Sean Hannity Show - Trump Can Win Again - 12.19

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Dec. 20, 2017 - Sean Hannity Show

01:36:51

Trump Can Win Again - 12.19

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	All I want for Christmas is for the Leviathan of government to take less of my money.
	And guess what?
	We're going to get it this year.
	The tax cut bill just passed the House, and now it's off to the Senate tonight.
	By the way, also for Christmas, I'd love a Republican Party that is not a hot mess.
	Is that too much to ask?
	I don't know.
	Maybe.
	Might be.
	Maybe I should just ask Santa for a pair of manolos this year.
	Stick to realistic.
	This is the Sean Hannity Show.
	I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean, and I am so excited to be here.
	We've got a lot of things coming at us live today.
	We've got so much to cover.
	The vote on the tax cut bill just happened in the House.
	As I mentioned, the vote was 227 to 203.
	Zero Democrats voted for it.
	Zero.
	Looks like the Senate is going to vote later tonight.
	That's according to Mitch McConnell.
	And it looks like it's now on cruise control for the president's desk.
	We are going to get into all of this.
	We're going to break it down because what is incredibly surprising to me at the end of the year here is that the hot mess of a Republican Party actually got something positive done.
	They only had a year, but that's okay.
	I will take it.
	So we're going to break all of this down.
	We're also going to deal with the latest on the Mueller investigation, where we are in this hydra-headed anti-Trump cluster bleep.
	We're going to talk about that, where we are, where we're going.
	And we are going to be joined by former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, who's going to join us a little later in the show to walk us through the Mueller Thunderdome.
	I also want to take apart the war on Trump.
	I have been writing about this and giving speeches on this because this is something that we are going to have to contend with throughout this man's presidency.
	And we tend to get lost in the day-to-day stuff, you know, the individual tweets and then the counterattacks by his enemies.
	But there is something much, much bigger going on here.
	This is not your usual partisan mudslinging against a president.
	This is something completely different.
	This is something that we have never quite seen before, because Trump is something we have never quite seen before.
	He is an alien organism which has been injected into the body politique by the American people in order to burn it down and rebuild it.
	And like any alien organism, he has provoked antibodies in the host, meaning the establishment, the media, the permanent bureaucracy, the deep state, that are mobilized to destroy it before it can destroy them.
	We're going to break it down.
	Also, Nikki Haley, who has emerged as really a superstar of this administration, she gave it to the United Nations again yesterday.
	I mean, she's really showing them what's up.
	We're going to talk about that too.
	Also, we are going to make Christmas great again on the program because I'm going to tell you about a fantastic organization that you've got to know about.
	And if you can, please support this Christmas and going forward.
	These guys work with our most at-risk military veterans, and they are saving their lives through faith.
	The group is called Operation Restored Warrior, or ORW, and they are just remarkable.
	Their founder and president, Paul Lavelle, is going to join us later in the program.
	And oh, by the way, Lauren and I were talking about this before the show.
	There's a new poll, which I guess Maris does every year, but they try to figure out the most annoying words or phrases of the year.
	So if you have any thoughts on that, we will take them.
	But also, I will tell you, the most, the top two, actually top three most annoying words and phrases of 2017.
	I have a few of my own, but this is a family show, and I will not be sharing them on the air.
	All that and more, plus your phone calls, 1-800-941-Sean, 1-800-941-7326.
	All right, let's rock.
	Before we get into the tax bill, and it's actually, it's not, people are saying it's tax reform, it's not, it's tax cut.
	Before we get into that, I just want to start by saying that this president generates a lot of heat and fire.
	We all know this.
	Sometimes it's deserved.
	He's not a perfect man.
	So sometimes it's deserved, but most of the time it is not.
	But everybody needs to understand this about President Trump, whether you like him and support him or not.
	Understand this.
	There is almost always a method to his madness.
	Not always, okay?
	But almost always.
	Every move, every utterance, every tweet.
	He knows what he is doing.
	There is a purpose.
	There is a reason you may not see right away.
	But every time he speaks, tweets, or moves, says or does something, there is a reason behind it.
	Again, not always, but almost always.
	So to his supporters out there who may be discouraged or exhausted, and we all have those moments, I say have patience and have faith.
	And to his enemies and his distractors, detractors, and we know that they are Legion, I say this.
	Think before you pound him because the constant barrage of attacks and criticism only emboldens and empowers him, and it only helps him.
	Last week, I was at a Christmas party in Manhattan, and a very well-known elite media type approached me.
	He is trying to wrap his brain around Donald Trump, and he still can't figure it out, and he can't figure out his moves and his strategy and the support that he still generates.
	I looked at him and I said, You know what?
	If you wrote one fair piece, one.
	And not even you specifically, but your organization and the other mainstream organizations, one that would sort of take a little bit of sting out of the rest of it.
	That's all I'm saying, because the constant barrage, and it's not even a question of being favorable to Trump, it's about being fair to Donald Trump.
	And they cannot bring themselves to do it.
	And that is only helping Donald Trump.
	Tread carefully.
	That's all I'll say because the man did not get to the presidency by being a dummy.
	And he certainly intends to be re-elected again, not by being a dummy.
	Impulsive at times, yes, but a dummy?
	No.
	I was thinking about this the other day.
	You know what this reminds me of?
	And maybe Ethan and Lauren will remember this, and maybe you guys will too.
	There was an old sketch on Saturday Night Live when the late, great, brilliant Phil Hartman was on.
	And Phil Hartman played Ronald Reagan in a couple of sketches before Hartman died.
	And there was one great sketch where he's playing Reagan and he's in the Oval Office and he's portraying Reagan as the amiable dunce.
	Like, well, I don't know what I'll have for lunch today, Nance.
	You know, and Reagan maximized that.
	He exploited it.
	He played it.
	He loved it.
	He like it luxuriated in that image that he was the amiable dunce, the simpleton.
	And then at one point during the sketch, they bring in a pack of Girl Scouts, you know, these little girls, and they come in to meet the president.
	And Reagan is like, well, hello, little girls.
	Maybe that's not a great Reagan impression, but use your imagination.
	And he's like patting them on the heads, and they're all smiles.
	And he hands them cookies and candy canes.
	And the little girls are then shown out of the Oval Office.
	And he immediately, boom, on a dime changes.
	He asks for his Secretary of State, George Schultz.
	He asks for his national security advisor.
	They're all shown in the room.
	And he immediately starts pulling down maps of the world.
	And he's like, here's how we're going to win the Cold War.
	Okay?
	So he goes from, well, little girl, to here's how we're going to win the Cold War.
	I am not saying that Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan.
	They're two different leaders in two very different times.
	But Donald Trump's act belies what he's doing behind the scenes.
	And frankly, it belies what he's doing in front of the scenes that the media will not cover because they hate him so much.
	On the economy, on immigration, on rebuilding the military, on national security.
	He gave an unbelievable speech yesterday on national security strategy, laying out the entire set of organizing principles for his government's national security approach.
	So, you know, Donald Trump throws out an inflammatory tweet or comment.
	He throws out the shiny object.
	And right on queue, the media, the left, the establishment, all of his enemies run after it for days, days.
	You get endless morning Joe panels dissecting it and ruminating about how horrible Donald Trump is.
	Oh, can you believe he said this?
	And while they're engaged in all of that boring, predictable whining about Donald Trump, Trump is getting the job done.
	We're going to get into some of the specifics here on the economy and how he's really getting the job done.
	But I will just use the Reagan analogy, the Phil Hartman thing.
	While everybody is running like lemmings off a cliff, chasing the shiny objects that he's throwing out there, and predictably they all chase after it and jump off the cliff.
	This president is getting the job done.
	So I will say to his supporters and his detractors: do not chase the shiny objects along with everybody else.
	Focus, focus, focus.
	All right.
	We're going to start with his big win that he got today, thanks to the Hot Mess Party that finally got their stuff together.
	I want to get into the tax cut bill that just passed the House.
	And again, it's on its way to the U.S. Senate tonight.
	And on a glide path to the President's desk, we're going to hit a quick break now.
	And when we come back, we're going to break this down and talk about the really good economic news that the press refuses to cover.
	I'm Monica Crowley.
	In today for Sean.
	Very dramatic.
	Just in time for the season.
	Hi, everybody.
	I'm Monica Crowley.
	In today for Sean, this is the Sean Hannity Show.
	Our number 800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	All right, we've got so much to do.
	We've got a lot coming at us today.
	As usual, no dull moments.
	A big historic passage of this major tax cut bill.
	Major.
	Just passed the House on a straight-up party line vote, 227 to 203.
	The Senate vote will come later tonight, but it's not to be underestimated how important this is for all of us, for the American people, for businesses of all sizes, and really how historic this is.
	Again, the Senate's going to vote tonight.
