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Aug. 8, 2020 - The Dan Bongino Show
48:37
Sean Hannity On The 2020 Election And His New Book (Ep 1317)

Show Notes:  In this episode, I interview Sean Hannity about his new book “Live Free or Die.” Pick up your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982149973/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_cTclFb9C51K84 Copyright Bongino Inc All Rights Reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to Dan Bongino interview show.
I always appreciate you all tuning in, especially on the weekends.
These shows have done really great.
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Again, I appreciate you all tuning in.
Sean Hannity is my guest today, coming up in just a minute.
I interviewed him today.
We talked about his new book, Live Free or Die, which is really a spectacular read.
It's pretty deep, folks.
The chapters go everywhere from socialism to why the Democrats have lurched left.
We hear that a lot.
The Democrats have gone super left, but why?
He gets into that.
He talks about the mechanics of how it happened.
Really, really good book.
He gets into Marx, socialism, electoral dynamics, the importance of 2020.
We'll ask him all that.
I also ask him in the end a question.
I heard a rumor how he wound up at Fox and he confirmed it.
It's in fact true.
So stay tuned all the way to the end.
It's a really great interview.
I'm proud of it.
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Check out my interview now with the great Sean Hannity.
All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
This is a weird position for me to be in, interviewing the great Sean Hannity.
You know, Sean, I really think it would be kind now if you'd have me on your show once in a while.
It's only right.
I mean, come on.
You know, I never have you on my show.
Have a brother on.
I gotta stop here, and the first thing I have to say to you, among everything else, is thank you.
Not only are you a huge part of our ensemble cast every night, you've also become a dear friend.
Your success speaks for itself.
You're killing it in every platform that you're on.
Your background as a law enforcement officer, secret service agent, You know, NYPD is more than inspiring.
You bring strength, you bring energy.
What your audience may not know is we talk a lot about our passion for martial arts.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I just, I just, I love who you are as a person.
You're a dear friend.
It's an honor to be here with you and Reverse Rolls.
It's about time you can, you know, you can tear my head off if you want.
Well, it is a little bit weird.
We're here to talk about Sean's really terrific new book, folks, Live Free or Die.
I've got the hard copy.
I've got a bunch of questions about it, Sean, but just so you know, you're going to get me choked up here because you are a mentor to me.
I know you know that.
And I've seen you behind the scenes and there are a lot of things people don't know about you.
Your incredible work for charity and how many people, and you can't, I know you don't like to pray, but you're going to have to deal with it for a second.
My show now, you're going to deal with the praise and you're going to take it.
Whether you like it or not.
Whether you want them or not, they're good for you.
I know you hate this and you get embarrassed, but I don't think, folks, you have any idea, and I'm not kidding, how many people in this industry are who they are because of what Sean Hannity, Linda, Tiffany, Porter, and all of Sean and his team have done.
I thanked him in my first book.
I thanked him in my second book.
He got an acknowledgement there with my wife and everyone else, because I'm not kidding, Linda picked up the phone one day.
had me on his radio show and TV show.
That was eight years ago.
And I'm telling you right now, this show would not have existed without you.
And I speak for at least 10 or 15 friends.
The reason, I'm going to give you my snapshot analysis of why you are so successful.
You have an infectious warmth in your personality and intellect and life experience, which I think is as or more important than anything you could ever learn in a classroom.
And we share a love of this country.
We share a love of what's right.
We love law enforcement.
We really, really care about the people of this country.
The only reason I'm a conservative is because conservatism works.
And when you apply it, whether you be Ronald Reagan or whether you be Donald J. Trump or Newt Gingrich, when he did the contract with America, if you want the three waves of conservatism, it's Reagan, it's Newt with the contract, and it's Donald Trump today.
And then you see what we're up against, knowing where this country would go.
I think some of your more recent commentary, especially on the police and restoring law and order in Portland, in Seattle, in Chicago, in New York City, where you were once a police officer before you became a Secret Service agent, you know, that to us is fundamental, you know, because we care enough about people that we want them to be safe and secure.
If we really believe in this idea, and I do, on our founding document, and I think I can actually remember it, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator, Joe, and by the way, the creator of, you know, the thing, the thing, the creator of everything.
Yeah, the thing, right?
But, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
Alright, it says a lot there.
And it's an undeniable truth that we believe in natural rights from God, and then life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
Dan Bongino, there's not one person that is watching your podcast and listening to your shows.
not one that can pursue happiness if they don't have safety and security,
if they don't have law and order.
