All Episodes
Previous Next
June 22, 2017 - Sean Hannity Show
01:36:01
The Senate Acts - 6.22

The Senate Republicans released their proposal for Healthcare Reform but some are stopping short of a full endorsement. Sean sits down with Congressman Mark Meadows to discuss the status of the ObamaCare repeal and just what this means for overall costs. 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.

| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Let not your heart be troubled.
You are listening to the Sean Hannity radio show podcast.
All right, so I have insomnia, but I've never slept better.
And what's changed?
Just a pillow.
It's had such a positive impact on my life.
And of course, I'm talking about my pillow.
I fall asleep faster, I stay asleep longer, and now you can too.
Just go to mypillow.com or call 800-919-6090.
Use the promo code Hannity, and Mike Lindell, the inventor of MyPillow, has the special four-pack.
Now you get 40% off, two MyPillow premiums, and two go anywhere pillows.
Now my pillow is made here in the USA, has a 60-day unconditional money back guarantee and a 10-year warranty.
Go to MyPillow.com right now or call 800-919-6090 promo code Hannity to get Mike Lindell's special four-pack offer.
You get two MyPillow premium pillows and two go anywhere pillows for 40% off.
And that means once those pillows arrive, you start getting the kind of peaceful and restful and comfortable and deep healing and recuperative sleep that you've been craving and you certainly deserve.
MyPillow.com, promo code Hannity.
You will love this pillow.
All right, glad you're with us.
Write down our toll-free telephone number.
You want to be a part of this extravaganza, toll free.
It's 800-941 Sean.
By the way, it was really good.
I I met with and saw a lot of people while I was in D.C. We had a very busy day yesterday.
Linda, you look a little little tired today.
What time did you actually end up in your house at home?
Uh 4:30.
4 30 5.
And let me guess Liam had you up by seven.
7 15.
7 15.
Well, the good thing is I didn't sleep that much either.
So good.
Misery loves company, my friend.
That's that's funny.
Um anyway, let me um let me get to a couple of things here today.
One of the things is I'm very frustrated because the course, you know.
Hang on, I gotta send a note to somebody.
All right, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
All right.
Now, I'm done.
The notes done.
I had it was a very important.
It was a work question.
Why are you looking at me like that?
I know I'm I was waiting for you to get upset that I played Jeopardy music behind you.
No, I know what I'm talking about here.
All right, so I'm very frustrated that here we are, and we've been distracted, and we've gotten a we got a media obsessed with taking the president down.
And you know, it's so frustrating to me that we now find ourselves in a position where the president now and his staff have to spend so much time when we have so much in terms to get done for the country.
But more importantly, I mean, there's nothing here.
You've got, you know, James Comey leaks to the New York Times crime 18, U.S. Code 641, government computer, government car, government property, violation, records act, no investigation.
Loretta Lynch, okay.
Tarmac meeting Bill Clinton just before her decision.
Really?
40 minutes talking about grandkids and kids.
I don't believe it.
Then it's not an investigation, Mr. Comey.
It's a matter.
Do you understand?
Oh, really?
Well, mishandling of classified documents, that's a felony.
Hillary committed a felony, just like, you know, when she got rid of the emails and destroyed them.
That's a felony too.
And then the story of Sarah Carter and John Solomon that they're kabosh by Loretta Lynch was put in.
These are real felonies.
These are real crimes.
The uranium one deal is the biggest paid-to-play scam, the simplest to prove.
Any prosecutor out of law school didn't even pass the bar exam, could get a conviction in these cases.
It's it's obvious the evidence overwhelming and is incontrovertible.
But we don't even investigate these things.
A great piece out today by House Freedom Caucus chairman, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, former chairman of the Freedom Caucus about investigating the investigators.
And then they bring up some of the other issues too, like Fast and Furious and the IRS scandal and other things that always get dropped.
We never get Benghazi.
All these things the Democrats are involved in, corruption and lying and corruption and law breaking and felonies, nothing happens.
And now we've got, okay, James Comey leads to the New York Times, and he gets the special prosecutor he wants.
Now the whole issue of Russia Trump collusion.
We have everybody on record saying to this point there is no evidence whatsoever.
Then why are we doing the investigation?
Well, instead of investigating that, Muller comes in, thanks to Rosenstein, allowing investigative creep into this will go from Russia Trump collusion into obstruction.
What's the obstruct the obstruction?
Firing James Comey.
Rosenstein recommended firing Comey to Trump.
And then Muller takes over, and he, let's see, hires Hillary Clinton's former lawyer at the Clinton Foundation, hires all of these Clinton Obama donors, and now we find ourselves in a position.
Now the president has lawyers and Mike Pence has lawyers, and everybody in the White House has lawyers, and everybody, you know, gets worried and concerned.
And then you have conflicts of interest where Mueller shouldn't be as the best friend of James Comey talking to him before his testimony before the House intelligence community.
And Rosenstein, if he makes one recommendation, he shouldn't, you know, I guess the only obstruction would be against himself for making the recommendation.
And Mueller is Comey's BFF, and then he's hiring all of these, you know, hardcore left wing Democratic activist donors that don't like Donald Trump.
Well, can we hire at least a few people and balance it out and put Trump supporters in there one for one?
I mean, it's I don't think I've seen a deck stack like this in my life.
And then how do you justify ignoring Hillary's crimes and Loretta Lynch's crimes?
When does this investigation nonsense stop?
And who investigates the investigator?
Well, then we've got other issues to get done.
Now the Senate today released their health care bill.
There are four senators as we speak saying they cannot support it in its current form.
Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rand Paul, who will join us today, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ron Johnson all said they cannot support the Senate's Obamacare replacement bill in its current form.
They'll also suggested that that change could bring them around.
They said that currently for a variety of reasons, we're not ready to vote for this bill, but we're open to negotiation of obtaining more information before it's brought to the floor.
And there are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement of our current health care system.
It doesn't appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.
Well, that was the biggest challenge for Mark Meadows and the House.
And look, there are a lot of interesting good things in here, but there are some things in here that I'm a little concerned about.
Like I can go through, for example, all the Obamacare taxes are gone.
They're done.
Okay, I like the idea that states can opt out of Obamacare regulations and minimum coverage requirements.
Let the states decide.
I like the idea that it it that it creates a fund for states to fight opioid addiction.
That's fine.
That's part of health care, and it's a big problem in states all across the country.
Then you got, you know, it bans the use of federal funds to be used for abortions.
Good.
Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for that.
It repeals the mandate that all individuals are required to purchase health insurance.
All right, yeah, but that sometimes could be a little problematic, but overall, yeah, I support it.
Repealing the mandate that employers provide health insurance.
Most Americans want pre-existing conditions protected.
Fine.
Now we get into some problems is that they're going to have a three-year Medicare all the Medicare funds, which is in many ways a new entitlement program.
Okay, states now can opt in or out of that.
And you can phase out Obamacare's Medicaid expansion over a four-year period of time or three-year period of time, but for that period of time, we may actually end up paying more money than we were paying under Obamacare.
The other thing is I don't see the specific provisions that I want for health care cooperatives like what my friend, Dr. Josh Umbert down in Wichita, Kansas has.
I mean, that's one of the most amazing practices in the country, and it's being duplicated every single day.
And the average, the average, Any adult pays $50 a month for care.
Any child $10 a month for care.
That care is unlimited.
That includes house visits.
You don't get house visits very often from doctors today.
He purchases, you know, almost all the drugs he can directly from pharmaceuticals.
And then they end up, they end up selling it at a 95% discounted rate.
And you're not going to your local drugstore.
You walk out with your medicine when you when you finished with your exam.
And then, by the way, if you need x-rays, they're like 48 cents.
And if you need other specialized care, well, you can have catastrophic insurance if God forbid you have a bad car accident or you get cancer, God forbid, or you have a heart attack.
I mean, so those are all good improvements.
So, and I know there are targeted tax credits to help lower income individuals, but what is the percentage?
What is the camp?
Anyone earning up to 350% of poverty, they can get a tax credit.
Now, I know it phases out Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, but once these states locked it, lock in, well, that means the there will be an ongoing federal subsidy in perpetuity.
Now, in a number of years, you're phasing it out that the states now have to begin to pay a larger share of this, but it was that subsidy that encouraged, you know, governors like John Kasich of Ohio to buy into this thing.
So let me put it this way there's work to do, but then there's also, you know, we can't spend every bit of time we have on this.
We have Congressman Mark Meadows on the program, and he and Jim Jordan and his caucus have said, all right, we've had enough vacation.
Maybe we should forego our August recess, and we should get, for example, the president's the president's economic plan through.
We should work on moving towards complete and energy independence in the country.
And then we should get the funding complete for the border wall with the solar panels, which you know probably that irritates liberals more than anything.
That Republicans care about the environment.
They're going to put solar panels on the border wall.
They're just doing that to piss us off.
I think that's hilarious.
Anyway, so we'll wait, we'll watch, we'll see.
There's probably going to be an arduous, difficult process now watching the Senate go through the contortions that the House went through.
And it's it's going to be a bit painful for all of us to see.
I think the most frustrating aspect of this whole repeal replace issue for me comes from the realization, and this was during the House negotiations, that there really were about what a hundred, hundred and thirty-five, fifty, well, more like a hundred, hundred and twenty-five Republicans.
And it was obvious after 50 or 60 show votes to repeal replace Obamacare outright that they'd never had any intention of doing so.
And that when push came to shove, they were just show votes.
And these are people that had asked for power.
Well, now we've got to navigate around all of this.
So that's that's difficult.
The uh the fallout from the Georgia six loss for the Democrats is unbelievable.
And now shellshock Democrats are turning on Nancy Pelosi in a pretty major way.
And you got one Texas congressman uh actually saying Pelosi is partially to blame for this.
She's not the only reason, but she's certainly one of the reasons.
Uh I actually got a kick out of the fact that Cher is now joining this group of people, which is pretty hilarious.
And also Michael Moore.
Anyway, it's now official.