	It'll be interesting to see when it goes to the president's desk.
	We'll get to that in a second.
	This tax cut bill, and again, it's really not tax reform of the comprehensive kind we saw in 1986 under President Reagan.
	It is not a perfect bill, and it's not tax reform.
	But this is a major achievement by the Hot Mess Party, the Republicans, and moreover, by the President of the United States who ran and won on bringing jobs back and delivering this kind of significant tax cut for individuals as well as corporations.
	I mentioned before the break, and this is really a sad state of affairs, but not a single Democrat voted for this in the House, not a single one.
	Certainly, no Democrats are going to join in the Senate, so we can forget about that.
	The Reagan 86 tax reform, which actually was comprehensive tax reform, actually did have bipartisan support.
	But here, not a single Democrat could bring themselves to vote for this.
	You know, and when you look at it, it does have tax cuts for individuals, of course, and it has a very significant tax cut for corporations from 35% to 21%.
	So many Democrats over so many years have talked endlessly about supporting tax reform for companies, for corporations.
	Bill Clinton talked about it.
	Barack Obama more recently talked about it.
	And they all talked a good line about supporting tax cuts for corporations and bringing American companies to a more competitive level with the rest of the world because we had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
	So they all talked a good line about this.
	But as usual, when push comes to shoot, they all fall in line.
	They all fall in the party line.
	So no Democrats are going to vote for this thing.
	And that tells you exactly how partisan and divided we have become.
	It's a sickness, really.
	But the Democrats have done everything they can to stop this, smear it, destroy it, talk it down.
	Sound familiar?
	Yeah, because that's what they do.
	They have to do this because they're living in deathly fear that this tax bill is going to succeed in fueling economic growth.
	Once this tax cut passes fully and gets signed into law and kicks into gear, it is going to drive economic growth and the economy.
	Look, the economy is already growing at 3%.
	Just with Trump's deregulation efforts and the chipping away at Obamacare, and this point is not to be underestimated.
	This may be the single most important thing: the simple psychological shift of finally having a pro-business, pro-growth, pro-free market president in office, as opposed to the skinny socialist that we just had for eight years.
	The economy is now growing like a weed before this tax cut.
	So imagine what the economy will do with the tax cut.
	4% growth, 5% growth.
	I don't know.
	The Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was on Fox News Sunday this weekend, and he said we could have quarters of 4%, 5%, maybe even 6% economic growth.
	Entirely possible.
	And maybe even longer stretches of time of that kind of growth, more sustained growth and expansion.
	And you know what?
	That is exactly what the Democrats are afraid of.
	They know that a booming economy absolves a lot of sins.
	Just ask Bill Clinton.
	This is the lesson of history.
	Fairly or not, presidents get the credit when the economy is good and the blame when it's in the crapper.
	And their presidencies literally rise or fall on the state of the economy.
	Those with strong economies survive.
	Those with crappy economies, well, not so much.
	When we come back on the other side of the break, we're going to get into this a little bit more.
	We're going to talk about the good economic news.
	Merry Christmas.
	The economy is booming and is being teed up to boom even more.
	I am Monica Crowley in Today for Sean.
	My Twitter handle is at Monica Crowley and on Facebook, Monica CrowleyNY for New York.
	Welcome back.
	I am Monica Crowley in Today for Sean.
	Merry Christmas to you.
	And guys, before we get back to the historic tax cut, this is just a little commentary on the difference between men and women.
	Okay.
	I am sitting in Sean's beautiful studio and it's gorgeous.
	Sean is in here every day.
	Yesterday, Dan Bongino, good friend of ours, was in here.
	So he did the show, did a fantastic job.
	It is freezing in this studio.
	Okay.
	This is such a guy's turf.
	You know how most men are hot and so they keep, you know, the heat way down, air conditioner cranked up.
	It is mid-December, close to Christmas time, and I think I can see my breath.
	Well, you know, Sean and Dan both do like MMA fighting and all that stuff.
	So their metabolism is probably burning at a rate that just gets the body temperature up so high.
	But I am totally with you.
	I'm going to come in there right now and turn it up for you.
	Yeah, I'm thinking, Lauren, thank you.
	I'm thinking that in the next break, I need to put my parka back on because Lauren usually has all of us like sweating here in the control room and all of us are like, oh, who turned it up to 78 in here?
	78.
	See, women's metabolism versus men.
	So I am freezing.
	And as I'm talking about this historic tax cut, literally, I see my breath, which is turning into icicles in front of the future.
	We can microwave the show to like South Florida right now.
	Well, that is not a bad idea, Ms. Lauren.
	Thank you.
	Also, a little difference between men and women.
	Sean and Dan have this seat cranked way up.
	This chair that I'm sitting in right now is like 10 feet off of the ground.
	My legs are swinging off of it, unlike Edith Ann.
	Remember Edith Ann, Lily Tomlinson character on SNL back in the day?
	Yeah.
	You're like sitting in like King George's throne right now.
	It's huge.
	Yes.
	Well, don't tell Sean that because he'll believe he's the king.
	But he is the king.
	So anyway, I am Edith Ann.
	My short legs are swinging off the chair and I'm frozen.
	Let's get back to this historic tax cut because before the break, I was talking about, and then we'll take some calls, by the way, 800-941-Sean 800-941-7326.
	Before the break, we were talking about how presidencies, fair or not, rise and fall literally on the state of the economy.
	And those presidents who enjoy strong economies survive and thrive.
	And those who have really crappy economies, a lot of times out of their control, they have a much more difficult time.
	Check out recent history here.
	Richard Nixon had a weak economy, driven mostly by the oil shocks of the early 1970s.
	Watergate hit, and that was the end of him.
	We don't know if a strong economy would have protected and saved Nixon, but certainly a shaky economy put the final nail in the coffin because there was no political will to sort of rally around Nixon because the economy was so bad.
	Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra in his second term.
	But by the second term, Ronald Reagan was enjoying a booming economy.
	The American people were enjoying a booming economy thanks largely to two waves of tax cuts and tax reform.
	And that kind of positive psychological element that we talked about earlier in the hour, that is such a critical part of this.
	When the American people feel like things are getting better economically, that their jobs are more secure, that their economic insecurities are less and more muted.
	That psychological element that things are good and getting better and that they are going to be stable going forward, that is a huge, huge thing.
	Reagan had all of those things and he survived.
	George H.W. Bush came after Ronald Reagan.
	He had no major scandal.
	But remember this: George H.W. Bush promised no new taxes.
	Remember that?
	Remember, Read My Lips, No New Taxes?
	Yeah.
	Well, he raised them.
	He broke his promise.
	The economy went into the crapper, and George H.W. Bush bit the dust.
	He lost to the guy who came after him, Bill Clinton.
	Bill Clinton, of course, had the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which led to impeachment.
	Impeachment, guys.
	But he was presiding over an expanding economy, in large part because of the internet bubble, which later burst, of course.
	But Bill Clinton enjoyed the protection of a growing economy and he survived.
	Which brings us to Donald J. Trump.
	The long knives are out for Trump.
	They have been out for a long time.
	We're going to get into this later in the show because this is a much bigger picture.
	This is the alien organism being attacked by the antibodies.
	The Democrats are fighting this tax cut.
	Look, none of them have voted for it.
	They're not going to vote for it in the Senate.
	This is going to be a straight party line vote.
	But they have been fighting against this tax cut tooth and nail and will continue to talk it down because they know these lessons of history too.
	And they know that a booming economy forgives a lot of sins.
	It creates a rallying effect around a president who is putting more money in their own pockets, getting them better jobs, increasing their wages, freeing them to start their own businesses, live the American dream, grow the businesses that they have, buy a house, buy a new car.
	They're much less likely to want to see a president who is delivering for them overthrown, removed, impeached, even basically attacked.
	With this tax cut, the Democrats know that the dynamic that I just laid out here is likely to develop, making it much more difficult for them to continue their jihad against Donald Trump.
	A booming economy will throw off their entire narrative that he is incompetent in a whole range of ways, right?
	That's been their whole argument.
	Donald Trump is incompetent.
	This booming economy, which, by the way, is already underway and is only going to continue to explode after this tax cut, that's going to throw off their whole storyline and it's going to wreck their impeachment game plan, which has been in place since the summer of last year, the summer of 2016, right after he got the nomination, maybe even before that, when they saw he was incredibly strong and getting stronger.
	A strong, growing economy is great for you and me.
	It is great for the American people.
	It is good for the country.
	But because a booming economy would also be good for Donald Trump and the Republicans going into 2018 and 2020, well, Democrats can't just can't bring themselves to support it because it's bad for them.
	That's how sick the Democratic Party is right now.
	What's good for the American people, you and me, what's good for the country.
	You know, a strong economy means stronger national security as well.
