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I said this yesterday and I saw it immediately, saw it last night on TV.
And I, you know, you watched the president and yesterday in this press conference that we carried here live on the show.
And you see, a media is in a collective meltdown.
And the fact that they are just so agenda-driven, ideological, and inaccurate, totally, completely inaccurate at times-is it's something to see.
I will tell you that.
And there's a sad part of all this, and I'm going to start with this: and that is that there's so many people in this country that really need government to work for them.
And it's not working.
The Republicans aren't getting their job done.
The Democrats are the party of no unobstruction.
And you got a media just has been, continues to be obsessed as they were even before the election, certainly after the election, and doing all they can do to stop the president and his agenda.
And the sad part is that there are people that really suffer.
And that means real Americans, 50 million of them in poverty, 8 million more after the Obama presidency, 13 million more on food stamps, 50 million total.
Now we have a million new jobs, but there's still 94 million Americans out of the labor force.
And then we can go on from there.
Lowest home ownership rate in 51 years.
So things, none of this is getting done.
The country is becoming divided.
It is in many ways like the worst I've ever seen it.
And if you care and you love this country and you're watching everything unfold, you've got to have a sense of what is happening here.
Information crisis that I have discussed for so many years is everything I've been saying about how abusively biased, ideological, and corrupt the news media is.
It's all true.
You know, when you expose the media for having colluded with the Hillary campaign and nobody pays attention, it's because they support the agenda.
When you expose time after time and time after media bias, now, what am I talking about here?
Let me make sure we're on the same page because it doesn't matter.
I mean, there's a couple of things.
The first thing that I said, you know, it's kind of refreshing that Donald Trump said, I need all the facts before I go out there and say things.
And this became a big problem, although the media didn't seem to care with then President Obama, especially in these high-profile racial cases that he weighed in on.
The first one was the Cambridge police acting stupidly.
Oops, let's have a beer summit and fix that mess.
And then, of course, it went on to Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.
And that could have been me 30 years ago.
And Trayvon could be my son, and all these other comments.
That was long before any facts, evidence, testimony was given in the trial, including an eyewitness that said Trayvon Martin was grounding and pounding George Zimmerman's head into concrete.
And the president was wrong.
And then it was the case of his comments about Ferguson, Missouri, and he made multiple comments about that.
And, you know, it ended up in that case that Darren, you know, we ended up getting the video, and then people were saying, How dare you show that video, Michael Brown robbing and intimidating that store clerk?
And then Officer Darren Wilson tells a story.
And then you don't hear from anybody until we hear that the grand jury has decided against bringing charges against Officer Wilson because you had numerous African-American witnesses saying, Yeah, the story of the police officer is true.
That Michael Brown reached for the gun while the officer was in the car, charged that the police officer led to the shooting.
And then the same thing with Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
And I went out there and I just said to everybody, there's not going to be a conviction.
It didn't matter.
And everything that happened therein.
So there's a very, you know, if you love your country and you believe in your country and you see these things unfolding and you see this great divide, it's a sad thing for us to have to watch.
It's also sad to see zero progress and you see the divide get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Now, I argue that the media is in a complete meltdown mode because there is some factual information that they just refuse to look at.
And everybody agrees.
This is not an issue.
I've now been saying it for days.
Said it on this show yesterday, said it on this show Tuesday, said it on this show Monday.
I said it on TV Monday and I said it on Tuesday and I'm going to say it again tonight.
Every good person in this country deplores racism.
Every good person with a heart, a conscience, and a soul deplores this white supremacy movement.
Everybody in this country sees these people and it's repugnant.
The president started addressing this on Saturday.
You know, it's very sad when you look at an innocent young woman die and you look at innocent people, a car plowing into them, and you look at yet another incident of violence and fighting and complete mayhem.
And there's no mistake about it.
The people that provoked it are the white supremacists.
They're the ones most responsible.
And I fully and completely understand that their mere presence brings out a justifiable, I'll say it's justifiable reaction from people, a righteous indignation, a morally justifiable anger in people.
But that does not in any way give others the right to just punch, beat, and attack.
You can say anything you want to them, but as soon as it becomes physical, that's a line that's been crossed and you've got two people in the wrong at that moment.
And that's what the president said yesterday, and that's what led to the meltdown.
That's just a factual truth that that's what happened.
I understand the moral repugnancy and the visceral reaction at white supremacy.
It's justifiable and anger is justifiable in people.
You know, if you, but it doesn't give people the right to attack, to punch, to fight, to brawl.
Now, everybody that has a good conscience, a good heart, a good soul disagrees with everything these people stand for, everything that they believe in.
We do have a First Amendment in this country, and even the ACLU, one of the biggest Trump-hating groups, interesting coalitions emerge here where the ACLU, seemingly along with conservatives, seem to be the biggest supporters of free speech, whether you like it or not, in this day and age.
But they even said they hate Donald Trump.
They had defended the right of these racist white supremacist people to hold their rally.
I know that makes people angry.
I get it.
I understand it.
The ACLU even put out a statement.
The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy.
It protects vile, hateful, ignorant speech.
And for this reason, the ACLU of Virginia defended the white supremacists' rights to march.
We're not going to be silent in the face of white supremacy, nor should they be.
You know, perfectly justifiable.
And then they go on to say and tweet it out, not sure who provoked first.
This is the ACLU.
Both sides were hitting each other at the Justice Park before police arrived.
The guy, you know, we showed a lot of these, the videos last night.
There were two sides fighting.
You know, we showed the Antifa protesters.
We showed the white supremacists.
We showed the brawling.
By the way, where were the police?
Anyone ever asked the governor said that they were outgunned.
I've looked at a lot of videotape here.
Did anyone see any weapons besides, I saw some people holding objects and holding stick-like things.
I didn't see any armed people.
I did see people bloodied and bruised.
You know, I don't know what side anybody was on at that particular point.
But if the police were outgunned, why didn't the governor bring in and request the National Guard to restore order?
It's an interesting question.
Maybe we'll get an answer to.
Then you got the fact that the Trump media is just, they will never be satisfied with the president condemning the racism and violence and the bigotry.
I don't know how many times it would satisfy him, but if you looked at his original comments on Saturday, this was before the guy plowed the car and killed this young woman and injured all these other people, the president had tweeted and pay close attention because these words matter.
We all must be united and condemn all that hate stands for.
There is no place for the kind of violence, this kind of violence in America.
Let's come together as one.
Then he said, we must remember this truth.
No matter our color, creed, religion, political party, we are all Americans first.
Now, the president, then the media went insane.
He didn't mention my name.
Then Monday he came out, and this is what he said on Monday.
Listen, you got that tape there?
As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
It has no place in America.
And as I have said many times before, no matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws.
We all salute the same great flag.
And we are all made by the same Almighty God.
We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
Racism is evil.
And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
Now, the president even mentioned a lot of this yesterday.
And he said, I didn't want to rush to judgment.
I wanted all the facts.
And here's what he said.
Why did you wait so long?
I didn't wait long.
I didn't wait long.
I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct, not make a quick statement.
The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement.
But you don't make statements that direct unless you know the fact.
It takes a little while to get the facts.
You still don't know the facts.
And it's a very, very important process to me.
And it's a very important statement.
So I don't want to go quickly and just make a statement for the sake of making a political statement.
I want to know the facts.
If you go back to my, in fact, I brought it.
I brought it.
I brought it.
What did you bring in?
As I said on, remember this, Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
It has no place in America.
And then I went on from there.
Now, here's the thing.
Excuse me.
Take it nice and easy.
Here's the thing.
When I make a statement, I like to be correct.
I want the facts.
This event just happened.
In fact, a lot of the event didn't even happen yet as we were speaking.
This event just happened.
Before I make a statement, I need the facts.
So I don't want to rush into a statement.
All right.
So when we come back, we'll give you the media reaction to all of this.
It is about as unprecedented as anything I've heard.
And it ignores Saturday, it ignores Monday, and it ignores Tuesday's comments.
And the fact that he said there were two sides fighting just sent the media over the edge.
Well, we have video that does confirm that two sides were fighting.
And I fully support the argument that, yeah, of course the white supremacists, their very presence brings out justifiable outrage and indignation in anybody that has a heart, a conscience, and a soul.
So we'll get into that.
We have a lot of tape to play and much more.
800-941 Sean.
We're also going to get into the latest.
Yeah, we're going to continue looking into, uh-oh, there's a lot of corruption, a lot of investigations, unmasking, surveillance, leaking intelligence, Hillary Clinton, 7,000 new emails.