I think Nancy Pelosi's days as the head of the House Democrats probably numbered.
And based on the people that are calling for her to go, I've got to imagine that her replacement will probably be even more left wing than her.
Anyway, Cher joined the group of of Democratic lawmakers blaming Pelosi for the loss in the in the Georgia 6th.
She tweeted out all caps, congressional races, not Olympics, is no medal for second place.
Admire and respect Nancy Pelosi, but in every race the GOP runs against her.
Yeah, that's true.
Because she is an obstructionist.
The DNC raised a meager 4.29 million in May, the lowest total since 2003.
Now, when people like Michael Moore and Joy Behar start recommending to the Democratic Party what they ought to do, you know you're in trouble, but she had an epiphany on the program yesterday.
And anyway, she admitted that focusing on Donald Trump is a losing strategy for Democrats.
Well, she's probably one of the leading loudest liberal voices in the country, and she's obsessed with doing that every single day.
Huffing the post is saying the Democratic chatter is growing to oust to oust Pelosi.
So she's facing real doubts here and a real difficulty here On top of the fundraising issue.
Michael Moore actually said the Democrats have no message, no plan, no leaders.
Well, now you can support Trump because he's got a plan.
He's got a vision.
And if you guys would stop obstructing and advancing conspiracy theories, he can get his work done.
Anyway, 800-941 Sean toll free telephone number.
We got a lot.
Mark Meadows is coming up at the top of the hour.
He's with the House Freedom Caucus.
Without him, there was no repeal bill in the House.
We'll get his thoughts on the Senate version of this bill.
Hey, with optimism, once again on the rise in America, the working people of this country are more important than ever.
Well, now they have a podcast that celebrates them and tells their stories on the job from hired to retired.
Also new podcast from our friends at Express Employment Professionals that digs into the lives of men and women at work and explores their journeys as they fight to make the American dream a reality.
On the job takes the listener through the ups and downs of making a living in America.
Now check out the new podcast on the job from hired to retired on iHeartRadio, iTunes, or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.
Or just go to ExpressPros.com/slash podcast for more information.
All right, 800 941 Sean of you, somebody you know needs a job.
Well, job seekers never pay a penny.
And Express Employment Professionals always willing to help.
24-7, 365, nearly 800 locations around the country.
Just go to Expresspros.com.
You won't pay a penny.
They're going to help you get the job of your dreams.
Oh, isn't this really, really sweet?
Let's see.
We just had Alexandria, Virginia.
We have ISIS poses.
We have chanting, you know, all sorts of incendiary comments at the president talking about incest and attacking his wife and daughter and 11-year-old kid and anybody that seems to like this president.
There's such hatred and vitriol on the left, it's unprecedented.
Now we've got a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist.
Steve Skeleese remains hospitalized, although apparently he's making improvements after the wounds he suffered last week after being targeted for assassination by an unhinged Bernie Sanders fan.
Now imagine, by the way, for a second.
A Trump supporter, a Fox News watcher, a Hannity Show listener, a, you know, somebody who reads books of Rush and the great one, Mark Levin, he's got his new book coming out next week.
And wouldn't just imagine what the media would do if they find targeted list, conservatives see the right wing nut jobs, and how the media would react.
Just like Bill Clinton blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on talk radio and Rush Limbaugh, which was insane.
Not blaming Bernie Sanders.
Ernie Sanders supporters aren't, you know, this is one nutty insane person, but the incendiary language, the vitriol, the vile hatred, spewed daily, and Robert De Niro and wanting to punch the president in the face, and Joe Biden wanting to punch him in the face, and Jim Kerry wanting to take a golf club to his head and so many others.
I don't even know if Michael Shabon, do you even know this guy?
And you know, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist expressing hope that Donald Trump will have a massive stroke carted out of the White House on a gurney.
You know, is that any different from Madonna wishing to blow up the White House or dreaming of blowing up the White House?
There was one report today that finally somebody who had made a threat against the president was arrested.
Maybe all of these people should be arrested.
You can't make threats against the president of the United States.
And I said that often that we must protect Obama during Obama's presidency.
And Linda, by the way, has found multiple tapes of me saying it.
We'll play them one day.
Every morning I wake up, and in the seconds before I turn my phone on to see what the latest news is, I have this boundless sense of optimism and hope that this is the day that he's going to have a massive stroke and be carried out of the White House on a gurney.
And every day so far I've been disappointed in that hope.
But you know, Hope Springs Eternal.
He's an old guy, doesn't eat well, he's overweight, terrible nutrition.
Remember there was a columnist?
What's her name?
Julianne Malvaux, I think.
Clarence Thomas, she had hoped he ate a lot of bacon and eggs and died young and had a massive heart attack.
Where does the vitriol come from?
Which side of the aisle?
Where was this assassination list from?
We'll continue.
The man is on the court, you know.
I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like many black men do with heart disease.
Well, that's how I feel.
I mean, I he he is an absolutely reprehensible person.
By the way, it's one of those should I or shouldn't I?
Should I should I go there and remind people just how hateful the left is, or should I not?
Let me let me do something here that I think um is really important, and that is I want to remind you about as we begin this process of debating health care.
Let's go back.
Remember, you were promised you get you to keep your doctor.
You get to keep your plan, you get to save on average per American family $2,500 per family per year.
But more importantly, remember when this guy, Jonathan Gruber, was actually admitting that they this was all one big propaganda distortion, lie to you, the American people, because they thought you were stupid, and they said, No, no, no, lack of transparency is really good here.
We can't let the American people know this.
Can't let them know the details, it'll never pass if they if they realize the truth that the mandate we had to make the mandate not a tax because otherwise they wouldn't have supported it.
And the reason we don't want you to read the bill either, because if you read the bill, that's not good.
Remember, you said the lack of transparency, stupidity of the American voter were critical to passing Obamacare.
Listen to this.
You can't do it politically.
You just literally cannot do it.
Okay.
Transparent financing, and let's have transparency financing, also transparent spending.
I mean, the this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.
If CBO scored the mandate's taxes, the bill dies.
Okay, so it's written to do that.
In terms of in terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said healthy people are going to pay in, it made explicit the healthy pay in and sick people get money.
It would not have passed.
Okay.
Just like the people, transparent lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.
And basically, you know, call it the stupidity American voter or whatever.
But basically, that was really, really critical to get anything to pass.
And you know, it's the second best argument.
Look, I wish Mark was right.
We can make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not.
So it's kind of like his reporter story.
You know, yeah, there's things I wish it could change, but I'd rather have this law than not.
It was one big manufactured lie.
You can't do it.
Why do you think we wrote it in such an obscure, tortured way?
2,000 pages, because, well, the CBO, it was imperative that they're not score the mandate for what it really was, which was a tax.
And we can't tell the the American people that are healthy that they're going to pay for the sick and the elderly and and the uninsured, because if we tell them that, then they're not going to support the bill.
And the lack of transparency is a huge political weapon in all of this.
And we're counting on the stupidity of the American voter that was so critical to passing Obamacare, and I'd rather we pass it and lie to get it passed than not have the bill at all.
That's the th that is what government thinks of you.
It's sort of like the people, you know, what have I been on lately?
All of the the arrogance, the elitism that exists in this country.
You know, maybe the people that work over at MBC News, you know, they have the luxury because all these people in the television and radio industry that I work with, many of them are just a bunch of overpaid spoiled brat, arrogant elitists like Joe and Mika, and they had another unhinged moment on the air again today.
These people, they're like emotional basket cases.
Maybe I'll have to end up paying for couples therapy before they get married because I think the three or four hours they're on the air a day is that they're not going to make it emotionally.
They're going to have a collapse with Donald Trump as president because it's like a breakdown a minute over there on that show.
And they can't handle it.
But they don't have they live in the life of luxury.
They're getting paid their big fat salaries for next to zero ratings and and small audiences because they speak to the elite.
Then of course, they arrogantly laugh at the rest of America.
They're so out of touch.
We got 95 million Americans out of the labor force, 50 million in poverty and food stamps, lowest home ownership rate in 51 years.
We're trying to turn it around, and they work on a network that does nothing except advance sick, twisted, ugly conspiracy theories, and he's too busy calling the president of the United States a schmuck, and both of them are too busy having emotional meltdowns Every day to realize that all of this insanity on their part,
which I guess they have the luxury to do in the in the in the comfort of their air conditioned studio, or sitting out with their picnic basket and their champagne and caveat and watching the nightly episode of Thakespear and the Park.
But of course, oh, these little people there talk.
They have do they even know what century Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar?
Did they not know the profundity of the words that A too brute?
Do they not know the outcome of this play and what it means and the symbolism of death and and how they bring it to modern day and they're able to capture the mood of the moment and they assassinate Donald Trump for the purposes of showing a great, great need and a desire of Americans, like hoping that he has a stroke or hoping that Clarence Thomas gets fed butter and eggs, so that like a lot of black men in the country will die at a young age.
How sick, ugly, and twisted are these people?
You know, but and then they say, you know, well, you don't know anything about Shakespeare.
I didn't know Julius Caesar was about that.
Romeo Romeo Romeo, where for the Romeo?
Really?
You think the average person in this country gives a flying rip about Romeo and Juliet if they don't have a job, if they're on food stamps in poverty?
And they can't, you know, I listen, I know what it's like to live with no money and buy a $200 truck and have at most $200 in the bank and have a broken arm, $200 in the bank, and I'm begging a guy with a busted arm if I can continue to work at a shipyard for seven bucks an hour.
That's what my life was like.
It's unbelievable to me.
You know, who gets to think who gets to the comfort in this country of sitting in censor box and and laying out one's blanket and pulling out one's picnic basket and and sipping on champagne and and let's have a little caveat on a little milk toast uh biscuit that we have brought with us.
We don't want to get fat, do we, like those average people?
And let us watch, oh, yes.
It just moves me to to words and expressions and emotions that I can't even express to the average peasant and the masses, they cannot accept the pro the deep symbolism of the tragedy and and the relevancy of today.
