Weatherman Joe Bastardi joins Sean to talk about the storm that has hit the east coast. It seems to be a "monster storm." Sean turns attention to Bastardi's new book, "The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won't Hear from Al Gore--And Others," which talks about historical weather patterns. Bastardi explains the "weaponization of the weather." The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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All right, happy Friday.
Put a big little smile on your face.
Well, that's that's not gonna work.
Put a smile on your face.
Make it a big one because it is Friday.
800-941 Sean Tollfree telephone number.
You want to be a part of it, and we got a lot of good stuff coming up on the program today.
I am spectacularly stunned and amazed at just how abusively biased the news media is.
We have major, major breaking news from last night, and I don't see as I just purposely started flipping around the dial last night after my show when I got on home, and I'm looking, okay.
Well, I'm sure that they've they had to cover this, and they didn't.
And I'm talking about, you know, obviously severe Obama-era FISA abuses.
He can claim all he wants.
I've never had any big scandal.
By the time this is all said and done, you know, Fast and Furious and Benghazi, yeah, they're they're huge.
They're massive.
But this is even bigger than all of that.
And we have a letter that was just released late last night to the Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
It was sent by the House Intelligence Community community, committee chairman, Devin Nunes, and um it's detailing how the FBI likely has broken the law and how they violated Bureau protocols when they were obtaining the Pfizer warrant to surveil the Trump campaign associate Carter Page.
I'm reading this letter.
I'm gonna read parts of it to you because I think it is really, really critical that you understand the level of the abuse of power, the political implications of all of this, how high level this went up, and why this all matters.
Now it's interesting.
Today is the day that remember Devin Nunes sent the letter to Obama administration officials and a few Trump administration officials.
Remember asking all these questions about the steel dossier.
What when did they find out about the dossier?
What did they know?
When did they know it?
Now, what's fascinating about this letter is that Devon Nunes is also specifically naming crimes that could have been committed here.
And based on what we already know, it's obvious I think the crimes were committed.
And if I'm James Comey, I mean, he's talking about teaching at his Alma Mata, William and Mary, and he's talking about his new book, and he's gonna give the first interview to George Stephanopoulos, and you know, he puts out all these sanctimonious tweets on Twitter that, you know, only he basically is the standard bearer of all things good, and everybody else is pretty much evil that dares to disagree with him.
I mean, uh, he's almost bordering on delusional here in light of everything that I think is coming his way.
As Mueller keep we keep hearing about Trump Russia collusion.
Well, we've got real hard evidence as it relates to the FISA abuse and other matters, and there's a lot of questions that need to be answered.
I think that's why the president was so frustrated and is so frustrated with the Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
So Nunes writes, Dear Mr. Attorney General, the FBI is charged with protecting The American people and enforcing our laws in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.
Now, to carry out this essential mission, the FBI has a strict set of internal rules and procedures embodied in the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.
Now that domestic investigations operations guide was created by the Bureau itself and approved by the Department of Justice.
Said the latest unredacted version of this DIOG available to the committee was October 15, 2011.
It delineates procedures the FBI must follow when submitting applications to the foreign intelligence surveillance court, the FISA court, for orders to conduct surveillance through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
And then he goes, according to the DIOG, it says, quote, FISA surveillance is a very intrusive means of acquiring information that must balance the need to obtain sensitive national security information against civil liberties.
When striking this balance, a verification process must be conducted for all FISA applications.
Under the subsection, FISA verification and accuracy procedures, the FBI itself acknowledges this importance.
Quote, this is what the FBI says about the importance of verification and accuracy.
It says, quote, the accuracy of information contained within FISA applications is of the utmost importance.
Only documented and verified information may be used to support FBI applications.
FISA-FISA court.
And the DIOG then provides detailed instructions for the FBI to follow to ensure that information appearing in any FISA application that is presented to the FISA court has been thoroughly vetted and confirmed.
Now the letter goes on, but let me just stop right here.
Now, what did James Comey say to then President elect Trump just weeks before he was sworn into office in January of 2017 at Trump Tower?
We know what he said.
He wanted to give Trump a heads up that this dossier existed.
He said it's unverified and it's salacious.
That's all he said.
Here's the problem.
The application was presented to the FISA court before the election in the weeks leading up to the election.
Remember, they failed the first time that they brought this legislation.
They attempted to get this FISA application through.
They failed.
Remember, Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe said no dossier.
And he said, no application.
Without the dossier, they wouldn't have even applied.
Now, under the subsection, the FISA verification and accuracy, accuracy of information contained within the FISA application is of the utmost importance.
Only documented and verified information may be used to support the FBI application to the FISA court.
