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May 3, 2016 - Sean Hannity Show
01:28:14
Trump Wins Indiana

Sean sits down with Donald Trump to talk about the anti-Trump GOP movement.  Trump talks about his shift in strategy toward Hillary Clinton and how hard a general election campaign will be!  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is the Sean Hannity Show podcast.
All right, it's Indiana primary day.
All eyes on the great Hoosier state as Ted Cruz and Donald Trump battle it out.
57 delegates at stake.
It's winner-take-most, not winner-take-all.
The winner gets, what, 30 delegates, and then the rest are distributed to the winner of the district, et cetera, et cetera.
All part of these very simple, non-complicated rules that are designed by politicians.
So that's all going down today.
Look, I want to say a word about this.
And it's unfortunate that I think things are getting pretty testy and ugly.
And this kind of tends to happen at the end of campaigns.
It's not all that unusual.
I'll get to this, these comments by Senator Cruz and what precipitated them and where this is all going to end up.
Because as I've been saying now for weeks on this program, if Republicans don't unite, if you have more George Wills and Bill Crystals out there, or if Senator Cruz decides not to endorse, if Donald Trump wins, or if Donald Trump had lost, he decides not to endorse Cruz.
None of it's going to be good.
It's hard enough in a country where young people are flocking to Bernie Sanders socialism and demographics are shifting and the country is shifting.
It's never going to be an easy task, I think, in the future, the foreseeable future anyway, for a Republican to win the presidency.
It's just an uphill task.
If you create a circular firing squad, it's going to be that much tougher, if not impossible.
And I see emerging here a circular firing squad.
Now, if you look at the polls, now I want to be very clear on this.
This is just my objective analysis and what I am supposed to do, give you my take on what I see.
Both Jamie Dupree, Jamie's been sick the last week or so, and we wish him well.
We miss him.
But Jamie Dupree and I have been pretty dead on accurate throughout the entire process in predicting who's going to win what state when and where and how it's going to happen and what the margins are going to be.
So if you look at Indiana and in particular, I know this has been a wild ride, a weird election cycle.
It may be unlike any you ever see in your lifetime again, but predictions so far, our predictions have been accurate.
And if the polls are any indication, it looks like Donald Trump will probably take the state of Indiana tonight.
And if he wins, I would expect he's probably going to win by double digits.
And the question then is, does he exceed expectations or maybe it's closer than what the polls showed?
But either way, it's probably a very big blow to the effort, the stop Trump effort, never Trump effort, and certainly those that want to get this thing to a contested convention.
So because right now, mathematically, it's impossible for either Senator Cruz or Governor Kasich to get there.
So we have to see what the numbers are.
We'll see if anybody breaks the 50% barrier on total votes and claim at least 55 and maybe even 57 of Indiana's delegates.
If Trump wins tonight, if he got all 57 Indiana delegates, he would be 184 short of the nomination.
Now, let me do simple math for you.
He's going to win the state of New Jersey, and that's winner-take-all.
He's winning by a large margin in West Virginia.
I don't even think anybody's going to contest him in West Virginia.
He's up now in the latest California poll by 34 points, and he's up in Oregon by double digits as well.
And one poll I saw, an internal poll from one of the campaigns, it wasn't a Trump campaign, actually had him up in Nebraska.
So, you know, I'm just looking at simple math here, and that's why Indiana became so important at this particular point in time.
If, in fact, that turns out to be true, probably tomorrow we'll talk about things like the late movement towards Trump.
What was it created by?
How impactful was the Bobby Knight endorsement?
Was it more valuable to Trump than, say, Mike Pence's endorsement to Ted Cruz?
The choices leading into Indiana, the non-aggression act with John Kasich, the announcement of Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential nominee, whether it helps or doesn't help Ted Cruz or maybe even hurt him.
Henry Olson at the Ethics and Public Policy Center said that Donald Trump will win Indiana so decisively tonight that the Republican race will effectively be over.
I doubt that Senator Cruz or John Kasich are going to buy into that.
That is my prediction.
I think they will want to go on all the way through June 7th and California, and it's their right to do so at that point.
But I think that, you know, that's when it becomes mathematically impossible and it's got to be everything would have to fall perfectly into line and a dramatic, dramatic change in the campaign to get there.
I'm not so sure if that's in the best interest of the party, but we'll see what the final numbers are after tonight.
We have two races next week, so people can stay in and see what that turns out to be.
Certainly, Ted Cruz, who did very well in Wisconsin, you know, the question is, is he able now to transfer Wisconsin over to Indiana after six big Trump victories in New York and in the five states that we had last week?
So we have to see.
Look, the only thing I'm going to say, and I've said this before, is it's very hard.
And this is my experience having interviewed presidents.
I've interviewed vice presidents.
I've interviewed candidates, many of them over the years.
I have developed a very deep, deep appreciation for what it takes to be a presidential candidate.
In spite of the fact that it naturally creates competition, and competition often becomes personal, at the end of the day, in the Republican side, it's supposed to be the same team.
It's sort of like they're all trying out to be the quarterback of the team, but most people don't see it that way, especially when they're involved in a race like this.
And I guess my fear is knowing and watching and paying attention, now I can interpret the Democratic race two ways.
I can say that, wow, Hillary Clinton is weaker than I ever thought she could ever be.
She had a tough time beating a 74-year-old curmudgeon socialist from the state of Vermont who gave her a run for her money.
And if it weren't for the super delegates, at some point the media would have been forced to identify the closeness of this race even just a couple of weeks ago and say that, hey, he really has a chance of winning, but the corruption within the Democratic Party and their super delegate system prevented all that from happening.
But really, so I can interpret it that, oh, Hillary is a weak candidate.
And yeah, Hillary still has the Comey, I guess, nomination going on.
What is Jim Comey, James Comey, the FBI director, going to do?
Is he going to put information and put together a criminal referral against Hillary Clinton?
That's going to be interesting.
That's a game changer.
So she doesn't have the interpersonal skills of her husband.
She doesn't have the speechmaking ability of Barack Obama.
And she certainly doesn't resonate like Bernie Sanders even.
Now, another way to look at the race is that, well, all of these young people that are flocking to Bernie Sanders and polls bear this out.
We have indoctrinated the next generation in this country to believe in socialism and redistribution.
And we've taught them that everything should be free.
And we've taught them that everything should be provided by the government.
That means their health care.
That means daycare.
They shouldn't have college loans.
The government should pay for college.
They should have free college.
I mean, that's what are we going to have?
Free government chefs?
It's absurd.
But the scary part is, these kids believe this.
So for any Republican to win, it makes it that much more difficult at the end of the day.
And that's why this exchange that went down between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz today is really not a good sign.
Now, a lot of this got started.
He said Donald Trump, for example, had talked about and mentioned.
Apparently, there was this picture.
I saw it weeks ago.
I didn't really think a whole lot of it because it didn't really mean a whole lot.
Ted Cruz's dad, Rafael, I've met.
He's a nice guy.
Politico puts it, Raphael was with JFK's assassin months before he murdered the president.
And there's apparently a picture of this.
I have never been able to find out if that picture was accurate ever.
I've looked it up.
I've seen different versions.
Some say no, some say yes.
To me, it doesn't really matter.
Anyway, it was a story basically parodying a National Inquirer story claiming that Raphael Cruz was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963.
And the National Inquirer headline reads, Ted Cruz's father now linked to JFK assassination, which is just absurd.
Now, was he in the picture?
I don't know the veracity of the picture.
I have no clue.
Anyway, so Trump had mentioned it, and that just set Ted Cruz off today.
And here's what he said.
It was also the National Inquirer that went after my wife Heidi that just spread lies, blatant lies.
But I guess Donald was dismayed because it was a couple of weeks ago the Inquirer wrote this idiotic story about JFK.
And Donald was dismayed that the folks in the media weren't repeating this latest idiocy, so he figured he'd have to do it himself.
He'd have to go on national television and accuse my dad of that.
Listen, my father has been my hero my whole life.
My dad was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba.
And when he came to America, he had nothing.
He had $100 in his underwear.
He washed dishes making 50 cents an hour.
You know, he's exactly the kind of person Donald Trump looks down on.
I'm going to do something I haven't done for the entire campaign.
For those of y'all who have traveled with me, all across the country, I'm going to do something I haven't done for the entire campaign.
For those of y'all who have traveled with me, all across the country, I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.
This man is a pathological liar.
He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies.
He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.
And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.
He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying.
And it's simply a mindless yell.
Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.
The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist, a narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen.
Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes, dude, what's your problem?
All right, so as you can hear, things have just taken on a very, very personal level.
You know, I don't think a lot of people know.
Maybe it's because I've been out there so often with so many people over the years, you know, 20th year in Fox, 30th year on radio, and interviewed so many presidential candidates.
I just know how grueling it is.
And people, their nerves fry.
It's been a long process.
Think about this.
January, it's been over a year and a number of months now that these guys have been battling away with the hopes of winning the presidency.