You know, what do all of these cities have in common?
They have one thing, they've all been run into the ground
by liberal Democrats for decades.
Donald Trump, you know, and this is how important the election becomes,
he wants to restore that.
You know, a lot of this comes down to liberty and freedom and capitalism versus the statism,
the tyranny even, and the false promises of socialism.
And, you know, live free means that we're going to remain free.
Die means that the greatest country God gave man can go away.
You know, at the bottom of the book, it says in Latin, live free or America dies.
The whole purpose of me even wanting to write a book, it's been 10 years, I don't like writing books.
It's too much work.
It's hard.
I like, I much prefer to have a conversation, is because I saw a year ago where I thought this election was going.
This is now the biggest choice election in our lifetime.
And we need to get this right.
I always talk about my grandparents came from Ireland.
They were all dirt poor, all four of my grandparents, turn of the last century.
My mom, she grew up very poor in the South Bronx.
She was a prison guard.
She worked 16 hour shifts my entire life growing up.
My dad was a family court probation guy and was a waiter on the weekends.
So for them, that was the American dream when they got out of Bed-Stuy, where my father was, and to the South Bronx, where my mother was.
And then they got this 50 by 100 lot on Long Island, you know, one of those little row houses or Leavitt houses, as we call them.
And by the way, it was a little rough for me.
I thought I was poor because I had three older sisters.
We only have one tiny bathroom and I never got to use it.
I go behind the garage more than I did in the house.
My friend used to say, Sean, the world is a man's bathroom.
He was an old tough Marine friend of mine.
I'm just saying.
Now be careful.
Now it's going to be on videotape wherever you happen to be, right?
So I'm saying all of this is that all of this is in play.
I saw this a year ago.
I didn't think it would be this bad.
In other words, I never thought we'd have a major political party presidential candidate like we have now.
Go this hard, radical socialist left.
Biden said earlier today, I can guarantee you we're not getting off of fossil fuels.
We're getting out of the energy industry.
He's pledging trillions of dollars to the madness of AOC's New Green Deal.
He literally plagiarized, which he has a history of doing, Bernie Sanders, Bolshevik Bernie's economic plan.
He really, really said to Beto Bozo that he's going to be his gun czar.
OK, he's a confiscation guy.
That destroys our Second Amendment.
And then you got Pelosi, Schumer and Biden, 125 years of failure.
We've been having fun on the show putting out our mutual friend Lawrence Jones and asking people, okay, he's been in the swamp 50 years, what has he ever done?
Can you name one thing he's done?
Well, he's nice!
And he smiles.
He worked with Barack Obama.
What did he do?
One lady goes, health.
So let me tie this all together for you.
So my grandparents come, my father and mom come.
I stand on their shoulders, right?
Okay.
Now, if we're going to pursue happiness as our founding document tells us, Well, you can't possibly think about pursuing happiness if you don't have safety and security, right?
Law and order.
Yeah.
I mean, how does somebody in Chicago or New York City now or Portland in the midst of the rioting and Seattle and the, you know, when they take over the Summer of Love Chaz Chop Zone?
How do you pursue happiness if you're not safe and secure?
I argue you cannot.
How do you—all these liberal cities, they have the worst, the absolute worst educational systems.
Okay, well, the ladder to success, if you imagine or visualize a ladder, you might as well just take a sledgehammer and knock out every rung on that ladder, because if you don't get a good education, You will be denied.
You will be shut out.
Opportunities won't exist for you that should exist for you.
Now, the question becomes this as we now get into this battle of socialism and capitalism.
OK, the new Green Deal, Joe Biden saying everything is going to be free.
Everything, you know, pre-K through college education, loan forgiveness, guaranteed government job, guaranteed government wage, Guaranteed government health care.
Guaranteed government retirement.
Guaranteed government healthy food and vacations.
All this stuff.
Okay.
Number one, when you add up the cost of it, it's $94 trillion.
On top of it, as part of that deal, we're going to get rid of the light blood of the world's economy.
And that's oil, gas, fracking, coal.
That's what we've accomplished.
Donald Trump finally got us for the first time in 75 years to the point where we are energy independent.
We're also the world's largest producer of energy, which we haven't been in over 75 years.
So they're going to make these false promises.
And then Donald Trump, meanwhile, by instituting the conservative principles of capitalism, liberty, freedom, risk, reward, and initiative and innovation in a free society, again, bringing out of people what they are naturally born with, gifts from God.
We set record low after record low unemployment for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women in the workplace, youth unemployment.
