Sean Hannity Show - Best of The Summer So Far - 7.3

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July 4, 2017 - Sean Hannity Show

01:36:19

Best of The Summer So Far - 7.3

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	He felt it clearly that Loretta Lynch was giving cover to the Clinton campaign.
	Was she?
	I can't answer that.
	I would have a queasy feeling too, though, to be candid with you.
	I think we need to know more about that.
	And there's only one way to know about it, and that's to have the Judiciary Committee take a look at that.
	I'm getting queasy, and I don't feel very strong.
	And oh, it makes me nauseous.
	And I'm the FBI director.
	If I only been stronger, I could have stood up and walked out on him, but it wasn't so hard on me.
	I couldn't believe it.
	Anyway, 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program and the extravaganza.
	So many different issues now in play.
	Did James Comey himself break the law?
	In other words, we went over 18 USC 4, and did he have an obligation, if he thought there was obstruction, to report it to the Justice Department, regardless if he thought weeks later that there was a possibility Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, would recuse himself.
	Then we bring in another law into the mix, which is actually getting even more fascinating, and that is his admission that he leaked to the New York Times and whether or not he broke the law there, and very specifically 18 U.S. Code 641 that would make it a felony to steal or sell or convey any of these materials under the Federal Records Act and records management regulations at the DOJ and FBI.
	Anything done in the course and scope of government employment is property of the government, not the employee.
	Wow.
	And then, of course, his admission that, yeah, he's best friends with Robert Mueller, who's now the special counsel.
	And apparently, Robert Mueller assisted and was helping James Comey prior to his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.
	This is getting way beyond control.
	And whether or not this special counsel at this point in time, now that we learn that there was no Trump-Russia collusion, even Chris Matthews believes it.
	If the whole thing should go away, reminds me a lot of what happened, Patrick Fitzgerald, and he knew on day one who the leaker was, Richard Armitage.
	And yet he continued, and then they broadened the scope of the investigation.
	It goes on for years and years and years.
	And God forbid, if you don't remember every single solitary detail, well, that's called the perjury trap.
	And you're going to be prosecuted for perjury like Scooter Libby and lose your law license and have your name and reputation, you know, smeared and besmirched forever.
	Ray Donovan, where do I go to get my good name back?
	All right, here to analyze all of this.
	Jay Seculo, he's the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.
	My friend and colleague at the Fox News channel, Greg Jarrett, who is a lawyer in and of his own right, and both of them have been all over all of these legal issues that Comey should be facing.
	Welcome both of you to the program today.
	How are you doing?
	Doing great, John.
	I'm fine.
	All right, Jay, let's start with you.
	Let's talk about the legal ramifications for Comey's testimony last week and this relationship with Mueller.
	Well, I think, look, I mean, you talked about 18 USC 641 and this idea that what the former FBI director did while he was the FBI director was to take minutes, basically, notes of a meeting.
	If he was an FBI agent, he'd be filling out what's called a Form 302.
	He takes this.
	This is a meeting with the President of the United States.
	So I would assume to start, this is under executive privilege.
	Deliberate discussions with the president is covered by privilege.
	Of course, he doesn't worry about that.
	He takes the document, makes a document on his government computer while he's in his government vehicle, goes back and puts it in his government office.
	He holds it.
	He does this in February, by the way.
	He releases it to a friend of his, as we know the story goes now from James Comey's own mouth, to a friend of his with the sole purpose, not to review it for content and grammar, to leak it to the New York Times.
	Because he said, Lordy, when I saw the tweet from President Trump, I figured I have to have some kind of some way that I've had this memorialized.
	And by the way, the contents of that memorandum, the subject matter of the memorandum, the dinner, the meeting, was already leaked in the New York Times the day before the tweet.
	And he leaks it then for the sole purpose of getting a special counsel, which, lo and behold, we have a special counsel.
	Then ask yourself this question.
	If an FBI agent was interviewing a potential government official or someone else and leaked that memo of the investigation details, let's say against Hillary Clinton, to the New York Times, how would that be received?
	It'd be perceived as two FBI agents showing up at your door asking you a lot of questions because not only of 18 USC 641, but possibly 28 USC 535, which is another section that may be in play.
	We'll talk about that one later.
	And then Greg's done an unbelievable job on 18 USC 4, which, of course, is the fundamental issue with this whole obstruction of justice nonsense in the first place.
	By the way, I should note that I guess as of late last week, you're now a counsel for the president, Jay.
	Is that fair?
	Yes, I'm on the legal team.
	Okay.
	So let me go to you, Greg.
	You did do great work.
	Both of you have done great work here, and I really applaud your deep dive.
	Let me start with 18 USC 4.
	Now, what was amazing, I think, in that testimony of Comey is Comey basically, I can't say whether or not he obstructed justice.
	That's up to Robert Mueller to decide.
	And I said to myself, oh, my God, he literally just created an avenue where he himself has opened up a door about whether or not he violated the law.
	Was my interpretation right or wrong there?
	Yeah, your interpretation's absolutely correct.
	I mean, he could not, Comey, answer the question which was posed, which was, did you think at the time that the words were allegedly uttered by the president that he was attempting to obstruct justice?
	If Comey said yes, why then he's incriminated himself because he has a legal duty under federal statute to report it to the Department of Justice.
	He's feeling to do so.
	All right, that is clear.
	The law is just clear as day.
	But the question is, if he says, I don't know, that means he had to think it's a possibility.
	And then you go into, why didn't you, you know, Dianne Feinstein's quote?
	Why didn't you just explain it to him?
	Why didn't you just get up and walk out?
	I'm too afraid.
	I don't know.
	I was scared.
	He said, if I was stronger, I would have.
	Maybe I should have.
	That's a good question, he said.
	If I was stronger, perhaps I would have.
	By the way, I said this with you last week, but I've thought about that a lot lately.
	I mean, this is a guy that, as you say, gets mildly nauseous, unsettled.
	And in this particular case, what does he say?
	Well, he says, you know, I'm really upset about all of this.
	And if I was stronger, I could have done that.
	This was a guy that was also running the FBI, because he was the director, counterintelligence against groups like ISIS.
	Is this the guy you want out there doing this?
	I mean, I would think that he was fired for cause in that sense.
	But putting the legal issues squarely, the idea if he thought there was an obstruction of justice, which he acknowledged there's not.
	I mean, let's not forget, everyone's focusing on what James Comey said for two and a half hours at that hearing.
	But let's not forget his written submission to the committee, which Sean is part of the record, and where he said, I did not feel that the president was putting any pressure or obstructing anything on the Russia probe.
	And I did tell the president three times that he had not been and was not subject of an investigation.
	And certainly the Michael Flynn allegations, and again, it's just Jim Comey's version of this.
	Even if you took that at its word, which I wouldn't because he's not exactly a credible witness, that's not obstruction of justice.
	I talked to one of my law partners today, who was a prosecutor also.
	Obstruction of justice, Greg knows it.
	It's a very high legal standard.
	And the president.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Let me just throw in here, there are five, under the statute, there are five scenarios that are specifically defined as obstruction of justice.
	They are lies and bribes and threats, destruction of evidence, or altering and concealing documents.
	Comey alleges none of those things.
	So by definition under the law, it cannot be obstruction.
	All right.
	Now let's get to a question that, Jay, I saw you on George Stephanopoulos' program this weekend, on yesterday, and then I saw Newt Gingrich give an interview, and Newt said Congress should now intervene and should abolish the independent counsel.
	And then, you know, Byron York is raising a nice question too, an interesting question, one we raised Thursday and Friday.
	Is Robert Mueller now conflicted in the Trump probe?
	I'll ask you both.
	Well, I want to say first on the issue of the special counsel, the predicate for the special counsel existing was supposed to be this Russia probe, right?
	I mean, that was this whole idea.
	So if you look at all of that as it relates to the president, there's nothing.
	I mean, I said it in the Washington Post.
	There's nothing there.
	There's no there.
	I mean, it's just it's not there.
	Now, with regard to the special counsel himself, and I've got to be careful here, obviously, and I'm going to be direct on this, as I was with George Stephanopoulos.
	I don't imagine a situation coming up where this issue arises, where he's going to be recused or the president would exercise any of his constitutional authority, because we already know the underlying action, according to the FBI director, wasn't there.
	I'm not going to speculate what happens in the future.
	You can.
	I can, as the lawyer, one of the president's lawyers, can't do that.
	But there's no question that the predicate that started all of this, as it relates to the president, simply isn't there.
	Okay, but I look at the team of attorneys that Mueller is now assembling, Greg Jarrett.
	I mean, it's a who's who of prosecutors, very serious people with pretty influential resumes.
	And it seems to me that, you know, here we go again.
	It's going to be, you know, Patrick Fitzgerald all over again, three years, you know, perjury trap set down the line, and they'll get nobody on the underlying crime because Patrick Fitzgerald knew on day one, but they'll find some perjury trap for somebody someplace.
