Sean Hannity Show - Are Conservatives Are Winning? - 3.20

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March 21, 2017 - Sean Hannity Show

01:37:29

Are Conservatives Are Winning? - 3.20

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	All right, would you like to join me in holding Republicans accountable, especially on healthcare, because the vote is scheduled on Thursday?
	I'll give you the number, give you the switchboard number.
	It's 202-224-3121.
	Linda, we'll put it up on our website so people can go right there and take a look at it.
	202-224-3121.
	This is not the bill that the Freedom Caucus and every conservative senator wants at this point.
	There was some progress made Friday.
	We'll get to that in the course of the program.
	Three big stories we are following today.
	Obviously, healthcare is one of them.
	The confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch have begun.
	In other words, the borking, the slander, the smearing, the high-tech lynchings in a way begin again.
	Just like Democrats, this is the guy that was put on the 10th circuit.
	Voice vote, not a single voice of opposition.
	So it's just the Democrats doing what they do best, and that's obstruction.
	No answers, no solutions, not making the country a better place.
	So, but I want to begin with what happened with James Comey and testifying today.
	The most important part you need to know that nobody in the media seems to have gotten here.
	I mean, they're all focused on, there's an investigation.
	What have we been telling you?
	We've been telling you for 10 days clearly now that there's an investigation.
	We confirmed through circanews.com and John Solomon and Sarah Carter that there was a Pfizer warrant and there was another warrant and it was related directly to the FBI investigating Russia.
	And as part of the ancillary investigation, it also included a surveillance of the Trump Tower server, which happens to be off-site, but it is the server for Trump Tower.
	There's nothing new, shocking, surprising here, but nor is there any evidence.
	Now, we also pointed out to you that James Clapper, National Director of Intelligence, said no evidence whatsoever in any way, shape, matter, or form that the Russians impacted the election or the vote tallies.
	Listen.
	Really, what we're talking about is if they succeeded in changing the results of an election, which none of us believe they were, that would have to constitute an attack on the United States of America because of the effects if they had succeeded.
	Would you agree with that?
	First, we cannot say they did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort.
	They did not change vote tallies of any sort.
	Here's what they're not focused on in the alt-left propaganda destroyed Trump at any cost media.
	They're focused in on, well, his tweet wasn't right.
	Well, that would also mean the New York Times headlines about wiretapping is wrong.
	That would mean McClatchy was wrong.
	That would mean CNN and all these others and MSNBC and NBC have been wrong.
	That would mean the BBC was wrong.
	But no, it's only Trump we're going to focus on, which shows you just how abusively biased it is.
	Trump was great there.
	Well, I've said I'm just citing media sources that said I was wiretapped by Obama.
	I mean, it's a very clever answer on his part.
	Now, so you just heard the National Director of Intelligence didn't impact the vote.
	Okay, now let's listen to a part of the testimony that took place today, Admiral Rogers and James Comey, and what they said about it impacting the Russians impacting the election.
	This is the most important aspect of this, not the collusion where there's no evidence.
	But listen to this first.
	Admiral Rogers, I first want to go to you.
	On January 6th, 2017, the intelligence community assessment assessing Russian activities and intentions in recent U.S. elections stated that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.
	So my question, as of today, Admiral Rogers, do you have any evidence that Russia's cyber actors changed vote tallies in the state of Michigan?
	No, I do not, but I would highlight we're in foreign intelligence organization, not a domestic intelligence organization.
	So it would be fair to say we are probably not the best organization to provide a more complete answer.
	How about the state of Pennsylvania?
	No, sir.
	The state of Wisconsin?
	No, sir.
	State of Florida?
	No, sir.
	The state of North Carolina?
	No, sir.
	The state of Ohio?
	No, sir.
	So you have no intelligence that suggests or evidence suggests any votes were changed?
	I have nothing generated by the National Security Agency, sir.
	Director Comey, do you have any evidence at the FBI that any votes were changed in the states that I mentioned to Admiral Rogers?
	No.
	No vote tallies.
	We have been in the forefront of telling you, yes, law enforcement, the FBI, even though Comey swears he doesn't talk about ongoing investigations, he confirmed the investigation has started in July.
	In July, it's eight months later.
	What have you found except no evidence whatsoever the election has been impacted?
	Your media will not focus on that tonight.
	Well, Donald Trump tweeted out collusion and James Comey said, or that Donald Trump tweeted out that Obama wiretapped him.
	James Comey said there's no evidence of that.
	Therefore, Donald Trump lied.
	Well, I would argue he probably read the New York Times, and he probably watched CNN and MSNBC, and he probably watched the Today Show and all the left-wing, biased, Destroy Trump media because they made such a big deal about him being wiretapped from PageTop Fold, New York Times, January 20th.
	There you have it.
	So that is not the focus here.
	All right, so they have an investigation.
	Now, here's the other odd part of this.
	Comey then went on to say, well, we don't confirm or deny if there's an on, we don't like to comment on ongoing investigations when he's specifically asked by Trey Gowdy whether or not the intelligence leaks.
	Now, remember, we have gone through these intelligence leaks in great detail, and they've been all over the place, and they've been significant, everything from Mike Flynn on down, and they have been hurtful.
	And even in the course of today's testimony, they admitted all of this is very hurtful.
	Listen to Gowdy try to get some information from the FBI director on this.
	Do you know whether Director Clapper knew the name of the U.S. citizen that appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post?
	I can't say in this forum because, again, I don't want to confirm that there was classified information in the news.
	Would he have access to an unmasked name?
	In some circumstances, sure.
	He was the director of national intelligence, but I'm not talking about the particular.
	Would Director Brennan have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	In some circumstances, yes.
	Would National Security Advisor Susan Rice have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	I think any, yes, in general, and any other National Security Advisor would, I think, as a matter of their ordinary course of their business.
	Would former White House advisor Ben Rhodes have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	I don't know the answer to that.
	Would former Attorney General Loretta Lynch have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	In general, yes, as would any Attorney General.
	So that would also include acting A.G. Sally Yates?
	Same answer.
	Do you understand the significance of this?
	You know, now he also goes on to admit it's illegal to leak intelligence.
	And has he found the people responsible?
	Will he find the people responsible?
	We didn't get an answer to that.
	Specifically, he wouldn't even acknowledge that there was an ongoing investigation because he doesn't comment on ongoing investigations, although he did comment and say there was an ongoing investigation only into what Russia was trying to do to influence the election.
	By the way, something Russia has done in the past, and Comey even said will be doing in 2020.
	But yet they did not do it successfully, which should be the big headline coming out of this.
	But it's not.
	I got to tell you, watching these hearings as closely as I have here, what's that?
	I can't see.
	Oh, Gowdy's up right now.
	Put it up for a real quick second.
	He's so smart.
	Influence, motive, our response, collusion, coordination, whatever your jurisdiction is, wherever the facts may take you, though the heavens may fall, go do your jobs.
	Because nature abhors a vacuum.
	And right now, you can't answer most of the questions, either by policy, by law, or because the investigation has not been complete.
	Therefore, a vacuum exists, which people in my line of work are more than happy to fill.
	So I need you to fill.
	I need you to do it with all deliberate speed.
	But Director Comey, I think it's also important for my fellow citizens to take note of why the system that you come from, the one that I come from, is respected and this system that I'm in now is not.
	What is hearsay?
	He's so good.
	You don't know of your own personal knowledge, but learn from someone else.
	It's an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
	I was trying to be a little less lawyer.
	Well, we'll go with your answer.
	And it is almost never admissible in court.
	How about anonymous sources?
	When you were in the Southern District, could you ever call an anonymous source to testify in one of your proceedings?
	No.
	You couldn't even use hearsay unless there was some widely accepted exception.
	And what I've heard this morning in some cases is quadruple hearsay.
	So it would never, a newspaper article would never, ever be admitted as evidence in a courtroom.
	So the system we respect would laugh you out of court if you came in armed with a newspaper article.
	But in the political process, that's enough.
	Let me ask you this: cross-examination.
	Why are you able to cross-examine witnesses in trial?
	Why do we have a right to confront witnesses?
	Well, it's embedded in our Constitution, and the reason it makes great sense is it's the crucible out of which you get truth.
	It is the single best way to elucidate the truth, to test and to probe and to challenge and to test someone's personal exposure to the facts.
	Cross-examination is the best tool that we have.
	How do you cross-examine an anonymous source?
	How do you cross-examine hearsay?
	I hope that you go find every single witness that you need to talk to and examine every single document.
	People are counting on you two and your line of work to find the facts.
	And people are welcome to draw whatever conclusions they want from the facts.
	But when I hear the word evidence, as I've heard lots and lots this morning, let me ask you this, Director Comey.
	Did you ever, are you familiar with any trials where one witness may have said the light was red and one witness may have said the light was green?
	Does that ever happen?
	Yes.
	Yes, that's why you have a trial.
	Does it ever happen where one bank teller said the assailant was 5'10 and one said the assailant was 6'2?
	Sure.
	So that's evidence.
	You got evidence he's 6'2 and evidence he's 5'11.
	He just can't be both.
	The light can't be red and green.
	So the word evidence, while fancy and legal, the reality is you find facts and then the finder of the fact can draw conclusions and inferences from those facts.
	About leaks does not mean that they're not interested in all aspects of Russia.
	And vice versa, the fact that they may not have asked questions about leaks doesn't mean they're not interested in them.
	You have jurisdiction over all of it.
	So God bless you as you go on this journey for the facts.
	And then people can draw whatever conclusions they want.
	I hope that you will fill the vacuum that is created when y'all are not able to answer questions.
	With that, I would yield back to the chairman.
	All right, want to help us keep Congress accountable, hold them accountable.
	Very simple.