	But they're willing to subsume all of that for their political agenda because it's bad for them.
	The Democrats know this, which is why they have fought this and which is why they fear this so much.
	So the Senate's going to vote tonight.
	We're going to get it done.
	By the way, it's interesting.
	There was John Roberts was reporting on Fox News today about the signing ceremony because as soon as it's done, then it takes a couple of days, I think, for it to be formalized in the Congress.
	And then ultimately, the bill will go to the president's desk for him to sign.
	And once it's signed, it becomes the law.
	And Roberts was saying today on Fox that they weren't sure, you know, Trump is going to go down to Mar-a-Lago in Florida for the Christmas holiday.
	And they could certainly do the signing ceremony down there.
	And they could probably do a beautiful job of it.
	But I think that the White House and certainly this president, who is a fantastic, very talented showman, he understands the power of the image, the power of the symbolism.
	And so Roberts was saying today that, in fact, they may put off the signing ceremony, actually signing it into law, until the first week of January when the president is back at the White House and they can have a big, splashy, produced event, which, by the way, they should do.
	The president deserves this.
	This is a major accomplishment of his, and it is a major accomplishment of the Hot Mess Party, which, again, finally got their act together to do something right.
	And by the way, I am sure that all of these Republicans, they put a lot of hard work into it.
	God bless.
	Thank you very much.
	We're very happy about this.
	But, you know, so many of them are off the reservation.
	We saw this in the Obamacare debate.
	They're here, they're there, they're putting up obstacles left and right because a lot of them, not most of them, but a number of them, are right there with the Democrats and wanting to see Donald Trump fail.
	Because if he succeeds, that of course is the end of the establishment on both sides.
	We'll get into this a little later.
	But they know this.
	So you've got Republicans sort of all over the map and a lot of them working at cross purposes against the president for a whole variety of reasons.
	But finally, you know, they got their acts together on this.
	And I would just say, first of all, thank you.
	Okay, the American people deserve this.
	This economy needs this after eight years of Barack Obama socialism.
	We need this.
	You know, 1% growth is not the new normal.
	We're already at 3%.
	With the tax cut in place, as they say, we could maybe get 4% or 5%, or at least some isolated quarters of that, or maybe even more sustained growth.
	We don't know.
	But the American people, we deserve this.
	The traditional engine of American economic growth needs to be unleashed.
	And we already have 3% growth because people are like chomping at the bit.
	Businesses, individuals, we are dying to be let loose and have innovation and creativity and business development and all kinds of economic growth just ready to explode because that's who we are.
	That's who the American people are.
	That's what the American free market system is all about.
	We're ready to go.
	We're like a horse at the gate, ready to go.
	And I would just say, look, the Republicans, I'm glad they got their acts together to do this.
	They run on this for a gazillion years.
	So, I mean, this is like the bare minimum, but I'm glad that they did it.
	And I think in a number of cases, it's pure political self-preservation, right?
	Because they know if they didn't deliver after blowing it on Obamacare, if they went back to their home states and their home districts empty-handed on this, well, that would be the end of them.
	Certainly, that would be the end of the majority in one or both houses.
	And that would be the end of so many Republican political careers.
	So, you know what?
	When you're talking about politicians, if you can't appeal to doing the right thing for the American people, appeal to basic political self-preservation.
	And I think in this case, you know what?
	I don't even care what got most of these people there.
	I don't even care.
	The fact is, they voted for this historic legislation.
	It's going to the Senate.
	It's going to pass there.
	The president is going to sign it.
	It's a major achievement for him.
	It's a major achievement for the Republican Party.
	And most of all, it's going to be a major achievement for us hardworking Americans who just want the government off our backs, more money in our own pockets, and an opportunity to do what with what the talents that God gave us.
	That's all we ask in this country.
	And now, thanks to the president, thanks to the Republicans, we are finally now going to have that opportunity after eight or nine years of being stifled beyond belief.
	I am Monica Crowley.
	In today for Sean, my Twitter handle, at Monica Crowley.
	So tweet me also up on Facebook at Monica CrowleyNY for New York.
	The telephone number here, 800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	Again, I'm Monica Crowley.
	More on the other side.
	Hey, everybody.
	I'm Monica Crowley.
	In today for Sean, our telephone number 800-941-7326-800-941-Sean, talking about the historic tax cut that was passed by the House just moments ago, and it's on its way to the Senate for a vote tonight.
	Let's go right to the phones and say hi to Dan, listening in Savannah, Georgia.
	Hi, Dan.
	Hey, how are you doing, Monica?
	Hi, doing great.
	Thank you.
	Merry Christmas.
	Oh, I wanted to say Merry Christmas to you.
	And to your point about the media and the left and how they just are attacking Donald Trump, I tell you, I was a Ted Cruz supporter.
	I voted for Ted Cruz in my primary.
	And, you know, I thought Donald Trump, Donald Trump, who's Donald Trump, you know?
	I tell you what, now I can't go a day without reading his tweet.
	I can't wait for any one of his rallies.
	I mean, the man speaks like I speak, and he handles the opposition exactly the way I would handle it.
	Maybe not the most PC, but he's direct.
	He's to the point.
	You know look at everything he's getting done in spite of the Republicans that are fighting him and in spite of the media and in spite of the Democrat Party.
	The man's a godsend for this nation right now, and I couldn't support him anymore.
	I look forward to voting for him in 2020, and I'm really, really proud of the job that he's doing.
	Hey, thank you so much, Dan.
	Yeah, I think a lot of people echo the sentiments, which drives the left and the media and the Republican establishment crazy.
	And we're going to get into this more as the show goes along about this broader war against Trump.
	You know, this country had really been on a bad track and, you know, for a lot of different reasons.
	And, you know, presidents of both sides complicit in driving the country off of the cliff.
	And it got so bad that the corruption was really shot through everywhere.
	I mean, we're seeing it.
	Look at the DOJ, the FBI, institutions that were supposed to be immune from politics are just shot through with this kind of corruption.
	And so it was going to require a blunt force instrument in order to fix it.
	It wasn't, you know, look, I've got a lot of respect for a lot of conservative policymakers and politicians and leaders, Ted Cruz, absolutely.
	But none of them were going to be able to smash the existing order.
	Donald Trump is doing that.
	Maybe not according to the speed, maybe not with the grace that people would want.
	But again, when you are going to have to smash an order that has been in place for a long time with a lot of entrenched interests fighting back at you, you're going to need somebody like Donald Trump, sort of a Mac truck, a tank, right?
	A Bradley tank to push through all of this.
	And that's why Donald Trump may be an imperfect warrior, but you go to war with the army you have.
	Welcome back.
	This is the Sean Hannity Show.
	I am Monica Crowley.
	And today for Sean on Twitter, I am at Monica Crowley and on Facebook at Monica CrowleyNY for New York.
	So please check me out in both places.
	And our telephone number here, 800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	We got a lot.
	This is a big breaking news day today.
	We got a lot sort of coming at us in different directions.
	Of course, the major news, big historic day up on Capitol Hill because the House has just passed in the last hour or so a major tax overhaul, the most historic tax overhaul in 30 years, plus, actually, essentially since the 1986 tax reform package passed by Ronald Reagan and the Congress.
	And in that case, he had bipartisan support.
	Donald Trump has no bipartisan support.
	Not a single Democrat in the House of Representatives voted for this tax bill.
	And we can expect the same in the Senate when the Senate votes late tonight.
	And as I was saying before the last break, it's because Democrats are actually absolutely petrified.
	They are terrified that this tax bill is going to generate the kind of economic growth that is projected.
	And they are terrified of that because a rising tide lifts all boats and it also forgives a lot of sins.
	Just ask Bill Clinton.
	I went through the historic list in America's recent history of presidents who have had strong economies versus weak ones.
	And when they get themselves into trouble, as all presidents do eventually, the strong economy carries them through.
	And if they've got a weak economy, not so much.
	Donald Trump is in the crosshairs.
	We're going to talk about this real war on Trump and what it's really all about here.
	But Trump is, you know, he is right there.
	He is public enemy number one for the establishment on both sides, the media, the left, the international community, the deep state, the permanent federal bureaucracy, the entire swamp has lined up against him.
	And he knows, and they know that the economy is already growing at a pretty rapid clip here.
	I mean, there are a lot of facts that the media will not cover because they don't want you to know.
	This economy is already going on, well, it's firing on a lot of cylinders.
	This president is getting it done.
	1.7 million new jobs created since last January.
	He was inaugurated January 20th.
	Since that time, 1.7 million new jobs created, including 159,000 new manufacturing jobs.
	Remember on the campaign trail how the president always talked about bringing jobs back, bringing specifically manufacturing jobs back.
	And that's where all of the trade, all of the trade policies were coming into play.
	He started to renegotiate NAFTA.