	Yeah, everybody wants a special counsel until they get one.
	And then it is a complete debacle and morass.
	I just finished a new column, and Sean, I sent it to you a few minutes ago.
	You probably haven't been able to read it, obviously.
	But it is entitled, Are Mueller and Comey now Acting in Concert as Co-special Counsel?
	And I think they are.
	I mean, look, these guys are thick as thieves.
	They are longtime friends and colleagues.
	Comey regards his predecessor as a mentor.
	Mueller considers Comey his protege.
	If you look at the statutes on special counsel, it demands that Mueller opt out as a conflict of interest.
	He must disqualify him.
	All right, I want to keep you both here.
	You guys are brilliant, and this is fascinating to me.
	We're going to keep you for the full hour.
	Jay Seculo, American Center for Law and Justice, Greg Jarrett, my friend and colleague and legal analyst at the Fox News Channel, stay right there, both of you.
	Hannity Headline, a bite-sized version of the show that you can take with you anywhere you go.
	To sign up today for Hannity Headlines, go to Hannity.com.
	All right, as we continue, our two Sean Hannity show, toll-free our telephone numbers, 800-941.
	Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
	And Coulter's just livid over James Comey's testimony, and Robert Mueller is the special counsel.
	We'll get to her at the top of the next hour.
	But Jay Seculo and Greg Jarrett, Greg, Jay, I want you to respond to Greg's column.
	Well, I think, look, Greg raises the issue of the standards that are actually inside the professional responsibility sections within the Department of Justice as well.
	And so there is this issue which every prosecutor, every U.S. attorney, every member of the Department of Justice has to follow.
	And you have to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, even the appearance of impropriety.
	So again, I'm not going to cast any dispersions on anyone here, but I will say that these are issues that I'm sure the special counsel is going to have to look at.
	Because he, for instance, if there was an investigation on the leak of what James Comey did, could that be done by the special counsel, or does that now have to go to another part of the Department of Justice because of their relationship?
	So all of those issues come into play, as they would in any case when you're involved with the government and an investigation.
	So this is not unique to this, but obviously because of what we're dealing with and what you're dealing with here, which is this probe, this investigation, or maybe it's a matter, as it used to be called, that all of these issues come into play.
	As Greg said, I think all of that is relevant and real.
	All right, let me go back to your column, Greg.
	Are Mueller and Comey now acting in concert as co-special counsel?
	Now, Comey wanted the special counsel.
	He leaked to get the special counsel.
	The special counsel is one of his best friends, and apparently he consulted Mueller before he actually gave testimony last week.
	You know, the whole thing has a stench to it.
	It was evident at the outset that the FBI director who had been fired would be the pivotal witness in any potential obstruction of justice investigation by Mueller, his close friend.
	So it was incomprehensible that Rod Rosenstein would choose Mueller.
	And it was baffling that Mueller would accept the position.
	And, you know, I remember the moment I heard the news, and I literally said, are you kidding?
	And, you know, it turns out it's not a joke.
	I'm looking at this statute here on conflict of interest for special counsel.
	You cannot serve if you, quote, have a personal relationship with any person substantially involved in the conduct that's the subject of the investigation.
	Well, Comey is that person.
	He's the only person who was in on the conversation with President Trump at the White House.
	So there are no other witnesses beyond him.
	He is the key star pivotal witness, and he is close friends with the man who is the special counsel.
	I mean, this is just a no-brainer.
	How come only that I know of on cable TV or that I know of in the media, how come we're the only three people screaming it from a rooftop?
	And nobody else seems to have picked up on this.
	They just keep going, Jay, with obstruction, collusion, even though collusion was blown out of the water by James Comey.
	The reason they're going with all these other theories is because exactly what you just said, and that is collusion is done.
	As far as the president and this whole investigation, what do we know?
	We know that the, and then this is where we need to see what is the focus of what the special counsel is going to do, because the special counsel's mandate includes and matters related thereto.
	So it becomes this broad scope.
	And would that include, for instance, the James Comey leak?
	And if it would, it should.
	Can the special counsel do it because of their relationship?
	Or does it have to go down to someone else within the Justice Department?
	But because, as I said, there's no there there.
	I mean, if you look at the underlying of what started all of this, James Comey acknowledged the president was not, is not under investigation.
	He acknowledged that there was no obstruction with regard to the Russian collusion investigation.
	And the only thing, I mean, if they're going to, it's impossible for me to believe that they're going to make an obstruction of justice case out of the idea that I hope, and again, the president didn't say he said that this is only James Comey's testimony.
	All right, all right, stay right there.
	I got to hold you guys over.
	And we're going to do a little deeper dive in the next half hour into the laws governing the special counsel.
	Also, the president not only didn't obstruct, but he actually encouraged Comey to move further.
	Also, the issue of the tapes, which I have my own theory on it, just a guess that if Donald Trump didn't say that there were tapes, I doubt Comey would have been as forthcoming as he was.
	And I think it forced him to be more honest than he would otherwise be.
	I'll explain that when we get back more with Greg Jarrett, Fox News Channel, legal analyst, Jay Seculo, American Center for Law and Justice, 800-941 Sean is on number.
	And Coulter at the top of the next hour.
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	But Mr. Clapper then went on to say that to his knowledge, there was no evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians.
	We did not conclude any evidence in our report.
	And when I say our report, that is the NSA, FBI, and CIA with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, any reflection of collusion between the members of Trump campaign and the Russians.
	There was no evidence of that in our report.
	Was Mr. Clapper wrong when he said that?
	I think he's right about characterizing the report, which you all have read.
	We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say our, that's NSA, FBI, and CIA with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians.
	There was no evidence of that included in our report.
	Can you say definitively that there was collusion?
	There were people affiliated with the Trump campaign who were working with Russians to time the release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton that had been hacked either from John Podesta or the DNC?
	I don't think we can say anything definitively at this point.
	Have you seen anything either in intelligence briefings, through intelligence briefings, anything to back up any of the accusations that you've made?
	They have the documentation that they did the hacking.
	The hacking.
	On the DNC.
	Right.
	And on some of us, you know, that had to be.
	But the collusion, though.
	No, we have not.
	Do you have evidence that there was, in fact, collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign?
	Not at this time.
	Have you seen anything that suggests any collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign?
	Well, there's an awful lot of smoke there, let's put it that way.
	People that might have said they were involved, to what extent they were involved, to what extent the president might have known about these people or whatever.
	There's nothing there from that standpoint that we have seen directly linking our president to any of that.
	Did evidence exist of collusion, coordination, conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian state actors at the time you learned of 2016 efforts?
	I don't know whether or not such collusion, that's your term, such collusion existed.
	I don't know.
	The big questions, of course, is: is there any evidence of collusion you have seen yet?
	Is there?
	There is a lot of smoke.
	We have no smoking gun at this point, but there is a lot of smoke.
	Do you agree with this conclusion that the president has reached that there was no evidence of collusion?
	You know, we haven't seen any of that whatsoever, George.
	We've been looking and showing everything that they possibly have.
	That has not led to that.
	We have ultimate, all of us have the utmost respect for Bob Mueller, both on the Democrat and Republican side.
	I believe he's going to do his job thoroughly.
	We will accept his recommendation and pathway forward.
	And I think that's extremely important that we all agree this is the right person, the right time to do this type of work.
	All right, 284 now till the top of the hour.
	So for 10 months, for 10 months, you have had entire cable networks advancing collusion, black helicopter theories and tinfoil hat conspiracy theories with zero evidence.
	Even Maxine Waters and Dianne Feinstein, Joe Manchin again this weekend said it.
	And Mark Warren, well, there's smoke, but there's certainly no fire.
	There's no evidence of collusion, none whatsoever.
	And then Clapper and Comey and Brennan and Rogers and everybody else in between.
	No evidence of collusion.
	Now, we also learned last week there was no obstruction.
	As a matter of fact, just the opposite.
	That Donald Trump did not try to stop the investigation, said it would be a good thing if we did find out that people, if people around me, satellites around me, were involved.
	We need to find out the truth.
	I wasn't involved.
	It wasn't me.
	And then, of course, so he's not, he was never investigated, and Comey never told us.
	No evidence of collusion.
	He not only didn't obstruct, but he encouraged the investigation to move forward.
	Comey leaks to the New York Times via a professor friend of his from Columbia to get a special counsel, and then he gets it.
	And then it's his friend.
	And then his friend now is actively involved in preparing him for his testimony last week.
	And I'm thinking this all is predicated, the whole special counsel issue, on the idea of whether Donald Trump and his campaign were colluding with Russia as it relates to leaking information to WikiLeaks on the DNC emails.
	Jay Seculo, American Center for Law and Justice, the chief counsel, and Greg Jarrett, Fox News legal analyst, do I about have this right, Jay?
	And if we have no collusion after 10 months and all we have is black helicopter theories, why is Mueller even there?