	202-224-3121 for this week.
	I just could watch Trey Gowdy all day.
	I mean, he's amazing.
	And I just, if I was James Comey, I'd be, wow.
	You know, the hypocrisy and selective moral outrage that is out there today is, it takes your breath away if This is my job.
	And so many of you are so busy preventing yourself from gulping water.
	How are you gulping water?
	You work hard every day.
	You work your 10, 12, 14, 16 hours a day.
	You get your kids off to school.
	You get them to their activities.
	You try and get some healthy food in their bodies.
	You make sure that they study, you know, and getting ready for tests.
	I mean, it's nonstop.
	But all the outrage of Russia trying to influence the election and Clapper and Admiral Rogers and Comey all say no.
	They had no impact.
	You know, but it's perfectly fine that President Obama tried to influence Benjamin Netanyahu's election with taxpayer dollars and his campaign operatives that he sent to Israel to do everything that Democrats are now expressing such outrage about.
	What phony hypocrites they are.
	Did any one Democrat ever show outrage when Obama promised flexibility.
	He'll be flexible.
	Tell Vladimir.
	That's my last election.
	My flex.
	That's in my election.
	I have more flexibility.
	We'll have more flexibility.
	Is he colluding with Medvedev and saying I'll collude with Vladimir privately, but I can't say these things publicly?
	I have to wait till after I'm reelected.
	You know, what do we learn today?
	Pretty much, we learned today everything I reported on radio and TV the last two weeks.
	Yeah, there's an investigation.
	No, there's no evidence at all that the election was impacted.
	No evidence so far of any collusion whatsoever, not one thing.
	So everything we've been doing for the last 10 days on this program with Sarah Carter and John Solomon has pretty much been confirmed.
	And yet, you know, our law enforcement, yeah, they've been investigating Russia's attempts to influence the election.
	We said that as an ancillary part of that investigation, they looked into the Trump servers.
	Maybe not exactly a wiretap, but pretty damn close.
	But by the way, I just blame the New York Times because that was their headline.
	And it happened, as James Clapper said, that had no impact on election results, corroborated today by both Admiral Rogers and by the FBI Director Comey.
	And Comey said it's happened in the past and it'll happen again in 2020.
	More feigned outrage.
	The investigations have found zero evidence of collusion.
	You won't hear that from the media today.
	So corrupt, such fake news.
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	Hi, 25 to the top of the hour.
	All right, want to join us?
	You want to help hold them accountable, repeal, replace, do it right?
	We'll give this out.
	They expect this vote to be on Thursday.
	And we're going to get an update on this, one of our top three stories today, and that is the health care bills expected to be voted on Thursday in the House of Representatives, Dave Bratt from the Freedom Caucus, Ram Paul from the Senate, two critics up to this point.
	Freedom Caucus members still telling me they are not on board.
	Rand Paul is not on board yet.
	Obviously, it'll be a different bill in the Senate, then they'll come to the table and they'll reconcile the House and Senate bills, and that's more negotiation.
	Anyway, if you want to help us hold them accountable, it's important.
	202-224-3121 asks for your representative.
	My advice is always be polite, but let them know how you feel and that you're paying very close attention and tell them what you want in the bill.
	Anyway, we'll have them on coming up in our next hour.
	Also, Sarah Carter and John Solomon of Circa News will get their take on the hearings today.
	That's really our number one story.
	And James Comey's appearance today, and Trump saying Democrats made up allegations of Russian interference.
	Well, he's right.
	That was in the liberal media and repeated by liberals on TV often.
	Oh, there's a wiretap on Drum Tower.
	Wiretap.
	Well, so they said it.
	Where did it come from?
	We don't know.
	There's no evidence of false vote tallies.
	Now, first it started James Clapper said it.
	Now James Comey has said it.
	And now we have Rogers, the Admiral Rogers, he said the same thing.
	That's three people.
	The FBI won't commit to investigating Obama officials over leaks.
	But then all of the people would have had access.
	And I thought that Trey Gowdy just did a fantastic job nailing down James Comey on this.
	They won't even admit they're going to, you know, here we have all of these people that had access to this unmasked information.
	In other words, the signet intelligence that resulted in leaks.
	There's been a lot of leaks out there.
	Let's see.
	The draft executive order about black sites, that was a leak from within the intelligence community.
	President Trump's calls with Mexico and Australian leaders.
	That was an intelligence leak.
	A transcript of General Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador.
	Even Comey said it was unprecedented.
	Then you've got Trump Associates, their contacts with Russia.
	Jeff Sessions meeting with the Russian ambassador.
	All intelligence leaks.
	Rex Tillerson's anti-leak memo got leaked.
	Memo suggesting that National Guards could be used in cases involving illegal immigrants, illegal immigrant criminals out there.
	All leaked.
	I mean, it's unbelievable to me.
	You know, look at this.
	I've got a Washington Post story under the auspices of Chairman Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has released a report confirming allegations that an NGO with connections to Obama's 2008 campaign and use of taxpayer dollars attempted to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015.
	President Obama has had the worst relationship of any U.S. president with the elected prime minister of the Jewish state.
	Press release goes on to say that today, U.S. Senators Rob Portman and Claire McCaskill, and chairman and ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released a bipartisan report examining the U.S. State Department's grants to One Voice, a non-governmental organization operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
	The group received $350,000 taxpayer dollars in grants from the U.S. State Department to support peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority over a 14-month grant period ending in November 2014.
	In December of 2014, Israeli elections were called for following the collapse of peace negotiations.
	The subcommittee's investigation concludes that One Voice Israel complied with the terms of the State Department grants.
	Within days after the grant period ended, however, the group deployed the campaign infrastructure and resources created in part using U.S. grant funds to support a political campaign to defeat the incumbent Israeli government known as V-15.
	Do you understand what they're saying here?
	The president used taxpayer dollars, State Department dollars, funded a group to take down the sitting prime minister of our closest ally in the Middle East.
	And you're going to feign outrage now that the Russians, who in the past and passed elections in this country, and Comey says guaranteed in 2020 in this country that they tried to influence the election.
	I don't know why they liked, I really don't.
	I don't have no clue why they might have liked Trump better than Hillary.
	Maybe it's because they didn't like working with Hillary.
	Maybe they found her to be too partisan.
	Anyway, you had Trey Gowdy at an exchange on this line of questioning and, you know, Pfizer surveillance programs intentionally designed to preserve the privacy of U.S. citizens.
	Well, I just gave you all the intelligence leaks.
	They're intentionally designed to ensure information that's collected is used only for legitimate national security and criminal investigative purposes.
	These are the statutory safeguards of privacy.
	Go back to Bill Benny, 32-year veteran, NSA, what he said on the program.
	Every phone call, every text, every email you send is being metadata stored probably somewhere in Utah, which is one of their biggest metadata facilities.
	Anyway, so it's a felony.
	What they did to Michael Flynn, General Flynn was a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison.
	If, in fact, at the back end of this, somebody is identified.
	Violation of the Espionage Act.
	I don't know, Director Comey and the American people have an agreement with their government.
	We're going to give you the tools to keep us safe, even if it infringes on our privacy.
	We're going to give you the tools, and government in return promises to safeguard the privacy of U.S. citizens.
	And when that deal is broken, it jeopardizes American trust in the surveillance program.
	That was the biggest, most important thing that nobody, I watched the coverage today.
	It is so, they're so lazy.
	They're so rigidly ideological that they can't see a big picture in the general news media today.
	It's a bad day for Trump after all.
	They said that no evidence that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.
	Well, that doesn't mean they didn't surveil Trump Tower.
	That doesn't debunk the story we've had for 10 days that, in fact, as part of the investigation that we had corroborated two weeks ago on this program, that there was a what did Russia do in the election investigation, and we've been talking all about it, the ancillary investigation into the Trump server found nothing, not a thing.
	You know, and Gowdy went through all of this, and Comey admitted that you can't do this to the American people.
	In February this year, the Washington Post reported nine current and former officials in senior positions at multiple agencies, you know, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, and that officials began pouring over intelligence reports, intercepted communications, diplomatic cables.
	The New York Times reported a U.S. citizen whose name I won't use discusses sanctions with a Russian ambassador.
	He's talking about General Flynn.
	In a phone call, according to officials who have seen the transcript.
	Then in February, the New York Times reported on a phone call involving a U.S. citizen, including significant discussions of phone records, intercepted calls, intercepted communications.
	They don't have a warrant to do this on the American.
	They do, as part of our national security, surveil Russian ambassadors.
	Russians are trying to screw with us.
	We're trying to screw with them.
	This has been going on for decades and decades and decades.
	You know, so the fact that a U.S. citizen intercepted calls and communications reported the NSA, and then you've got this whole mystery of why, two weeks before he leaves office, Obama modifies Executive Order 12333 and allows 16 other agencies and all these other people to now have access to that sensitive intelligence that they never had access to ever before.
	That's the bigger story.
	Who knew what, when, and where?
	How do you get to the bottom of this?
	You know, I could also talk about the double standard.
	You know, I could tell you that I know the whole story of the Clintons.
	Nobody asked today what's going on with the Clintons, but Pill and Hillary Clinton got massive sums of money directly and indirectly from Russia and Russian officials.
	While Hillary was Secretary of State, Bill Clinton was, I was over in Moscow, gave a speech.
	My little pumpkin was back home doing whatever it is she does.
	This was in Moscow in 2010, who put it to Bill an investment firm in Moscow called Renaissance Capital.
	Great reminder today the other day by Peter Schweitzer.
	Anyway, they boast of deep ties to the Russian intelligence community.
	Well, the Clintons are getting money right in their pocket.
	The Clinton Foundation took the money from the Russian officials and these Putin-connected oligarchs.