Now you go back to the Grassley Graham memo.
What did that Grassley Graham memo say?
It said the bulk of information that was used to get the FISA court to give the warrant in the case of Trump associate Carter Page, and which allowed them to go back to every text, every email, every phone call.
You know, I guess in perpetuity.
Anyway, so that was all granted, but it was based on what?
The very opposite of what their protocol calls for.
Because even James Comey, months after the initial application is saying it's unverified.
And McCabe's saying that in fact it's no dossier, there's not even an application for a FISA warrant.
Now do you understand what this means?
That people, and we will know everybody about certainly Comey is up to his eyeballs in all of this.
Comey's in my from my perspective, he's in real legal jeopardy.
I wouldn't want to be Jim Comey today.
Let me put it that way.
Because if he knew that it was not verified and he present allowed it to be presented to the FISA court, well, I'll go on and I'll explain what laws are in play here.
So back to the newness memo.
It says former current DOJ FBI leadership have confirmed to the committee that unverified information from the steel dossier Comprised an essential part of the FISA applications related to Carter Page, that's the Trump campaign associate.
Now these details are outlined in a declassified memorandum released by the committee on February 2nd, 2018, a copy of which is attached for your review.
And the letter to the Attorney General from Nunes goes on, in light of what appears to be a clear violation of FBI protocols, the committee directs the Department of Justice shall no later than March 8th, 2018.
What's today's date?
Today is the first, I guess, right?
Second.
Okay, I missed the day.
I'm sorry.
Maybe I thought it was leapier.
Anyway, and it goes on to say, provide the following answers to the following questions.
Here's what he wants answers to.
Were these protocols changed after the 2011 version to allow for the use of unverified information to support FBI FISA applications to the FISA court?
Now I would doubt very highly that that could have happened on any level without the House Intel Committee being made aware of that.
If not, what steps has the DOJ and or the FBI taken to hold accountable those officials, Comey, and others, McCabe and others, who violated these protocols.
And then he goes on, I will remind you that aside from the violation of these protocols, the presentation of false and or unverified information to the FISA court in connection with Carter Page and the warrant applications.
Remember, there was one original application, three renewals.
Rod Rosenstein had to sign off on this.
Violated these protocols.
I will remind you, aside from the violation of protocols, the presentation of false and or unverified information to the FISA court in connection with this warrant application could entail violations of the following criminal statutes.
18, U.S. Code 242, 50, U.S. Code 1809.
Conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court.
Then he goes on the FBI, and then he goes on the DIOG provides internal oversight and controls over authorized FBI activity so the American public can be assured that the Bureau is conducting its vital mission in accordance with the law and established guidelines.
However, in this instance, it's clear that the basic operating guidance was violated.
Congressional oversight is designed to hold agencies accountable.
I trust that you share this view and will assist this committee in its investigation into the violations of the DIOG procedures related to the use of the Steel dossier and the FISA applications.
That also went to the Inspector General Horowitz of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, the Honorable Christopher Ray, the FBI director, as well as, of course, the Attorney General.
Now, why haven't you would think, and everything always goes back to well, imagine if it was Donald Trump?
Well, you know what the answer is if it was Donald Trump.
We know what the answer is.
So you got this letter, it's released.
You hear what Nunes is pointing out, given this information, Nunes is rightly demanding that the DOJ explain if these protocols are still in place, and if they are, Nunes wants to know how officials are going to be punished for violating them.
And how this false information how is it possible?
Just ask yourself that remember Glenn Simpson said he never verified it.
Nobody's ever verified it.
I think the most shocking thing this week was was, you know, Mr. 287 television appearances, Adam Schiff, and Adam Schiff saying the the following that, oh, the information is already out there.
What is the evidence of Trump Russia collusion?
Listen.
If you look at the facts that are already in the public domain, they're pretty damning.
Uh starting with what we know about George Papadopoulos, one of the few foreign policy advisors to the campaign.
We now know that uh Papadopoulos was approached by the Russians and told back in April of the election year, even before the Clinton campaign knew that the Russians had stolen Clinton and DNC emails.
And we also know that they previewed their dissemination, the anonymous dissemination of those emails with Papadopoulos back in the case.
Let's play the next cut because we're running out of time.
Is it enough for Muller to bring charges?
Because if it isn't enough for Muller to bring charges, what does that mean?
Well, what it means.
This is a very important question.
Um, and that is what's Mueller's job and what's our job.
Bob Mueller will make the decision whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt to indict and convict people.
He it is not his responsibility to tell the country what happened.
Uh and indeed there's no guarantee that the country will ever learn what Bob Mueller finds apart from an indictment.
