Bernie Sanders hit another big win in West Virginia's primary and is now pressing on toward the Democratic convention. What's more, nearly half of those who voted for Sanders have said they'd support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Is it time to stop assuming Clinton will be the nominee? 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.
Anyway, 800-941-Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
If you miss the, well, if you don't live in New York, you don't have tabloid newspapers, you're really missing out.
I couldn't start my day without reading the New York Post.
I barely suffered through the New York Daily News and their liberalism.
But anyway, so the New York Post today has a picture of, I guess, Miss America taking the crown off Hillary's head, and the headline is, stop the coronation.
Wow.
Miss Columbia, I guess it was Miss World or something.
What do you call it?
I don't know, Miss Universe.
I don't know what all those pageants are.
I'm not a pageant dad.
I don't understand that.
You ever see the little kids in the pageants?
Oh, my, that terrible show that's out there?
And they're teasing and dying the kids' hair, and they're putting on all that makeup on those kids, sort of like John Benet Ramsey stuff.
Really weird.
I don't get it.
I don't understand that.
The pageantry stuff?
It's bizarre.
Anyway, stop the coronation.
Now, it's getting more interesting.
Bernie Sanders, after his big win in West Virginia last night, he went after Hillary Clinton and said if Hillary gets the nomination, it will, quote, be a disaster for the party because Donald Trump will beat her.
And then he goes, you know, right off a disaster.
That's what he's saying.
That is huge.
I can't believe it.
Nobody's paying attention to it.
All they're paying attention to is what the Republicans and what's going on in the Republican Party.
On top of that, the head of the FBI, James Comey, appeared to challenge Hillary Clinton's characterization of the federal investigation into a private email server earlier today.
Clinton and her allies have repeatedly called the probe routine a security inquiry, but James Comey told reporters that that was not an accurate description.
It's in our name.
I'm not familiar with the term security inquiry, he said at a roundtable with reporters.
Instead, he said it was an investigation.
In other words, it's a criminal investigation.
Here's other big news out of last night.
Nearly half of Bernie Sanders' West Virginia voters say that they'd back Trump over Hillary.
Exit polls in West Virginia showed last night an incredibly high percentage of Bernie Sanders supporters would rather support Donald Trump if Hillary gets the Democratic nomination.
44% said that they would prefer Trump over Hillary.
That's how much she is disliked.
Now, when you read the Stop the Coronation piece in the New York Post, meaning referring to the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, it gets even more interesting.
Now, hours before the West Virginia polls closed yesterday, Hillary Clinton's top fundraisers got a memo from their campaign manager, a guy by the name of Robbie Mook.
The message was, quote, even if Bernie runs the table in all the remaining states, he can't win.
Now, this wasn't the way the Democratic primary was supposed to end.
And some Democrats now vocally are very uneasy over the rocky finish, if you even want to call it a finish, of Hillary Clinton.
Now, let me give you some more details to all of this.
If you look at last night's numbers, Bernie Sanders destroyed her by 15 points, 51 to 36.
Now, some perspective.
This is a state that Hillary won in 2008 by more than 40 points.
In 2008, she won 67% of the West Virginia vote.
Yesterday, she won only 36%.
In other words, she went from winning two-thirds of the vote eight years ago to only winning one-third of the vote yesterday.
And she went from winning more than 240,000 votes in 2008, get this, to less than 85,000 votes in 2016, a 65% decline.
And as I pointed out, you've got 40% of Democrats would rather vote for Trump.
Only 44% of Democrats said they'd vote for Clinton.
That is a recipe for disaster.
Now, Clinton has now been defeated 20 times by Sanders.
And for the second straight week, week lost the state that she carried in 2008.
This is a real challenge here.
You take away the super delegates.
There's only a couple of hundred delegates, and they have a lot more in the Democratic primaries that is separating these two candidates.
That's why the Democratic system is so broken and so corrupt.
I mean, it's pretty amazing.
I mean, this was a shellacking in every sense of the word.
Now, it doesn't mean that Sanders will lose to Clinton in the Democratic contest, but it does mean she is a very, very, very weak candidate.
And I would argue the worst Democratic nominee since Michael Dukakis, who lost 40 states in 1988 to George Herbert Walker Bush.
That's how bad it is now for the Democratic Party.
Now, on top of the Virginia shellacking, we learned today, Donald Trump's support is now surging.
He's now running nearly even with Hillary Clinton among likely voters, which is now a dramatic turnaround since he has become the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee.
This was a Reuters poll that was released yesterday.
And as recently as last week, Clinton had led, well, actually, there's been three polls leading up to the Battleground poll that was dead even.
Then you had the Rasmussen poll that had Trump up by three.
And now this poll has them dead even in the Reuters poll.
And the Quinnipiak poll in the swing states, you have Trump up by four in Ohio, and it's dead even in Pennsylvania and Florida.
So on top of all of this here, these developments have led to the Sanders campaign declaring, and I think with some degree of confidence, that the Democratic Party is courting a disaster.
Now, you've got to remember who she's running against.
The Democratic primary is still ongoing.
It's not been decided.
Bernie keeps winning.
She keeps losing.
Well, she had to deal with one other candidate.
And on paper, a 74-year-old curmudgeon, angry socialist from Vermont that she's losing to in these 20 contests.
So if the party does nominate Hillary, you know, in an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Sanders himself said with some degree of contempt, please don't moan to me about Hillary Clinton's problems.
Ouch.
Add insult to injury, and there's Joe Biden out there.
You can't go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.
That guy, he said that for himself, he would have been the best president.
But I think what's going to happen here is that the constant attack coming from the Republican side, the sort of vitriol that's pointed out, I don't think it's going to wear well over the next several months.
So I feel confident that Hillary will be the nominee, and I feel confident she'll be the next president.
No regrets?
I know that before you said that you didn't run.
But you knew that it was the right decision for your family.
Look, I had planned on running.
It's an awful thing to say.
I think I would have been the best president.
But it was the right thing, not just for my family, for me.
No one should ever seek the presidency unless they're able to devote their whole heart and soul and passion into just doing that.
And Bo was my soul.
I just wasn't ready to be able to do that.
Now, my one regret is my Bo's not here.
I don't have any other regrets.
Wow.
I would have been the best candidate.
He was a little arrogant, but he's never had a problem with his ego.
We'll put it that way.
A strong Trump critic, I noticed, Damon Linker, writes, no Democrat has ever run against a candidate like Trump.
He overturns every settled ideological and temperamental expectation of normal politics.
Well, that's his way of saying what I've been saying from day one.
He defies all conventional political gravity.
He'll go after you with a ferocity we've never seen before, and the assault will be unremitting.
He's right.
Yes, on the stump and TV, radio ads, and in debates, but also in 24-7 cable news coverage and an endless stream of infectiously quotable tweets, half of them capped by what's become this election cycle's all-purpose three-letter dismissal.
Sad.
So don't be cocky.
Fire anyone on your staff who tells you this is going to be easy.
Then tell the staffers who remain that they need to be nimble, thinking on their feet outside of the proverbial box.
Yes, the Democrats have very real demographic advantages, and that will help, but not as much as usual consultants and data crunches want to assume.
That's the closest thing to being accurate, and it's coming from a guy that doesn't like Donald Trump.
Now, that doesn't mean I want to be very careful here, and I want you all to hear me loudly.
I'm not predicting a Republican victory, a Trump victory.
And anybody that is is doing you a disservice.
I think that if you think, if you get overconfident in this race, you're making a big mistake.
Don't underestimate the Clinton machine, the viciousness in which they run campaigns.
Don't underestimate the electoral map built-in advantage that Democrats have.
When you start with New York, California, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, it's a big problem.
And when Republicans historically, traditionally need to thread the needle and get, let's see, Florida and Ohio and fight for Pennsylvania and North Carolina and fight for Virginia and try and bring into play Wisconsin and Michigan.
And then you have to get Iowa, New Hampshire, then you got to grab Colorado.
Then you got to get New Mexico.
Hopefully Arizona.
It's not an easy, it's not an easy electoral map for any Republican.
I am beginning to believe this, though.
I've said all throughout this process, I have thought long and hard as I think of the 17 people and the 17 names that were up for election.
And I thought, all right, who would be the person that would be most likely to beat Hillary Clinton?
Now, you were reading polls when it came down to a three-man race.
The person that always appeared to do the best was John Kasich, but nobody ever went after John Kasich.
John Kasich didn't have, you know, 100,000-plus ads run against him the way Donald Trump did, or the number of ads and attacks that Ted Cruz received.
So when you run a lot of negative ads, it drives up people's negatives.
Their unfavorables go higher.
And I've thought long and hard: who's the most electable?
In other words, let's go through Kasich.
Could Kasich win Florida?
Could he win all of those states that I just mentioned?
I don't know.
What states would Cruz get?