	Rachel Maddow alert, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
	No, that's right.
	NBC doesn't care about real news.
	Anyway, Victor Vexelberg, a Putin confidant who gave through his company and all these other people, they gave it all to the Clinton Foundation.
	Clinton Foundation also scored $145 million in donations from nine shareholders in a Canadian uranium company called Uranium One.
	Remember that deal?
	And then Uranium One was sold to the Russian government in 2010.
	And to make the deal go through, it required the approval of several federal government agencies, including Hillary Clinton State Department.
	The deal allowed the Russian state nuclear agency to buy assets that amounted to 20% of our uranium.
	What do we use uranium for to build nuclear weapons?
	By the way, and that company, by the way, controls the Russian nuclear arsenal.
	Why would Hillary do that if she wasn't getting all these kickbacks?
	Oh, let's not bring that up.
	Hannity, you're just, she lost.
	Trump won.
	Well, if we're going to deal with Russian connections, let's tell the whole truth here.
	Let's get the real perspective out on this.
	It's so embarrassing.
	These news networks have gone so deep.
	They have no desire to be honest with the American people anymore.
	None whatsoever.
	Let me go to another clip here.
	Where is my sheet?
	I lost my.
	Oh, here it is.
	And this is from earlier today.
	This is, I think it's Congressman Wenstrup.
	Two of the most, what we read in the news is false.
	It is not a lie to lie to reporters.
	Listen to this.
	I know that if I attend a classified briefing and I receive classified information and I go and tell someone that classified information, if I leak it or I release it, then I've committed a crime.
	But what if someone goes to a classified briefing, walks out of that briefing, and openly lies about the content of that briefing?
	Because it's unclear to me what happens then.
	And it's important because, as you know, this committee and certainly both of you gentlemen have handled a lot of classified information.
	And recently, more recently, the purported classified information is put out on the press.
	The Washington Post, the New York Times reports information.
	And you know, and I know, and we all know, for having handled classified information, that some of that information is not true.
	Are the sources of that classified information, if they come out and lie about the content of classified information?
	I don't think so.
	If all they've done is lie to a reporter, that's not against the law.
	I agree with you.
	I think it's no crime.
	And so every reporter out there that has someone standing in front of them and saying, oh, I'm taking this great risk of sharing with you U.S. secrets besides them purporting to be a traitor, are committing no crime if they lie to them.
	So all of these news articles that contain this information that we know is not the case are being done so at damage to the United States, but without the risk of a crime.
	My next aspect of your question to you, Mr. Comey, is this.
	What is the obligation of the intelligence community to correct such falsehoods?
	Some of this information that we read in the Washington Post and the New York Times is extremely false and extremely incendiary and extremely condemning of individuals and certainly our whole system.
	What is your obligation, Mr. Comey, to be that source to say, I can't release classified information, but I can tell you it's not that?
	Yeah, it's a great question, Mr. Turner, because there's a whole lot out there that is false.
	And I suppose some of it could be people lying to reporters.
	I think that probably happens.
	But more often than not, it's people who act like they know when they really don't know.
	Because they're not the people who actually know the secrets.
	They're one or two hops out and they're passing along things they think they know.
	Oh, by the way, that was Congressman Turner.
	I recognize his voice.
	And listen to what he's saying there.
	But in the case of, for example, General Flynn, a felony was committed.
	You don't release that information.
	And it was done by somebody with intelligence connections at a very high level.
	And it was a felony.
	And that's the only crime to date that has been proven in this.
	In spite of all of the suggestions you'll hear if you're crazy enough to watch these fake news outlets because they're so bad.
	All right, our two Sean Hannity show 800-941.
	Sean, if you want to be a part of this extravaganza, three big stories we are following today, the confirmation hearings of Neil Gorsuch, the slander, the borking, and high-tech lynching, I'm sure begins.
	Also, our other top story is the moral selective outrage.
	Did the Russians try and influence the elections?
	We're getting to all of that, James Comey and Admiral Rogers and the push towards the health care billets.
	We have Sarah Carter and John Solomon standing by, investigative reporters for Circa News.
	But let's first go to, I think, one of the key moments in today's testimony that nobody in the media wants to pay any attention to.
	It was Admiral Rogers and James Comey testifying, answering the question of Devin Nunez, whether or not there's any evidence whatsoever that the vote tallies were changed in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, or Ohio.
	Anyway, let's go.
	Let's say that.
	So my question, as of today, Admiral Rogers, do you have any evidence that Russia cyber actors changed vote tallies in the state of Michigan?
	No, I do not.
	But I would highlight we're a foreign intelligence organization, not a domestic intelligence organization.
	So it would be fair to say we are probably not the best organization to provide a more complete answer.
	How about the state of Pennsylvania?
	No, sir.
	The state of Wisconsin?
	No, sir.
	State of Florida?
	No, sir.
	The state of North Carolina?
	No, sir.
	The state of Ohio?
	No, sir.
	So you have no intelligence that suggests or evidence suggests any votes were changed?
	I have nothing generated by the National Security Agency, sir.
	Director Comey, do you have any evidence at the FBI that any votes were changed in the states that I mentioned to Admiral Rogers?
	No.
	All right, Sarah Carter and John Solomon, both with circa.com, Circa News, and welcome both of you back to the program.
	John, what was your interpretation of not only that exchange, but I got the impression all morning that a lot of what you've been reporting the last, what, eight to 10 days is now coming out to bear fruit, that you've been way ahead of the curve.
	Yeah, there's no doubt about it, Sean.
	The FBI director acknowledged that the primary focus of their investigation has been counterintelligence, whether the Russians were trying to influence the election.
	As a small part of that, they've looked at some incidental contacts with Trump people.
	But to date, Chairman Nunez said at the opening of the hearing, there's been no evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
	So I think that's all borne out.
	Here's my question, though.
	Then why did the FBI director, who's never supposed to comment on ongoing investigations and wouldn't comment on an investigation, even acknowledge one is going into the leakers in national security and intelligence, why would he comment only on the part that, yeah, we are looking into whether or not there was some collusion?
	Probably to explain why there have been these leaks, right?
	Why there's some body of evidence that was leaked by certain people.
	I think that's the only reason.
	But the most important thing I think happened today, two chairmen, Chairman Grousey of the Judiciary Committee, Chairman Nunez of the House Intelligence Committee, both said they got private briefings last week and there's no evidence of collusion.
	That confirms what our sources have been telling us.
	Yeah, and Sarah, what was your take on it?
	I found the double standard rather breathtaking today and seemingly political.
	It certainly, I think one thing that I took from it, it certainly is going to keep this question up in the air for quite a long time, right, as to what the answer is.
	Was there any evidence found?
	I mean, what we know is what John just said.
	Our sources have confirmed with us that they found no collusion between Trump administration, his officials, the Trump team, and Russia to date.
	And we can say that beyond even the House intelligence, Chairman Nunez's statement and those made by others is that even the director of national intelligence, former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, said publicly as well that he's seen no evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign.
	So that's something else that's very important.
	But I do think it goes to your point, Sean, that if anybody expected this to go away anytime soon, it's not going to go away anytime soon until the FBI wraps up its investigation and then reports back to Congress.
	Doesn't this seem like a rather long period of time when he admitted that, in fact, it started in July?
	And one of the things both of you are reporting is that, yeah, there was a Pfizer warrant.
	Yeah, that it was related to Russia's attempts to influence, although both Comey and Admiral Rogers and James Clapper, as you point out, had all said that there's no evidence whatsoever that it impacted a single vote here in any way.
	But after, what, eight months of investigations, they still can't get to the bottom of this?
	John?
	Yeah, well, the counterintelligence world is a complex world, right?
	And they often say what you first see in intelligence isn't often what is reality.
	And I think they want to button down and make sure that everything that they finally report in the final report is accurate.
	But if they're this far along, the chances of finding something, a smoking gun now, are often pretty slim.
	I think there was a more important point in the hearing today, Sean.
	There was a moment where both men were asked about could there have been political appointees inside the Obama White House who could see unredacted transcripts of Americans being intercepted by the NSA?
	And both acknowledge that that was possible.
	I think that's going to be a line of questioning and a line of more new facts coming out over the next few weeks.
	Who had access to what before all this stuff leaked?
	And I think that's going to become an intriguing part of the investigation.
	Well, that issue, it's interesting you bring it up because let's go back to Trey Gowdy's questioning today.
	And I won't play it now, but we played it in the last hour.
	But when Trey Gowdy went through the list of people that potentially would have knowledge of the intelligence that ended up getting leaked, and we have all the different examples of it that we have talked about at length on this program, I mean, at that point, one has to wonder.
	I mean, for example, the draft executive order to reopen black sites or President Trump's calls with the Mexican and Australian leaders or the transcript of General Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador or Trump's associates' contacts with the Russians and memos suggesting 100,000 National Guard troops could be used on the issue of illegal immigration, Rex Tillerson's anti-leak memo, Jeff Sessions' meeting with the Russian ambassador.
	All of these are illegal leaks, and yet he wouldn't even acknowledge that that investigation is going on.
	Sarah?
	That is correct.
	And I think that you brought that right to our point.
	You know, John and I just published a story on Friday with regard to that.
	And according to our sources, apparently the DOJ has not yet given authorization to the FBI to open that investigation.
	So that's interesting in and of itself.
	And I think that the fact that the leaks came up is the most important point of this entire hearing.
	They both said, Admiral Mike Rogers as well as Director James Comey, that whoever leaked the information, particularly on Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and his conversation with the Russian ambassador, they violated the Espionage Act.
	I mean, they are punished.
	This is a felony.
	This is prison time for whoever did this.