Did the FBI lie to the ACLJ where they're talking points between the FBI and DOJ that are not supposed to be political?
We'll get to that at the top of the next hour.
We'll also have a debate on this topic, our top story today.
Quick break.
We'll come back.
We're going to play the media's reaction to the president's presser yesterday next.
As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence.
It has no place in America.
And as I have said many times before, no matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws.
We all salute the same great flag.
And we are all made by the same Almighty God.
We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
So that's the president.
I don't have time to actually play it in this segment.
We went along a little bit in the last segment, but you got to hear this montage when we get back.
And just play the beginning of Chuck Todd.
Just listen to this open, because you just heard the president say the president didn't justify just the hurting of white nationalists and portrayed them as victims.
He never did that.
He just said there were other people that were involved in the fighting.
Listen.
Good evening.
I'm Chuck Todd here in Washington.
Welcome to MTP Daily.
Folks, what I just saw gave me the wrong kind of chills.
Honestly, I'm a bit shaken from what I just heard.
And suspect, it's not just me.
Moments ago at Trump Tower, the President of the United States painted white nationalists and members of the alt-right as victims of what he described as club war.
He did not paint them as victims.
That's not what happened.
We'll explain.
We'll play it all.
Way to heal this media montage when we get back.
Straight ahead, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-SEAN.
Straight from the source.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour, 800-941-Sean, toll free telephone number.
You want to be a part of the program?
We have other news we're going to get to today, including Jay Seculo and Sarah Carter and Greg Jarrett are going to join us.
Pretty amazing development about the tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch and new information about that.
And originally, the ACLJ, the Jay Seculo's group, American Center for Law and Justice, of which he's the chief counsel, they asked the FBI if they had any information, any emails, Freedom of Information Act requests.
They were told none.
Appears they were lied to, over 480 pages, including redacted talking points put together between the DOJ and the FBI.
One has to wonder why.
And you've got 7,000 new emails of Hillary Clinton that have just come out, some classified, top secret, which now raises the issue if the new Attorney General will, in fact, be going after and pursuing either a special counsel of some type or investigating the mishandling of classified top secret special access program information and the destruction of such and the acid washing bleach pit incidences and the hammer incidences and the no SIM card incidences.
And on top of that, then we've got the whole issue of unmasking.
You know, Samantha Powers, now Ben Rhodes being investigated, Susan Rice being investigated.
And it seems like that is getting closer and closer to getting somewhere.
And on top of that, then we've got the Ukrainian issue and the Uranian one, which I still think in my heart is going to end up being the biggest issue we've ever seen among many.
Anyway, so I just played for you what the president said on Monday and on Tuesday of this week and told you what he said on Saturday of this past week in response to the events in Charlottesville.
And the president again, yesterday, he condemned in no uncertain terms, no ambiguity at all, white supremacy.
As a matter of fact, before we get to the media montage, we still have a history of the president over and over and over and over again.
As far as I know, nobody in media ever took the time to tell you the truth, the track record of the president again and again denouncing white supremacy, David Duke, this kind of evil that sadly exists in the country today still.
It's a very small percentage, just very ignorant people.
But he's been asked to do it again and again, and it goes back as, you know, many, many years ago, 17 years ago, we got him on tape.
Here's what he says.
What do you see as the biggest problem with the Reform Party right now?
Well, you've got David Duke just joined.
A bigot, a racist, a problem.
I mean, this is not exactly the people you want in your party.
I totally disavow the Klu Klux Klan.
I totally disavow David Duke.
I've been doing it now for two weeks.
This is, you're probably about the 18th person that's asked me the question.
It was very clear.
David Duke announced his Senate candidacy, claiming your agenda for his own, or essentially saying, Glad that you spoke out.
Are you ready before you asked the question?
Newt Gingrich said every Republican should repudiate this guy no matter what it says.
And I do.
Are you ready?
Would you support a Democrat over David Duke if it was what was necessary to defeat him?
I guess depending on who the Democrat, but the answer would be yes.
Look, the answer is as quick as you can say it.
In fact, I want to answer you before you because last time, with another person in your position, I did it very quickly, and they said he didn't do it fast enough.
Rebuked.
Is that okay?
Rebuked.
Rebuked.
Done.
Done.
Okay.
How do you feel about the recent endorsement from David Duke?
I didn't even know he endorsed me.
David Duke endorsed me?
Okay.
All right.
I disavow.
Okay.
And I don't mind disavowing anybody.
And I disavow David Duke.
And I disavowed him the day before at a major news conference, which is surprising because he was at the major news conference.
CNN was at the major news conference.
And they heard me very easily disavow David Duke.
How would you characterize, in more words than one, David Duke?
David Duke is a bad person who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years.
Just to put it clear, I disavowed him in the past, and I disavow him now.
I reject David Duke, rejected David Duke.
I've rejected the KKK, the Klu Klux Klan.
From the time I'm five years old, I rejected them.
Mitt Romney says your coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.
Your response.
Yeah, David Duke and all were disavowed.
I disavowed him on Friday.
I disavowed him right after that because I thought if there was any question, and you take a look at Twitter, almost immediately after on Twitter and Facebook, they were disavowed again.
I disavowed him every time I speak to somebody virtually.
And, you know, they just keep it going.
They keep it going.
And they said, oh, we never looked at your Twitter account.
We never looked at Facebook.
I said, take a look at Facebook.
It was totally disavowed.
So are you prepared right now to make a clear and unequivocal statement renouncing the support of all white supremacists?
Of course I am.
Of course I am.
All right.
So you hear it.
So before I get to the media, let me remind you.
Saturday, the president says we must be united and condemn all that hate stands for.
There is no place for this kind of violence in America.
Let's come together as one.
And we must remember this truth.
No matter our color, our creed, our religion, our political party, we're all Americans first.
And then on Monday, because the media then went apoplectic over the weekend, as they've been apoplectic since yesterday.
And the weekend apoplectic, the weekend reaction was about, he didn't mention them by name, though, even though I just gave you a history.
All of those repudiations, denouncing, et cetera, et cetera, was on way before what happened this weekend.
And so Monday said, okay, I'll name them by name.
And here's what he said.
As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
It has no place in America.
And as I have said many times before, no matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws.
We all salute the same great flag.
And we are all made by the same Almighty God.
We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence.
We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
Racism is evil.
And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
So after the presser yesterday, in which the president was asked the question, well, why did you wait to say it on Monday?
He said, well, I wanted to get the facts.
And we have a history of the previous president being wrong on high-profile racial incidents.
Maybe that was in his mind or not.
I don't know what was in his mind.
And then here's the media's reaction.
Listen to your media.
Good evening.
I'm Chuck Todd here in Washington.
Welcome to MTP Daily.
Folks, what I just saw gave me the wrong kind of chills.
Honestly, I'm a bit shaken from what I just heard.
Inspect, it's not just me.
Moments ago at Trump Tower, the President of the United States painted white nationalists and members of the alt-right as victims of what he described as club-wielding members of the alt-left.
This press conference was in every way, shape, and form a car wreck for the president.
He was bleaching their white robes and he was shining their shields with his remarks today.
And he may say he condemned them, but that's not the way anybody in America read that.
You had David Duke and other white nationalists actually praising the president of the United States yesterday for his words.
And why not?
He is now officially become the president of the white nationalist, not only of America, but also of the white nationalist movement.
And anyone who is an American who believes in this country should be speaking out against this person and saying that it is wrong for him to do this.
And anyone who is, let me be plainly clear, anyone who is in that White House and who is supporting him is complicit in their racism as well.
Donald Trump, short of only naming Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson, is being himself more than any other previous president with disgraceful racial views.
That's the truth.
He's not pandering to people.
These are his views.
He's being himself.
Well, for Republicans in particular, they have to distance themselves from the president.
And the question is whether this is anything that can be repaired.
Anybody who makes remarks that can be received approvingly by Imperial Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, is just somebody that Republicans can't embrace.
I don't care who you are.
I don't want to hear anybody say my vote does not matter because when you see a white supremacist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, all you need, that's the only proof you need to show your vote does indeed matter.
But I think today, neo-Nazis have found comfort in this president in a way that they did on Saturday as well.
I think people now realize that this strain of white nationalism in the White House is in fact something that is more closely associated with the president himself, I think, than they were willing to accept prior to yesterday.
But he's now given safe harbor to Nazis, to white supremacists.
He's so disgraced not just the Republican Party, but the country.
I'm tired, sure there is a real Donald Trump.