They're not running because they think they're going to lose.
They run because they think they're going to win and they're the best person for the job, and it is just a grueling process.
I mean, you're trudging your luggage through airports and you're on buses day and night, and you're giving speech after speech and city after city and town after town, dinner after dinner, phone call after phone call, raising money after money.
You know, it's a brutal process.
But, you know, for a job as important and the toughest job in the world, like President of the United States, it is a requirement because if you can't go through that process, how are you going to handle the job ultimately?
So I have a little more sympathy for, you know, how things get personal.
But my fear and worry about this is that if let's take the polls for what they are today, and if Trump were to take Indiana and a significant portion of those delegates, and he has a lead in West Virginia, New Jersey, a massive lead in California, Oregon, and Nebraska, then that means it's not going to be close for him getting to 1237.
He will get there easily.
And what does that mean for a general election campaign?
Because if Republicans are divided, if Republicans stick with what I discussed yesterday, if George Will says the Republicans' job is to defeat Donald Trump in all 50 states, or William Crystal is out there suggesting we need a third-party candidate, which would guarantee a win for Hillary, and you've got all of these people now creating a permanent, not temporary, permanent circular firing squad, then you better get used to saying President Hillary Clinton, because that's going to be the net result.
It's hard enough for any Republican.
Just do the simple math.
You know, look at my analysis of the Democratic campaign.
All these young millennials, they're not voting for a Republican right now.
That's not good.
And they've been indoctrinated into believing, you know, womb to the tomb and cradle to the grave and that everything's going to be taken care of by their government.
And meanwhile, it's going to be their lives that are going to be upended because we can never afford what the government is promising to pay for.
And it puts us on a road to Europe and a road to Greece that inevitably leads to a bankrupt country and a weakened country.
We already are in a state of decline.
Because look at any big city.
Look at one in four families who don't have people working right now.
So I wish it wasn't getting personal.
I know it is.
I understand people's frustration at this point.
Let's see what happens tonight.
But at the end of the day, for all of you that are committed to a candidate, if your candidate doesn't win, I'm hopeful that you'll be smart enough to realize that if you stay home, then you're helping Hillary.
All right, as promised, let's get to our phones here.
I don't tensions are high.
Emotions are running high.
I don't have a, you know, I want to say one thing.
Everyone says this person's more electable.
This person's more electable.
I can look at all 17 candidates and I can't tell you.
I don't have a crystal ball which candidate is the most electable.
I don't know the answer to that.
I mean, you should factor that into your vote.
But at the end of the day, you know, I just get this sense that, and I've had it for a long time, that it doesn't matter if it's Trump or Cruz that the establishment doesn't want either one of them.
And they almost want to punish those voters, those of you people out there that dared to vote against their options that they gave you that they supported.
That's the one thing I do know.
And why do I suspect that even when we have a nominee, we're going to have a back and forth, back and forth that's never going to end because the establishment is so furious that the people voted the way they did in this primary?
Well, too bad.
Anyway, Stewart is in St. Petersburg listening to 9:70 a.m. WFLA.
How are you, sir?
A great afternoon.
You know, right now I look at Bill Crystal and this other gentleman, I guess my mind just went blank.
I look at him as being buffoon.
George Will.
Anyone who thinks that not voting for who we elected are to put up there is crazy.
I mean, I might not have voted for Trump the first time, but by God, I am not going to vote for Hillary, and I don't want her to be president.
I want the nomination.
If it is Ted, if it is Donald Trump, I'm voting for him.
And anyone who votes the other way, they're buffoons also.
So I'll let you go, my friend.
Have a beautiful day.
I appreciate it.
Look, I think it would be hard.
I'm telling everybody that any of the candidates is going to be hard.
The number of people, young people, voting for Bernie Sanders is a bad indicator.
The number of people that have been indoctrinated into free government stuff and government control and leftism, statism, liberalism is massive.
And so, you know, look at the electoral map.
You know, look at the history, look at where George W. Bush, the needle he had to thread to win.
It's Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio.
Then you've got to pick off either New Hampshire, Iowa, then you got to get Nevada, then you got to get New Mexico.
I mean, it is a thin needle, and that's assuming that you win every other state.
And then Indiana now has also become a little bit of a purple state.
I mean, that's problematic.
Although the polls today heading into the primary show that all the Republicans would beat Hillary in a head-to-head matchup in Indiana.
All right, to our busy telephones here, let's say hi to Jerry in Los Angeles.
Jerry, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hi, Sean.
Great, great, great to talk to you.
I'm just calling on concern with the comment that Trump made of Cruz's father and how outrageous it was.
And it seemed like you were just pooling it off like it was that big a deal.
And I thought that would probably be a big, big, big issue.
I dug into the issue as much as I possibly could.
I never was able to ascertain whether or not the picture was accurate.
I think any allegation is just ridiculous to me and frankly, you know, is pointless on the campaign trail.
Ted Cruz got very angry, lashed out today.
You know, he has every right to do it.
He loves his father.
I have absolutely no problem with it at all.
But I'm just looking, I'm trying to look at the bigger picture, though.
And the bigger picture is this is not what's going to help unite the party in the end.
This is not going to help defeat Hillary Clinton in the end.
So maybe I'm looking at it from a different perspective.
Do you think that Hillary will just gobble that up and use it against and just tear Trump off if he becomes a nominee?
I think Hillary's going to have a hard time.
If it is Trump, and we'll find out more in a few hours, but I mean, if it is Trump from my perspective, I think she's not going to have an easy time with him.
Now, is that going to result in an electoral victory in November?
Well, that's going to depend on a lot of different factors.
We don't know what James Comey is going to do yet.
We don't know.
You know, she's not a particularly good candidate.
She's a weakened candidate.
She's horrible at electoral politics.
She doesn't have the oratory skills of Obama.
She doesn't have the interpersonal skills of her husband.
And then there are other factors.
She is a liar.
She's dishonest.
She's not truthful.
Most people see her that way.
But if you have a divided Republican Party and people pick their toys up and go home, I think it's going to be problematic.
And a lot of people have said as much, if in fact it's Trump.
I think it's a big mistake.
You're a great American, Sean, and thank you for everything.
All right.
Appreciate it.
800-941 Sean.
You want to be a part of the program.
Let us say hi to Julie is in Atlanta.
News Talk WSP.
Julie, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hi, Sean.
It's good to talk to you today.
And Here's my problem.
If Trump is the nominee, we have between Trump and Hillary, we have two liberal lying, dishonest, pro-abortion candidates.
There's no difference between them.
I mean, yes, Hillary's a criminal, and yes, we've always known she's a liar, but I mean, Trump's lied so many times from in the morning he'll say one thing and he flips it in the afternoon.
I can't see a difference here.
And, you know, every election they tell us, well, we've got to unite beside behind this candidate or so-and-so will get elected.
And every time it's a liberal candidate, it's not a conservative Republican, and then they lose anyway because it's a liberal candidate.
Well, here's he's certainly not a conventional candidate.
I'll say that.
Let me give you the differences off the top of my head.
Now, again, I can only assume that when people are running for office and they lay out what it is, the plans that they have to govern.
So I'm just telling you where the differences lie in their rhetoric.
Hillary's going to raise taxes, by her own estimation, over a trillion dollars.
I've not heard one Republican candidate say that.
I assume that both Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are going to build that wall.
Hillary's never going to build the wall, nor is she going to deal with the illegal immigration problem we have.
There are huge differences as it relates to ISIS and Syrian refugees and about allowing people into the country, even though ISIS said they'll infiltrate that population.
Both Cruz and Trump have said they will repeal Obamacare.
They have different plans, but some version of healthcare savings accounts.
Both have said to me multiple times that they would move America towards energy independence fast.
Both have said they're going to get control of this budget process.
In the case of Ted Cruz, it's a flat tax that would eliminate the IRS.
And in the case of Trump, he likes the penny plan, and he says he's going to get our budget in balance.
I think Ted Cruz is more aligned to dealing with issues like Social Security and Medicare than Donald Trump would be.
But in each case, I've just laid out for you is very distinct differences from Hillary Clinton.
So I don't buy the argument that they're the same.
Do I think Trump is the conservative like Ted Cruz, the constitutional conservative that has studied and embraced this his whole life?
No.
I think he's somebody that has been effective in business, understands that government, liberal government is a failure, instinctively leans conservative, and I think is more prone and tends to want to do those things that are conservative than people have given him credit for.
But we'll see.
You know, I can't vouch for what people actually going to end up doing.
I can only tell you what their promises are.
And then obviously people are so fed up and disgusted with the Republican Party.
That's been a big factor in people's voting this year, that they feel that somebody that says what they mean and mean what they say is better than the typical politician that we have.
How do we know he means what he says when he changes what he says so regularly?
Well, on the main things that I've interviewed him on, I don't think he's changed a whole lot, but has he been in the conservative movement?
Did he study Milton Friedman?
Is he a student of William F. Buckley?
No, he's not.
That's not where he comes from.