	I don't even think it's fair to black helicopter theories to say that there's there.
	I mean, this is a, you know, this was a, and I'm saying this because, Sean, I think that the media is losing sight of what this was supposed to be.
	People are thinking that the investigation into Russian collusion is starting with the appointment of the special counsel.
	We know that's not the case.
	That there's been investigations into this alleged Russian collusion matter going on for many months.
	And you played, and I'm glad you did, all of those people, right and left, center as well, that have said we've seen no evidence.
	We've seen no evidence.
	There is no evidence.
	Clapper, I saw no evidence.
	Sally Yates, a Democrat who was the acting Attorney General, saw no evidence.
	James Comey, no evidence.
	So what are we, what's going on here?
	You asked yourself the deeper question.
	And what I think this is, in large part, I mean, of course, you've got a special counsel now, so you've got to deal with that legal issue, and I'm dealing with that as one of the lawyers.
	But what is really the motivating factor for the frenzy, I will call it, or the attempt at frenzy.
	And you know what that is?
	Politics.
	Media filibuster of moving legislation forward.
	Legislation that you've talked about on this broadcast, tax reform, Obamacare repeal.
	That's it.
	Now, he did the Paris Treaty.
	He did that.
	He has a Supreme Court justice confirmed.
	He's issued a series of executive orders, not just on the immigration asylum issues, which, by the way, are up before the Supreme Court right now.
	Briefs were due on that today.
	But even further.
	So I think that we have to be really cognizant of what is going on here.
	And that is this is a media filibuster.
	Greg, I agree with Jay, but I even would take it a step further.
	I think, A, the effort has been, well, and they had to get over the shock of November 8th.
	Two, since that day, they've even talked about impeachment.
	Certainly there has been a well-orchestrated group of enemies out there to delegitimize the president, undermine a duly elected president, and in a worst case scenario, they render him somewhat impotent in advancing his agenda.
	In a great case scenario, if you're a radical leftist or you're in the media that colluded with Hillary, you know, you get him thrown out of office, and that's a dream come true for these people.
	Well, you know, the media has engaged in a wholesale mugging of the president.
	By the way, that should be your next column, the media wholesale mugging of a president.
	Yep.
	Well, I mean, they're recklessly throwing around without any basis for it allegations of collusion.
	The best I can tell, the only collusion seems to be between Mueller and Comey.
	And, you know, the opportunity of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which, by the way, is an oxymoron, to pose questions about all these years we worked together, I had no idea what a wise ass you are, just like me.
	It's amazing.
	I love it.
	Well, you know, they could have asked, any senator could have asked, when did you meet with Mr. Mueller?
	How often did you meet before your testimony?
	Did you prepare what it is you were going to say?
	He did admit that they did meet, right?
	Yeah, but that's it.
	No follow-up questions.
	You know, I mean, after all, these two are longtime friends and colleagues.
	And, you know, the cases that they work together are quite notable.
	I mean, they were famously involved in the case over Ashcroft.
	And then they bungled the case on the anthrax attacks and so badly bungled that American taxpayers had to pay roughly $5 million to a guy that they had fingered who was completely innocent.
	You know, I don't think we can view this, and it was a comment I made last week, Jay, in a vacuum or in a bubble.
	We've got to also look at Comey's conduct as it relates to Hillary Clinton.
	Now, he said there was no intent for Hillary Clinton when she put the email server in a mom-and-pop shop bathroom closet with top-secret classified special access program information on it that we're 99% certain that at least five intelligence agencies, enemy intelligence agencies, got a hold of.
	But remember, the intent would be certainly, you know, even the mismanagement of classified documents of itself mishandling is a crime.
	The destruction of it is a crime.
	We know she committed crimes.
	Loretta Lynch is another case.
	Yeah, well, I mean, the whole thing with that whole issue of James Comey coming out and saying what was extremely careless, which is the legal definition, by the way, of gross negligence.
	And the standard for that is gross negligence.
	They seem to have an unbelievable capacity to change the statutes, to change the law to suit the facts.
	Rather than the facts impacting the law, they just change the statute.
	They leave sections out as if they don't exist.
	And that whole stunt, and you realize that's where all of this really started, was the whole James Comey interjecting himself into the last presidential election.
	I mean, Hillary Clinton still blames, let's not forget this, that Secretary Clinton still blames James Comey for her loss in the election.
	She still believes that, or she's certainly still saying that.
	Well, she's also saying Russia and collusion and Trump.
	Exactly.
	So, yeah, rather than she lost because ran a very poor campaign.
	And the fact is, and I think, again, you go back to this, now we've created this kind of whirlwind approach to what's going on here.
	And you've got all of the media, of course, you know, focusing on this.
	But I was a little bit impressed.
	I'm rarely not impressed, but I was impressed yesterday when on ABC, and I was impressed, I thought George Stephanopoulos was very fair with me, and I thought the panel's discussions afterwards were very good.
	He said the big takeaway, what did he say in his opening?
	That James Comey leaked the information.
	And I want everybody, again, to think about what we said at the beginning.
	James Comey, the then director, he did this while he was the director of the FBI.
	He took those notes while he was the director of the crime.
	It is a crime, in my view.
	18 USC 641.
	All right, when we come back, I want to ask Greg on the issue of Loretta Lynch because there's another issue here.
	You know, please don't call it an investigation.
	Just call it a matter.
	And he listened.
	And then, of course, the tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton as we continue.
	Final moments now coming up with Jay Seculo and Greg Jarrett.
	And we'll get to your calls, Ann Coulter, at the top of the hour.
	And as we continue with Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, Greg Jarrett, my colleague and friend and Fox News legal analyst are with me.
	I want to go, Greg, to you in the issue of Loretta Lynch.
	How did she possibly get away with meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac, you know, for, what, 40 minutes talking about their grandkids, supposedly, right before she made her decision, if she did, on the issue of Hillary Clinton.
	And then, of course, you know, going to Comey, oh, we need to get our words on the same page.
	This is not an investigation.
	This is a matter, which is exactly what the Hillary Clinton spin machine wanted it to be called when, in fact, it was an investigation.
	And frankly, she should have been indicted.
	Well, and it smacks of collusion between the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and Hillary Clinton and her campaign, and the meeting with Hillary Clinton's husband.
	I mean, you put all of that together, and what does it look like?
	It looks like Loretta Lynch might have obstructed justice.
	She might have been the one who was interfering with the due administration of justice, the investigation that was undertaken by Comey into Clinton's mishandling of classified emails.
	If she was trying to influence or impede Comey's investigation in some way by insisting that he slanted from criminal investigation to matters, well, that could arguably be a greater obstruction of justice than any of the silly stuff we're talking about, hoping and wishing that Flynn is cleared.
	You know, Sean, can I add one thing quick also?
	People forget this.
	In the middle of the IRS investigation, I handled those cases.
	In the middle of the IRS investigation, the president of the United States went on TV on an interview while the investigation by the Department of Justice was going on and said there's not even a smidgen of corruption.
	Yeah, I mean, that's the point.
	I mean, come on.
	Now, you know, obstruction of justice.
	I mean, that's all.
	Let me tell you, in the middle of investigation, the president says not a smidgen.
	He already had the, what, had the evidence and they hadn't finished investigating.
	So this is, that's why I'm saying this is a manufactured, it's a manufactured, non-existent probe.
	It's manufactured in the sense that I mean, are we going to be stuck with Mueller now and black helicopter theories on TV for another two years, like or three years, like Patrick Fitzgerald?
	Well, my hope and my work is that it not happen that long, and that this is there's they've been looking again.
	I want to reiterate, this is not like this is happening in a vacuum here.
	This is the reality of every day.
	And but I think you got, look, I never like special counsels generally.
	I don't like them specifically.
	And I, and when I say the whole way that that's approached, and then the add-on and matters related thereto make these things go long.
	I am, you know, there's going to be lawyers and lawyers working to address each and every allegation that may or may not come up.
	That's what lawyers do.
	But generally, these things take time.
	I think, again, the president's got to get back to when he is.
	And not getting back to the president is, I mean, everybody forgets.
	It was just what?
	A couple of weeks ago, he was in Saudi Arabia and gave a speech in front of 50 Muslim, majority Muslim country leaders and said, drive them out.
	Dr. Drive them out.
	I mean, this was major statements.
	Then goes to Israel and says, if we're going to get peace, this is how it's going to be.
	Yep.
	I got a roll.
	You guys are great for the hour.
	Greg Jarrett, Fox, and Jay Seculo, American Center for Law and Justice, and you too and Sarah Carter tonight on Hannity.
	We will blow this wide open.
	I think one of the more powerful monologues we put together.
	Ten Eastern on Fox.
	Thank you both.
	When we come back, the one and only Ann Coulter.
	All right, News Roundup Information Overload Hour here on the Sean Hannity Show.