So what is at stake in 89 days, Dan Bongino, is pretty much this is the whole ball of wax.
This is it.
The biggest choice election in our lifetime.
And I shudder to think, and I want to say this to anybody that might be enticed, although I think our audiences are too smart, by these false promises of socialism.
Okay, how did Obamacare work out?
How'd it work out?
Millions lost their doctor.
Millions lost their plans.
Right?
And we're all paying, on average, 200% more.
And, you know, there's almost 40% of the country that only has one Obamacare exchange option.
That's it.
So how do the public school systems work out in most of these liberal cities?
They're a disaster.
There are 13 public high schools in Baltimore alone, and If you were to guess how many kids are proficient in math and reading, I don't know what your guess would be.
That's not a quiz.
But there's not one child in those 13 high schools proficient in math.
Not a single child.
I saw that.
You talk about that in your show a lot.
Can you imagine that?
I do.
I mean, think about it, Sean, in your neighborhood now.
This is just the disgrace of Democrats saying they're in this for equality and for the little guy and they're all in for the minority community.
If a white upper middle class community had not one kid proficient in math and reading, Sean, they'd be burning the statehouse down.
They'd be there with pitchforks tomorrow.
Understandably so.
But because it happens in the black community run by Democrats, everybody ignores it.
You know, New York had a great experience, and that was that they had an all-girls public school.
It was doing great.
Predominantly African-American, I believe at the time, and minority.
And the kids love it.
Loved it.
The parents loved it.
The teachers loved it.
The scores started going through the roof.
And then the New York Civil Liberties Union went in and to the courts and shut it down.
They're not even open to the possibility of anything innovative that would help fix the system.
But forget it.
This is about every child in America to me.
This isn't about race.
This is about they are Our precious treasure.
That's the next generation.
We're failing them in all of these cities.
So, I ask people that might be inclined towards believing that somehow this utopia can exist where everything's free.
Okay, how did Obamacare work out?
Lousy.
Last time I checked Social Security and Medicare, they're gone broke.
That's not worked out well.
How is it working out in these liberal cities with safety, law, order, security?
It's not.
How's it working out in their public schools?
They're a disaster.
Now we're going to give government more of our freedom in the name of false security, and we're going to say, here, we trust you so much, we're going to give you more to do.
By the way, how's the post office working out?
Because the post office is not exactly the most efficient organization in the world either.
Yeah.
And we probably should even privatize that.
So I'm just saying, all of this in 89 days is on the ballot.
They're stated policies.
You got a team.
You got Joe Biden, who we all know is not there.
This guy, something's going on.
Not a doctor.
You don't need to be a doctor.
I don't need to go to Harvard to see that the guy that left office after eight years as vice president has declined significantly.
He looks frail.
He looks tired.
He looks like he needs a nappy and a hot cocoa by mid-afternoon every day.
Sean, I told you on your show last night.
My sources who have never let me down are... Paul, am I messing with Sean here?
I'm telling you, every day you're reaching out to me.
You don't have to convince yourself.
You've been on my show for years now.
I know your sources.
I know who they are.
I know, and one of them said to me, it is so bad That they're concerned each day that, not that he's going to get through the day physically, that, you know, he's not in that kind of, thank God, I don't wish any physical will will on anyone, but that each day that he's going to be able to get through the day and even get a coherent sentence out that it's getting really, really bad, Sean.
Wait, I got to get to your book.
I have all these, I read your book.
You know, I did Gutfeld last week on the show and most times they send you a PR sheet.
I actually read them.
And this folks, Mark Levin said something about Sean's book, Live Free or Die.
Pick it up, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, bookstores everywhere.
Don't make the mistake of not getting this book.
Mark said something about your book.
By the way, I have good news.
I want people to save money.
Amazon has been, has it up for 34% off.
I want people to save money.
I didn't write this book for money.
My last book, I gave every penny that we made on it for charity.
Yeah, I heard you're okay with money.
I think you'll be all right.
I just heard a rumor.
Enough, really?
I spent two decades of my life washing dishes, cooking, and then a contractor.
Thanks a lot.
You sure did.
You listened, brother.
You earned it.
It made me who I was.
But when you say you're not doing it for the money, I can personally attest that this was not motivated by cash.
I promise you.
Yes.
So go ahead, you were going to ask me a question.
No, so Mark said about the book on life, liberty, and Levin, when you did the interview with him, he said that he can be very critical of authors who dial it in because you know, Mark, you know, you go to Mark's books everywhere.
He writes the guy writes like his hair's on fire every time he doesn't mess around.