He's more populist nationalist, put America first, get America's problems fixed first, get Americans working first, up our military and up our security.
Those are all conservative platforms that he's running on.
And it's just a matter of time whether or not that's going to come to fruition.
Now, I've got to believe that he means these things, considering he said them all along, at least in interviews with me.
Well, he said build the wall all along, but then behind closed doors has said he has no intention.
So to me, it's just like when we— I'm not sure what he said to the New York Times.
Look.
Look, if you ask me if he's going to build the wall, I would say it's almost a certainty.
Because if not, he's a failure.
He will be out of office faster than Jimmy Carter if he didn't build the wall.
So I don't think I just, I can't imagine a scenario where he wouldn't, but that's my best guess.
Does that make sense?
I guess.
I just disagree.
No, that's all right.
Well, that's what this program's for.
That's fine.
800-941, Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
Linda is in Syasset in New York listening to the all-new AM710 WOR, The Voice of New York.
Hi.
Hi.
It's ironic that Cruz is saying all these things about Donald Trump today because Cruz, as a politician, he's talking to us about how he has the ability to unify the party, but he really just has the ability to convince people that his goal is unification, while anyone who can count saw that back in March, his goal has been towards a contested convention.
And to me, that just spells chaos and it spells ununification, if that's the right word.
Totally opposite of unification.
Look, understand in any election, especially primaries where normally we would be on probably all of these guys' sides.
I mean, I could make the case for most of the 17 candidates that they could all be good presidents.
It's the nature of a primary.
It's the nature of the contest itself to sort of highlight the worst possible position of your opponent and sort of downplay their strengths.
You want to highlight whatever weaknesses you perceive or portray them in the worst possible light and never in the best possible light.
It's the nature of the business.
So I kind of take that type of rhetoric as sort of par for the course.
And it is, in that sense, it's a bit of a game.
I think we have to be smarter than these cheap ads that are run every year against a candidate.
If you elect so-and-so, this is going to happen.
Your children are going to die.
I mean, you know, it's, you know what the ads are.
I mean, you know what Hillary Clinton's going to say.
Whoever the Republican candidate is, it doesn't matter that they're racist, they're sexist, there's a gender war, et cetera, et cetera.
That they want to throw Granny over the cliff.
They'll have a Trump or Cruz look alike, taking poor grandma in a wheelchair and throwing her over the cliff.
It is what it is.
Yeah, I think that it's been a while since Cruz could have won this on the first go-around, and yet he only really just started to admit that, you know, openly very, very recently.
I don't think that's being straightforward.
Yeah, look, I'm just, how do I say this?
There's a certain amount of dishonesty in the whole process.
Does that make sense?
I don't like it, but I'm just seeing it for what it is, having studied it all of these years.
Sure.
Yeah, sure.
I totally get that.
And I think there would have been more honor in coming back and coming out with that goal and admitting to all this delegate stuff a real long time ago rather than having us learn it as we all went along.
Well, everybody knew about it.
All the campaigns, or if they didn't know about it, they should have known about it.
But at this point, we'll know a lot more tonight.
But if these polls hold up for Trump and he wins Indiana and he's got these huge leads in California, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Oregon, I just, I don't even think that part is going to be an issue after any.
No, that's true.
It's really going to be a moot point after today, or hopefully, hopefully.
No, we'll see.
I'm not making predictions.
If the polls are right, the polls have Trump by a pretty significant lead.
And I would expect if they hold up that there'll be an early call on this tonight.
All right, back to our phones.
Thank you, Linda.
Appreciate it.
Let us say hi to Kevin in Westchester, New York, also listening to AM710, WOR, The Voice of New York.
How are you?
Good afternoon, son.
What I'm about to say may be far-fetched, and it's going to scare your audience, but I'm hoping that it will scare your audience.
You're saying Hillary will be, if she gets elected, it's four more years of Obama.
I don't look at it that way.
It's four more years of Hillary, then what follows another four more years of Hillary.
Then who follows Hillary?
The next eight years, I think it's going to be Chelsea.
Does America want 24?
Does America want 20?
Hang on, does anybody have the ambassador to Australia or New Zealand's number handy?
You know, you're laying out a doomsday scenario.
Now, I hate to say it.
Now, this is true, and this is why this is a pivotal election.
There is so much hanging in the balance.
This country has been in a rapid, precipitous decline militarily, on our foreign policy, our economic policy, and we're literally teetering on the brink here.
So it does scare me because it does come a point where we become Greece.
There does come a point where we cannot fix the damage that is done.
And then America, like every other country, is going to pay a price.
So your scenario is a little scary.
I hope that's not the case.
I hope people wake up.
But there are a lot of people here that believe in statism, leftism, liberalism.
I don't know.
I've always felt America was a center-right country.
I don't think so anymore.
I think we've now moved center slightly left.
And that does not bode well for winning general elections, period.
Presidential election is possible, but we'll see.
As a black female executive at the Trump organization, I can no longer remain silent about the repeated and reprehensible attempts to align my boss and his family with racist hate-mongering groups, campaigns, and messaging.
As the daughter of a man born in Birmingham, Alabama, who rose against all odds to become one of the most established and respected doctors at Yale University, there is no amount of money in the world that could buy my loyalty to a family that subscribed to such intolerant and bigoted ideologies.
The Trump family that I know is, without question, one of the most generous, compassionate, and philanthropic families I've ever had the privilege of knowing and the honor to call friends.
They have been incredibly loyal to me and to the countless dedicated people they employ around the world, hiring more minority and female executives than any other company for which I've ever worked.
I do not vote based upon the color of my skin nor the signature on my paycheck.
I judge my friends and forge my allegiances from direct personal interaction and moral character.
That said, there is no higher barometer by which to measure oneself than the one continually set by this family and their spouses.
And I should know.
Like many Americans, I have struggled with substance abuse and addiction.
The Trump family has stood by me through immensely difficult times without hesitation or concern for their own reputation by association.
They continue to trust me with every aspect of their lives and the lives of their families.
They invite me into their homes and welcome me at their family gatherings.
For the past six years, I have held an executive position as it pertains to the distribution of their charitable funds, and they have charged me to identify worthy and altruistic missions.
I could not be more humbled.
This is the Trump family that I know.
All right, that is Lynn Patton, and she works for Mr. Trump.
She happens to be a black American, and she put together a long five-minute, I think it was five-minute, YouTube video that has now begun to go viral defending her boss against allegations that have been made against him in the campaign.
Anyway, welcome back.
Glad you're with us, hour to Sean Hannity Show.
It's Indiana Primary Day, and joining us now is the leading Republican contender for the presidency, the frontrunner Donald Trump.
How are you, sir?
Hi, Sean.
That was so beautiful from Lynn.
I hadn't heard that.
I was just listening to it on your show, and that is beautiful.
You have got to watch this.
And she did not apparently seek anybody's permission, and she put this together.
And it's somebody, I guess, that you not only have hired but helped in your life.
And she just felt compelled to do it, I guess, because, I don't know, she feels you've been great to her.
She's an incredible person, but I had no idea.
And I'm just listening to it.
Was that a video, or was that it's a video?
It's on YouTube.
I'll send it to you.
I'll make sure I send a link.
She's so amazing.
Boy, isn't that nice?
That's a nice.
Well, you don't get a lot.
You don't get to say it wasn't that nice a lot during campaigns, do you?
I'm used to negative ads all the time, phony negative ads that were put up by Club for Growth who asked me for a million.
When I said no, then they started doing negative ads.
It's unbelievable.
What do you think about Ted Cruz just went off on you today?
Sure, you've heard it.
I think your campaign actually sent out a statement about it.
What is your reaction to it?
Well, you know, he's losing so badly, and he can't take losses.
He can't handle pressure.
And he's not good under pressure.
I've watched this during debates and everything else, and he is unhinged.
I mean, he's totally unhinged.
And this all started on Fox and Friends.
I did the show, and they showed me something, Brian and Steve and, you know, the group, they showed me something that was, frankly, you know, I thought inappropriate, as said by the father.
And I think it was, I think most people agree with me.
And then in the meantime, as you know, there was a picture a few weeks ago, and it was all over the place about Lee Harvey Oswald and his father a few months before.
Was that verified ever?
I saw that there was something.
I tell you one thing.
You know, it was a picture put in, and they wouldn't put it in if they could be sued.
That I can tell you.
They're very big professionals.
And it was put in.
And by the way, and Ted Cruz, I don't think denied it at the news conference.
But they don't do things unless it can be verified.
But if that were true, what was he doing having breakfast or whatever they were doing three months before the JFK assassination?
Why are they doing that?
Why is the father meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald?
You know, I have no idea because I've seen it, but I never thought it was going anywhere.
I don't know the truth or veracity of it.
But let me move on to some important issues here.
Indiana, if you go back about two weeks ago, you were down eight.
The latest polls have you in double digits, real clear politics average.
What changed in Indiana?
Well, I think the fact that I went out there and campaigned, I have a lot of friends in Indiana, but I went out to Indiana.