I think this guy's deeply ill.
I really do.
You know, he's completely out of control.
He has no consistency from one day to another.
We essentially are a country without a president.
It was disturbing, Don.
You know, I think we saw the president's true colors today, and I'm not sure they were red, white, and blue.
And that's what you have been hearing ever since the press or yesterday.
And, you know, there was a lot of violence.
People forget leftist violence, rampant at anti-Trump protests.
16 cities, remember, tens of thousands of people trying to have a peaceful rally for the president they liked and then candidate.
Remember what happened in New York, San Francisco, Oakland, L.A., Seattle, Portland, Austin, Chicago, Boston, Philly.
And, you know, a lot of stuff happened then.
And we have gone over in great detail a lot of what has been said since this president has, in fact, been elected.
And so the media goes nuts all weekend long.
And then they went nuts ever since yesterday.
And it doesn't matter.
The president has said what he said.
And the fact that he said there were two groups of people fighting.
I'll repeat what I said, and that is that I put the majority of the blame.
There is a natural abhorrence, repugnancy that emerges at the sight of such vicious people.
But you can't discuss this and not discuss that there is a Democratic playbook item, which is to play the race card every four years.
You elect Republicans, black churches are going to burn, 1998 Missouri Radio ad, or the 2000 James Byrd ad, or Republicans have the wrong agenda for African Americans.
They don't even want to count you in the census, all things that we've discussed about before.
And, you know, and or you can't look at how Obama rushing to judgment in the high-profile cases is impactful.
And you just can't look at all of this and not say to yourself, you know, wait a minute, did the media blame Bernie Sanders after one of his supporters targeted Republicans at a baseball practice that left Steve Scalise fighting for his life?
Now, it would be wrong to blame Bernie Sanders because there's some nut that likes him.
Well, you can't, you know, can you similarly, do you blame Trump because some lunatics, racist, white supremacist jerks support him?
That was not his rally.
It did.
We did see two sides fighting there.
And that, of course, is just something that we have.
Everybody that has a heart, a soul, a conscience condemns the hate that we saw from the white supremacy groups this weekend.
And everyone also should hate the violence.
And, you know, I look at all of this and I watched all that was happening all weekend long and I'm watching here and I'm thinking, you know, the Democratic Party is not exactly, and I'm looking, you know, who Hillary Clinton's mentor is?
Oh, my mentor, former Klansman, Robert KKK Bird.
The same, why isn't the same standard applied to her?
Today, our country has lost a true American original, my friend and mentor, Robert C. Byrd.
Enough with that.
Senator Bird.
Or the person that was the mentor of Bill Clinton, J. William Fulbright, guy that signed the Southern Manifesto in opposition to the Supreme Court's Brown versus Board of Education, and with other Southern Democrats filibustering the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, 64, 65, that Republicans were needed to help Lyndon Johnson pass that.
You know, what about the University of Arkansas School of Arts and Sciences named after William Fulbright?
You know, if now all of this, you got efforts now to say, okay, well, let's take down this and let's take down this.
I have a list of bird names, Robert Byrd names that are all over West Virginia and all over the entire state.
And it goes on, are they going to take those things down?
You know, if you look at, you know, these positions that these people had and supported by those Clintons, you have to ask the question, or Al Gore's father not supporting the Civil Rights Act.
Or you can even take it back further.
And you can, you know, Woodrow Wilson's racism.
You know, or any of the history here.
George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, Democrat.
Wilson, Democrat.
Fulbright, Democrat, mentor of Bill.
Byrd, Democrat, Senate Majority Leader in recent years, relatively recent years.
Hillary's mentor.
So there's a lot of hypocrisy here on a lot of different sides.
And I am just saying to you that for the media to just outright ignore all of the president's statements and to run insane, this is what they have done since he's been elected.
And there's a reason for it all.
We'll get to that.
We also have Jay Seculo, Sarah Carter, and Greg Jarrett coming up.
Then we'll get back to this issue.
We have a debate on our top story today.
We'll get back into that.
Well, I did see the president at the Phoenix airport the other night as I was landing.
He was headed out.
He did come over and say hello and speak to my husband and myself and talk about his grandchildren and his travels and things like that.
So that was the extent of that.
And no discussions were held on any cases or anything of that.
And he didn't raise anything about that either.
Let me go back, if I can, very briefly, to the decision to publicly go out with your results on the email.
Was your decision influenced by the Attorney General's tarmac meeting with the former president, Bill Clinton?
Yes, in an ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.
Were there other things that contributed to that that you can describe in an open session?
There were other things that contributed to that.
One significant item I can't.
I know the committee's been briefed on.
There's been some public accounts of it, which are nonsense, but I understand the committee's been briefed on the classified facts.
Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is that at one point the Attorney General had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me.
But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we're to close this case credibly.
The Attorney General, the previous Attorney General, asking you about the investigation on the Clinton emails, saying that you've been asked not to call it an investigation anymore, but to call it a matter.
And you had said that confused you.
Can you give us additional details on that?
Well, it concerned me because we were at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence, as we typically do, of an investigation for months.
And it was getting to a place where that looks silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work.
The Clinton campaign at the time was using all kinds of euphemisms, security review, matters, things like that, for what was going on.
We were getting to a place where the Attorney General and I were both going to have to testify and talk publicly about it.
And I wanted to know, was she going to authorize us to confirm we had an investigation?
And she said, yes, but don't call it that.
Call it a matter.
And I said, why would I do that?
And she said, just call it a matter.
And again, you look back in hindsight, you think, should I have resisted harder?
I just said, all right, this isn't a hill worth dying on.
It gave the impression that the campaign was somehow using the same language as the FBI because you were handed the campaign language and told me to be able to use the campaign.
And again, I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but it gave the impression that the Attorney General was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way political campaign was describing the same activity, which was inaccurate.
We had a criminal investigation open.
As I've said before, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
We had an investigation open at the time, and so that gave me a queasy feeling.
All right, hour two, Sean Hannity show, write down our toll-free telephone number.
You want to be a part of the program.
It's 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
We're not going to allow ourselves to get sucked in completely.
The way the media is in ignoring every other issue beyond the media and them being unhinged, them not listening to the words the president has spoken repeatedly.
And you watch the five forces continuing to take down the president because there still are the forgotten men and women in this country, and there still are issues where there are unresolved that are totally and completely unresolved as it relates to the rule of law.
Now, we have two incidents that I want to draw your attention to.
One is we told you about the Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLJ, the group of Jay Seculo, and the American Center for Law and Justice.
He's the chief counsel.
He'll join us in a second.
It turns out the FBI originally lied to the ACLJ and said, oh, we don't have any correspondence talking points, FBI, Justice Department.
It turned out they're 481 pages.
And then on top of that, they redacted the actual talking points, and it raises so many different questions.
7,000 emails now have been found as it relates to Hillary Clinton, and the issue of unmasking is growing more and more every day.
So joining us, Jay Seculo, Craig Jarrett, Fox News Anchor Correspondent, Sarah Carter from Circa.com, and welcome all of you to the program.
Thanks for being with us.
Hey, Sean.
All right, Jay, why don't you update us on where you are?
Because now the Department of Justice telling you that they've reopened other issues as well and what's happening.
So here's what's happened.
The FBI sent a letter, and we broke it on your broadcast yesterday, sent me a letter acknowledging that they had previously told us that there were no documents responsive to our FOIA request regarding the meeting between Attorney General Lynch and President Clinton.
Of course, we went to federal court against the Department of Justice on that, and they produced a number of documents, over 400 documents, including documents that contained, in this particular case, emails between the Department of Justice and the FBI.
So those were actually in the documents we got.
So then the FBI obviously lied to us when they said there were no documents responsive.
They sent a letter to me saying that the purpose of the letter was to advise in a change of status on our FOIA request and that they, in fact, reopened it under the new FOIA number because of what the FBI has determined, that records potentially responsive to our request may exist.
Now, it's interesting, they based this letter, Sean, on the fact that, and we made it very public last week with you and others, that in fact the DOJ was in contact with the FBI.
We have subsequently learned, understand, we're putting timelines together, going through these documents with a microscope.
We now have learned, and we just figured this one out today when we were trying to draw some analysis on a particular email chain, that there was actually direct emails from third parties to the FBI on this, including the Washington Post.
So it wasn't just, as they put in the letter that we're releasing, we're going to now look because the Department of Justice says there's letters.
There's actually an external document, an email from the Washington Post reporter directly to the FBI's national press office regarding the same Clinton-Lynch meeting.