	We're going to have some fun for fathers at the bottom of the hour as I check in with my buddy John McLemore.
	He's the Master Bill guy.
	He's so cool, so awesome.
	And, you know, like once a year, we just have fun, let our hair go down.
	We'll have our Friday Florida concert series with Florida, Georgia Line.
	And so that's coming up at the bottom of this half hour.
	What has been a great, great week for the president, even though the left-wing media hasn't caught up yet.
	They're still living in their black helicopter.
	They haven't put them back in the hangar yet, the black helicopter theories and tinfoil hat conspiracy theories.
	You know, one case we have been following very, very closely: Congressman Brian Babbin of Texas and Lieutenant Colonel John Mayer is a former DOJ attorney representing Clint Lawrence and Lynn Vincent, a U.S. Navy vet, New York Times best-selling author, dog company, which tells the story of Captain Roger Hill, who was kicked out of the Army for interrogating known Taliban spies within his company.
	And they join us today to talk about Congressman Babbin's letter to the president last week, in which he called upon the commander-in-chief to conduct a full review of each case involving any U.S. service member who is currently imprisoned in U.S. prisons for certain actions they took on behalf of their country, risking their lives during combat in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
	I mean, he said under the Obama administration, we saw the continued release of violent terrorists from the U.S. custody at Gipmo, many of them returning to the battlefield against U.S. forces.
	Meanwhile, these young American men who answered the call to duty, put their lives on the line for our freedoms, continue to languish in prison.
	I respectfully ask that your administration fully review each case involving any American service member who is currently imprisoned for actions taken on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan.
	Such a review is an appropriate action given their previous service and their sacrifice in defense of the United States.
	I think it's very important to note in all of this that according to United American Patriots, in all of World War II and Korea and Vietnam, military judges convicted only seven soldiers and Marines of crimes during combat or a war crime.
	Since the war on terror began, and PC has now entered the world of war, and now we have rules of engagement that put our troops in jeopardy.
	Well, now more than 200 service members have been convicted of these offenses.
	Thousands more received non-judicial punishment.
	You can't fight a war and put handcuffs on the men and women that you're asking to die.
	Anyway, these three people join us now, Congressman Babbin, Lieutenant Colonel John Mayer, and also Lynn Vinson.
	Thank you all for being with us.
	Well, I applaud your effort here.
	You know, one of the reasons I'd like to think that maybe the constant 80% of the president's time being distracted with black helicopter theories that he has to deal with and tinfoil hat conspiracies in Russia, Russia, Russia, and I know that this is something the president cares deeply about because I've talked to him about it and I've interviewed him about it.
	I'm hoping you get a good reaction, Congressman.
	It's great to be with you, Sean, again, as always.
	I'm really confident that our president's going to take a look at this.
	I really do.
	He is a huge supporter of our military.
	And, you know, to see what our men, they call them the Leavenworth 10, but we really don't even know how many folks are in there.
	It may be a little less than 10, maybe greater than 10.
	But these are individuals in the heat of combat who supposedly broke some rule.
	I'm not excusing them because I don't know all the details, but I think it bears the fairness of a presidential decision to review all these cases once again.
	Because my goodness, as you so eloquently said a second ago, we have seen Guantanamo terrorists released from prison.
	They've just about emptied out.
	Obama's just about emptied the prisons out.
	Just a couple of weeks ago, they arrested an individual that had been released from Guantanamo by President Obama in France who had been recruiting for ISIS and may have been involved in some of the horrible atrocities that had taken place there.
	We've seen the president pardon Bradley Manning, you know, who released 700,000 classified documents, a man who was a traitor.
	And he pardoned 1,200 drug dealers and drug users at the end of the last few weeks of his administration.
	So my goodness, we need to take a look at our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who are languishing in Leavenworth for trying to do their jobs.
	You know, and Lieutenant Colonel John Mayer, in the case of Clinton Lawrence, it's very easy, I guess, for all these sideline warriors in the comfort of their studios or, you know, wherever they happen to be to be commenting and judging a guy that is in charge of a platoon.
	He's got to make a split-second decision.
	Are these two guys coming at us on a motorcycle?
	Are they here to kill us?
	Which is the modus operandi of other IED killers in Afghanistan at the time?
	Or are they okay?
	And he has to make a split-second decision, and it's a life-and-death decision.
	And then it turns out that exculpatory evidence now has come up, and Clint Lawrence, as I understand it, hasn't even gotten a chance to plead his case again.
	That's right, Sean.
	And I think the Congressman makes a very good point with his letter to the president.
	We all know that the president ran on part of his platform was to speed to reverse the failed policies of the previous administration to include the politically correct rules of engagement.
	Clint Lawrence's case is the perfect case to do that because the evidence is to a DNA certainty.
	And Congressman, by the way, Clint Lawrence and his family are from Texas.
	Yes, sir.
	I'm very evident with that, Colonel.
	Thank you for what you're doing.
	Yes, sir.
	The DNA evidence in Clint's case is located on bomb cards and bomb wears, which actually proved that these men that he ordered fire on were indeed the Taliban and insurgent fighters, or at a very minimum, IED makers.
	So the president has a perfect opportunity to use Clint's case for purposes of fulfilling one of his campaign promises.
	And then, secondly, there's precedent there for the congressman's idea.
	If we look to President Ford's administration, after the Vietnam War, one of the main issues that President Ford wanted to do was put the war in the rearview mirror, get it behind us, and put the country back on being America again.
	Well, what he did was he constituted and appointed a bipartisan civic, military, business, and religious commission to review any and all cases to include courts martial as well as non-judicial punishments and administrative separations to see if clemency should be granted, if records should be updated, and thereby position those fellows, guys, and gals who were convicted or separated under less than honorable conditions so they would be best positioned for having served but then moving on with their lives.
	So I think it's a fine idea.
	You know, and let's bring you into this, Lynn Vincent.
	I mean, you wrote about the became a New York Times best-selling book, Dog Company, the story of Captain Rogers kicked out of the Army.
	I mean, I can't even believe I'm saying these words for interrogating known Taliban spies within his company.
	It's insane to me.
	It's hard to believe, isn't it, Sean?
	And it's a pleasure to be on.
	One of the things that I wanted to mention with respect to what John and the congressman were saying is that we have all of these men serving time in prison for doing their jobs, essentially.
	But what is often overlooked is the collateral damage that happens to the junior soldiers and Marines who were also involved in those cases.
	Guys that were doing a great job had joined the military to serve their country and got caught up in this machine and found themselves kicked out on the street.
	So you mentioned at the top of this segment that you have all these guys that have been prosecuted for war crimes, but you also have those young soldiers and Marines that are going sort of invisibly under the radar with non-judicial punishment, being kicked out of the military, and losing their veterans' benefits.
	So I think that that's a crime.
	Also, I have a son serving in a war zone right now, and sometimes he stands behind a 50-caliber machine gun, and I'm a little bit worried about what's going to happen if he actually shoots at the enemy.
	Why shouldn't you be worried?
	By all indications, you should be worried.
	Now, I've got to imagine things will change, but what do we do about all the people that are in jail?
	And I think, Congressman Papman, as you pointed out, we've let all these idiots out of gipmo.
	I mean, a lot of them, I think I have seen estimates up to 30 to 40 percent or higher have gone right back to the battlefield.
	They're not reformed.
	They're not changed.
	And by the way, we built them a however many million-dollar soccer field and give them all their dietary guidelines and give them the Qurans and they're treated with kid gloves and nobody gets interrogated anymore, which could save American lives.
	I mean, we're not fighting wars anymore, which is why I am beyond reluctant and resistance, resistant.
	If we don't have the political will to fight, don't even start it.
	Just stay home.
	Sean, if you don't mind, I really appreciate what you said, Ms. Vincent, about you having a son there, because as a veteran myself, I also had a son.
	I had three tours to Iraq as a Navy SEAL, and he was a platoon commander on one of those.
	And, you know, I always liked to press him and find out how things were out of curiosity.
	And he said, you know, Dad, a lot of times I had to spend all just many, many, much of my time trying to keep my guys from going to prison for doing their jobs.
	You know, you'll see someone who's languishing in Leavenworth who may have just, you know, he made a split-second decision in combat.
	He may have just seen a comrade shot.
	He may have seen a comrade shot or blown up by someone who was pretending to surrender.
	And like the Clinton Lawrence case, a vehicle coming towards you, and you have to make a decision, or you're going to wind up dead or maimed.
	And a lot of your comrades the same way.
	And I think it's very unfair to have a standard of an armchair quarterback, if you will, of someone who was not there making those convictions and those cases against these young people.
	That really is what it is, isn't it?
	It's armchair quarterbacking, isn't it?
	Contract.
	Have you gotten any feedback at all from the administration?
	Anything at all?
	So far, I have not.
	I have not, but I can tell you that from conversations that I have personally had with our president and our vice president, that they are very, very caring and absolutely know how important our military is, and they care about our troops.