This is a deep book.
I mean, Sean, your chapter on socialism is fantastic, but you have a chapter about the friction and ambition between the branches of government and how that was always meant by the founders to keep a lid on the other branches.
You know, Congress would be ambitious, and Senators would be ambitious within the Congress, and the President would be ambitious keeping a lid on the Congress, and How that's, like, all gone away.
Now everything is, like, turned over to the courts.
The courts judge it.
The big government rules.
There's, you know, no more ambition anymore.
And I thought, this is really, really well done.
How that's all seemingly disappeared.
This jealous, almost, hold on power.
Everybody's forfeiting power over the courts now.
Dan, they want to stack the Supreme Court if they get power.
They want to eliminate the Electoral College.
By the way, if they eliminate the Electoral College, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.
Some states are going to say bye-bye.
Because the purpose was that every state gets equal representation.
So we're talking about checks and balances.
You know, think about Obama on the issue of immigration.
He must have said, you know, 50 times, I wish I had the power to do that on immigration, but I don't.
You know, we're a system of checks and balances.
He ended up just doing it anyway.
And Donald Trump's been cleaning up the mess ever since.
Or, you know, usually what Democrats would do, what they could never get elected at the ballot box running on, or they could never get done in terms of passing legislation, they would always hope that they would put these judicial activists on the courts and, through executive fiat, just do that which they wanted.
And by the way, they've been successful over the years in a lot of areas, like in the environment, Look, this is what is statism.
so many other areas that it's actually chilling.
Just, you know, you even had Supreme Court justices citing foreign law, not our own constitution
to justify their bad decision.
Look, this is what is statism.
This is who they are.
We take a quick break.
We're here talking with Sean Hannity about his new book, Live Free or Die.
We'll be right back with Sean in a second.
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Now back to my interview with Sean Hannity.
Sorry folks, had to take a quick break there.
We're here back with Sean Hannity, a technical massive malfunction on the Dan Bongino Show.
We always break down the fourth wall.
We're here talking about his new book, A Deep Book.
I'm not messing with you.
Sean Hannity's Live Free or Die.
Folks, seriously, please go pick this up.
It was A little more than I expected, Sean.
You get into a lot of different things.
We were talking before the break about you have this chapter about the ambition and the friction between branches of government.
You also have this fascinating chapter about why the Democrats lurch left.
Now, you and I talk about this on your show every night.
The Democrats obviously have gone far left, but no one ever really gets into why.
And you bring up this fascinating point in the chapter that Well, it's pretty simple.
That the Democrat primary base voters who identify as consistently liberal, the radicals and the leftists, basically are the 75% of the primary.
So if you want to win a Democrat primary, you gotta be a leftist.
I don't think anybody's said that before.
So it's a good point.
But what's different here is liberals always hid who they were.
In primaries, they go left.
Usually they try to appear moderate in a general election.
Now, I think it's a sign of weakness on Biden's part, is that it's not only he's gone left, he's lurched far radical left.
And by that I mean, he literally is adopted.
Bolshevik Bernie's economic policies.
He's even lifted the exact verbiage out of Bernie's plan.
He's now pledging trillions and trillions of dollars to AOC's New Green Deal.
I mean, this is the most radical presidential candidate.
I want to show you, I want to read one thing to you today.
Yeah.
I got it right here.
I love wearing my glasses because I think they make me look smarter than I am.
But Biden literally saying, you know, today that he's going to eliminate all these jobs.
I mean, he was out there earlier today.
What did he say exactly?
He said, oh, he literally says, listen to me, I'm not I'm getting rid of Our dependence on energy.
Okay.
He's going to have clean energy in 10 years.
You know what that means?
Let me define it for you.
That means no oil, no gas, no fracking, and no coal.
And you know what else it means?
It means that the lifeblood of our economy and the world's economy goes down the tubes.
Now, if they had the technology, I'd say, fine, show me a technology that's going to save us money, that's cleaner energy, I think we should all be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us.
But that doesn't exist yet.
And if they want to invent it, if they can invent it, that's fine.
I haven't seen it.
I don't believe government's good at inventing anything.
As a matter of fact, as Reagan said, you know, government is the problem.
Here they are the problem.
But it gets even a little bit deeper.
If you buy the false promises of socialism, and you buy into the New Green Deal madness, and you add up the cost of trillions of dollars that Biden, AOC, and company are committing, you first eliminate millions, 10 million, you know, career, high-paying jobs for Americans.
That's a bad idea.
That's not going to end well.