	And when you look at the narrow scope of people that would have viewed this, it is not going to be that difficult for them to retrace those footprints and start asking the right questions and finding out who actually leaked this information, whether it was one person or multiple persons.
	And I think that is the one fact that came out of this hearing, the fact that, well, that they know for a fact that somebody leaked this information and that they violated the law and that this is a felony.
	That is a fact.
	You know, all right, so then let's go to the other reports that you had last week, that this whole Russia narrative could have been fed to law enforcement by supporters of Hillary Clinton and donors to Hillary Clinton.
	The media has run roughshod with these wild conspiracy theories, one right after another.
	And I guess the question is at this particular point, if there's no evidence, is this a political thing that's happening?
	And why didn't they acknowledge?
	You know, Donald Trump, for example, is getting beaten up today by everyone in the media because he said that there's no evidence that wiretapping by Obama took place.
	But he never said that there wasn't surveillance of Trump's servers, which you guys have been reporting.
	That's correct.
	I mean, we did see with the Trump server, it was a separate investigation.
	Remember, John and I both reported that this was a traditional investigation by the FBI into the Trump server after they had been notified and after they had seen reports that there were these pings between the Trump server, which is located outside of Trump Tower, and the Russian bank, Alpha Bank.
	And when they investigated these pings, it was a very short-lived investigation.
	They found nothing of criminality between the servers, and they shut the investigation down immediately.
	So there was an investigation by the FBI, a traditional investigation that was not part of the overall investigation into Russia into these, maybe connected, but not to the big FIFA investigation.
	They looked in there with the traditional, traditional investigative FBI techniques, and they found nothing.
	And you're right, we did discover that the people that were pushing this investigation, one of them in particular, Professor Al Gene Camp, who's very well respected, by the way, and is an internet expert, was pushing the FBI to investigate this and was disappointed that they did not continue to investigate this.
	And she's a big supporter of Hillary Clinton.
	Why was she able to show that?
	Well, I mean, this was a great piece put out by Peter Schweitzer in a column today.
	You know, the Bill and Hillary Clinton got large sums of money directly and indirectly from Russian officials, while Secretary of State Bill Clinton was given a $500,000 fee for a speech that he gave in Moscow.
	Well, who footed that bill?
	Well, an investment firm in Moscow called Renaissance Capital, which boasts of their deep ties to Russian intelligence.
	The Clinton Foundation itself took money from Russian officials and Putin-connected oligarchs.
	So the glaring fact that the Clinton Foundation scored $145 million in donations from nine shareholders in a Canadian uranium company called Uranium One that was sold to the Russian government, and the deal required the approval of several federal agencies, including Hillary's State Department, that was granted.
	And that gave up, what, 20% of our uranium or plutonium?
	That's right.
	Yeah, no, there's no doubt.
	Listen, the Russians have tried to sow goodwill anywhere they could in the United States, gain influence any way they can.
	And Democrats and Republicans alike have been targeted over the years.
	And I think a lot of that gets lost in this narrative when we focus just on one campaign and one candidate at the exclusion of others.
	All right, stay right there.
	I think journalism is going to look back and not be very proud of the moment of reporting it's had over the last couple of months.
	So all the breathlessness that you're seeing today based on your deep dive into this is these guys are all going to have egg on their face.
	Well, unless the facts change, right?
	Unless something gets turned up at the last minute.
	I think at the end of the day, I think we're going to end up probably where Clapper ended up a few weeks ago and where our reporting indicated, which is there's no evidence of criminal collusion.
	Yes, the Russians tried to influence yet another election.
	They've done it in the past, and they'll do it again, as people said today.
	But I don't think the breathless breaking news, Watergate comparisons that we've had are going to stand up unless the fact-based changes.
	All right, we'll take a break.
	We'll come back more with Sarah Carter and John Solomon.
	800-941 Sean is our toll-free telephone number if you want to be a part of the program.
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	This is the Sean Henny Show.
	All right, as we continue with Circa News, reporters Sarah Carter and John Solomon.
	All right, I want to, where do you both think this is going next?
	I think this is the most important question.
	Where are we going next here?
	Well, I think that part of it, Sean, is going to be having to look into where the leaks emanated from.
	I think that's huge.
	I also think the scope of the FISA is very important.
	How many people actually saw or had access to the raw unmasked phone conversations between Russian officials and whoever, whatever American in the United States?
	I mean, are we going to see more of those calls?
	Did people have access to names unmasked?
	That means not hidden from their pervy.
	And could those be potential leaks in the future?
	I think all of these questions need to be answered.
	And it's something that I think lawmakers as well as law enforcement, federal law enforcement agencies, including the intelligence community, are probably going to want to know.
	Yeah, I agree.
	John, if you had to look into your crystal ball and maybe based on a little bit of where you know your investigation is going in the future, where do you see it?
	Yeah, I think Sarah has it exactly right.
	Absent a bombshell, last piece of evidence coming in, finding some magical connection between Trump and Russia.
	What I think this is all going to turn on is what has happened over the last six years to allow super secret intercepts by the NSA and FBI FISA wiretaps to end up in hands where it can get leaked so easily.
	And I think that that thread, what rules have been changed, what laws have been changed, what sort of carelessness has occurred in allowing people to look at unredacted Americans' intercepts and then possibly have them leaked.
	I think that's going to become the storyline.
	And I think Democrats and Republicans alike are sort of concerned about what they're hearing in these private briefings about who had access to transcripts, who had access to unredacted Americans' intercepts.
	And I think when we get to the bottom of that question, we're going to learn a little bit more about privacy and civil liberties and maybe the loss of some privacy that we've got.
	Well, Trey Gowdy got very specific answers on very specific names, maybe with the exception.
	So that would tell me that if this all got leaked out, I mean, how do you determine where the leaks come from?
	And why didn't the FBI director admit those leaks were going on when he admitted the FBI was probing Russia Trump associate links, which, by the way, you and all three of us have been reporting now for almost two weeks.
	Yeah, I think that's right.
	Comey did say one thing, though.
	He said it was such an extraordinarily rare moment in the intelligence world to have ever seen a FISA or 702 NSA intercept leak like what we saw with Mike Twin.
	And I think his acknowledgement of that was a very important moment in the hearings.
	And I think that when we get to the bottom of who leaked that and how that leak became so easy to happen, we're going to learn a lot about some sloppiness.
	How do you respond to the media's coverage?
	Oh, bad day for Trump today?
	Because I didn't see it that way at all, Sarah.
	Yeah, you know, I don't make opinions either on this, whether it was a bad or good day for Trump.
	I haven't actually spoken to President Trump to make that opinion or to get that story out.
	I mean, it's kind of like assuming, right?
	I think what here is very revealing.
	And I think John brought up a very good point.
	You know, even though it was a very rare moment when we saw this leak go public, I think the bigger concern for me as an investigative journalist is not so much what's just already been leaked, but how wide of a scope have people had access to these unredacted documents?
	What could they be used for?
	I mean, imagine this.
	If people within the intelligence community, within federal law enforcement, are looking at this, if they're politicizing this, and this is something that is very concerning if they're politicizing intelligence.
	And if they have information that no one else has because they're able to see phone conversations, they're able to pass those messages along.
	I mean, this could be very, very dangerous.
	And this is something that you don't want.
	I mean, this is stuff that you would see probably in Russia, right?
	Such a good point.
	Here in the United States, we have protections.
	We have protections to our private sector.
	I've got to run, but we'll have both of you back on Hannah.
	Are you going to join us tonight, John, or are you going to make Sarah do all the work for the circa news team?
	To be determined, but I'd love to join you, as you know, anytime.
	Well, Sarah, I at least look forward to seeing you tonight.
	I appreciate it.
	You'll definitely see me tonight, John.
	Thank you.
	You're beginning to sound like James Comey, Solomon.
	That's all I can say about that.
	Just kidding.
	All right, 800-941-Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
	We'll check in with Rand Paul and Congressman Dave Bratt next.
	Sean gets the answers no one else does.
	America deserves to know the truth about Congress.
	All right, 25 till the top of the hour.
	All right, the Republican health care bill scheduled as of now for a full floor vote next, well, this Thursday.
	We'll see if, in fact, that happens.
	Some very divisive stuff has happened.
	We've had ads being run in the districts of some of the more conservative members of Congress that have not been sold on this bill, like some of the Freedom Caucus members and others.
	We know how badly the CBO blew it on Obamacare.
	Why anybody uses them in any way, shape, matter, or form is beyond anything that makes sense to me.
	And we had some apparent movement on Friday when the president met with the Republican study group.
	Now, they're conservative, but not as conservative as the Freedom Caucus members.
	And anyway, at the end of the day, they apparently agreed to give states the option to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients and to block grant Medicaid.
	Now, that's something specifically I know that the Freedom Caucus wanted in their bill.
	And also, in addition to the Medicaid agreement with the Republican study group, the White House and House leaders are also eyeing increasing tax credits in the bill, something that I guess would bring more of the left on board and the centrists on board or whatever liberal Republicans on board.
	Anyway, here to get a status update on this, two staunch critics of the bill up till now, and they both have an alternative bill that they've been pushing, one that I prefer myself, Senator Ram Paul of Kentucky and Congressman Dave Brad of Virginia.
	And Senator Paul, we'll start with you, considering you are in the upper chamber, sir.
	Where's the status of this?
	You've been very gracious in your comments about the president being willing to open his mind and negotiate with you.
	Where are you now?
	You know, I think that the bill, as is, can't pass.
	Conservatives across the country don't want Obamacare light.
	As conservatives, you know, I was elected in the first Tea Party tidal wave in 2010, and I was elected to repeal Obamacare, you know, not to replace it with Obamacare Light.
	So I'm not for keeping the subsidies.