And oh, look at this look at the deep, deep, abiding love between Romeo and Juliet, and and do they know do they even know what century Shakespeare was even alive, these these mere masses that eat McDonald's that eat pizza all day, that oh, they they like Kentucky fried chicken and they drink beer.
Oh, can't believe these people.
Shakespeare and the park, lay out your blanket, lay bring out the champagne.
Oh, and uh how dare they interrupt our play?
How dare they not accept that the assassination of Donald Trump is it's not meaning, but anyway.
800 941 Sean.
I gotta go to uh we have a lot of other things to get to today.
I know it's funny.
Let me go back to Jay Johnson yesterday with Trey Gowdy.
No evidence of collusion with the Trump uh camp in Russia.
Listen to listen to this.
At the time you separated from service in January of 2017, had you seen any evidence that uh Donald Trump or any member of his campaign colluded, conspired, or coordinated with the Russians or anyone else infiltrate or impact our uh voter infrastructure?
Um not beyond uh what has been out there open source, and not beyond anything that I'm sure this committee has already seen and heard before directly from the intelligence community.
So the only thing I'd have on that is derivative of what the intelligence community has and the law enforcement community.
And of course, we know the intelligence community from Clapper and Comey and Brennan and everybody in between and Feinstein and Mark Warner and Max E. Waters and and Joe, you know, everybody.
It's unbelievable.
No evidence of collusion.
Anyway, this goes on in the interview.
Johnson testifies to Peter King that the DNC declined.
Now think about this.
The Department of Homeland Security's offer to fight Russian hacking.
Oh, why did they not want the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security in any way to help them with their computers to keep them safe from hacking, but yet they complain about hacking, and then when WikiLeaks comes out, it it's revealed that the Democrats are up to their eyeballs in collusion to prevent Bernie Sanders from ever getting the nomination.
Everyone seems to forget that part.
Play it.
Can you elaborate more on what the uh DHS's uh connection with the DNC was or uh consultation with the DNC was after you became aware of the hacking and they became aware of the hacking uh as to what was offered them, what they accepted.
Was there any level of cooperation at all?
Um, to my disappointment, not to my knowledge, sir.
Um, and this is a question I asked repeatedly when I first learned of it.
You know, what are we doing?
Are we in there?
Are we helping them discover the vulnerabilities?
Because this was fresh off the OPM experience.
And there was a point at which DHS cybersecurity experts did get into OPM and actually help them discover the bad actors and patch some of the exfiltrations or at least minimize some of the damage.
And so I was anxious to know whether or not our folks were in there.
And the response I got was FBI had spoken to them.
Uh they don't want our help.
They have CrowdStrike, uh, the cybersecurity firm.
And that was the answer I got after I asked the question a number of times over the progression of time.
Now that was I assume totally different from the reaction you got from OPM.
Uh the OPM effort, we were actually in there on site helping them uh find the bad actors.
Do you know who it was at the DNC who made that decision or who was making resistance?
No.
Do you know if the FBI continued to try to help, try to assist?
I have uh I've read in the New York Times about those efforts um sometime earlier this year.
Didn't the FBI get a little itzy bitsy teensy winsy suspicious that maybe the Democrats have stuff on it they don't want them to see, and that's why they're gonna bring in their own company.
Why use the FBI for free?
Why use the Department of Homeland Security for free?
Why use some of the best cyber experts in the entire world?
Why would you use them unless you have something uh to hide?
And why did the FBI let them get away with it?
That's the bigger question.
I am more convinced, and I do this, this is now based on my knowledge, my best guess is that uh Rachel Maddow or Chris Matthews Obama gasm thrill up my leg conspiracy theory.
But my best guess is that the Russians in no way um now, by the way, I have no doubt that the Trump campaign would have loved if the Russians had hacked into the DNC emails and showed collusion with Bernie Sanders.
I'd I have no doubt if I was on the Trump campaign, I'd want that information out.
I'd want the truth about who Hillary really was out.
By the way, that would not be any violation in any way, shape, matter, or form of any law.
You know, that's not collusion either.
There's no violation of law here.
And as Jay Johnson testified, not one vote, again, not one vote was in any way altered as a result of Russian quote interference.
But what would the collusion be about?
What, that they would leak the information to WikiLeaks?
Well, if if Hillary and the DNC they would have let the FBI help protect their computers, and if Hillary didn't put it in a mom and shop, pop shop bathroom closet, maybe they wouldn't find themselves in this position.
But I guess it became such a good conspiracy, why not go with it?
And then on top of that, then you got the the whole issue of okay, Trump, Russia.
My experience is telling me I haven't interviewed Julian Assange, and the world doesn't take the time to listen to him.
It was not Russia.
It was not a state.
My guess is that there were dissatisfied, disgruntled.
This is my best guess here.
Not a conspiracy, a guess.
And an intelligent guess hypothesis based on conversations, information, obviously deeper digging than anything in law enforcement seems to be willing to do, or in the the destroy Trump media.
My guess is there were a lot of angry, disgruntled, whistleblowing truth tellers within the DNC that were there that that saw the collusion, that saw that the fix was in against Bernie Sanders, that saw that there was corruption at the highest levels,
that saw that this this whole system was rigged, and they decided to do something about it, which would then answer the question of where WikiLeaks perhaps got its information from.
Which might explain why Julian Assange in a Dutch interview, in my interview, he said it wasn't Russia.
In a Dutch interview, he didn't miss a beat.
Our whistleblowers are they they're they take deep risks.
By the way, let me tell you about, and then he talked about Seth Rich.
Now I don't know anything about Seth Rich in this sense.
I don't I don't have any information about why he was murdered, except that it was suspicious.
And suspicious meaning it wasn't a robbery as they've claimed, but otherwise, why would you not steal his wallet, his phone, and and his his necklace or jewelry and and watch and everything else?
But beyond that, I don't I don't know how I feel sorry for that family, as I said.
I don't know if he's the one that leaked, but I would believe this has to be some group of people in the DNC that saw the corruption of Bernie as for the leaking to WikiLeaks.
That's what I think came from disgruntled Democrats who I don't know.
I have my suspicions.
And as we roll along, Sean Hannity Show 800 941 Sean, you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
All right, we have Congressman Mark Meadows.
Without the Freedom Caucus, the health care bill that got sent to the Senate never would have happened.
Now it's not going to be perfect.
We have Rand Paul is opposing it along with Jake John uh Senator Johnson of Ron Johnson of uh Wisconsin and Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and they're trying to make the proper improvements to this.
And one of them is we don't want expansion of a new government entitlement program.
Anyway, we'll check in with Mark Meadows.
He also wants Congress to stay in session, and he says, who's going to investigate all these investigators?
He's right.
Let's look into Lynch and Comey and Mueller and how about Hillary, too?
Let's go.
Can't do it politically.
You just literally cannot do it.
Okay.
Transparent financing, and let's have transparent financing also transparent spending.
I mean the this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.
If CBO scored the mandate's taxes, the bill dies.
Okay.
So it's written to do that.
In terms of in terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you get a law which said healthy people are going to pay in, it made explicit that healthy people pay and sick people get money, it would not have passed.
Okay.
Just like the people, transparent lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.
And basically, you know, call it the stupidity American voter or whatever.
But basically, that was really, really critical to get anything to pass.
And you know, it's the second best argument.
Look, I wish Mark was right, we can make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not.
So it's kind of like his reporter story.
You know, yeah, there's things I wish it could change, but I'd rather have this law than not.
If you read the Affordable Care Act, and I recommend you do not, but if you do, read the Affordable Care Act.
All right.
So the first question is one of the big assumptions here, which is people are getting crushed by high premiums.
You like to make a case that you need to define who they is and what the reality of the facts are.
What's your pushback?
Well, if you look at uh premiums, that it is the case that they've gone up, but under President Obama, they've gone up uh much slower than they did under President Bush.
Under President Bush, insurance premiums for people in employer-sponsored coverage went up 80% over his eight years.
Under President Obama, they went up 35%, substantially less.
They still did go up.
And I agree, we need to control health care costs.
They're too high.
That, however, requires a lot of work.
It's much harder.
There's no magic bullet.
You need multiple approaches, mainly to reducing how much people are hospitalized, how much they go to the emergency room, the prices we pay for things like hip implants or stents or drugs.
That is a complex process that requires uh paying doctors differently, paying hospitals differently, making them change deliver care.
You know, a stunning, I guess we go back in time here, studying admissions, Jonathan Gruber, and what listen to what he's saying here.
Well, of course, there was a lack of transparency.
We couldn't write this with transparency, it'd never get passed.
And so we had to do it this way because this was the right way to do it.
And and certainly, you know, if we did it and wrote it in a transparent way, and you know, the mandate on taxes was written the way it should have been written.
Well, the bill dies.
And the lack of transparency is really important because you know what we're playing on the advantage of the stupidity of the American people and you know the stupidity of the American people is crucial.
And by the way, don't read the bill, and then Ezekiel Emmanuel.
Yeah, of course, premiums have gone up in spite of what was a narrative and a lie and a talking point that was expressed by every Democrat.
Like your doctor, you keep your doctor.
Like your plan, you keep your plan.
On average, the average family will save twenty five hundred dollars per family per year.
Now there are some obstacles now emerging with the release of the health care bill in the Senate today.
We have four senators, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson.
We have Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Utah Senator Mike Lee.
They said that in its current form it's not good enough for them.
They're willing to negotiate changes.
It's about time that the Senate now has to do their job.
Been a little slow in the making for my particular taste, but I guess it's better late than never.
And joining us, he was at the forefront of getting the bill in the House passed, and he is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, good friend of ours, Congressman Mark Meadows in North Carolina.
How are you?
I'm doing well, Sean.
It's great to be with you.
And you obviously know more about the whole negotiating back and forth and how difficult it is.
But we still have some work to do.
But I'm optimistic that we're the one thing that we're going to do is we're going to be transparent in the fact that Obamacare doesn't work.