What states could he have put in play that say Donald Trump can't put in play?
I don't know the answer to that either.
I'm beginning to think, though, that this unconventional style of Donald Trump and him not being a traditional candidate may actually make him in the end the most electable.
Then, if you're a conservative, you're saying, all right, well, what's his judicial philosophy?
Well, the good news is he said he's going to release the names of a pool of candidates, and it would only be from that pool of candidates that he names ahead of time that he would select Supreme Court justices.
If you're a conservative, you want to know those names.
I want to know those names.
I think he's pretty certain that he's going to build the wall.
I don't see Hillary building a wall.
I don't see Hillary keeping out, listening to our intelligence director and FBI director and special envoy to defeat ISIS, that ISIS will infiltrate the refugee population and keeping them out.
I don't see her doing that.
I don't see Hillary putting education back in the hands of the states and eliminating Common Core.
We already know Hillary doesn't want energy independence.
She wants to put cold miners and cold businesses out of business, and she's against fracking and drilling.
So we know that's not going to happen.
We know that Hillary supports Obamacare, so she's not going to repeal Obamacare.
And we know that Hillary is going to spend just the way Obama did because she praises Obama all the time.
So I'm beginning to think that Trump's lack of convention, that the mood of the country is pretty clear.
Hillary's the last establishment candidate in this race, and she's not well liked.
And but for this corrupt Democratic system where they basically steal the nomination for Hillary, I actually think Bernie Sanders can win California and win the whole thing.
But they'll still give it to Hillary anyway.
And I think that's going to make a lot of Bernie Sanders people angry.
Maybe even force Hillary into thinking about putting Bernie on the ticket, which is the last thing she wants to do.
How does she then move to the center when she appoints a socialist on her ticket?
Or she might get the Native American from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren.
Of course, she's not really Native American.
She just put that on the Harvard when she was a Harvard professor.
She just put it down that she was.
You know, well, I think I'm 132nd or 64th, 164th Cherokee.
It's just an outright lie.
And she's out there.
I actually challenged her on some stuff this weekend on Twitter for fun.
All right, 809.
This is interesting, though.
All the talk about the Republicans, what's happening?
The Democratic Party is collapsing around a weak candidate who's only getting weaker.
Only Hillary can bring us together as one nation.
Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Whatever happened to the under God part.
Can you play that again?
Maybe I missed.
Only Hillary can bring us together as one nation.
Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Why does Hillary Clinton and all her supporters feel that they have to scream?
That's observation number one.
Number two, I'll show you the video tonight.
Hillary comes on stage after she took out Under God.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Laughing.
Only Hillary can bring us together as one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
I know that we can finish the job of universal health care coverage for every single man, woman, and child.
I know, I know we can combat climate change and be the clean energy superpower of the 21st century.
I know we can make our education system work for every one of our children, especially those who come with disadvantages.
I know we can make college affordable and get student debt off the backs of young people.
I know, too, we can stand up to the gun lobby and get common sense gun safety measures.
We have to keep up with every fiber of our being the argument for the campaign for human rights.
Human rights as women's rights.
Human rights as gay rights.
Human rights as worker rights.
Human rights as voting rights.
Human rights across the board for every single American.
Now that is who I am.
You are the reason we are here.
And you are the reason we are going to win the nomination and then win this election together.
Thank you all.
Thank you so very much.
I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic and we should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.
You know, I figured out the best contribution I can make to the Trump effort to win the presidency.
Play a nonstop loop of that 24-7 on my website.
Why don't we take the best of these tapes that we have of Hillary screaming unhinged?
She really is unhinged.
You know, people talk about Donald Trump and temperament.
I don't think Hillary has the temperament to be president.
Don't you someday want to see a woman bread?
Now you see, I give you a little flexibility, Jason, and you just take it a step too far all the time.
You know?
We'll put all these together and we'll put it up on Hannity.com where you can, we actually have the video of that woman introducing her, one nation.
No, I can't say God.
Only Hillary can bring us together as one nation with liberty and justice for all.
Well, it's up on Hannity.com if you want to take a look.
I just let Hillary talk.
Yep.
Well, better stated, let her yell because she yells a lot.
An awful lot.
Here's something fascinating.
You usually don't get this from the New York Times, but here we go.
They got a column today contending that the mainstream media polls probably understate Donald Trump's support because voters are reluctant to admit that they support somebody who's been so thoroughly demonized by the media.
I kid you not, this is in the New York Times.
Quote, there's strong evidence that most traditional public opinion surveys inadvertently hide a segment of Trump supporters.
We had that woman that called in last week.
She says, I can't tell the people I work with.
And I vote, I'm voting for Donald Trump.
I'm voting for Trump.
Remember, she says, I'm a black woman, and I'm voting for Donald Trump.
I can't tell anybody.
I wonder if there might be something to the who knows.
Anyway, many voters are reluctant to admit it to a live interviewer that they back a candidate like Donald Trump, unconventional.
In matchups between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump does much better in polls conducted online, in which respondents click their answers on a computer screen rather than in a person-to-person landline or a cell phone survey.
An aggregation of real-clear politics of 10 recent telephone polls gives Clinton a nine-point lead over Trump.
In contrast, the combined results for the YouGov morning consult polls, which rely on online surveys, well, they have Clinton's lead at a dead heat.
So why is that important?
Because an online survey, whatever other flaws it may have, resembles an anonymous voting booth far more than what you may tell a pollster.
In May of 2015, the Pew Research analyzed the differences between results derived from telephone polling and those from online internet polling, and Pew determined that the biggest differences in answers elicited via the two survey modes were on questions on which social desirability bias, that is, the desire of respondents to avoid embarrassment or project a favorable image to others played a role.
And by the way, I mean, that's basically what they're saying is they're closet Trump supporters.
That's what they're suggesting here, that they won't say it publicly.
They're not coming out of the closet.
Anyway, Trump's advantage in these online polls compared with live telephone polling is eight or nine percentage points among likely voters.
Difference is driven largely by more educated voters, those who would be the most concerned with social desirability.
Can I just say one thing?
You cannot live your life in fear of what other people think of you because you'll never be free.
You'll always be held captive based on what people's opinions are or the perception you want to project as to who you are or who you are not.
So the answer is always be true to yourself.
We got other interesting information.
Military Times points out in a new survey of American military personnel, Donald Trump emerged as active duty service member's preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary by more than two to one.
You know why?
He is the one candidate like immigration that put issues like the military and the corrupt VA on trial in this campaign and brought those issues front and center.
Been a lot of talk about millennial voters this election year.
John McCain's daughter, Megan McCain, was on Fox News, added that young women were likely to support Trump, especially after all the things about Bill Clinton and his pastor coming out.
We have something really exciting planned about this.
Can't tell you now because we have a bunch of copycats out there.
All they want to do is steal great ideas.
If you're worried about Trump's economic plan, well, I wouldn't be so worried.
We know that Donald Trump last month contacted Larry Kudlow.
I like Larry Kudlow.
He's a good guy.
He served in Reagan's Office of Management and Budget and Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, both really smart guys, to spearhead an effort to update his tax package.
What we've been trying to do is help advise him a little bit to try and reduce the cost of the plan and still encourage economic growth, Moore said.
Trump's initial plan has come under criticism, et cetera, et cetera, saying that it would add $10 trillion to the deficit in the next decade, blah, blah, blah.
I think putting smart people on it, well, that's what big businessmen do.
They get the best people, surround themselves with the best people.
This was an argument that I made some time ago.
President doesn't do everything on their own.
Who's surrounding that person?
You've got to hire the best people if you want to get the job done.
Who's going to be the Secretary of Defense?
Who's going to be the Secretary of State?
Who's going to be the Vice President?
Who's going to be the Attorney General?
Who's going to be the Chairman of the Secretary of Homeland Security?
Who's going to be Health and Human Services Secretary?
Oh, Ben Carson.
You know, who's going to be the Surgeon General?
A lot of important positions here.
It's going to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Who's going to be the head of the FBI, Hillary?
Who's going to be your CIA director?
Very important issues coming up here.
There's a lot at stake in this election.
All right, let's get to our busy telephones.
8094.
Oh, hang on.
John McLaughlin is listening, and he just sent me a note.
John McLaughlin, the pollster, he was on yesterday, said, Yeah, you just nailed the hidden vote phenomenon.
He talked about Jesse Helms, Rizzo, Prime Minister Netanyahu, all had that.
Online polling is also more accurate.
90% of people are online.
Only 53% have landlines.
So what's the better universe, he writes, online.
Plus, they're more likely to click the computer for a candidate than tell a live interview viewer who they're voting for.
Yeah, I think that's a big issue.
Really big.
Sarah is in Asheville in North Carolina.
Hey, Sarah, how are you?
Hey, I'm fine.
I just wanted to make a comment about the Pledge of Allegiance.