	The most recent movement this week has been to increase the subsidies to people through what we call refundable tax credits, but really it's just another name for Obamacare subsidies.
	This bill keeps some of the Obamacare taxes.
	It also keeps the individual mandate that says you have to pay the insurance company instead of the government.
	So I just think Obamacare Light.
	So you have not seen any significant movement at all, and you didn't like any of the changes they made Friday, for example, imposing work requirements and block granting versus top-down government?
	I would say tweaks around the edges that are marginally good, but at the same time, they may have made the Medicaid expansion less expensive.
	They also added to the expense by adding the increasing the refundable tax credits.
	So they may have marginally improved it, but they also made it worse by increasing tax credits.
	You know, we have no money in Washington.
	We're $20 trillion in debt.
	We borrow a million dollars a minute.
	We don't have money to give people money when we have no money up here.
	Congressman Bratt, the two changes on Friday, I remember specifically, were two changes you personally told me you wanted to see, especially the block granting side of it.
	Yeah, that's right.
	And the important part of block granting is it gets the federal government out of the health care equation.
	But unfortunately, last week, National Journal, one of the tabloids we get up here, both conservative think tanks and liberal think tanks both agree.
	They both 100% agree that all of the architecture and all of the structure of Obamacare stays with us.
	And so what is that architecture that contains the insurance regulations that Senator Paul was just talking about?
	The regs make sure that the federal government can mandate the type of insurance product you will buy.
	So a young kid cannot go out and buy a low-priced product.
	And so what Senator Paul just said is the bill gets rid of some of the tax revenues, but increases cost.
	And so the main thing we have to focus on is there's no free market here yet, right?
	President Trump wants shopping across state lines.
	We have to have a market emerge for health care, or President Trump in two years is going to be stuck in a death spiral of his own.
	When you take in less money and costs go up, and we're not expected, CBO scored it, said that our costs are not going to go down for another three years.
	There's no premium reduction for three years.
	So we have an election coming up.
	President Trump has an election.
	It's not about elections, but you have to start with the Rand Paul bill.
	You've got to start with free markets.
	And then everybody agrees we've got to take care of those folks with pre-existing conditions.
	They're 5% of the people with over 50% of the national health care cost.
	That's a real problem, but that is a target on the side.
	They're uninsurable.
	So that should not impact the insurance market.
	We have to have free markets for insurance, for hospitals, so you don't get $20 aspirin.
	You cannot start with a socialist program and then get promised that we're going to try to work in a little bit of free markets later.
	Is there any Freedom Caucus member that you know that's supporting this bill?
	There's a couple guys that are on some of the relevant committees that have made commitments, but we've got a strong number there.
	And then there's some moderates that are already no out on the record.
	And there's a bunch of the moderate folks who are in tough states up in the Northeast, have more liberal-leaning constituencies.
	They're no.
	And a lot of these people are just being quiet right now.
	But I think it's 40 or 50 no's that we know of.
	And those are the folks that have gone out on the record.
	And then for what Rand has said, Tom Cotton and Lee and Cruz, the Senate's going to vote no.
	So you got the Republicans are going to put themselves on the record voting yes for the structure of Obamacare.
	The Senate's going to vote no, and then they've got to go back home and face the music.
	That's the problem.
	This goes back to my original criticism and comment here is in the weeks leading up to the rollout of this bill, Senator Paul, I kept telling people in high places that you don't have support for your bill.
	I said you're not showing it to them.
	You don't have support for it.
	Why don't you build consensus?
	Why don't you throw everybody in a room and why don't you get the bill right first before you roll it out instead of this public, you know, brouhaha, an intramural fight and civil war that's broken out here.
	And I think it was really unnecessary because everything I predicted would happen did.
	And I guess the question is, where are you, Senator, in terms of, you know, you praised the president in terms of being willing to listen to your ideas.
	Has he implemented or accepted any of them?
	You know, I think the real problem is Paul Ryan went around the country and continues to go around the country saying we all ran on his repeal and replace bill.
	Well, none of us ran on his repeal and replace.
	We ran on repeal.
	Every one of us ran on complete repeal, similar to what we voted on a year ago.
	And then Paul Ryan pops out with this thing that's a replacement that's sort of happening.
	Well, Ryan said even the 2015 bill was not a full repeal bill.
	It was much more complete in the sense that they didn't add in new things that are Obamacare alike.
	It didn't repeal the insurance regs, but my goal all along was to have a companion bill.
	So about two months ago, I wrote a replacement bill that's a companion bill to the Senate 222, right?
	Yeah, and so the thing is, is there still is unity on repeal.
	We could vote on the 2015 bill this week and it would pass unanimously.
	And then what we would do is we would separate out and we'd vote on replacement the same day.
	And maybe we'd vote on the conservative version, the Obamacare light version, and maybe a Democrat version.
	But we'd See what would pass on the replacement.
	And then, really, whoever passes or fails, that's where the next argument comes for what happens with healthcare in the future.
	Because I think we have the votes for repeal.
	We just don't have the votes and the unity for replacement.
	You know, the one thing I've been trying, I'm trying to offer constructive criticism to these guys.
	Number one, if I was the leadership, I would have you and Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and Mark O'Ruby.
	I'd have and Senator Mitch McConnell in a room, and then I'd have Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in a room, and then I'd have at least the vice president, Mike Pence, in the room, and then I'd have Reince Privus, Steve Bannon, and others in the room, and then I'd have the Freedom Caucus and the study committee in the room, and even those moderates in the room.
	And I'd take everybody's phone away and not let any one of you leave that room until this was done.
	Well, the real negotiation, Sean, begins if the vote, if the House Freedom Caucus sticks together and they're able to stop the vote on Thursday, then that's when the real negotiation begins.
	Right now is the pre-negotiation.
	There's not going to be any significant change to this bill unless they don't have the votes.
	If they don't have the votes on Thursday, then conservatives will have earned a seat at the table, and that's when push comes to shove, and that's when we're going to work on repeal.
	Are you confident that you have those votes, Dave Brett?
	Yeah, yeah, we're holding tight.
	And like I said, Rod Whitman's not in the Freedom Caucus.
	There's several like Amash and Thomas Massey from Kentucky.
	There's some other great guys that are going to be no votes.
	And then there's some more liberal members, three of them that have committed to no.
	How many no votes are as of today without changes that you guys are insisting on?
	And I know you gave a list of five specific things.
	As of today, how many members do you have locked in against the bill?
	37 no's, and you need 21.
	And I don't want to emphasize the no part.
	We're trying to get to yes, but it's like Senator Paulson said, it's yes on our promise.
	We promised to repeal Obamacare.
	That was the initial.
	And then repeal and replace with free market solutions.
	And so we want to get to yes, but we promised free market solutions to actually solve this.
	We don't want to put in place what Obamacare did eight years ago, which was an exclusive attention on coverage.
	And CBO, now it's all on coverage and nothing on price, nothing on price discovery, nothing on reducing the cost of innovation in medicine and et cetera.
	And so that's the key piece the American people need to focus on.
	Well, all right, so let me go here.
	One of the things that I've talked a lot about, not only the healthcare savings accounts, but these cooperatives, healthcare cooperatives, Senator Paul, I told you about Dr. Umber in Wichita, Kansas, and how he's duplicated that model: 50 bucks a month, an adult, $10 a month, a child, and you pay pennies on the dollar even for an x-ray or an MRI.
	And I'm just wondering, you know, wouldn't that be the smartest way to go?
	And I don't hear anybody else talking about it.
	Well, here's the problem.
	You have House leadership.
	They're insufficiently confident in the marketplace and in capitalism.
	So instead of saying how we're going to get the price down, what they're talking about is how we're going to subsidize the price for those just before retirement age.
	So they're adding to the subsidies.
	And here's the point I make.
	If you let everybody in the AARP, 37 million people, you let them join a health co-op and have one person negotiating for them, we'll drop the prices in half in a single instance.
	Once you give that power and that leverage to big groups to negotiate, I was at the Chamber of Commerce today in Louisville.
	Chamber of Commerce across the country could have leverage by letting all of their members be part of a healthcare association.
	That's what we should be talking about.
	That should be part of the debate now.
	And Ryan and the others don't disagree with this, but they say, oh, we're going to wait and do that in bucket three, you know, six years from now.
	And it really needs to be, this is the debate.
	There's not going to be a debate in six months.
	This is the debate.
	It's the only debate on Obamacare.
	And we ought to be talking about the good things that we're for.
	Yeah, I agree with you.
	And then we've been doing a lot of that on this program.
	And I know that a lot of it is in the bill, which I liked a lot that you guys have put out.
	And we'll see what happens by Thursday.
	If they don't have a vote, that means they don't have the votes.
	All right, guys, stay right there.
	When we come back, I want to ask you: you know, why is there a rush, number one, and why aren't these alternative plans being discussed?
	More with Dave Bratt, Senator Ram Paul.
	All right, so the health care bill, there is talk of a vote in the House on Thursday.
	And, all right, so why is there a rush, Dave Bratt, considering there's still a lot of opposition out there?
	And what has been the outreach from A, the leadership in the House, and B, the president?
	Yeah, well, why is there a rush?
	And let's get back to the debate.
	If you look at an eighth-grade civics class, where has been the debate?
	Where has Rand Paul's bill been debated on the House floor, right?
	And so there is a rush.
	Our side says we're doing regular order.
	The eighth grader is looking for a debate.
	And so now we fast forward.
	Trump now is getting ready to do tax reform.
	So that's why there is urgency now.
	But we didn't create this urgency, right?
	We all ran on the 2015 repeal that all the Senate voted on, all the House voted on.
	It's a no-brainer.
	And so Rand is right.
	We ought to return to that one, get the repeal vote done.
	So the regs, it all goes through.