The other thing is, is those promises that they're making, the amount of money that they're spending, You don't need to have an MIT engineering degree or be a math professor to understand the numbers don't add up because they're talking about $94 trillion there, $52 trillion for the new Green Deal.
I'm sorry, for Medicare for All.
You add it together, we only take in $4.5 trillion a year, Dan Bongino.
Simple math.
You don't even need your iPhone calculator.
You just use an abacus.
Joe probably feels more comfortable with an abacus the way he's walking around lately.
And so I don't want people to think, maybe there's a psychological component to this that young people in particular seem to be drawn to like Bolshevik Bernie socialism and they're thinking, I want to pay back my student loan, health care is free, retirement's free, don't have to have the stress I have on a job.
The only problem with that philosophy is you're assuming that the government does anything well.
Well, okay, tell me what they do well, because it's not very much.
Well, you give the data in the book.
You have great data in there.
You have this 2014 poll.
43% of 18 to 29 year olds had a positive view of socialism.
I read that and I can't believe, I mean, is it because they didn't see the Soviet Union?
I mean, you have a lot of warnings in this book.
You know, one of the things though, Sean, I really want to get to in this book is you really address the importance of the choices coming up in 2020.
Um, but I've been dying to ask you this question for a long time.
You were an early adopter.
All Dan has to do is pick up the phone.
I never bother you.
I've texted you one time.
That was it.
I never, ever, listen, I see you on your show and I'm a guest in studio and people are always texting you and you're, you're kind enough to answer everybody.
Hang out.
This is what we do.
You know, okay.
What are you, what are you, what's your workout these days?
That's it.
That's all we talk.
We never talk politics.
Let me show you how I can manipulate two fingers.
Right?
We never talk politics.
Never.
You would think Dan Bongino and Sean Hannity are talking about Obama, Biden, never, never.
It's always about, listen... If my sensei is with me and the three of us... Oh, forget it.
I chewed his ear off at the Super Bowl for like 45 minutes.
I'm like, what do you think of boxing in relationship to... He liked that.
You think elbows?
What do you think?
That's all we were doing?
I didn't mention politics once.
No, we have a lot in common.
I'm not going to mention it on the air.
There's one weakness that I have.
Oh, they know.
They know.
I complain about it all the time.
There's only one weakness Dan has when it comes to brawling.
So all I'm going to say is go high.
Go high.
That's right.
That's right.
The great thing about an elbow, you were asking, is that if you, you know, you come down with this part of, you know, the sharpest part, it's just that strike.
Oh, you'll open someone right up.
You gave me a Thai kick once to the quadricep.
Paula, remember this?
I came home and I'm like, I'm in the studio and you know, I didn't think, you know, I knew you'd talk more.
I didn't know what you could do.
I'll be honest with you, Sean.
I thought I was an older guy.
Oh, you kicked me in the quad.
I was like, the next day I was like, son of a B. I'm like, that dude can kick.
Did I not come home and say that, Paul?
I'm like, this guy's got some kick on him.
He's like, let me show you this little thigh kick.
Well, that's a specific kick.
Actually, you drive it right into your... That was 5%.
That didn't kick you.
It was like a little tap.
Yeah, it was a tap!
It was a good tap!
You're a strong guy.
It's that Irish you gotta do.
You guys are strong.
You got big guys in your family.
I met one of your cousins or whoever it was.
The guy was enormous.
Yeah, the shooting range guy.
That guy's like seven feet tall.
He's huge.
I'm like, now I know where Sean gets his kicks from.
Daniel liked this.
He was only a year older than me.
Man.
Look, I've been honest on the air.
I was an incorrigible kid.
My poor prison guard mom would say, don't leave this house.
And I'd be like, you can't stop me.
And I'd walk out the door.
Get back and wait till your father gets home.
But anyway, he was only a year older.
And every time we got in trouble because he was so much taller, he got blamed.
It was great.
You're supposed to be responsible.
He's a big at hands like this.
But, you know, I know a lot of your crew.
They're really great.
And, you know, they've helped me throughout my career.
And I'll never forget a call, I don't know, six years ago, probably, when Trump was first, whispers of him getting in.
And I'm talking to some of your folks.
I'm like, you know, I really like Cruz and I still like Ted Cruz a lot.
And I will never forget, they're like, Sean loves Donald Trump.
And I swear, Sean, I was like, what?
Trump, I was like, that doesn't make sense.
Like, what did you know about Trump now that he's had the most conservative presidency since, you know, Reagan?
