The Acela Primary has arrived and Senator Ted Cruz, Governor John Kasich and Donald Trump are battling to win contests in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. Will Trump win decisively in Pennsylvania? Will the Cruz-Kasich truce help to bring a contested GOP convention? The Sean Hannity Show is live Monday through Friday from 3pm - 6pm ET on iHeart Radio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We've got, let's see, we've got Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania.
We have Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Those are the big five states.
Now, because things are so screwy in Pennsylvania, Got to give a lot of credit to Linda and our good friend Rose Tennant in Pittsburgh.
I'm not giving Ethan any credit.
He hasn't even been on the show a year.
He gets zero credit until I see that this is not a short-term work ethic.
He's got to build up my trust, and Ethan has not even gotten close.
So I don't even know who Nick is, whoever Nick is for crying out loud.
Geez, there are people that work for me.
I don't even know who they are.
If I don't see you, I don't know you work for me.
So that's just the way it works.
You're talking about Blair, right?
That guy?
The other guy?
Okay.
Did you say that on the air in my ear?
His name is Nick.
He works on our web team.
He's great.
Yeah, by the way, our web has never been better.
We're really excited about it.
Hannity.com.
All right, let me give you where we are today.
So you got those five states.
Look, I'm going to give you the analysis.
There's no big real surprises here.
It's by every objective polling measure out there.
Of course, polls can be wrong, but I tend to think these are probably accurate.
I think we've had a very good track record of giving you an indication on Election Day where things are going.
I can't think of one instance where we got it wrong this year, have we?
I think Jamie Dupree and I, we've been pretty much on target.
By the way, Jamie's been out the last couple of weeks.
He's not feeling well.
We wish him a speedy recovery and relax, Jamie.
Take your time, get better, and come back when you feel better.
It's nothing serious.
It's just he's been out for a while.
So anyways, just what we need, something to stir things up just a little more, because I guess we don't have enough controversy as far as this campaign is concerned.
But the reality is, you know what?
At the end of the day, I'm somewhat confident, hopeful that things are going to work out better than maybe what a lot of people think.
And if they don't work out that way, then you know what?
We're all going to pay a price.
And that price is going to be Hillary Clinton as your next president.
So you have to just consider that as you contemplate never Cruz, never Trump, never Trump, never Cruz, never Kasich.
How about we all just keep in mind the bigger prize, which is never Hillary.
Anyway, so it's sort of like another Super Tuesday today, maybe Super Tuesday 3, 4, 5.
I can't keep track anymore.
These days are just flying by.
You know, we first started this coverage back in March of 2015.
Remember, I was at CPAC and I interviewed Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
That was all back then.
I mean, it's gone that, it's been going on that long.
And it feels longer now that everyone's trying to kill each other, which I'm going to get back into later in the program today.
So that's for the Republican side.
On the Democratic side, looks like Hillary, she will be the Democratic nominee absent an act of God or act of James Comey and her wearing an orange jumpsuit and shoes without laces, which is a possibility, or a jumpsuit that's black and white, striped.
Never know, that's a possibility.
But I want to focus mostly on the Republican side today and give you what the context is.
So you've got Donald Trump going into tonight, depending on which news outlet you listen to, has around 845 delegates.
And you have Ted Cruz at 559 delegates, and you have John Kasich at 148 delegates.
And as anyone who listens to the show by now knows the magic number is 1,237.
By the way, you can't leave until I talk to you, or else you're in trouble.
No, I'm only kidding.
I didn't mean that.
All right, so that's what those are what the numbers are.
As for this version of Super Tuesday, there are 172 Republican delegates at stake in these mid-Atlantic and eastern seaboard states, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island.
And anyway, it's vote, what's called the Acela primary.
If you're not on the East Coast and you haven't taken the Acela, it's a high-speed train that shuttles commuters up and down the East Coast.
It's actually a really efficient way to travel.
I've been on it many, many times.
I actually enjoy it.
You actually get to work on your computer.
They have a place where you can get a beer and a lousy piece of pizza and something else, chips, whatever else you want to eat.
And it goes by fast if you're with some friends.
It just does.
So Trump tonight is poised to sweep all five states.
I'd be shocked if he didn't.
The number of delegates broken down statewide.
You have 28 in Connecticut.
Rhode Island, small state with 19.
Delaware, 16.
Pennsylvania, 17 bound, 54 unbound delegates.
I'll get back to that in a second.
Four of the states, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, are closed primary states.
Rhode Island is a modified party primary, meaning major party voters have to stick to their party.
But if you're an independent in Rhode Island, you can vote in whichever primary, party primary you want.
And some of the states are winner-take-all, some are winner-take-most, and still others are proportional distribution of the delegates.
But the one constant is the numbers on these five states.
Now, let's look at the latest numbers.
Polls now have in Pennsylvania Trump up by 20 or more points.
He's ahead in Connecticut by 30 or more points.
He's ahead in Rhode Island by nearly 40 points.
And ahead in Maryland by 30 points.
So which state didn't I mention here?
Oh, Delaware.
He's doing like he's up by 34 in Delaware or 37 points in Delaware.
So, you know, fairly significant lead.
Now, some of these state polls are more unreliable than others.
None has a margin of error of 30 points.
So you've got to stipulate Trump is probably going to win all five states tonight.
He's probably going to win big.
He's going to win most to nearly all of the delegates.
I know the Cruz campaign has been working hard to pick up a few delegates in Maryland.
Kasich has been trying to get a couple in Rhode Island.
But the other campaigns and candidates are essentially conceding these five states to Trump.
And Cruz was out campaigning yesterday in Indiana, which means that the map is shrinking if you're a Republican presidential candidate, not name Trump.
I mean, now it becomes very, very tight.
And I'll get back to this alliance, which seems to have hit a little bit of a hitch between Cruz and Kasich.
But anyway, so the hope for non-Trump candidates, Cruz and Kasich supporters, and the stop Trump movement is probably threefold, that things will improve after today, since Trump was expected to do well in New York and the Acela corridor states.
Now, they will be over tomorrow.
And as April gives way to May and the map gets better for Cruz and Kasich.
Now, Indiana is a week from today.
And in that state, based on the Cruz-Kasich alliance, Cruz thinks it sort of aligned it that it's a one-on-one contest with Donald Trump.
Now, the latest polls out of Indiana are prior to this agreement.
So how relevant they are, I don't know.
The Fox News poll Friday had Trump up eight in Indiana.
There was another poll on Friday that had Trump up by six in Indiana.
But in those polls, John Kasich had about 20 points.
So the question is, how many Kasich supporters will be going to Cruz and how many Kasich supporters might be going to Trump?
If I had to guess, I would suggest that probably Cruz would get the larger number of Kasich supporters if, in fact, they still go and vote.
So, all right, the second thing is, well, the third thing, if there's a strong showing, because Indiana's winner-take-all, 57 delegates.
So, really, it's a must-win state for Cruz.
And you've got to say this about Cruz.
Every time he's needed a must-win, I'll give two examples.
Iowa, Wisconsin, he's gotten them.
There's a pro-Cruz super PAC that is committed to $1.6 million in the state of Indiana.
If you live in Indiana, get ready.
You're going to be bombarded with campaign ads.
And if you're in the TV and radio business or the print business, you're probably going to have a banner week.
So a strong showing by Cruz in Indiana.
And then, of course, Kasich is, the Cruz people have agreed not to be in Oregon and New Mexico.
And a mediocre performance by Trump in California, that is the hope of the non-Trump, the Stop Trump movement, which explains the Cruz-Kasich alliance I spoke about yesterday.
