President Trump has taken a lot of heat from the liberal media who, among many issues, have accused the President of not taking a clear stance on the tragedies in Syria. Ironically, many argue it was the failed policies of the Obama Administration that caused so many challenges in Syria. Yesterday evening, President Trump and the United States responded. Just days after chemical weapons were used on their own people, the United States launched 59 Tomahawk missiles onto Syrian military installations. Could it be that this is the decisive action we expect to see from our leaders? The Sean Hannity Show is live weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Tuesday, Syrian dictator Brashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.
Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children.
It was a slow and brutal death for so many.
Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.
No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.
It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically.
As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen, and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies.
Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types.
We ask for God's wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world.
We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed.
And we hope that as long as America stands for justice, then peace and harmony will, in the end, prevail.
Good night, and God bless America and the entire world.
Thank you.
All right, glad you're with us.
Happy Friday.
That was the president making a statement last night after, in fact, 59, some 59 Tomahawk missiles were fired at the very launch pad of where these chemical weapons were used by Syria against men, women, and children earlier this week.
You can hear a very affected, very different President Trump there, just like we heard when he was meeting with the king of Jordan Abdullah earlier this week, and that issue came up and the issue of a red line came up over and over again.
You know, I've got to say, it's a pretty powerful statement here.
No child of God should suffer such horror.
And the president said that.
And I'm following the comments and the commentary, and everybody said, well, the president tweeted out that Obama shouldn't do it.
Why is he doing it?
Okay, that's a fair thing, but that's a fair criticism.
He changed his mind after seeing dead children that had been gassed.
But if we're going to be fair and talk about changing minds and listening to things that are said to us by politicians, why don't we start the program?
And I want you to think about this in the context, especially of the Iranian nuclear deal, which allows the Iranians to continue to spin their centrifuges 25 days before we give them inspections and they get heads up on it.
We don't even get to have American inspectors, nor do we get to inspect everything we want to inspect and the billions of taxpayer dollars that he forked over to this radical Islamic regime that has declared over and over again that they want to destroy America, destroy Israel, and they want a worldwide caliphate.
That has been their goal from the beginning.
How right is Obama in his assurances that, well, the Iranians now, they're limited in getting nuclear weapons.
Well, if we're going to talk about Donald Trump changed his mind on the issue of whether or not there should be retaliation in the case of the use of chemical weapons against men, women, and children, you know, I'm having a hard time understanding the opposition to this.
He did everything that Trump said he would do in terms of he didn't telegraph the move.
There's no desire clearly to occupy, but it's a message.
Stop using chemical weapons against innocent men, women, and children.
That there is a line that the world cannot tolerate, which is a, it's bad enough this ridiculous civil war has gone on for seven years with no resolution at all, being fomented, by the way, by Putin.
Oh, for all the talk of the conspiracy, Trump and the Russians, he went dead set against Vladimir Putin last night and what the Russians wanted, because they have been propping up the Assad regime this entire time for their own political benefit.
But if we're going to take the words of politicians, which this is all that CNN and NBC is fixated on, I flipped, I can't believe this is it.
Okay, let's listen to both, let's listen to President Obama, and then we'll listen to John Kerry, and then we'll listen to Susan Rice, and we'll listen to their words assuring you, the American people, that Obama's lying in the sand got Syria and Assad to give up their chemical weapons, which clearly isn't true because he used them again this week.
Listen.
I think it was important for me as President of the United States to send a message that, in fact, there is something different about chemical weapons.
And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons.
And the reason he got rid of them is 90% or 95% of those chemical stockpiles were eliminated.
That's a lot of chemical weapons that are not right now in the hands of ISIL or NARA or for that matter, the regime.
The president made his decision to strike.
He announced his decision to strike publicly.
And the purpose of the strike was to get the chemical weapons out of Syria.
That's the purpose.
We achieved a deal with the Russians that didn't wind up in two days of strikes that would have sent a, quote, message, but would not have removed the weapons.
We struck a deal to get all of the declared weapons out of Syria.
Never before in a conflict has that ever happened.
That during a conflict, weapons of mass destruction are taken out of the zone of conflict.
And thank God we did that, because if we hadn't done that today, ISIL would have those chemical weapons in large parts of the country.
Because in the meantime, we were able to find a solution that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished.
Oh, the use of force.
They just, they're wrong.
Now, let's assume they're as wrong about Iranian and the Iranian deal as they are about what happened in Syria.
Now, I understand the argument that Rand Paul, I like Ram Paul.
Ram Paul is a constitutionalist.
And if there's going to be further escalation, you know, I understand the War Paris Act, but, you know, using military force is not a declaration of war.
I think the hope of the president is this message gets sent, gets sent loud and clear.
I think the first thing that you've got to recognize what happened last night is the president sent a message to the entire world.
And Pyongyang and North Korea and certainly the Iranians and certainly the Russians, you know, outside of them and the Syrians, meaning Assad, you know, who is really upset about what happened last night?
Is the world going to sit back and watch a modern-day Holocaust where children are gassed before our eyes with the images being shown to the world?
And I guess we're just going to sit back and not let and just let that continue to happen and not try to stop it.
I don't want America to be the world's policeman either.
I don't think we have an ability as a country anymore to fight wars because they always become politicized.
But we certainly have the military technology and the ability and the strength and hopefully the moral commitment that if we see dead kids from chemical weapons, maybe we have to do a little something to stop it, especially considering we were promised, oh, there's no such thing as chemical weapons inside of Syria.
That, of course, by Obama and Rice and Kerry, they lied.
Now, let's assume they're just as wrong on Iran.
Oh, great.
Now we've got A squared, B squared equals C squared, because you've got radical Islamic terrorists that believe in a worldwide caliphate now having nuclear weapons in their arsenal and a promise, a pledge, and a commitment to destroy Israel in the United States.
That's not going to work.
And by the way, you know, with all the talk about Russia, you know, the biggest question coming out of last night's missile attack was, well, why did Russian forces on the ground fail to deploy this state-of-the-art missile defense system that they had at that base, at that very airbase?
They could have at least tried to blunt the attack.
And I suspect when Trump, you know, we had an agreement where a military-to-military agreement that if we're about to hit something, we give them a heads up so their soldiers don't die.
We were committed by treaty and agreement to do that last night.
People say, wow, they gave him a heads up.
No, that's not what happened.
But I think when Trump, when our military talked to their military and Putin got that heads up that a launch was imminent, that the attack was taking place, wasn't aimed at Russian personnel, wasn't aimed at Russian assets on the ground.
Well, Putin didn't want a confrontation in spite of all the rhetoric coming out of Russia today.
And I think for obvious reasons.
Now, you know, Kim Jong-un congratulates Assad just hours before Trump's missile strike.
I wonder if he's congratulating him now.
He sent a letter of congratulations to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on the 70th anniversary of the country's ruling BAF Party, according to Pyongyang's news agency.
Well, that was sent just hours before President Trump ordered the airstrikes.
You know, the world sees a different America here.
This is not America leading from behind.
This is not America seeking the UN approval.
This is America acting.
This is America taking a moral stand.
Nobody wants a long-term conflict.
Why?
Because it'll be politicized anyway, and we don't have the stature or the stamina.
Not stature.
We don't have the stamina, you know, the stomach in Washington to see through any military conflict of victory.
Prime Minister Netanyahu praised Trump, backed Trump on the strike, as he always is a loyal and fierce ally of the United States.
I don't think it's by accident that the president recently met, and very, very little attention was paid to his meetings with the king of Jordan Abdullah and the president and General El-Sisi of Egypt and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and, of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu.
And I've been saying that maybe the one good thing that ever came out of the Obama years in this ridiculous Iranian deal was the fact that a new alliance was created.
Sunni Arab nations now aligning with the Israelis and partnering to stand up against possible Iranian hegemony in the region, which of course is their goal.
And, you know, Vladimir Putin wants his stooge, Assad, to stay alive.
He probably needs to get him out of Damascus and get him, as my buddy Ollie North wrote me last night, make him Eddie Snowden's roommate in Moscow.
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Take a lot of calls today.
In the next half hour, we'll get to some phone calls too.
Some of the other news, there are ongoing negotiations as it relates to health care.