I mean, judges, deregulation, school choice, abortion, everything.
What did you know that a lot of us missed?
I've been dying to ask you this question.
It is a great question.
Not many people ask me.
Now, by the way, I like all those guys.
Back in, what was it, 2015, I did 16 of the 17 first interviews when they would announce their candidacy.
So I was headed all around the country.
The one that I didn't get, interestingly, was Donald Trump.
And so, Ted Cruz, I didn't think he was, as the campaign went along, I didn't think he was ready And there's a certain quality, I think, that a candidate needs that has to resonate and connect.
It's sort of like whatever it is, I can't explain it.
It's not gravitas.
It's, you know, he knows Reagan chapter and verse like we do.
He was great on the stump.
He's a great debater.
But I didn't believe at the time at that time.
Now, he may run again, and I think he'd be always a better candidate the second time he run.
But I've known Trump for 25 years.
This is the answer.
And I knew that I was throwing all of my conservative credentials I built up over 20, you know, whatever many years on the line.
And I always tell my audience the truth.
And I knew Donald Trump personally for 25 years.
I mean, I can tell you in the middle of the Iraq war, we would talk often and he passionately disagreed with my position on the Iraq war and explained why and so on and so forth.
I still stand by the decision.
I think it was the right decision post 9-11.
We didn't have the weaponry available that we have today for our military where we can push buttons in Tampa, Florida and hit with pinpoint accuracy and take out the likes of Soleimani on a runway the way the president did or Baghdadi the way we took out him and his associates.
But I knew that When conservatives were worried that he really is a liberal because he donated to Republicans and Democrats, and he stated strongly that he was pro-choice, I had already known.
He didn't believe all that.
All he was doing in New York, and he's even been transparent about it, he was playing the game.
He wanted to keep his buildings going up.
He wanted to fight with the city to get better tax rates for him when he was building.
He wanted to keep his workers working.
Contractors, construction guys working, and he wanted to make money.
That's what he was doing.
And in the process, like all good capitalists, he did well.
But we had spent a lot of time together, just on the phone even, just talking and talking and talking.
He convinced me that he was right.
We should have taken the oil.
Why not?
If we're going to liberate a country, why don't we make them pay for their own liberation?
Why didn't we take millions of barrels of oil and say, we're going to give millions of dollars to the families that lost their lives fighting that benefited you?
In the future, I think what we've learned out of Baghdad especially, and with the new technology that we have, That we don't need to send our national treasure, our sons and daughters, overseas for a protracted long conflict when we have the weaponry that we've now perfected.
When I was in Baghdad, I could tell you when I saw one of the first drones going up there, I literally sat and I was stunned and I was amazed and inspired by their incredible technology.
You know, so I don't think President Bush had those.
He didn't have the capability we certainly have today.
But I knew he was conservative.
I also knew where he felt on border security.
I knew where he felt about judges.
I knew he told me the story how he had transformed and went from pro-choice to pro-life on that issue.
Now, in the end, let's look at the track record.
He's the only president ever to speak at the rally for life that we have once a year.
That's right.
Only one that's ever gone and done that.
He's been the best friend Israel's ever had.
He's been the best friend of religious liberty and freedom this country's ever seen.
He also kept his promises, gave us the tax cuts.
No president has ended the bureaucracy the way he has.
He also gave us a list of judges that he would choose from for the Supreme Court.
And he stuck to his list.
Then he said he was going to fight for the border.
Guess what?
It wouldn't help him in Congress, even though in Obama's second term, Democrats would want to do so.
So he has one obstacle thrown up in front of him after another, but he was able to figure out how to do it and bypass them and reallocate funds, for example, from the Defense Department and elsewhere.
Kept that promise.
He said he wants better, freer, fairer trade deals.
Many of my conservative brethren interpreted that as, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, that's going to be protectionism.
No, it's not, because he understood as a negotiator that if they didn't believe these other countries that he meant there would be reciprocity, then they'd never make a new trade deal.
And look at what he's done.
Western Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, even China.
We got new trade deals.
When he said that he would open ANWR, he meant it.
When he said he'd build the Dakota pipeline, Keystone XL pipeline, he got that done.
And now we're energy independent, as I mentioned earlier.
He said he'd pull us out of foreign entanglements, but at the same time he used the military technology that Biden and Obama put the handcuffs on the military, and he drove out the caliphate in Syria.
Biden and Obama didn't do that.
He's even gotten rid of that dreadful AFFH, that suburb rule where they were going to build a bunch of low-income houses.
Another Obama thing.