They decided to cede certain states to the other because mathematically, neither Kasich or Cruz can get to 1237.
So they decided to cede states, consolidate, and coordinate in a sense.
And there's nothing wrong with it.
It's perfectly legal.
And in order to block Trump from getting the nomination, which would lead to an open convention, and that's the hope of both Kasich supporters, John Kasich, Cruz supporters, and Ted Cruz.
Now, the alliance makes sense, but John Kasich has kind of hurt that alliance by somewhat erratic comments and actions over the last 24 hours.
I'm trying to follow this.
It's like follow the bouncing ball.
So I'm not exactly sure whether or not this alliance is holding up or not, because on Sunday night, late Sunday night, both Cruz and Kasich, their campaigns, campaign managers, released a statement announcing their plan.
And on Monday in Indiana, Cruz trumpeted the big news that Kasich had pulled out of the state to give us a head-to-head with Donald Trump.
But on the same day, Kasich said that voters in Indiana, quote, ought to vote for me, which was directly contradicting the spirit and the purpose of this so-called alliance.
By this morning, when pressed on the Today Show, Kasich was nearly incoherent.
It was kind of bizarre.
And I talked to you a month ago after the Ohio win, after your Ohio win, I asked you if you would consider moving forward, coordinating with the Cruz campaign to stop Donald Trump from reaching 1237 delegates.
You said to me, I'm out there running to be president.
I'm not out to stop Donald Trump or anybody else.
Now we hear of this deal between your campaign and the Cruz campaign.
So did reality or the calendar simply catch up with you.
Well, first of all, we're not out to, I'm not out to stop Donald Trump.
I'm out to stop Hillary Clinton.
Hey, we know this.
Donald Trump has zero chance of being able to beat Hillary Clinton.
He loses in every single poll.
I win in every single poll.
But there is a deal in place between your campaign and the Cruz team.
I understand.
It's a matter of resources.
Does that make sense to you?
That doesn't make sense to me.
So it went from an alliance, and then he tells people, no, if you're in Indiana, vote for me, contradicting what I thought was the spirit and stated purpose of the alliance.
And this morning, it sounded, I don't know where he stands on this whole thing.
I have no idea at this moment.
Kind of refusing to tell his voters to vote for him or for Cruz and insisting that he's not part of a stop Trump movement when he most certainly is part of it.
I mean, at least he was part of it.
At least maybe for 12 hours he was part of it.
I don't know.
Anyway, so Kasich's moving forward with his plan to meet with Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
Now, why he would do that if he'd given up on the state?
That doesn't make sense either.
So the Cruz-Kasich alliance, I understand on paper, right?
That makes sense.
You want to stop Trump from getting to 1237.
But for it to work, you actually have to follow up on what it is both sides said they were going to do.
And Cruz and Kasich need to be paddling in the same direction in the same canoe.
And in this case, Cruz seems to be paddling forward, and Kasich is like sideways.
It makes no sense.
Now, Donald Trump, on the other hand, is going after both Cruz and Kasich, sounding like with some relish, mocking them both and saying their alliance is a sign of weakness.
Now, in a way, you've got to admit it's kind of right.
They don't have a path to 1237.
Their only path is to stop Trump from getting to 1237 and hope and pray it gets to a second ballot or a third ballot and have a contested convention.
That's where they are.
And it's perfectly defensible in terms of a tactical move by the two candidates who are losing to a third candidate, but just because it's defensible doesn't mean it's going to work.
I've been reading a lot of social media on this.
I'm actually surprised at the level of backlash.
We actually used it as our question of the day last night on Hannity on TV.
I've got to get the results from my producer.
But if it works, John Kasich, he's going to have to get on script pretty fast.
Anyway, so the task of Cruz and Kasich looked hard enough this morning.
And after the results from the five states tonight, it'll probably look even much harder.
And all eyes will then turn to Indiana, which is a week from now.
All right, so we're going to get to all this today.
And we've got Trump at 50% in a latest poll.
Trump saying that he's ready to hit the Hillary scandal encyclopedia.
You got on the Democratic side, Sanders is now floating Elizabeth Warren as a possible VP.
The White House, very serious about aggressively implementing their transgender agenda.
Team Hillary hits Bernie with a porn attack.
And we have some analysis that if you're a Republican this year, you should take heart in.
And that is that so far, Trump has won more than 2 million more votes than Romney did in 2012 in states voting so far.
That's a pretty big number.
So does that mean that there's far more enthusiasm on the Republican side?
Former Speaker of the House New Kingrich, you know, when you're away, there's a void on the program because I have questions I want to ask you.
And frankly, it's just rude that you go away and you just don't, you forget about all of us.
It's horrible.
Well, Sean, all of our audience know I never forget about you.
You're unforgettable.
You're impossible to forget about.
You know, the funny thing is, I'm sending you emails and you're on vacation.
And I've got to believe at some point your wife says, tell him to shut up and leave you alone.
Well, she does.
She does.
She just said him a minute ago.
She said, it's kind of like having a younger brother call.
Yeah, but I'm a generous younger brother, right?
I mean, I'm.
You're a great younger brother.
I try and bribe you and bribe her if you do me special favors.
You know how many special favors I've asked over the years?
It's really, I cannot pay it back.
That counts 319, actually.
I bet that's probably about accurate.
Anyway, how was your trip?
Where'd you go?
Oh, it's fabulous.
It was a very unusual trip in that Callista plays in the Fairfax City band with a number of people who were part of the Navy Supply Corps, who were retired officers in the Navy Supply Corps.
And their group, which is a foundation, actually rented 95% of this river boat called Scenic, which is a terrific, I mean, amazing boat.
I recommend Scenic to anybody.
And we started in Amsterdam, Holland, worked our way up through Germany to stopped in Strasbourg, France, and then ended up in Basel, Switzerland.
And I had always wanted to do the Rhine.
My dad was stationed first in Orléans, France, and then in Stuttgart, Germany when I was a kid.
And I'd always had this desire to go up the Rhine and see the castles.
And I can just tell everybody who's listening, it is better than I would have guessed.
It is truly a remarkable experience.
And the castles, the villages, the towns, to be honest, the apple strudel.
I mean, there's just a lot of different things going on.
The apple strudel.
The one thing that sticks out is the apple strudel.
You know, it's funny.
We're in Germany.
I just actually took a picture every day of that day's apple strudel.
So what can I tell you?
Actually, it's on.
You know, the funny thing is, you've known me since my days.
The first time I interviewed you, I was on WVNN in Huntsville, Alabama.
I set up a remote broadcast to broadcast an interview with you.
I think it was on a Saturday, and you were giving a speech.
It was in a holiday-in hotel room.
There is a picture somewhere of this.
I know, I think you have it.
And I was making $19,000 a year.
Now, at that point in my life, I could have traveled.
But I didn't have any money.
Now I have some money, but I have no time to travel.
And I live vicariously through the adventures of you and Callista because you really enjoy traveling.
You always have great stories to tell when you come back.
And it makes me very envious and jealous that you have all these great experiences.
Well, sometimes you get a different perspective.
One of my, as you know, I do two free newsletters a week at Gingrichproductions.com.
And one of the ones I did last week was on the crises that are affecting Germany and all of Europe.
And sometimes when you get out of the country and you get a little distance, you see things differently than when you always have your nose right up against the window.
So you get a perspective, a chance to reflect on things, and a realization of just how big the problems are going to be in Europe, which is very, very sobering, I think.
But on the other hand, I couldn't have picked a better time to come back because, and obviously we're going to be talking about this tonight on your show because we'll have the first results in from these five.