	And the Byrd rule, you got Harvard scholars who have said there's no problem getting a vote on this reconciliation piece over there.
	Have you heard from Ryan McCarthy, Brady, Scalese?
	Do you guys talk to them?
	I mean, we bounce ideas off as best we can.
	Mark Meadows was down at Mar-a-Lago with Lee and a couple other senators, I think, this weekend.
	And our guys agreed to stay in a room, like you suggested, until we knocked this thing out.
	And so our leadership is in a rush.
	They want to get this plan through for some reason.
	Random urgency on this plan.
	I guess Rand Paul's fortunate in that the Senate majority leader is from his home state.
	And I know you guys have supported each other a lot over the years.
	It's not like you and Senator McCain, by the way.
	I thought that exchange was hilarious this week.
	He's accusing you of colluding with Vladimir.
	I almost died laughing.
	But anyway, what's up in the Senate and how contingent is it going to be there on the bill of the House?
	Or is that irrelevant?
	Well, the interesting thing is through the years, you know, repeal has brought us all together, but the idea of replace is really separating us.
	I would say at least half of our caucus or a third of our caucus wants more subsidy.
	And they also want to keep the Medicaid expansion.
	That's kind of where our Senate Republican caucus is.
	And then there's five, six, seven conservatives who think, you know, we promised to repeal it.
	Let's repeal it and let's replace it with a marketplace that'll bring down prices.
	And let's not subsidize a floor for insurance rates.
	Let's not subsidize the insurance companies.
	Let's actually work at empowering the consumer to bring prices down.
	But we are really divided on the replace.
	That's why the only way I think we get this done is vote on repeal.
	And then the same day we can begin voting on a host of different replacement strategies.
	There's a conservative replacement.
	There's Paul Ryan's Obamacare Light.
	And then there could be a Democrat version.
	There could be portions of each of the replacements could come forward.
	But I don't believe sticking them together and insulting us by saying that we actually ran on this when every conservative in the land knows we ran on repealing it, not replacing with Obamacare Live.
	All right, we're going to hold them accountable.
	I want this done and done right.
	The president needs this win, and not getting this bill done is just not acceptable, especially because they've had eight years to prepare for this and then they're not prepared.
	All right, thank you, Rand Paul, Senator.
	Appreciate it.
	And Congressman, we really appreciate it.
	Dave Brad of Virginia, 800-941-Sean, our number.
	You want to be a part of the program, News Roundup, Information Overload.
	Straight ahead.
	All right, News Roundup, Information Overload Hour here on the Sean Hannity Show.
	Three top stories we are following today, the confirmation hearings.
	Neil Gorsuch has all started.
	A push to get a health care vote on Thursday, and of course, James Comey in his testimony on Capitol Hill earlier today, which we will get to all of that.
	I want to start with the issue, though, of the hearings that nobody's really paying attention to.
	And we got Pat Leahy believing that Gorsuch, being an originalist, is outside the mainstream.
	By the way, the guy got not a single vote of opposition by any Democrat when he got to the 10th Circuit.
	And then we got Dick Durbin saying that Republicans' handling of Merrick Garland was political, so this is going to be political.
	Listen, Judge Gorsuch appears to have a comprehensive originalist philosophy.
	It's the approach taken by jurors such as Justice Clear, Justice Thomas, former Judge Bork.
	While it has gained some popularity within conservative circles, originalism, I believe, remains outside the mainstream of modern constitutional jurisprudence.
	It's been 25 years since an originalist has been nominated to the Supreme Court.
	Given what we've seen from Justice Clea and Justice Thomas and Judge Gorsuch's own record, I worry that it goes beyond being a philosophy and it becomes an agenda.
	We know that conservative groups that vetted Judge Gorsuch and the millionaires who fund them have a clear agenda.
	When this anti-choice, anti-environment, pro-corporate.
	And these groups are obviously confident that Judge Gorsuch shares their agenda.
	President Obama met his constitutionally required obligation by nominating Judge Merrick Garland to fill that vacancy in March of 2016.
	Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced that for the first time in the history of the United States Senate, he would refuse Judge Garland a hearing and a vote.
	He went further and said he would refuse to even meet with the judge.
	It was clear that Senator McConnell was making a political decision, hoping a Republican president would be elected.
	He was willing to ignore the tradition and precedent of the Senate so that you could sit at this witness table today.
	In May and September of 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump released a list of 21 names, including yours, that he would consider to fill the Scalia vacancy.
	Your nomination is part of a Republican strategy to capture our judicial branch of government.
	That is why the Senate Republicans kept this Supreme Court seat vacant for more than a year and why they left 30 judicial nominees who had received bipartisan approval of this committee to die on the Senate calendar as President Obama left office.
	All right, one thing that Dick Durbin kept out of that was the fact that this was the Democrats' rule.
	This was invented by them that in the final year that it should become a referendum, Chuck Schumer and company, this is what they did.
	This is what they decided.
	Republicans were just following what Democrats had done in the past and stated publicly should be the way to handle the last year of a presidency.
	Anyway, here to weigh in on this and much more, a lot of news going on today.
	Danielle McLaughlin, attorney, constitutional expert who wrote, co-wrote the Federalist Society, How Conservatives Took the Law Back from Liberals.
	Jay Seculo, the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.
	All right, so basically it's an opening statement posturing day.
	Do you see any Democrats, maybe besides Manchin and a couple of others, that would vote for cloture and allow an up or down vote?
	How many do you count?
	I'm telling you, Sean, I think this is a party line.
	I think Manchin will be probably the exception, maybe one other.
	I don't think they'll let it go to a filibuster, though.
	I think they'll eventually allow closure to take place only because they want to save that for another nomination, which is likely to occur this summer.
	But the idea that you had Patrick Leahy say that originalism is out of the mainstream of judicial thought is absurd.
	And if you look at the Supreme Court decision from the last, you know, let's say three decades, there's a lot of originalism in there because at much of that time, a majority of the court were originalists.
	So it's only been this last go-round with the 4-4 that it really hasn't.
	I mean, you could argue about Justice Kennedy, but generally there's an originalist philosophy.
	And I think that if this is what they have against Judge Gorsuch, they've got nothing.
	You have anything, Danielle, or should he be approved?
	I mean, he's got the highest rating from the ABA, which is not exactly a conservative group.
	All of his colleagues say he's a deep thinker.
	He has all the credentials to be a Supreme Court justice.
	Why wouldn't the Democrats at least allow a fair up or down vote?
	I suspect that they will, Sean.
	You know, good afternoon to both of you.
	I agree with Jay.
	I see this as a party line vote, and I suspect that there won't be a forced filibuster because we do have a couple of other jurists, specifically Justice Ginsburg and obviously Justice Anthony Kennedy, who may be coming towards the end of their term.
	And the nomination of Justice, well, Judge Gorsuch would restore the balance that we saw prior to Scalia.
	To the point about originalism, you know, Jay, your point is well taken, and I think this sort of 30-year period is pretty fair to say at the point at which originalism has really risen into the jurisprudence of not only the Supreme Court and what we're hearing from judges there, but throughout our judiciary.
	Ed Meese, who is obviously a longtime faithful man who worked alongside Reagan in the White House and obviously in California, first started talking about that in about 1985.
	And I wouldn't consider it to be outside the mainstream.
	I think that Democrats try and talk about originalism that that way to their peril because it's real.
	People believe in it.
	I think we should have informed discussions about the idea of a living constitution against originalism.
	But to call it out of the mainstream, it's really not.
	And I think that's a political mistake.
	It's a political mistake, but now things have gotten very personal.
	Now that Harry Reid has changed the nuclear option role on judges and other appointees, then you've got to imagine that what's good for the Democrats is now going to be good for the Republicans.
	And if push comes to shove, they would use that nuclear option that Harry Reid opened and they would go forward.
	I think that's right.
	And the fact is, Sean, Judge Gorsuch in about two to three weeks is going to be Justice Gorsuch.
	It may be through a nuclear option.
	It may not have to be through a nuclear option.
	We'll find out.
	But this judge is going to be confirmed unless there's something that nobody knows.
	And we've done an exhaustive 100-page analysis of every decision of significance that he's rendered.
	They are within the judicial mainstream.
	I've had the privilege of having a case before Judge Gorsuch at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit where he sat.
	So, look, I think that this is an eminently well-qualified individual.
	I think that these are really statements that were made today are really aimed at the Merrick Gartland situation.
	It's not aimed at Judge Gorsuch.
	He's the nominee.
	You're right.
	It was the Biden rule that said in the last year of the presidency, you don't confirm someone to the United States Supreme Court.
	And they're the ones that also changed the filibuster rule.
	So the precedent is against them without any question here.
	And I think they're going to pay for that.
	If they do try to filibuster, they're going to lose.
	At the end of the day, he'll be confirmed.
	All right, let's move on, both of you.
	Let's go to the Comey Testify testifying from earlier today.
	Let's play a little bit of Trey Gowdy because I thought he was probably the most effective Republican.
	I was not actually, and this is holding Republicans accountable.
	I was not that impressed with the preparation of some of these Republicans, Jay.
	And you know what?
	It's like, what do these guys do for a living?
	They weren't prepared for the health care bill after eight years of arguing.
	And they had all this lead up.
	And knowing that the FBI director's coming, I have at least 15 questions I would like to ask that haven't been asked yet.
	Anyway, let's play Trey Gowdy.
	Do you know whether Director Clapper knew the name of the U.S. citizen that appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post?
	I can't say in this forum because, again, I don't want to confirm that there was classified information in the news.
	Would he have access to an unmasked name?
	In some circumstances, sure, he was the director of national intelligence, but I'm not talking about the particular.
	Would Director Brennan have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	In some circumstances, yes.