If we get any developments on that, we'll let you know.
I got to give praise where praise is due.
I have been very critical of Republicans in Washington.
I'm still pissed off that they're going away on a two-week vacation, although that might change.
And they still haven't got a health care bill done after eight years, which annoys the living daylights out of me.
But they did in the Senate, and I've been critical of Mitch McConnell at times, but he did hold strong as it relates to not giving a vote on Merrick Garland, the number two.
You know, today's Senate confirmation vote, Neil Gorsuch, the final vote was 54-45.
It wouldn't have happened had Mitch McConnell not invoked the constitutional option.
Now, he had no other choice.
There was no choice, but he could have caved, I guess.
But the rules don't apply equally, and there's no reciprocity from Democrats.
So he really didn't have a choice.
Anyway, the Republican Senate votes gave every Obama Supreme Court nominee the up or down vote.
Everyone, every time.
Sonia Satomayor, 68-31.
Elena Kagan, 63-37.
Gorsuch, 54-45.
But for the first time in a couple of hundred years, for partisan reasons, they filibustered Neil Gorsuch.
Neil Gorsuch will be on the court as of Monday.
So I got to give credit where it is due.
I did take a little shot on Twitter today against the Never Trumper people because, you know, they were so adamant that Donald Trump is a liberal.
Well, I don't think the wall is liberal.
I don't think his economic plan is liberal.
I don't think vetting refugees is liberal.
I don't think Neil Gorsuch is a liberal based on his background and his history.
And the Washington Post even said in an article they put out that they think his track record shows he's more conservative than Scalia.
I can only hope and pray.
Sometimes you don't know.
David Souter was probably the biggest disappointment in our lifetime.
And probably, you know, my favorite justice on the Supreme Court now is Clarence Thomas by far.
And I hope that Neil Gorsuch gets into that category.
And Clarence Thomas and Justice Kalia, I mean, what they did for this country is just an enormous service that is immeasurable in terms of the damage that otherwise would have been done by people that don't have the originalist philosophy that actually believe in separation of powers and co-equal branches of government and not citing foreign constitutions and legislating from the bench or, you know, coming up with crazy ideas to justify insane decisions.
All right, we'll continue your calls on the other side.
Holding them accountable.
Sean gets the answers no one else does.
America deserves to know the truth about Congress.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941 Sean.
I'm going to get to some calls here, maybe break a little format.
And we have so much on the plate.
Neil Gorsuch confirmed.
We've got health care still being negotiated, debated.
I hope they come back from the two-week recess.
That's my personal hope.
We had a terror attack, if you missed it, in literally in Sweden again.
Five dead.
We'll update you in the course of the program later today.
And then of the latest, obviously, on Susan Rice.
You know, we have a show going on there.
I see you've got your friends in there.
Hello.
Hi.
And can you at least introduce?
Oh, these are the friends you told me about, right?
Yeah, but Julie and Ed.
Hold on one second, Sean, because I just need to chat with them for a second.
So give me one second.
Okay, you chat for a second, and I'll just do the radio show without a producer.
You go right ahead.
Thank you, Sean.
You're very welcome.
You know, I want you to think of one thing.
And I don't want America.
What did I say after Iraq?
I was a big supporter of the Iraq conflict-Iraq war.
You know, you look at Vietnam, 58,000 Americans, our treasure, our national treasure, our sons, our daughters, fight, bleed, and die.
And then the war gets politicized in Washington, and we don't finish the job.
One of the worst things Obama ever did was pull these troops out of Iraq without finishing the job, which created the vacuum for ISIS.
And that was his doing.
And then, of course, the rules of engagement and so on and so forth.
That's why I got so angry at these tweets that were going out today.
Well, Hannity tweeted back in 2013.
And I'm like, yeah, okay, Hannity did tweet in 2013 something about, yeah, something about it says, glad our arrogant president is enjoying his taxpayer-funded golf outing after announcing the U.S. should take military action in Syria.
And I'm like, okay, that's beyond dumb that they're interpreting that as being that I'm taking a different position today because I'm not.
Their purpose, they're playing Ted Koppel, distorting my tweet.
There's this article.
The point was I was making he's arrogant, he's lazy, and his threats are meaningless.
And Donald Trump, who really does not want much military conflict, sees dead women and children because of chemical weapons and he decides to do something about it.
You know how deadly sarin gas is?
You know, you know, the gas, the chemical, and what it does to people.
They have 500 metric tons of these things.
Anyway, Americans asking the question, and my friend Dr. Mark Siegel, sarin gas is colorless, it's odorless, and it kills people in minutes, and it disperses in minutes, meaning it can be blown away in the wind.
It works, you know, similar to the way pesticides do by blocking the breakdown of certain neurotransmitters, leading to a rapid buildup of the chemical in the body.
And sarin is much more potent than any, you know, insecticide that you might use.
And it's found in, you know, 500 times more powerful than cyanide.
It is a painful, horrific, evil way to die.
It is potent, and it was used again by Syrian president Bashad al-Assad.
So at some point, you've got to say this is evil in our time.
Here's the question I have for some of you.
I know it's not World War II.
I know it's not the equivalent of six million Jews slaughtered and so many millions of others slaughtered.
My father fought four years in the Pacific, and I know we face evil in our time, and radical Islam is certainly at the top of that list.
But do you really believe outside of, say, the Russians and the Iranians and the North Koreans, Pyongyang, and the Syrian government under Assad?
Do you really think the world should just sit back and watch kids get gassed and not try to do something about it?
I'm not talking about being a police state.
I'm not talking about being the world's policeman.
But I am talking about learning lessons here.
I am talking about, you know, what is simple right and wrong.
You know, we look at some of the evil and horror throughout history.
And that's what inspired me to write the book Deliver Us From Evil.
You know, but you look at some of the evil.
You look at, I wrote great detail about this in my book, Deliver Us from Evil, that there were, you know, imagine being a Nazi soldier at a death camp.
Pick anyone that you want to pick.
It does Auschwitz, whatever.
And your job every day is to get people off of trains, trains, keep them calm, steal the gold out of their teeth, and take their clothes, tell them to take a shower and gas them and kill your fellow human beings.
That's evil.
You know, seeing dead children gassed is pure evil in our time.
And, you know, for all these conspiracy theories about Russia, well, the number one ally supporter that has propped up the Assad regime is Vladimir Putin's Russia.
You know, and, you know, you've got to understand a Moscow Iranian Damascus, you know, you've got this trio of terror is now on the verge, hopefully, of being unraveled.
You know, that alliance, the one thing that Obama did, not intentionally, of course, is by his embracing the Iranians and not having the courage to call out radical Islam, it created a scenario that was not possible nine years ago.
And that is an alliance that's been created with Israel, an alliance that has been created with Israel and the Saudis and the Egyptians and the Jordanians.
In other words, that alliance now, and you could see it in this past week, as the president met with the president of and the general of Egypt, President El-Sisi, and King Abdullah of Jordan.
And prior to that, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
I'm not a fan of the Saudis.
Well, I'm not a fan of any of these countries.
The bravest person in the Middle East, by the way, is General El-Sisi.
And his words against radical Islam echo through the entire world, having courage that Obama never showed.
By the way, we have special guests in studio today, and Linda's going to introduce them to you.
And I want to, Julie is, it's Julie, right?
Yeah, my friend Julie's here, and her dad Ed is here, and we're all hanging out in the studio.
That's why I can't look at you because I got to look at them.
Okay.
And by the way, I want to say that their mom and wife, Julie's mom and Ed's wife, Donna Hall Linville, passed away just recently.
It's almost the same date as my father died, by the way, after a long and courageous battle with an illness.
And guys, we're very sorry.
And I know you're friends with Linda.
She told me all about it before you guys came in today.
And we want to just dedicate this program to your wife and to your mom today and send our thoughts and prayers to all of you.
And I know how hard it is.
It's like an emotional train wreck.
And I want you to be strong and hang in there.
And it's just the toughest thing in life when you lose a loved one.
Thank you, Sean, for doing that.
I don't care what they say about you.
You're all right in my book.
What do you mean I'm just all right?
Well, you told me about your friends.
You told me they were upset.