You're going to be our first guest at 10 o'clock tonight on Hannity, and we'll probably have some results by then.
Yeah, but I think it's going to be very exciting.
The newsletter we put out today outlined how to think about it.
And I think unless something really unusual happens, Trump is going to win all five.
And I think it's going to be very hard after that to argue that he is not the nominee.
I mean, you know, technically he's still got to finish wrapping up the delegates.
But if he wins after the New York victory, which was so enormous, where right now he is, I believe, at 90 to 3 with two undecided delegates from New York, 90 to 3.
I think if he gets a similar wave tonight in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland, it's going to be very hard not to argue that he is clearly going to be the nominee.
I actually thought the final count was 92 to 3, but maybe two of them are still outstanding.
I knew that Ed Cox, the state chairman, had come out for Trump.
The other two were technically unbound.
I just hadn't seen if they'd come out for him.
If they have, then it's 92 to 3.
Obviously, if you're in a state where 64% voted for one candidate, probably if you have any sense of survival, you end up being for the candidate that got two-thirds of the vote.
Now, what do you say?
Look, my audience is very divided.
I don't think I've ever seen such division among conservatives than in this election.
He's hated by both Trump and Cruz supporters in a lot of ways.
And it almost seems like it's a bridge too far that I wonder and worry and I'm concerned that if ultimately one person is going to win the nomination, we know that, whether or not this party is going to unite and see the wisdom of defeating Hillary.
Well, I think, first of all, it's a real challenge because you have these enormous pressures.
I mean, one of the things I was struck by on our trip to Europe was the new hardline anti-immigration party in Austria came in first in the presidential election this week.
They got 37%.
The hard-left socialist pro-immigration party came in second.
They got 20%.
The two traditional parties who have dominated Austrian politics since World War II were wiped out.
Neither one of them is even in the runoff.
Now, that's a level of tension, a level of anger, a level of desire for change that's very profound.
And that's what you're seeing here, I think.
You've got a very strong minority of the Democratic Party rallying around Bernie Sanders, who just despise Hillary Clinton, think that she's a crook, think that she represents everything wrong with the Washington establishment.
Then you've got an absolute rebellion on the Republican side, where probably two out of three Republican voters now automatically are against you if you represent the Washington establishment.
And they were split between Cruz and Trump, but with Trump gradually getting more and more dominance.
And when you have that scale of change, you're going to have tension.
I mean, this is a very, you know, either none of this stuff matters, in which case, why be tense?
Or, you know, these are really big decisions.
I mean, if Donald Trump becomes president and he actually does start building the wall in January of next year, that's a really big change.
This is not a small thing.
And I'm looking forward to a speech tomorrow at the National Press Club where he's going to lay out his views on foreign policy and national security.
I'm told this is going to be a really serious sophisticated he is.
Yeah, I mean, I hear this is going to be a really serious, serious speech on foreign policy.
This is not going to be an ad-lib rally that people are used to seeing.
And I think that's important, too, because as he starts to move from the challenger to the nominee, he's got to start moving towards being the potential president.
And one of these people don't want in a president is to be frightened by not knowing what they're doing and where they're going.
You know, they don't want you to wake up in the morning and go, oh, he did what?
They want a sense of certainty, a sense of thoughtfulness, because they recognize that you are so important in your ability to, you know, for example, you have nuclear weapons at your command.
You are the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in history.
You can make very big deals around the world.
So I do think there's a sense that people have a standard.
I'm not going to suggest that Barack Obama has met that standard, but at the time, I think people had more optimism for him than they have today.
I don't think there's any doubt about that.
And frankly, I think people were blinded.
What do you think?
And I think this is a really important question.
What do you think of this crazy idea?
I always throw crazy ideas at you, and sometimes you laugh them off, and other times you think that's maybe not so crazy.
If we had 17 candidates that started this process of running for president, we're now down, well, really down to two, but you might say three.
What do you think about building a coalition?
Do you think it would be possible to build a coalition and bring people like Rick Perry of Texas in?
And even if it's Trump, then bring in Cruz and Kasich and Rubio and Walker and Bobby Jindal and maybe Nikki Haley.
I mean, some of the real stars in the Republican Party and almost create like a superstar administration of the best and brightest Republicans, people that have really fundamentally changed things in their states for the better.
Do you think something like that would ever be possible, or am I off the deep end as usual?
No, no, I think you could put together that kind of coalition, and I think you might be surprised how many people you would get that are a lot more than just the folks that you'd normally expect.
I think people are so concerned about what's happening around the world.
And they look at the economy, they look at what's happened with oil, they look at the things that are happening in Saudi Arabia, the things happening in Iran, North Korea, which was testing a submarine-launched missile the other day.
I think that there is a desire, and I think if Trump in phase one had to prove he could be a candidate, and he had to prove he could win even with nobody helping him, because the truth was, nobody was going to help him.
Now that he's proven he can do that, I think the next phase for him is to build the broadest possible coalition and, in the Reagan tradition, to include independents and Democrats.
And I think that's a very important part of this.
You know, I think one of the things that I think people that are conservative, for example, the Cruz supporters want to know, is Donald Trump really a conservative?
Is this transformation real?
I know he's talked about naming, for example, 12 or 13 people he would consider for the Supreme Court way ahead of any election in November.
You know, apparently he's going to give a speech on his judicial philosophy and name names of people, which is fairly unprecedented.
I mean, I think him not being a politician, maybe thinking out of the box and announcing who your VP is going to be, as well as your Secretary of State, as well as your Department of Homeland Security Secretary, as well as your Health and Human Services Secretary and your Defense Secretary, you know, might be something that a lot of people would find interest and confidence in.
Well, and, you know, you also have the fact nobody's yet tried to take him seriously enough to try to think through what is Trumpism?
I mean, you know, if you had Reaganism and you had Goldwaterism on our side, what is it that Trump is about beyond the bombast and the showmanship and the ability to be P.T. Barnum?
And I think what you find is that there are patterns and characteristics that are very real, that he's very practical.
He is very willing to take on stupidity.
He is very anti-political correctness.
And I think that you go down a list of these things, he's very much an American nationalist.
He believes the job of the president of the United States is to start every morning worrying about the United States.
And only then, when you have made sure that the United States is okay, do you start thinking about other folks?
I think that, frankly, would be a healthy resetting of our policies and our attitudes.
How confident we have drifted to.
How confident are you that either Cruz or Trump will defeat Hillary?
I'm very confident.
Hillary is an extraordinarily weak candidate.
She is, I mean, look, watch her stumbling around with Sanders.
Sanders is a 73-year-old Vermont senator who is an explicit socialist, who never joined the Democratic Party until he decided to run, who has now raised more money than Hillary, is a position to stay in all the way to the convention, has absolute scorn for her.
I mean, if you watch him, he has contempt for her.
His supporters deeply dislike her.
I think maybe as much as a third of the Sanders vote is going to go to Trump.
So I think we have a very real chance of beating Hillary.
And I think, frankly, the bigger the election issues, starting with one you raised, which is what kind of Supreme Court would Donald Trump nominate, and what kind of Supreme Court would Hillary Clinton nominate?
And boy, if that isn't a dramatic difference.
Last question.
I don't know.
So you are convinced it's not going to be a contested convention.
I think it's very, very, very unlikely.
The country varies is a lot.
Now, we have five states in play today: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland.
You will be our first guest for the first couple of segments tonight on Hannity.
We have Bill Hemer at the big board.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for joining us.
We'll see you tonight live at 10.