It's the job of the Congress to tell the American people what happened.
Uh whether it reaches the standard beyond reasonable doubt, or we merely find clear and convincing evidence of collusion.
So it's important, I think, that we set out the facts for the public.
Send out the facts.
She asked specifically what evidence do you have.
Well, it's already out there in the public domain.
All right, let's go back to uh Megan McCain, the view, and this question and answer by Schiff is very revealing.
You said you had more than circumstantial evidence of treasonous collusion with Russia.
What specifically were you referring to?
And please be specific, because if it's true, I do believe Americans have the right to know a year later what that is.
Well, I certainly certainly said that there's ample evidence of collusion.
I've never used the word treason, uh, only Steve Bannon has used that word.
Um but uh if you look at the the facts that are already in the public domain, they're pretty damning.
Is it enough for Mueller to bring charges?
Because if it isn't enough for Mueller to bring charges, what does that mean?
Well, what it means that charges this is a very important question.
Um, and that is what's Mueller's job and what's our job.
Bob Mueller will make the decision whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt to indict and convict people.
He it is not his responsibility to tell the country what happened.
Uh yeah, it's kind of part of his job.
But that this is fascinating.
So a year or so later, what do you have?
And the answer is nothing.
The answer, well, it's already out there in the public arena.
No, it's not.
There's not one liberal in this country that I can ask a question of and say, okay, where is the evidence of Trump Russia collusion, and ever get any answer that would be one that would make any sense to anybody.
Well, sir, you know, we're um it's Mueller's job, it's our job to tell people what it really means, even if he doesn't indict him for everything and or anything and and so on and so forth.
It's been never ending speculation.
We have everybody saying it's not the first time that he basically is saying, I don't have any evidence this far deep into all of this.
And remember, he is the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee for the Democrats, and if he had it, he'd know it.
And the guy that's been on TV 277 times or whatever astronomical number, he's playing politics with all of this.
But what he's really been doing more than anything else, he is playing politics, cheap low politics, and he's been accusing people of things that there's no evidence to back up, but we do have evidence of collusion with Russia, a Russian dossier bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton.
Never does he speak of that.
And look at what we have going on with the FBI.
And look at the FISA abuse based on the dossier she bought and paid for.
If that's not the biggest abuse of power, corruption scandal, and the fact that they lie, don't talk about it, cover it up, deflect.
I don't know what is.
It doesn't get any bigger or obvious than this.
I 25 told the top of the hour, 800 941.
Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
So they're expecting 60 mile an hour plus wins uh in and around New York where I live today.
And I get well, I guess it's maybe a late winter nor'easter, but uh it doesn't seem to be amounting to that bad.
Joe Bastardi, Weatherbell.com, also the author of the Climate Chronicles, Inconvenient Revelations that you're not gonna hear from Al Gore and others.
This is a great book that you can get on Amazon.com.
We're putting it up on Hannity.com.
And uh this Joe, you've been a weather guy since you're a young kid, and you know, you've worked in this field for over 40 years.
You're a crazy storm surgery for a while, too.
And uh first of all, what's going on here, and then I want to ask you about your book.
Well, with this, this is uh as close an analog that we use to uh a weather pattern I've ever seen.
1962.
Same thing happened in Europe, same thing happened along the East Coast, March uh four through seven, nineteen sixty-two, the Great East Coast storm where displaced a few days.
Uh uh, it's astounding how close the weather pattern is to back at that time.
Now, there's actually other significance to that too, and that uh that was the end of a very warm period uh in the Atlantic Ocean.
We may be approaching that now.
But as for this particular storm, Philadelphia, as far as big cities, is now the epicenter of what is just a whiteout, and they we get we're getting a lot of power outages, Sean, and uh things uh could get real bad around the New York City area after four or five o'clock and some of the colder air gets into New York, and even if you get the three, four, five inches of wet snow with these winds of fifty, sixty miles an hour, there's gonna be a lot of power outages, and it's already starting.
Um we've got reports of trees falling across roads, uh, for instance, I-76, which is major thoroughfare just northwest of Philadelphia and into Philadelphia.
So this is a very bad storm.
Uh the evening rush hour uh is basically going to be rain still uh from uh Connecticut into the uh Boston, Massachusetts area, but in New Jersey on up in into around the city, a changeover may be taking place and it may come in thumping an inch or two an hour for a few hours.
So that's gonna be very, very bad.
But um this storm is uh uh you know, from the coast all the way back into where it's just blasting away with the heavy wet snow is a monster of a storm.
Well, it's pretty scary.