I campaigned hard.
The people are incredible people.
And I had many, many stops.
And it's, you know, I gave a speech last night that was so well received, but I gave three yesterday.
And I gave, you know, many over the last couple of weeks.
And I think they got to know me, and they know I'm going to bring back jobs.
And, you know, the carrier deal is a disaster.
They're losing tremendous amounts of manufacturing.
And Cruz and people like that can never bring it back.
First of all, they're taken care of by the special interest groups.
They're all bought and paid for.
And they're taken care of by special interest and everything else.
So they're never going to bring it back.
Whereas I'll bring back the jobs and I'll keep the jobs that states have, you know, that our states have.
And that includes Indiana.
But you look at what happened with Carrier, the way they viciously left Indiana.
And, you know, that won't happen with me at the top, that I can tell you.
You even think that you might be able to get Carrier to come back because it's going to hurt them financially.
In other words, they want to go build their plant in Mexico.
Ford is going to do that, build a plant in Mexico.
And then they want to be able to bring their cars back to the United States after using all the cheap labor down there.
And those are American jobs that are walking right out the door.
And it's beyond frustrating to me.
I think in part government has caused this because government has taxed business into oblivion.
And they've incentivized businesses to try and find ways to do things like this.
But there's got to be a better answer.
But, Sean, if a company is going to leave a state like Indiana, great state, a company is going to leave a state like Indiana, then there are consequences, okay?
And they're going to move to Mexico.
Not if they're going to move to another state, but if they're going to move to Mexico, there are consequences.
And the consequences are that in order to sell their units into the United States, they've got to pay tax.
Otherwise, we're going to lose every company we have.
And they're going to pay tax.
And the United States is going to either make a lot of money or the company's not going to move.
Now, a lot of the companies won't move.
If I went to Carrier, like before they made their decision, and still probably not too late, and I said, look, it's wonderful that you're going to move, enjoy the nice hot weather and all of that stuff.
But here's the story.
You're leaving a great state, Indiana.
And if you leave, we're going to charge you 35% on every air conditioning set that you, every air conditioner that you put in, unit, that you put into this country, we're going to charge you 35%, okay?
They will not even leave, Sean, okay, because it throws off everything.
They won't even leave.
We won't even lose companies anymore.
Nabisco's leaving.
Ford is leaving.
We have so many companies that are leaving, many from Mexico.
Now, then you have the other alternative where China is just taking our jobs.
They're just taking our jobs.
But it can all be stopped, and it's so easy.
And a politician can't do it.
They don't have the ability.
And many of them are paid off by campaign contributions.
You know, I wanted to ask you, let's go to the state of the campaign.
If you win Indiana, for example, if you've got all 57 delegates tonight, the winner of the state gets 30, then it's sort of winner-take-most, not winner-take-all.
So you could get as many as 57.
If you do, you'd be 184 delegates short.
You still have Ted Cruz and John Kasich in the race.
They appear to be.
For whatever reason.
Well, mathematically, they can't get to 1237, but they're stating very publicly their job is to stop you at any cost.
And that's ridiculous.
And yesterday they came out with a poll Rasmus said that I'm beating Hillary Clinton.
You're up by three, yeah.
And Cruz can't beat her.
And Kasich can't either.
Once they start with negative ads on Kasich, he cannot win.
Can't win.
Now, when you get to this point, and I've looked at recent polls, you have numbers that look really good in Oregon.
You're up by 34 points in California.
You're up in West Virginia.
You'll win New Jersey.
And then I've even saw one poll that you were up in Nebraska.
So I'm really not sure what the purpose is except to cause disunity in the party.
How do you unite a party now that it appears if you win tonight that you would get, again, a lot is hinging on tonight, but if you win Indiana tonight, as the polls suggest, how do you unite these people that are, quote, never Trump or anti-Trump?
Well, Sean, everybody is calling.
People that I cannot even believe are calling because they said such horrible things.
They're all calling and they want to come onto the, they call it the Trump train, right?
But they want to come onto the team.
And in fact, one of them, I said to him, an important person, I said, you know, I'm honored to have your support, but how can you do that after what you said?
And they said, no problem, Mr. Trump.
They're a politician.
No problem.
I can just switch my mind.
Because they're politicians.
That's what they do.
They talk.
No problem.
It was sort of amazing to me.
But they're already coming on board, Sean.
Look, we're doing really good.
By the way, the first minute, if you become president, the first minute that you're in trouble, they'll be the first people to turn on you.
Yeah, those are usually the ones that first.
They're the last in and the first to turn.
The last in and the first out, whatever it benefits them, right?
You understand life.
You and I, I've interviewed you many times, and the thing that concerns me the most and why I think this is a really important election for this country, because I don't know if Hillary gets the White House, we have a third Obama turn.
I don't know if we ever get to the point where we can fix things.
You know, we have one in four American families where not a single member of the family is in the workforce because they can't get jobs.
That's 95 million Americans out of the labor force.
We've got to bring all the jobs back, Sean.
We're letting go of our jobs.
Desperately.
And by the way, if Trans-Pacific Partnership is signed, it's going to make NAFTA look like a baby.
NAFTA has destroyed our country.
It has destroyed our manufacturing.
It has taken away jobs.
And it was signed by Bill Clinton, by the way.
Well, and a lot of Republicans supported it, too.
True.
That's true.
But he was president.
You gave this foreign policy speech.
You even used a teleprompter.
I know you don't really, you generally don't ever even have notes from what I can recall.
It's true.
And I've watched you give a lot of your rally speeches, et cetera.
They seem to be extemporaneous.
But you wanted to lay out a very important foreign policy, and the main or the crux of it, or the main point of it, was we've got to put America first because America is crumbling and other people need to step up.
And they basically have, we have allowed ourselves to pay for everything.
In many ways.
Militarily, we take care of other countries.
We don't get properly reimbursed.
We're the policemen of the world.
The countries, all of these places are absolutely taking advantage of us.
I mean, we are taking care of the military needs of countries and protecting them, and we are not properly reimbursed.
And in fact, many of the people, if you look at NATO, many of the people are just disregarding their agreements with us.
Yeah, and they're not paying their fair share.
No.
So if you get the nomination, you're the only one that now has this path.
Tonight, if you win, you're over 1,000.
You may be as few as less than 200 to go.
Then when do you turn your attention to Hillary Clinton?
Very soon.
Because if I win tonight, and I hope I do, I mean, who knows?
But if I do, you know, it would be a great honor.
I spent a lot of time there, and I have so many friends in Indiana.
But if I win tonight, it's over.
It's over.
And, you know, you'll have two people.
They're stubborn, and, you know, they want to maybe keep going.
But you saw my response to Cruz.
I guess you saw what I said in terms of, you know, so it's crazy.
I mean, what they said is very nasty.
But when you look at somebody who's so unhinged under pressure, does he even have the temperament to be president?
The answer is perhaps not.
Let's talk about how hard you think a general election campaign will be.
Look, if you get the nomination, you will have beaten 17 big names in the Republican Party.
17, you know, we're talking about governors and senators, people that are supposed to be professionals.
You've been in politics less than a year.
So what have you learned from the process, first of all, and then how do you pivot?
And how do you think?
Have you built in your mind a strategy, tactics to take on Hillary?
I have.
I don't want to necessarily reveal it.
It's not like I say I want to be unpredictable in the military.
They say, no, no, tell us exactly how are you going to beat ISIS.
When are you going to bomb ISIS?
That's right.
What day and what time of the day will you start bombing ISIS?
And are you going after the headquarters, Mr. Trump?
I mean, all of these things that Obama answers.
Oh, it's so sad when you say it.
But I will tell you, I will beat Hillary.
You see the poll coming out.
The Rashviewson was a great poll, and others too.
I've had numerous good polls coming out because people are starting to hear my message.
And once they hear my message, there's no way they can go for crooked Hillary Clinton.
And, you know, she's crooked.
And there's no way they can go.
And that's her nickname.
And it's a sad nickname, but it's true.
You just have to look at what she's done, and we'll see what happens.
But remember this.
They see the message, I'm going to bring back jobs.
We're going to have a strong military.
We're going to get rid of ISIS, got to get rid of them.
And I was against the war in Iraq, as you know, but I was against the war in Iraq, going to destabilize the Middle East.
But we have to get rid of ISIS.
They made a mistake in Iraq, a terrible mistake going there, and a terrible mistake, Sean, the way they got out.
And I know you talk about that a lot.
The way Obama got out of that war was a disaster.
Let me ask this last question, and we've got to let you go because voting now ends in just a couple of hours.
We'll be on 10 to midnight tonight.
What does Donald Trump get Melania Trump for Mother's Day?
What do you get her?
Well, you know, I told her that she's the greatest and she's going to be a great first lady, but you have to give me a little more time because I have been all over the place.
You've been busy.
Maybe after Tuesday, you'll have some time to think about it.
I asked for more time because I just got back.