	He pulled the United States out of TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
	He took the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
	All of these nonsense, BS, you know, stuff that Obama and some Republicans agreed to.
	Trump is removing the United States from it.
	And look, we're getting a jobs boom already, even before this tax cut.
	He's also embarked on this incredibly aggressive policy of rolling back regulations.
	When he was elected, he said, I think it was that he was going to roll back two regulations for every new one put in place.
	Well, now they're ratcheting that up.
	And the White House is saying we're going to roll back three regulations for every new one put in place.
	That is real money.
	These are real burdensome things on you and me and the economy at large.
	He's rolling these things back.
	Of course, the stock market is booming.
	Yeah, the Dow Jones increased by 5,000 points in one year.
	That's the first time in the entire history of the Dow Jones industrial average.
	It surpassed a record of 24,000.
	It's incredible.
	And we already have this economy growing at 3% plus for multiple quarters, greater than analysts expected, even after hurricanes and God knows what else, and this giant wet blanket of the Mueller investigation, which we're going to talk about later this hour with Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who's going to join us and tell us where this investigation is, this giant hot mess thunderdome created by Robert Mueller.
	We're going to talk about that later too.
	Consumer confidence, the highest it's been in 17 years.
	Investor optimism booming.
	Unemployment at a 17-year low.
	No wonder the media doesn't want to cover this.
	Latino unemployment hit a record low this year.
	Black unemployment rate hit a 17-year low.
	These are real accomplishments.
	This is a real economic rebirth.
	Again, after eight years of the skinny socialist, this is the American economy and the American entrepreneur and the American innovator ready, bursting out of the gate after being held back for all of this time.
	Here's something else really interesting, which is why the left and the media, but I repeat myself, this is why they do not want you to know any of these facts.
	Check out these critically important states, important to the electoral map, which is why the press won't report it.
	The state of Michigan has gained almost 9,000 jobs since January, and the unemployment rate in Michigan has decreased to 4.3%.
	How about Wisconsin?
	Wisconsin has gained 55,000-plus jobs since January, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 3.4%.
	How about Florida?
	Florida, Florida, Florida.
	Florida has picked up 256,000 plus jobs since January.
	The unemployment rate has decreased in the state of Florida to 3.6%.
	This is why the Democrats are freaked because these kinds of economic numbers are being generated even before this tax cut.
	Imagine what these states are going to do.
	Imagine what the national economy is going to do.
	It's going to be unbelievable.
	And that's why they are completely freaked out.
	This economy is growing a lot faster than anybody expected.
	And with the exception of national security, which is your immediate life and death, you know, the immediate security of your family, terrorism, North Korea, Iran, etc.
	With the exception of that, the economy is the only issue that people vote on, by and large.
	And they will put up with a lot from a president if they feel economically secure.
	That's why the press isn't reporting any of these good numbers.
	The New York Federal Reserve is estimating that the fourth quarter GDP is going to grow at nearly a 4% rate.
	This is the Fed in New York.
	4%.
	Investor optimism, the highest in almost 20 years.
	So, I mean, the numbers just keep going.
	Oh, I wanted to report this because this is a really important point.
	CNBC does this all-American, they call it All-American Economic Survey.
	And what they found that was over half of the people who responded to the survey think that the economy is good or excellent, and 41% think that the economy is going to improve in 2018.
	I think that's a relatively low number.
	Maybe people have been so crushed by the last eight years, they don't want to believe it's going to get better than it is, or maybe they don't like Trump or whatever the situation might be.
	But once this tax cut passed today kicks in, you're going to see real economic growth.
	And this psychological component that I mentioned is so important.
	That's what the CNBC economic poll found.
	Over half of all respondents think the economy is good or excellent.
	That's in large part because they now have confidence.
	They now have optimism.
	They now believe that there is a president there who is championing them and who is there to deliver a strong economy, which is what he ran on.
	The guy's delivering it.
	And of course, the press doesn't want to report any of this.
	800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	Before we move on, I've got to stand corrected here because the lovely Lauren has taken a couple of calls of people who are very upset with me because I mentioned Lily Tomlin's brilliant Edith Ann character, and I said it was on, she displayed it on SNL.
	It was not SNL.
	It was Ronan Martin's laugh in.
	So I stand corrected.
	It was laugh in with Edith Ann in the big chair with her legs dangling.
	It's really bothering me.
	Thank you for correcting me.
	No, I have to stand corrected on that because Lily Tomlin is genius.
	And I am Edith Ann in this chair.
	My feet have not touched the ground in the last hour and 15 minutes, but it has gotten warmer in the studio.
	So I thank you so much for that.
	The other thing, you know, when we talk about this broader war on Donald Trump, let's not make any mistake about this.
	This president is a blunt force instrument needed to smash the existing order.
	And that means the establishment on both sides, their staffs, the media, federal bureaucracies, special interests, lobbyists, deep state, I mean, just across the board, the international community.
	You needed a pendulum to swing into the building and smash it.
	No other Republican candidate, as talented as most of them were, were going to be able to accomplish what Donald Trump is doing.
	Is he perfect?
	Of course not.
	No president is perfect.
	Is he making some mistakes?
	Of course.
	Every president makes mistakes.
	There is not a single president who hasn't stepped in it at some point.
	But the importance of Donald Trump, and this is why he's got to succeed and he's got to survive in office, cannot allow impeachment to go forward, cannot allow any of these attacks to succeed.
	Because this, Trump is actually a once in a republic chance.
	Never mind, once in a lifetime, once in a republic chance to bring this country back to its foundational principles and bring it back to where it should be, to where the founders intended.
	Again, he is not perfect.
	But I quoted before we hit the last break in the last hour, I quoted former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who said, you go to war with the army and the leaders you have.
	Donald Trump is here, okay?
	And the importance of what he represents cannot be understated.
	This is a man who is taking on the ruling class, again, on both sides, who have dined out on this rotten status quo for decades at the cost of us and at the cost of this country.
	What he's doing is he's overturning the money changers' tables.
	He's making the comfortable uncomfortable.
	He's making representative government representative again.
	And he's making the government earn the consent of the governed by earning back the trust of the people.
	Well, Monica, how's he doing that?
	His job approval rating is really low.
	Oh, same poll said of Mrs. Clinton winning in a landslide.
	Okay, we'll see.
	I am telling you right now, if I had to put money on this, and by the way, as most of you know, I was the very first person to go on Fox News literally, I don't know, 48 hours after Donald Trump came down the escalator in June of 2015 and told, you know, Bill O'Reilly and Don Imis, who were all, everybody was having a good hearty chuckle over Donald Trump and what a joke it all was and how it was a vanity run.
	And I looked at them and I said, and I said this to anybody who asked, stop laughing.
	Do not underestimate him.
	He's going to pull the whole thing off.
	And here we are.
	He has pulled the whole thing off against all conventional wisdom.
	Why?
	You know, when people say to me, I cannot believe the Republicans elected Donald Trump, I say, ah, but that's where you're wrong.
	Republicans did not elect Donald Trump.
	Disaffected Democrats in the 10 key swing states elected Donald Trump because they were so ignored and so blown off by the Democratic Party that had become a party of the coastal elites that what they saw in this blue-collar billionaire was somebody who was talking directly to them and who they believed in and made their champion.
	And that's why, as the first person, as far as I know, to have said point blank, 48 hours after he declared that he was going to be not just the Republican nominee, but likely the next president, I will tell you right now, if I had to put money on it, the man is going to get re-elected.
	His poll numbers were all over the place.
	People were outraged.
	The media was pounding him.
	The critical point is if he can deliver a booming economy, which he has already started to do, which this tax cut is going to continue, he will be re-elected.
	Which, of course, will drive the swamp even crazier, which will be delicious.
	I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
	Back right after this.
	Merry Christmas, everybody.
	I am Monica Crowley.
	In today for Sean, 1-800-941-Sean, 1-800-941-7326.
	I promise we are going to get to more of your phone calls.
	In a couple of minutes here, we're going to be joined by Andy McCarthy, who is a good friend of mine and just a brilliant guy.
	He writes for National Review Online.
	He's been writing a lot about the Mueller investigation because he's a former federal prosecutor and he knows this kind of stuff better than anybody.
	So he's going to join us here in a couple of minutes to talk about where this Mueller investigation is and where it is going.
	I saw a report today, I guess it was posted late last night by the Washington Post indicating that this investigation could go for another year plus, which tells me, look, I don't know.
	I'm not an attorney.
	I'm not privy to what is going on in the hallowed halls of the FBI in this investigation.
	But it does tell me that there is a distinctly political aspect to this.
	And of course, we have known this now for a while, given all of the anti-Trump pro-Hillary texts and other things going back and forth among the top hierarchy at the DOJ and the FBI.
	It's really disgusting.