So we are now going back into court to get the redacted versions, but now we're putting together the new timeline that shows, in fact, that the FBI just completely fabricated their response previously.
The one they gave us last year was a complete false statement, a complete lie.
And now we're going back deep, very deep on this.
But it's taking time.
And people have been asking this.
It's only 480 pages.
And it's actually more than that.
It's 480 documents, various emails, including subparts.
But the problem is, you've got to start drawing analysis on who's who, who are the people they're going to, and you've got to research each one of these people.
For instance, one of the people that received the email, in addition to James Comey's chief of staff, was a senior lawyer to the Attorney General about this whole Clinton Lynch meeting.
Her name is Herwig, is her last name.
She was also a White House counsel previously, then was over at the Justice Department as a counsel to Loretta Lynch, advising on this.
She is now counseled to Dianne Feinstein, whose committee is the committee that's investigating this.
Let me go to a conflict of interest.
I mean, on so many counts here.
But that's the kind of analysis we're doing now.
That's unbelievable.
And Greg, let me get you in on this and add to that the 7,000 emails discovered.
But I mean, the fact that why would the Department of Justice, the FBI, supposed to be non-political, first lie, and then all this evidence emerges.
Then you got three pages of talking points.
I thought they were supposed to be apolitical.
Well, they are supposed to be apolitical, and they're supposed to undertake the fair administration of justice.
And that means complying properly with a FOIA request.
You know, anytime you work as a public official, anything you do in the course and scope of your work is not yours to keep.
It's not private or secret, absent classified information.
Everything is the public's property.
They have a right to it.
And they shouldn't have to file lawsuits to get the FBI, Department of Justice, to comply with the law under the Federal Records Act.
And so to me, it was always suspicious that the FBI claimed, oh, we have no documents.
And I always suspected they were just outright lying.
So either they were lying, or the documents were lost and now suddenly been found, which is ludicrous, or they never understood the request to begin with, which is also preposterous.
So the lie is the only reasonable explanation.
Unbelievable.
And Sarah Carter, let me get your take on this.
And, you know, there's also been a lot happening with unmasking.
And this is important.
I don't know why Samantha Power would have, in an election year, you know, have hundreds of unmasking requests, especially involving Trump people.
And to me, where is the special counsel on that issue?
And what are the latest developments in terms of where you're going with your investigations?
Well, Sean, I want to first address something that Greg and Jay brought up and you brought up.
I mean, the FBI is supposed to be apolitical.
And, you know, interviewing a number of FBI agents who have been involved in a lot of these various investigations, they go back to Quantico, where they were told, you know, throw out your political bias here at the door because from here on out, everything is about the fact.
And unfortunately, what we're seeing is the exact opposite of that within the FBI.
And we can only hope that the new FBI chief, you know, the new director, will change that erosion that's been happening inside the FBI over the last eight years and bring it back to some siblets of justice, law and justice and law and order.
And people won't have to be filing these lawsuits.
As far as the unmasking, I have been talking to so many sources, Sean, people that are in the know who understand how these systems work, how they operate, and who should be accessing them.
And I'm telling you right now, the people that I have been talking to find it highly, highly suspicious, irregular, and wrong that Samantha Power was unmasking hundreds, hundreds of Americans.
And there is a reason why she was doing that.
And somebody needs to investigate that.
What was she unmasking?
What was she looking at?
How did those lead to other people?
Was she unmasking certain people to find people within the Trump administration?
What was going on there?
We need an investigation.
There needs to be a special counsel into this.
Believe me, there are a lot of people concerned about not just what Samantha Power was doing, but what Susan Rice was doing.
Now they're looking at Ben Rhodes.
I wrote that story over a week ago that it's expanded to Ben Rhodes.
This is not about politics.
This is about the rule of law and about our rights as Americans to privacy, to the foundation of our Constitution.
And so please.
I want you to all stay right there.
I mean, we're going to take some time and get into this.
And I know the media has avoided most of these issues.
And you're right.
This is about equal justice under the law.
This is about whether America will have a two-tier justice system.
This is about whether Americans, the very, very powerful tools of surveillance, are being used against the American people in a way that is illegal and unlawful and being used particularly against political opponents in an election year.
We're going to get to all of those questions, everything that's happening, and all of the potential crimes committed, where this may go with the Department of Justice.
Later on, the Attorney General Jeff Sessions will join us.
All right, as we continue with Sarah Carter, circa.com, Greg Jarrett, my Fox News colleague, and Jay Seculo, American Center for Law and Justice, and also a counselor.
You know, Jay, I run through my long list, and my list is obviously Hillary Clinton.
Now we have the 7,000 new emails.
My biggest issue, the one that I have my eye on the most, is Uranium 1.
We got Ukrainian influence.
We got unmasking and surveillance illegally and leaking intelligence.
We've got all of these former Obama people out there.
All of these, what I believe, are crimes that have committed.
We don't see a lot of action.
And I know for myself and others, I get frustrated.
Well, there's a couple of things that could be happening that we don't know.
And number one is there could be an investigation of all of this going on right now by the FBI and the Department of Justice.
So unlike the situation involving the Russia probe, which is, you know, there are leaks all over the place, in general, you're not supposed to have leaks with these kind of proceedings.
So it could be going on.
That's number one.
Number two, there could be Inspector General reports.
Supposedly, there is an Inspector General's report coming on out regarding James Comey and that whole issue of releasing the private notes that he took, or he called them private notes.
I think they're government property.
I think most people agree with me that it's government property.
That he released those in violation of the law.
And there's an inspector general report coming out on that.
There's another aspect of this I think you could take equally as significantly, and that is, Sean, in light of everything that is forthcoming now and information we're starting to get, it would not surprise me if the FBI were to investigate these various matters that you've laid out.
And like I said, it may well be under investigation now.
But there's never a quick fix to that.
And that's why with these cases that we two, you've got to be really vigilant and staying on top of it because you just don't know where it's going to end up unless you're very aggressive.
Yeah.
And Greg, when you look at this, I want to see the aggressiveness that Jay's referring to there.
Yeah, absolutely.
The Department of Justice needs to look into this.
A special counsel needs to look into this.
You brought up Uranium One.
We know by virtue of an Associated Press study that donors gained special access to Hillary Clinton.
Her emails prove it.
The AP found that half of non-governmental people who gained access to Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State were donors.
Were they receiving special favors?
I'll give you just one example beyond Uranium One, which seems, by the way, to be very compelling and persuasive.
Hillary Clinton intervened on behalf of UBS to help the bank avoid the IRS.
And then suddenly, her foundation receives an enormous donation from UBS, and her husband receives a rather extraordinarily sizable payment for a speech, again, from the bank.
Uranium One is even worse.
And it's a crime, as you know, to confer a benefit to anybody, including a foreign government, in exchange for money.
It is called bribery.
And if you use a foundation, it can arguably be rapid.
Last question for Sarah.
Where is this all going from here, and especially your investigations?
Well, it is, it's difficult, and I'm not, this investigation is ongoing.
Um, I have a lot to share with the public.
I know that if you look hard enough, if the FBI is actually conducting an investigation into Uranium One, there are people out there they have not spoken to yet that they need to speak with.
This is a very important story, and it doesn't just deal with money, it deals with the national security of the United States.
And it is something that I think is imperative that either a special counsel or the Attorney General himself make it a priority.
Make this a priority.
Find out what really happened.
Find out why more than 20% of the uranium went to the Russians and find out who is behind all of this.
Where's the money go?
That's what I want to know.
It always goes back to the money.
All right.
I want to thank you all.
We're not going to give up this story.
And we'll get back to our top story of the day.
And that is the media meltdown and the insanity that has ensued since the media doesn't want to listen to the president's remarks.
Sarah Carter, thank you.
Greg Jarrett, thank you.
Jay Seculo, as always, we appreciate you being on.
We got to take a quick break.
We'll come back wide open telephones as we continue on the Sean Hannity Show.
Touch with the Hannity faithful.
Join the message board at Hannity.com.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour, 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
And the president did disband the CEO Council after a number of resignations in light of everything that has happened here.
And I want to go back and I want to play the news media in this country, and I want to get your reaction to all of this because I think this is a very, very revealing moment for the country, for our history, and the media now that has been so hostile since November the 8th, even before, and universal in what it is that they're saying.
There's only so many times I can go over the words of the president, and it doesn't matter.
They're just going to continue their narrative, and their narrative's never going to stop.
And my prediction is it's just going to get worse and worse and worse.
And the one thing that gets lost in all of this is as any reasonable discussion is almost impossible to have right now is, you know what?