And it's time that we repeal it and replace it with something that does.
We're not there yet, but uh I can tell you in talking to some of my Senate colleagues that you just mentioned about, they are in a good frame of mind that they're willing to negotiate and get us across the finish line with just uh a few minor uh changes, I think that should be acceptable to at least fifty-one senators.
Okay.
So let's get to that point.
What are the the main obstacles?
Because I know when you were busy on behalf, when that bill when the vote was pulled on that Friday, I remember talking to you that Friday and through that that subsequent weekend.
Right.
And and there was a lot of blame being laid at the the foot of the Freedom Caucus, which I felt was unfair at the time, and I said so on air and off air.
Right.
A lot of different people.
But ultimately it was you who initiated a lot of the discussions with the Tuesday group and the study group and the drinking group and the you know abst abstaining group.
And I mean, but really you were talking to everybody, and it took a lot of a lot of push and pull to get this thing done.
I know it wasn't ultimately everything you wanted, but you believe a good start.
I I do.
I think it was a good start.
Uh obviously, some of the things that the Senate did uh does improve what we sent over from the House.
And uh as I look at that, uh, you know, I want to be very careful to not just throw everybody under the bus.
That being said, now is the time that you roll up your sleeves if you're a senator.
I can tell you that Senator Cruz and Lee and Rand Paul and Ron Johnson I talked to yesterday.
I think all of them are willing to roll up their sleeves and say, here are two or three things that we can do.
So one of those is the the whole Medicaid issue is allow governors to have the flexibility to use those Medicaid dollars that best suit the their state needs.
Don't have a one-size-fits-all from the federal government.
The other is that competition across state lines, because of the way that they've changed these subsidies in the Senate bill, we should be able to get competition across state lines and further use of HSAs, and then lastly, perhaps the most important to me, is what I call the Ted Cruz Consumer Choice Amendment.
It allows you to have an Obamacare plan and a non-Obamacare plan offered in the same state, but still qualify for uh some of the subsidies.
If we gave consumers that freedom of choice, then ultimately it will drive down premiums.
So those three things would would go a long ways uh to building consensus.
Okay.
Now you were in very close contact and conversations with some of the senators you mentioned.
I know that you were talking to Senator Cruz and when you were in the middle of your negotiations, and I know you talked to Mike Lee, and I know you talked to Rand Paul.
Um, all of them without a doubt.
And they know some of the the tough stuff, Sean.
I can tell you this.
It's not just there.
I mean, we had good conversations with Senator Thune and Senator Danes and some that you would not normally uh think that uh we could find common ground with.
It's all about being all hands on deck to do that.
But to suggest that this bill will find consensus in its format today would not be accurate.
But also I think that we can get there with the amendment process between now and next Thursday.
What are the big differences that you see?
Do you see overall an improvement in the House bill, or do you see that it's not as good as the House bill?
Uh overall, uh there are some aspects of it that are better, in that the net premiums for those uh that are in their fifties and sixties.
So some of your listeners that you have uh right now, if you're uh about to be in your fifties or sixties, uh the Senate.
Why are you making fun of my age like that?
No, no, no.
Why are you did you just call me old?
I can't believe it.
Uh no, I can tell you.
I mean, I'm fifty, I'm fifty-eight years old.
I'm on Obamacare.
I am looking forward to the fact that the premiums would come down.
Yeah.
No.
Listen, this is one of the most important issues for people.
And they listen, in fairness, the American people were just lied to royally.
And when you listen to Jonathan Gruber and uh Ezekiel Emmanuel, it's like they all knew it was one big lie, and they they were counting on quote the stupidity of the American people.
It's it's a level of of deception and arrogance that really bothers me when they're supposed to be the servants of the American people, and I like the transparency.
I if your guess is is that whatever comes out of the Senate that in conference, do you think it's all going to be negotiated and put on the president's desk?
Are we going to get this over the the finish line?
Well, we will put it over the finish line and get it to the president's desk.
The question is, is will it go to conference?
I'm hearing from some of our leadership.
They're not inclined to allow it to go to conference.
So uh phone calls have been made to some of our our senators to make sure that they understand where we are.
But this is the Senate process.
You know, we wouldn't expect them to interfere in ours.
We're not going to fear uh interfere in theirs, but they need to know that if it's going to be a binary choice coming back, what is important?
And so I think if you can make it conservative enough to pick up the the Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and and uh Ron Johnson, then there will not be a problem on the House side as it comes back based on the text that I'm reading.
A hundred and forty-two pages.
I would encourage everyone to read it, uh, especially my colleagues before they start talking about how good or bad it is.
Now both you and Jim Jordan and your fellow Freedom Caucus members, and I'll be perfectly honest, uh, if it weren't for you guys in the House, I I don't know if anyone would even come on my program anymore.
I mean, there's not a lot of love for the show by the leadership in the House.
Well, there's a lot of love by by the listeners out there because you know what?
You speak the truth.
You don't tell Jonathan Grubers.
You actually are transparent.
That's not who I am, sir.
And about I got to meet your wife yesterday.
I gave a a little talk to the the Congressional Wives uh luncheon, and that was a really good time, and I think you married way up, which is very good for you.
I did, but she was she said that you knocked it out of the park.
She came back bragging about Sean Hannity.
So uh I thought that uh I thought what they'd throw me out because I'm not exactly as uh I'm a little more irreverent at times than I should be.
Not as always appropriate as I should be.
But I got to give you guys credit.
You to there's two things that you're working on that I fully support.
One is no August recess.
Get the work done, stay and do the work of the American people.
I know it's gaining momentum, and we're gonna start as of Monday.
We're gonna put on my website those who are willing to stay and those who are not.
And the other thing is both you and Jim Jordan co-authored a piece.
I know it's up on Fox News.com that says get the special counsel, but not Hillary of the IRS.
It's time to investigate the investigators.
I want to ask you about both of those things uh when we get back.
It's our two of the Sean Hannity show, eight hundred nine four one Sean is on number if you want to be a part of the program.
We'll check in with Governor Scott Walker later in the program.
Uh we'll also try and get a hold of Rand Paul, see what he thinks of all of this.
We'll take a quick break.
We'll come back, we'll continue.
800 941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program more with Mark Meadows straight ahead.
All right, as we continue Sean Hannity show, he is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus.
They are the conservative, well, basically the stalwarts in the House of Representatives, and and I would say that we would not have had a health care repeal bill were it not for them guiding this through the House.
Now it's working its way through the Senate as they have released their version today.
On two other matters, you're saying to members of the House and Senate, okay, we take enough vacation.
We're not getting enough done in a good in a good enough period of time to serve the American people on the economy and all these other issues.
Let's stay in session and you and Jim Jordan co-authored a piece about investigating the investigators.
We did.
We think it's time one to get the the people's agenda the real work done and stay in an August like many other people to actually pass legislation and support the president the president's agenda and really all about what matters to to uh the citizens of this great country they expect it to get done.
So August uh shouldn't be a special time of necessarily uh taking off we need to stay here to get it done.
One of the things that we could get done, Sean, is to start investigating the investigators.
As you mentioned, Jim Jordan and I have an op-ed that really talks about just some of the troubling trends that we see with the special counsel Mueller and his defense of Director Comey.
Well, I mean, this is an outrage to me.
Number one, the conflicts of interest.
Number two, the fact that he leaked for the purpose of getting a special counsel.
Number three, it becomes his BFF, his best friend in the world.
He also coordinated with Comey's testimony.
Then you got Rosenstein, who had recommended.
Comey's firing now we move off the issue of Russia Trump collusion because to date there's been no evidence of it well let's now start talking about well is that obstruction uh let's now talk about finances of people and it seems to just keep spreading and spreading and then felonies that we know were committed by Hillary and that is the mishandling of emails top secret classified special access program the destruction of such and the lying and cover up on these issues gets ignored.
Loretta Lynch's obstruction gets ignored well you're right and and here's the interesting thing is this is the type of unequal justice that the American people despise you know there was no special counsel when we looked at the IRS targeting uh and that that investigation there was no special counsel for the Clinton email investigation.
But when it came to protecting Mr. Comey's reputation he'd leaked something out so that indeed there would be a special uh council set up to investigate the president just for uh his own edification I see a real problem with that in the hypocrisy of it so it it's time that we start to look at it and Mr. Mueller's team wouldn't you think that he could find a team that were not max out donors to Democrats I mean it it's just beyond comprehension when we start to see it and
uh and it smells like a lot of other things in Washington DC really is bad.
All right now we're going to we're not going to announce the date yet but pretty soon we will have an announcement I'm I'm going to be going to Congressman Mark Meadows district and we are going to be doing an event together um and it's we're going to try and make it a pretty big blowout event.
We're going to invite some special guests and it's going to be like a town hall style and I guess liberal snowflakes can come and and protest if they want right you know we we would love to have you want to do it by invitation so gracious and let me just tell you you know uh we'll we'll let you come to Red Country.
I don't think the snowflakes would have a place uh we have have a whole lot of uh of Americans who love this country and love this president and we look forward to to having you in western North Carolina.
Well I'm looking forward to it it's a state I'm particularly fond of as you know and I know well you've got a son that go to school there and so we we just love you and uh and we'll smarter than I am he got out of New York he's down in North Carolina figures, right?
Well we we just really appreciate all you do to stand up for freedom and liberty and free speech Sean uh you know God bless you my friend.
You too and uh I know how hard you and and fellow Freedom Caucus members are working and really you're the go-to guys for those of us that are conservative that I know are fighting to try and hold the line as tightly as you can who would have thunk it that uh a hundred Republicans never had any real intention of repealing and replacing Obamacare and you had to overcome that obstacle pretty daunting.
Thank you, sir appreciate it.
800 nine four one Sean toll free telephone number Senator Rand Paul one of the four senators now saying they cannot support the Senate version released today on repeal and replace we'll talk to him about that and much more and then later on Jonathan Gillum Rick Unger will check in, and Governor Scott Walker, all coming up.