They wanted to come see the show.
And I said, absolutely.
They can come every day until they feel better.
Do you guys want to come every day?
Oh, they're laughing.
They listen every day.
They might as well come here and personally.
Personally, come and watch.
I mean, what's the difference?
I look better in person, right?
When I have to do that.
You do so thin, Sean, very thin and spelt.
You know, like you work out on a regular basis.
Well, tell everybody that your mother got mad after you calling me manorexic.
First of all, no, no, no, no, no.
My mother got mad.
God bless us all.
Bless us.
She's a rock.
She like Gibraltar.
But she said, I can't believe you just called you a fatty.
I didn't say you were fat.
I said fatty's in there.
I said, Where am I?
I'm in here.
You're not fat at all.
Well, that's what I'd like to hear.
Actually, nobody in that room is fat.
I mean, I'm just saying it to try and be entertaining.
You're very entertaining.
Oh, after you call me manorexic because I've been.
That's entertaining.
Okay.
But I work out and I take care of myself and I don't eat.
Listen, if I had my way.
You don't eat.
Exactly.
That was the end of the sentence.
You don't eat my baby.
If I had my way, I would eat breakfast.
I would have sausage and bacon and eggs and French toast and pancakes every morning.
When does the cabbage and broccoli medley come into play?
If I had my choice, I would get what I used to get as a kid.
I'd get like these huge roast beef, lettuce, tomato, mayo, heroes, and I'd eat the whole thing myself.
And for dinner.
Do you mean like a normal man?
I would have steak and vegetables and dessert and cookies and candies and I'd eat all of that.
I'd love to, but I can't.
Why can't you?
Because I'll be 500 pounds.
But you work out now.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Something happens to your body as you get older that it doesn't metabolize food like it used to, unfortunately.
So you want to be an old, skinny man, not an old fat man?
No, I want to be in shape because, you know, I do have another job on television.
I don't think I can't go on the air and be 900 pounds, so I'll go on and be 700.
I tell you, you look good to me, brother.
Any weight you are, we love you.
Well, Julie, and with all sincerity, we wish you guys the best.
God bless you guys.
And how you're friends with this woman, I have no idea.
They have great taste.
They have great taste.
I agree.
All right, let's get to our phones here on this Friday, as I promised.
All right, we're going to start with Joseph.
He's out in California, the home of the 13.5% state income tax.
What's going on?
Hi, Sean.
Thanks for taking my call.
You know, real quick, I just wanted to speak to your audience and let you know that my background is that we are Christians from the Middle East.
I have relatives from Iraq, and I have relatives from Syria.
We're a diaspora.
And let me tell you that right now, in my opinion, this is the worst thing we can do to attack the Syrian armed forces because the Syrian soldiers are fighting against the terrorists.
And I'm not getting this from CNN.
I'm not getting this from Fox News with all due respect to Fox News.
I'm getting this from my relatives on the ground.
The Christians are going to be the ones to suffer the most.
We did this in Iraq.
Remember, we took Saddam out of power.
I have relatives that were killed by Saddam.
We ran away from Iraq because of Saddam.
John McCain does not have relatives that were killed by Saddam, with all due respect to McCain, and with all due respect to you, Sean.
And I'm going to tell you.
With all due respect to you, I don't think there's anybody more in the media that has talked about Christian genocide in the entire region than us, talking about the Yazidis and the Christians and what has really become a genocide that the world has ignored.
I've talked about it ad nauseum.
We have Nonrein and Weah on this program often to talk about it, and she's pleading with people for help.
I agree, sir.
I agree.
And I have heard you speak about the genocide.
And I thank you for that.
I really want to thank you for that.
But right now, you know, I'm a little emotional because what I see happening is the same mistakes we committed in Iraq, we're going to commit them in Syria.
But Shah al-Assad is not a good man.
But let me tell you something.
If you compare him to some of our politicians in America, he's the same as some of our politicians over here.
But compared to ISIS, compared to al-Nusra, compared to the alternatives, he's an angel from heaven.
We don't know for sure who did this chemical attack.
This man is a doctor.
Excuse me.
We do know.
Hang on.
We do know who did it.
It was Assad.
Our intelligence agencies.
Listen, I know I've been critical of the leaking, but that's of very few people.
But our intelligence agencies have been very firm in their analysis of where this came from.
They've even been able to trace the exact location and the flight plan of the plane that actually dropped the gas on these people.
So we know where it came from.
You know, look, what's happening here is you've got Moscow, Tehran, Damascus, and you've got, you know, this trio of terror out there that is now close to being unraveled.
The only other person I think we've got to really worry about at this moment is Pyongyang.
And if the president can somehow repair some of the damage in the relationship with China in this way, you know, things can go better.
If Assad goes, his Bala will lose their logistics lifeline from Tehran through Baghdad, up the Euphrates River and the Euphrates River Valley to Lebanon.
I was talking to Colonel North about all of this.
So despite Nikki Haley's eloquence and so on and so forth, that the Russians will do their level best to block any meaningful action in the U.N. Security Council.
But look, if let's say the Ayatollahs threaten to close off the Straits of Hormuz or any of these other areas, they're all going to now get the Trump treatment.
And I have no doubt that the president would have no problem bombing Iranian sites.
And if Putin wants to really challenge America, well, there'll be consequences for him, too.
The world was put on notice.
And I think this new emerging alliance is pretty amazing.
Anyway, 800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number, you want to be a part of the program.
Let's get back to our phones.
Mike is in Sarasota.
Hey, Mike, how are you?
Pretty good, Sean.
Thank you for everything you're doing.
I've got about 40 seconds, sir, but they're all yours.
Go.
I'm a retired military officer from the Air Force, and I've been involved with NBC, Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical for a long time.
I know it is like to suit up.
The question I'm asking is the gentleman who just called.
I don't think he has the understanding that in 1993 we had a chemical weapons convention.
No one is to be stockpiling or making these nerve agents.
Susan Rice even said that there was no longer chemical weapons.
And then Russia even said there wasn't.
This is a very, very serious issue.
It could affect the whole world, including our troops that are presently over in that area.
I don't think people understand how bad chemical weapons, you just don't die right away.
You suffer and suffer and suffer.
I would not want to see the children in our country suffer, including the old people.
Listen, America's, I don't want occupation.
I don't want a protracted war.
I don't want boots on the ground.
But I don't want America to lose all sight of what is moral and right and decent in life.
And dead children killed and tortured and murdered with chemical weapons.
That's a line that I can't, that we cannot as a country ignore.
It's like ignoring a modern-day Holocaust and sitting there, well, I'm happy.
Whatever the hell with everybody else.
America has to have moral clarity.
All right, 800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number, you want to be a part of the program.
Sean Hannity.
Tuesday, Syrian dictator Brashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.
Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children.
It was a slow and brutal death for so many.
Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.
No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.
It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Slad's behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically.
As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen, and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies.
Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrors of all kinds and all types.
We ask for God's wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world.
We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed.
And we hope that as long as America stands for justice, then peace and harmony will, in the end, prevail.
Good night, and God bless America and the entire world.
Thank you.
All right, that was the president last night announcing why he took the action that he did against Syria.
I thought a very powerful statement by the president.
And obviously things have changed and the world is taking notice that among our many top stories today.
We have Neil Gorsuch is now a Supreme Court justice.
Also, the battle over health care and the negotiations continue according to sources I have on the ground.
We'll have an update later in the program on Susan Rice and the unmasking of people.
And now apparently Peter King, the congressman from New York, is saying, well, that's because they were looking at personal information, having nothing to do with national security.
And we'll have more on the terror attack in Sweden that took place earlier today.
Joining us now, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, is with us.
Mr. Speaker, I watched the President decisively take action last night, and I felt that, you know, if the world is not going to respond to weapons of mass destruction, chemical biological agents being used against men, women, and children, and we don't send a message that this is not something the world can accept, and he was willing to go against Russia, the ally of Syria, to do this, if this doesn't show that we have a very different mindset in the White House, I don't know what will.
Well, I think that that's one of the reasons he had to do it.
He was faced with a terrible act, an act which involved, as he put it, beautiful babies and children and women.
He issued a strong condemnation.