The initial Pledge of Allegiance never had God in it.
And besides, who's God?
There's 5,000 different gods.
You know, who is right?
Who's the right God?
And maybe Democrats don't want to look like they're, you know, the hypocrites like, you know, Donald Trump.
You're factually correct about the pledge, but remember, we have a declaration, our founding document.
And the words endowed by our Creator are in there, are they not?
You know, why is it that Liberal.
Listen, do you believe in God?
I'm not completely convinced there is a God.
So you're not an atheist, but so you're rather agnostic?
I just think there's 5,000 different stories from 5,000 people.
Okay, I didn't ask you that.
Do you believe that there is an all-knowing, omnipotent?
I have no idea.
Nobody's convinced me yet.
And you know, when I see people.
Well, I got a question.
I got a question for you.
Hang on.
So I have a question.
All right.
So you know that science has now advanced to the point where we have these telescopes that now can find universes within universes within universes within universes, right?
So you go to the macro of creation, which is planets and stars and the sky and the sun and the land and the sea and the animals and human beings.
Okay.
Now, so you don't believe in an almighty creator.
You're not sure.
So do you believe it's more likely that there might be something beyond our understanding, human understanding, or do you think it's more likely that all of a sudden a bunch of energy that just happened to exist on its own came together, collided, and created this perfection known as the universe?
That's more likely it, because I don't understand how a God could see an animal suffer or a child suffer and just do nothing.
Okay, but here's my next question.
Where did all of that energy that collided and then formed into perfection come from?
Where did all that energy come from?
In other words, because if there is no creator, you're then, everything you're saying is predicated on a belief that something can come from nothing.
You're saying, because otherwise, how would that energy that collided, where would that have come from otherwise?
Well, I think we're just like a bunch of chimpanzees.
I didn't ask you.
I asked you, where did the energy come from, considering you think that that's more likely?
Where did all that come from?
I have no idea.
Yeah, so you have to believe then that something, energy, that collided into perfection came from nowhere.
And you're saying that something can come from nothing.
And I'm saying that there has to be a source of the original energy to have the Big Bang that created the universe within universes.
I don't understand.
If there's a God, why would a divine, truly loving entity?
Listen, I'm not a preacher.
I'm not our arms into believing.
Because if you don't believe, you're going to hell.
I don't think that you should twist a person's arm to believe in you.
I'm not, listen, I'm not, I don't think, I think the whole story of as a Christian that I believe is that you choose to believe in God.
You make the choice, a conscious choice.
You know, for me, when I look at the majesty of creation, especially like in my quiet moments when I'm on vacation, did you ever do this?
Come on, Jason, pay attention.
Do I ever do what?
On a quiet moment?
Quiet moments, do you ever look at the majesty of creation and say, wow?
Like it's so beyond anything that we could comprehend.
And you're telling me you think it's possible that it all created itself and it all just came together of itself.
And I think that's a fantasy.
I certainly don't think that a woman came from a rib.
Why didn't he just make a woman like he made a man?
You know, I don't think that there were all sets.
Let me ask a question.
Where did the chimpanzees that you talked about come from?
Where did the planet come from?
Where did the sky come from?
Where did the stars come from?
Where did the energy, where did the, what is the energy source of all these things?
I have no idea, but here's, I don't know, you have to.
But energy can't create itself.
In other words, there's got to be a source of all majesty here.
And that's what you're missing.
In other words, you're basically arguing that something can come from nothing.
If you believe that it's possible that this all just happened randomly and that this Big Bang happened, okay, where did the energy for the Big Bang come from?
Do you know we have monkey DNA?
We have monkey DNA.
They found monkeys.
You're really having a hard time tracking with me, aren't you?
I am because it's so.
But if you follow, I'll ask you one more time.
Think about what my question is.
Pay attention.
Don't lose your focus here.
All right.
Do you have ADHD?
I bet you do.
I may.
I may.
That might be.
But here's my.
Where did all of the energy that resulted in the Big Bang come from?
Because what you're saying is that it just came out of nowhere.
And I'm saying that you can't have something come from nothing.
And that's what you're saying.
I think I read the other day, Stephen Hawking doesn't believe in it.
So come on.
I mean, he knows, he's a brilliant mind here, you know?
Okay.
Next time you're out on a summer's night and you get yourself a telescope and then ask yourself, all right, is this possible it all happened by accident?
Just a bunch of energy that just happened to exist, just collided and created planets and the earth and the sun and the moon and the stars and the sky and universes within universes and the Milky Way and blah, blah, blah.
Some of your aides talk about something called Republicans for Hillary.
They think that with Donald Trump getting the nomination, it opens a certain kind of Republican voter to you that might not have been available before.
How do you get that voter, the skeptical voter who's skeptical of Hillary Clinton, but that you might be able to get now?
What's the pitch to them?
Well, obviously, I'm reaching out to Democrats, Republicans, Independents, all voters who want a candidate who is running a campaign based on issues, who has been willing to put out plans and explain those plans and talk about how to pay for those plans, who has a track record of getting results for people, who understands that although we do live in a dangerous world, there's nothing we can't meet in terms of the challenges we face if we put our minds to it.
And so I think that for a lot of people, again, who take their vote seriously and who really see this as a crossroads kind of election, I am asking people to come join this campaign.
And I've had a lot of outreach from Republicans in the last days who say that they are interested in talking about that.
Yeah, who are these Republicans?
I want names as soon as possible.
Now, I want to be very clear here.
I saw this article last night and I tweeted it out.
I forgot where the original piece came from.
I know that Jim Hoff talked about it on Gateway Pundit.
I think it was the Daily Caller.
Am I right about that, Linda?
I'm pretty sure.
Anyway, so wealthy Cruz donors and Bush donors pour millions into the Clinton campaign.
And I said, this is just pathetic because I'm like reading the article and I'm saying, you've got to be kidding me.
You know, how is that possible?
The Observer.
That's right.
The Observer in the Gateway Pundit.
Now, the story got updated.
And actually, I give credit to the right scoop.
While I was tweeting last night, I saw that they sent me an update.
And so I tweeted out the update.
And then I got Catherine Frazier, who worked on the Cruz campaign, wrote me and said, I saw your retweet about Cruz donors giving to Hillary.
Not true.
James Simmons isn't a donor.
He's a longtime Democrat.
I want to make sure that it's not gaining traction.
I said, okay, I want to make sure I get the truth out here.
The story was updated on the Observer site to reflect that change.
Renaissance Technologies is what they're talking about.
It's a hedge fund.
It was founded by billionaire James Simmons.
They did donate, meaning the hedge fund, over $13 million to Cruz's presidential campaign, though the president, through the president Bob Mercer, I actually met Bob Mercer once, a really nice guy.
Really, really smart, nice guy, loves politics, very wealthy guy and very successful.
And for a guy who's supposed to be smart with his money, anyway, return on investment.
It goes into all that.
Anyway, so the bottom line here is, and the Gateway Pundin headline is, wealthy Cruz and Bush donors dump millions into Hillary Clinton's campaign.
And I'm thinking, this can't be true.
And I'm like, why, after all we've been through in the last week with the Bushes, they're bailing out.
They're not going to endorse Trump.
All right, I understand Jeb Bush.
He's probably still ticked off, but he did give a pledge.
And then we have Lindsey Graham.
Not that anyone gives a flying rip what Lindsey Graham says or does, but he didn't keep his pledge.
Then you get Paul Ryan's little power play, and that'll play out tomorrow when Trump goes to Capitol Hill.
That's happening.
And then on top of that, then you've got the punditry elite and people like George Will saying Republicans should work hard to defeat Trump in all 50 states and Bill Crystal aligning with Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney and they're talking about going third party.
And I'm like, this is a circular firing squad that's all designed to help Hillary Clinton become the next president.
And that to me is insanity.
Here to weigh in on all of this is Ed Klein, author of the book Unlikable.
He's an aficionado, if you will, on all things Clinton.
Noel Nick Poor is a national campaign fundraiser, and she's making a run for Congress herself down in Florida.
What district is it?
It's Florida 18, Sean.
Thanks.
Yeah, so good luck to you.
But for many years, you have been what we call a bundler.
You've raised a lot of money for a lot of candidates over the years.
What is your reaction to that story?
You know, this is very surprising.
And as a national fundraiser, it's alarming the fact that any donor would, you know, if they don't like the nominee, would go so far as to fund the opponent with a platform that they seriously do not agree with.
They are actually putting hard-earned cash.
And, Sean, one of the things I wanted to bring up was the fact that the RNC, you know, once Donald Trump is going to be the nominee, let's say, the RNC has got to put a lot of money, money that's given by establishment donors.
And, Sean, these establishment donors may not fuel and fill the coffers of the RNC so that they can, you know, run attack ads against the DNC and Hillary.