Uh all right, well, you know what?
That's what happens.
It's weather.
You know, right.
You write this book, The Climate Chronicles, Inconvenient Revelations that you're not gonna hear from Al Gore and others.
And I I by the way, I had an opportunity to read this before it even came out, and I'm reading it, and I'm thinking, you know, you can't even say that you don't believe in global warming, climate change, global freezing, cooling.
And if you say, Oh, the scientific evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible, it's not, is it?
Well, no, uh, overwhelming and incontroverti uh controvertible is gravity.
Every single time it works.
Now, uh the reason the the reason we're seeing some of the stuff going on today, I'm telling people, this was common, very actually very common between 1955 and 1970.
We saw a lot of these blocking patterns, and in the month of March, the weather would go wild in Europe and wild in the United States.
So it's a similar pattern.
So what happens is someone then comes out, and you're seeing it right now, and I have a chapter in the book called the weaponization of the weather.
At every single weather event that gets strong anywhere is going to be used as, ah, this is an example of this and that.
My problem, Sean, is I simply go back and look at ten storms that were as bad or worse, for instance that 1962 storm, and say, well, how come this happened back then?
How come this pattern is repeating itself?
Why wasn't that climate change then?
But this is climate change now.
It's common sense.
Look, in the book, I I said I wrote the book out of love for the weather, love for what I do, and I really mean that's a love story.
That's what it says right off the bat.
I try to be nice to people about things.
I believe it's an idea disagreement.
That's what I do believe.
But I believe also what's happened is just like everything, just like all the things you discuss every day, agendas and people's beliefs on where this country should go, as far as where the country what has made the country great, there is a massive contradiction going on here, and I believe that people are using the climate and weather.
I think that is their main motive to continue to pile on this agenda, and Lord knows, I don't I don't know what the agenda is.
It certainly isn't what made the country what it is now.
Well, I gotta tell you, it's sad that if you even in spite of your forty years of knowledge and all the work you've done in your life, and you know, Al Gore's ridiculous predictions and what they how they would put handcuffs on every business in this country, and by the way, that like the Paris Accord, um, all these other countries are not going to be subjected to the to the rigors that American companies are going to be subjected to.
To me, it's like it's suicide for the American economy.
But if you listen to the left, I I maybe they just want us I don't know what they want.
I mean driving bicycles to work every day.
Well, it the other the other thing is too, and something I I believe very strongly in what I call the totality of the journey, the the foundation.
You know, uh in the book I say, you know, our country's not perfect.
It said to form a more perfect union.
In other words, keep striving for the ideal union.
But to trash everything in the past, I you know, my own university of Penn State, for instance, the Earth Mineral Science Department over there, the Dikey building, where I well, we have meteorology was there first, and then it moved over to the Walker building.
But that is a monument to what fossil fuels have done for Pennsylvania, for instance, have done all around.
I mean, when you look at that, and then you have people coming around and say, okay, well, that was nice then, but we gotta just destroy that now.
I see, I don't understand it.
Uh and you know, uh as you know, you train very, very hard, and you know where you stand today is a product of everything that happened before.
So why are we trashing everything that happened before?
Why are we doing this with science?
I I don't have a lot of illustrations in the book, folks.
It is not a standard climate book because all it is they said we said back and forth.
That's what most climate books are.
What I did was I tried to point different things out as far as uh and weave a story that shows all the different angles this is coming from that have nothing to do with weather and climate.
Has a bunch of things to do with other things, whether it's academic, political, or as I said, the weaponization of the weather, which you're seeing now with every storm is some kind of the end of the world scenario.
And it just is really sad.
I'm 62 years old.
I've loved the weather since my first memory.
It is so sad to see the field in this in this point.
And I don't begrudge other people's opinions.
If in fact, their opinions get me to look at them and say, okay, well, Joe, this is a challenge to your idea.
Try to figure out whether they're right.
If they are, adopt that position.
If they're wrong, then your position's stronger.
But to shut down free speech and uh, you know, everything else, this is really bad.
It's as bad as this storm is right now.
It's true.
Well, listen, I want everybody um to just go out and get a copy of your book.
It's on Amazon.com.
Joe Bastard, you're always a good friend.
You're always there for us during the these inclement weather situations.
It's called the Climate Chronicles Inconvenient Revelations.
You won't hear from Al Gore and others, and that's true.
And by the way, it'll arm you with facts and information that uh, you know, as you argue with your liberal friends and family over the holidays or whenever you happen to be with them, uh, maybe having a couple of beers this weekend it'll it'll help you out a lot.
All right, Joe, thank you, my friend.
All the best.