I mean, Sean, the guy's record, President Trump's record is outstanding.
And I think a lot of the objections to him are clearly just personal.
They have nothing to do with his actual record.
Sean, I know you got to run.
I just want to slide in one last question.
I don't want to hold you.
Again, we're talking to Sean Hannity about his really, folks, an incredible book, Sean Hannity, Live Free or Die.
I knew it'd be good.
But this is really, it surprised me because it's actually really fantastic.
Socialism.
You didn't think I could do that much research, neither did I. No, I mean, really, I don't know how you did it because the book is deep.
Even the print is small.
It took me a long time to get through this thing.
even go through a chapter here.
We're on now 30, 40 minutes, whatever it is.
You can't even, I cannot in a four hour day, a 20 hour on air week,
I can't go through the depth of even one chapter.
No, it's so much.
I'm compelled to do it.
You have Reagan stuff, polling data,
the history of socialism.
You have a Spygate chapter, which I didn't even,
I had questions on that.
But I know you got one last question for you, and
a little bit off topic, but there's no better person.
My audience would love to hear this from you.
There's obviously a sea change going on with cable news and talk radio.
You have cord cutting and all this stuff going on, the digital transformation.
Sean, it's not hyperbole to say that you, Rush, and Mark Invented a new market.
Yeah, we had talk radio before, but I was watching an interesting ESPN documentary and I thought of you.
It was about Mike and the Mad Dog.
How there was always sports radio, but Mike and the Mad Dog changed the style.
The argument, Chris Russo, hey everybody!
And then there were all these copiers, right?
They all copied the Mad Dog.
I liked them.
I love the Mad Dog.
He was great.
I grew up in New York.
Listen to WFAN.
But I thought, whereas they changed an established market, you in Russian Mark created a market.
National conservative talk.
It did not exist, Sean.
You guys did that.
You've made a whole... We gotta go first.
Yeah, go ahead.
Rush is Babe Ruth.
I mean, no question.
Well, because when he syndicated in 1988, I had actually, I first heard of him, I was in the college radio station where I started in 1987.
And I had to hang out, I had to volunteer, I spent hours and hours there.
They, you know, finally they gave me a show and I was horrible at it, but, and I got run out of town deservedly so.
But once the light went on, it changed my life.
But somebody said, you ever hear of this guy Rush Lamar?
At the time he syndicated, Dan, there were only 200 plus talk radio stations in the country.
That's it.
It was not a huge format.
He was looking at a forest.
It wasn't a single tree cut, and he literally had to go in there and forge that difficult path.
We all benefit by following him, so all credit to him.
him. And what now it's, you know, on AM and FM, I think we're up to like three or four
of over 3000, probably 4000 now talk news talk stations in the country.
Then you've got podcasting, which is now massive.
Fox News, I was there from day one.
I don't know if you've ever read Malcolm Gladwell's books, but Outliers, that's pretty much my life.
And I don't think I deserve any of this, if you want to call it success, I don't think I deserve any of it, to be honest.
And I will tell you, the timing couldn't have been better in this sense, that when I got into radio, Rush syndicated a year later after I started.
I've been in radio now 33 years.
And when I had an opportunity to move, I took all those chances and I went to Huntsville, Alabama.
Then I went to Atlanta.
Atlanta is where I started.
Well, I actually started in Huntsville.
I had a little show at a local CBS station.
And but then I got the call to audition in Atlanta for a local station there that our mutual friend Neil Boorstin left to go to the competition.
So I did two shows.
They hired me.
And then while there, it changed my life, too, because now we're Huntsville was 90 to 92 and 92.
I go to Atlanta.
And we know what happens in 1994.
I had become, in the process, best friends with Newt Gingrich.
Republicans take control of the House of Representatives with the contract, first time in 40 years.
I'm the emcee that night of Newt's event when he becomes speaker.
Cable TV was non-existent except for CNN that nobody ever even thought of or watched or even knew what it was.
And that led to TV a lot on CNN for me.
And then I got called up to do the daytime shows like Phil Donahue, Geraldo, Sally Jesse Raphael.
I did them all.
And then Roger Ailes one time, I caught his eye and he gave me a chance to host the show on Saturday night when he was running CNBC.
And I did two shows for him.
And the last thing he said to me is, whatever you do, don't sign another contract till you talk to me.
So I said, OK.
Lo and behold, he's putting Fox on.
And now I'm like the old man there.
I'm in my 25th year.
Listen, you're an icon up there, and I'm not... Let me just say, when I met you, Sean, you are the most humble guy.