The Secretary of State issued a strong condemnation.
But then you got to a point of saying, okay, how's that different from Barack Obama?
And if he had done nothing, by this weekend, all the talk shows would have been that he's as weak as Obama.
And so I think he calmly had General H.R. McMaster and Secretary of Defense Mattis figure out an appropriate combat capability for a direct, immediate, relatively narrow strike.
And as he had said all the way through the campaign, the key is not to announce it.
Let it happen, then describe it.
And I thought it was very telling that they didn't negotiate or ask the Russians for permission.
They told the Russians on a military-to-military basis, we're coming in.
You need to get out of the way.
And the Russians did get out of the way.
So I thought it was as a first step.
It reminded me a great deal in the newsletter I'm writing today at Gingrich Productions is on the parallel between what happened with Ronald Reagan in the Gulf of Sidra, where we shot down two Libyan aircraft and sending a signal that we were back, and what Trump did this week in sending a signal that we're back.
In both cases, you have presidents following weak liberal Democrats who talked a lot but did nothing.
And in both cases, it sent a signal to the world of action, not just talk.
And I think in that sense, that Trump has probably rattled a lot of people.
Well, I think certainly North Korea, China, certainly Iran was watching.
Here's what's fascinating.
I want you to answer this question after I play these cuts for you through the prism of the promises that the president, then President Obama made about this horrible deal with the Iranians that this will prevent them from getting nuclear weapons.
Because I'm going to play back to back here, both Barack Obama and John Kerry saying that President Assad of Syria got rid of chemical weapons because of the red line.
Listen to both of them.
And by the way, Susan Rice even said it, but we'll just play these two.
I think it was important for me as President of the United States to send a message that, in fact, there is something different about chemical weapons.
And regardless of how it ended up playing, I think, in the Beltway, what is true is Assad got rid of his chemical weapons.
And the reason he got rid of them is look, if 90% or 95% of those chemical stockpiles were eliminated.
That's a lot of chemical weapons that are not right now in the hands of ISIL or NASA or, for that matter, the regime.
The president made his decision to strike.
He announced his decision to strike publicly.
And the purpose of the strike was to get the chemical weapons out of Syria.
That's the purpose.
We achieved a deal with the Russians that didn't wind up in two days of strikes that would have sent a, quote, message, but would not have removed the weapons.
We struck a deal to get all of the declared weapons out of Syria.
Never before in a conflict has that ever happened.
That during a conflict, weapons of mass destruction are taken out of the zone of conflict.
And thank God we did that, because if we hadn't done that, today, ISIL would have those chemical weapons in large parts of the country.
Very telling how wrong they were.
Now let's assume that they're wrong on Iran for a minute and the Iranians, mullahs, radical Islamists, get nuclear weapons because of this ridiculous deal using the billions that Obama gave them.
Look, I think that, first of all, one of the things I think that motivated Trump and motivated his team was that both the Syrians and the Russians had lied.
Remember, the Syrians had promised that they'd gotten rid of all the chemical weapons.
The Russians promised that they'd investigated.
In a sense, the Russians put their honor on the line and said, trust us, we're telling you that the Syrians are now free of chemical weapons.
So you had clear evidence that both governments had lied.
You then had this terrible attack killing children and babies and women, and Saringas is a horrible way to die.
And so I think it was in that context that they operated.
There are two parts to this.
One is liberals have a capacity to lie to themselves endlessly about reality, whether it is Chamberlain lying about Adolf Hitler, whether it is the Clinton administration lying about North Korea, this willful self-deception.
And of course, the Iranian dishonesty dwarfs the Syrian dishonesty in terms of John Kerry and Barack Obama just being totally disengaged.
I think they probably lie to themselves.
I think they may even believe the lies because it's so deeply embedded in their psyche.
But what you have now, and I thought it was a fascinating week, you had the president of Egypt come in.
You had the king of Jordan come in, meeting with the president, talking about the Middle East.
You know, both those conversations included Assad, included Syria.
You have the president taking a decisive action.
He takes it and announces it while he is involved with the Chinese prime minister who's there for dinner.
So to whatever degree the Chinese wanted to signal that the U.S. was back and that we were strong and that we were doing things, it could hardly have been more vivid.
And I think you'll notice that around the world there have been very positive reaction.
Saudi Arabia has been positive.
Jordan has been positive.
Turkey has been positive.
Most of the Europeans have been positive.
Egypt has been positive.
So there's a pretty big referendum.
The Iraqis came out today and were positive.
There's been a pretty big referendum saying, you know, if you're not Syria, Russia, or North Korea, or Iran, you probably think this is a pretty good idea.
All right, hang on.
We'll continue more with Speaker Gingrich on the other side of this break here as we continue on this Friday.
And as we continue, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich is with us.
Your reaction to some of the other news that's going on today, Neil Gorsuch, of course, the constitutional option used by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate, I give them a lot of credit for standing up to what was the first partisan filibuster in over 200 years on a Supreme Court justice.
By the way, you know what's really funny?
Schumer closes out, and the Wall Street Journal did a great job with an editorial on this.
He closes out his final speech talking about the bipartisanship of the founding fathers.
Well, Jefferson presides over the Senate for four years as the vice president.
Jefferson writes Jefferson's manual, which is the original rule book of parliamentary procedure.
In Jefferson's era, there was no cloakure.
It was all done by simple majority.
And in fact, Jefferson, we are told, during this period, they didn't keep records, so we don't know for sure.
But we are told that if you talk too long, Jefferson will simply ruled that you weren't being germane and shut you up.
I mean, so when people say, oh, look at the filibuster, I'm writing a piece on this for next Tuesday is my newsletter next Tuesday.
Because it turns out it is Calhoun in defense of slavery who develops the filibuster, not until 1841.
What do you think of getting rid of cloture as it relates to legislative movement in the Senate?
I favor it.
Me too.
I didn't favor it until I started doing this historical research.
The concept of a supermajority to end debate occurs in 1917.
From 1789 to 1917, we did not have the requirement for a supermajority.
In 1917, they formalized the system.
It's lasted exactly 100 years, and frankly, it's made it very hard for the Senate to function.
Now, I know the senators won't like that because they're used to the relative power that it gives individual senators.
But from the country's standpoint, I think it might be good to go back to operating the way it did under Jefferson.
And I said, ironically, you know, it's Schumer who's quoting the Founding Fathers because he doesn't know anything about history.
But the Founding Fathers had a Senate which operated on a simple majority.
But, you know, the great irony in all of that is you got Schumer all over the place, depending on who's in power at any particular moment.
But you know what?
The Democrats don't play by the same rules.
I mean, Republicans, they allow an up or down vote for somebody like Elena Kagan or Sonia Sotomayor or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, knowing they're getting a left-wing radical activist on the court.
That same courtesy is not extended to the Republicans, so I don't think they have any option.
Democrats don't play fair, don't play by the same rules.
So any argument that, well, this is going to come back to haunt you is meaningless.
But it would really alter the legislative side of this if, in fact, they could do health care without worrying about reconciliation or needing cloture, right?
Well, that's exactly right.
And by the way, an easy way to think of it is this.
Republicans look for principles to explain rules.
The Democrats look for power to explain rules.
So Democrats change rules to fit the needs of power.
The Republicans get trapped into arcane arguments about principle that have no relationship to power.
So one of the places that I am most offended by the center rules is the whole idea of reconciliation for health care.
That simple principle that you have to fit into some weird straitjacket in order to pass something with 50 votes plus the vice president, that principle has totally screwed up trying to write a serious health bill because they keep trying to fit it into an arcane Washington legislative mess that simply doesn't work.
And all of it's a myth.
It doesn't have to be that way.
I keep hearing that there's these ongoing negotiations as it relates to health care, and they might be close to a deal.
It's not going to be ideal, especially from my perspective.
But at this point, is it something you start and then begin the process of making it better and better?
Or is it better to wait and, as you say, take away the whole cloture debate and issue altogether?
Well, if, I mean, I'd like to get it done as quickly as possible for a lot of different reasons, one of which is just that as Obamacare keeps collapsing, it's going to hurt more and more people.
I mean, there are now entire communities that have no effective insurance.
And so there's a very profound reason to try to get this thing fixed.