Thanks.
All right.
Thank you.
Very welcome home, by the way.
It is big news today that John Kasich has decided to pull out of Indiana to give us a head-to-head contest with Donald Trump.
That is good for the men and women of Indiana.
It's good for the country.
I don't see this as any big deal other than the fact that I'm not going to spend resources in Indiana.
He's not going to spend them in other places.
So what?
What's the big deal?
Well, is there an agreement or is there an alliance or is there not an alliance?
By the way, look who just showed up today.
Special name Sunshine.
Did you see the picture of my puppy, Marley?
Did you put Marley up on my website, Hannity.com?
Well, you put it on Twitter, so I didn't put it on your website.
Well, put a picture.
I sent you a special copy of Marley to put up there.
I'm going to put that special picture up there.
Now, what did I say after Duffy died?
I said, I can't talk about it.
I don't want to talk about it.
I can't.
The words were never again.
And I said I'd never do it again.
And I am so in love with this puppy.
I can't even tell you.
I let the puppy sleep with me, which you're not supposed to do.
Yeah, she sleeps in the bed with me.
Why can't she sleep with you?
Well, when you're training a puppy, you've got to crate train it.
That's disgusting.
And no, that's not what you have to do.
No, that's how you train a puppy.
You crate train it.
Sunshine and I both agree that is incorrect.
All right.
Let me just lay this out for all of you.
If you want your dog or cat peeing all over your house and making it stinked ah-heavy.
I don't have that problem.
Well, I don't.
You know what the funnier story is, is Gracie, who's four years old, is afraid of the little puppy.
And Gracie's a 100-pound Bernese mountain dog.
It's hilarious.
And I never thought I'd get another one.
I can't take the pain of losing a dog.
I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to think about it.
I just hate it.
It's the worst part, you know, when that happens.
But then I see another dog, and I'm like, oh, I'll take it.
I'll take it.
You know the best thing about animals?
Animals are loyal.
Human beings are not loyal, right?
How many people do we know that are not loyal?
It's unbelievable.
And you know what?
They love you unconditionally.
They don't ask for much, a little food.
And I spoil my dogs rotten.
I know you're not supposed to.
But my philosophy is kind of simple.
If I knew I only had 12 years to live, average lifespan, right, of a dog somewhere in there, 12, 13, 14.
Snowball lived 17 years when she was a really small dog.
All right, so your lifespan is 12 years.
So maybe you lose a half a year, but if I'm eating steak, my dog is eating steak.
If I'm eating a hamburger, my dog is eating a hamburger.
If I'm eating chicken, my dog is eating chicken.
There's no fear that the dog's going to have seafood because I hate most seafood.
And I don't eat a lot of seafood.
And I even feed them vegetables.
They eat broccoli and, let's see, asparagus.
I don't give them corn.
That wouldn't be good.
That wouldn't be good for the dog.
why not spoil the dog why not give the what's the big deal And you have all these purists that are like, you can't feed them table food.
I'm like, yeah.
I mean, that's what they most want.
I go to the refrigerator and there they are, their tails wagging 1,000 miles an hour because they want what I want.
And whatever I pull out, they're like, oh, what's daddy going to pull out today?
It's all excited.
I just love dogs.
So this one is really special.
This dog, eight weeks old, plays fetch perfectly.
I throw the ball, it fetches it, and it brings it back and hands it to me.
I throw the ball, it fetches it, brings it back, hands it to me.
Now, one of the things that was somewhat controversial, which I shared with my team, is when the dog arrived, I immediately started to sit down.
You have to become the alpha immediately.
And it's amazing.
If I'm in the house and everybody else is in the house, the puppy follows me everywhere, and Gracie follows me everywhere, and it drives, and Gracie only listens to me.
Nobody can get Gracie to do anything but me in the house.
It drives everybody else nuts.
And I'm like, that's because I'm the alpha male.
And you've got to make sure you're the alpha male.
I know people that own dogs that they run over the whole house.
They control everything.
Yeah, they do.
Yes, they absolutely.
I've seen it.
How many dogs, Linda, do you have in your house?
I have one dog.
One dog?
I live in an apartment.
How many cats do you have?
I have two cats.
Oh, and the fat one that was 400 pounds that you had to send the fat cat's clothes.
Is that a friend's house?
No.
Very thin.
Running the fields now.
All right.
I saw how fat that cat is.
That was the size of 10 cats.
You nearly fed that cat to death.
Listen, when I got her, she was starving.
Oh.
And so what I'm doing.
And by the time she left, she was like 400 pounds.
Forget about it.
Listen, just like, first of all, she was not 400 pounds.
All right, take a picture of that fat cat at its fattest and put it up on our website.
She was never fat.
That cat was humongous.
You had to send it to the fat cat farm.
I just gave it to a friend so she could get some exercise because you can't get exercise in an apartment.
Okay, but you fed that cat.
It was four.
Negative.
Here's four times the size of a normal cat.
Just like human beings, animals, they metabolize food differently.
That is such a crock of a cat.
It is not.
That is such a crock.
You will see two dogs from the same family.
Two dogs.
And one dog.
And the other dog, a little bit of weight around the middle.
They're eating the same thing.
They have the same activity.
No, no.
You overfed the cat.
Negative.
Yeah.
Then why is the cat skinny now?
Because she runs more.
Oh, well, you wouldn't even take care of the cat to take the cat out.
First of all, I took that freaking cat everywhere.
First of all, I walked that cat on a leash.
Listen, take a picture of the cat.
And I want you to put a poll question underneath it.
And I want to say, did Linda overfeed the cat?
And then, or do you think, and second choice is, or is this a metabolism problem?
I have a better, I have a better poll.
And I guarantee you, the answer is going to be, you overfed the fat cat.
No.
Yes.
You're wrong.
I'm not wrong.
I'm going to put up a poll and it's going to be a video of you in your alpha male status bossing around an eight-week old puppy who looks like it just wants to roll around in its fluffiness.
No, no, no, no.
But listen, did you notice right away I got the cat.
I'm sorry.
I hate cats.
I'm not a cat guy.
I got my, what are you doing?
What are you showing pictures of?
Sunshine also walks her cat on a leash.
Oh, good grief.
On a leash.
Well, what do you want?
Is to let our cats walk.
Listen, the funniest thing is when you go to Disneyland and you see all the fat people eating those stupid turkey legs.
You ever notice that?
It's always the 400-pound guy that's eating a turkey.
Oh, you will in three years.
You're going to be there, trust me, with little Liam, and you're going to hate every minute of it.
Wonderful.
And everyone's going to tell you, have a wonderful day, and you're going to be like, shut up.
I don't want to hear that anymore.
You're going to give your New York X. Don't talk to me about me all day.
You know, how do I get to the stupid place?
You mean I got to wait two freaking hours to get on that dumb ride?
Jeez.
I have a very, you know, PG-13 party in front of my son.
Very PG-13 party.
All right, back to the cat.
So you can take it.
Now, notice what my dog Marley did, though.
Within seconds, I had her sitting, I had her laying down, I had her standing on command, and two days later, she fetches the ball and she brings it back to me.
That's pretty amazing.
I think that dog's a genius.
That dog is gorgeous and is beautiful, and she's perfect.
Oh, I'm surprised I haven't gotten the lecture that it's not a, that it's a pure bread.
All dogs deserve love.
It's not her fault where she came from.
But what would you prefer to get your, you know, these ugly mutts from where?
I prefer to get animals that might end up on, you know, death row.
Right.
All right.
I actually would pay money to save their lives.
I would donate money to save their lives.