	I mean, the DOJ and the FBI are supposed to be insulated from politics.
	This is the chief law enforcement agency of the country, right?
	Yeah, well, here we are.
	But when I saw the story in the Washington Post last night that this investigation could go on for another year, the light bulb went off and said, ah, of course.
	They're waiting to see if the Democrats take control of Congress, one or both houses, but certainly if the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives next November, after next November's elections, guess what?
	Impeachment.
	And the theory is that Robert Mueller is not, there's no collusion with Russia.
	So what he is actually doing is building an obstruction of justice case against the president, which is a highly debatable thing, which is why I wanted to have Andy on to talk to us about all of this.
	And that's why it seems when I saw the headline that this is going to go on for another year hanging over the president's head, preventing him from being as effective a president as possible.
	That's where the politics come in.
	I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean, and that was George Michael's rendition, right, of that great Christmas song.
	By the way, I'm a huge George Michael fan, very sad that he passed away.
	If you have not seen the documentary on George Michael on Showtime, watch it.
	It's really well done.
	Whether or not you're a fan of George Michaels, it's really, really good.
	800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	I promise I'm going to get to your calls, so hang tight.
	Before I introduce Andy McCarthy here to give us the latest on the Mueller investigation, just by way of setting up how we even got here, we were talking about the broader war on Donald Trump and how the swamp in all of its entities and all of its forms has been waging war on him, and they're not going to stop.
	They are not going to stop until the end of his natural presidential term or until they get him.
	Because all of the things that he ran and won on and all of the things that he is now doing, from restoring respect for the Constitution to restoring government to its proper place, to restoring mighty economic growth.
	We saw that with the passage in the House this afternoon of the tax cut bill to, yeah, making America great again.
	All of these things scare the living hell out of the ruling class, and that's why they have got to destroy their nemesis.
	And make no mistake about this, the ruling class doesn't just want to undercut his policy agenda or even just remove him from office.
	They want the man in prison.
	I said this on Sean's television show all the way back in March.
	They want the man in prison, not the local clink, federal prison.
	Hence, the appointment of this special counsel for this wide-ranging and open-ended and possibly corrupt investigation.
	They are determined to void his lawful election and ruin the man and ruin his family and top advisors and his supporters and his voters.
	All of us who voted for him were all being discredited and smeared by extension.
	Everybody on Team Trump from the president on down has got to be discredited and, yes, destroyed.
	And by the way, both sides know that this is now an existential fight.
	So, what's up with this Kafka-esque Mueller investigation?
	I want to welcome to the program right now my great friend, Andy McCarthy.
	He's a former federal prosecutor who has prosecuted high-profile international terrorism cases.
	He writes brilliantly for National Review Online, and he is also the author of several really important books, most recently, Faithless Execution, which is a term I think we can apply now to several people in and around Washington.
	Andy, welcome.
	Monica, how are you?
	Great to talk to you.
	Thank you so much for being here.
	I want you to talk to us about Mueller and this sprawling team he's got of investigators.
	Where do you think, based on what you know so far, publicly and otherwise, where do you think we are in this investigation right now?
	Well, Monica, I think you have to look at two different things.
	One is the team that Mueller has assembled, which has on it a number of people who are Democratic activists and donors, and which is alleged to have used some pretty sharp tactics in collecting evidence.
	We remember, for example, the pre-dawn raid on the home of Paul Manafort, where the agents broke in with their guns drawn and wouldn't let Mrs. Manafort get out of bed until they did a weapons check on her, that sort of thing.
	And that happened, by the way, when Manafort was cooperating with two congressional committees and when Mueller's team could have called his lawyer up or even given his lawyer a subpoena and demanded whatever documents it was they were looking for.
	So that seemed to me to be a pretty unnecessary brass knuckles adventure.
	And then we have the latest news that came out over the weekend, where again, it looks like Mueller's team, when they could have turned to the owners of the transition documents, this private company called, or private entity called Trump for America, it looks like Mueller's investigators instead turned to the repository where these documents were being held rather than to the owners of the documents,
	which was a government organization, the General Services Administration, and convinced the GSA to turn over all these materials, including what's alleged to be privileged, you know, attorney-client privilege type documents and the like that the investigators have no business looking at.
	And frankly, having been a prosecutor for a long time, you don't want privileged documents because they taint you and they end up being the grist later on for motions to dismiss indictments and motions to disqualify prosecutors and the like.
	So again, I think that's an over-the-top tactic.
	On the other hand, you have to contrast that with what Mueller has done.
	And what we've seen from him so far are three sets of charges, none of which has anything to do with the 2016 election, Trump, or the alleged collusion with Russia.
	So, you know, there's every reason to think if you combine that with the fact that former FBI Director Comey told the president himself and congressional committees while he was still there on at least three occasions that Trump was not a suspect.
	I think it begins to emerge that they don't really have a collusion case.
	They don't really have a case against Trump.
	And if he's patient about it, the way this plays out, it could well be that he's exonerated by this investigation.
	It could also be that they're trying to put together an impeachment case that they can dump in Congress's lap.
	We just don't know.
	You know, on that point, Andy, Mueller's original mandate was to investigate possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
	There has been zero evidence of that, at least so far.
	Meanwhile, you've got top DOJ folks like Rosenstein, who was testifying last week in front of Congress.
	They won't confirm whether Mueller has asked to expand the scope of this investigation.
	So number one, do you think he has?
	And two, what do you think he's actually investigating?
	Is he really going after an obstruction of justice case?
	Is that what he's trying to build?
	And therefore, that's why we get this Washington Post report last night saying that this investigation could go into next year because they're waiting to see if the Democrats take the House.
	Yeah, well, Monica, I've always thought that the collusion thing was a bunch of nonsense because prosecutors don't think in terms of collusion.
	We think about conspiracy.
	I could still think of myself as a we in that group, I guess.
	But, you know, collusion is just concerted activity.
	You and I are colluding by having this conversation.
	It doesn't mean anything criminal is underway.
	What prosecutors want is evidence of conspiracy, which is an agreement by two or more people to commit a crime.
	And because I think they've never had evidence of that, that's why they've called it collusion, which sounds like a dark term, but legally is kind of a nonsense word.
	And I think what we've learned over the ensuing months is they don't have that because the main crime that you can, you know, really the only one that's conceivable under the circumstances as they've described to us is this hacking thing, which would be a conspiracy to commit espionage.
	And I don't think they can even prove that Russia is responsible for the espionage.
	I accept the intelligence community's finding that that's true, but I don't think Mueller's got courtroom proof that he could prove it.
	So I don't think he's got any proof, if Russia was involved in it, that Trump had any foreknowledge or complicity in it.
	And I'm not sure he could prove in court that Russia did it in the first place.
	So I really don't think there is or has ever been any quote-unquote collusion case in terms of a conspiracy to commit espionage.
	As far as Mueller's mandate is concerned, I doubt he would have to go back to Rosenstein, Monica, to get that widened because his mandate is so overly broad as it is.
	There's virtually nothing that he could want to investigate that it stops him from investigating.
	And one of the things that you're allowed to investigate, and I think you're quite right to be talking about obstruction, under the regulations that apply, once you appoint a special counsel, the special counsel has automatically, basically, jurisdiction to look at any obstruction of his investigation.
	That's why historically with these independent counsel type arrangements, you frequently see them start to investigate X crime, and then down the line, the only prosecutions you get are false statements to the FBI and those kinds of charges, which are process crimes directed at obstructing the investigation.
	So they frequently do obstruction type cases, but they actually don't prosecute the thing they started out investigating in the first place.
	Yeah, I mean, you think about the Whitewater investigation started with a land deal in Arkansas and ended up with Monica Lewinsky and her thong.
	And when you talk about, you talk about process crimes, this is exactly what happened to Scooter Libby.
	You recall that case as well.
	We're talking to Andy McCarthy, former federal prosecutor.
	Andy, let's talk a little bit about the integrity of this investigation.
	We have seen one top DOJ FBI investigator after another, folks at the highest level of this Trump investigation, and by the way, the Hillary Clinton email investigation, for that matter, they have shown demonstrable anti-Trump, pro-Hillary bias, even hatred against Donald Trump in these texts and other things that we're seeing, all of this stuff being exposed.
	These are actual conflicts and or perceived conflicts.
	And a lot of people are talking about, well, the FBI needs a purge or this investigation's got to be shut down because everything is tainted.
	The president earlier this week talked about remaking, rebuilding the FBI.
	What do you think should happen here?
	I think that the Justice Department should investigate what happened in 2016 in connection with the Clinton investigation.
	I don't think there's no fair-minded person, Monica, who could look at these two investigations and claim that they were handled in an even-handed fashion.