Well, Mother's Day is not till Sunday.
You've got five days.
You're good.
No, that's true.
I just got back.
I literally just got back.
I'm sitting on my desk and I have got a pile of papers.
It's a mile high.
Mr. Trump, thank you as always.
Appreciate it.
Thank you very much, John.
Thank you.
The only thing that appeals to me is what Ryan's previous attacks as a dumb idea, which is giving the American people a better choice than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump if Trump is the Republican nominee, which I agree looks increasingly likely not a done deal.
I think an independent candidacy is totally doable.
I think it will happen.
The ballot access problems are not insuperable.
There are two states.
I'm coming up on the filing deadlines, though.
Texas, North Carolina, every other state, no other state's filing deadlines before June 27th.
You couldn't wait till the convention.
You'd have to decide after Indiana, possibly after California.
I think there will be legal challenges in Texas and North Carolina that the deadlines are too early.
In the 80s, five states were successfully challenged in federal court for having such early filing deadlines.
And I think a lot of patriotic Americans are going to look at this choice, ranging from activists to donors to possible candidates, and say the country deserves better than a Clinton-Trump choice.
Well, let's take Jim Mattis happens to be a social liberal.
He's more liberal than I am.
He's very concerned about the debt.
He's a strong national security hawk.
Why wouldn't someone like this?
Because he hasn't fallen.
Because he hasn't been participating in the process.
He will have, I mean, Donald Trump is not getting about this.
And nor have you.
There will be a riot in Cleveland.
No, no, I'm not sure if Cleveland falls.
Step back.
Step back.
I'm saying if Trump is the Republican nominee, the laws permit independent candidates to petition to get on the ballot.
It has happened.
CrossPro got 19 million votes.
Jim Mattis or John Kelly or many other people.
Sure, let's bring in a third-party candidate and guarantee Hillary wins.
That, of course, references what I discussed yesterday, and that is George Wills' column, where he says, oh, Republicans need to unite and stop Trump from winning all 50 states.
And there's Bill Crystal suggesting that, in fact, a third-party candidate, oh, that'd be great.
Frank Luntz is with us.
We just had Donald Trump on.
How are you, sir?
I'm fine.
And, you know, I'm looking at the polls because it's my job.
And I'm watching over the last two weeks as it becomes more and more clear that Trump is going to be the nominee.
I've watched these numbers start to close between him and Hillary Clinton.
And I find it fascinating that at the moment that it looks like we've got a different direction, and that moment is when some of these people are talking about a third-party campaign.
Sean, I don't get it.
What do you think?
We've been saying from the very beginning that this year is an insurgency year.
That's obvious.
But also that Trump defies conventional political gravity.
Now, you would probably, at different moments in this campaign, would throw your arms up in the air.
As a matter of fact, I remember actually even after the first debate, you know, you made some statements.
Oh, he can't say things like this.
This is outrageous.
And here he is on the verge of becoming the nominee.
What makes this different?
I think that the Republicans are beginning to coalesce.
And obviously, we're going to know more in a few hours.
But I think that Republicans are beginning to coalesce.
And the one thing that unites Republicans and Independents, conservatives and moderates, people from New York to California is that they don't want Hillary Clinton.
And as that comes into focus, that is the organizing principle behind all of this.
If you want the same eight years for the next eight years, then vote either independent or vote for Hillary Clinton.
But if you had enough, you believe in 4% economic growth, you believe in lower taxes, then there is only one candidate that'll bring that to you.
And Sean, that's the key going forward.
Does Donald Trump talk tonight about Hillary Clinton or does he continue on his anti-cruise?
I'm going to be.
No, I don't even think it's going to be close.
I mean, I think if he wins and if the polls turn out to be right, he'd win by a pretty healthy margin.
And if he does, then I think he pivots.
I mean, and look, I'm just looking at math here.
Some people that support Ted Cruz, you know, obviously don't want Trump to get to 1237, but Trump is going to win New Jersey.
It's a fact.
He's going to win the majority of delegates in West Virginia.
He's up by 34 points in California.
And if you just add those three states and, you know, he's there.
He's up in Oregon.
He's up in Nebraska.
So it seems to me that he has a pretty clear path now.
And I don't expect that either Kasich or Cruz will get out at this point.
But, you know, things got really off the rails earlier today.
Cruz was furious with Trump.
Trump had mentioned that Cruz's father, I guess, had been senior Lee Harvey Oswald.
I don't know.
I've never gotten the veracity of that whole thing.
Have you?
I don't.
But I have to say, Sean, that there is the issue of discipline and that Trump should be focused on Hillary Clinton at this point.
Talking about JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald and some of these, they're all unnecessary and they're all distractions.
And that if you want Hillary Clinton elect defeated, then you've got to focus on where she is weak and not bring up all these other points.
And I think this is in our polling, in our focus groups, that is the biggest question that they ask of Donald Trump.
Can you stay focused?
Are you disciplined?
Are you going to train him?
But you don't expect him not to go after Hillary Clinton in the same manner that he went after Bush and Rubio and Ted Cruz and Scott Walker and every other candidate that was in this race.
You wouldn't expect him to change, would you?
I would agree with that.
But you know what?
We're actually now into May, and she's been beating up on Trump now for six weeks, and he's barely said anything about her.
It's time to pivot.
And pivot, meaning it's now him versus Hillary.
Him versus Hillary.
And there are three areas, Sean, that I believe she's particularly weak.
Number one, of course, is the veracity, the integrity.
That's obvious.
Number two is that she really is out of touch with hardworking taxpayers, that she really doesn't know the lives that they lead, so she never has.
And third is that she will actually truly say anything she has to to get elected.
We all know the integrity one.
I don't think that's going to move people, even though people are frustrated with it.
What moves people is the idea that she doesn't get the average American and that she will tell people anything or do anything.
So is crooked Hillary the best name for her?
You know, I've been thinking about that, and it's crooked Clinton.
You've got to have the same sound.
It's better to do that.
Well, but it's been lying Ted and Little Marco.
I mean, crooked Hillary.
I mean, it's the same thing.
I mean, it's out of the way.
If you were going to advise, I don't think it's going to make a difference.
I think it's the message is going to get out.
If you had to predict, who would be the best team, who would be the best VP selection for him to team up with to defeat Hillary?
No Republican can win.
It's the best question of all.
And no Republican can win without Florida or Ohio.
So Rubio or Kasich.
Rubio or Kasich.
And I know your listeners will kill me for saying that.
But if it's about winning, then you have to bring those two states in.
And Rubio and Kasich are the two best.
Well, you can only pick one of them.
can't pick two unless he made one the secretary of state well then i'm going with the one that's more conservative and i'm going with the one that that spends the time uh that understands the the national security issue not just you're going with rubio I go with Rubio, yes.
Interesting.
There's a problem with that.
Let me ask you this question because this may be out of the box.
What do you think about Newt Gingrich?
I think he's the button.
Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy I've ever worked for.
Exactly.
There's no one even close.
Not even close.
So why not him?
Because I'm nervous about.
He doesn't look 73, but I believe he is.
And I'm nervous about his age.
I'm nervous about what others would say, although he's still younger than Bernie Sanders.
The truth is, Abraham Lincoln is younger than Bernie Sanders.
I would love to see Newt Gingrich on the debate stage.
He's the best that there has been in our lifetime.
But he's also the guy that balanced the budget the last time.
He's actually a guy that reformed government.
I mean, there were two transformational, real conservative movements in the country, the Reagan Revolution and Newt's contract with America.
You know, the other thing that I would like, and I've told this to Paul Ryan the times that I've had him on the show, I think the Republican Party needs to hit the reset button because everyone's so pissed off at them because they've broken so many promises.
And I think the best way to do that is to have something like a contract with America, put it down on paper, sign their darn name to it, and then go fight for it.
I mean, the reason people are so frustrated, and I think it opened the door for Donald Trump and, frankly, Ted Cruz to do well this year is because Republicans have been weak and timid and feckless and lacking vision and they've broken all those promises and people feel betrayed.
And it shows up in every exit poll after every state votes.
People feel betrayed.
It's a national obsession.
They feel that Republicans, and I'm one of them, have let them down.
Go back to the interviews you and I used to do 10, 12 months ago.
And you'll hear that was the word that we came up with before the very first debate to describe how Americans felt towards Washington in general and the Republicans in particular.
But stay on that newt idea because Trump brings business experience and an international understanding.
Newt brings Washington experience as well as he's been in the private sector for the last almost 20 years.
That actually, that's a very interesting pairing.
You've got the guy who's tough and take no prisoners, paired up with the guy who intellectually knows more than probably anyone except for the Library of Congress.
Putting the two of them together would be a fascinating comparison, a fascinating team against whomever Clinton chooses, because she truly is the most...
So who would she likely choose then?
She's going to wait for the Republicans to choose.
Who would she choose?
So I think she's going to choose somebody like Tim Kaine, senator from Virginia, former governor, former Democratic National Committee chairman, but a total insider.