When I become, you know, very wealthy, hopefully, someday.
Is this a dig at the poor dishwasher again?
Go ahead.
No, I'm going to get a big far.
You do know that I was a dishwasher and a carpenter and a carpenter and a painter and a paper hanger and a tile layer and a bartender.
10 miles uphill both ways to school.
No, you know, you say that as if my story is not true, and every job I had is.
No, I just like to break them.
Break what?
With those things that you have.
Oh, break them.
I like to break them.
It's lots of fun.
All right, let's get to some phone calls here.
You know, one thing I'm getting tired of.
I am so, I know people are so wrapped up in the election.
This Cruz hating Trump, Trump hating Cruz, you know, social media fanaticism is driving me nuts.
I just like, you know, I feel like a great philosopher, Rodney King.
Can't we all just get along at some point?
Are people going to not see the big picture?
That Hillary rotten Clinton, to quote our friend Mark, that she can't be president.
Make a list, follow the Ben Franklin rule.
What is this candidate going to do at president of immigration?
What is this candidate going to do on the economy?
How's this candidate going to deal with ISIS?
And compare it to what Hillary's going to do.
You know?
Yeah, that was Hillary.
You know, I was doing that joke when we were on the road.
I would say, all right, what candidate am I?
Woof, woof, woof.
I'd do that, and everybody would laugh.
And then I'd say, which candidate am I now?
She had another coughing fit yesterday.
Two.
She had two coughing fits.
The headline on Drudge Right Now is Democrat turnout, Down Millions, cough, cough, and a picture of Hillary.
She can't speak for 20 minutes.
All of the real building blocks of our economy.
And so I need your help to do that.
I also need your help to let me get a drink of water.
God forbid this was Marco Rubio.
I have been talking nonstop for weeks now.
So forgive me.
Well, I stick a lozenge in my mouth here.
Thank you.
I can't take it.
I'm just chilling in Cedar Rapids.
All right, let's go to our busy phones as we check in with Erin is in California.
Erin, how are you?
You're on the Sean Hannity show.
What's up?
Hi.
I just wanted to talk about the thing that's going on with Cruz and Spasik and give a little perspective on the effect that had on voters that were undecided.
My mom was a lifelong Democrat, and she started to really like Trump.
But then because of his negatives, she started looking into Kasich.
And after this happened, she won 100% Trump.
So I don't think it was a good move.
You know, I've seen a lot of that on social media.
A lot of people really didn't like this alliance to stop one candidate.
You know, look, I think the big test, the next big test, if Trump sweeps tonight, like the polls, I'd be stunned and shocked beyond words if he doesn't win big tonight.
The next real big test is going to be Indiana.
If, if Trump wins Indiana, I see, and with his poll numbers in other places, California, New Jersey, West Virginia, et cetera, I don't see how you stop him from getting to 1237 at that point.
Again, I'm only giving objective analysis here, and when I give objective analysis, it annoys people.
You know, all last week it was, oh, Hannity and Cruz got in this big fight.
We're not fighting at all.
And I said on the radio last week, I like Ted Cruz.
I got along fine with Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz has shown a lot of courage as a candidate.
He's a brilliant constitutional conservative.
He's done incredible things for conservatives.
So we had a little pissing match because he kind of took a shot at me and I got pissed off.
Anyway, we're good.
He was on TV last night.
Now, that was last week.
This week, this is a headline today.
I don't know who wrote this thing.
Blame Sean Hannity for supporting Cruz and helping Hillary, not for supporting Trump.
I can't win.
I cannot win in this election.
Barbara Winston-Salem, beautiful North Carolina, home of the new ACC tennis champions, the demon, what do you call those guys?
The demon deeks over at Wake Forest.
How are you?
I am great.
I want to just make a comment since we were talking about dogs.
I love your show.
I love Linda because of her passion for animals.
And I still weep thinking about the dog that you lost a couple of years ago.
I rescue Great Pyrenees, and guess what else?
What else?
Bernice Mountain Dogs.
And we have come to realize that all the dogs we have rescued are Democrats.
Why is that?
Every single one.
Oh, because they beg and want everything for free.
Exactly.
Yeah, but that's okay.
In their case, you know what?
That's right.
That's my handout.
But they are just waiting for the next handout, and that's where it's okay and appropriate.
The only thing I regret about Bernice Mountain Dogs, and a very good friend of mine breeds them in Alabama.
Actually, it was a guy at the radio station.
He owned the radio station when I was down in WVNN in Huntsville, Alabama.
He got me into Bernice Mountain Dogs.
And I just hate that the breed does not live long.
I mean, if you get nine years out of a Bernice Mountain Dog, that's a long time.
It's frustrating.
Amy is in Colorado Springs.
Thank you, Barbara.
What's up, Mamie?
You have one minute.
Go.
Hey, Sean.
Good to talk to you.
Just wanted to say thank you for what you do.
And I'm really, really excited about this election.
I've been a lifelong Republican, and I'm frustrated with the party as a whole, but I'm excited to vote.
And I'm going to get out there this year and return and do it.
If the Republicans follow the model that governors like Jindal, Haley, Kasich, Walker, Rick Perry, if they have that bold, inspiring agenda, they can win.
If they unite, they can win.
And if Republicans, you know, at some point, you're going to have to find unity.
There's only going to be one winner.
And if you don't find unity, you're going to lose.
I have zero doubt in my mind.
And, you know, I would urge people to, you know, let's see what the team is that people build around them.
If it's Cruz, let's see what team he builds around them.
If it's Trump, let's see what team he builds around them.
My guess is they're both going to have a deep bench of really bright, smart people that can transform the country back into what it ought to be, not the disaster in decline that it currently is.
It's not hard to do this.
You live within your means.
You balance your budget.
You stop stealing from your kids.
You grow the economy.
You allow money that corporations, multinational corporations have overseas to bring it back and repatriate that money at a low rate.
They'll build manufacturing centers and factories here.
You become energy independent.
You get rid of Obamacare.
You offer health care savings accounts, competition, portability, job to job.
You secure the borders so we don't have ISIS coming across and we don't have competition for the 95 million Americans out of work that drives down wages.
You get better trade deals.
You have choice and education.
You know, this isn't that complicated.
You identify Islamic terrorism for what it is.
Joining us now, we have Donald Trump supporter Jonathan Gillum, serious radio XM host and former Navy SEAL.
We have Kasich supporter Ami Horowitz.
He hopes upon hope and is also a political satirist.
And Cruz supporter Guy Short, political and fundraising strategist for campaign solutions.
And welcome all of you.
Thank you.
All right, five big five big states, massive leads for Trump.
Jonathan Gillum, you're a Trump supporter.
What do you expect tonight?
Well, what I hope and what we've seen so far is that the people are rallying around Trump for the right reasons, for the fact that he's not playing the political game that is now so exposed.
And what I really hope to see is people that are waking up to this game that Cruz and Kasich are playing.
Now they're somewhat playing it together, can't really tell.
But, you know, Trump, love him or hate him, has gotten into this race and he has thrown a spotlight on exactly what those two guys are doing, the game that they're playing.
And that's what I hope in these states people go and they vote their conscience.
They vote for effective leadership that's proven, that shows operational experience, and that would be Trump.
So how do you explain Ami Horowitz?
I know you're a big Kasich supporter.
Kasich has won one of 42 contests.
He's not leading in any, it's going to be one of 47 by the end of today.
He's not going to win any of the races today.
How does he get the right being behind by millions and millions of votes, being behind by, you know, nearly a thousand delegates at this point, and having only won his own home state?