Insurance giant United Health Group dealt a blow to the Affordable Care Act on Thursday when it warned that it may stop offering insurance plans to individuals through the public exchanges established by the reform law.
One of the nation's largest help inferers, United Help, has announced that they will exit out of most Obamacare exchanges.
Starting next year, they will only operate in a handful of states.
Anthem is one of the two providers that is exiting the marketplace for 2018.
We received the announcement from Humana yesterday, like the rest of the nation, that Humana was pulling out nationwide for health insurance exchanges.
Obamacare's insurance exchanges are losing major insurance companies, leaving many U.S. counties with only one or two health plan choices.
Company Aetna says it's pulling out of the health exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act in 11 of the 15 states, including North Carolina.
It's worrying development is the decision by several large insurers, including Aetna and UnitedHealth, to pull out of the many of the exchanges.
And many of the nonprofit co-op insurers formed after the law's passage have also failed.
All right, uh glad you're with us twenty-five now till the top of the hour.
That coupled with Jonathan Gruber, which we pay played at the top of the last hour with Mark Meadows of the Freedom Caucus.
And you you've got to wonder.
So we're in a situation where, okay, the health care bill, Obamacare, we were lied to, we were manipulated.
They counted on quote the stupidity of the American people.
Millions lost their plans, their doctors, and of course, Americans didn't save twenty five hundred dollars per family per year.
They ended up on average paying eight thousand dollars more.
Now in the Senate, they have released their bill today.
Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rand Paul, Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ron Johnson all said they cannot support the current rendition of the Senate's Obamacare replacement bill, not in its current form, but they suggested that they could change it in a few ways if amendments are included that they would support.
Uh Ted Cruz said he can't yet support the bill.
And he said in a statement, a joint statement with Johnson and Lee and Rand Paul that currently, for a variety of reasons, we're not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it's brought to the floor.
Now, the Senate Majority Leader McConnell wanted to vote on this sometime next week.
His fellow Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is with us.
How are you?
Now we're never going to get full repeal.
It's just a fact.
We the 2015 bill wasn't full repeal.
And we had, you know, the most frustrating part of this to me was in the House you had over a hundred congressmen that we learned rhino, weak, spineless Republicans that said one thing and meant another.
They had no intention of ever repealing and replacing fully Obamacare, so that's frustrating.
But with that.
For goodness sakes, you know, for goodness sakes, we ought to repeal some of it.
I mean, the current bill actually keeps all of the Obamacare subsidies, and we're working on the numbers right now, but we think it actually may spend more in federal subsidies than Obamacare.
We think in the next year or two that this new plan, the Republican plan, may be more expensive than Obamacare over the next two years.
Okay, so the next is it part of the transitioning cost?
So you're saying overall long-term one reason it costs more is they're keeping all the Medicaid expansion for like another three years.
In fact, they let new people enroll, and there is no payment for it.
In fact, we're getting rid of the taxes that pay for it.
So I'm all for eliminating the taxes, but it it's not really good sense to eliminate the taxes and keep the spending.
For three years they're gonna do that.
If they got rid of that part of it, would that be uh would that bring you a long way to supporting it or no?
It's uh it's a big start in the right direction, but it's not only that they're letting people expand, there is no end to the Medicaid expansion.
And the thing is is if we're honest with ourselves, if people really wanted Medicaid expansion, we should pay for it.
You know, I've told people in Kentucky you could double the state income tax, double the sales tax.
Of course, we'd be at a great disadvantage with Tennessee then.
But if you really want Medicaid expansion, pay for it, but we shouldn't have it, and then just say we're gonna borrow more money for it because we're gonna destroy the whole country borrowing money to pay for new entitlement programs.
Well, where are you in terms of talking to leadership?
I mean, you have as much access to Mitch McConnell as anybody.
I think the conversation begins in earnest now that there are four of us.
Uh four of us means they can't pass it without at least a couple of us uh deciding to accept some changes to the bill.
But by ourselves we have no power.
Four people together, we now have some power to influence a bill.
So far we have had no influence on the bill, but we just announced an hour ago.
So our hope is that the four of us will now get an audience with those who are writing the bill, and we will say this is what we want in exchange for consideration of your bill.
So basically you're saying the same horrible process, top down leadership only, uh establishment only, I guess collaboration exists until they can't ram it down your throat, then you get invited in.
I mean, is that really any way to run a serious?
Well, this is too important to let them do it to us, you know.
I'm with you.
When I came up here, I said we ought to read the damn bills before we vote on them, and I have legislation that says we should wait one day for every twenty pages of legislation.
So that'd be about seven working days for this bill.
We're gonna get if we get the CBO score on Monday and we get the final language on Monday or Tuesday, they're gonna vote twenty-four hours later.
24 hours is not enough time to think about this.
Why are we even using a CBO score anymore, considering they're off, you know, billions and trillions of dollars almost every time?
Isn't it rather useless and outdated and antiquated?
Well, CBO is terrible at estimating who will buy insurance.
They're uh so far off they're not even worth looking at.
However, if they're telling you how much uh a refundable tax credit costs and how much spending will be in Medicaid, they're actually better at that.
And so I do want to see how much it estimates that we will spend in Medicaid and how much we're gonna give away.
And it is very important to me because if this bill spends more than Obamacare, I can't touch it with a ten foot poll, and it's also not repeal if it actually spends more.
Yeah, well, I agree with that too.
But is it do you actually you know what always happens?
You always get the tax increase, you never get the spending cuts.
All right.
You're gonna have a three year period, but does it ever go away?
Because you and I both know future Congresses will say, well, let's just keep doing it.
Well let's just keep spending it.
Let's not take away that money, because then Democrats will go out there and demonize it.
If you're gonna do it, you might as well do it right and you might as well do it at the beginning.
I don't understand the process of phasing it out.
Well, the interesting thing is is Medicaid expansion will never go away under this bill.
Everybody that signs up new for Medicaid in the next three years in all the expansion states, they're all allowed to stay.
Now gradually the state will have to go back to paying the normal split.
The state pays part of it and the federal government pays part of it.
But uh they'll be allowed to uh keep the expansion.
So the interesting thing is is that we're really not getting rid of the Medicaid expansion, we're actually keeping it.
So Medicaid expansion was a big part of Obamacare.
We're keeping it.
Well, one of the great incentives to get governors like uh Kasich in Ohio to support this thing was that money.
Tax subsidies were a big part of Obamacare, we're keeping them too.
Um that's paid for by the federal government.
These were called risk quarters under Obamacare, they're called stabilization fund under uh the Republican plan.
But here's the point, Sean.
I mean, if you had cars being too expensive and everybody's complaining they couldn't get a new car, I can bring down the price of cars by having a hundred billion dollar stabilization fund for cars, and the price for cars will go down.
But that's not America.
That's not freedom, that's not free enterprise, that's not free markets.
That's just basically good old fashioned uh big government that we used to think Republicans were opposed to.
You know, well, what about the options that you and I have discussed at length here?
The you know, for example, my buddy Josh Umber, who is with this cooperative that he created where it's fifty bucks a month for an adult and it's unlimited care and ten bucks a month for a child, and you and I both know under Obamacare it's illegal to buy a catastrophic plan, that would now be legal.
Does this create the option, the availability of these cooperatives to spring up around the country, which is basically concierge service for for blue-collar workers?
Does it allow health care savings accounts to now be part of the equation for most people?
There are twelve key regulations in Obamacare.
This bill repeals two out of twelve.
Yeah, but you didn't answer my question.
Does this pave the way for the cooperatives and health savings accounts?
There is going to be some good language in there that will be what I've been talking about trying to expand the health associations.
So that is a good thing.
There will be some expansion of HSAs in it.
So those are good things.
So there also is repeal of taxes.
That's a good thing.
So there are several things in the bill that are good, but on balance, as somebody who cares very uh deeply about the deficit, even if there are some good things in it, and I love getting rid of taxes, but if we're keeping so much spending that it actually adds to the deficit or will make the deficit worse over time, uh that's a problem.
Yeah, well, I agree.
I don't hear you getting to yes on this bill.
I'm l I've known you a lot of years.
I I don't hear a yes coming from Rand Paul on this bill.
If they're willing to negotiate in a serious way we could, because I've told them, look, I'm for a hundred percent repeal, but I'll settle for ninety percent, eighty percent repeal.
But right now we're not repealing any of the tax subsidies.
So the tax subsidies we're keeping nearly a hundred percent, maybe even over a hundred percent.
We're creating a new federal program.
The cost sharing subsidies that we all said, oh, we're not gonna fund these, we're gonna fund them in there.
So I mean we are really keeping large segments of Obamacare.
We really aren't being a very good idea.
So repealing the Obamacare taxes and then continuing the subsidies for you as just a deal killer.
We get rid of the taxes, keep the spending, but that's not repealing Obamacare.
It's a wimpy way out.
It's Obamacare light.
Well, there are other little good things in there like banning the use of federal funds for abortions, repealing the mandate that individuals are required to buy it, repealing the mandate that r employers must provide it, you know, protecting pre existing conditions.
Everyone agrees on that.
The problem though, Sean, is that if you get rid of the individual mandate, but you still tell people they can buy insurance after they get sick, they do, and that's what's the death spiral of Obamacare is.
Healthy people don't buy it because it's too expensive.
Sick people get it, and then it becomes a pool of sick people and the price goes through the roof.
That is, you know, in your intro to the program you talked about all the rates going up and all the companies leaving.
Under the Republican plan, that still will continue.
They're going to stabilize it by printing up federal money and giving 130 billion dollars to insurance companies.
But like I say, we could do that for education too.
Do we want to say education's expensive?
Let's have an education stabilization fund, a car stabilization fund, an iPhone stabilization fund.
That's not a good idea.
I don't want to work anymore.
I I think I deserve a house, a car, a government car.
I think I deserve government health care, daycare.