But at the same time, I would say to conservatives, it is never going to get better than the House bill.
You're not going to go to the Senate under the current rules and get a better deal than you're going to get in the House.
So conservatives need to be aware of that.
They need to think very carefully because the end game is not the House.
It's not even the Senate.
The end game is a conference committee of the two bodies to send something back that can then be passed by both bodies and go to the president.
Unless you think about that first, you have no idea what you're dealing in.
All right, Mr. Speaker, are you back from vacation?
Are you still on vacation working?
Oh, no, no.
I'm busy with work right here in Washington, D.C.
Oh, I'm glad you're back.
Well, hopefully we'll see you tonight on TV.
Mr. Speaker, thank you so much.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
We continue all our stories today.
The latest on the Syria strike when we get back, the terror attack in Sweden once again.
We'll have an update on that when we continue.
Susan Ricegate, healthcare debate continues.
Neil Gorsuch, he is on the Supreme Court as of Monday.
We'll continue.
America deserves to know the truth about Congress.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour.
800-941-Sean is our toll-free telephone number if you want to be a part of the program.
So there was another terror attack, more tragedy in Sweden, and this is another car bomb attack.
And you have example after example.
We have gone over the statistics about how migrant crime and violence has been soaring all over Europe and in Germany and in France and in Great Britain and in Belgium.
And the statistics are shocking.
And you talk about it, for example, of the 251,000 criminal suspects across the state in Germany.
107 of the 251,000 were foreign.
And a lot of those were asylum seekers, and many of them were refugees.
In other words, this is a preview of coming attractions if America doesn't get control of its borders and vet refugees that come from countries and cultures that directly contradict our culture, our values, our mores as a society.
And I know some come with the best of intentions, and they certainly want to assimilate in the country and they want the benefits of America.
But, you know, let me start with, you remember, here's another attack in Sweden today.
And remember when Donald Trump went out there and declared that, hey, pay attention.
There are attacks in Sweden.
And the media mocked him and made fun of him and said, oh, he got that from Tucker Carlson.
This is what he had said at the time.
Here's the bottom line.
We've got to keep our country safe.
You look at what's happening.
We've got to keep our country safe.
You look at what's happening in Germany.
You look at what's happening last night in Sweden.
Sweden?
Who would believe this?
Sweden.
They took in large numbers.
They're having problems like they never thought possible.
You look at what's happening in Brussels.
You look at what's happening all over the world.
Take a look at Nice.
All right, so the media made fun of it.
Later that week, there was another attack in Sweden, and it had been happening all throughout Europe.
But the media just jumped on Donald Trump.
Now, we also knew on this program because Ami Horowitz went to Sweden and literally was attacked by immigrants when he was trying to interview them.
Listen.
Do you think that Sweden has a responsibility to adapt to the immigrants' culture coming in?
Definitely.
Should a woman, when they come here, dress, you know, modestly, you know, with pants and with sleeves?
Is that important?
It is our culture.
If you come to Rinkibi, obviously, everywhere in Sweden is a discord, you know.
Taiga, Swedish golfer.
Sometimes I say we go to Rinkibi, it's care.
Right.
It's care.
Is it dangerous here sometimes?
Sometimes, yeah.
We found out exactly how dangerous when while we were setting up a shoot at a neighboring location, we were approached by five men and told to leave.
While my crew took off, I stayed to simply ask why we had to leave.
Because I was still wired.
We had the sound of what happened next.
How come it's a problem to film here?
I don't want to be filmed.
I know, but why?
What's the problem?
Let me see.
I'm not filming anything.
Look, look.
Show me.
Let go of me.
Show me what you got.
Why do you let go off?
I don't have your phone.
I was not the first person assaulted by gangs of immigrants, nor will I be the last.
But women are taking the brunt of the explosion of violence across Sweden.
All right, so that was Ami Horowitz, and he joins us now along with Patrick Poole.
Ami is a documentarian, Patrick, national security correspondent for PJ Media.
And Ami, this was, you literally now have made numerous trips.
You joined the refugees that were going into Europe at one point.
Then you did go to Sweden.
You did talk, you did go to these migrant camps.
You did talk to a lot of people.
And you were chronicling the violence long before the president made his remarks.
And then the terror attack that happened that very week.
And then, of course, the one that happened today.
Yeah, listen, I take no joy in being prescient.
I really don't.
But the handwriting has been on the wall, not just in Sweden, but all over Europe.
It's clear.
It's absolutely crystal clear.
This violence that we're seeing is due to the increase in immigration into these European countries.
Disclusion is not an offense.
And even today, you hear calls for people in Sweden saying this has nothing to do with their immigration policy.
It bores not pathological.
There really is no answer to it.
I don't fully understand it.
Yeah.
Now, Patrick Poole, we've been chronicling, you've been chronicling all of the danger that exists for the citizens all across Europe as a result of the migrant crisis.
And we have our own statistics here in this country.
And the president's been trying to institute some type of vetting of refugees from overseas and extreme vetting for people that come from countries whose values directly contradict ours.
And he has met fierce resistance and a strategy of judge shopping so that they can stop his constitutional authority and statutory authority of protecting the country, which is his main mandate.
Sean, I recall here just right after Thanksgiving, we had a ramming attack just like we saw in Stockholm today, just a couple miles from me on the campus of Ohio State University.
And the suspect in that case was a Somali refugee who had come to the United States just a couple years ago.
And that kind of illustrates the problem.
Sean, you might recall back last summer, we talked about, and I actually ran the numbers, that in Europe, we were looking at a terror attack every 84 hours.
And we talked about that on your program.
Now we're seeing a terror attack nearly every day.
This week we've had St. Petersburg.
We had an incident in Paris where a refugee threw a Jewish woman off a balcony.
We had the ramming attack in Israel yesterday.
They killed an IDF soldier.
There was a stabbing attack in Australia.
And today we have Stockholm.
And yet the authorities, not just in Europe, but even here in the United States, there's just no recognition of how bad the problem is.
Well, we know how bad the problem is because we have the statistics.
And illegal immigration is not far behind either.
And, you know, it's amazing to me as we debate these very simplistic methods of protecting our homeland.
You know, I don't understand where the fierce resistance is when, you know, when I sit through a security briefing that Obama himself should have been sitting through in Texas with those brave men and women that secure our borders and they describe a seven-year period of time where 642,000 crimes, including the most heinous, including some murders and some rapes, some petty crimes, a lot of drug crimes, are perpetrated against just the people of Texas.
You would think people would take notice and realize, you know what, protecting our border, vetting people before they come in here is just simple, basic common sense.
You know, when you interview the mothers who lost their sons or the fathers that lost their sons and daughters because of illegal immigrants that had even been in jail before, and I think of one father in particular who lost his son, and his son was working overnight in a convenience store, and then we find out that the guy was an illegal immigrant that had spent a lot of time in jail for kidnapping and raping a woman, kidnapping her for an entire week.
To me, unless you're the victim, I guess it's easy to sit on the sidelines and say, oh, let's be kind and loving, and this is racist and xenophobic.
I mean, you're seeing and chronicling real violence, both of you, Ami, in your documentaries.
Yeah, listen, here's the thing, and I think you hit it on the head.
The issue is, why is the left condemning the reaction that we're having?
And the reason is very simple.
It's not confusing at all.
It goes against their narrative of cultural relativity.
And if you're going to say that bringing in large amounts of, let's say, refugees from Syria is going to have a deleterious effect on your society, that's specifically going against our narrative of cultural relativity.
How can you say that we're all the same?
They're saying every single culture, moral difference between the different cultures, there's a problem in bringing in more Syrian Islamic refugees, refugees from whoever.
So that's why they're so currently.
Yeah, we're losing you, Ami.
Patrick, why don't you pick it up?
We'll give you your last thoughts here.
Then we'll get to our phone calls.
800-941, Sean, go ahead.
Sean, last night I ran the numbers, and since January 20th, we've admitted another 1,347 Syrian refugees.
And we know that this extreme vetting process has massive holes.
And as we saw in the case here with the Ohio State Attack, I mean, that refugee, a Somali refugee, had been subjected to extreme vetting.