Yeah.
Well, I just don't understand.
Don't these guys understand?
Well, at least with Trump, let's say one of the Republican critics of Donald Trump.
Well, okay, Hillary's not going to give you a wall.
Hillary's not going to send education back to the state.
She's not going to move towards energy independence.
She's not going to eliminate Obamacare.
She's not going to try and balance the budget, all things that Donald Trump has said he's going to try to do.
Ed Klein, your reaction.
Well, you know, I was thinking about Bill Clinton and his wooing of the Bushes, which has been going on for at least 15 years or more.
He, as you know, he and Poppy Bush worked together on the 2005 tsunami.
He worked with Poppy Bush on Hurricane Katrina.
In 2014, Barbara Bush said, I love Bill Clinton, quote unquote.
Clinton and Hillary visit the Bushes in Kenny Bunkport every summer.
They are very close.
And the reason for this is Clinton knows that the Bushes have perhaps the single best fundraising operation in America.
They have been brilliant at that.
And they're also, beneath their waspy exterior, the Bushes are one tough bunch.
You know, they learned their lesson at the knee of Lee Atwater.
Yeah.
Now, Noel, I noticed that there's a lot of Republicans saying, oh, we're worried down ticket.
Donald Trump is going to hurt us.
Well, he may very well end up carrying a lot of these guys into the House and Senate.
You didn't hesitate.
You endorsed Donald Trump.
How is your district viewing this race?
Well, my district voted for Donald Trump overwhelmingly.
So, you know, if you're going to represent the people, you need to do what the people want, and that's endorse Donald Trump.
Obviously, he won my district.
But, you know, what I think is very funny is the Republican Party is faced with a rebranding problem, and they're trying to attract new people to the party.
Lance Priebus came back and said, let's rally behind, you know, Donald Trump if he's our nominee.
And then you've got Paul Ryan, Speaker Ryan, coming out saying, not yet.
So I think that one of the biggest things that we're not doing is showing unity.
Our party is more fractured than ever, Sean.
And now we're going to see a lot of the donors be fractional with their checkbooks.
You know what's amazing to me is this has been going on a year.
I can give you verse in chapter of every candidate's positions.
And now we're at the end of the process, and Paul Ryan doesn't know where Donald Trump stands on the issues.
Seriously?
Look, you can make the case.
Okay, he misspoke, clarified the minimum wage comment.
He talked about taxes, and then he clarified.
He said, no, I'm sticking with my program, which is lowering taxes for everybody.
All right, maybe there's some questions or suspicion.
That would be legitimate.
He's not a seasoned politician.
He doesn't use talking points.
He doesn't use notes when he gives speeches, which was pretty rare in that profession.
But at the end of the day, I mean, Paul Ryan did this as a power play.
That's how I view this.
And Paul Ryan, I think, at the end of the day, is going to learn that Donald Trump's not going to cave to him, and he's probably in for a pretty rude awakening tomorrow about how things are going to be if Trump becomes president, because these guys caused this insurrection.
They caused this insurgency here.
True or false, Ed Klein.
Well, you know, I agree with, of course, with everything you're saying.
You're absolutely correct.
You know, I interviewed Donald Trump two days ago for about 20 minutes about the meeting tomorrow with Paul Ryan.
Yeah, I heard about that.
Made a lot of news there.
You know, you've got to be a little bit more discreet when you do your interviews, Ed.
Why's that?
That's a good point.
Good point.
Touche.
Okay, so I'm talking to Donald, and he's saying, quote unquote, virtually, listen, I thought I'd go down there to Washington with Paul Ryan and the Republicans, and I'd continue to be the rebel that I've always been, and that's why I've been winning all these contests.
But maybe that worked better for the primaries than for the general.
So I'm going to go down there, and I'm going to be nice.
I think Donald is, number one, a realist, number two, a great negotiator, and number three, smart as hell.
And he's going to go down there tomorrow, and he's going to work this out with Paul Ryan.
Putting aside, you know, all the things you said about Paul Ryan, which I agree with.
But I think Donald is smarter than all than put together.
And I think they're going to come out with maybe not quite kumbaya, but I think they're going to work it out.
Yeah.
Noel, do you get the same sense?
I get the same sense.
And what's so ironic is when I got the call from Linda to come on air and get some comments, I'm actually at Mar-a-Lago.
And as I've been doing this interview with you, people have been walking by, and they're hearing what I'm saying, and they're giving thumbs up for Donald Trump.
Yeah.
So there are a lot of people that— Well, Mar-a-Lago might be slightly biased in Trump's favor, but I've never been to Mar-a-Lago.
I hear it's beautiful.
It is phenomenal.
That's one thing I've got to tell you, Sean, is that's the Trump brand.
And everything you see, every hotel, every property that's around the world that you see is done first class.
So a lot of people are voting for Donald Trump and giving money because they believe in the brand and they saw, you know, they've seen some of the things that he's actually done with properties from the ground up.
So, you know, a lot of people think he's a proven brand.
You know, you go back.
You go back to the bottom.
I traveled with Donald for two days in Indiana on his plane.
And the interesting thing to me was two things.
One.
Never invited me on his plane, but go ahead.
Number one, that he made the point that he was successful and that he could make America successful because he knew how to do it.
And the audience responded fantastically.
And number two, I expected to see a lot of old white guys, underclass white guys in the audience.
And what did I see?
50% of them were women.
And they were all nicely dressed, middle-class people, acting perfectly fine.
Big press has been totally misrepresenting Donald Trump's people.
Well, if you look at the size of the crowds, it does remind me that it's got the momentum of an Obama electorate.
That's right.
It really does.
You know, one of the things, you talk about running it like a business, Noel, and you made me remember back in the Reagan years, Reagan put together the best and brightest minds in business, and they donated their time, and it was called the Grace Commission.
And their task was to come up with ways to run the government more like a business.
And every recommendation that they made, Congress adopted none of them.
So hence, where are we now?
All these years later, and we've got $20 trillion in debt, $125 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
We've got a country in decline.
We've got 20% of American families where not a single family member is in the workforce.
And we've got $50 million in poverty and $46 million on food stamps, median income down $5,000.
And, you know, it's just gotten that bad.
And people seem to accept that's what it is.
It doesn't need to be that way.
We can transform this.
Right.
And, Sean, a president is only as good as the people he surrounds himself with.
And you've got to look at the fact that he has mentioned some great.
One of my former bosses, Rudy Giuliani.
I mean, how fabulous.
He's mentioned he has an interest in putting him in the cabinet.
I mean, he couldn't get any better than Rudy.
Number two, he's talked about Carl Icahn.
Look at this man.
Read his bio.
He's gotten so many people that he has talked about that he wants to put in play.
And they're all great minds.
And this is what we need.
We need, you know, a leader that can actually, you know, put people in positions that can do great things, not green, you know, green jobs guy, Van Jones, that created zero jobs.
You know, Valerie, Jarrett, I mean, the list goes on and on and on of the Obama appointees that were horrendous.
And not only that, but think about the, you know, the Supreme Court nominees.
Don't you want to put your money behind Donald Trump?
Isn't he going to get a conservative nominee?
Hillary Clinton.
Well, he's going to announce the pool of potential candidates before we even vote in November, which I think is a brilliant idea.
I do too.
Because especially maybe conservatives, Ted Cruz supporters in particular, you know, Cruz kept saying there's not a dime's worth of difference between Hillary and Donald Trump.
Well, we're going to look at the names of the people that Trump puts forward for the Supreme Court.
And I'm pretty confident there's going to be a pretty high degree of difference between the type of justices she'd appoint and what he'd appoint.
But I want to thank you both.
Anyway, Noel, good luck in your campaign.
We appreciate it.
Ed Klein, author of the book Unlikable.
Thank you both for being with us.
All right, let's get to our phones, as we promised, and we'll go to J.G., Fort Lauderdale, Florida, listening to WFLA 9.70 a.m.
What's going on, J.G., what's happening?
Sean, let me just preface this because I want to make a comment about our friend Paul Ryan.
I say that in chest.
First of all, I think I can speak on the collective will of the people, the millions of us out there that have voted for Trump, that are pulling for him, that are praying for him.
There's a man that's out there that's doing something for the love of the country.
And I think anybody that has any kind of intelligence that really analyzes Trump and what he's doing would agree with that.
That said, Paul Ryan, when he pulled his little trick last week, I mean, he's been, let's put it this way, he's angering me.
He's getting under my skin.
And I look at what he did and why he's doing it for the life of me, Sean.
I want to ask you what is really behind what he's doing?
Because he easily could have made a call, as he did to Trump, and make his point clear that he will support him with a man's handshake that when he did get elected into the office, they could resolve issues and move forward.
He could have done all of this.
This is what bothers me about it.
All right, if he has questions for Trump, even though Trump has been out there as long as he has, I think it's pretty clear what his agenda is.