Uh I think I need somebody to bathe me a government health care provider just for my own personal comforts in life because it's a cradle to grave womb to tomb, you know, uh just utopia uh wealth transf wealth transfer program that in many ways is what has gotten us into the position we are in, and without free market solutions here, as the highlight of this bill, I think we're making a mistake like you do.
Well, and that's what disappoints me about this.
You know, Republicans, or at least uh a huge bunch of them.
They don't they've never had any intention of repealing, Senator.
Well, and they have they have they have insufficient confidence in freedom, insufficient confidence in capitalism.
Uh competition in the free market is is why our country is a great country, richest, greatest country in the history of mankind because of freedom, competition, capitalism.
But if you're not going to allow that in health care and you're going to do some kind of wimpy form of Obamacare light, I'm afraid what we're going to get is the the death spiral is going to continue, but Republicans are going to own it and they're going to call it Trump care, and it's still going to be a disaster a year from now.
All right.
All right.
Rand Paul is with us.
800-941-SHAWN is our toll-free telephone number.
We'll have more with him on the other side of this.
We'll talk about should the Congress, the House, and Senate stay over August recess.
We'll get his take on that and more.
All right.
As we continue with Senator Rand Paul, the Senate has released a health care bill today.
Four senators now have said they can't support it in its current form.
One of them Rand Paul of Kentucky, and uh the others are Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz and also Senator Mike Lee.
All right.
Now, how close are the four of you in terms of your disagreement?
I mean, I know you released a joint statement, but you didn't say we all agree uh and disagree on this part and that part.
Do you feel that you're in sync the four of you, or do you think there are differences just between the four of you?
You know, our hope is to work together on this and to negotiate as a team.
I think separately, none of us have the power to change this bill or make it better.
But if we work together, I think there's quite a bit we can do.
I know that all of us have been concerned about the cost of insurance and that the regulations of Obamacare add to the cost, and that if we don't get rid of the regulations, they'll still be uh that insurance will still continue to rise.
The death spiral of Obamacare will continue.
And so really that means repealing regulations.
The Republican bill gets rid of two of twelve.
Um I feel certain that if we stick together as a team, we can get a few more of those regulations repealed.
Yeah.
Do you think you get to yes?
Do you think you get to yes at the end of the day?
I think it's uncertain, and that uh I am willing to negotiate in good faith because I do want repeal.
And like I say, there are some good things Repealing taxes.
But I don't want to create new federal entitlement programs.
And uh the tax subsidies of Obamacare are essentially an entitlement program that's not getting your own money back.
You're getting someone else's money.
And we already have enormous entitlement programs that are out there through the tax credit system.
Uh and I think it's I guess it I just can't do that.
I can't vote for federal government to get bigger.
Right now we have a five hundred billion dollar deficit, and I think if we get bigger, there is a danger our our our debt could get so large that it consumes us as a nation.
What about the trillion dollars in savings that's needed for the president's economic plan?
Well, you mean lowering the taxes by a trillion dollars?
No, I mean, according to their analysis when they passed the House bill, that there was a trillion dollars in savings that they would literally transfer over to the president's economic plan.
Yeah, it's sort of confusing, Sean, the way they do Washington Mass.
So for example, let's say Obamacare cost a trillion over ten years, and they're gonna uh uh repeal uh eight hundred billion dollars.
They say, Oh, we saved eight hundred billion.
But to my mind, if they repealed the whole thing, they would have saved a trillion, so they actually spent two hundred billion.
It sort of depends on your perspective.
The other thing I'll tell you is spending goes up at, you know, about a five percent clip for all of government every year.
And so if they cut it to four percent, they call that a cut.
But really, there's cutting the rate of growth of spending.
And I think the way I look at it right now, Social Security spends more than they bring in in taxes.
Medicare spends more than it brings in in taxes.
Food stamps and Medicaid have no specific funding.
So I don't know where anybody's coming up with new money for things.
I gotta leave it there, Senator Rampall will stay in touch and see where this goes uh by the end of the day.
Hopefully they'll make some improvements that that at least get us on the path to a much better health care system that's gonna save money, increase access, and you know, I would hopefully get some of these cooperatives and health savings accounts in.
We'll continue.
Stay right here for our final news roundup and information overload.
All right, news roundup information overload hour here on the Sean Hannity Show.
Haven't spent enough time on this today.
The president said today he does not have tapes of his private conversations with the former FBI director, James Comey.
Now remember at the time he said, Well, Mr. Comey, you might want to make sure you don't lie, there may be tapes of this.
Now he does what you know.
Look, I've known Donald Trump for too long.
Didn't we all predict that that he was playing Comey?
And he was just if he was sowing seeds of doubt in Comey's mind.
Why?
Because now we've discovered rightly so that there probably was a pretty good chance that Comey really didn't like Donald Trump, and maybe Comey wouldn't have been so inclined to be so honest about even going as far as to say Trump encouraged him to go forward with the investigation by saying,
Oh, I want to know the American people have a right to know if it's I know it's not me, but if there were satellites around me that were colluding with the Russians on the issue of the campaign, then okay, the American people have a right to know, which by the way, wouldn't even in and it's in and of itself be a crime.
What is collusion mean?
That somebody has a private conversation in the course of the conversation, somebody says, Oh, I have tapes of Hillary Clinton.
Oh, you don't want the tapes of Hillary to be released?
Oh, I have Hillary's emails that she said don't exist anymore.
Oh, that'd be great.
I hope you release them.
Because then the American people can see the truth.
We never get to that fundamental part.
And I would argue that in Comey's mind when he was saying and testifying, oh, I well, I heard there might be tapes.
I want to hear the tapes.
I think that made Comey work a little bit harder on that memory of his and recollection of his and probably kept him a lot more honest than he otherwise would have been.
And that means that probably he had to reveal, maybe he didn't want to, that he had leaked to the New York Times.
And by leaking to the New York Times, he wanted a special counsel and not knows it knowing that Rosenstein had recommended Comey's firing.
Well, now, you know, because there's no Trump Russia collusion or no evidence up to this point of such, well, then that means Rosenstein saying that, well, we should investigate why Comey went when he recommended it to the president, and then we end up with the best friend of James Comey, Robert Muller, as the special counsel that Comey wanted appointed,
and they collude in their testimony before Comey goes before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and then he hires, let's see, Hillary Clinton's lawyer to prevent with the with the Clinton Foundation, the woman charged with preventing the American people from getting Freedom of Information Act requests.
Oh, that lawyer is now working for Mueller, or all the many lawyers working for Mueller that donated to Obama and Clinton.
Is there any one Trump donor in the list of people that he's putting together?
This is all called the conflict of interest.
It's all called mission investigative creep.
And now that we already know that there's no Trump Russia collusion because there's no evidence thereof, then why is the investigation even going forward?
Anyway, joining us now, our good friend Rick Unger and Jonathan Gillam is back with us.
All right, Rick Unger.
I think this is a stroke of pure genius.
And you know what he's saying?
Of course you do.
You know what he's saying?
You know what he's saying?
He's saying, well, with all the stuff about surveillance going on and all the talk about, you know, people being surveilled against their will and unmasked and you know, of course, intelligence leaking.
Who knows who's getting taped at any given time?
That's a stroke of genius.
Uh, you know what?
I I don't even know what to say to that because I never believed for one half of a second that he had any tapes.
So I I never took this all very seriously.
But you know in Comey's mind, Comey had to say, well, even if there's two percent chance, that did hold Comey to a higher accountability of honesty, didn't it?
Because he knew it might be there in the back of his head.
And if he was gonna lie, he couldn't take that chance.
I I suspect two things.
One suspect, Hannity, you're right.
It's a stroke of genius, and I wish I did it myself.
I think I think public officials like like Comey is probably clever enough to be careful when testifying before Congress under oath.
Uh so I don't think he had any plans to say anything dishonest there.
Uh, I don't think Trump did anything wrong, you know, illegal or anything by tweaking Comey with that.
I never bought it, but I do think what's funny is he's like turning it around on the press and saying, Oh, you're gonna be so disappointed.
We we didn't start this, you did.
You put out the tweet.
What do you want us to do?
Pretend you didn't.
But wait a minute.
In a day and age in a well, no, it's not high school.
In a day and age where Comey clearly is a bitter, anger angry, you know, disgruntled ex-employee who clearly had an agenda to get a special counsel appointed for the president.
I think it was a stroke of genius, Jonathan Gillum.
He held him to a higher level of accountability and honesty by saying, hey, all of us could be taped according to the deep state.
I thought it was brilliant.
No, I think it I think it was too.
And and and I know Rick uh disagrees with this, but I do believe it probably played into this uh a little bit with uh Mr. Comey, uh the criminal James Comey coming out and actually um saying some of the stuff that he did.
I mean, look, you just say the little James Comey.
Say again.
Did you just call him a criminal?
Did I hear you right James?
Yeah.
You think he's a good one?
I can tell you, I can tell you a crime.
I thought I think I think he did commit a crime.
18 USC 641 when he used a government computer and a government car and he created a government memo, he does not have the right to leak it, and by doing so that would be a violation of the records act, a felony punishable in jail up to three to ten years and a fine.
Not just that, but also the fact, Sean, listen, there is no investigation that is this clean where they just say, Oh, we have proof of this, we have proof of that.
We know that this person did that.
The only time a case is this clean is when we are setting up when you know I was an FBI agent, and we are setting up somebody that we either know is doing something, or in the case of bad investigators, they're trying to entrap somebody, and so they create something and get them to act on it.
This is just you know what, fellow thing.
I I don't know.
I don't know if there's any collusion here.
I really don't.
I think it's all starting to become background.
But as objective as I can be, you guys are working way too hard.
No, I'm there's no working.
This is genius.
Because Trump figured out that this guy is angry, disgruntled, wanted a sp we now know he leaked to get a special counsel, which I would argue is a violation of the law that should be investigated itself.
Now except that nobody else is.
I think Republicans in Congress arguing it.
But Trump knows in the world of the deep state, all of us can be taped.
All of us are surveilled.
So what he's saying is, I hope you don't lie.
There might be tapes of it.