Governor Hickenberg of Colorado, two-term governor.
I think she'll look for someone with legislative experience more than any other position.
Gingrich has got that, but nobody has his brain.
Do you think, in other words, look, he was a hard-driving speaker, but he also got more done in Washington than anybody in modern day.
Do you think they start bringing up every old new controversy and that sticks?
I think it would fall on deaf ears myself.
Well, here's the thing.
It stuck when he ran, but we're in a different age.
Donald Trump has changed politics as we know it.
It will never be.
It'll never be the same.
And Trump has changed those standards.
And so I think this is a better environment for Gingrich than any other.
I just, I think it's a very bright idea.
So I've persuaded you.
I've been able to flip you.
But, you know, you got this other team out there, people, successful governors like Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal.
You have senators like Rubio.
I'm not sure Ted Cruz at the end of this is going to want anything to do with Trump if Trump wins.
But, I mean, then you've got, you know, Scott Walker and Kasich and Nikki Haley and all these other people.
You've got a deep bench.
You got Rudy Giuliani sitting out there.
I think he would be great as either Attorney General or head of the Department of Homeland Security, or Chris Christie can prosecute Hillary as Attorney General.
That would be a good thing.
Well, you just gave a potential strategy for them, which is to bring everyone together, to put them all on a bus and take throughout all the swing states.
And this is, in essence, the dream achieve.
I would put nine mayors, governors, senators, and congressmen.
In essence, you feel the baseball team, but they're going to have to campaign together.
And this is important, Sean.
You and I, there's one area where we do disagree.
I do think Hillary Clinton is most likely going to get elected because of the fact that she'll do whatever it takes.
And I think she's going to be helped by people who report the news and people who are.
I don't know why you think I think otherwise.
I keep telling people that anyone that tells you that this election is going to be easy or over is out of their mind.
I think the country has moved a lot further to the left than we know.
I think that Hillary starts with 47% of the vote.
And I think if you look at states like Virginia that you mentioned and Ohio and Florida and other states, you know, for Republicans to win, they've either got to reconfigure the electoral map or they've got to win those states and then some.
Well, I'm going to give you a statistic that ought to frighten you, and hopefully we can do a segment on it.
Gee, thanks, Frank.
I always bring you on for the good news.
I really appreciate great news.
Go ahead.
No, this is the worst of all.
We asked young people, 18 to 29, which system, which economic system you preferred, combination of socialism or capitalism?
Socialism.
50% chose communism.
34% chose capitalism.
58% chose socialism.
Well, that's what Hillary's offering.
That's what Obama offered.
What did I just say?
I just said that the country has moved to the left.
And we have, unfortunately, we have become Europe.
And America's in decline.
And the idea of actually becoming fiscally responsible before it becomes a crisis like Greece doesn't seem to be in the minds of a lot of young people.
So either they're going to vote for their own demise or we'll get the country back on track.
It's going to be one way or the other.
But it is a, it's certainly an election that is going to be consequential, there's no doubt.
So what do you say the odds are Hillary wins?
60%, 70%?
If you wanted me to bet on Trump at this point and we can track this month by month, you'd have to give me $4 for every one that I would bet on Trump.
So I would give her 4 to 1 odds of winning, which is slightly above what they have her in the British betting system.
And then if you ask me what the spread would be if the election were held today, I'd give it about a seven-point spread.
And we can follow this between now and election day.
Gee, thanks, Frank.
You're full of great news.
Get out of here.
You're driving me.
I'll have to bring Ann Coulter on just as an antidote to this depressing Franklin's interview.
But look, I actually think Frank is warning us.
This is out there.
The mindset of the country, especially young people, has shifted dramatically.
And they want what Bernie Sanders is offering.
That's why he did so well.
But I still think Hillary is a weak and flawed candidate.
I'm going to do something I haven't done for the entire campaign.
For those of y'all who have traveled with me all across the country, I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump.
This man is a pathological liar.
He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies.
He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.
And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.
He accuses everybody on that debate stage of lying.
And it's simply a mindless yell.
Whatever he does, he accuses everyone else of doing.
The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist.
A narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen.
Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes, dude, what's your problem?
Everything in Donald's world is about Donald Trump.
And he combines being a pathological liar.
And I say pathological because I actually think Donald, if you hooked him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon, and one thing in the evening, all contradictory, and he'd pass the lie detector test each time.
Whatever lie he's telling, at that minute, he believes it.
But the man is utterly amoral.
All right, that was, of course, Ted Cruz going, well, I guess just unbridled against Donald Trump today.
This Indiana primary day, 800-941 Sean is our toll-free telephone number.
You want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Joining us now, New York Times best-selling author and friend of mine, Ann Coulter.
How are you?
Fine, thank you.
How are you?
You have been probably from the beginning the strongest voice in support of Donald Trump.
If he wins Indiana.
If he wins.
Tell us why.
What did you see in Donald Early that other people didn't see?
It was that Mexican rapist speech.
I've been waiting 20 years for some politician to talk about illegal immigration, thus Adios America, which Trump read, bless his soul.
I had tried to voice the immigration issue on several candidates running for president this year who shall go unnamed, either in short harangues or long, hours-long harangues.
And nobody else picked it up.
Nobody else picked it up.
No, Trump just saw me being interviewed.
The only interview I did before my interview with you, Sean, the week before the book came out when I was down in Miami and had that interview with Jorge Ramos.
It instantly went viral, and I was on my way to the Miami airport to fly up to New York and do your interview.
Trump's office requested that a copy be overnighted to him.
Two weeks later, he gave his announcement speech, and there it was, just laying it out strongly, the wall, the crime, the sexual crimes, which no one had talked about until Adios America.
These are different cultures we're bringing in.
I will admit, it took me a week to say he's going to be the nominee and he's going to be the president because, you know, we've been betrayed so many times on the immigration issue so many times,
you know, by Rubio, by Bush, by all of them, by the entire Republican Congress that we elected in in 2014 with Mitch McConnell and the rest of them promising, give us a majority, we will block Obama's executive amnesty.
They get into office, they fund Obama's executive amnesty.
It's happened so many times, and I just thought, well, you know, he's not a politician, Trump, so he's making this horrible mistake of telling the truth, but when the media attacks him, he's going to back down and that's going to hurt us.
Hilariously, I didn't know that Trump doesn't back down.
A week later, I saw he wasn't backing down.
His candidacy had already cost him, you know, $100 million in lost endorsements, and he was still going strong.
And I realized this is the candidate we've been waiting for, which is why I really have no time for people who complain about, oh, he's gruff or he uses coarse language.
I wrote a column about it titled, I Was Hoping for a Taller, Honest Man.
This is everything we've been waiting for that no, well, no one other than Jeff Sessions would say for decades now.
And I knew this is what Americans wanted to hear.
I mean, this is a real leader, and he won't back down despite hysterical attacks from all quarters.
What do you say to those people that and I've interviewed him a whole variety of times, and I really think I've gotten to know his positions deeply, but there are many conservatives angry at you, disappointed at you, and even many angry at me.
Not as angry as I am at them.
Well, okay, fair enough.
But what do you say to them when they say he's not conservative?
I don't know what they're conceiving of as conservative.
We're about to lose America.
I don't care about conservatism.
I care about this country.
And it's going to be gone soon.
Again, as described in Adios America, we are at the tipping point.
We have Democrats gloating about the brilliance of Teddy Kennedy's 1965 Immigration Act by bringing in millions of third worlders, people who were never brought in at this level pre-1970 or pre-the 1965 acts.
These post-1970 immigrants are voting 8 to 2 for the Democrats.
They laugh about it.
Roy Teixeira and Patrick Reddy, big Democrats, calling it George McGovern's revenge.
The entire country is about to go the way of California.
If you don't understand the national question that this is the tipping point for this country, then you're the enemy right now.
That isn't conservative.
You know, good luck with your little entitlement reforms and getting Roe v. Wade overturned when you're being outvoted by foreigners.
Only Trump sees that.
And just, you know, one thing that has been absolutely consistent in his life, I mean, for most of his life, he was a billionaire developer.
He was making pop-offs, some things that were not conservative, you know, 16, 20 years ago, often.
One thing that's been absolutely consistent about Trump, if you look through his history, something I've also written about, and that is his great love for ordinary Americans, for the working class, for the taxi drivers.
That woman with the Georgia farm that had just been foreclosed on and her husband, or was about to be foreclosed on, her husband committed suicide for the insurance money to save the family farm.
He just saw that story on TV and started a big campaign, saved the family farm, brought her and her family up, raised millions of dollars, brought her and her family up to Trump Tower for Christmas to celebrate and burn the mortgage in the lobby of Trump Towers.
And at the time, what was the quote he gave to the media?
Our government gives millions of dollars to foreign farmers, but we can't help our own farmers.
He has always cared about Americans first.
It's very strange having this New York Manhattan fancy billionaire who cares more about ordinary people than his fellow fancy billionaires in Manhattan.