And there's been moments where there's been a lack of clarity.
Okay, fine.
You want to check his sincerity on issues, where he stands on issues.
You know, the bottom line is, I don't think Paul Ryan agrees with Donald Trump on immigration.
I don't think Paul Ryan wants to build the wall.
I don't think Paul Ryan wants to get better trade deals.
Look, I'm a free trader.
I really am.
But when you have massive trade deficits and when they make, for example, in China, look, there's always, you don't want any type of tariffs, trade wars, because then Americans end up paying higher prices for goods and services that they're getting from overseas.
It's probably cheaper to buy some products from China because you have it made in China.
The labor costs are lower.
But don't make it so difficult and put massive high tariffs on American manufacturing and American automobiles and make it impossible for Americans to crack into your market when your entire economy is based on us buying your goods.
So I think there's disagreements there, but my take is this.
I think Paul Ryan thought that this was going to go all the way to June 7th.
And I think that when Trump finally won Indiana and Ted Cruz and John Kasich pulled out, I think it caught the Washington establishment by surprise.
And I think they were thinking that they would have some leverage over all the candidates going into the convention.
And that moment never came.
So I view this as a power play.
And the reason I say that is Paul Ryan, he had no reason to go public.
He doesn't do a lot of interviews.
So he purposefully set up an interview, knowing that's going to be the main question, and gave the prepared answer in spite of how spontaneous or extemporaneous it may seem it was not.
And so what frustrates me here is he didn't need to do any interviews.
He could have called Trump.
They could have worked it out privately.
There wouldn't be this lack of harmony.
You know, he has an obligation as the speaker to unite the party.
And I think that at the end of the day, he's going to have to buy in whether he likes it or not.
I'll tell you the biggest reason why is a record number of Republicans voted for Trump millions more than any other previous GOP primary candidate by the time this is all said and done.
So he's going to have to, and this is what's frustrating to me.
They don't care what the will of the people is.
You know, it's, you know, going back to the very beginning of this process, and I'm giving time to all of these candidates going into Iowa, going into New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, Super Tuesday, giving all these guys.
I don't decide how people vote.
The people made this choice on their own.
They purposely chose an outsider.
And I would argue the establishment is a big cause of the way people voted this year.
Had they fought, had they not failed so spectacularly in opposing Obama's agenda, and if they had not broken one promise after another, I'm not so sure it would have worked out that way this year, but it did.
So they have their own issues to deal with.
Ken is in Nebraska, Gordon, Nebraska.
What's up, Ken?
How are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Mr. Annie, how are you?
I'm good, sir.
What's going on?
Oh, I just made it to talk to you about Mr. Ben Sash.
I voted for him in 2014, and, you know, he's a good conservative, but I have a feeling that he angling into our party over here.
And basically, I'm kind of like you.
I'm all Republican, no Hillary.
So I'm going to vote for Trump.
But I was a Cruz fan, and he had this open letter invitation saying basically calling the Trump supporters, kind of idiots around here.
So just kind of wanted to point that out.
Well, you want my take.
I supported Ben Sasse for the Senate, and I said how many times, Linda, on this program, wow, I really like this guy.
He's a rising star and a real strong, solid conservative voice.
I'm going to give you my speculation.
Now, this may be somewhat slanted considering he came up to me in a pretty confrontational way when I was at CPAC and accused me of saying something that I had never said.
And so we had this long exchange.
It was pretty well publicized.
And anyway, I've come to a conclusion here because he's now working with Romney and Bill Kristol, apparently, and they're flirting with the idea of going third party.
And if they go third party, I can tell you that that is a guaranteed prescription for Hillary Clinton to be the next president.
But my own take on it, after really, really analyzing it, and this, I can't base it in fact.
I'm giving you what I think.
I think Ben Sasse has his own political ambitions.
I think I suspect that he has his own desire to run for president.
And I may be wrong.
He probably would outright deny it, but we'll see.
See if I turn out to be right in the next couple of years.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah, I think he's putting himself on the wrong side of the voter, just like Jet Bush and them guys going to the other side instead of following the will of the people.
Listen, what I said is what he's doing is a half a vote for Hillary.
If you stay home, in my opinion, it's a half a vote for Hillary.
Now, with that said, my TV producer said to me the other day, oh, you want to bring Senator Sasse on?
I said, not really.
And he goes, no, it'll be great TV.
You guys can fight it out.
And I said, why bother?
I said, I'm not going to spend my airtime trying to convince people that they ought to vote for the Republican nominee who won the will of the people.
I said, if he chooses not to do it, that's his business.
I'm not going to sit there try and convince him who to vote for or not vote for.
If he wants to stay home, let him stay home.
I'm not wasting my time and airtime and your valuable listening time trying to convince everybody.
Oh, please, pretty, please, pretty, pretty, pretty, please with sugar on top.
You know, don't vote for Hillary.
If you can't see the differences, then that's your problem.
Then you're locked in your own myopic way of thinking.
And I just see a bigger picture here.
And I think the people voted for Trump for a reason.
And the biggest reason is Washington Republicans betrayed them and failed them.
And they're hoping that an outsider that is not beholden to special interest is going to be able to do some pretty spectacular things and turn the country from a country in decline into a country of prosperity.
And my hope is that he does the things that he's talking about because I think they would work.
And I hope he builds a team of rivals and gets the best and brightest governors and successful politicians that have actually done good things and showed real leadership and showed real backbone.
You know, why do I mention Newt Gingrich all the time?
Newt Gingrich, well, he literally brought Republicans to power in the first time in 40 years.
It was an ideas-based election.
It offered solutions to the problems at the time.
And lo and behold, the American people gave him a shot and he kept his promises.
Now, he certainly is not a non-controversial figure, but I like the fact that he got things done.
A lot of these governors like Perry and Kasich and Walker, they got stuff done.
Bobby Jindal, Rick Scott, they got stuff done.
Mike Pence is getting it done in Indiana.
A lot of good people out there.
You know, say what you will about Rudy Giuliani, but I wouldn't mind him kicking some serious behind as it relates to the war on terror.
I don't think he'll have a problem saying the words radical Islamic terrorism.
Now, Chris Christie, you know, he happens to be a pro-life, more liberal Republican from New Jersey, but he certainly was a pretty fierce prosecuting attorney in his day.
So either Rudy or him could be the attorney general.
I could see that.
It's a pretty strong team of rivals.
You put together a contract with America that says you're going to build the wall, you're going to balance the budget, you're going to get rid of Obamacare, you're going to take care of our vets, you're going to rebuild our military, you're going to be energy independent, you're going to send education back to the states.
Wow, sounds a lot like Hannity circa 2013, doesn't it?
Ideas work, solutions work.
Why did I set up the Conservative Solution Caucus?
Anyway, I'm ranting here.
I apologize.
All right, we go to Honolulu, Hawaii.
Oh, my gosh.
Goodness.
Oh, my gosh.
SurferDie on Twitter at SurferDie is on the line.
How are you?
Hi, Sean.
How are you doing?
So let me guess.
You went out surfing this morning and you surf in the same water that is full of sharks.
Oh, come on.
They're everywhere.
No, they're everywhere.
So when you're surfing, do you ever see the sharks?
Yes.
Listen, I want to talk about Trump.
Do you ever pet the sharks?
No, but I have friends that do that.
They're crazy.
I'm not that crazy.
Come on now.
Has anybody ever gotten bit where you are?
Not in my spot, but I hear of stories around the island.
You know, only a couple of fatalities a year.
We're doing pretty good this year.
Just a couple of fatalities as well.
You'll never catch me on that.
Well, last year, no, last year we had Lake Dre, it was bad.
And a lot of times it's swimmers.
I hate to tell you, snorkelers, swimmers, things like that.
That's why you'll never see me in that water.
Oh, come on.
I'm never going to give up on this.
You're going to go surfing with me one day.
I don't think so.
Hey, what's going on?
I know.
It's a joke.
Well, you know, as a former crew supporter, you know, I know a lot of people have trouble figuring why we would now support Trump.
There's a lot of mixed support for Trump across the whole political spectrum, right, isn't there?
Especially women.
I think this narrative that women are not, he doesn't have support with women, that's just not being reported.
Trump has a lot of women's support, I feel.
This election has really become like a game.
We're gambling.
Americans are gambling their tax dollars like chips on Trump.
He's got good odds.
He's a successful entrepreneur.
I'm beginning to feel more every day, and I say this with great trepidation because I have the sneaky suspicion that Hillary starts out with 47% of the vote.
And you saw the polls yesterday.
They're neck and neck in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio.
And I think...
Yeah, I know.
He can chip away at that, absolutely.
I mean, he hasn't even started his campaign against her.
I mean, he, you know, the Never Trump people, they're annoying me sometimes, but, oh, he's not conservative, this or that.