	I mean, basically, they're scorching the earth to find something about Trump, and they were like, you know, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil when it came to the Hillary investigation to the point where some of the stuff that went on there is like I've never seen before, where, you know, they won't use the grand jury to coerce or compel the production of key evidence.
	They make deals with the defense lawyers so that the FBI is cut off from asking key questions to the key witnesses and limited in what evidence it could look like.
	Every time somebody gets close to incriminating themselves or being incriminated, rather than squeezing them for cooperation against the higher-ranking players, as the FBI and the Justice Department would normally do, they gave them immunity.
	They let some of the suspects act as lawyers for other of the suspects.
	I mean, the whole thing is just unbelievable the way that it was handled.
	And it seems like they're moving heaven and earth with Trump to make a case, whereas their approach with Hillary was to move heaven and earth to not make a case.
	And that's something I just think that people, no matter what they think politically of these two people, we all want to have a sense that we get equal protection under the law.
	Right.
	And somebody needs to take a hard look at how these two cases have been handled.
	Yeah, before we go, Andy, and I thank you for this.
	I mean, it just seems knowing what we know now about the FBI and these two investigations, this is supposed to be the nation's top law enforcement agency.
	This is supposed to be, you know, blind justice, equal justice before the law.
	Does all of this call into question this entire investigation and possibly taint whatever findings they produce?
	Well, I think it calls into question the way that the investigations comparatively have been handled, but we won't know.
	You know, the fact of the matter is if Mueller was trumping up a case on Trump, and I'm not saying that that can't happen.
	I think we would have seen evidence of it up until now.
	And, you know, for all the atmospherics around his team, so far, if you look at the bottom line of what he's actually done, he hasn't gone after the president.
	And at least at the moment, they don't look like there are indications that he's going after the president.
	So I think we can't evaluate what he does until he's finished.
	But like you, I'm suspicious that it'll go on too long.
	Yep.
	Final question.
	Yes or no, Andy.
	Jeff Sessions, a lot of people think, you know, where is he?
	What's he really doing in here?
	Does he survive this as Attorney General?
	Yes or no?
	I think yes, because I like Sessions, but I don't think he's done a great job on this particular aspect of being Attorney General.
	Indeed.
	Well, Andy, we so appreciate your time.
	Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, thank you so much.
	I'm Monica Crowley in for Sean.
	Back right after this.
	Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
	When we come back after the break at the top of the hour, we will be taking phone calls.
	Have no fear.
	800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	So give me a ring.
	I'm also up on Twitter at Monica Crowley and on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY.
	So please check me out there.
	By the way, zero evidence so far of collusion by Trump and his associates with Russia.
	But guess what?
	The Senate actually is probing a 2016 candidate for possible collusion.
	Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
	Jill Stein.
	I know this is a shocker that basically this Marxist Jill Stein could have been in cahoots with the Russians.
	It's being investigated.
	I'm Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
	So much more coming straight up.
	Stay right here for our final news roundup and information overload.
	Merry Christmas, everybody.
	I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean Hannity, and this is the Sean Hannity Show.
	Our number here, 800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	We have so much to get to in our last hour.
	We're actually going to highlight a beautiful organization called Operation Restored Warrior, ORW.
	And I've spent some time with these guys.
	They are bringing back to life our most at-risk military veterans.
	They are an extraordinary group.
	The founder and president Paulo Vella is going to join us later on.
	They are an absolutely wonderful charity that you should think about looking into and supporting over the Christmas holiday.
	So we're going to deal with that here.
	And we've got a number of other things, but just breaking, just crossing the lines moments ago.
	You know, I said at the beginning of the show today, all I want for Christmas is a Republican Party that's not a hot mess.
	And then I figured that was too much to ask, so I thought I'd just ask Santa for a pair of monolobonics.
	Stay realistic this year.
	Moments ago, you're not going to believe this, moments ago, according to Politico and other news organizations, several provisions in the sweeping tax bill that was just voted on a couple of hours ago and passed in the House on its way to the Senate, several provisions in that bill violate the Senate's procedural rules and will likely need to be removed.
	So the House is going to have to revote on the tax bill on Wednesday.
	I am not kidding.
	I am not making this up.
	This is across all of the wires now.
	The Senate is going to vote as expected tonight, and the tax cut bill is likely to pass, as everybody anticipates in the Senate tonight.
	But then, guess what?
	Tomorrow, the House is going to have to reconvene, and they're going to have to vote on it all over again.
	All aboard the Hot Mess Express.
	Okay.
	As long as we get the tax cuts through, that's all I care about.
	But it would be nice if, you know, even when they're doing the right thing, they screw it up.
	I just, I don't know.
	Let's go to the phones because we haven't taken that many phone calls over the course of the show today.
	800-941-Sean, 800-941-7326.
	Also, you can tweet me at Monica Crowley and also up on Facebook at Monica CrowleyNY for New York.
	All right, let's go to the phones.
	And, you know, Tom has been incredibly patient, Tom, in Massachusetts.
	Tom, welcome to the show.
	Well, thank you so much, Monica.
	It's an honor and a privilege to be part of the show today.
	Thanks.
	Welcome.
	What's on your mind?
	Okay, I wanted to say that 63 years old, been an attorney 28 years in Massachusetts.
	The excessive progressive socialist giant state is alive and well in Massachusetts.
	There are a lot of patriots here, so from one page or to another, thank you for what you do.
	We're really happy, those of us who love liberty, who love entrepreneurial freedom, who love our constitutional rights, that we have a president who is standing up against this establishment of absolutely horrendous individuals who want nothing but to cut liberty, kill our entrepreneurial freedom, and they've been trying to do it for now 40 years.
	I'd like to simply draw attention to a KGB defector, a real man named Yuri Besmanoff from the 1980s, who warned America about this happening in our media, about it happening in our schools, and about it happening in our government.
	So I'm glad I had the opportunity to speak.
	The last thing I'd like to say is that the Republican Congress and Senate really represent the free liberty people in the United States.
	They will bring legislation for term limits.
	If we had term limits, it would clean the swamp.
	Believe me.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you, Tom.
	I appreciate that very much.
	Yeah, you know, Tom raised a very interesting point and an important one on our history and the left in this country.
	You know, the left really got on steroids in the 1930s, courtesy of Moscow.
	They want to speak real Russian collusion.
	And then again in the 1950s.
	And they decided that because the communists could not overthrow the U.S. government from without, that they would undermine the United States from within.
	And they've been working on this project for many decades now.
	And to Tom's point, they decided that rather than just a full frontal overthrow of the U.S. government, that they would cut us down from within by going after major pillars of American life and culture.
	So they went after the culture in terms of entertainment, Hollywood, the music industry, et cetera.
	They went after education.
	First, they started with the academy, and now they're all the way down to kindergarten, indoctrinating our kids.
	They went after the news media and control that.
	And, you know, Donald Trump was a reaction to all of that.
	I mean, the pinnacle of the leftist movement, again, happening over a long period of time in this country, was the election of Barack Obama, the skinny socialist.
	And so the election of Donald Trump was a pendulum swing in the other direction.
	And I just fear this is why we all have to support Donald Trump, no matter what.
	We have to support him and make sure that he gets re-elected in 2020, because my fear is that the pendulum swing after Trump is going to be so extreme that you're going to, that whatever we get in reaction to Donald Trump is going to make Barack Obama look like child's play.
	It's going to be, you know, worse than Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio.
	It's going to be, you know, way, way out there.
	So all hands on deck to support and make sure that we defend Donald Trump and his agenda.
	Let's say hi to Maddie listening at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
	She's also been incredibly patient.
	Hi, Maddie.
	Hello, Monica.
	How are you doing today?
	Hi, very well.
	Thank you.
	How are you?
	I was so excited about that legislation until you just dropped that little bomb.
	What is going on?
	So, we're talking about the Senate's going to vote and it's going to have to go back to the House on Wednesday.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	That's okay.
	That's okay.
	I am still excited about the economy.
	Yeah.
	I can't believe it.
	There's been a 180-degree turn on the attitudes of people that I just walk around and see in stores and this kind of thing.
	They're letting go of their money.
	They're actually spending.
	That is a trait of someone that is hopeful about the financial future.
	So I'm totally Trump now.
	I wasn't.
	I was a crazy Democrat.
	I mean, embedded, entrenched.
	And then between Sean and my husband, I did a little research.
	I actually looked some things up.
	And I got angry.
	I got angry.
	And the more educated I became, the more it just forced me, put it this way, to go from Democrat to independent.
	And I voted for Trump.
	Oh, I'm so happy to hear that, Maddie.
	And I'm so delighted that you chose proactively to educate yourself and not sit there like a passive observer, just taking in all of the propaganda that the left constantly tries to feed you through the mainstream media and various other outlets.
	I'm really proud of you, Maddie.
	Thank you.