Uh we have some other breaking news today.
This was uh the New York Times.
Um and I think this information, you know, we keep hearing about Michael Horowitz, the inspector general of the DOJ, and you know, his report, we expect we'll get sometime this month of March, April the latest, but I uh I hope it's March.
Anyway, the Department of Justice Inspector General is now with this long-awaited report, apparently is going to accuse the outgoing FBI director Andrew McCabe of improper leaking to the press and deliberately misleading investigators working for the inspector general's office, according to both the New York Times and Washington Post.
Now, misleading, now I guess if you know, that would be the same as lying to the FBI.
I guess that would be I guess Andrew McCabe is going to get the same treatment then as General Michael Flynn.
But according to four people familiar with the inquiry, Horowitz's report will accuse McCabe of authorizing the leaks that led to the October 2016 piece in the Wall Street Journal that revealed an ongoing dispute about how to handle the investigation in the Hillary's emails that had just been reopened by the discoveries of Anthony Wiener's laptop.
And among other things, the Wall Street Journal reveals that senior Obama Justice Department officials were pressuring McCabe to discontinue their investigation.
The inspector general has concluded that McCabe authorized the FBI officials to provide information for that article.
According to the New York Times.
And more significantly, the Washington Post reports that McCabe would also face accusations that he tried to mislead Horowitz's investigators.
From the post, I'll read.
Recently released text messages from Peter Strzok, Lisa Page showed that two days before the story was published, that Page and the FBI's top spokesperson, remember Lisa Page was the attorney working for the FBI for McCabe.
Anyway, that the FBI top spokesman, Michael Corton, he's gone too, were on the phone with a Wall Street Journal reporter for an extended conversation.
Text released in January show that Paige and Strzok likely knew about the Wall Street Journal piece before it dropped.
Remember that?
We followed that at the time.
And the accusation that McCabe intentionally misled the DOJ's IG investigators looking into the leak is disputed by one of the post sources, but the exact nature of McCabe's alleged misleading, remember, we've been told that the reason that McCabe, the you know, top deputy uh at the FBI, you know, left as early as he did is because he was told by Christopher Ray, who had consulted with the IG that time to get out.
Now the question is are the standards that are applied to one American going to be applied to every American involved in this mess.
Um there are there are people in Congress, by the way, that are now pressing, as I mentioned.
You know, we've got Devin Nunes depressing the FBI and the DOJ.
Why in early 2016 that they found out that there were thousands of Hillary emails on Wiener's laptop?
And why did they sit on that information for over a month?
They only announced it eleven days before the election, if you recall, but they had it a month prior.
And the Democrats are insisting that the FBI's Wiener email October surprise is proof that Comey deliberately torpedoed Hillary's election chances.
That's just nothing can be further from the truth because it's far more likely that Comey and McCabe actually intended to conceal the Wiener bombshell till after the election.
But the sadly for them, they couldn't control the Wiener laptop investigation because it was being run by the FBI's New York office.
Now, if the New York FBI leaked what they knew and exposed the fact that the FBI in DC was trying to cover it up for Hillary Clinton, that would have been a thousand times worse for Hillary than it was.
Now I've also seen some reports out there that the NYPD also knew about the Wiener laptop bombshell, and there were people publicly saying we're going to make this public.
Anyway, so Comey was forced to go public with the news.
But he did but he had it a month before.
So all of this analysis out there that, oh, James Comey helped Hillary.
No, he was trying to save Hillary a thousand times over, as evidenced by the exoneration before investigation.
Anyway, so, you know, we have uh Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, he fired off a letter Thursday, yesterday, to the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asking about the timeline citing the text between Struck and Paige.
You know, everything the media's ignoring, we have evidence to.
Everything they tell you, they don't have any evidence to.
You know, the Washington examiner has uncovered another side of the uranium-1 scandal.
I think it should disturb everybody.
It turns out that while Bill and Hillary were collecting millions of dollars in exchange for giving Russia twenty percent control of our uranium supply.
Well, there were two longtime Clinton allies were actually limiting U.S. access to their own to its own uranium company, which would have made Russia's acquisition all that more valuable.
Now they break the story.
You know, did the Clinton sweeten the deal for their Russian friends by engineering closure of a million Federal acres of the nation's best source of uranium?
Now it's worth remembering America's hundred and four nuclear power plants give electrical life to one in five American homes and businesses.
The Navy fleet is largely nuclear, and uranium is essential.
It's the core ingredient for our nuclear arsenal.
Even so, the U.S. is 90% uranium dependent on foreign sources for this critical ingredient.
Half of our foreign supplies now come from Russia.