And I'm not saying that to grease you, I think we're past that point.
My audience knows I don't do that crap anyway, but... No, we're friends.
Yeah, when you go to Fox, Sean comes out, he goes into the green room, he B.S.' 's with everybody, there's no... I can't help myself.
I, you, I never expected that.
I was, and I remember calling my wife the first time I was on the great American panel with Penny Nance and this is gosh, 10 years ago, eight years.
And I'm like, he was like talking to me.
Like I was one of the guy.
I couldn't believe it.
I was so flat about it.
One last thing.
I'll let you go.
I heard a rumor about Fox.
You inspire me.
You know, you know what you do?
You remind me of all of my best friends and my family growing up.
Thanks brother.
In law enforcement.
I appreciate it.
You know, the fact that you've been able to transition so seamlessly into this great success you built is, to me, inspiring, too.
You deserve all of it.
Well, from listening to you.
I'm serious.
I listen to you.
Radio and TV's not a zero-sum game.
My success is not predicated on other people failing.
No, and I'm telling you, I have at least 10 or 15 friends in the business who have personally attributed their careers to you giving them their stuff.
Exit question, just quick.
I heard a rumor about Fox when you first started that you interviewed with Fox only because you were up in New York on a different interview for a radio station and like the Fox thing was secondary.
You were like, yeah, let me just throw in this Foxy thing, whatever they're doing over here.
Is that true?
No, I went.
Bob Grant was a legend.
He's since passed away.
Very acerbic, controversial.
He was like Mark Levin on steroids.
Get out of my phone, you creep!
You're disgusting!
If you like the entertaining side, it was like that.
But then I went to meet Phil Boyce.
Before I even sat down with him, he goes, you didn't get the job.
I thought maybe I was considered to replace him.
Anyway, then I called our mutual friend David Limbaugh.
I said, I can get it.
He goes, let me call Roger.
Went into Roger's office.
I was hired in less than 10 minutes.
He goes, OK, we'll do a debate show with you.
Is that OK?
Yeah, sure.
All right.
Fox hasn't gone on the air yet.
It turns out that I work for WABC one year overnights from 11 to 2 in the morning.
And then I got that job that I had gone up for earlier in 1990... 1998.
Isn't that crazy?
So that is true.
You were up in New York for a different... I heard that from someone, a mutual friend.
They're like, yeah, Sean, the Fox thing was secondary.
He was up there for a radio thing.
And now look, the most watched host in cable news.
Congrats last month.
Number one again.
God has been better than I deserve.
This is why I have my copy here.
I do not want, as Reagan said, freedoms but one generation away from extinction.
It can't be our generation.
And that's what drove me to write this thing.
And there's so much at stake in just 89 days.
We love freedom.
We love liberty.
We love capitalism.
If we don't reelect Donald Trump, What they're proposing to do, their stated policies, will destroy this country.
It is predictable as the day is long.
I go all through what made us great in Chapter 1, then I talk about the rise of the radical left, then I talk about Fantasyland, the Democrats' 2020 agenda.
And I let people read that first.
And it's sort of percolating up so that when they read socialism, a history of failure, they'll they'll hear the same false promises modern Democrats are making.
You know, they hear that this, you know, I don't care if it's China and the revolution or the Bolsheviks or, you know, look at East Germany versus West Germany or more modern day Venezuela or Cuba.
Where is it working?
You know, even Finland's government collapsed in the last year.
So it's my hope and my prayer that every great American understands what's at stake or else we'll lose the greatest country God gave man.
We can't allow that to happen on our watch.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's all in this really spectacular new book.
I'm asking you to do me a favor, not because of Sean, because he's my friend, because this book has information I promise you haven't seen before.
Sean Hannity, Live Free or Die, beautifully written, really.
You can read it chapter by chapter.
You can even read it out of order.
The chapters are set up in just wonderfully laid out fashion.
Great book.
By the way, I did the whole audio book too.
Most authors don't do that.
I wasn't allowed by contract last time to say how much I hate reading audiobooks.
I'm out of that contract now.
I hate reading audiobooks, but I do it myself too.
It is hard.
It took me about a week to get through.
I got a book coming out in October, but go get Sean's new book.
Sean Hannity, good friend, great man.
It was an honor.
Thank you for doing my show.
I'll see you tonight on your show.
Keep it up.
All right, folks.
Thanks again.
That was Sean Hannity, the great Sean Hannity, author of Live Free or Die.
Can't miss it.
Check out his new book.
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