	It's really irritating, though, when I listen to CNN, some of these other, I can't believe that they're actually getting away with this.
	I really can't believe that.
	I just don't understand how they can completely skew things and call themselves a news organization.
	So I.
	And they're not the only ones.
	I mean, you know, we've seen fake news across the board, Maddie.
	Thank you so much for your call.
	Merry Christmas to you and everybody at Fort Bragg.
	God bless you.
	Just a quick story.
	When I was working for President Nixon in the early 1990s, one day he called me in and he was, his chair was all the way at the end of his office.
	And he's sitting there and he's reading the A section of the New York Times.
	And remember, this is the early 90s, so Fox News didn't exist yet.
	And talk radio was just sort of barely in its infancy.
	And he called me in and he didn't hear me open the door.
	And he's sitting there.
	He's immersed in the A section of the New York Times.
	He has his glasses on.
	And I walked in and I sort of cleared my throat.
	I said, Mr. President, good morning.
	You called for me?
	And he looked up over his glasses and looked back down at the New York Times.
	And then he went like in a faux rage and he took the entire A section of the New York Times and he balled it up in a fit of anger.
	He balled it up and then he kind of playfully threw it at me.
	And he said, Monica, it is unbelievable that any of us get elected to anything at any time, ever.
	Ever.
	And that, I mean, there has long been media bias.
	We know that.
	Long been media bias on the left.
	But what is different now?
	And Maddie alluded to it for CNN, but I mean, all of the mainstream media outlets are pretty bad.
	What's different about this particular era, the Trump era, is that we have never seen this level of activism before and this level of intensity of hatred against the president, trying to destroy him day in, day out, just the constant nonstop barrage with a lot of made-up stuff, a lot of fake news, a lot of just straight-up made-up stuff, and a lot of stuff that's just patently incorrect faults and lies.
	They will stop at nothing in order to take him down.
	And, you know, it may not have been so obvious to us if not for eight years of fawning coverage of the skinny socialist.
	I mean, we had eight years where it was just a non-stop like, oh, Mr. President, are you having a lovely day today, sir?
	Oh, Mr. President, are you enjoying your smarts?
	They look great.
	Oh, Mr. President, don't you look exceedingly handsome today?
	Are you feeling okay?
	Because you look fantastic.
	You look marvelous.
	I mean, that was so extreme on the other side for eight years that now, when you're getting this constant pounding of made-up stuff and lies and smears against this president and the constant bar, that the two are so on the outside of each other, so extreme that what you're getting now, the propaganda you're getting now against Trump is particularly striking.
	All right, let's take another call.
	Let's say hi to Seth listening in New York.
	Hi, Seth.
	Hi, Monica.
	How are you?
	Enjoying the show.
	Thanks very much.
	Merry Christmas.
	As you mentioned, the bill today got no bipartisan support from any Democrats.
	Right.
	You also mentioned then states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, the economy is doing much better, really well, increasing jobs, et cetera.
	And those states, those states voted for Trump, but typically they're blue states.
	The Congress people from those states that voted against the bill today, do you think it affects them in the midterm?
	They voted for Trump.
	Now they went against what their people wanted.
	Do you think they affect them in this coming year's election?
	That's a great question, Seth, because it was those key swing districts and key swing states that got Donald Trump elected.
	Places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin.
	The Democrats in those states who voted against this, senators, as we expect tonight, and then those in the House who voted against this.
	Look, if, as expected, this tax bill generates the kind of economic growth, and it may take longer than people think.
	You know, people expect right away, and it may not be quite that fast, although I do expect you're going to see more growth right out of the box for the simple psychological aspect we discussed earlier.
	If, as expected, it fuels even greater economic growth, those Democrats who voted against success by voting against this bill, they're going to be held to account.
	Not the ones in deep blue districts, not Nancy Pelosi, but I'm talking about Democrats in vulnerable districts and states.
	They are going to have to answer for that.
	And I do hope that the widespread economic growth happens in enough time so that it's reflected next November when people go to the polls.
	And I think by and large it should be.
	But that's a great question.
	And those Democrats, you know, voting against success, probably not a good idea.
	But this is where we are in the country today where the far left now defines the Democratic Party.
	It is Barack Obama's Democratic Party.
	It's no longer Bill Clinton's.
	This is a party of the far left.
	And when the far left cracks the whip, everybody falls into place, which is most unfortunate and likely most unfortunate for them.
	Coming next November.
	I'm Monica Crowley in today for Sean at Monica Crowley on Twitter.
	We'll be right back.
	During these first 100 days, what has surprised you the most about this office, enchanted you the most about serving in this office, humbled you the most, and troubled you the most?
	Let me write this down.
	Surprised.
	Troubled.
	I've got, what was the first one?
	Surprise.
	Surprised.
	Troubled.
	Troubled.
	Enchanted.
	Enchanted.
	And humble.
	And what was the last one?
	Humble?
	Humble.
	Thank you, sir.
	Thank you, sir.
	That question never gets old.
	That was Jeff Zelaney of the New York Times.
	I think that was Obama's first press conference.
	Sir, what has enchanted you most about this job?
	I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean 800-941 Sean at Monica Crowley on Twitter.
	You know what enchanted Barack Obama?
	By the way, this is why we have Donald Trump as president as a reaction against Barack Obama and his far-left policy agenda for eight years.
	And Trump and well, I mean, the Republicans, when they can't get their act together, spending their time trying to reverse everything that Obama put into place.
	But you want to know what really enchanted Barack Obama?
	Iran, Hezbollah, the possibility of a nuclear deal.
	That's what enchanted him the most.
	Because what we now know is that he spent most of both terms trying to get to the nuclear deal, which is one of the most, if not the most destructive national security agreement in recent history for the United States, for Israel, for our allies in the region.
	Iran, of course, being the number one exporter of terrorism in the world, working on a nuclear weapon 24-7 despite this deal.
	But Obama was so, quote, enchanted with Iran that, according to a blockbuster piece reported four days ago by Politico, called The Secret Backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook,
	apparently Obama and his national security team, including CIA Director John Brennan, Ben Rhodes, the Strategic Communications Director Susan Rice, all of them apparently were so entranced by this idea of striking a deal with Iran that they let the terrorist group backed by Iran Hezbollah traffic cocaine into the United States and continue with money laundering operations to expand their growth.
	Again, not a big surprise, but that's what enchanted Barack Obama.
	I am Monica Crowley.
	We've got so much more coming up in our last half hour.
	Sit tight.
	Welcome back.
	I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean Hannity, our number 800-941, Sean, 800-941-7326.
	I am up on Twitter at Monica Crowley.
	Please follow me there.
	And on Facebook at Monica CrowleyNY for New York.
	Before we move ahead, the subject that we were just discussing before the break about Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, which is perhaps the most dangerous, destructive national security deal ever struck by a president of the United States, beyond disgraceful, incredibly endangering to the United States, to Israel, to our Western allies.
	But Obama was so obsessed with getting that deal that he sent over to Iran, I think it was $1.7 billion, $1.7 billion of your hard-earned money.
	You might want to work a little harder because, you know, you had to pay out that huge cash payment to Iran.
	And also the deal, of course, puts Iran on a glide path to having a nuclear weapon.
	That was all Obama's doing.
	And now we find out, courtesy of excellent reporting by Politico.
	And I recommend this article to everybody.
	If you've got time over the holidays, take a look at this.
	Excellent reporting.
	I want to see other organizations further investigate this to make sure we got all the facts here.
	But Politico is reporting that the Obama administration, the team, you know, Obama, Eric Holder, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, et cetera, the whole team, that they were so intent on striking this deal with Iran that they let Hezbollah,
	which is, of course, the Iran-bank-backed terrorist organization, directly in the sites of Israel, that they let Hezbollah off the hook because the DEA had a very sophisticated operation underway to stop the flow of money, money laundering, and drugs into the United States from Hezbollah.
	Hezbollah, like most terrorist organizations, actually spend a good deal of time, resources, and effort in drug trafficking.
	That's how they gain a lot of money and resources and contacts, and that's how they spread weapons, et cetera, drug trafficking, specifically in Hezbollah's case, cocaine into the United States.
	And they're running guns and money laundering and all the stuff we know about.
	Well, according to Politico's piece, the Obama administration let them off the hook on all of that, derailed the DEA's efforts to stop Hezbollah's money laundering and drug trafficking into the U.S., derailed all of that because it would have imperiled the talks on the nuclear deal.
	That is the utmost disgrace, absolutely disgraceful.
	And again, I recommend this Politico piece to everybody.
	You should really take a look and see for yourself.
	But I got to say one thing.
	You know, despite all of the drama about last year, we can thank God that the entire Obama crew, Obama, Holder, Brennan, Rice, Rhodes, all of them, we can thank our lucky stars that they are gone.