But his ideas are conservative.
He's not so strictly partisan, though.
And I think a lot of people maybe like that about him.
He is the outsider.
He's successful.
I mean, he has a proven record of being successful at what he does.
Rich people are driven.
I mean, I'm fortunate to know a lot of these kind of people.
They're just motivated.
They want results and they project strength.
So, I mean, that's why I feel he's getting the support that he's getting.
I do, too.
And I think a lot of this was brought by Republicans because of their broken promises and their weakness.
I think it's that simple.
No, absolutely.
And people like Ryan and certainly the Democrats, maybe they don't understand, you know, private sector success and entrepreneurialism.
I mean, this is what it takes.
People are getting tired of career politics and partisan politics, I think.
I mean, all right, Surfer Die, don't get bit.
Appreciate the call.
800-941-Sean.
Sandy is in Florida next on the Sean Hannity Show.
Hi.
Hi, Sean.
This is Sandy.
What's going on?
I just wanted to say that, you know, I agree with all your predictions and policies and what you need to do.
But, you know, I think the bottom line is that we need to remember that the Supreme Court justices have to be appointed in this next term, and that for no other reason, we don't want Hillary appointing these judges because they'll be liberals.
We need to have conservative judges and all these other issues, the law and immigration and taxes and trade, all of that we've worked out through Congress, and he'll do it.
But we've got to appoint those judges for our children and grandchildren to make sure that they're going to have the support they need in the future.
I think when Trump lays out, and I'm pretty confident in this because of what he said to me in interviews, I think when he lays out his pool of candidates for the Supreme Court, I am hopeful that they're all going to be originalists.
They'll all be in the vein of Justice Thomas and the recently departed Justice Galia.
That's my hope and prayer.
And if it is, I think you're going to see a lot of people that were out there saying there's no difference between him and Hillary.
I think that they might be, find it refreshing.
And might, on that reason alone, that's enough to support anybody for president because that's going to impact the country for generations.
But Bill Ryan's different.
He's the Speaker of the House.
He's the highest-ranking elected Republican in the country right now.
He's the chairman of the convention.
Back in March, you said he'd pay a price if he didn't get along with you.
What is that price?
Well, we're going to see what happens.
He wants to meet.
He'd like to meet.
And I think we're meeting on Thursday, and we'll just see what happens.
It's just more drama.
But I think it's a mistake not to do this.
We want to bring the party together.
Does the party have to be together?
Does it have to be unified?
I'm very different than everybody else, perhaps that's ever run for office.
I actually don't think so.
Apparently, the FBI has contacted your team in terms of talking to you.
What can you tell us about that?
No one has reached out to me yet, but last summer, I think last August, I made it clear I'm more than ready to talk to anybody anytime.
And I've encouraged all of my assistants to be very forthcoming.
And I hope that this is close to being wrapped up.
Would you consider getting back in the race?
Well, I am not holding my breath.
My assumption is that that will not happen.
But listen, let's be very clear.
If there is a path to victory, we launched this campaign intending to win.
The reason we suspended the race last week is with Indiana's loss, I didn't see a viable path to victory.
If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour on the Sean Hannity show, toll-free.
It is 800-941.
Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
All right, so tomorrow, the big meeting with Paul Ryan, who would not endorse Donald Trump.
And Ryan is saying, well, we can't pretend the GOP is unified.
It will take some work, he said, after meeting with his caucus today and speaking after a closed-door meeting with House leaders and rank-and-file members.
We can't afford to lose this election to Hillary, Ryan said.
And with all the talk in the media about discord in Republican ranks, the untold story is the disaster that is Hillary Clinton.
The headline on Drudge most of the day is Sanders unleashed.
Nominating Hillary Clinton will be a disaster for the party and for the nation.
You've got an incredible New York Post headline today, actually a front cover story, stop the coronation.
And on top of that, we've got Hillary Clinton.
Politico points out.
Hours before the West Virginia polls closed yesterday, Hillary Clinton's top fundraisers got a memo from their campaign manager, Robbie Mook, and the message was: even if Bernie runs the table in all the remaining states, he can't win.
Wow.
Some Democrats now growing very uneasy over a rocky finish that is Clinton now spending tons of resources and political capital so late in the process.
And anyway, the defeat in Indiana, I was horrified at, said former DNC chairman Don Fowler, a Clinton backer, echoing others who say that for the moment that it's more of an annoyance than a deep concern.
But the longer Bernie stays in, quote, and the longer he is not mathematically out of the process, the weaker we're going to seem to be.
Well, it seems she will be.
I mean, let's start.
Bernie Sanders destroyed Hillary Clinton by 15 points, 5136.
That's a state she won in 2008 by more than 40 points.
She won 67% of the vote in 2008.
Anyway, here to weigh in on all of this, Republican and Democratic side, we've got Jeffrey Lord, former associate political director in the Reagan administration, columnist with the American Spectator and author of the book, What America Needs, The Case for Trump.
Jessica Tarlove is a senior strategist with Doug Shoan at Shoan Consulting and a Hillary supporter.
And D.C. McAllister is a senior contributor to the Federalists, was a Cruz supporter, but I guess now you're supporting Trump, right?
Yes, voting for him.
I want him to be conservative, though, for me to be all out for him.
Okay, got it.
Fair enough.
Jeff Lord, is he conservative enough?
Yeah, absolutely he is.
Absolutely is.
And just for the record, as I think I said on your show before, had Ted Cruz won the nomination, I would have been there for him.
Well, so would I.
I would have been there, and, you know, I'm enthusiastically supporting the nominee.
You know, I gave a speech back at CPAC.
I should go back and play this later this week.
And, you know, because people saying, oh, you betrayed what you promised us.
I'm like, I didn't betray anything.
I kept my promise.
And I said, I got everybody at CPAC to stand and said, I don't care who you support.
And I listed all the Republicans that were in the race at the time.
And I said, if this person wins, that person wins, are you going to support the nominee?
And the whole room of thousands of people stood, and they all said they'd support him.
Exactly.
And now we've got open.
They supported Jeb Bush, with whom I disagree.
But I've supported any of those 17 candidates.
Now you've got open sabotage.
Paul Ryan, he doesn't do many interviews, Jeff.
He went out there purposely to send a shot across Trump's bow.
And I guess he wants Trump to go and kiss the ring.
I don't think Trump's going to do that.
No, I don't think so either.
You know, I like Paul Ryan.
We both worked for Jack Kemp at different stages of Jack's career.
But I'm with Newt Gingrich.
He made a real mistake here in coming out and saying that he wasn't quite there yet.
He's the Speaker of the House, for heaven's sakes.
The Republican Party has selected its nominee.
It's Donald Trump.
It is now his job to get out there and pull his weight and help unify the party.
So, you know, now, that said, I think this is going to go a lot better than some people are thinking.
I really do think he will make an effort, and I think Donald Trump will make an effort.
But the fact that this is necessary like this was not a good thing.
You look at the New York Post and the front cover today, Jessica.
Stop the coronation.
Bernie Sanders destroys her.
Then you got Hillary's campaign warning donors that she may lose all remaining primaries.
Yeah, no, I know.
I mean, it certainly wasn't a good day for her.
You know, the demographics in West Virginia, you know, it's 91% of white population, which always favors Bernie Sanders.
And she made those unfortunate comments about putting coal miners out of business.
So that's also not great in West Virginia.
But no doubt that they're scrambling right now.
She is still leading, but I think it's 3.1 million votes and 275 pledged delegates.
That's not a rank system.
So let me understand this.
So the Republican field has 17, I think the strongest field that they have had since I've been an adult.
They have the best governors, the best senators, all running for the nomination.
And Trump wins and beats 16 other people.
And Hillary is struggling to be the 74-year-old socialist curmudgeon, the angriest man alive from Vermont.
Tell me, what does that tell us?
It tells me that Hillary Clinton is a flawed candidate.
I don't think that there are any Hillary supporters out there that are doing her a service by maintaining that she's perfect or that every attack against her is vast right-wing conspiracy.
That's not true.
She is flawed.
So that doesn't mean that she won't make a great president.
And that doesn't mean that she isn't well on her way to winning this nomination and the general election in November.
Yeah, Jeff.
One of the things that I noticed, when you watched Bernie Sanders last night and all the energy and enthusiasm in there, a couple of things.
As improbable as it seems, I'm wondering if there's not going to be a move to force him onto her ticket, number one.
Wow.
There should be.
Exactly.
That would be why she wants those white voters.
I'm not at all sure that he can control his supporters.
I have already seen things.
I'm talking to you today from my home in Pennsylvania a couple hours west of Philadelphia and where the Democratic Convention is going to be.
And I have already seen things where Bernie supporters are asking for a million-man march style thing in Philadelphia against the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party establishment.