What gives him the right to jump over Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, who have done so much better in the campaign than him?
And why would you support disenfranchising all of those voters?
Well, first of all, if you can't hear me properly, it's because I have a lot of pancake stuff in my mouth.
So I apologize for that going in.
And why do you have pancakes stuffed in your mouth?
Well, because the chief of etiquette, Donald Trump, apparently said that John Kasich speaks with pancakes in his mouth all the time.
No, well, there was a scene where they were being interviewed by the media and talking and eating at the same time, which is what he was referring to.
Well, the man's got to eat, right?
I mean, the man's got to eat.
Do you have to eat during an interview?
Seriously?
Really?
During an interview?
So back to the issue that you just brought up about this notion of right, which, by the way, fundamentally doesn't make any sense.
There is no issue of rights.
Who has the right to be the nominee?
The issue is who just recently, the RNC was briefed by their political team, and their political team said that if Donald Trump became president, it would be a bloodbath.
Donald Trump is putting Southern states that have never voted, haven't voted Democrat in decades back in play.
The issue is very simple.
The issue is who is going to keep had the presidency, a Republican presidency extensively.
Okay, but wait, you're acting as though the voters, the people that have voted for Trump and Cruz, somehow are too stupid to think this through the way you have.
No, no, no.
That's what you're assuming because the voters, by the millions and millions, disagreed with you and your analysis.
Let's keep it simple.
If Trump wins the nomination, he'll have lost the majority of the Republican vote, correct?
And if whole-will might have won the majority of the Republican vote.
Well, first of all, by the time we finish the next 10 contests after today, who knows if he has one half of the votes by the time all is said and done.
We don't know.
As we speak today, nobody has a majority of the will of the Republican primary.
So now if you're saying he can be in it, the other person can't, now you're being arbitrary.
Is that right?
Absolutely not.
How can you say that it's a fact that nobody has the will?
What we can measure, you can't measure will.
What you can measure are votes.
And I can guarantee you, Kasich and Cruz will not show up with that number.
That's a fact.
Okay, but I can't guarantee that Cruz.
I can tell you as a metaphysical fact, as we stand today, Donald Trump does not have a majority of the Republican protection.
Yeah, the election's not over with.
Metaphysical fact.
You still have 10 more rounds to go.
We're all talking conjecture going forward.
We're talking about a snapshot of where we are today.
And we are today is nobody has a majority.
So nobody has a quote-unquote right to that nomination.
Sean, is it me?
How can somebody say that nobody has a majority?
You know what I find amazing about your analysis?
Nomi, for everything that you say, oh, well, Trump doesn't have a majority.
He still has millions and millions and millions and millions of more votes, as does Ted Cruz than your guy.
And so, you know, you're making a case.
Oh, well, he doesn't have enough millions more than my guy.
Anyway, let's let Guy short.
Because that's what the rules state, not me, not Ami Horowitz.
The rules state 12.
Nobody states those rules.
Okay, 12.
All right, yeah, okay.
Then 1237 is the magic number.
All right, you're stating the obvious.
Let's take Guy Short here.
What is your take?
Look, as you just said, the rules say you got to get 1237.
And as we speak today, nobody has reached 1237, and nobody is going to reach 1237 going into the convention.
Sean, I am a delegate.
I will be one of those votes.
Obviously, I'm a Cruz fan.
By the way, you can say that.
You don't know whether or not Trump gets to 1237.
I mean, tonight, he's dominating in the polls in the five states that are going on tonight.
The latest two polls out of Indiana, they can go either way.
I will admit that the Cruz-Kasich alliance certainly might change the dynamic, but in the last two polls, he was either up by eight or six.
So it's certainly a state in play.
He's winning in New Jersey, winner-take-all.
He's winning in West Virginia, and he's winning fairly significantly in California, which is, you know, 172 delegates.
Look, Donald Trump very well may have a good night tonight.
Ted Cruz has had a very good past few weeks, and it has amassed a lot of delegates.
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
We're moving on to Indiana, Nebraska, Washington, Montana, South Dakota, Colorado.
Well, are you?
Or did you make a deal with Kasich that you're going to be in some states and not other states?
First of all, I didn't make any deal.
I'm a delegate from Colorado.
I don't speak for the campaign.
But the campaign, which is one of the best campaigns that's been running the last 30 or 40 years, certainly has a right to make decisions based on what they think gives them the best opportunity to get to 1237.
That's what the campaign has done.
No, it's not the right way to do it.
That's not true either.
Mathematically now.
Hang on.
Mathematically, neither Kasich or Senator Cruz can get to 1237.
So the alliance is designed to prevent Trump from getting to 1237.
Sean, one candidate is going to get to 1237 and be our nominee.
Whether that's on the first ballot, the second ballot, or the 20th ballot.
One candidate will get to 1237.
And what the Cruz campaign has done is make their decision based on their best chance to get to 1237 on multiple ballots.
That's what they're doing.
I think they're doing a fantastic job.
And what you're hoping for, your strategy is similar to that of John Kasich, is you're hoping this is a contested convention so that you will have a second ballot.
Otherwise, you will not.
Well, I'm hoping that Ted Cruz is the ultimate nominee because we need a nominee who can defeat Hillary Clinton.
And Ami and I agree that Donald Trump's going to get trounced by Hillary Clinton.
Okay.
What's your take, Jonathan?
Well, first off, I think it's very interesting that the Ted Cruz person that's speaking on this show right now is a delegate.
Because the majority of people, I can tell you out there right now, are thinking that delegates are elected to be representatives of their district.
And a delegate, and first it was, I was trying to wrap my mind about that, but it's a delegate from Colorado where the people had no vote.
Hey, John.
Hey, John, you shouldn't speak about what you don't know.
No, listen, I do know.
I do know what the people think.
I do know.
No, no, listen.
Let me tell you something.
What I do know.
First of all, let me tell you what I do know.
The people do not agree with you.
That's what I'm going to tell you right now.
And that's where Donald Trump is going to win this, is that he knows what the people, what they think.
And what they think is that the Democratic and the Republican National Committees are private companies, and they are screwing this country by monopolizing the political system.
And every seat in government from city, state, and federal, all the way to the Supreme Court, those two private companies have dominated and monopolized the entire political system.
Caucus is in Colorado, and I voted.
Four of us voted for Ted Cruz in my caucus.
Three people voted for Ben Carson.
Only one person voted for Donald Trump.
Do you want to come to my caucus and tell everybody who voted that they didn't?
I don't have to go to your caucus.
I'll tell you right now that the Republican and the Democratic national committees have bastardized the entire political system.
You all monopolize it, and that's why you're choosing the person that you want to choose completely against what the people want.
Don't know what you're talking about.
I do because I'm a person.
I'm a citizen of the United States.
Well, everybody's a person.
And that's what's very good point.
Yeah, you're a delegate.
You weren't in Colorado.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Listen, I'm a citizen of the United States.
I'm somebody who served this country in the military and the FBI.
I'm somebody who's laid my life down the line, and people are sick and tired of these two private companies of which you are a part of.
I'm not a part of, but I do appreciate it on the line so that those of us in Colorado had the right to vote, and we exercised that on March 1st.
When you have a convention, though, doesn't it limit the number of people?
Like, for example, I understand 65,000 people participated in Colorado, where if you had a primary or a caucus, you might have had as many as a million.
No, it didn't limit the caucus didn't limit the participation whatsoever, Sean.
Every single Republican.
But the reality is, but the reality is conventions tend to do that.
I mean, that's just the reality.
It's not as participatory as either a primary or a caucus.