The highest uranium potential in the country, according to the federal government, is in Arizona, well north of the Grand Canyon National Park, and there's enough uranium there to power New York City for sixty years.
Thus, since 1984, the federal government has kept those lands open for mineral exploration and development.
And in July 2009, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management proposed a study to determine if it were appropriate to close the area to mining to protect the Grand Canyon.
It's not even close.
And the area was closed for two years and the study began.
Then by 2011, before the agencies completed the study, the Secretary of Interior ordered an emergency withdrawal.
Six months later, withdrew the entire area from all mining for 20 years.
So was it coincidental that in mid 2011 the uranium one deal?
You know, the the was which was completed the previous October.
A friend of the Clintons saw yet another reason to kill uranium mining in Arizona for decades.
Did others help John Podesta?
You know, and others, did they help?
By the way, watch Podesta.
There's a lot of news coming on Podesta.
TikTok, John.
TikTok.
Somebody will call him right now.
Hannity just said big TikTok for John Podesta.
All right, we're going to go over this Devin Nunes letter to the Attorney General Jeff Sessions and get reaction.
Greg Jarrett on the legal side, Sarah Carter on the investigative side, and all these reports, what the inspector general report, Andrew McCabe, what's coming, what might be said.
In other words, this is news and information about the biggest abuse of power scandal in the country's history that the rest of the media is pretty much just ignoring.
Don't worry, we'll do their job daily.
Glad you're a part of it.
Straight ahead.
All right, Hour 2, Sean Hannity Show on a Friday, and we have a lot of big breaking news, as I have been telling you.
And I think this probably is the biggest breakthrough now that we have had since the Devin Nunes memo came out.
And it is a massive development where the FBI now may have very well broken the law.
We'll know in six days from now.
That is if the FBI, the DOJ cooperate.
And there are very specific information.
If you read the memo that was put out and the letter that was put out last night by Devin Nunes to Jeff Sessions, what you see is they're very specific laws that were broken in this particular case.
He says Pfizer surveillance is a very intrusive means of acquiring information that must balance the need to obtain sensitive national security information against civil liberties.
When striking this balance, a verification process must be conducted for all FISA applications under the subsection FISA verification of accuracy procedures.
The FBI itself acknowledges this importance.
They say, quote, the accuracy of information contained within FISA applications is of the utmost importance.
Only documented and verified information may be used to support FBI applications to a FISA court and a FISA judge, and then they detail what the proper protocols are.
And what they're now looking at here is the fact that those protocols were never followed, and a specific list of laws were mentioned by Devin Nunes in his letter to the Attorney General, 18 USC 242, 50 USC 1809, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court.
Now the Department of Justice has until March 8th to in fact release this.
Also, we have a deadline tonight at midnight for Obama administration officials to get back to Devin Nunes and the ten questions they were he was asking about the dossier and what they knew and when they knew it.
Ten specific questions.
Anyway, let's take a quick trip down memory lane.
Let's start with Carter Page.
You have been at the center of these allegations.
What what do you say about them?
You know, I think it's really just a political stunt from the get-go.
You know, I saw it's interesting originally when I these leaks start coming out, and they're being placed by the Clinton campaign into the various media outlets.
You know, they were so outrageous to begin with that I kind of laughed them off.
When the full dossier came out, and you saw just how absolutely ridiculous the overall document was, you know, really helped put things in perspective.
And it uh it's it summed things up pretty well.
This is that dossier.
You've read it.
I've uh yeah, I've I've read uh most of it.
I mean, it's again it's it's a laughing stock for the for the authors.
They describe you as sort of a central figure between Donald Trump and the Kremlin.
Absolutely ridiculous on every level.
It's amazing how these defamation cases.
My myself, uh absolutely um I'm suing um Oath Inc., which owns Yahoo News as well as Huffington Post.
And you know, Yahoo News.
All right, joining us to weigh in on this new letter to the Attorney General by Devin Nunes.
Uh, we have Sarah Carter, investigative reporter, and we have Fox News uh legal analyst Greg Jarrett is with us.
Greg, let's start with the legal side.
I thought this was a powerful letter by by Chairman Nunes, and I don't know how you answer that question because we know that James Comey said to Donald Trump in January of twenty seventeen before he was sworn in, oh, the the dossier is unverified and it's salacious, but yet as the Grassley Graham memo pointed out, the bulk of the FISA application just months before that Homey knew about was the dossier.
Well, you're right, there is a law that must be followed by the FBI any time they open a criminal investigation or in the alternative or both a counterintelligence probe, especially if they spy with a court warrant.
And uh the rules they have to follow are actually statutory law.