And Ed Bendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, mayor of Philadelphia and DNC chairman and Hillary supporter, was on a show somewhere saying, well, they can come, but, quote-unquote, they need to behave themselves.
This is beginning to remind me a little bit of the Democratic National Convention of 1968, where all these leftists marched in there, the Eugene McCarthy people, the McGovern people, et cetera, and the SDS, and they raised holy hell and caused a real mess.
I think Hillary's ego is way too big to bring Bernie onto the ticket because she doesn't want all of that attention that's going to come from all those people directed at him.
She wants to be center stage.
And I just, it would be good for her, but I don't think she's going to put him on that.
I think her ego is way too big.
I have a question for D.C. because one of the things Trump has promised is that he's going to put out a list of names for the Supreme Court.
I have interviewed him many times, and I said, well, what kind of, what is your judicial philosophy?
What kind of Supreme Court justice would you be looking for?
And he said repeatedly and never equivocated that he was looking for somebody like Scalia or Justice Thomas to put on the court.
Now, if he comes out with a list of 10 or 12 names and they're all originalist, and obviously he's going to have the next president would have an opportunity to appoint at least one, maybe four, Supreme Court justices.
Would that help you in terms of your decision and your level of support for Mr. Trump?
Well, he already has my vote on that because I know exactly what Hillary Clinton's going to do.
And we can't risk that.
But you said you wanted to see him more conservative.
On justices, if he gave you the names of 12 people that were originalist, staunch constitutional conservatives, would that go a long way in terms of your enthusiasm for his candidacy?
It would go a long way for me as far as my enthusiasm, but it would not inspire me to trust him anymore because he does change his views.
But I still think, I guess I'm looking forward to this as he doesn't, I want him to be more conservative.
I want him to make a change to the right.
I want him to coalesce the party around conservative principles, and that be the force of uniting us.
Now, having the benefit of having interviewed him a whole bunch of times, and I know how Ted Cruz would characterize him and his other opponents, but in politics, you do agree that candidates always try and put their opponents in the worst possible light, right?
Oh, absolutely.
Okay.
So he said to me on originalist justices, I know he made the original comment about Canadian health care, but in at least 10 interviews, he said he supports health care savings accounts with me in repealing Obamacare.
And he's going to build the wall.
We know where he stands on immigration.
And he'll send education back to the states.
And he has said to me at least 10 times that he will move America towards energy independence immediately.
And he wants to get to a balanced budget because we can't keep robbing our kids.
I want to hear him talk more about federalism.
I want to hear him talk about actually limiting the size and scope of federal government.
As a conservative, that's what I want to hear more from him.
One of the things he said to me goes, I've watched you over the years talk about the penny plan.
I like the penny plan.
Now, he didn't say he'd endorse it, but he said he liked it.
And he says he likes a lot of things, and then he changes.
Again, I have no great hope in Trump being a stalwart conservative.
I still think he's better than Hillary Clinton.
Jeff.
You know, as various issues have arisen, he has come out and said, well, that's a state responsibility.
One of the things, Sean, that I think is we need to say here, Donald Trump comes from a business background.
He hasn't been a politician.
He's not a lawyer.
He's not a constitutional scholar.
But he does talk about the Constitution in his own fashion.
When he says, when he goes after President Obama for signing all these executive orders, he says, you know, that's not the way it's supposed to work.
You're supposed to get in the room with people and negotiate.
Then, of course, everybody has a fit because he says, well, we should negotiate.
Well, that is, in fact, what the Constitution provides.
The whole checks and balance system forces the President of the United States into a room, figuratively and sometimes literally speaking, with members of Congress to negotiate.
So he is saying exactly what Justice Scalia said, in a sense, what President Reagan actually did.
It's just that he says it in businessman's language as opposed to the political language of the day, which, you know, is not his native tongue.
Jessica, let me bring you back in here.
You've got to be scared to death.
If a 74-year-old curmudgeon is making it that hard for Hillary, look, let's be honest.
She's at best, and I'm being charitable here, a mediocre candidate.
She's not warm like her husband.
She doesn't have the oratory skills of Obama.
She tends to grate on people and has this tendency to scream when she's giving speeches.
And, you know, she's alienating people.
She's embracing the entire Obama agenda, so she can't run against it.
And it seems that she ⁇ I just can't ⁇ I don't see her getting over the finish line.
I really don't.
No, I know you don't, and I do appreciate you being charitable there, though.
It didn't feel particularly charitable to me.
I thought I was being ⁇ who's warmer as a politician, Bill or her? Oh, Bill. I know what a big fan I am of Bill Clinton, and I'm a big fan of President Obama's. And I'm also a big fan of Hillary Clinton's. No, you're not. You're making up. I am. You're right. I came on your show to lie about it. By the way. I really do like that. Do you think Bill was nice to all those women in his life? And Hillary was an enabler? Is that a fair thing? No, first of all, I don't believe her to be an enabler,
and I think he made tremendous mistakes. And I've said that for sure that if he had to. And Juanita Broderick and Kathleen Willie were just tremendous mistakes. That's all they were. Trump took Bill Clinton's side on all that, by the way. Just a little note. I don't know. I don't know. I thought that all those women were horribly ugly, and Bill is the victim of some ugliness.
They're supporting Trump, I believe.
No, that was Trump who said that.
Yes, but I'm saying that these women today are supporting Donald Trump.
I don't know that each one of them are supporting Trump.
I haven't seen that either.
I haven't seen that.
I think Juanita Broderick might be, but I don't think there's a full list of the old Clinton babes that are for Trump or whatever.
I mean, I don't think it's going to work that way.
I know Paula Jones, Kathleen Williams.
I'm pretty sure Juanita Broderick is as well.
I think they're all supporting Trump.
It still doesn't change the fact that he gave support to Bill Clinton in this.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
It just shows how the women's issue is null and void when it comes to Trump.
Do you think that Hillary was an enabler or not?
Oh, yeah, but I'm just saying it just doesn't give Trump a whole lot of ammunition if he's over there saying, you know, Hillary, you're an enabler.
Well, I'm also supporting Bill in this as well.
It just undermines him.
It's frustrating.
All right, guys.
I'm going to let you go here. I've never heard from him that the Clinton people like to play back. He's talking about Bill Clinton's impeachment relative to the Iraq war, which he opposed, and saying which, in essence, he's saying which is the bigger of the problems. Yeah,
but I mean, it's, listen, there is no way that Donald Trump is going to win on the Bill Clinton is a dirty dog card. No, no, no, no, no, that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is that she was his enabler and that she threatened these women, and this is about her. This isn't about Bill. This is about her. I got to run here, guys. D.C., good to talk to you. Jeff Lord, thank you. Jessica, good luck with Hillary. Appreciate it. We start this half hour in Corpus Christi, Texas with Corey. Corey, hi, how are you? Glad you called,
sir. Hey, Sean, how are you doing today? I'm good. How are you doing? Great. I just want to, before we get started, I just want to say Lauren is a professional. She's very good. Lauren is the nicest person on my team. And I don't say that lightly because everybody on my team is nice, but she's got an extra dose of niceness. Well, I just couldn't. I was very impressed with it. You got to keep her there. Oh, so you want me to give her a raise? Is that what you're arguing for? Well, yeah, if you want to, that's fine. So you're basically flirting with Lauren, my call screen, aren't you? Well, a little bit,
maybe. All right. So let's get to it. You know, I've heard you lately talk about, you know, the will of the voters. And we hear about this will the voters and the will of the voters. And, you know, the will of the voters that gave us Obama. But, you know, and that's true. Well,
slow down a second. Slow down a second. I mean, if you have a record number of Republicans in primaries with a field as deep as this field was, and you have all of these people energized more than I've seen since Reagan for crying out loud, you know, why are you sort of like just dismissing that? Oh, the will of the voters, the will of the voters? We're talking about Republicans, not Democrats. I'm not dismissing them out of hand. I'm just not, I'm not going to bow down at the altar of the voter. You know,
I still think there's processes in place. But in the end, I blame that on the Republicans and the conservatives in general because they ceded the education system and the culture to the left a long time ago. And so we get, you know, like you always say, we get the government we deserve. We get the politicians we deserve because we voted for them. And we voted for a lot of these Republicans in office that are letting us down. We didn't put enough conservative in to try to change what's going on in Washington. But, you know,
I'm of the opinion that the illegal immigration and bad trade deals and out-of-control spending, those aren't problems. Those are symptoms. Those are symptoms of a country that's come on board from its founding documents and its founding principles. And I'm an active duty military member, and I'm also a small business owner. So it's things to me like the Constitution are super important. There's not one thing so far you're saying I'm disagreeing with. I'm agreeing with every word you said. Keep going. So, you know,
I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
So the Constitution is the main thing to me.
And unfortunately, the Constitution and the size of government are completely intertwined.