Well, it could have been the FBI or the NSA or the CIA taping it.
And I just think that is a a massive jujitsu move back on the deep state and on Comey.
It was great.
I think it's uh I think it's a six AM tweet that was high school.
But you know, who knows?
I think it kept Comey honest.
I think Comey had to in the back of his mind think, uh uh, what if there's only a one percent chance?
I gotta be careful.
Yeah, it's funny, with all the talk people have about people who appear under oath, whether it's in a courtroom or in Congress, you'd be amazed.
There's such a slim number of people who actually lie in court or in Congress because they do take perjury ser seriously.
I don't think Comey would have lied with or without Trump suggesting that there were tapes.
Okay.
Hillary, Benghazi, the president lies, you know, all the lies about well, there was a spontaneous demonstration, and in the middle of this demonstration, they just happened to pull out mortars and RPGs so they could fire at the compound because the moment just came to them.
That was not an that was spontaneous.
I'm curious, is there anybody on your side of the fence that you think ever lied, or was it only the other people?
I'll play where Comey lied too.
You ready?
Let's listen to James Comey lie right here.
So is the attorney general or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation?
Can they halt that FBI investigation?
In theory, yes.
As it happened, not in my experience, because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that without a appropriate purpose.
I mean we're oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there, and so you ought to stop investing resources in it.
But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason.
That would be a very big deal.
It's not happened in my experience.
At one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me.
But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we're to close this case credibly.
Well, it concerned me because we were at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence, as we typically do, of an investigation for months, and it was getting to a place where that looked silly because the campaigns we're talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work.
The the Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms, security review matters, things like that for what was going on.
We were getting to a place where the attorney general and I were both gonna have to testify and talk publicly about it, and I want to know was she going to authorize us to confirm we had an investigation?
And she said, Yes, but don't call it that, call it a matter.
And I said, Why would I do that?
And she said, just call it a matter.
And again, you look back in hindsight, you think should I have resisted harder?
I just said, All right, isn't worth this isn't a hill worth dying on.
And so I just said, okay.
I mean, this is the president of the United States with me alone saying I hope this.
I took it as this is what he wants me to do.
Now I didn't I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it.
He just lies.
I mean, I don't know what else to say.
Where where did he lie there?
I'm just uh okay.
He said nobody's ever asked me.
That would be a big deal if they ever asked me politically, you know, to stop an investigation.
By the way, would you mind calling it a matter, not an investigation?
And on top of that, we now know from Sarah Carter and John Solomon.
Wait, how can he say he's lying if he just told you that's what happened?
No, because I'm saying if if somebody tried to stop him for political reasons from stopping an investigation, it'd be a big deal.
Then you have I don't get where the lie is.
Well, by the way, we don't just calling it a matter and him out doing that and couple that with Carter and John Solomon's revelation that Loretta Lynch, according to Democrats and documents that exist, apparently had already put the kibosh on any possible indictment of Hillary.
That's a big deal.
That makes sense.
I'm just having trouble following, you know, I know I'm not as bad.
Oh my gosh, you're such a good having trouble following the chain of a lie.
I think you're stay right there.
I'm gonna let you let your mind recover from the intensity of this this interview, and then maybe you'll catch up.
Okay.
I'm just kidding, Rick.
All right, 800 nine four one Sean is our number.
And as we continue, Sean Hannity Show, 800 nine four one Sean toll for a telephone number.
Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin will join us at the bottom of the hour to talk about the Republican health care bill, and they need to keep their promises.
Uh, we're trying to explain why this was a stroke of genius to Rick Unger, our liberal friend, but Jonathan Gillam, I just can't seem to get through to him.
I don't know if you but you why don't you try?
Okay.
Rick, I want you to concentrate on this real quick.
First of all, I think out of that whole thing lies and everything else, the most profound statement that he made was that that wasn't a hill worth dying on.
Listen, if that was not the most profound thing that he ever said, it sounded like he's afraid of the Clintons.
He's afraid he's gonna die if he does the wrong thing.
I said, Okay, that's that's just my opinion on that.
But here's the thing.
When it comes to the FBI and the way that we work, we don't work like attorneys.
We don't stretch the truth.
We don't do unethical things like change the name from investigation to a matter.
That is an unethical thing, and it borderlines a lie.
There are places where he does lie all throughout his testimony, or he says things that are criminal, like he leaked government information, and he just skips right over it.
But the fact that he has an attorney and he in the leaning this to me, you've gone from lie to borderline lie.
Now here's the news flash.
I actually agree.
I nobody was well, I won't say nobody, but I couldn't have been more vocal about my disgust with President Clinton meeting the attorney general on a tarmac in her plane.
It was outrageous.
I don't like that the attorney general said to her FBI director, can we please call this a matter and not an investigation?
And that should be investigated.
But let's keep things organized and and on track.
You know, I mean, it's not about diverting.
It's about, you know, justice.
Finding out if somebody did something wrong and dealing with it.
If she did something wrong, go get her, man.
But you know what?
Does that go for Hillary lying here?
Did Hillary mishandle classified top secret and special access program information?
In my opinion, yes.
And did she destroy top secret classified and special access program?
I don't know.
Well, we do know.
I mean, James Comey said actually said the words that of the emails deleted, which is an attempt to destroy, that that included top secret classified and special access program information.
So that would mean she committed at least two felonies.
What should happen then?
I I think that if she committed felonies, she should be prosecuted for them.
But what I don't understand is why you're so talking about Hillary when Hillary Clinton lost the election.
It can only be deflection.
It's you know, go get her.
If she broke laws, go get her.
I'm for prosecuting anybody who commits felonies.
What I don't understand is why anybody feels the need to be spending time.
Just put your put your vote in, man.
Go prosecute anybody who has broken the law.
I am I don't care what side of the aisle they're on.
But what has that got to do with the current situation?
We're living today.
We're not living even six months ago when President Trump became president.
But Rick, that I think what you're saying right there is the exact thing.
The fact is, all this includes and it includes the former uh attorney general, the uh former director of the FBI, the special prosecutor, the whole thing.
This whole case is a lie.
So when we say the lie, what is what is the former attorney general got to do with this case?
The whole thing is a lie.
Everything, everything that's all spun up about about Trump is a lie.
There's a lot of attorney general.
If he says there's no investigation against the president, but they have those kinds it's great that you have those kinds of sources in an investigation that's not completed yet.
You've never heard me say that it's true, because I have no idea.
But yet you seem to know the whole case is a fraud and a lie.
You may be right.
And can I tell you something?
I really hope you are, because I don't want the president of my country or his people to have been involved in something like that.
And if you want to not good for my country.
If you want to get rid of this, then you should agree with us that Mueller needs to recuse himself and Rosenstein needs to go and come in.
That diversion.
Well, no, no, right, but we have a policy for special investigations.
You should be confident that that investigation was.
The problem is the investigation for you.
Is stacked with Clinton Obama donors and Hillary's own attorney, and it's filled with conflict of interest with Mueller and Comey and Rosenstein.
And it stinks to high heaven.
And by the law, they should recuse themselves.
I've read the law many times on the program, but I got a roll.
All right, love you both.
Thank you, Rick.
Thank you, Jonathan Gillum.
When we come back, the governor of the great state of Wisconsin, Governor Walker, on why Republicans need to start keeping their promises next.
Said this once or twice, but it bears repeating.
You can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it.
If you like the plan you have, you can keep it.
If you like your plan And you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing.
You keep your plan.
If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan.
If you've got health insurance, you can keep it.
If you like your health care plan, you will keep your plan.
If you've got health insurance, you like your doctor, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor.
You can keep your plan.
If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance.
If you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it.
If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan.
If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.
If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep it.
If you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it.
If you like the insurance plan you have now, you can keep it.
And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it.
So if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
If you like your plan, keep your plan.
If you like your current insurance, you will keep your current insurance.
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
If you're happy with what you got, nobody's changing it.
Insurance giant United Health Group dealt a blow to the Affordable Care Act on Thursday when it warned that it may stop offering insurance plans to individuals through the public exchanges established by the reform law.
One of the nation's largest health insurers, United Health, has announced that they will exit out of most Obamacare exchanges.
Starting next year, they will only operate in a handful of states.
Anthem is one of the two providers that is exiting the marketplace for 2018.
We received the announcement from Premier yesterday, like the rest of the nation that humanity was pulling out a nationwide for health insurance exchanges.
Obamacare's insurance exchanges are losing major insurance companies, leaving many U.S. counties with only one or two health plan choices.
Company Aetna says it's pulling out of the health exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act in 11 of the 15 states, including North Carolina.
It's worrying development is the decision by several large insurers, including Aetna and United Health, to pull out of the many of the exchanges.
And many of the nonprofit co-op insurers formed after the law's passage have also failed.
Can't do it politically.
You just literally cannot do it.
Okay.
Transparent financing, and let's have transparency financing, also transparent spending.
I mean the this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes.
If CBO scored the mandate's taxes to Bill dies.
Okay, so it's written to do that.
In terms of in terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you get a law which said healthy people are gonna pay in, it made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.
Okay?
Just like the people, transparent lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.
And basically, you know, call it the stupidity American voter or whatever.
But basically, that was really, really critical to get anything to pass.
And you know, it's the second best argument.
Look, I wish Mark was right, we can make it all transparent, but I'd rather have this law than not.
So it's kind of like his reporter story.
You know, yeah, there's things I wish it could change, but I'd rather have this law than not.
We have been running on repealing and replacing Obamacare since 2010.
In 2016, the House, in a bottom-up way, set a working group together, the Commerce Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Education Workforce Committee, and then any other member of Congress who cares about this issue, participated in a working group to come up with a plan for what we would replace Obamacare with.
Uh much of it was modeled off the Tom Price legislation, which which we as conservatives have always seen as sort of the gold standard for replacing Obamacare.
He's now the Secretary of HHS.
That is the bill, the plan that we ran on in 2016.
We told America, here is our vision for how we replace Obamacare after we repeal Obamacare.