	Would National Security Advisor Susan Rice have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	I think any, yes, in general, and any other National Security Advisor would, I think, as a matter of their ordinary course of their business.
	Would former White House Advisor Ben Rhodes have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	I don't know the answer to that.
	Would former Attorney General Loretta Lynch have access to an unmasked U.S. citizen's name?
	In general, yes, as would any Attorney General.
	So that would also include acting A.G. Sally Yates?
	Same answer.
	I do understand that you cannot ordinarily confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, but you did it this morning citing DOJ policy given the gravity of the fact pattern.
	Would you not agree that surveillance programs that are critical, indispensable, vital to our national security, some of which are up for reauthorization this fall that save American lives and prevent terrorist attacks also rises to the level of important?
	I think those programs are vital and leaks of information collected pursuant to court order under those programs are terrible and as I said my opening statement should be taken very very seriously.
	What I don't ever want to do is compound what bad people have done and confirm something that's in the newspaper.
	Because sometimes newspaper gets it right.
	There's a whole lot of wrong information about allegedly about classified activities that's in the newspaper.
	We don't call them and correct them either.
	That's another big challenge.
	But we just don't go anywhere near it because we don't want to help and compound the offense that was committed.
	I understand that, Director Comey, and I'm trying really hard not to get you to discuss the facts at bar.
	But some of the words that appeared in this public reporting include the word transcript, which has a very unique use in the matters that you and I are discussing this morning.
	That is a very unique use of that word.
	Wiretap has a very specific meaning.
	The name of a U.S. citizen that was supposed to statutorily be protected is no longer protected.
	So some of this reporting, let's assume 90% of it is inaccurate.
	That other 10% is still really, really important.
	And to the extent that you can rely on the dates in either the Washington Post or the New York Times, we are talking about February of this year is when the reporting first took place.
	So we are, we're a month and a half and two months into something.
	I'm running out of time here.
	You get the point, Jay.
	Really quick response, and we'll pick it up on the other side.
	Yeah, first, and this is the clearest one, is that the FBI director won't acknowledge that there's actually an investigation of the leaked information, which I thought was the whole purpose of this.
	That he doesn't acknowledge, but he does say that there's an investigation of Donald Trump associates in Russia.
	But doesn't say that there's an investigation of the leaked information because he doesn't want to acknowledge that that information may well have been secret or classified?
	This is absurd, Sean, and the American people need to be alarmed.
	Right, left, or center.
	This is outrageous.
	Real quick, do you agree with that, Danielle McLaughlin?
	I think the focus of these hearings has to be on Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
	Today we have confirmation that the FBI is investigating.
	That's the biggest takeaway for the American people.
	Okay, but why didn't he do it?
	If he would confirm one investigation, why not another?
	Well, as we all know, it's the DOJ and the FBI practice not to confirm.
	Okay, but that's my point.
	You can't say you have one and then say I can't tell you about the other.
	Well, he did this with Hillary Clinton 11 days before the Yellowstone.
	All right, I got to take a break.
	As we continue, of course, three big top stories that we are covering on the program today, not the least of which is James Comey's testifying on Capitol Hill, and then, of course, the Gorsuch confirmation hearings have begun, and we're hitting that today.
	And the health care bill is moving forward.
	800-941 Sean, Jay Seculo.
	Let's go back to what is why wouldn't the FBI director mention another ongoing investigation?
	You know, and by the way, if it's so bad that foreign countries are influencing our elections, well, why didn't anybody care about Obama openly trying to influence the election of Israel?
	Well, because it didn't serve the narrative.
	But you've got to look at two things here.
	Number one is the interesting comment, the opening comment by the chairman, Nunez, who says, while there's no evidence of wiretaps, this does not mean that there was no other surveillance going on.
	Then you have the admission by the FBI director that, in fact, there is an ongoing criminal investigation of Trump associates in Russia, which means there's obviously some surveillance that's been going on.
	Then you have the statement that he's not going to talk about whether there's an investigation of leak information because he doesn't even want to acknowledge that whether that's classified or not.
	He follows that up.
	And by the way, this is, to me, all of this is absurd in the analysis.
	And he paints a narrative.
	And the fourth takeaway here is, and I think everybody needs to know this one too, is there's not any evidence that one vote was impacted by this alleged Russian engagement.
	And I am no fan of Russia, as you know, but there was no evidence that anything in the election was impacted by this Russian engagement.
	And then when he was final, I'll close with this.
	Then he was asked about the Hillary Clinton matter and favoritism.
	He said, well, everybody knew that the Russians hated Clinton and they wanted Trump to win.
	This is from the director of the FBI.
	Sean, this is beyond the pale of acceptability.
	You think he needs to go?
	He does.
	I agree.
	It's hard to make him go.
	That's the problem.
	Well, why is it so hard?
	Because you'd have to, they'd serve at a 10-year term, I know, but.
	And it's got to be, and it's got to almost be like a high crime and misdemeanor.
	And that's the problem here.
	But James Comey has engaged himself in partisan politics going back to the election and continues to do it even today.
	I agree with that too.
	Danielle McLaughlin.
	You know, I'm a believer in process and institutions.
	And just like when many of my friends who are liberals, who are Democrats, were up in arms when James Tomey supplemented his testimony and opened a huge can of worms 11 days before the election.
	You know, I think he did what he felt was right.
	Generally speaking, he's not going to talk about whether an investigation even exists or not.
	But what we did get from these hearings are some really important things that the American people need to really absorb.
	Number one, there is an ongoing investigation into Trump Associates campaign programs.
	All right, Danielle, let me ask you one question.
	Can you name one specific bit of evidence that proves that the Russians and the Trump campaign colluded in the election?
	I don't know whether that exists or not, and that is James Comey's job.
	But then why if he doesn't have any proof?
	Why is he saying, well, we've been investigating it since July, and here it is, what, eight months later, and we have nothing?
	And he goes out and says we're investigating still?
	Look, these things can take years, as we well know.
	So he's not going to come out and give classified information to come out of any kind of happened.
	James Comey went out there and made a political statement.
	That's what this was all about, Sean.
	At the end of the day, this was all about politics.
	Whether it was the Clinton statement that he made, which was not very professional, or whether it's the fact I'm going to talk about this investigation but not talk about that investigation, this is ridiculous.
	And he did acknowledge no votes were impacted here.
	So a lot of this is much ado about nothing.
	Again, if the Russians were engaged, go investigate it.
	Great.
	It did impact the election.
	But I will tell you this.
	Not acknowledging that you're criminally investigating the leak of information in and of itself is inexcusable.
	All right, I agree.
	That's a double standard that is, I don't see how he can get over.
	All right.
	Thank you both for being with us.
	When we come back, wide open telephones, 800-941, Sean, you want to be a part of the program on this busy news day?
	We will continue.
	All right, holding them accountable.
	Everybody doesn't matter who it is.
	They make promises.
	They got to keep them.
	That is where we do our best work.
	They made promises.
	Now keep them.
	800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
	What an insane day this has been today.
	You have the Neil Gorsuch hearings, the confirmation hearings that have begun today.
	We got now movement on the health care bill.
	Maybe a vote as early as Thursday on this bill.
	So we're watching that very closely and whatever concessions are made to conservatives and whether or not they get enough on board to make this a viable bill.
	Looks like it's going to go down to the last minute here.
	And then, of course, James Comey, ridiculous testimony before the House Intelligence Committee today.
	And, you know, it's just pretty mind-numbing to me on so many of these.
	You know, the selective moral outrage of the left is so on display.
	What outrage.
	Russia tried to influence the election, but they didn't do it.
	They didn't succeed.
	Clapper said it.
	Admiral Rogers said it.
	Comey said it.
	That's not the headline that is on the news all day today.
	But if they really cared about foreign governments influencing elections, nobody seemed to care that Obama did it to our close friend and ally, Israel, not his close friend and ally, Israel.
	America's close friend and ally, Israel.
	And he used taxpayer money to do it.
	You know, also, did any one Democrat complain about the flexibility?
	Tell Vladimir.
	Tell Vladimir I'll have a lot more flexibility after the election.
	And we'll do things that I could never tell the American people.
	Okay?
	So we'll have a special deal.
	Just tell Vladimir to stand down.
	As if the Russians haven't tried to influence our elections before.
	Well, everyone is saying, yeah, they have.
	And Comey said today, and they will in the future.
	Question is, what are we doing to stop it?
	The fact that he would acknowledge that that investigation is going on, but not the investigation into who's leaking our intelligence.
	And why is this all of a sudden happening only since Donald Trump became the president of the United States?
	You know, so now you have Clapper, Admiral Rogers, and James Comey all saying had no impact on the election results whatsoever, naming the specific states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida.
	Any impact?
	None.
	Zero evidence of collusion.
	Not one thing.
	The only thing that we have been telling you for two weeks that there's an ongoing investigation.
	Where's the investigation into the leakers and why wouldn't Comey admit that was happening?
	It makes absolutely no sense.
	This is what you have here is a double standard.
	Either he's going to comment on ongoing investigations or he's not going to comment on ongoing investigations.
	Because the one into the leaks and to intelligence is probably more dangerous at the end of the day than anything else.
	So this started in July.
	It's eight months later.
	What do we have?
	No evidence, innuendo, eight months of conspiracy.
	And Comey seems incapable of finishing any investigation.
	Is he done with the Hillary Clinton server, Foundation, hard ties to Russia, which were extensive and lined the pockets of the Clintons personally and the Clinton Foundation?
	I don't know that Trump got anything out of them.
	Anyway, 800-941-Sean is a toll-free telephone number.
	You want to be a part of the program.
	Dorley is in San Angelo, Texas.
	Dorley, how are you?
	On the show, and she's getting along with them, you know.