	And I know that just the other day, one of my son's machine gunners was the first Navy SEAL kill in Iraq, and his mother, a gold star mother, was supposed to spend 20, 25 minutes with President Trump.
	I understand that he stayed with him for two hours.
	So this is a man who cares about our troops.
	And I think I'm confident that he'll take a real hard look at these cases.
	Unbelievable.
	All right, stay right there.
	We'll take a break.
	We'll come back.
	Brian Babbin, John Mayer, and Lynn Vinson are with us.
	Hannity Headline, a bite-sized version of the show that you can take with you anywhere you go.
	To sign up today for Hannity Headlines, go to Hannity.com.
	All right, as we continue, and by the way, at the bottom of the hour, Father's Day coming up.
	My buddy John McLemore is with us, Master Bill Keist, CEO.
	Brilliant.
	We're going to have our Florida Friday, Florida, Georgia Line concert series.
	Put you in a good mood on a Friday.
	It's been a good week for the president.
	Not a good week, though, for American men and women that served in Iraq and Afghanistan that have are rotting in prison for the most ridiculous reasons.
	And thank God, Congressman Brian Babbin of Texas has sent the president a letter saying, can you please review these cases?
	You know, looking at World War II, Korea, Vietnam.
	Oh, military judges convicted only seven soldiers of crimes during combat or a war crime.
	Since the war on terror, 200 service members convicted, thousands others getting non-judicial punishments.
	What are the non-judicial punishments?
	Does anybody know?
	Yes, Sean.
	This is John Maher.
	Non-judicial punishment is basically, it's an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but it does not go to court.
	Instead, it's handled at a company or a battalion or a brigade level.
	And it's dispensed somewhat swiftly, and it's kind of kept in-house with the sole mission of maintaining good order and discipline.
	And what happens is if a soldier has a non-judicial punishment, that document can be placed in his or her performance file, and that is called adverse information or unfavorable information, which can ultimately then serve as the basis for them to be administratively separated.
	In other words, fired and under other than honorable conditions, discharge or a general discharge.
	And that means that they take a hit with their veterans' benefits, whether it be post-9-11 GI Bill, VA loan, health care, and those kinds of things.
	Yeah.
	What is going to happen in the case of Clint?
	I mean, especially could you explain the reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay, even brief jail time.
	Unbelievable.
	Is Clint going to get the hearing with the new exculpatory evidence that has emerged?
	Yes, Sean, he sure will.
	This case is documented right now before the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, which sits on Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and it's in front of a three-judge panel.
	And those judges are all active duty lieutenants, colonel or colonel, who have about 25 years each.
	So we're looking at 75 years of collective experience.
	And the idea there is when the hearing is set, there'll be an oral argument before them presenting the fact that the prosecution had at all times in its possession, custody, and control exculpatory evidence in the form of DNA evidence that the people Clint ordered fire on were not innocent civilians as the prosecution claimed, but instead IED makers.
	We know that because their fingerprints and their DNA, meaning their skin from their fingers when they twist the wires into bomb components, have been recovered at grid coordinates where we either diffused the bomb or the bomb went off and killed people or wounded people.
	We've conducted a sensitive site exploitation where you go through, take the evidence, collect it up, dust it for prints, dust it for DNA, and then enter it into an Army-wide database such that when you biometrically enroll people, you either match it to the DNA there, and it's a conclusive match.
	It's one of the best forms of proof that we have in the law, besides a confession, is DNA evidence.
	All right, guys, thank you all for what you're doing.
	I'm working with Clint.
	Hopefully, we'll have some executive action.
	Agree.
	Which is wonderful here.
	I promise you, Brian Babbin, Congressman Babbin, I'll ask, and I promise you, Lieutenant Colonel Mayer, and I promise you, Lynn Vincent, that I will ask the president in my next interview as soon as that ever happens.
	Thank you all for being with us.
	We really appreciate it.
	800-9.1 Sean is on number.
	When we come back, a little, we're going to lighten things up a little bit.
	It's our Friday, Florida, Georgia Line concert series.
	John McLemore, my buddy.
	You want to smoke the best meat in the world?
	By the way, it was a great father's gift.
	He's my masterbuild buddy.
	He's coming up next.
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	Go to Hannity.com.
	Eight years, you guys had a plan.
	You kept saying and promising you'll repeal, replace Obamacare.
	And I guess what people want to know is when are these things going to get done?
	We are exactly on the timeline that we designed for ourselves.
	Obamacare is coming next.
	Our bill is coming in March.
	First, it's regulatory reform because we have this window of time to cancel bad Obama regulations.
	Then we're doing Obamacare.
	After we're done with Obamacare, then we're doing our budget.
	And our budget is the second budget, which will be tax reform.
	So we're doing two budgets in one year, which has never been done before.
	This is faster than it's ever been done before.
	When I heard repair, my head nearly exploded.
	That's not the plan.
	The plan is to repeal and replace this law.
	Like we said, we ran on a plan to repeal and replace it.
	Tom Price helped write that plan.
	He is now Donald Trump's Secretary of State.
	It is a consensus plan that's now being scored by the CBO.
	Correct.
	You're saying to the American people and conservatives that are impatient, including myself, you agree with every item I mentioned, even extreme vetting.
	Yeah.
	We passed that bill a year ago in the House.
	I know you now agree with building the wall.
	Yes.
	Are you telling the American people, vetting refugees, building the wall, repeal, replace, tax reform?
	All of this is going to be done in 200 days.
	Inside the 200-day window is the regulatory reforms we talked about.
	It's the repeal and replace Obamacare.
	It's the budget.
	It's the rebuilding of our military.
	It's tax reform.
	Those are the things that we're working on.
	Any infrastructure, those are the things we're working on in this 2007 calendars in the equation.
	That's in there as well.
	We see that as part of regulatory reform.
	But in 200 days, you think that's dual.
	This is our plan, yeah.
	And if there's any slippage, we'll finish it in the fall and get it done before the end of the year.
	So, if I come back in 200 days, you're going to go, well, I made a promise.
	We've got to do it.
	Because I think this is.
	So, here's what I'm saying.
	We've met this out for 200 days.
	We have a plan to do that.
	We're on schedule.
	But if anything slips because of another Supreme Court justice, or a filibuster on a cabinet nominee, that might slip us.
	But we're making sure that we do all of this in 2017.
	Okay, let's go to the budget, which is such a big issue.
	The president, seven brackets to three, 15% corporate rate.
	I know you prefer 20 because that scores.
	I prefer 15 scores.
	Yeah, I have to get what we can with the numbers.
	You support repatriation, multinational corporations.
	That will be huge.
	That's a lot of money that can come back into the economy.
	Probably about $3 trillion.
	Here's my headline of this interview: that you're in pretty much full agreement with what Donald Trump ran on.
	Yes.
	And number two, in 200 days, from the legislative side, you are going to be implementing every aspect of that agenda that we talked about.
	Yep, and just to do that.
	And we have cushion in our schedule.
	If anything slips, because it's really because of Senate issues, we still have time to accommodate all of this stuff in 2017.
	So I even have safety valves.
	I have cushions built in the schedule to make sure this all gets done in 2017.
	So I believe in case something happens and goes sideways on the Senate.
	I'm pretty sure that'll stimulate the economy, get people back to work, and get the economy moving again, which I think we need.
	That's what we're hired to do.
	All right.
	Mr. Speaker, you'll see you in 200 days.
	All right, 23 now until the top of the hour.
	It's now 152 days that Donald Trump has been president.
	And, of course, there really wasn't a consensus plan on health care.
	So that made things go a lot longer and further than I think anybody expected or wanted.
	And he said they were going the fastest ever, and they'd even built in some cushion time.
	And I don't think a lot of this is going to happen.
	But I will say this: on top of all of these vicious, vile, hateful, leftist attacks against the president, you know, that certainly has contributed to an environment where things aren't getting done.
	But if the Republicans want to hold on to their power, which, you know, they wanted this in 2010 and they got the House.
	They wanted it in 2014, they got the Senate.
	2016, well, some of us, not all of them, well, we wanted Donald Trump to win the presidency.
	And to me, Congress is moving extraordinarily slow.
	Mitch McConnell's got to finish health care.
	They're talking about a 4th of July vacation, then an August vacation.
	The Freedom Caucus is saying, no, stop going on vacation.
	Let's do the work of the American people.
	That thought process is now gaining momentum, I know, in the White House.
	And I think getting the president's, you know, if the president wants, if the Republicans want to stay in power and the president wants to be successful, it's not going to be the noise and the vile rhetoric that prevents him from being in office.
	What's going to keep him in office is the president keeping his promises, creating jobs, moving us towards energy independence, moving us towards a 15% corporate rate, middle-class tax cuts, repatriation of trillions, multinational corporations, you know, the millions of jobs that energy independence will create in this country.
	And then, of course, lower health care costs for families will be the equivalent of a tax cut for them.