All these people hacking the president day in, day out, the deep state.
Democrats never cooperate.
The media has been after him from day one.
And then you add to that, Republicans, and they can't do their job and their attacks.
Never Trumpers seem to be the happiest people on earth to join with the Democrats, ignoring all of what the president said.
And you cannot ignore what the president said, I think, and make any honest assessment.
So here are the attacks as your media presents them to you.
Good evening.
I'm Chuck Todd here in Washington.
Welcome to MTP Daily.
Folks, what I just saw gave me the wrong kind of chills.
Honestly, I'm a bit shaken from what I just heard.
Inspect, it's not just me.
Moments ago at Trump Tower, the President of the United States painted white nationalists and members of the alt-right as victims of what he described as club-wielding members of the alt-left.
This press conference was in every way, shape, and form a car wreck for the president.
He was bleaching their white robes and he was shining their shields with his remarks today.
And he may say he condemned them, but that's not the way anybody in America read that.
You had David Duke and other white nationalists actually praising the president of the United States yesterday for his words.
And why not?
He has now officially become the president of the white nationalist, not only of America, but also of the white nationalist movement.
And anyone who is an American who believes in this country should be speaking out against this person and saying that it is wrong for him to do this.
And anyone who is, let me be plainly clear.
Anyone who is in that White House and who is supporting him is complicit in their racism as well.
Donald Trump, short of only maybe Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson, is being himself more than any other previous president with disgraceful racial views.
That's the truth.
He's not pandering to people.
These are his views.
He's being himself.
Well, for Republicans in particular, they have to distance themselves from the president.
And the question is whether this is anything that can be repaired.
Anybody who makes remarks that can be received approvingly by Imperial Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, is just somebody that Republicans can't embrace.
I don't care who you are.
I don't want to hear anybody say my vote does not matter because when you see a white supremacist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, all you need, that's the only proof you need to show your vote does indeed matter.
But I think today, neo-Nazis have found comfort in this president in a way that they did on Saturday as well.
So I think people now realize that this strain of white nationalism in the White House is in fact something that is more closely associated with the president himself, I think, than they were willing to accept prior to yesterday.
But he's now given safe harbor to Nazis, to white supremacists.
He's so disgraced not just the Republican Party, but the country.
I'm entirely sure there is a real Donald Trump.
I think this guy's deeply ill.
I really do.
You know, he's completely out of control.
He has no consistency from one day to another.
We essentially are a country without a president.
It was disturbing, Don.
You know, I think we saw the president's true colors today, and I'm not sure they were red, white, and blue.
So for me, it's what I said last night.
It's a complete meltdown mode for the media in this country.
And, you know, everybody agrees.
And the president said it again and again and again.
I just, you know, I think it was Don Jr. tweeted.
I don't know how many times he has to say that these white supremacist groups are what they are, and that's disgusting and despicable.
You know, I show video, and you know, as much as we hate what they say, and we do, as much as America hates it, it's morally repugnant to good people.
The anger in people when they see white supremacy, in my mind, is morally justifiable.
It's like a righteous anger, but it doesn't give people the right to go in there and start whacking away and having fights.
And we showed the video of fighting that went on, yes, with both sides.
And why that is so hard for some to see, I don't know.
You know, this is the oddest coalition of thought when you think about the ACLU, biggest Trump haters on earth, you know, going out very strongly with the First Amendment's a critical part of this country.
It protects vile, hateful, ignorant speech.
And they defended the right of this group to march.
I hate this group.
Everybody in America hates this group except those people that are a part of it.
Now, I don't know who provoked what, on what side, when, where.
I wasn't there.
I don't know why the police weren't there, but we do know that there were people on the ground, you know, Antifa protesters on tape.
There are camera shots of them being involved in this.
And I don't know where the police are.
And you don't have a right to fight back that way.
You have a right to shout them down, to shut them up any way you want, and that's a good thing to do.
But, you know, you go back to Saturday.
I'm just, I'm trying to see what part of Trump's statement on Saturday the media didn't hear.
That we've all got to be united, condemn all that hate stands for.
No place for this kind of violence in America.
Let's come together as one.
Do we not know who he's talking about here?
Is it not obvious?
Or, you know, remember, we must remember this truth, no matter our color, creed, religion, or political party.
We're all Americans first.
And then he made comments on Monday.
We took those comments.
Then he made comments yesterday.
That was ignored in the course of the press conference because he did say that people that were involved in the physical fighting in this instance were also in the wrong, which is a fact.
I mean, for example, people hate what I say.
Does that give them the right to come up and punch me in the face?
They don't like Hannity and he's a Reagan conservative.
No, it doesn't do that.
And the sad issue, as I said in the beginning of the show today, is when you look at everything that has happened since November 8th, there is one commonality in all of this is nothing.
This is a profound moment where we could be changing fundamentally the country to help the people that need help the most.
In other words, everybody that I talked about for a year leading up to the election, who we defined as the forgotten men and forgotten women, nothing is happening for them as the total fixation goes into one issue and the attacks remain focused on one individual.
And so it's a no-win situation in that sense.
And people, Americans, are going to suffer.
Anyway, let's get your thoughts on all of this.
And, you know, the double standard is so clear.
I mean, you got Obama meeting with Black Lives Matter, a group that says, what do we want?
Dead cops.
When do we want them now?
You know, people wanted Trump to rush to judgment that didn't work out well for Obama in high-profile racial cases.
Ferguson, Baltimore, Freddie Gray, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, or in the case with Cambridge Police, didn't work out well.
And he ended up jumping the gun without evidence and coming out wrong.
But he's not held to the same standard.
Anyway, let's go to Sean in Florida.
Sean, hi, how are you?
Welcome to the program.
Glad you called.
Hi, thanks for taking my call.
You know, I listened to that tape that you just played, and I'm disgusted.
Chuck Todd wants to say he's shaken.
I'm shaken.
I'm shaken at the entire left-wing media because they are responsible for dividing this nation more than anyone else in this country.
This nation, before Obama, was, it may not have been perfect, and yes, there was racism.
It did exist, but nothing like it is now.
And right now, what is happening is one of the people you just had on, you played the tape, and they said, this president isn't of the red, white, and blue.
Well, you know what?
The left isn't of the red, white, and blue.
Because when you refuse to accept an election, we are not, we are not of a dictatorship.
We are not a communist nation.
When you refuse to accept the election of a president and you refuse to accept the fact that he's trying to make this country great again, he is trying to do things for this country.
You refuse that.
And then you go and when people protest, gee, the left gets to protest.
Do you ever say the right rough up, punch, hit, and do things to the left?
No.
Instead, the right comes out.
Yes, there were white supremacists there.
And that wasn't right.
There's always going to be a lot of people.
See, they're going to argue that those are the conservatives.
And my argument has been, I don't know those people.
And I've been a conservative on the air for almost 30 years now.
I don't know any of them.
And no does any conservative that I know.
And that would be their argument.
But, you know, I'll give you another example.
Jay William Fulbright, known segregationist, was the mentor, you know, a guy that signed the Southern Manifesto in opposition to Brown versus Board of Education with other Democrats filibustering the Civil Rights Act.
Well, that was the mentor of Bill Clinton.
And Hillary Clinton, we have on tape saying Jane, I'm sorry, Robert Byrd, the former Klansman, is in fact her mentor.
Today, our country has lost a true American original, my friend and mentor, Robert C. Byrd.
Senator Byrd was a man of surpassing eloquence and nobility.
It is almost impossible to imagine the United States Senate without Robert Byrd.
The level of ignorance about, you know, I go back to this Mona Charon piece that she wrote in 2015, whitewashing the Democratic Party's history.
And she talks about J. William Fulbright.
She talks about the Southern Manifesto.
She talks about Al Gore's father being nowhere to be seen.
When, you know, and Al Gore lied about it when he was running.
Robert Byrd is a former Klansman.
Well, he was the Senate majority leader, President Pro Tem, former Ku Klux Klan guy.
And, you know, George Wallace was a Democrat.
We can go back in time even further.
And if you want to look at controversial comments, Woodrow Wilson, just pure racism on display, Democrat.
You know, the party of Lincoln was the Republican Party.
Lyndon Johnson needed Republicans for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
And the narrative that has been politically advanced, the false narrative every two to four years, is that Republicans and conservatives are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.
And that is, you know, I said the other day, they're trying to bludgeon President Trump with this.
And you got everybody now that is, there's absolutely zero sense of perspective that now exists.