Sean, we showed up at the same places we show up to vote in a general election or in a primary election.
They're all the same locations.
We showed up.
Every single Republican opportunity to show up.
And it was a closed primary, though.
Now, let's be clear, though, right?
We didn't let Democrats and unaffiliated, that's what we call them here in Colorado.
They couldn't come to Republican caucuses.
Let me ask this question.
If Donald Trump wins, will you support him?
I've always supported the nominee.
Look, when I was a delegate in Tennessee.
I didn't ask you if you've always supported.
I said if Donald Trump wins, will you support him?
If Donald Trump is the nominee, which I don't believe he will be, but if Donald Trump is the nominee, I will vote for Donald Trump.
And Jonathan, would you support Ted Cruz?
You know, I have to support him because he's the only conservative, if he got nominated, that would be in the presidential race.
And that's a shame.
Ami, where do you stand in all this?
Listen, I want to support the Republican nominee.
The most important thing is we don't let a Democrat, which is why.
Let me go back to my last question.
What gives John Kasich, and I love John Kasich, I've known him for years.
I'd even call him a friend.
But what gives him the right to jump leap over or leapfrog over two candidates with dozens of more state wins, millions and millions of more votes?
And excuse me.
I heard the talking.
And it's not talking points.
It's reality.
It's truth.
And hundreds and hundreds of more delegates, ten times the amount of delegates.
I wasn't talking about the issue of rights.
You want to talk about the issue of rights?
I'll tell you who gives him the right.
Who gives him the right is the Republican National Committee.
That's who gives him the right.
Because in their own case.
But listen to me, Ami, Ami.
To do that, you have to disenfranchise Trump and Cruz voters, millions more.
And you're okay with a system that would do that?
Either we're talking about an indictment of the system, which, by the way, I don't disagree with you guys on.
It's a Byzantine system that probably should be changed.
And the only reason why we know what's going on now is because there's a spotlight on it because of this weird waste.
Why doesn't John Kasich just partner with either Cruz or Trump?
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
Let me ask the first question first.
What gives him the right?
We talk about disenfranchising.
No matter who wins, the majority of the voters are going to be disenfranchised.
You realize that, right?
If Trump wins, probably the majority of voters will be disenfranchised, using your word.
It's not disenfranchised.
But the difference is we're talking about somebody that actually has one more state, has millions of more votes, and hundreds, in the case of Trump versus Kasich, ten times more delegates.
Hey, Sean.
Hey, Sean, let me ask you a question.
Why in South Carolina, when Trump only won 30% of the delegates, why did he get 30% of the vote?
And he got 100% of the delegates.
And in that process, remember, how many people were there?
I'm saying, if you listen closely to what I say, I want three things out of the Republican Party.
You either have a caucus or a primary for maximum participation.
You either have winner-take-all, a proportional distribution, you tell everybody ahead of time.
Also, I think every delegate should be bound on the first vote.
That's all I'm asking for.
There's no whining here.
I don't have a dog in the race.
That's okay, but that's not the process.
And when we can all say in the process, but that wasn't the process.
But the process is screwed up.
There are many flaws in this process.
The process has had 150 years to learn how to screw the people.
And I'm telling you, if all the voters, I don't care if they're liberal or conservative, if they just thought about these two things, who is the most proven, effective leader versus who is the most incompetent person out there?
If they just do that and forget about a Republican and Democrat, they'll pick the right person.
Thank you all for being with us.
All right, let's get to our busy telephones here.
Let's go to Stephen.
He's in Pittsburgh, PA today, where voting is going on in the great state of Pennsylvania.
What's going on, Stephen?
How are you?
Glad you called.
Good.
Thank you, Sean, for taking my call.
Love your show.
I've just been debating between Trump and Cruz for, well, months now.
My head basically says, hey, vote for Cruz because everything he says, my heart says, vote for Trump.
Anyways, this Cruz-Trump, or this Cruz-Kasich alliance thing, it just rubs me the wrong way.
And I think today I settled my vote and going in to vote for Trump.
Nothing.
What is it about the alliance that you didn't like?
Because this is the outline that was laid out by Romney here two months ago.
And if these guys had laid down and consented to the Obama agenda while giving lip service to us the last seven years, if they had fought Obama's agenda as hard as they are fighting Trump, we wouldn't even need Trump right now.
So that's what really bugs me.
It's not so much Cruz, but it's like when you start making alliances with these guys and following footprints that even Romney laid out, it's like that bugs.
You know, the irony to me.
And again, I've been accused of supporting everybody, which is kind of amusing to me at times, irritating at other times.
You know, the headline, remember, all last week was, oh, Hannity's fighting with Cruz.
Well, Cruz was on my show last night and with no issues with Ted Cruz whatsoever.
I mean, we had a contentious moment on radio.
You know, everyone could have a bad day.
Anyway, so today's headline is blame Sean Hannity for supporting Cruz and helping Hillary, not for supporting Trump.
I cannot win.
The only thing I can do is really continue to stay focused on my original promise, my original pledge, which is to let you decide on your own.
I'm not telling anybody in the primary who to vote for.
I was surprised by the alliance as well.
I really was.
Usually that's something you'd expect in the lead up to the possible contested convention at that point.
But this is odd to me because I can tell you for a fact, and I probably shouldn't, there's really bad blood between the two camps.
Well, actually, now between the three remaining campaigns, there's bad blood.
It just is, especially between Cruz and Trump supporters, but Kasich and Cruz supporters.
So I wish it weren't the case.
It's part of politics.
This is partly a blood sport.
There are people that feel strongly on all sides.
You know, think about what goes into making a decision to support a candidate.
You know, we started well over a year ago at CPAC.
Remember, I interviewed, not this past CPAC, the CPAC before in March of, what, 2015?
And I interviewed the potential candidates.
I mean, that's how far back this goes.
And people would watch the interviews and listen to the interviews, and some people would pick one candidate and they were locked in and they stayed locked into that candidate.
And then if their candidate ended up dropping out, they're disappointed.
Then they pick another candidate.
And some people I know have switched from candidate A to B to C to D and back to A again.
But the people that are making those decisions, you've got to have respect for them because they're following their own heart, their own intuition, the issues that matter most to them.
They're looking at other factors that maybe others don't think should be up for consideration.
Electability maybe is one, or who would be a good vice president, who's more likely to shake up the system, who's got the best, most creative, innovative ideas, who's more likely to stand on principle.
A lot of factors going into people's decisions.
You know, back to that column I mentioned now for a couple of days about people's friendships being destroyed over this campaign season.
It's ridiculous to me.
I mean, I even have friends of mine like Doug Sean.
I'll mention Doug Sean.
He'll vote for Hillary.
I don't hate the guy.
I think he's dumb politically to vote for her, but, you know, I just don't hate him.
There are some people that deserve contempt.
Anyway, he's not one of them.
Donovan in Minneapolis, what's up, Donovan?
How are you?
Hey, Sean, how are you doing?
I'm good, sir.
Hey, I wanted to call you last week, but I couldn't get through.
So I'm going back to the narrative that you've been talking about about Cruz convincing Trump, so-called Trump delegates, to convince them to come over to Cruz's side on the second ballot.
And I'm frustrated because I think it's an intellectually dishonest statement.
What are you frustrated?
Why would you be frustrated when I said it's within the rules?
Well, what I'm frustrated is you're saying that Cruz is convincing a Trump delegate.
There is no such thing as a Trump delegate.
They're bound.
What Cruz is doing is there's two parts of an election.
You have a preference poll and you have a delegate election.
