country we no longer recognize."

"Morning Joe" rolled a clip afterward of Trump warning Hillary Clinton during a 2016 debate that he'd put her in jail if he was chief executive, and Geist marveled at the disconnect.

"The irony meter is like one of those at Chernobyl when they're walking in and it was going off the charts," Geist said, as the other panelists laughed. "We didn't even play the incessant 'lock her up' chant at every single campaign rally."

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson agreed.

"When Hannity was doing that rant I could barely hear it because it was drowned out by those chants in my head," he said.

"You have to almost stand in awe at the complete lack of shame to say this is a banana republic move," Geist said, "to say somebody should be in jail, after what the president has called for for three years."

MSNBC contributor Donny Deutsch said it was all just a game for Hannity and other Fox News personalities.

"Sean Hannity is personally a nice guy," he said. "It's performance art. That's literally what it is. You can't let your hair go on fire because it's so absurd, it's so ridiculous. I think Fox News, for a few of the anchors there, it's theater, it's not even news anymore."