It's like a collective insanity has taken over, an alternate reality for a lot of people.
I'm going to say, Hannity, you're the one off base.
Don't you see it?
No, I actually paid attention to the words that the president tweeted, the things that he actually said.
I looked at the actual videos.
You have taken so much of it out of context.
What Chuck Todd said was just factually inaccurate.
But truth apparently doesn't matter.
All right, as we continue wide open phones, then we'll get to our news roundup information overload hour.
Also, the Attorney General Jeff Sessions checks in with us today, checking in as we say hi to Lisa in Kansas City, Missouri.
What's up, Lisa?
How are you?
Glad you called.
Thank you, Sean.
I just wanted to ask you something because I listened to you and I've heard I'm not anything.
I guess I'm an independent, and I see both sides of stories and Obamacare.
I know this is a big, big issue.
I know people are paying a lot in premiums.
I know people have had to go part-time.
I know there are lots and lots of problems.
But my issue is you have to point out the fact that I think up to 20 million people have got insurance under this plan.
So why can't we just get them to fix this plan?
And why does it have to be so dismantled?
I mean, I just think we have to point out that up to the next time.
All right, so Lisa, what you're saying to me.
What you're saying to me is this plan has worked out well for you.
No, I don't even have Obamacare.
Okay, but here are just indisputable facts and simple truths.
And I know that a lot of people are having a hard time with simple truth today.
And that is that millions lost their doctors, millions lost their plans.
The average increase, premium-wise, remember, we will promise to keep doctors, keep plans, save $2,500 a year per person, per family.
On average, it's $6,000 to $8,000 increases.
We expect another 30% across the board increase next year.
It's just unsustainable, and it always was.
And, you know, what it sadly did is it took the young and the healthy and pushed them into plans, even rendering plans like catastrophic plans illegal, which is something that a young person would want.
In other words, they want the plan, God forbid they got a heart attack, cancer, or have a bad accident.
They don't need the plan that, you know, people that are older need that tend to get sick based on their age.
And so those things, they end up funding the sick, the elderly, and the uninsured.
And it becomes a big redistribution of wealth scheme on top of the $20 trillion in debt we have.
Hospitals without any health insurance.
And then the hospital has to put the bill.
And in the long run, something has to change or we're going to lose our hospitals.
Something has to change.
We can't go on like we used to 10 years ago.
I mean, even with a good private health insurance plan, sometimes you have to give up your doctor.
It's a terrible thing.
There's no doubt about that.
But what I'm saying is, you just something had to change in order to benefit all of us, including the hospitals out there.
That's all I'm saying.
No, I appreciate your call.
I really do.
Look, it's sad Republicans had their moment.
And now we've got to move on to other issues.
At some point, I assume they're going to, by piecemeal, take this thing apart.
At least I hope so.
Anyway, we'll take a quick break.
We'll come back.
News Roundup Information Overload is next.
We'll debate the top story of the day, and that is the reaction to the president in his press conference yesterday and the media meltdown that ensued.
That's straight ahead.
I'm Chuck Todd here in Washington.
Welcome to MTP Daily.
Folks, what I just saw gave me the wrong kind of chills.
Honestly, I'm a bit shaken from what I just heard.
Inspect, it's not just me.
Moments ago at Trump Tower, the President of the United States painted white nationalists and members of the alt-right as victims of what he described as club-wielding members of the alt-left.
This press conference was in every way, shape, and form a car wreck for the president.
He was bleaching their white robes and he was shining their shields with his remarks today.
And he may say he condemned them, but that's not the way anybody in America read that.
Yeah, David Duke and other white nationalists actually praising the president of the United States yesterday for his words.
And why not?
He is now officially become the president of the white nationalist, not only of America, but also of the white nationalist movement.
And anyone who is an American who believes in this country should be speaking out against this person and saying that it is wrong for him to do this.
And anyone who is, let me be plainly clear, anyone who is in that White House and who is supporting him is complicit in their racism as well.
Donald Trump, short of only maybe Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson, is being himself more than any other previous president with disgraceful racial views.
That's the truth.
He's not pandering to people.
These are his views.
He's being himself.
Well, for Republicans in particular, they have to distance themselves from the president.
And the question is whether this is anything that can be repaired.
Anybody who makes remarks that can be received approvingly by Imperial Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, is just somebody that Republicans can't embrace.
I don't care who you are.
I don't want to hear anybody say my vote does not matter because when you see a white supremacist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, all you need, that's the only proof you need to show your vote does indeed matter.
But I think today, neo-Nazis found comfort in this president in a way that they did on Saturday as well.
I think people now realize that this strain of white nationalism in the White House is in fact something that is more closely associated with the president himself, I think, than they were willing to accept prior to yesterday.
But he's now given safe harbor to Nazis, to white supremacists.
He's so disgraced not just the Republican Party, but the country.
I'm entirely sure there is a real Donald Trump.
I think this guy's deeply ill.
I really do.
You know, he's completely out of control.
He has no consistency from one day to another.
We essentially are a country without a president.
Let me ask you this.
What about the fact they came charging that they came charging with clubs in their hand, swinging clubs?
Do they have any problem?
I think they do.
You know, as far as I'm concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day.
Wait a minute.
I'm not finished.
I'm not finished, fake news.
That was a horrible day.
I will tell you something.
I watched those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it.
And you have, you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent.
And nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now.
You had a group, you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit, and they were very, very violent.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour here on the Sean Hannity show, 800-941.
Sean is our toll-free telephone number.
You want to be a part of this extravaganza.
And we did show you video again and again last night.
There were two sides fighting.
There was complete mayhem.
I don't know where the police department was.
There's no doubt the people that provoked it were the white supremacists.
As I've been saying, they bring out a morally justifiable anger impert people.
What does the ACLU of Virginia say?
That does not give you, they have the right to say what they're going to say.
It doesn't give you a right, even though you want to, to punch them in the face.
That can't happen because that's the end of civil society altogether.
The media that has gone all over this, and I keep saying that as we watch this collective national meltdown, because they don't want to listen to what the president said on Saturday.
They don't want to listen to what he said on Monday.
They only hear what they want to hear yesterday.
And they then take it out of context as Chuck Todd clearly did, because the president yesterday did not portray white nationalists as victims.
He just said that there were two sides responsible in the melee part of that.
And the president, you know, he said it on sad.
The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy.
It protects vile, hateful, ignorant speech.
For this reason, the ACLU of Virginia defended them.
And that was what the ACLU said of Virginia.
But the president, he was very clear and very outspoken.
And so many times, it's almost at this point hard to even count how many times.
And we've been playing it.
We also played what he said over the years.
And at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves this question.
Are they accurately portraying who this president is and what he said?
All right, joining us to discuss, we have Dr. Carol Swain and Dr. Wendy Ocepho is with us.
Welcome both of you back to the well, I guess, Dr. Swain, you've never been on my radio show before because you've been on TV a bunch, but it's been a while.
No, this is my first time on the radio show, and I really welcome the opportunity to try to shed some light on the confusion.
All right, please do.
Well, one of the reasons why they're having so much difficulty communicating to people is that they are blurring distinctions among and between Americans, and they're painting everyone with the same broad brush.
When I wrote the book, The New White Nationalism in America, Its Challenge to Integration, I called it the New White Nationalism to distinguish it from old-style white supremacy.
And I would argue that there are four groups of white Americans, the white supremacists, tiny percentage of Americans, but a much larger group that I would call new white nationalists or alt-right who are not necessarily espousing any hatred towards other groups, but they are making a case for white rights, white identity, for white people to organize.
And then you have white people who are just trying to make a living.
They may have voted for Donald Trump, but they're concerned about America.
And then the last group are the leftist whites that are trying to overthrow the country.
Let me go to Dr. Wendy Ocepho, your response.
So all of this is just really putting our country, our nation, in a bad place.
Now, what I do know is that the response in which Trump gave during the infrastructure speech, piece by piece, negated everything he said at the press conference before.
And it is not a good place to put our nation.
What we know and what we know unequivocally is that a young lady by the name of Heather Hayers passed away.
Her body is being laid to rest today.
So whatever happened was not peaceful.
Whatever happened was not both sides.
You can have freedom of speech, even if it's speech we do not agree with.
But that does not allow you the right to hit someone with a car.
That does not allow you the right to kill someone's daughter.
So our nation needs leadership that starts from the top.
We're all individuals and we're strong on our own.
But right now, when we are a country divided, we need that morality.
We need that leader to say what's right is right.
What's wrong is wrong.
And we need to come together.