Three years later, he's running down people on one of our largest college campuses.
This is a problem that's not going away.
It's expanding.
And that's what we're seeing in Europe here this week.
You know, we could just warn people so much.
I mean, we're sitting here on the sidelines and we get brutalized all over social media because we want to keep the American people safe.
Ami, we'll give you the last word.
I think we got a better line.
Yeah, well, hopefully.
The reality is just like I said before, it goes against the narrative of the left of cultural relativity.
And therefore, they cannot sit abide by us saying there's a problem with bringing in refugees.
If all cultures are the same, all cultures have the same morality, there shouldn't be any problem with bringing in Syria refugees.
That's the problem.
That's the narrative that they're portraying, and that's the narrative we have to fight against.
All right, guys, thank you both for all that you're saying and taking a strong stand there.
We'll have full coverage of the very latest on Hannity Tonight, 10 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
Bringing jobs back to America and getting America back to work.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, news roundup information overload.
Busy News Day today.
If you're just joining us, getting in your car, headed on home.
Happy Friday.
I don't even think we have time for our Friday concert series with Florida, Georgia Line.
We'll try.
We'll think about it.
Neil Gorsuch is now on the U.S. Supreme Court, the constitutional option.
Major props.
Kudos to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
I mean, I'm very critical when they don't have a backbone, so I might as well say they did everything right here, starting with not going forward with Merrick Garland, which would have been a disaster.
Other big news, we're following up on the Syria strike from last night.
Very successful, decisive action by President Trump.
The health care bill is not dead.
My hope is they come back during their two-week recess and try and get this done, considering if they come back on the 24th, they've got to deal with a, quote, government shutdown crisis on the 28th.
So that wouldn't be good timing.
And we are also, as you know, from the last hour, we were talking about what was happening in the terror attack in Sweden.
But one thing we can't get off the table today is the follow-up to the Susan Rice scandal.
I mean, it just, at this point, the admission, I mean, Peter King now coming out with his information and others now saying they weren't interested.
This wasn't the unmasking by Susan Rice that she admitted to, which she didn't admit to two weeks ago when she said she knew nothing.
The fact that she is unmasking people that had nothing to do with national security proves the point that I've been making for a long time under the guise of national security, this was an attempt to literally weaponize the intelligence gathering of our agencies and politicize intelligence for political purposes.
Now, the reports at the center of the unmasking controversy were detailed.
And as Peter King said, they almost resembled a private investigator's file.
And he goes on to say, you know, according to him, he's being familiar with the document, he said, the information about their everyday lives.
Well, why would that need any type of unmasking, what Peter King is saying?
And he's on the House Intelligence Committee.
He said it's sort of like a divorce case where the lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person's doing morning until night, and then you try to piece it together later on.
Well, what is he saying there?
He's saying that it has nothing to do with national security.
He's saying this is an abuse of intelligence gathering.
He's saying that this was done for personal vendetta reasons.
And that's why.
He's information about their everyday lives, who they were talking with, who they were meeting, where they were going to eat.
Really, nothing of any substance or value unless you're just trying to lay out a dossier on somebody.
Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired or investigators are hired to just find out what a person is doing from morning till night, and then you try to piece it together later on.
All right.
So joining us now to get into this, one of our other top stories tonight, Susan Rice, where does this go?
Lieutenant Colonel Buzz Patterson, remember, he carried the nuclear football for President Clinton and worked with Susan Rice for two years.
Kirk Weeby is with us, former senior analyst for the NSA.
Nick Irvine is with us, author of Way of the Reaper, My Greatest Untold Missions and the Art of Being a Sniper, former Army Ranger.
His unit, by the way, is currently in Syria.
And thank you all for being with us.
Buzz, because you worked with her and you said she's dishonest.
And based on what she said two weeks ago, now that we know she's admitted to unmasking and requesting the unmasking of Donald Trump and transition team members, and then Peter King's comments, what do you interpret from that?
Well, as we talked about before yesterday, Sean, she's just a political operative, and she's very dishonest, lied throughout her career.
Going back to my time in the White House, having to work for her, you know, she was lying about whether or not the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had an appropriate amount of security in First West.
Al-Qaeda's bomb and killed hundreds of people in those embassies.
She's also the person that convinced Donald, sorry, Bill Clinton, not to take Osama bin Laden out of custody back in 1996.
You know what happened to that place five years later.
So she's the political operative.
In fact, if you go back and look at her educational background, for someone who claims to be a national security expert, her degrees are actually in philosophy and history.
And she's been running foreign policy campaigns for Democratic candidates and presidents now on the basis of those.
They're very flimsy liberal arts degrees.
All right, let me go to you because I think what you're saying is really, really important.
I mean, she's probably the least qualified, but it proves our point.
She's a political operative through and through, always has been, never had the background or experience to actually do this job and do it right.
And it answers a lot of questions about how things have spun so out of control and spiraled out of control.
All right, so as a former analyst, Kirk, for the NSA, can you, you know, this process.
We're talking about raw intelligence gathering, and we're talking about individuals within an administration purposely seeking out that information about political opposition, a candidate Trump, then a president-elect Trump and his transition team.
Can you think of any reason why they would do this other than it being political?
Absolutely not, Sean.
It's absolutely clear to me that there's a conspiracy at work here.
I know people don't like that word, but if there ever was one, we're looking at it.
It would take three to five people working with her to pull this off in terms of getting people to break their personal obligation and oath to uphold the Constitution.
We have people actually processing voice data, phone calls.
And when I say processing, that means listening to it, usually through headphones, and then typing out the conversation or a summary of a conversation on a shareable form, probably a computer software, something like Microsoft Word or a government equivalent, and putting it in a database to be shared with others.
Now, what we've heard is that there are so many restrictions and constraints and procedures.
How in the world would that happen with the cooperation of a small number of people?
Well, it had to be, but remember Sarah Carter's reporting on this is that they loosened the rules as of 2011 as it relates to unmasking.
And then I think the change in the language and the ability to share with 16 additional agencies 14 days before Barack Obama left office, that allowed the widespread dissemination of this information.
And I think we know because they wanted to create this narrative about Russia, and obviously they did it.
But if somebody went into a secure area, and I think this is most important, Kirk, and they did seek to get information, raw intelligence and listen to it, and let's say it was on a political opposition party or a transition team, and they did unmask the individuals involved.
How frequent was that an occurrence when you were there?
I cannot speak to that directly, Sean, as I did not work directly in that particular area.
But I would tell you that the whole purpose of the intelligence community is to answer to a specific list of national intelligence requirements, NRLs, NSRLs, national SIGINT requirements listing.
These are put together by bureaucrats at the most senior levels, including representatives of the White House, to ensure that the military, that the political people get what they need in the way of intelligence.
You just don't pick up the phone and say, hey, I need this.
Now, you might be able to get away with that in a wartime scenario where you have stuff moving quickly.
But when you have a standing requirement to monitor something over weeks and months, as we know what happened here with the Trump transition team, going back, what, a year?
We know there would have to be a standing requirement unless you have people cheating the system.
And you're saying also that it had to be the...
That's what I smell.
This had to be at the level of either, say, Brennan or Clapper.
It had to be with their knowledge and approval.
It's not possible without, right?
Right.
And what are the odds that the president got briefed on all of this?
Not good.
It's not good that he – you mean he probably did?
Well, he got briefed about the cheating, but not when it was happening.
No, it was all hidden.
Yeah, probably true.
All right.
You know, Nick, I know as your greatest untold missions, the art of being a sniper, you fascinate me.
I mean, the fact that you can have that calm under pressure and do such important work that saves so many American troops and their lives, you use a lot of intelligence gathering in the process of doing that job, correct?
Exactly.
Tons of it.
All right, so you know something a little bit about this process.
What can you tell us?
For my job and what we do is there's something called building a pattern of life, and we do that to bad guys, terrorists.
And that involves, you know, watching and listening to everything that they do day in and day out, day until night, for a certain amount of time until we get a certain pattern on that individual in case I have to go out or my team has to go out and intercept that target by a long-range shot or by up close and personal.
We know exactly where that person is going to be at what specific time they've built a pattern of life.
And that's you can you can change it up whatever way you want to, but it's kind of hard to beat this system.