	But then it's just like, oh, man.
	What's up, Dorley?
	It's so funny.
	Her is Jeff Sessions.
	You've got to look it up.
	Hey, Dorley.
	Anyway, but we had a Larry Fay laughing yet.
	Dorley, it's Sean.
	Dorley?
	I knew.
	I knew.
	I'm like, hello.
	I noticed it is.
	Sure enough, she didn't.
	Hey, Dorley.
	Dorley.
	I'm here.
	Yes, sir.
	Welcome to the show.
	You've been on for three minutes.
	Hello, sir.
	Yeah, who are you talking to, by the way?
	Who are you?
	I'm talking to my assistant, Lauren.
	Oh, man.
	Well, she was getting an ear full today.
	All right.
	What's on your mind, Dorley?
	Okay, thank you.
	All right.
	What I'm saying is this.
	My concern is that with the allegations of wiretapping, sure, most Americans can see that there's a lot that goes on we don't know about, okay?
	There's a lot of things that go on that we don't know about and that we may not know about for a long time.
	With the allegations and him sitting up there and saying, no, there's no proof of this.
	Well, that's a concern.
	Everything else, the Russian stuff, I think everybody can realize that the Democrats have been very two-faced on that.
	My only concern is that he's at a place of a real place, a fork in the road of how he's going to handle continuing this wiretap allegation, whether it's true or false or not.
	I'm not saying it is, but it is false.
	But how will he continue to maintain himself as a president with this continually backlashing against him, especially from the intelligence community?
	Well, I mean, eventually this comes to an end.
	Eventually, we get this resolved.
	Eventually, they're either going to indict somebody or they're not.
	But what our reporters are telling us, investigative reporters that I think have the best sources of anybody, which is why I keep putting them on, is Sarah Carter and John Solomon.
	And they're saying that this is going to, they're saying their sources tell them, yes.
	Listen, for two weeks I've been telling you on this program, yes, there were two warrants issued.
	Yes, there's been an investigation.
	No, they haven't found a single thing.
	And so, you know, eight months later, I assume if they found it, they would have told us about it.
	All right, Dorley, go back to yelling at your assistant.
	Now, Linda, have I ever yelled at anybody that way?
	And let me tell you this.
	And let me, you know, what?
	Are you asking me to respond to this?
	Yes, ma'am.
	Have you ever yelled at anyone?
	Well.
	Never.
	Absolutely not.
	Maybe once or twice.
	I'm not a yeller, though.
	You have to admit.
	No, only if my computer breaks.
	Pretty much.
	That's the basic.
	I've seen you in some heated monologues.
	You're yelling.
	In fact, I do my best to tick you off just to give you the chance at a better monologue where you're angry.
	Oh, boy.
	I don't think people.
	No, I think people want answers and people want facts.
	And by the way, with passion, passion is not anger.
	I'm not an angry person.
	I didn't say you were an angry person.
	Just because you have a moment of anger doesn't mean you're an angry person.
	Well, I mean, you could listen, pot, kettle, black.
	I'm talking about me right now.
	I'm not talking about you.
	And when you get mad, God help everybody.
	The tornado in that room.
	The tornado in that room is like a category, whatever.
	I'm not shy about my temper.
	I'm fully aware.
	All right.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Let's go to David in Cincinnati55KRC.
	What's up, David?
	How are you, sir?
	You're a great American, David.
	I want a full report.
	You're a great American, Sean.
	What's going on?
	I'm a big fan, and you're calling it exactly right on this wiretapping and Russian.
	It's just mud.
	They're slinging against the wall.
	You know, they were saying he had a wiretap in December, and nobody seemed to care then.
	So why should we care now?
	Look, I'm just saying, everything we have said here has now been proven in this hearing today.
	The only thing I don't like about it is the length of time the media has, as usual, the only focus on the negative that they want about Donald Trump.
	Yes, there's investigation.
	We've been saying it for two weeks.
	You know, they're out to paint him in the worst possible light, and they keep going back to the same dog and pony show that they've run out every other time.
	So I don't think the American people care at this point.
	I think we just want something to happen.
	I agree.
	Listen with this, Gorset.
	When they confirmed him the last time, did anybody even vote against him?
	Nope.
	It was a voice vote, not a single opposition.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, more just trying to throw mud and see what sticks in hopes that they can get, you know, somebody riled up about something to go out and have another lion in New York or Baltimore or Ferguson, Missouri, or wherever.
	Well, you know, the sad part is, is Clapper, Comey, Admiral Rogers now have all said that there was no impact on votes in this election.
	And that, yeah, and they confirmed that as in past elections, yeah, the Russians tried to influence the it is the belief of Comey that they preferred Trump over Hillary.
	Well, maybe they saw Hillary as pathetically weak and incompetent and having no clue how to manage on a world stage.
	There could be valid reasons for it.
	Okay, so what?
	You know, Sean, the legacy that Obama is going to leave us with, and that's the only thing that's going to last Obama's, is division politics.
	And not only has he put it in place at the national level, it's at the local level.
	You see it everywhere now.
	Yeah, I agree.
	Listen, it's a very divided country right now.
	And our job is to try and cut through all of this clutter and get you facts, news, information, and frankly, answers that are going to help get the country back on the right path.
	Because we've got to stop the precipitous decline.
	The last thing they want on the left is for the president to be successful.
	And the forgotten men and women in this last election cycle, I guarantee you that they don't care less about this stuff because all they want are their jobs.
	Let's get health care done.
	Let's move on to the economy.
	And all of this can go on.
	And it's just going to be noise so left-wingers can, you know, it's clickbait and it's ratings, conspiracy, hype numbers.
	That's basically what you can say about it.
	All right, back to our phones.
	Mike in Springfield in Illinois.
	Mike, how are you?
	Glad you called.
	You're on the Sean Hannity show.
	Hey, Sean.
	Great to be on the show.
	Longtime listener.
	Yes, sir.
	Hey, I just wanted to bring up a point that nobody is bringing the FCC in on the whole conspiracy of fake news and everything like that.
	They should have investigators looking into this.
	You know, what are we going to do with that?
	We have freedom of speech and we have a free press, and I guess that also with that freedom comes responsibility.
	They've chosen not to be responsible.
	And what we've got now is, I guess, we've got a press that is agenda driven, that poses as fair, balanced, and objective.
	They're lazy, and they really don't seem to have any interest in getting to the truth.
	And as I've been saying, you've got a bunch of lazy, ideological, overpaid, liberal hacks that have a lot of jobs, and they own most of the media.
	And with the exception of talk radio and blogs and the internet and Fox News, that's it.
	They own everything else.
	And they just won't admit they're ideological.
	Yeah, I mean, I understand that and everything.
	But, I mean, with the new administration, you think they would be able to revamp the whole system?
	I mean, what are you going to do?
	You're going to say that, all right, if they lie, that they're going to lose their license?
	I mean, you know, who determines what's the truth and what's a lie in their case?
	Find them, hire people from each state within the union?
	Let me give you an example.
	You know how they're all saying today the headline is, oh, no info supporting Trump's tweet on the wiretap claim.
	Okay.
	Is anyone going to call out the New York Times for reporting on wiretapping?
	Is anybody going to call out McClatchy?
	Is anybody going to call out the BBC?
	Is anybody going to call out CNN?
	No.
	It's as bad as it's ever been, but it's kind of what I've been saying for a long time, maybe because I'm so close to it, is that journalism is dead.
	These people, the good news for all of us that are conservative, even if you follow the news, maybe not as closely as I do, because that's my job, because my job is to make sure you get the information you need every day and present it in a fun, entertaining way if I can.
	But I've seen this clear as day.
	It's so obvious, and I've been a victim of it even in my life.
	Now I think people are hip to how bad they are.
	People get it, they see it, they identify it, snap their fingers.
	All right, that's biased, that's fake news, that's not true.
	And so I don't think they're going to get as far as they want to get with this, but we'll see over time.
	All right, Mike, good call.
	Appreciate it.
	800-941-Sean is our number.
	You want to be a part of the program.
	Ben in Colorado.
	Ben, we have a minute.
	What's up, sir?
	Hey, Sean, I know you're frustrated, but I think we can win this if you listen to me.
	We conservatives are the majority.
	We've always been the majority, and we always will be.
	40% of this country doesn't even vote, and they're not fed up liberals.
	But since the left controls the media and the colleges and the schools, they've convinced us that we're split down the middle.
	It's a lie, Sean.
	We outnumber them like two to one.
	They're the minority.
	We're the majority.
	And second, since we're the majority, if we would switch from preaching conservatism to proving conservatism, we can win this deal.
	We're not going to convert any more unbelievers by arguing our case.
	We don't need to.
	We're the majority.
	We've got to convince establishment Republicans that this country is not split 50-50.
	The conservatives are the majority, and this may be our one chance to prove it.
	We've got two or three generations that have never even experienced true conservatism, and we're going to have to prove to them that it works.
	And we've got the majority to do it.
	And you're the man.
	If you will preach this for a while, people will figure out if it's not 50-50.
	Ben, there's only one way to stop America's precipitous decline.
	And I'm not saying this in a mean way.
	People may take it that way.
	It's to defeat liberalism.
	There are too many.
	What frustrates me right now, when I hold these Republicans accountable, they seem ill-prepared for this moment.
	The president seems prepared so far.
	He's checking off his list of promises.
	That to me, we're going to actually make on my website all the promises Trump made in a campaign.
	We're going to put checks next to all the ones he keeps, and we're going to hold him accountable.
	And we're going to hold Congress accountable too, and then we'll put their checklist up there.
	But at the end of the day, if they would have been more prepared, everything could be that much easier.
	We could have passed healthcare and moved on already by this point.
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