And I don't really see that much difference between what Trump's going to do as far as the size of government and what Trump's going to do as far as the Constitution and what Hillary is going to do as far as the Constitution and the size of government.
And I think it's the size of government that is the root of all of our problems, because we can't solve illegal immigration as long as government is powerful enough to dole out favors to the special interest groups that run basically our immigration.
We can't do anything about bad trade deals as long as government is big and powerful enough to dole out favors to the special interest groups that craft our trade policy to benefit them.
So as long as we have this situation with a huge government that we're not, if you're not actively trying to shrink the government, it's going to keep growing. Its default position is to grow and grow and grow. Look, let me stop you for a bit because you're making a lot of good points. And I don't want to get too far too far here, and I want to answer you. I can't tell you with any sense of I can't guarantee you what anybody's going to do in office. I mean, I think one of the reasons we're here,
and this is an insurgency year as it is, is because Republicans made promises, specific promises, and they failed us. And they broke those promises, and they abandoned those very principles of limited government that they were supposed to represent. And I think they became,
in many ways, just a carbon copy of big spending, big government Democrats. But I can only tell you what I'm hearing when I listen to Donald Trump, who's your nominee. And he talks about the penny plan. He talks about limiting the size of government. He talks about sending education back to the states. If he doesn't build the wall,
it would be viewed as a monumental failure because he made that promise. You talk about fidelity to the Constitution. I'm waiting for that list of the pool of potential Supreme Court justices because Trump was very clear that he supports justices like Thomas and Scalia. So I care about that as well. He also talks about other things like repealing,
replacing Obamacare, energy independence, and all the other promises he's made. I think he's pretty, I mean, he's told me these things so many times, I've got to take him at his word. But it's going to take the Republican Congress to get a spine and a backbone. They're going to have to,
Republicans have resisted building the wall. They've talked about it a lot, but they never got it done. So I have a sneaky suspicion he means all of it. And I think that's what probably has Washington Republicans so nervous. I'll give you the last word. Go ahead. Well, I hold out hope for all those things, too. But I can only judge somebody, their future actions on their past performance. And for the past 40 years, Donald Trump has been a big government crony capitalist. And there's no getting around that. He's had liberal Democratic views,
and there's no getting around it. He's had that. So maybe his conversion, his recent conversion to conservatism is sincere, but I'm not willing to take that chance. Now, having said that, I would not vote for Hillary because my body just physically wouldn't do it. My brain could get the command, but my body would stay immobile. It would not be able to push the button for her. And so while I will probably wind up voting for Trump, I'm not going to support him with money or put a sign in my yard for him, but also at the same time,
I'm not going to oppose him. I'm just hoping that somehow we get back to some kind of constitutionally limited government. We start teaching our kids about civics and the Constitution again and the reason why America is the greatest country in the world. Because like Margaret Thatcher said,
Europe was founded because it was created because of history. America was created because of a philosophy. And the problem is not enough people in this country know that philosophy anymore. And we wind up with demagogues, unfortunately, I think, like Trump. I think one of the best antidotes to that educational deficit that you talk about is giving education back to local cities and towns and letting them decide how to best educate our kids. I think you raise a lot of good points. Look,
I made a promise earlier this week and towards the end of last week, I'm not going to spend time on this program, Corey, telling people how they should vote. That's up to you. That's up to your own heart, your mind, and your conscience. You follow your heart. But I will tell you, you're going to have a lot of time between now and November to compare and contrast the two candidates. And on issues involving judicial philosophy, who they would appoint to the Supreme Court, how they would deal with massive budget deficits and entitlements,
How they're going to deal with health care, how they're going to deal with energy, how they're going to deal with education and borders.
All of these things are going to be very clear, and you'll have no doubt what their stated positions are by the time you go into the voting booth in November.
So I wish you well in coming to that conclusion.
I've interviewed Trump enough.
I am satisfied that I'm convinced he believes and is going to follow through on the things he's promised.
I just believe it.
And if he does, America is going to be a lot better off, not a little better off, a lot better off.
I agree.
I agree, and I hope that maybe the Republicans will wake up and the conservatives can take.
This is their last shot, too. If Trump gets, if Trump wins, I would assume that Republicans then likely hold the House, probably the Senate. If he has that opportunity and Republicans in Washington and D.C. continue to betray the voters, As every exit poll has shown, that Republicans feel betrayed by D.C. Republicans, then the party's Over.
It's done.
Nobody's going to ever trust them again.
That's why I'm urging all candidates this year to come up and nationalize the elections with some type of promises for America, to make America great Again.
And then that means secure the Border, That means judicial Philosophy, That means taking care of our Veterans, That means building up our military, That means energy independence, That means health care savings accounts, getting rid of Obamacare, and that means managing our money better.
So that's what I'm looking For.
I don't think it's complicated what I just stated, is it? That's my philosophy. That would solve what I just mentioned there. That short list would go so far to make America great, if you want to use Trump's terms, such a better country in so many different ways that we do those simple things. There's nothing hard in what I just said. All right? I agree. I agree. And I just want to remind my fellow conservatives out there: if you're not going to vote for Trump,
don't stay home. Go out and vote for your down ballot candidates because it is vital that we hold the Senate and it's vital that we hold the House. All right, my friend. God bless you. You can call anytime. I enjoy talking to you. I really did. All right, thanks, Sean. Have a great day. Sylvia Clinton, New Jersey. Let me guess, you're voting for Clinton. Excuse me. I'm voting for Hillary. Yeah, I bet you're from Clinton. I'm figuring you're voting for Clinton. Ironic, isn't it, that it is that. But I just saw Hillary on TV, by the way, and she goes,
What does Trump object to of the Clinton years of the 90s? Was it the case for the prosperity? Was it the 23 million new jobs, the 17% increase in median family income, which was better than Ronald Reagan, or the four years of budget surpluses that we had instead of the tripling of the national debt that Ronald Reagan had? Excuse me. Let me just set the record straight. Reagan doubled revenues to the government,
and for every new dollar he brought in, Congress, run by Democrats, they spent $1.35. Okay? He tried his best. He grew the economy. He created 21.5 million new jobs. He gave us the longest period of peacetime economic growth in history. The only reason that Bill Clinton had success was because Newt Gingrich got elected Speaker. And as Speaker,
he insisted on a balanced budget, and he's the last Speaker to get one. And he insisted on welfare reform. And all of a sudden, here's a liberal, Bill Clinton, saying the era of big government is over and the end of welfare as we know it. And he knew if he didn't go along with what the Republican and the contract was about, that he wouldn't have lasted into a second term. Slick Willie. All right, back to our phones. 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, let's go to Scott. It is in Asheville in North Carolina. Hey, Scott,
how are you? Glad you called. I'm doing great, Sean. It's good to be on your program. And I want to throw out just a big thanks for how you've conducted yourself over this campaign. It's been pretty interesting and hairy with a lot of candidates. And I appreciate your not going in any particular direction,
but leaving it up to the people actually listening in your audience. Thank you. You're welcome. But on to the main point is, you know, the Republican Party is definitely going to take some unification. I believe Trump's taking them by storm, unlike anything they've ever seen. And I can understand Paul Ryan's reservations because this sort of is a new beast. It's, you know,
It will be almost a reconstructive process to keep the principles of the Republican Party and maintain the conservatism that.
I actually look at it a little differently.
I think Trump is going to hold Republicans accountable for the things that they have not gotten done and the promises they have not kept.
You know what?
They promised to secure the borders, They promised to stop executive amnesty, They promised to repeal Obamacare.
They promised that they'd fight the Obama agenda.
They promised that they'd live within their means.
They broke all those promises.
And I think the fear is that Trump actually does mean what he says.
And that's what entices me about him.
And I think right now to get behind him and hopefully for the meeting with he and Paul Ryan to be very constructive and to give them a playing field so that they can get the, you know, start getting funding underway because it's going to take a billion to a billion and a half. And that's not something Trump is going to sacrifice himself. So they're going to have to get the, you know, the machine,
the Republican machine to get it going and all hands on deck to beat Hillary. And I think that's the most important thing. I agree, all hands on deck to beat Hillary. I also think that Trump, the more specificity he gives, the justices he would appoint, the wall, particularly how he's going to build it, the exact replacement for Obamacare, how to get government spending under some type of control,
how to send education back to the states. You know, look, I've gotten a lot of specifics from him, but people don't pay attention. They say, oh, Hannity, you're asking him softball questions. Well, he's answered these questions because I've asked him all of them. There's no unasked question that I have for any of the candidates at this point. So I think if he just follows through on the simple list that I'm giving out,
then I think we could be a very, very happy country in four years that made a lot of progress and will be on a much better trajectory than we are on now. I mean, it's sad to watch America in decline. One in six adult males in America, ages 18 to 34, are out of a job or incarcerated. 20% of American families don't have a single, not one,