	Larry Kudlow is with us, one of the smartest economic guys I know.
	He's a host on CNBC, former Reagan administration economist, author of the brand new book, JFK and the Reagan Revolution, a secret history of American prosperity.
	It's really not so secret.
	It's kind of fundamental.
	And any of us that are supply siders, we know that cutting taxes and regulation leads to a rise in GDP and opportunity and employment and revenues to the government.
	It works every time.
	Larry, how are you?
	I'm great, Sean.
	How are you?
	Thank you.
	What's going on, sir?
	Well, you know, it's funny.
	I'm with Mark Meadows.
	Steve Morris and I had lunch with Mark Meadows of the Freedom Caucus.
	I guess about two weeks ago in Washington.
	And that's when we talked about no August recess vacation until we get a significant tax cut bill, okay?
	None.
	No recess.
	I'm sorry.
	And I don't think you can get the whole bill, but I think you can break off the business side, which is you mentioned 15% corporate rate, cash expensing for new equipment, repatriation.
	Maybe put in there a doubling of the standard deduction.
	That's a good middle-income tax cut.
	But mostly, they can get this done, Sean, and they could attach this, which Steve and I call three easy pieces.
	They could attach this to the health care reconciliation bill for 51 votes.
	It is legal.
	It is technically doable.
	And our point of view is: you're not going home until you get this done because this would be the biggest booster to the economy.
	Well, I agree, and I don't understand this idea.
	You know, one of the things I talk about on this program a lot with my staff: I don't get all the vacation days.
	There's less than 30 scheduled congressional workdays between now.
	Remember, we're not even halfway through the year and the end of the year.
	Now, I've got to be honest, you know, Larry, my work schedule is a lot more intense than that.
	I don't get to take off half the year, and God knows what they're doing.
	You know, I don't have time to eat lunch out.
	Do you ever go eat lunch anywhere?
	Very seldom.
	I mean, I don't understand eating lunch outside of my office.
	I eat lunch at my desk, and usually it's Campbell's chicken noodle soup.
	Well, listen.
	I'm a real elitist, you know.
	Just listen to your friends over at MSNBC.
	They were making fun.
	No, no, no.
	Not my friends.
	I don't deal with MSNBC.
	I'm on CNBC.
	Well, you're not going to get in trouble for saying that, but I admire your courage.
	Well, that's the way it is.
	That's the way it is.
	I'm with you.
	There's, let's see, seven days left in June and 21 days in July.
	That's all you got.
	So it's 28 days.
	Now, if you tacked on August, Sean, you'd have another 25 days, okay?
	But if you leave August, they go out of town, you're only going to have 44 calendar days, legislative calendar days, in September, October, November, December, where they're supposed to get a budget and a debt ceiling and so forth.
	So that just shows you we're going to lose 25 days unless they postpone the August recess vacation.
	And I would submit as so many Republicans favor these lower business tax rates.
	Remember, it's large and small companies.
	It's pass-throughs, it's immediate expensing for investment and repatriation.
	Everybody agrees with that.
	The Republican caucus agrees with that.
	So stay in August and get it done and stick it on to the health care reconciliation.
	It's legal and it's technical, Sean.
	And by the way, it's going to pay for itself.
	You're going to get at least 3% economic growth from this large and small business tax cut.
	Just do it.
	Just do it.
	And then wait until next year to do a grand omnibus tax reform bill, which, to be honest with you, is going to take a long time.
	It's very contentious.
	All right, I can deal with that.
	Are we going to get the corporate rates 15, 17 percent?
	Because that's cheap.
	No, no, I mean this year.
	We should.
	Are we going to get repatriation of the trillions of these multinational corporations that park their money overseas?
	We should.
	Are we going to get middle-class tax cuts?
	By the way, the middle-class tax cuts, you know, the biggest beneficiary of the business tax cut, 70% of the benefits go to wage earners, middle-class wage earners.
	How's that?
	Now, somebody's got to say that.
	Somebody's got to.
	Oh, by the way, nobody understands, Larry, that half the people in this country in the labor force don't pay any federal income tax.
	Nothing.
	Zip.
	Well, okay, that's true.
	But they do pay the payroll tax.
	I mean, that's very.
	But they don't pay income taxes.
	But I don't think you should pay more.
	That's what I think.
	Thank you for that.
	All I'm saying is, for Trump to make good on his promises, and I think he really wants to.
	I think he really wants to.
	I know that Mark Meadows was in with him yesterday and they had a long talk about all this stuff, three easy pieces, no August recess.
	Trump liked it a lot, incidentally, from what I'm told.
	They can get this done.
	They can get this done, but they're going to have to work at it, okay?
	So they work in August.
	And then, then you can pass a reconciliation bill with health care reform and tax cuts.
	And you agree with me, though, it's got to be done this year.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And how about, and don't the American people need to see 200 or 300 miles of the wall?
	Oh, I'd love to see that.
	I'd absolutely love to see that go along with it.
	By the way, nothing's happening there, or maybe some things are happening there.
	But look, you need growth.
	You know, right now, the latest numbers show production, manufacturing, retail sales, housing starts, John, they're all falling.
	They're all falling.
	And long-term interest rates are falling.
	That's a sign of a lousy economy.
	And the inflation rate is falling, which is not a bad thing, but it's not what the Fed expected.
	I'm just saying the economy is not getting stronger.
	It may well be getting weaker.
	And I'm also saying that by next year, if there's no palpable increase for middle-income wage earners and so forth, the Republicans may have a hard time in the midterms.
	They may really have a hard time.
	So I don't believe that the whole package can be done in the fall.
	There's not enough calendar days to do that.
	Do it now.
	If they get energy independence, the wall built, they got Gorsuch.
	If they get health care, repeal and replace is not my bill, but it's better and it's a start.
	I think they'll be okay in 2018.
	And you're right, then improve upon all of these things into the next year.
	Sure, absolutely.
	See, that's a great point.
	Ronald Reagan had a phrase when I worked for him.
	I heard him.
	Everybody heard him say this.
	Give me half a loaf now, and I'll get the other half later.
	What I'm saying is, and what Steve Moore is saying, and Mark Meadows and other people, actually, we can get more than half a loaf now by going into these business tax cuts, you know, for LLCs, pass-throughs, wholly owned proprietorships, et cetera, et cetera.
	You will see an immediate growth surge, okay?
	The money's out there, but the firms, large and small, they do not want to make a commitment of 5, 10, 20 years until they know what the Congress is going to do.
	If they see it happen and they see the rates come down and it's retroactive to January 2017, which is what they've been talking about, you will see an immediate, I'm talking immediate pop in the economy, jobs, wages.
	Stay right there.
	Larry Kudlow is with us.
	All right, as we continue, Larry Kudlow is with us, CNBC host and author of the book, JFK, The Reagan Revolution, A Secret History of American Prosperity.
	All right, so why am I impatient, angry, frustrated with the slow pace at which Congress is doing their job?
	You feel the same way?
	I do.
	You know, it's really a drain-the-swamp thing.
	I mean, it's like I'd like to see the president be much, much tougher.
	For example, on using reconciliation, which is 51 votes in the Senate, for our purposes, right?
	The Democrats always play hardball with these rules.
	Why don't we play hardball with these rules?
	Sometimes, Speaker Ryan, who's a good guy, and I've known him, God, 25 years, but he's sort of hogtied by this process stuff.
	We can change that to our advantage.
	Why do we have to use the Congressional Budget Office 1.8% growth estimates for 10 years?
	There's no law that says we have to do that.
	CBO is part of the swamp.
	Change it, for heaven's sakes.
	Lou Gingrich has been saying this.
	And by the way, they're almost always wrong.
	Yes, yes.
	By a lot, not by a little.
	No, no, by tens of trillions of dollars.
	They're always wrong.
	I want to keep using them.
	Good thing they're not my accountant.
	Here's what.
	How about this?
	Borrow from Reagan, Sean.
	In 1981, Reagan spoke to the nation twice from the Oval Office on tax cuts.
	Couldn't have been clearer.
	In fact, one time we created some charts for him using a pointer.
	I think the president's got to make his own case.
	I don't think he can rely on Congress.
	He's a great spokesman.
	He's a great communicator.
	He's a great salesman.
	He's got to do it.
	And the people around him have got to prepare it and lay the groundwork and so forth.
	You can't wait for Ryan.
	You can't wait for the leadership.
	They've got to do it.
	Trump's got to do this.
	Yeah, I agree.
	All right, Larry Kudlow, always love having you.
	And we appreciate you being with us.
	800-9441.
	We're actually one of the good people at NBC.
	There's not a lot of them.
	He's like one of the few.
	800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of this extravaganza news roundup information overload, we're going to talk about the loud incendiary rhetoric of the left.
	Katie Hopkins, the gobby one from D.C., will continue.
	It is a weird tension.
	I think we're at a dangerous time for the First Amendment and for the free press in this country.