Let me ask this, because there is a very different ⁇ I mean, there is this belief, and I'm there as well, is that America has been suckered by a lot of these other countries, that America has taken on too big a role as the world's policeman, that we can't even win wars anymore because they always get politicized and we end up pulling out after losing thousands of American lives and look like idiots because we don't finish the job ever, hence Mosul and Ramadi and Polusha and Takrit recently.
Well, and Iraq, that's what I'm talking about.
And then before that, Vietnam.
And all these men die.
And the question is, we have all these problems at home.
What's wrong with an American first foreign policy for a while until we balance our budget, get 95 million Americans out of work?
Did you see the statistic the other day?
There's 20% of American families have nobody in the family working there.
But we have illegal immigrants working in this country, many of them, millions of them.
No, that's right.
That's right.
Whenever these jobs reports come out, this guy, Ed Rubenstein, an economist, does a quick little analysis and determines that, once again, 90% of the new jobs went to immigrants.
No, that isn't helping the people who already live here.
This isn't a racist thing, an ethnic thing.
It's we have to take care of the people who already live here.
That includes immigrants who came in 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
It includes Hispanics, Chinese.
It includes everyone.
But we have to take care of our own people first.
We can't be the welfare ward of the world.
And, you know, the Democrats want it because they don't care what happened.
And frankly, a lot of them just hate historic America.
They just hate it.
They hate the military.
They hate the country.
They love to see America being overwhelmed and disappearing.
And Republicans have just been wandering around like Elmer Fudd, and we have to concentrate on the Hispanic vote.
And apparently, the only way they think they can get the Hispanic vote is by legalizing millions more.
Well, no, that, I mean, as Trump has shown, I knew this was true.
I put it in Adios America.
Hispanic Americans, or as they call themselves, Americans, they don't need more competition.
Even the ones who have come recently, they'd like their wages to go up.
It's the rich who want people to come in and compete for their landscapers' job.
They don't want anybody competing for their jobs.
Let me ask, how do you think if Donald Trump wins Indiana tonight, it's pretty clear he gets the nomination?
If he gets the nomination, how certain are you that he can win the general election?
Well, I've been certain he's going to get the nomination in the presidency again since one week after the Mexican rapist speech.
Americans have been burning with anger.
They hate both parties in Washington.
If anything, they hate Republicans more.
They are dying to vote.
What about all these Republicans, though?
Wait a minute.
But hang on.
You see the never Trump crowd.
You read George Will's column yesterday.
No, you see Bill Crystal talking.
I'm not sure if you've got George Will for 20 years.
Yeah, there will be 5,000 pundits in Washington and the Washington, D.C. area who may sit on their hands and sit it out.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, 60,000 Democrats switch their registration to Republican to vote for Trump.
In Massachusetts, 20,000 Democrats switch their registration to Republican to vote for Trump.
I also wrote a column about that going through the states, the many, many paths to victory Trump has.
You have this political genius, Stuart Stevens, who managed to lose the campaign for an attractive Republican like Mitt Romney, claiming that, nope, nope, there are no more white votes.
You can't get white votes.
Oh, and by the way, I do think Trump is going to get a higher percentage of the black and Hispanic vote than Romney or McCain.
But putting that aside, just looking at how he crushes, it is with the white working class.
And Stuart Stevens keeps saying no more white votes.
Romney got more of the white vote than even Ronald Reagan.
Well, point one, he's looking at the national white vote.
Romney actually lost the white vote to Obama, or nearly lost.
It didn't meet his national average, in 10 huge states, big Midwest industrial states, in Maine, in Massachusetts, in Michigan, in Illinois, in all very important states.
And I'm just talking about, oh, also another thing with Reagan and his white vote.
Remember who was running in 1980?
John Anderson.
That was 100% white people voting for Anderson.
Well, okay.
And also you had a lot of Democrats back in 1980 who were conservatives, the Southern Democrats who were voting for Reagan.
I haven't even talked about Florida.
I'm assuming if he just flips, I don't know, a handful, a half dozen states that he can flip pretty much exclusively with the white working class vote, or at least puts him in play, even places like New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa.
Wisconsin.
Maine.
And incidentally, who won Maine in, let's see, what year would that be?
When did Perot run 1992?
Perot won Maine.
You think Trump is going to do well in a state that Perot beat Bush in?
All right, because we're running out of time, who would you like to see him pick as VP?
Well, one thing, you don't have to care about geographic considerations.
Why not?
Because you're thinking he's going to reconfigure the map.
Well, that's sort of that's an the reason I mention that is I always hear people talking about geographic areas.
That's been thrown out the window for about 20 years now.
It used to be that local media was more important.
We're now, you know, a national media country.
Clinton had Gore, two southern states.
Bush had Cheney, Wyoming.
So put that out of your head.
What needs balancing is more.
We don't need a wild-eyed bomb thrower.
We got that in the guy at the top of the ticket.
We do need someone.
The most important factor, having said what doesn't matter, the most important factor that does matter is it's got to be someone who is rock solid on immigration, because if it isn't, Donald Trump is going to be impeached.
So it can't be somebody that makes the establishment happy.
It has to be someone.
I mean, one I've recommended, but I actually think he should run INS, is the magnificent Chris Kobe, Secretary of State of Kansas.
He wrote E-Verify.
He wrote the Arizona law.
If he were the vice president, the Democrats and the Republicans would be praying for Trump's health.
And Coulter, we always love having you on.
She did write the book, Bestseller, Adios America.
It's in bookstores still.
And thanks for being with us.
We always love having you.
Good to talk to you, Sean.
Bye-bye.
All right, Lou in Michigan is with us.
Lou.
Hi, how are you?
Apparently, you disagree with me on something I said.
By the way, Donald.
You know, when I saw you last November, you came to Troy, Michigan, and you laid out a format for the kind of archetypical presidential candidate that would be a non-establishment outsider individual, and you stayed with that theme.
And I just don't understand why so many folks believe that Donald Trump is that guy.
I mean, you like the guy that we're talking about.
You're talking about my conservative solution.
Do what he campaigned for.
You know what I mean?
I mean, Ted Cruz pushed back, spent his life pushing back against the establishment.
And the thing that bothered me about Donald, which I love a lot of the things he says, of course, but what has he done recently to make me believe him is how I answered, you know, I asked that question.
And I think, my gosh, as soon as he got in trouble there or thought he was in trouble in Iowa, he was pandering to the ethanol lobby and the sugar lobby in Florida.
I just, you know, don't you think we should be – I guess what I'm asking you is why is it that he seems to get a pass on having lived a life of kind of crony capitalism and then I'm suddenly supposed to believe that – you know what I mean?
He's that he's on our side now.
Well, he's not been a politician, so I mean, I guess that's part of the problem.
Comments that he's that seem to be popular in the YouTube and on the media now about interviews that he gave years ago on the Howard Stern Show, as if that reflects where his real political opinions are.
I have asked him the question many times about, okay, you took advantage of the system.
He goes, well, that's my point.
I go, I know how to play the system.
You have to do it if you're in business.
If you want to keep your buildings going up and your workers working and you want to keep the machine running, he goes, but I know the system.
The system's corrupt and I know how to fix the system.
So you either, it really comes down to whether you believe him or not.
I mean, you either believe he's going to build the wall.
Ted Cruz does not believe he'll build the wall.
I actually think he would.
You believe him when he says he wants to be energy independent or not.
You believe him that he wants to bring education back to the states and let local school districts decide or not.
You believe that he really does like the penny plan or not.
You believe he really wants to eliminate Obamacare and replace it with free market competition and health savings accounts or not.
I mean, I can't vouch for what's inside any of these candidates' hearts.
I can only tell you what they've told me.
And I can explain that in detail because I've interviewed him a lot.
He likes the Canadian plan.
You know he's that now, Sean.
He did say that.
I have asked him at least five times about why he's all over.
Oh, the governments are going to pay for it.
He said it once, and it's been repeated ever since.
I said, whoa.
And then his answer to me, take it for what it's worth.
I'm giving it to you, was that works for them.
It would never work here.
And he said, what I was saying is, and then he went into his explanation with free market competition.
He said all of these things to me.
I can pull it.
Free market competition, buying across state lines, portability, and healthcare savings accounts.
That's what he said more often than the one time that he said the Canadian system, which, yeah, I agree.
That alarm bells went off in my head, too.
I said, what?
So I've asked him about it at least five or ten times.
We're going to have to dog him to do the right thing, don't you think?
Look, if he wins Indiana tonight, I think he's pretty much close to getting it.
He has it.
Because then you got New Jersey.
He's going to win New Jersey.
He's going to win West Virginia or majority there.
And he's up by 34 in California.
Do the math.
At this point, it then becomes a simple mathematical problem.
But you're right about any politician.
You know, I didn't have a problem when John Boehner became Speaker, but I didn't have a problem a couple of years ago saying he needs to go because he wasn't doing his job and he was accumulating debt and he was afraid of his own shadow and he had no vision.
That goes for anybody that gets into public office.