And we do that to bad guys.
Yeah.
How far is the longest shot you kill shot you've ever made?
My furthest shot ever made was on the steel target at 2,022 yards, 1.12 miles.
Wow.
My furthest shot in combat was just over a half a mile, five yards over.
Wow.
Unbelievable.
You know, how real when we watch movies like American Sniper?
How real is that?
I think it captures the mindset and the position many of the guys are put in when they do get out.
We talk about the VA and healthcare system and stuff like that.
I have a guy, a former team leader, who's currently going through that transition into the VA, and there's an ongoing process right now from being molested by the VA.
And this guy still practices his medical and treatments to patients.
And my guy, amongst other guys, have been molested by him.
These are the type of things that we go through when we come back.
And I think American Sniper does capture that mentality and the demons that we all face.
Well, in other words, if literally you spend a year and you're in that stress situation 24-7, 365, those days, and then you go back home, it's like you've entered a new world that you don't even barely remember in many ways.
And all that adrenaline doesn't stop pumping through your body and whatever thoughts create whatever feelings that you've been living on, you know?
Oh, yeah, my best friend, Tyler Gray, a former Delta Force, former Army Ranger as well.
He put it the best way I've ever heard it.
We've been trained and conditioned to operate in a hectic, violent environment and be calm in that environment.
We get back home into a calm environment, and we don't know how to integrate into that.
That's 250,000.
I mean, if you add up the numbers, we estimate about 250,000 guys have had real big struggles because of long deployments, many deployments, and it's been very hard on everybody.
All right, guys, I want to thank you all, Lieutenant Colonel Buzz Patterson.
Thank you.
Kirk Weavy, thank you.
Nick, always good to talk to you.
We'll continue more news.
We've got, of course, Gorsuch is now on the Supreme Court.
More on the Syria strike.
We're going to check in with Colonel Oliver North.
General McInerney will join us at the bottom of the hour.
Healthcare is still alive, even though the House Republicans are now on recess.
We'll have more on Susan Rice and then more on that terror attack in Sweden that we're following today.
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All right, as we continue on this Friday, Colonel North and General McInerney on the strike against Syria at the bottom of this hour.
We'll update you.
Let's get to our phones in the meantime.
Roman is in Texas.
Roman, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Happy Friday.
What's going on?
Oh, not much, Sean.
It's an honor to talk to you.
I had two questions I wanted to ask you.
First off, being, when are you going to move out of New York and down here to Texas?
I'd move tomorrow, but my job keeps me here.
And it just is what it is right now for this part of my life.
Listen, I certainly hope one thing.
You know, if I die in New York, they take another bite at the apple.
They get 10% of whatever money I've saved after they've taken 10% my entire working adult life.
And the government takes 40%.
Now, hopefully I live beyond when Donald Trump gets rid of the estate tax.
But, you know, it's really sad that New York is as broken down, dilapidated, and decrepit as it has become, especially the infrastructure.
And they have, you pay, you know, $12 if you cross a bridge or a tunnel in New York each way, and they still can't fund the bridges and tunnels.
Then you have a 10% income tax, then you have a city tax on top of it, a 3%.
I mean, they take you every which way and sideways.
And if you go to Texas, the infrastructure is 1,000 times better.
Does that make sense to you?
Oh, yeah.
Hey, Ann, on my second question, I always hear you tell us what you think should be on our health care bill.
But I kind of wonder what would be the perfect health care bill that would collaborate all the ideas from all the different coalitions in the Republican Party that would, I know, would be the best overall, but what do you think would be guaranteed to pass in all the different coalitions to go for it?
I don't know.
Look, I know they're still working on it.
I know that those of us that are conservative believe in the free market, competition, buying across state lines, portability, health care savings accounts, especially for younger people, they can build up this fund their entire life that's tax-deductible.
I love the idea.
I've really bought into these medical cooperatives with catastrophic care, like Dr. Umber is doing down in Wichita, Kansas.
I just think there are a million ways to tackle this that can work.
You know, look, but at the end of the day, this is what we need.
We don't need a top-down system.
We need a free market system.
We need as much competition as possible.
We need to, look, I know the president, we're not going to have people that are having heart attacks but don't have health insurance being turned away.
It's not going to happen.
Then it gets into the issue: why should somebody that is 50 years old, takes care of themselves, is fit and works out and lives a healthy lifestyle, doesn't drink too much or smoke too much, why should he be in the same rate pool as somebody that eats himself to death, drinks himself to death, smokes themselves to death, and doesn't do any exercise.
So it gets complicated.
I mean, at the end of the day, I don't think anything is going to be perfect, but it was much better before.
It was much cheaper before.
And if we institute and apply these free market principles to the healthcare system, that competition is going to ensure that we get lower prices, lower premiums, lower deductibles, and better care and a better bang for our buck.
Catastrophic plans are inexpensive with high deductibles, and they take care of the real emergencies, a heart attack, cancer, or a bad accident.
But anyway, I got to take a break.
We'll come back, Colonel North and General McInerney, as we continue.
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Tuesday, Syrian dictator Brashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.
Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children.
It was a slow and brutal death for so many.
Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.
No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched.
It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.
There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council.
Years of previous attempts at changing Assad's behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically.
As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen, and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies.
Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrors of all kinds and all types.
We ask for God's wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world.
We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed.
And we hope that as long as America stands for justice, then peace and harmony will, in the end, prevail.
Good night, and God bless America and the entire world.
Thank you.
All right, that was the president last night from Mar-a-Lago making his statement, and no child of God should ever suffer such horror.
And joining us now, we have General Thomas McInerney and Colonel Oliver North, the host of War Stories on Fox News and Fox Business, discussing the tactics, the methodology, the message that was sent here.
Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.
And Colonel North, let me begin with you about the president's actions last night in response to the use once again of chemical weapons against innocent men, women, and children.
Well, Sean, if you want to send a message, excuse me, you can send flowers.
And if you want your message to matter, you can send 59 cruise missiles, which is what the president did.
And I think the message that was sent was spot on.
And a little message, if you're listening, Vladimir Putin, if you want your stooge, Bashir al-Assad, to stay alive, get him out of Damascus, bring him to Moscow where he can become a roommate for Eddie Snowden, because they deserve each other.
I think that's really well said, General McInerney.
Well, it was brilliant.
It was decisive.
There was no agonizing on it.
He told the world that we will do business.
We will not accept that kind of behavior.
Kim Jong-un should beware, as well as he did it at a dinner when he had President Xi sending a signal about the islands that President Xi is building and arming out there in violation of international law.
So it set the tone, a la President Reagan, of the Trump administration, Sean.
Well, I think, you know, how do you think, Colonel North, I mean, because this to me was a message that this is a line in the sand, which is what the president had said in the press conference with King Abdullah earlier this week.
This is more than a red line.
It's way beyond that.
And the message to me is that there's a new sheriff in town, and the new sheriff is not going to sit back and watch innocent men, women, and children get gassed without reacting or without there being consequences.
Now, you know, I know that the president wasn't for this at the time, but to me, I think being in the office, seeing those images, you could hear it in his voice both during that press conference and last night that he was deeply moved at what was, you know, crimes against humanity in our lifetime.
Oh, no, and there's no doubt this guy is a war criminal.
And as General McInerney just pointed out, the message goes beyond Damascus.
The message goes straight to Moscow.
And what we've been seeing happen is that there's been what I call the troika of terror among Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus.
And as of last night, that is very close to coming unraveled because even at Poign, they have no friends other than little dictatorships.
Putin is in a very bad spot.
Now, I know he sent one of his battle group ships out of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, but they would be nuts to go after a U.S. vessel at this point.
I don't see that happening.
And by the way, Russia was not exactly fully supportive either.
You know, they even said earlier this week their support for Syria.
Now, they've been the biggest booster and protector of this murdering dictator thug Assad, but they said it's not without conditions.
This is not non-conditional support, unconditional support.
Look at, I don't believe anything I hear coming out of Putin, and he was spokesman.
I do know that these people are not fools.
And the idea of him being able to be supportive of Pynyang in the business that's been going on between Pyongyang and Tehran on the development of ICBMs and nuclear weapons just got a wake-up call.