It's in a book called the Domestic Investigations Operations Guide, the Bible that must be memorized by all FBI agents.
You know, they have to follow the law.
And one of them is, as you point out, when it comes to a counterintelligence probe and seeking a surveillance warrant, they have to have documented, verified information.
Comey admits it was unverified.
He testified to that in front of Congress.
He told the president, President Trump it was unverified, and yet he put his signature, as did others, on documents to the FISA judges verifying and vouching for the authenticity and verification of the information.
So that all amounts to, in my judgment, about six different felonies committed by the FBI as well as the Department of Justice, abuse of power, perjury, misleading statements, obstruction, major fraud, and conspiracy to commit fraud.
So basically, we know Comey and others committed these crimes that Devin Nunes lays out.
Is there any other way to interpret that?
We know they've violated these laws.
We know they didn't follow their protocols.
Oh, I would say that it is compelling evidence of crimes, and there needs to be a second special counsel.
I I don't know how Comey and others who have fixed their signature could explain it any other way, given the documents themselves as well as their own testimony.
Second special counsel needs to be convened, a grand jury with subpoena power, put people under oath, and ask for indictments from the grand jury.
Sarah Carter, I think this is going to be this this has all the potential now of really becoming the biggest issue in all of this here because not only is Devin Nunes, you know, demanding answers to all of this, you know, the FBI is charged with protecting the American people enforcing our laws, and to do that, they have internal rules and procedures embodied in domestic investigations, but we know these judges were purposefully misled and lied to.
And and these omissions, lying by omission, is still a lie, and that's still a crime.
Yes, and I think right now, Sean, as as this proceeds forward, there is going to be a lot more questions than the ones that Devin Nunia sent.
I mean, when we look at it on its face, we know director, um former FBI director James Comey signed through the PIP application.
We also know that deputy director now, former deputy director Andrew McCabe signed one.
We know Sally Yates signed one, and she was then, you know, uh from uh the acting uh deputy attorney general.
We also know that Dana Blonde or Rosenstein.
That's very interesting.
But I want to propose this to you.
I was on right now speaking to sources over at the Department of Justice and trying to understand the reason for not calling a special prosecutor into what appears to be one of the biggest cases of our time, right?
Because this just does not only involve the warrant on Carter Page, but we have Andrew McCabe, who was directly involved in the Hillary Clinton email server uh investigation, which they decided to close and not move forward with, even though they had evidence.
And remember, the IG is actually investigating Andrew McCabe as part of that big overall investigation, which hopefully will come out sometime March or April.
Um one of the things that I found most interesting, and this is something that I had not thought of Before.
But with the IG, I said, well, why can't we contact?
Why can't we get a special prosecutor?
Why can't the attorney general do this?
The attorney general can, but the IG has the authority to uh push forward with a criminal prosecution.
If the IG, for example, if a special prosecutor is appointed, then they would have to call on more than likely the FBI to investigate the FBI.
They could go to the Postal Service for investigators there.
That's really interesting, and a lot of people don't know that.
But they haven't been directly involved in this case.
With the inspector general, if the inspector general uh is and he is now being appointed to investigate this, calls on his investigators, which have already been on the case.
These people will be outside of that FBI scope, outside of that FBI box.
So it wouldn't be like you would bring in the Fox to guard the hen house, sort of speech.
They would be possibly conflicted out from any special prosecutor investigation.
Here's what my sources are saying, though, in the IE as it relates to the IG and him finishing his work, and we had the the tit for tat that went back between the attorney general and the president this week.
But the IG is gonna release his report, and you know, my sources say it's gonna be pretty devastating, but we'll see.
I mean it's Washington, you just never know.
Um and but to his credit, we know that the attorney the inspector general Horowitz did find the Peterstruck Lisa Page uh text messages and release him to everybody.
But I think the Department of Justice's position is something along these lines.
I'll ask you Greg first that well, the IG will come out with his report.
He doesn't have prosecutorial powers, then the Department of Justice will weigh in at that point, and they'll they'll appoint somebody to be looking into what the IG report says, but then they're sort of investigating themselves, and then maybe we'll get a special counsel.
Now, why do we have to go through this long arduous process when we know crimes were committed now?
Because Rod Rosenstein, uh the deputy attorney general, is engineering it.
He wants to hide the evidence that's incriminating.
He's really running uh the Department of Justice, it's not Jeff Sessions.
Um here's the problem.
The IG, as you point out, doesn't have grand jury subpoena power.
Witnesses cannot be compelled to speak.
Uh the existing IG, Horowitz, has already been complaining that the FBI keeps telling him to get lost.