	And at the same time, we're oddly influential with the guy who wants to kill us.
	And to our detractors that insist that this march will never add up to anything, f you.
	You.
	But this is the hallmark of revolution.
	Yes, I'm angry.
	Yes, I am outraged.
	Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.
	You know, I had a dream the other night about that I was playing golf with Donald Trump and I was standing beside him with a club in my hand and I was, you know, considering my options when I suddenly woke up.
	You know, it's one of those dreams where you want to just get back to sleep so you can finish it.
	You know?
	That was pretty good.
	I might have to put Mr. Burgess on Fox News.
	I'll put Mr. Burgess up against Sean Hannity.
	He'll tear him up.
	I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors.
	I want you to talk to them whether they're independent or whether they are Republican.
	I want you to argue with them and get in their faces.
	Press always ask me, don't I wish I were debating him?
	No, I wish you were in high school.
	I could take him behind the gym.
	That's what I wish.
	What we've got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box.
	And now there's the momentum to be able to do this.
	This is a death panel bill because people will die.
	This is deadly.
	This is deadly.
	We can't stand it.
	I understand.
	Your president is a dishonorable lying man.
	Ordinary people who simply saw what needed to be done and came together and supported those ideals who have made the difference.
	They've marched.
	They've bled.
	Yes, some of them have died.
	This is hard.
	Every good thing is.
	We have done this before.
	We can do this again.
	I don't respect this president.
	I don't trust this president.
	He's not working in the best interests of the American people.
	His motives and his actions are contemporary.
	And I will fight every day until he is impeached.
	Impeached 45.
	Impeach 45.
	As far as I'm concerned, the T-Party can go straight to hell.
	In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin's holster.
	Oh, Ivanka's going to be our saving grace, you know, when he's about to fing nuke Finland or something.
	She's going to walk into the bedroom and, you know, daddy.
	Daddy.
	Don't do it, Daddy.
	I mean, he's so blatantly stupid.
	He's a punk.
	He's a dog.
	He's a pig.
	He's a con, a bull artist, a mutt who doesn't know what he's talking about, doesn't do his homework, doesn't care, thinks he's gaming society, doesn't pay his taxes.
	He's an idiot, Colin Powell said it best.
	He's a national disaster.
	He's an embarrassment to this country.
	It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point, that this fool, this bozo, has wound up where he has.
	He talks how he wants to punch people in the face.
	Well, I'd like to punch him in the face.
	And I might just kill ISIS with the same ice pig that I murdered Donald Trump in the same night with.
	Which enemy are you most proud of?
	Probably the Republicans.
	All right, hour two, Sean Hannity's show, 800 941 Sean.
	You want to be part of the program.
	By the way, Newt Gingrich's book has been number one for literally like two months before even its release, Understanding Trump.
	May end up being probably the best seller he's had up to date, and he's had a thousand bestsellers.
	And of course, he writes fiction and nonfiction.
	This is the real story about the man that was able to beat 16 other Republicans, governors and senators and people with greater name recognition and the most unconventional politician in our lifetime and why he remained successful and was able to win the presidency.
	And by the way, if you're around Tyson's Corner in McLean, Virginia, Newt has a book signing coming up.
	It's tonight at 7 o'clock.
	Oh, that's awesome, man.
	I've never, is this the biggest book so far launch you've ever had?
	The biggest except for True Renew America, which came right after I was a speaker.
	But this one may rival that.
	It's really on a roll right now.
	Yeah, no, I understand.
	Let me ask you this.
	I just played all the vitriol, all the hate.
	And by the way, I can spend a whole week, three hours a day, all day, playing the left's hatred and vitriol, and culminating, of course, with the assassination attempt against all of these Republican congressmen and senators.
	And do you think the rhetoric, the hatred, the vitriol, the conspiracy theory advancement, the undermining of President Trump, which all of it, has it contributed to an atmosphere that sets off crazy people, or do you just have to blame them?
	Oh, absolutely.
	I just talked to the College Republican National Convention, and about a third of the students reported about the tension on their campus.
	One young lady was actually suspended from her sorority for being a Trump supporter.
	I mean, just a level of hostility across the whole system, and it has consequences.
	I mean, we have to be aware of that.
	Again, I don't blame them for what happened this week because I think when you have a guy who picks up a gun and goes out, he is responsible.
	He's the one we should punish, and he, you know, he's the guy who's crazy.
	But I certainly think the underlying pattern of tension and of potential violence is very deep, and it's very real.
	And it's something I experience when I go out and I speak on campuses.
	And then I ask students to tell me about their experiences.
	It's a real challenge.
	Well, it's deeper than that.
	I mean, because then you got the conspiracy theories.
	I mean, I watched, I saw this today, and it was, I guess, when maybe it was after Comey in the middle of the hearings.
	And then I read an article today.
	Rachel Maddow concludes that there's a possibility there was no Trump-Russia collusion.
	And I'm like, oh, here we go.
	Black helicopter conspiracy theorist, the leading tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist in the country without any evidence at all whatsoever has been advancing this crap.
	And now all of a sudden, well, there's just a slight possibility there is no Trump-Russia collusion.
	I thought the most amazing example of that was immediately after Calmly was done.
	Chris Matthews, to his credit, said that no reasonable person can believe in collusion after this testimony.
	Now, for Matthews to say that, I thought was pretty historic.
	Well, he played it the second after he said it.
	And I didn't know if it was a moment of just sanity that crept into his life for a second, but he's right.
	There is no evidence.
	And I sense now that the left is ever so slowly trying to backfire.
	You know, look at the Washington Post this week.
	Once they found out there's, okay, no Trump investigation, there's no evidence of collusion.
	There's no evidence of obstruction because the president clearly, even according to Comey, encouraged the investigation to move forward.
	And he also encouraged to go, you know, that he would investigate even the satellites around him.
	So there's no evidence there.
	So what does the Washington Post do?
	The same people proven wrong multiple times in just the last couple of weeks when they said, oh, just before Comey's fired, he wanted more money.
	And Rosenstein, oh, by the way, in his case, he never said what they said he said, which is that he threatened to quit.
	He went on an interview and said just the opposite.
	So now they come out with two articles, two nights in a row, one against Jared, quote, collateral damage, and one against, you know, the president himself, that the special counsel is investigating both of them, but they have no sources at all.
	Right.
	And Rosenstein comes out and says, nobody should believe these on-source stories.
	By the way, I did my newsletter today at Gingrich Productions, which is available for free, on Attorney General Sessions' study in courage.
	If you look at his testimony, it is a case study in what Republicans ought to be like.
	He is direct.
	He is tough.
	He's emotional when appropriate.
	He doesn't take anything off the Democrats.
	It's a remarkable testimony and is really what if every Republican were as determined and as tough as Jeff Sessions was in his appearance, we'd be in dramatically better shape right now.
	Totally agree with you.
	Let me, in the context of you writing understanding Trump, can you explain the most hostile, vitriolic, negative reaction?
	I mean, it is almost a pack mentality against the president, and include in that your analysis of the deep state, and that is our intelligence community leaking against him.
	Can I just insert one quick thing because it's a personal thing?
	Yeah.
	The president today in Miami took a personal friend of Clista and me, Luis Haza and his wife Dana, had Luis up on the stage.
	Luis was a child prodigy who refused to play for Fidel when Fidel physically went into their home and said, you will play for me.
	Play something.
	He played the Star Spangled Banner.
	He was eight years old.
	At eight years of age, he had the guts to stand there in front of the dictator.
	His father was killed by Raul.
	He can't go back to Cuba because they'd never let him go again.
	And then the president brought him up on stage, told this amazing story of courage, and then asked him to play the Star Spangled Banner on his violin.
	He was first violin at the National Orchestra.
	He's a very close friend of ours.
	I married somebody who worked for me for years.
	Dana has, I just had to get that in.
	No.
	Such an emotional and such a powerful story.
	Now let's talk about the deep state, which is obvious.
	I mean, 97% of the money given by employees at the Justice Department go to Hillary.
	99% at the State Department go to Hillary.
	The first four people hired by Mueller are all Democratic donors, one of whom actually defended the Clinton Foundation Against Freedom of Information Act request.
	I mean, give me a break.
	People want us to be so stupid that if a herd of elephants runs through our living room, crushes everything, we're supposed to go, gee, I wonder if we had a party.
	No, these people are our opponents.
	And I'll tell you what I believe is the real cause of this.
	At 8 o'clock on election night, everyone on the left was prepared to win.
	And they were then going to finish imposing left-wing radical values through the courts and through the bureaucracies.
	They were salivating.
	They were happy.
	Three hours later, they were in the worst of all worlds.
	They hadn't lost to a moderate establishment Republican.
	They'd lost to Donald J. Trump.
	And I think the trauma of those three hours was so decisive that they've never recovered.
	And that the level of hatred that they feel, and it's hatred.