I'm from Minnesota.
I went to a caucus.
We did a preference poll, and right after that, we did a delegate election.
But hang on a second.
What I was talking specifically about is Ted Cruz's campaign.
By the way, well within the rules, smart to do.
He was way ahead of the curve in thinking this had the possibility of becoming a contested convention.
So he organized on the ground better than other campaigns.
And what he has been doing is courting committed, bound delegates of other candidates.
And he's saying, hey, if there's a second ballot, I want you to come with us.
So what's the problem with me describing that process?
I didn't say it's well within the rules.
Everybody knew about it ahead of time.
I do have some questions about, and I was a little surprised to discover that you can offer airfare and hotel rooms and expensive dinners.
I don't like that part because I think, believe it or not, some people might be swayed by such courting, but that's part of the rules, too.
So you are saying Cruz is doing that?
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
Slow down here.
Let's get this right.
I did not say Cruz did that.
I'm saying in the course of discovering the process of, and this is for any candidate, of courting delegates of another person.
I had Reince Prievis on this program.
I had Randy Evans on Hannity.
Randy Evans is on the rules committee.
And I asked Randy straight up: if candidate A tries to court candidate B or C's bound delegates on the first ballot, what can they offer them?
This has nothing to do with Ted Cruz, nothing to do with Donald Trump, nothing to do with John Kasich.
But those are what the rules allow.
And I was surprised to discover that.
I have no evidence.
I only said that Ted Cruz is more organized, has a better ground game than the other campaigns.
That's all.
So let me be clear.
What I'm frustrated with is the language.
What language?
The language of saying a Trump-bound delegate gives them this information.
The delegates are elected, and they generally will have a leaning of support of a candidate A or candidate B.
No, but all but about 150 of the delegates are bound on the first vote.
There are 150 or so unbound delegates.
In other words, they can go any way they want.
But of the bound delegates, you have campaigns courting them.
If it was a contested convention, they're saying, I know you're bound to candidate A and B, A or B on the first ballot.
Come with us on the second ballot.
But putting it out that way makes it sound like it's the delegate himself.
Me as a person, I am a delegate.
I support Trump, and you're convincing me not to support Trump.
It's different.
I am elected as an individual delegate person.
Are you bound on the first ballot?
I am then bound.
You are what?
I have my preferences as I'm elected as a delegate.
I understand that.
And then I'm bound by the popularity vote.
You're bound.
It's not that I'm a Trump delegate.
Okay, you're bound on the first ballot for Trump.
Has anybody courted you to switch on a second ballot?
And what I'm saying is there's no courting if I make a delegate already being a supporter of Trump and then I'm bound by the popular vote.
There's nothing.
Look, I can't explain it any more simply.
Any more.
There's nothing confusing about what I'm saying.
I am saying I have had Reince Prievis on.
I have had Randy Evans on.
I have had other rules committee people on radio and TV.
We've gone over this.
It is well within the rules to court, to lobby, if you will, bound delegates for other candidates in case there's a second ballot.
You're trying to entice them to come over to your side.
That's just the way the system's designed.
Paul in Missouri next on the Sean Hannity show.
Hey, you're a great American.
Thank you, my friend.
What's going on, Paul?
Oh, I'm just thinking about the collusion, the way I look at it, that happened yesterday.
I've been somewhat looking at Kasich and Cruz and Trump.
Couldn't make up my mind until yesterday.
And I just, what I saw yesterday puts both Cruz and Kasich in the same barrel with the establishment Republican Party.
And I'm for Trump now.
I suggested yesterday that this had a chance of backfiring.
If my reading of some social media is correct, it seems.
I want to get the results of the poll we did on Hannity last night.
I've not asked my TV producer for it yet, but I'll ask him, and I'll try and report back to you tomorrow.
Well, here's something else from I've got a lot of friends that have summer Trump, summer Cruz, some are Kasich.
Everyone I've talked to since yesterday is going, I've had it.
I'm going with Trump.
If Trump gets in, of course, I'm in Missouri.
We've already had our primary.
But everyone I've talked to that was, I'll say from the outside looking in now, rooting for Kasich or Cruz, they're going for Trump.
They want Trump to win.
And I think that's what you're going to see nationwide.
From what I understand today, going into the day, if you go back four years, Donald Trump's got 2 million more votes than Romney had this time four years ago.
That is absolutely correct.
Well, and I know the popular vote's one thing, and the electoral is another item.
But you know what?
If the Republican Party wants to bring in new people, and I've been a Republican for many years, but they want to bring in new people, they need to get with each state.
And in my opinion, why don't they give each state, make them winner-take-all states, and give them the same amount of delegates as that state has electorally.
Well, that's kind of how it's distributed now, believe it or not.
Well, let's look at the public.
That's why California has a large number of delegates.
New York has a smaller amount.
Texas has a big pile.
You know, the big states have more delegates.
Some are proportional.
Some are winner-take-all.
But I will tell you, there's a lot of sense in what you're saying here.
But I'll tell you what, you made me think of something, though, Paul.
If Republicans, they've talked so much about outreach and building the base of the party.
There's no doubt that Trump has contributed to increasing the base, the intensity, the numbers of people showing up.
And yet he almost seems, you know, party-wide to be rejected as this horrible person.
I don't think that's going to bode well for a party that's looking for outreach.
I think they ought to be embracing it.
Look, intra-party disagreement can happen all the time.
Tell them what you disagree with them on.
You disagree with them on trade, the wall, on the temporary ban of Muslims.
You know, what do you disagree on?
And then have a battle.
But on 80% of the issues of balancing the budget, eliminating Obamacare, energy independence, choice and education, ending Common Core, building the wall.
All the candidates say the same thing on that for the most part.
Anyway, good call.
Thank you, Paul.
Mike, News Radio, Cogo 600, San Diego.
By the way, I want to thank the people of San Diego.
When we moved over to Cogo, there were a few doubters out there.
Well, I'm not so sure.
We should stick with our old programming.
Well, because of the listeners in San Diego, we've now doubled the rating since we have been on Cogo Radio.
Thank you all for making that happen.
What's up, Mike?
How are you?
Hey, Mr. Hannity.
I'm glad to be able to speak with you.
I was told to get to the point.
Lifelong blue-collar union man, Republican all my life.
In other words, you're what makes the country great.
Yeah.
We only have a minute, so make a count.
Go ahead.
Yeah, well, the Colorado delegate vote, I think, pulled the curtain back on all of this stuff going on in our electorate that most of the American people just are totally unaware of.
I always thought your vote counted.
You know, I thought the people voted for the nominee and elected the nominee, but I guess it's not true.
I just haven't been educated properly.
Well, there might be some, but you know what happens with the popular vote in the Electoral College.
You understand that aspect.
In a way, it's similar, right?
Well, I'm, yeah, but I'm, yeah, exactly.
But it's different.
I know what you're saying.
The argument in Colorado just opened the curtain up.
It just exposed a lot of stuff.
Every time these sassy surrogates get on the show, on TV, and they start blabbering about how they're just following the rules.
We're following the rules.
Nothing wrong with it.
I get nauseated.
By the way, listen, it's funny you say that.
There are some people, you know, that follow the rules, follow the rules.
I mean, I feel like punching them in the face, especially when the rules are stupid.
I really do.
By the way, I'm not advocating violence.
I just have this, you know, ninja side of me because I do martial arts.
I'm like, yeah.
You know, but of course I would never do it.
I am a very peaceful radio and TV host.
But it's funny you say that because it is irritating.
Follow the rules, follow the rules, follow the rules.