A lot of people go in there and say a lot of things and then they don't keep their promises.
It's really our job not to go away on election day, but to hold them accountable.
And I think the reason that you see 60% of Republicans in these exit polls feeling betrayed is because they were betrayed and they get it.
And that's why this has become the year it's become.
So look, I'm not anybody's special pleader here.
You have to decide for yourself whether or not you think a candidate is honest and true and is going to accomplish the things that they're saying.
That's something deeply personal.
But I'm just giving you, I'm giving them and through them a voice to you to hear what they're promising.
Does that make sense?
I just don't like that Boehner and McConnell are now supporting Trump.
I just don't trust those crew.
I just don't trust them.
I just really trust you.
I think Boehner is just bitter and wants to be relevant again.
You know, I have no idea what his relationship with Donald Trump is.
It sounds like they played golf once.
That's how I'm interpreting it.
But John Boehner's not the speaker.
He is irrelevant at this point.
I didn't like what he said about Ted Cruz.
I thought it was nasty and vicious and typical of something I would expect from him, frankly.
All right, I got to move on.
800-941 Sean, Jim is in Montana.
Jim, hey, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean, I appreciate you taking the call today, and I just would tell you, I just appreciate the way you've handled things.
You do a fantastic job.
Hey, one thing, the last fellow was a Cruz supporter.
I would support Cruz in a second if he got the nomination, but that's not going to happen.
I mean, Donald Trump, I'm a Trump guy now.
I mean, it's reality.
Like you said, he's just not going to lose.
But one thing I watched Cruz's tantrum, temper tantrum, or whatever he did this morning, and I haven't seen Donald Trump's response, but to me, it looked like it was a meltdown.
I mean, what we had him on earlier in the program today, and he responded.
You know, what Cruz did, I mean, he kind of painted himself in a corner is what he did.
He went and he was kind of ran when the primaries first started.
He ran and didn't say much to Trump.
Then they went into South Carolina, and that was supposed to be a stronghold.
Well, Trump went down there and took on the Pope and then called George Bush a liar in front of his whole family, and he still won.
That should have told him something.
That was in his back door.
So then they go on and Rubio gets knocked out.
Little Marco, so to speak, gets knocked out.
And then it's a three-man race.
Well, the powers to be went to Cruz.
Cruz went in and kissed the ring.
I mean, he basically, it's like you're getting a loan from the mob.
I mean, if you're in that group, you're in it.
So you look at it from their perspective, they have nothing to lose.
If Cruz beats Trump, Cruz is their man.
If he gets beat, Cruz is gone forever.
Cruz painted himself in a big corner, and I'm watching him on TV today, and I felt this for a long time.
All these delicates he won and all this stuff, if he was that smart, he would have done it in the South.
That was the establishment, Republicans, picking stuff off for him.
He got on the train, painted himself in the corner, and now he's, it's almost like if you looked at his face, he's going, well, this is it.
Politically, the man is probably finished.
Look, I don't think he's.
I've got rid of him.
Either way, they won.
Let me just say a thing here.
I don't think it's ever good for a politician to get that angry.
I just, general rule of thumb, I don't think people like it.
I think it tends to backfire.
We'll find out more tonight.
He did it earlier today.
There's no doubt that Senator Cruz, who has run a great campaign, has been an insurgent, has fought for conservative values.
And I've seen this in many races over the years.
You've got to understand, it's not easy to run for president.
I do have a great deal of sympathy for these guys.
Now, they put themselves in there.
You've got to have a healthy ego.
You've got to really believe in yourself.
You've got to have a thick skin.
You've got to have calluses built up.
But at the end of the day, it is a much harder job than I think most people really know.
And it should be that way because, especially as a race lingers on and moves on, it begins to test the real character of the individual.
You're competing for the toughest job in the entire world, and that is to be the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States.
So it should be tough.
But I have seen so many people that have put their heart, their soul, years of their life into running, and it's hard when they lose.
You've got to understand, they're not in this to lose.
They're in this because they believe that they're the best person to do this job.
So my guess, my feeling is, is that maybe the polls leading into Indiana have frustrated a little bit Senator Cruz.
That does not take away from the good things that he has done, how well he's run this race, how well he's done in the race.
But at the end of the day, I don't hold one moment of anger as representative of who Ted Cruz is.
I just don't.
I think he would be a great Supreme Court justice, maybe a great president one day.
I don't know if he loses Indiana.
I don't think this race is it for him.
And I want him in the Senate fighting.
He's been a strong advocate, standing alone oftentimes against the establishment.
I think he's got really good qualities.
I don't want to bring down the whole house here, but it is not an easy process when you put your name out there and your hat in the ring and you say you're going to run and you put everything on the line and then you lose before a whole nation.
It's painful.
And I've seen this.
I've actually, look, look at what happened to Al Gore after he lost in 2000.
He became totally and completely unhinged.
It's not an easy thing.
So I hope that adds some context to what you're saying.
Joe is in Hartford, Connecticut.
Joe, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Great.
How are you doing, Sean?
I'm good.
I guess, you know, my wife and my kids were, you know, we're talking about the whole election, and we came to the same conclusion with Donald Trump as far as him complaining that Ted Cruz was stealing all the delegates.
He counts himself as the deal maker.
He's even said he knows how to work the system.
He'd work the system.
But yet he complained when Ted Cruz was doing just the same thing that Donald should have been doing.
If Donald didn't know the rules, whose fault is that?
And even if people think the rules might be unsavory, those are the rules.
And if you work within those rules, you can win.
And if Donald, again, if Donald was really serious about it, he would have had people down here making deals left, right, backwards.
He would have known that rule book so well he could have recited it to Ted Cruz.
But instead, he chose just to complain when he lost.
I mean, that's how my wife and kids feel.
We're Ted Cruz.
Listen, I think it was more of a learning curve for him than other people in this race, but I think certainly Pennsylvania showed that they got in the game.
I was surprised a little bit at what happened this weekend in Arizona, a state that Trump had won by a fairly good margin, strong margin.
But those delegates and their later support for Cruz would only be on a second ballot.
If he wins tonight, then he would be in a position where I think it's probably likely that he gets to 1237.
Right.
It would be irrelevant at that point.
Right, yeah, and I understand that.
But I mean, again, more to your point, too.
It's on the second ballot.
And Donald was pretty much crying like, you know, Ted was stealing the first ballot, people, when in reality, he really wasn't.
Look, it's a complicated system.
I would like to simplify it, but you're right about everybody knows the rules going in.
Everybody has a fair shot at it.
Jim Baker once famously said, you know, win as many delegates as you can, keep all of your delegates, and then try and steal the other guy's delegates.
That doesn't sound like the best system in the world, but that is the system that we have.
I think it can be improved upon.
I think every delegate ought to be bound on the first ballot anyway, because that is at least representative.
That gives reason for we, the people, to go out and vote in caucus, at least on one ballot, represent the people that chose you.
So I think there's easy ways to improve the system and not having to rework it.
But you're right on your points, too.
I can't disagree with you.
Tom is in Minneapolis.
Tom, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean.
Good afternoon.
I got to tell you, you have got to be the most even-keeled diplomatic person living in this country right now.
Well, not really.
I see where this is headed, and I'm trying to prevent a catastrophe.
It's going to be hard enough to win a general election as it is.
Okay, I can hear you.
I hear you loud and clear.
That proves you've got an IQ on top of it all.
I think there's something working in there.
I don't know how high it is, but okay.
Yeah, me too on a good day.
What I wanted to say was in the beginning of this whole election thing, I was even on Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
I was saying either one of these two guys are easily backable.
And I've gone, what do we say, downhill or south on Ted Cruz?
That man has been disrespectful of you, of me, of the whole system, and saying things like, two weeks ago he said on your show, I'm very troubled at Trump campaign's pattern of inciting violence and threatening, what was that?
Yeah, threatening violence.
And then today he says that Donald Trump has ill will towards Christians and that prayer is a sign of weakness.
There's no way Donald Trump could have said that.
And what I think about these guys is I don't want to hear you complaining about the other guy.
Don't tell me what's wrong with him.
Tell me what's wrong with you.
Let me add this.
Look, I think at this point, I think everybody's nerves are a bit frayed.
I think everybody's on emotions are high.
I think it has been a long, drawn-out, difficult, arduous, tough process.
And I think people are pretty much wiped out.
And I know exactly what you're saying.
I've heard it on both sides.
And the only thing I would say is whoever wins this thing will know a lot more tomorrow, a lot more tonight when I'm on TV.
And I think Indiana is playing a very big role this year.
And we'll know.
And when we know, you know, at that point, I hope the healing can begin.
And I hope that we realize that another term of Obama through Hillary is just a disaster for the country.
This is going to be a choice election.
There's going to be a lot of differences between whoever the candidate is and Hillary Clinton.
I can tell you that.
But I appreciate your kind words.
I do.
I get slammed for trying to bring people together here, but it's got to happen because I know a divided house is going to fall.
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