	The level of hatred they feel, which is virtually deranged.
	I want to pick it up there at how this plays out, this level of hatred.
	But we have former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich's brand new book.
	It is now bestseller across the country.
	You can get it at Amazon.com, bookstores everywhere, Hannity.com, understanding Trump.
	Hannity Headline, a bite-sized version of the show that you can take with you anywhere you go.
	To sign up today for Hannity Headlines, go to Hannity.com.
	All right, as we continue, former Speaker of the House, Newt Kingrich's brand new book, Understanding Trump, and he is going to be at Tyson's Corner tonight at a book signing in McLean, Virginia, 7 o'clock.
	And I know a lot of people are showing up at your book signings, which is terrific for you, one of your best-selling books of all time.
	And I want to ask this question.
	This is important.
	So you talk about the madness of the left, and at 11 o'clock on November 8th, Election Day, they don't get over it.
	And now you've got a deep state conspiracy, and now you've got a special counsel leaking information with conflicts of interest, hiring Hillary Clinton lawyers and Clinton and Obama donors to investigate the president and his family.
	I can't think of anything more inherently corrupt or conflicting than this.
	And in the case of Rosenstein, he sees it.
	In the case of Mueller, he's still there.
	Well, look, I think that's exactly right.
	When you recognize that this is a pattern, Comey, under Bush, appointed the godfather to his children, Patrick Fitzgerald, to be an independent counsel or special counsel at a time when they knew that there was no crime committed in the Valerie Klain case because she was not a protected agent at that time.
	And they knew who had leaked her name, Richard Armitage Estate.
	Even though they knew those two things, he appointed the godfather of his children, who ran amok because his goal was to get Dick Cheney.
	And in the end, he did tremendous damage, cost people a lot of money, and put basically a totally innocent guy in jail.
	It's a horrendous story.
	So when I watch Mueller, and I really turned totally, I thought Mueller was fine when they first named him.
	But the minute that Comey testified with enormous arrogance that he had deliberately leaked through a college professor in order, this is his words, not mine, in order to get a special counsel appointed, and the special counsel is his good friend, who, by the way, under professional rules of justice, would have to recuse himself in investigating Comey.
	I mean, this is crazy.
	And that's the point on which I said what I'm saying.
	But everybody in the media is like hyperventilating, okay, if Trump fires him, this is Watergate and a Saturday night massacre.
	Right.
	And that's because everybody in the media has totally sold out to the left.
	Not everybody, but 80% of the media is sold out to the left.
	And you have to assume automatically that this is the attack media.
	It's not the news media.
	I've said over and over again: if I were Trump, I would kick CNN out of the White House.
	The idea that they got a 93% negative story rating from Harvard.
	Why would you let somebody into your house who is 93% of the time attacking you?
	You know, and I think we ought just to understand this.
	The amazing thing about Trump's favorables, he right now is about 41, 42% favorable.
	The amazing thing is that's after everything they've tried to do to him.
	I mean, the unending negative coverage, and over four every 10 Americans just shrug it off, and they're getting madder about it.
	People walk up to me everywhere and thank me for speaking out.
	I'm really amazed.
	I get the same thing.
	I really do.
	And then, and then we also, they want to silence you and me too, by the way.
	Just a little side note.
	They'd like to shut you up and me up at the same time.
	Maybe we'll go start a, you know, we'll get a bottle of wine and two Dixie cups if we get fired.
	Well, no, look, look, if they shut me up, I'm just going to go and become a monk and sit on a mountaintop and come up with a family.
	Oh, yeah.
	Same with me.
	That's my future.
	That's right.
	They wouldn't even accept me.
	They throw me out.
	They're not going to shut us up.
	This is a free society still.
	I'm prepared to stand and fight for this country as long as it takes.
	Me too.
	God bless you.
	The book is called Understanding Trump.
	Bookstores Everywhere.
	Tyson's Corner tonight, 7 o'clock.
	If you want to meet the speaker, he'll be speaking, signing books.
	We'll take a quick break.
	The Gaubby one, Katie Hopkins, is next.
	And we're going to look at the vitriol of the left in our news roundup information overload hour with the MediaEqualizer.com group, Melanie Morgan, and Brian Maloney.
	Straight ahead.
	We know you never want to miss the Sean Hannity Show.
	And now you never have to.
	Just sign up for Hannity Headlines, a bite-sized version of the show that you can take with you on your laptop, your mobile phone, everywhere you go, even to your liberal-in-law's place in Vermont.
	So, um, yeah.
	And after a few hours of that, you'll be glad you brought Sean along to sign up today for Hannity Headlines.
	Go to Hannity.com.
	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 Humanity 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.
	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.
	All right.
	Glad you're with us.
	25 now till the top of the hour.
	That coupled with Jonathan Gruber, which we played at the top of the last hour with Mark Meadows of the Freedom Caucus.
	And 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 $2,500 per family per year.
	They ended up on average paying $8,000 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.
	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?
	Very good, John.
	Thanks for having me.
	Now, we're never going to get full repeal.
	It's just a fact.
	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 100 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 said.
	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's not really good sense to eliminate the taxes and keep the spending.
	But three years they're going to do that.
	If they got rid of that part of it, would that bring you a long way to supporting it or no?
	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, 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 going to borrow more money for it because we're going to 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.
	Four of us means they can't pass it without at least a couple of us 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 the 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, 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 residential?
	Well, this is too important to let them do it to us.
	And I agree with you.
	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 20 pages of legislation.
	That'd be about seven working days for this bill.
	We're going to get, if we get the CBO score on Monday and we get the final language on Monday or Tuesday, they're going to vote 24 hours later.
	24 hours is not.
	Are we even using a CBO score anymore considering they're off 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 so far off, they're not even worth looking at.
	However, if they're telling you how much 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 going to give away.
	And it is very important to me because if this bill spends more than Obamacare, I can't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
	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 going to 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.
	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 going to 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 they'll be allowed to 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 Kasich in Ohio to support this thing was that money.
	Tax subsidies were a big part of Obamacare.
	We're keeping them too.
	Having a high-risk pool that's paid for by the federal government.
	These were called risk quarters under Obamacare.
	They're called stabilization fund under 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 $100 billion 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 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?
	For example, my buddy Josh Humber, who is with this cooperative that he created where it's 50 bucks a month for an adult and it's unlimited care and 10 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 blue-collar workers?
	Does it allow health care savings accounts to now be part of the equation for most people?
	There are 12 key regulations in Obamacare.
	This bill repeals two out of 12.
	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 association.
	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 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, that's a problem.
	Yeah, well, I agree.
	I don't hear you getting to yes on this bill.
	I've known you a lot of years.
	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 100% repeal, but I'll settle for 90%, 80% repeal.
	But right now, we're not repealing any of the tax subsidies.
	So the tax subsidies we're keeping nearly 100%, maybe even over 100%.
	We're creating a new federal program.
	The cost-sharing subsidies that we all said, oh, we're not going to fund these, we're going to fund them in there.
	So, I mean, we are really keeping large segments of Obamacare.
	We really aren't being able to do that.
	So, repealing the Obamacare taxes and then continuing the subsidies for you is just a heal 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 employers must provide it, you know, protecting preexisting 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 the despiral 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 to insurance companies.
	But like I say, we could do that for education, too.
	Do we want to say education is expensive?
	Let's have an education stabilization fund, a car stabilization fund, an iPhone stabilization fund.
	I don't want to work anymore.
	I think I deserve a house, a car, a government car.
	I think I deserve government health care, daycare.
	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, wound-to-tomb, you know, just utopia 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, at least a huge bunch of them, they never had any intention of repealing, Senator.
	Well, they have insufficient confidence in freedom, insufficient confidence in capitalism.
	Competition and the free market 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 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.
	Rand Paul is with us, 800-941.
	Sean is a tow-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.
	And 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 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 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, there'll still be, 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 12.
	I feel certain that if we stick together as a team, we can get a few more of those regulations repealed.
	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 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 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.
	And I think it's, I guess I just can't do that.
	I can't vote for the federal government to get bigger.
	Right now, we have a $500 billion deficit.
	And I think if we get bigger, there is a danger 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.
	It's sort of confusing, Sean, the way they do Washington Mass.
	So, for example, let's say Obamacare cost a trillion over 10 years, and they're going to repeal $800 billion.
	They say, oh, we saved $800 billion.
	But to my mind, if they repealed the whole thing, they would have saved a trillion.
	So they actually spent $200 billion.
	It sort of depends on your perspective.
	The other thing I'll tell you is spending goes up at about a 5% clip for all of government every year.
	And so if they cut it to 4%, 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 got to leave it there, Senator Rampaul.
	We'll stay in touch and see where this goes by the end of the day.
	Hopefully, they'll make some improvements that at least get us on a path to a much better health care system that's going to save money, increase access, and I would hopefully get some of these cooperatives and health savings accounts in.
	We'll continue.

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