Because right now we're starting to splinter off.
And that's what's occurring.
What's happening now is we're going deeper into a nefarious place than we were before Charlottesville even happened.
And that's why leadership is so critical at moments of injunctures like these.
So we have to really come together.
And I call on the president.
I was on Fox and Friends this morning.
I call on the president and my colleague from the other side of the aisle.
We came together to say, Mr. President, you are the president of these United States of America.
And if we ever needed a leader in your 200-plus days, it is now.
So he has to rise to the occasion.
Did the media miss all the times he condemned white supremacy, Nazis, David Duke?
Because he did it again and again and again.
And Carol Swain, did you not see both sides fighting?
Well, first of all, I would argue, again, that there were different kinds of people at that rally and that the president was correct in saying that he was condemning all forms of hatred.
And in the case of the young man who rammed his car into the crowd, we don't normally blame a whole group for the actions of one person.
You mean like the guy that killed the guy that shot up Stephen Scalise and had a target list of Republicans.
You wouldn't blame Bernie Sanders because he was a Bernie Sanders reporter.
I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
I said, Carol, so in other words, like we had an assassination attempt against Steve Scalise, and all these other people were injured.
And you had an assassination list, and it turns out that guy was a Bernie Sanders reporter.
You don't hold Bernie Sanders responsible for what some nutcase does.
What I also want to say is that I don't know that that man, the young man, went there to ram his car.
I think when the police failed to keep both sides apart, that there was such a heated atmosphere that he clearly acted out of rage.
And we need to separate that from these accusations that the president, you know, is a white nationalist and a white supremacist.
I don't believe that he is, but I do think that he accurately sees that there's a lot of injustice taking place in the sense that there are white people that don't hate anyone.
I go to church with many of them.
They're working in the black community.
They're working in minority communities, but they're concerned about certain policy issues that are not being addressed.
And we cannot have a racial conversation where only one side gets to speak.
Your reaction, Wendy?
This is an excuse.
And I will talk to everyone as if I would talk to one of my children that is four and two.
If you were surrounded by bad people, you have two decisions to make.
One, you walk away and you alienate yourself and you say, I'm not a part of this.
Or two, you continue to stand there and you become bad just like the rest of them.
So for us to sit here and say not everybody who was there were neo-Nazis, were KKK, were part of white supremac, if you hold that to be true, then the people who were there that were good, air quotes, they inherently became bad.
Because I don't know about you, Sean.
If someone beside me said, I'm a Nazi and I want to sit here and remove Jews, Sean, would you continue to stand by that person?
Would you say, hey, those are your views, but I'm not part of that, so I'm going to humbly bow out and move.
So let's not go.
My answer is you always speak up for what's right.
You always speak up for the truth.
You always confront, especially in the vitriol of hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, et cetera.
I've been outspoken about this my whole career.
And the next thing that, you know, but what you can't have, and I think the ACL, you touched on, is I despise these people, as 98% of Americans do.
You have extremists.
But people that on the other side don't get to go up to them as much as we don't like them and what they say and punch them in the face either.
And that did happen.
You're not denying that.
Do we have videotape, yes or no, of them fighting those people they disliked and hated?
I can't answer the question any differently because right now, Carol, do we give you an answer?
Then we got to break.
What we're arguing for people who want to tell you is that in my opinion, Black Lives Matter and TIFA, Antifa, the New Black Panther Party, that there's hate groups on all sides.
And they come together, they instigate.
They were at the Trump rally.
And we need to hold them accountable for what happened as well as the law enforcement who didn't do that job.
Okay, so you saw the tape as the president did then, Carol, that there were both sides punching and fighting, right?
Yes, and I watched CNN last night, and I was just shocked at the people they had speaking and the lies that were being spoken as real news.
And I think that's irresponsible journalism.
And I believe all of this is about trying to take down the president.
Russia didn't work, and so now we'll use Charlottesville.
All right, Dr. Ocepho, Dr. Swain, stay right there.
We got to take a quick break.
We'll come back.
continue now continue with dr wendy oseffo and dr carol swain Wendy, I have a question for you.
So I think Carol brings up a good point.
So we have a group, Black Lives Matter, that is on tape chanting, what do we want dead cops?
When do we want them now?
We have them chanting pigs in a blanket, meaning police, fry them like bacon.
And then we have Black Lives Matter activists that were invited to the Obama White House.
Is that wrong?
And do you think the media, by not covering like they are trying to cover this, are unfair?
First of all, what you're saying is a false equivalency.
Second of all, Black Lives Matter.
Following for dead cops is not a bad thing.
That's the question.
First of all, it's a false equivalency.
Second of all, Black Lives Matter, there was a group of people who were chanting fry the pigs in the blanket.
Black Lives Matter came out immediately that same day and denounced that comment.
Okay?
Third, my brother is a police officer.
My grandfather is a police officer.
I respect the men in uniforms.
Carol, should they have been invited to the Obama White House?
I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.
Should they have been invited to the Obama White House?
Yes, they certainly were.
And when I wrote the new white nationalism and I warned about the racial conflicts that I saw coming, when President Obama took office, we were optimistic initially, but the policies and programs of the political left make it far more likely that we will have a racial conflict in the sense that it's like throwing fuel on a fire.
And so it's been set up to keep us all divided.
We need to move away from identity politics towards the American national identity.
That's the only way out of this.
You know, and by the way, that did echo some of the comments that the president made on Saturday about us.
Yeah, we're all Americans.
We're all one.
And we all should condemn hate in whatever form it comes in.
And what we saw with the Nazi white supremacists is hate.
Nobody's disputing it.
Wendy, thank you.
And Carol, thank you.
Good to see you both.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number, the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, when we get back.
Holding them accountable.
Sean gets the answers no one else does.
America deserves to know the truth about Congress.
Americans in every way, but on paper.
Apollinar Altamirano had come in and wanted to buy cigarettes.
Altomorano then pulled a gun and pointed it at Grant.
Grant immediately offered up the cigarettes.
And Altamorano then shot him point blank in the face.
My son's death was completely preventable.
Apollinar Altimorado had been in the country illegally since he was 14.
If the federal government wants our police officers to tear immigrant families apart, we will refuse to do it.
My youngest son, Joshua, was a senior in high school and had his whole life ahead of him.
He went to school and never returned.
As Josh walked up to the doors of the school that morning, Hermilo Morales walked up as well.
At trial, the killer testified on his behalf and gave exact testimony on how he systematically killed Joshua.
To be clear about what Chicago is, it always will be a sanctuary city.
You are safe in Chicago.
You are secure in Chicago.
And you are supported in Chicago.
He first threw a punch in the face so that Joshua's vision was messed up and he could not fight back.
He next kneed Joshua in an abdomen so that he would go to the ground.
Josh went to the ground as his spleen was sliced in half.
The killer was aggravated that it was not over yet.
He was a black belt in mixed martial arts and thought he could do this without any blood.
He was aggravated it was not over.
He said he grew tired of watching bloody bubbles come from Joshua's nose as he was trying to breathe.
Next, he took a closet rod and beat Josh over the head again and again until the rod broke in four pieces.
We are not going to sacrifice a half million people who live amongst us, who are part of our community.
We're not going to tear families apart.
So we will do everything we know how to do to resist that.
Joshua was still breathing.
Next, he strangled him.
He let him go to see if it was over.
No, it's not over.
So he continued until there were no more bloody bubbles.
He must have said it six times from the stand.
He waited and he watched him die.
He tied Josh's body up, stuffed in the back seat of our truck, bought gas, dumped Josh in a field, and set his body on fire.
The killer went home, took a shower, and went to see a movie, had popcorn and coke.
It's obvious the Republicans are more afraid of the DREAMers than they are of ISIS.
Today she was killed, we were walking arm in arm on Pier 14 in San Francisco, enjoying a wonderful day together.
Suddenly, a shot rang out.
Kate fell and looked at me and said, help me, Dad.
Those are the last words I will ever hear from my daughter.
America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.
All right, 24 now till the top of the hour.
Told for your telephone numbers, 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, you recognize some of the voices there.
The mother of Joshua Wilkerson and Grant Ronabach's father, Steve Ronabak.
He was the one that was working at the Quick Trip in Arizona.
And overnight, you know, here's a kid, 22 years old.
He's making money, and he gets killed over a pack of cigarettes.
Now, the Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions, has been all over this, and he's been warning sanctuary cities, as he discussed earlier today, to comply with immigration law or they will lose their federal money.
The Attorney General of the United States joins us now.
Mr. Attorney General, sir, how are you?