	And if you supported them, I don't want to hear any complaints about Donald Trump.
	Let's switch gears now to a more Christmas-like story because I feel very strongly about this group, and I've spent time with these guys and I've gotten to know them.
	And I thought for Christmas, this would really be a lovely story on this program today.
	There is a group called Operation Restored Warrior, ORW, and their website is operationrestoredwarrior.org.
	And they came into being about nine years ago, and they do the most extraordinary work in intervening and saving our most at-risk military veterans.
	I don't know if you know this, but it's estimated by the federal government that about 22 military veterans die from suicide every single day.
	That's nearly one per hour, guys.
	And that's a rate far above the average for the general public.
	They are, these at-risk veterans are plagued by really horrific physical, emotional, and spiritual brokenness.
	And that's what's given rise to this suicide epidemic.
	And that's, you know, I had known that this epidemic existed.
	And then I came to know Operation Restored Warrior.
	And what they do is that they have stepped into the breach because the federal government, the VA, can only do so much.
	And it's had its problems, as we all know.
	ORW is a private organization.
	And it was founded in 2008 by Chief Master Sergeant Paul Lavelle, U.S. Air Force retired, who is a former atheist.
	And he looked around and he saw that there was one big thing missing from the mission to help our hurting vets.
	And that was God.
	Paul Lavelle joins us now.
	Welcome, Paul.
	Hi, Monica.
	Thank you so much for having me today, and Merry Christmas.
	Well, Merry Christmas to you two.
	And I have gotten to know you over the last year, and I've come to know a lot of the guys involved in Operation Restored Warrior, and the work you are doing is just remarkable.
	So tell us a little bit about the group, why you got it, why you got us started, and the mission that you're on.
	Yeah, thank you.
	We, as you said, we are a nine-year-old organization.
	We've kind of been under the radar, and our mission is to rescue, rebuild, and restore our nation's warriors, all the way from Vietnam veterans to our active duty forces today.
	And we offer a five-day program at a couple locations.
	One's out in Colorado, beautiful mountains of Colorado, and the other is in California near Lake Tahoe.
	And we bring six to seven warriors out each month, and we've just moved to doing two a month.
	And in five days, five intensive days, we take them from a place of complete hopelessness to a place of restoration and restoring that hope and their purpose and families.
	And to date, we've had close to 900 veterans in active duty come through our program.
	And the remarkable statistic, if I could even say that, and I hesitate to say it, but 100% of these men that come through the program get restored.
	And families get their husbands back, their dads back, mothers get their sons back.
	So it is a pretty remarkable program.
	And I just want to say, Paul, that I was lucky enough to join your annual retreat back in October.
	And I saw firsthand that the bonds that these men build with each other and with their faith and with God really are, the whole thing is astonishing.
	And these bonds are unbreakable.
	And watching these guys, and these, by the way, everybody, I mean, these are like the most grizzled Vietnam veterans.
	These are, you know, special ops guys.
	These are big, powerful men.
	Watching them lean on each other as they learn to lean once again on God is really profound to behold.
	Yes, yes.
	You know, as you said, you know, I was an atheist pretty much all my life.
	And I came to realize that the human experience as human beings, we are both spiritual and physical.
	And to separate one from the other can really cause some significant devastation.
	And so what we do is we bring that spiritual aspect into the healing process.
	And we just finished a drop zone yesterday.
	I just wanted to kind of reiterate something is that we don't call them retreats because as military professionals, we don't like that word.
	The U.S. military doesn't retreat, Paul.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	We don't retreat.
	So we call it a drop zone.
	And really what it is is, for those that are familiar with parachuting, is you go in and you take an enemy op and you free fall into the ground and then you've got a stronghold of where you can move from.
	But we finished a drop zone yesterday and we had a group as we do in each program.
	Guys came in and you just look at them and there's just absolute hopelessness in their eyes.
	And we tell them on the first day that we are going to promise them that in five days that they are going to be in a completely different place.
	And many of these men have been in impatient VA facilities.
	They've had multiple years of counseling and nothing seems to work.
	And yet, at the end of those five days, Jesus shows up and does the thing that he says he wants to do, and that's to heal the brokenhearted and set the captives free.
	And yesterday we finished a program.
	And could I read a letter that a Marine, pretty chiseled Marine, wrote to our team?
	As long as it's brief, Paul, because we don't have much time.
	Okay, it's basically, he just said, hey, thank you so much for giving me my life back.
	I was going to take my life.
	I was on the verge of killing myself.
	And your team gave me purpose through Jesus.
	And so now my family has me back for Christmas.
	I mean, that's just kind of the synopsis of really what happens.
	And really, these are the kind of miracles that happen all the time through Operation Restored Warrior.
	Before I let you go, Paul, I know you mentioned men, and I've met a number of these men who've been through the program.
	I want to know: are you going to tailor a program specifically for female veterans and other women who may need this kind of healing as much as the men in their lives do?
	Yes, we are.
	We're planning on rolling out the women's restored woman, ORW, Operation Restored Women.
	And we're looking at probably the third quarter of the year to do that.
	And, of course, in order to do any of this, we need support.
	And it costs about $2,000 per person to go through these five days.
	And we only rely on patriots like folks in the audience to help us out.
	And so we would really welcome any sort of support that your listening audience could help.
	Well, absolutely, Paul.
	And that's why I wanted to have you on because I know firsthand the miracles that are performed with our military veterans through Operation Restored Warrior.
	And I thought for Christmas time, I wanted to bring your organization to everybody's attention so that they can check you out and support you.
	OperationrestoredWarrior.org is the website.
	You can reach out to Paul through that website, directly to him, find out more about the organization, and of course support it.
	And Paul, as I'd let you go, I just want to say, you know, I wrote a whole column about your organization for Foxnews.com a couple of months ago.
	And I was reminded of the movie Hexaw Ridge, where, you know, you had a corporal who refused for religious reasons to carry a weapon, and yet he rescued 75 wounded soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa.
	And he dodged enemy fire.
	And he just, while he was performing these acts of heroism, he just recited a simple prayer, which was, Let me save just one more.
	And when I think of ORW and under your leadership and guidance of your extraordinary team, I think you guys are doing exactly that.
	Let me just save one more.
	So God bless you for what you're doing, Paul.
	Well, bless you too, Monica.
	And again, thank you for having us on.
	And we are just so grateful to you and to Sean for bringing ORW into the awareness of your audience.
	Well, if we can save at least one life by doing this segment today on the Sean Hannity Show, then it is worth it.
	If you are out there, you're a military veteran, you are suffering, you're brokenhearted, please check out operationrestoredwarrior.org.
	Thank you, Paul.
	I'm Monica Crowley.
	Back right after this.
	I'm Monica Crowley in for Sean Hannity.
	And before we go, let's take one final call from Christian in North Carolina.
	Hi, Christian.
	Hey, how are you doing, Ms. Crowley?
	Very well.
	How are you?
	All things considered, I'm okay.
	Okay, and did you, you heard the interview with Paul Lavelle?
	I did, actually.
	It sounds like they're doing some good things.
	One, I want to be a part of that, too.
	I know a lot of people that would like to support that, I would imagine.
	So, and honestly, I personally could benefit from it if we're just getting down to the point of it.
	Oh, wonderful.
	Wonderful.
	Which branch of the military did you serve in, Christian?
	And are you active duty or former?
	I was active and I was a reserve.
	I am currently not in the military at all.
	Okay, well, God bless you.
	And again, the website is operationrestoredwarrior.org.
	You can reach Paul Lavelle directly from there.
	And I know that they can help you, Christian.
	So thank you so much for calling in.
	And I'm glad, I'm glad this resonated with you.
	And again, if you're a military veteran, active duty or former, Operation Restored Warrior can help you.
	And again, as we say, if that conversation saved one American military life, then it was worth doing.
	So thank you, Christian.
	God bless you.
	I've teased at the beginning of the show the two most annoying phrases of the year, according to the Maris poll.
	The second most annoying phrase of 2017, fake news.
	Fake news, most annoying.
	The number one, most annoying phrase of the year, and it seems to be a perennial.
	Whatever.
	Whatever.
	Completely annoying.
	For those under the age of 45, the most annoying phrase was, do you guys, Ethan, do you have a guess?
	Lauren, do you have a guess?
	For under 45 folks, the most annoying phrase was, no offense, but that's a classic.
	It is.
	It is.
	It's sort of also a perennial.
	No offense, but you smell.
	Anyway, it has been an absolute joy to be with you and in for Sean Hannity today.
	I thank him.
	I thank Lauren.
	I thank Ethan.
	Thank you guys so much for being with me.
	I am Monica Crowley on Twitter, at Monica Crowley.
	On Facebook at Monica CrowleyNY.
	Thank you so much, you guys.
	I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a very blessed 2018.
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