There has been a wake-up call delivered to anybody who wants to use those kinds of weapons of mass destruction anywhere in the world.
And so if you're sitting in Poign right now, you're thinking, hmm, maybe we better rethink this little joint venture we've got going on with the Ayatollahs.
And this has salutary benefits that go well beyond getting rid of Assad.
Best of all, think about what happened in the last 10 days.
The President of the United States has met with, in most cases, very privately except for a few moments of the press, King Abdullah from Jordan, Al-Sisi from President of Egypt, and he's talked to our allies in the area to include Israel.
Now, I can see a scenario developing here.
When Raqqa falls, and it will, when Mosul is liberated, and it will be eventually at horrendous cost, by the way, at the end of the day, somebody is going to have to maintain some kind of peace in Syria.
This is a remarkable opportunity because the two men that met with President Trump from that part of the world are capable with U.S. support to be able to be the peacemakers and peacekeepers inside Syria.
Yeah.
Is that your take, General McInerney?
Absolutely.
Colonel North, spot on, Sean.
All right, let me ask you guys this.
What do you think, if any, is the response?
Because you always got to prepare anytime there's military action that there's a potential that there's going to be some response.
I mean, we see earlier today that a Russian warship is moving into the area, but should we take that seriously?
Also, the Russians said, you know, all games are off and that Russia now has lifted and said the possibility of the agreement we had that we would not shoot down each other's planes.
That is no longer in effect.
If you're the president, how do you react to that, Colonel North?
Well, look, the president said a couple of weeks ago in conversation about this whole issue out there, it is now time for things like safe zones.
Well, that requires somebody besides the United States to police them.
Number two, there ought to be, and I know Tom's talked about this a lot.
Excuse me, General McInerney has talked about this a lot.
I got out of hand, sir.
I'm sorry.
I'm smiling.
I think this is time for a serious discussion about no-fly zones.
I mean, these were air-delivered munitions that killed all those men, women, and children with sarin gas, which is a horrendous way to die.
I mean, the president, you could tell, was choked up having seen those images.
And the vision of all those children choking to death, just absolutely appalling.
And I believe that the world is going to be behind this president.
On these kinds of things, there can be no tolerance for it.
And as General McInerney pointed out, and you said it yourself, this president didn't sit around and dither in the sit room with pictures being taken and people staring at a screen.
He took the advice of his chairman of his joint chiefs of staff, his Secretary of Defense, the battlefield commanders, and they used 59 cruise missiles.
Apparently, by the way, apparently there was one that did not go where it was supposed to.
You can bet one of the reactions is going to be it killed one of Bashir al-Assad's granddaughters or something.
Yeah.
You know, General McInhertie, I think that the best thing that happened here is two things have come true here.
Number one, I think it shows that America's back.
Another important aspect is we're not telegraphing our military moves.
I've always felt that that is a mistake.
I know that Senator Rand Paul thinks any military strike is some type of declaration of war.
It is not.
Whether or not there's going to be ongoing action will probably be dependent on how the Syrians and the Russians react to this thing.
But, you know, if the world can't coalesce behind stopping the use of these types of weapons against innocent civilians, then the UN as a body is useless.
And any other country that doesn't support stopping this type of treatment of human beings, then you're just basically willing to allow a modern-day Holocaust to unfold before your eyes.
Is there any difference?
No, you've got it spot on again.
Look, Sean, this president didn't go and agonize and go to the Congress and talk to people.
He made decisive decisions that were important decisions that needed to be made.
And so he is now telegraphing to our adversaries: beware.
You're not going to get a second warning.
And just like when President Reagan attacked Gaddafi on April 15, 1986, it sent a signal around the world to terrorists.
Ollie remembers that very well because he was in the NSC at the time.
But that sent a clear signal.
And that's what I believe that President Trump is doing.
He is sending clear signals to our adversaries, particularly Radical Islam and the others, that there is, as you said, a new sheriff in town.
But more important, our values and what we value to our national security, our national interests, we will protect.
We will be a strong ally.
You know, General, one of the things you mentioned, of course, was the Libya raid.
And we lost two U.S. airmen, as you know, from an F-111 that went down during that strike.
The wonderful thing about America's technology and the America missiles that were developed way back then, they're really a lifesaver for Americans.
Another point, General, to something you know about and we can't talk much about, but there's a very vital air base in Turkey.
And that air base, as the general knows, and Sean, you can probably guess, has some really important stuff at it.
And Erdogan has been prancing around and dancing with Putin now for the better part of a year.
They set up a joint command center to make sure that they didn't bomb each other and all that garbage.
But the bottom line of it is, Erdogan just got a message last night.
Erdogan's the message to Erdogan is think twice about what you've been doing because the dance music just stopped.
And he's got to realize if he wants to stay around, if he wants his country to be halfway tranquil, the outcome of what happens in Syria now, which is a wonderful opportunity as a consequence of what the president did last night, is very much going to affect Turkey.
All right, I got to take a break here, guys, and I really appreciate your input.
Don't forget, Colonel North, on what time are you playing airing this weekend, Colonel?
Well, we're airing the Okinawa, MacArthur, and the Hurtkin Forest battles of World War II.
And the Okinawa battle, of course, is the last one.
It was going on right now at this time in 1945.
All right.
Thank you for being here, both of you.
We appreciate your expertise.
But first, I got to remind you: in this day and age, we all have cell phones, and maybe you get a new cell phone, you want to donate or resell the old one.
Be very careful.
Now, these thieves that purchase old phones, they apply scanning technology to find personal information that they can use to recreate the identities and open brand new accounts.
If you're going to get rid of an old phone, take the time, the five minutes, remove the SIM card, the SD card, encrypt your data, wipe it clean with bleach bit like Hillary, because it's going to be time well spent.
All right, let's get back to our busy phones.
I know a lot of you have been wanting to weigh in on this military action.
Let's say hi to Robin is in Johnston, Pennsylvania.
Robin, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
I'm good, Sean.
How are you?
I'm good.
What's happening?
Crazy world.
Yeah, really glad that he made these moves.
I think this Russian narrative, this, you know, the Russians influenced this and that.
I talked to my friends.
You know, influence is a huge word.
And, you know, even my own husband and his family, who were lifelong Democrats, they didn't know who Podesta was.
They weren't paying attention to half of that.
Influence is a big word.
And it just frustrates me.
And the constant, you know, Donald Trump is so nice to Russia.
I think Donald Trump was trying to create a segue to have a conversation that was muted and had the opportunity to be progressive and maybe make some headway.
I don't know what he's done nice.
And I think he just took decisive action last night and did what we needed a president to do for the world.
I mean, there's such a dramatic difference.
Red line in the sand.
Okay, you do nothing.
You do absolutely nothing.
And, you know, here's a president that said this went beyond a red line, did something.
And I'm going to tell you what I predict is going to happen.
Nothing.
They're going to stop using chemical weapons.
Because if they don't stop using chemical weapons, it's going to happen again.
And last night, remember, every Tomahawk missile, all 18 feet long, two feet wide missile, is a thousand tons of ammo and explosives in this thing.
Well, that's, you know, all of that tonnage got dropped last night in a very short period of time.
It is just a pinprick of what America and America's military is capable of.
Now, do we want occupation?
Do we want ground forces?
Is it America's role to fix the unfolding civil war in Syria and the human wreckage that has been caused by this?
The answer is no.
We don't have the ability to be the world's policemen, but there are certain moments and times in history where it is the right thing to do.
And I think there also is a message sent to the rest of the world.
I mean, there's been a lot of saber-rattling out of Iran and a lot of saber-rattling out of North Korea.
And I think that now people need to understand that we have somebody that A, recognizes evil in our time, B, will use military action, doesn't agonize over the decision.
In a case that's so black and white like this, you just have to make that choice.
Anyway, that's going to really wrap things up today.
I wish we had more time.
All right, we'll have Hannity tonight, the very latest on all of this, and the latest on Susan Rice and much, much more.
What a busy news week.
Neil Gorsuch confirmed.
That's all coming up 10 Eastern.
Live, Hannity, on the Fox News channel.
Have a great weekend, and we will see you back here on Monday.
see you tonight at 10.
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