Thank you, Sean.
It's good to be with you.
Well, I've got to give you a lot of praise for this.
I have interviewed so many of the families that lost loved ones to illegal immigrants over the years.
And when you look at the statistics as it relates to sanctuary cities, the C in August 2016 study of the relationship between those policies and crime rates show that cities refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities significantly have consistently higher violent crime rates than do non-sanctuary cities.
So it's just a data issue even at this point, correct?
It's common sense.
There can be no doubt, whatever the crime rate is in a city, a city who refuses to allow the federal government to deport criminal aliens is creating more crime in their city.
It's just that simple.
And they also, as you lead in, shows that just basically calling on people illegally in the country to come to their city, promising them they won't be deported, even if they commit crime, even if they are involved in a gang or assaults or selling heroin, they don't get deported from they won't even call the federal government who has the responsibility to remove them from the country.
It's just really, I thought we had a bipartisan consensus that at least criminal aliens would be deported.
Certainly everybody who enters the country unlawfully is subject to being deported.
But for those who come unlawfully and then commit crimes, it's just beyond belief that cities wouldn't cooperate in that.
Mr. Attorney General, we even have more data.
When Phoenix dropped their sanctuary city status from 2008 to 2009 in a one-year period, the murder rate in that city dropped 27%.
Other crimes fell as well.
Auto thefts down 36%.
Robberies down 23%.
Just general thefts also went down by 19%.
Burglaries down 14%.
Assaults down 13%.
But the rates fell again.
But the smaller numbers, I mean, it seems that just data point-wise, if criminal, illegal immigrants see that they are protected, they are going to gravitate towards those cities.
How do the cities justify assisting in law breaking?
Why do I think that I'd be handcuffed, perp walked, mugshotted, and put in jail if I just disobeyed the laws?
The Phoenix numbers are stunning, actually.
And that's common sense.
And you are correct.
These cities are making, I believe, a colossal error, among other things.
So I just urge them to reevaluate what they're doing.
It's not too late, both for their own financial benefit, but also for the safety of their city and for good policy.
Cities and mayors do not get to decide an immigration policy for the United States.
President Trump has been clear.
We want a lawful system of immigration, one that serves our national interest.
And admitting and keeping criminal, illegal aliens in the country cannot be in our national interest.
And we, at the Department of Justice, are committed to supporting our Board of Patrol and ICE officers at Homeland Security and doing everything we can to restore common sense and lawfulness and fairness to this system.
You know, what I never understood, Mr. Attorney General, I always viewed that we're a nation of laws and our laws are founded upon our Constitution.
And for the last administration and for these individual cities to ignore the law of the land the way they have, there seems to have never been any accountability for that.
And I don't know, maybe it's sort of like, you know, I pay my taxes.
It's sort of like there are laws.
You obey the laws.
I've never understood this effort or this belief system that says that you can just ignore the law.
And then when you see that as a result of ignoring the law, you know, in the case of this one guy, I talked about his father, he's been on the program many, many times, Grant Ronebeck.
Well, the illegal immigrant that shot him in the face and murdered him had already been convicted for holding a raping a woman, kidnapping her, and holding her hostage for an entire week, was let go and was not deported.
This is happening all over.
It just makes no sense.
Look, it is a, I've been in law enforcement for a long time before I had this job.
And the way it works is that if a city arrests somebody for a crime and they know another jurisdiction has charges against this individual, they hold them and cooperate in turning them over to the next jurisdiction so that justice can be done there.
These people are breaching that collaborative approach.
These cities and sanctuary jurisdictions between federal and state law enforcement and flat refusing to even allow their police officers to tell the federal officers that they're holding somebody who's illegally in the country who's committed a serious crime.
Now, you're Attorney General in Alabama.
Isn't that aiding and abetting in a crime?
I mean, I just, to me, it's so flagrant, a violation of law.
So what's going to happen now to these cities, Mr. Attorney General?
What are you going to do from here?
You're obviously warning these cities that they better comply with the rule of law or they'll lose federal money, and that money is significant, correct?
And we've heard, for example, Mayor Emmanuel in Chicago constantly saying he doesn't care.
Well, Chicago sued us.
Instead of spending their money and helping the police be cooperative, they barred the police from being cooperative, barred the police from allowing the city to actually remove criminal aliens that are illegally in the country and due to be supported.
So they're filing a lawsuit against us, and we're going to court.
What our plans are to say with regard to the grants that we're issuing, that if you don't cooperate on these matters, it's a condition of the grant and you don't get the money.
And you have to certify that you're in compliance and you have to prove you're in compliance.
And if you're not cooperating in reasonable partnership arrangement with the federal government, you shouldn't get federal money.
There's no reason for us to reward cities who flatly refuse and actually act to undermine the laws of the United States.
You know, I went down, I've been down to the border, Mr. Attorney General, some almost a dozen times covering issues involving the border.
I've seen the drug warehouses floor to ceiling, massive, massive rooms.
I've been there on horseback, all-terrain vehicle.
I've been in helicopters out on boats.
I've been on foot.
And I've been all the way from the Rio Grande through San Diego in an office building where a tunnel had been dug from Mexico up into that specific office.
So I've seen an awful lot while I was down there.
And my most recent trip was with then Governor Rick Perry.
And I sat through a session where they actually gave the statistics.
I have it all on video where the Department of Public Safety, you know, they had a PowerPoint presentation in a seven-year period between 2008 and 2014.
Over 600,000 crimes were committed by illegal immigrants against Texans, including thousands of homicides and sexual crimes.
Now, I know it's a border town.
I know it's a border state, but I just don't think people are aware of the magnitude of the problem nor the impact financially it has on the criminal justice system, on the medical system, the healthcare system, and on the educational system.
It's a huge cost.
It's a you think of the prison and then just the cost of the victims of crime that they suffer and the psychological pain that they suffer, often traumatic for years.
So these are a big cost of crime.
We cannot allow this to happen.
We're also seeing across the border incredible surges in crime.
Cities that used to be safe, now Americans are afraid to even go and visit in those cities.
And it can cross the border.
And it's already beginning to impact on the American side of the border.
So we need to end this lawlessness.
The wall is a huge step in the right direction.
People are not entitled to enter this country unlawfully.
They just are not.
They should apply and wait their time.
And if they don't get admitted, they don't get admitted and they're not entitled to enter unlawfully.
Give me a break.
How simple is this?
So I do believe that with the support of President Trump, the good leadership we're getting out of the Department of Homeland Security, our work at the Department of Justice, we can continue to see the improvement.
We're down about 50%.
The illegal entrants are down about 50%.
We are not satisfied.
We want zero.
We want to restore a lawful system, and we're not satisfied with even halfway.
But it does reduce the amount of time and effort and money you have to expend when, through the president's leadership, we've already received, you know, reduced the number we have to deal with.
I have a last question.
I'm not sure to the extent how much you can talk about them.
I know you mentioned there's a federal investigation of Charlottesville underway, and I know you've also spoken about an investigation into leaking.
Is there any update you have on those issues or tell us a little bit what they're about?
Well, there's no doubt the FBI moved immediately even Saturday night.
They were conducting interviews in Ohio and gathering evidence.
And so we're supporting the local police in Virginia and working collaboratively with them.
We're also investigating all the possible federal charges that are possible there.
You know, people are entitled to march and to counter march in America, and they should be protected in those rights, and we intend to do so.
With regard to the leaks, yes, we are working hard at those.
A lot of these things are bitter political leaks, then some of them are dramatically damaging to national security.
They are a high priority of ours, and we're going to continue to work on it.
We've had a dramatic increase in leak investigations.
FBI and Department of Justice are increasing our resources and personnel dedicated to that.
It's just out of control.
It cannot be accepted.
It's unlawful, and we need to stop it.
They're not easy cases to make, as you well know, but we are working at it aggressively.
All right, Mr. Attorney General, always a pleasure to have you.
Thank you for updating us on that and restoring the rule of law and order and investigating these important matters really matter to the American people.
And we hope you'll come on the show whenever you can.
We really appreciate your time, sir.
Thank you.
Good to be with you, Sean.
We got an amazing Hannity tonight, 10 Eastern, the latest in the chaos in Charlottesville, the despicable, deplorable, unhinged news media, liberal Hollywood celebrities, their comments, and news and information you won't get anywhere else.
Herman Kane tonight, I got an opening monologue that will take the first segment.
Larry Elder, Geraldo Rivera, Greg Jarrett, Denine Borelli.
It's only happening on Hannity at 10 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
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