That's the bill we're working on right now.
That's the bill we're working on with the Trump administration.
We're all working off the same piece of paper, the same plan.
So we are in sync.
The House, the Senate, and the Trump administration because this law is collapsing.
And you can't just repeal it, you have to repeal it and replace it with a system that actually works, and that is exactly what we're doing, and I am perfectly confident that when it's all said and done, we're going to unify because we all, every Republican ran on repealing and replacing, and we're going to keep our promises.
Because I heard everything from Obamacare will be done Day one to the spring to the summer to the by the end of the year.
And so it's been all over the map, not just from you, but from other people.
I also heard people say it hasn't been all over the map from us.
From me.
Well, in terms of Congress for the press.
It's been all over the map from from rumor mills.
But from us here in Congress.
We're exactly on the timeline that we laid out for ourselves.
When I heard repair, my head nearly exploded.
That's not the plan.
The plan is repeating.
Tom Price helped write that plan.
He is now Donald Trump's Secretary of Hills.
It is a consensus plan that's now being scored by the CBO.
Correct.
All right, it wasn't exactly the case 23 now till the top of the hour.
Tollfrey our telephone numbers 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the programs, the Senate is making their move on the effort on repealing replacing Obamacare.
I think the most outrageous part of that is, oh you know, listen, the lack of transparency is great politics.
You know, you got to count on the stupidity of the American voter.
That works in our favor.
We can't tell them the truth.
We told them the truth, they'd never pass this, and it ends up millions lose their doctors, millions lose their care, and the promise of the average family saving twenty five hundred dollars per family per year, you know, turns into a six, seven, eight thousand dollar a year increase for Americans.
Governor Scott Walker is with us from the great state of Wisconsin, and he said to Republicans, there's no excuses.
Get the job done.
How are you?
I'm outstanding, Sean.
Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, that's right.
Senate Republicans, just like House Republicans ran on a message that they were going to repeal Obamacare.
They were going to replace it with something better, and they need to give their promises, plain and simple.
Well, I agree with you, and I think I was disappointed in uh in the House bill the way it ultimately came out.
I do believe agree with the President.
It's a great first step.
I think one of the more disappointing aspects of it is I learned that there were probably a hundred or so moderate to liberal Republicans in the House that had no intention of ever fully repealing and replacing.
Well, that's just it.
They it was great to take a vote apparently when Barack Obama was president of the United States and they could uh fall back on the veto.
The bottom line is I I think Americans last year showed, they certainly showed in Wisconsin where we elected uh Donald Trump and Mike Pence as president and vice president for the first time since Ronald Reagan that's the very first Republican to carry the state since then and sent back people like Ron Johnson in the United States Senate.
We not only had Republicans voting that way, we had a whole lot of independence because they wanted people who were authentic.
They wanted people to do the things that they said they would do to shake things up, to drain the swamp in Washington.
And a big part of that is is making sure that there is a full repeal and that the replacement is something that is better, that is conservative, that is what people ran on.
And uh I got a lot of people.
One of the things they're arguing to hear all the lobbyists out there circle members of Congress and some in the Senate to try and change them and get them to back away from the promises that were made.
One of the things that everybody would argue in conservatives are particularly arguing, and Rand Paul in particular and others, is that this isn't and never was, and even the Freedom Caucus admitted it was not their choice, but it's not a full repeal.
Now I know there are discretionary powers of the Health and Human Services Secretary, but they would also pass any new one administration if it happened to be a Democratic administration.
Does that bother you?
Absolutely.
And along with that, to me, one of the most troubling things is I I've said all along, any bill, be it in the Senate or the House that allows the Obamacare Medicaid expansion to grow is not a repeal of Obamacare.
You remember Valerie Jared, in fact, one one of my fellow governors, I think got a call at midnight trying to persuade that person to to join the Medicaid expansion.
The reason they did that was because they knew in the Obama administration it would be much more difficult to repeal Obamacare if states took the expansion.
Nineteen of us, my s myself included, did not, on principle, we thought it was the wrong thing to do.
It would make it harder to repeal Obamacare, and just it was bad for for the taxpayers, and not just our states, but our country.
And to me, if a bill includes not just continuing expansion, but but talk about growing it, allowing it to grow into the future, as well as the concerns you just raised, those are real, real problems, and that's not what the American people thought they were getting when people said they were going to repeal it.
What do you make of all of this vitriol and and hate and and all of these attacks and all these false narratives that have been laid at the door of the president that keep being proven not to be true?
No evidence of Trump Russia collusion, and now you got an investigation that probably is going to take years, which I think is outrageous because of all the conflicts of interest that have emerged.
And you know, the impact that you think it's having on the country.
And do you think, for example, severed heads and ISIS poses of the President's head and everything else that we've heard about him and his family is leading to this culture of what happened in Alexandria last week.
So many of these tacks are just despicable.
You know, good and decent people can have difference of opinions.
We're not talking about difference opinions.
We're talking about people who are blinded by their rage.
Unfortunately, and I I just saw the president uh a week ago and the vice president a couple of days before that both made visits to Wisconsin, and I reminded them of two things.
One, I I commiserate a little bit, because as you well know, Sean, you you helped lift me up a number of times when we were facing similar circumstances uh, you you probably were the you're second on the list in terms of the brutality that you face.
There's no doubt about it.
Oh, I I said about the o the only thing they hate more than me and in the the most liberal parts of Madison now is the president.
So I I at least got a slight reprieve, I guess, there.
But that just means you're doing, you know, for a lot of these folks, that just means you're doing the right thing.
They they don't hate you if you're backing away from your principles.
They don't hate you uh if you're not getting things done.
What they hate are common sense principled conservatives who get things done.
And so I told the president uh the best thing he could do, I told the Vice President Mike Pence, who's been a good friend of mine for many, many years, do what I've tried to do over the last several years, and that is get out of the Capitol as much as you can.
The more you see people, I see it in my state in Wisconsin, I believe you will see it across America.
The more you get out of the Capitol, get out of just that bubble, sixty-eight square miles surrounded by reality is what I call Washington.
DC, the more you get out to talk to people living in reality every single day and show them you're fighting for them, it not only helps save your sanity, it reinvigorates you because you can see that everyday Americans really do want us to do the things we we said we'd do when we campaign.
And uh that's one of the to me, at least the the best messages I could pass on both to the president and the vice president is get out and see America, keep talking to people and forget about the mess in Washington.
Get out of there, stay stay away from there as as much as you can.
One of the senators opposing the bill today, and they came out with a joint statement uh uh so well, yeah, Senator Mike, I'm sorry, four senators, Senator Mike Lee, uh Senator Ramp Paul, Senator Cruz, and Senator Johnson, your senator opposing this bill, saying currently a variety of reasons we're not ready to vote on a bill, but we are open to negotiation, obtaining more information before it's brought to the floor.
Um have you spoken to the Senator and and talked about what his opposition at this point is?
I have quite a bit, and and from each of those four, including Ron Johnson, they're approaching it from a conservative standpoint.
They want to make it better.
They want to make it uh more uh in line with what Republicans ran on this fall to make it a true repeal.
And uh I think uh anything that can be done to improve it before it ultimately gets sent back to the House and on its way to the President is a good thing.
Uh we want the President to have a victory.
I was just out uh almost two weekends ago uh with uh Mike Pence, Vice President Pence, making the case, and as you played on the lead in there.
Sadly, uh, we we saw there, as we've seen time and time again across the country, we met a uh a family from Wisconsin who is just crippled uh by uh by Obamacare.
All the things President Obama said, you know, she lost her coverage, she lost her doctor, she's had uh uh her her copays are are much bigger than they ever thought along the way.
It is a system that is falling apart.
We've got to re completely repeal it.
We've got to put something back in place that isn't just a I agree with those four.
I think there's true conservative reform, and we've got to end all the tentacles that are part of Obamacare to make it work.
And and uh whether it's Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, any of those that want to make it better, as long as their goal is the only thing I would object with is is if the goal is to never have a vote, uh then I don't think that works.
Because I think both for policy reasons and political reasons, politically being people need to keep their promises, but also politically.
Obamacare is falling apart, and if Republicans don't repeal it and and and put something in that's better, the American people are gonna blame them, even though it's the Obamacare that's at fault.
American people are gonna blame them because Republicans are in power now.
We're gonna have to leave it there, Governor.
Uh, listen, it's been a long time, and you know what, you've been a pretty strong voice of uh support for the president.
I was a little disappointed in Paul Ryan during the campaign.
And can you when you see Paul Ryan, can you tell him to move a little faster on his end?
I just wish he had a little more New York urgency uh in him.
Will you tell send that message for me?
Absolutely.
We're doing our part to help.
We keep telling the story of Wisconsin to encourage those in the House and the Senate.
It can be done.
You just gotta don't worry about the protesters.
Worry about the people that elected you and get the job done.
Yeah, well said.
And you know what?
You have weathered many a storm yourself.
I think the president getting out to Iowa yesterday was really taking your advice, and you could see he was energized being out with people.
Uh all right, thank you.
Governor, always good to talk to you.
Thank you, sir.
Uh 800-941 Sean.
You want to be a part of the program.
All right, that's gonna wrap things up for today.
We have an awesome Hannity tonight, 10 Eastern.
Is it time to get back to the agenda serving the American people in spite of the lying, the corruption, the collusion, the the media lies.
How do we do that?
We'll check in with New Gingrich tonight.
Also, we have President Trump versus Comey, and oh, he didn't have tapes after all.
I think it was the biggest, greatest play ever.
Uh, we have Morning Joe's meltdown.
We're gonna we're gonna cover the insanity, and Coulter will weigh in on that.
Lou Dobbs will weigh in on the Democrats pushing back, and we'll p Walosi step aside and Tom Price on the Senate health care bill.
What's in it and what discretion does he have?
That's ten Eastern.
Tonight, Hannity, Fox News.
See you back here tomorrow.
Thanks for being with us.
You make this possible.
▲
Export Selection