He has no power to prosecute.
Uh the inspector general is in many ways worthless compared to a special counsel.
Now, here's how you get around using the FBI to investigate itself.
Appoint a second special counsel.
I'd suggest Joseph DeGenova, former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
He served as an independent counsel back in the 1990s.
Who could make this appointment?
Can Jeff Sessions make it?
You can hire an independent staff that would have the power to compel and subpoena anything And he would convene a grand jury.
Then you get right to the heart of it.
Well, as a law, Sarah.
No, that's a very significant point that uh they can then choose their own investigators.
Uh one is one of the examples that I want to go to in the past was, for example, uh general counsel, James Baker.
Uh James Baker uh was not uh investigated by the FBI.
Remember, he he has now been.
All right, hold your hold your thoughts, Sarah.
I don't we'll get right back to Baker when we come back.
We do have to take a break.
Uh we'll come back, we'll continue.
Sarah Carter, Greg Jarrett, Devin Nunes, new letter that he sent to the attorney general last night.
This now seems they are ratcheting it up on a very high level.
We'll get to that more with our our guests.
All right, as we continue with Sarah Carter, investigative reporter and Greg Jarrett, Fox News legal analyst.
All right, Sarah, back to the point about James Baker and what we were talking about with the inspector general and and who ultimately would be the person that investigates what we now believe to be multiple crimes.
Okay, so with James Baker, the the the investigation into James Baker was conducted by the U.S. Postal Service, according to to sources that that I've spoken to.
And I've written about this in the past with concerns that he had leaked information to the media.
We know now he's no longer with them with the FBI, and that was one case where we see an outside investigatorial group uh looking into the FBI.
Now, if a special co uh special counsel or special prosecutor was appointed uh to look into the FBI many times, and brought up a very good point of how to go around that they go directly to the FBI to investigate.
Well in this case it appears the FBI would be conflicted out.
So they would have to go to another investigative department to do that.
And that would be one of the concerns there.
Uh would these investigators have capability to look into this would they understand where they're going they would have authority for a grand jury which is important so they could subpoena the people that they need to speak before the grand jury.
But the IG specific mission and this is according to other people at the DOJ the IG specific mission is to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct within the DOJ and within the FBI.
Now they can go ahead and continue their investigations by right off of the investigation in Hillary Clinton email server scandal and then they could recommend for prosecution.
So they have the ability to recommend for prosecution and they have also the capability now of course the FBI is shunning them and from sources as well not answering all of your questions but remember a lot of people within the FBI have also come forward to speak to the IG.
And this is what I've and remember when just before the newness memo came out they they at the DOJ they pushed it to the last second Rod Rosenstein was begging Paul Ryan oh please don't release this please don't release this.
They don't want transparency on it.
A second special counsel can simply piggyback off of the volumes of documents that the Intelligence committee and the judiciary committee on the Senate side have all put together he could also uh uh if you pick somebody like DeGenova piggyback off what the inspector general has already obtained so there's a wealth of evidence that's incriminating already all you need is a powerful special counsel to do the right thing.
Unbelievable.
Well, huge developments.
And we have the deadline tonight for the Obama administration officials to answer their questions about the Steele dossier.
We'll get back to this next week on Hannity, I promise.
And we'll be following it till the very end.
Thank you, Greg Jarrett.
Thank you, Sarah Carter.
All right.
When we come back, the level of mistakes down in Florida is so bad.
What should happen next?
Well, we'll discuss that.
Gun's the answer.
gun, any type of weapons being taken away from people second amendment rights being taken away I don't think so John Lott and others will discuss and debate next straight ahead.
All right 25 now till the top of the hour 800 nine four one Sean if you want to be a part of the program.
Now we were covering earlier in the week when the president was meeting with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and the president first said, you know it's interesting how the media covers it.
They don't cover the more important things that he points out.
He did say he would make some concessions as it relates to the age limit but he first started out by talking about how well we secure everything else we secure our banks we secure our we have the potential to secure our schools we secure 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue we we secure the Capitol you can't get into the Capitol or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue without going through a metal detector without showing ID.
Same thing goes for the conventions Republican Democratic convention you know we can if we choose we can secure anything and the president addressed the issues of mental health.
Now on top of all of this I think the most stunning information that came out in the course of this week is the the sheriff down in Broward County Scott Israel saying well we may never release the video of the school shooting.
Yeah my deputy that was working there that was armed and yeah he had uh body armor no he didn't go into the school he took a position outside and then we're told that three other policemen were told to do the same thing and EMTs weren't allowed to go into the school.
But yet the sheriff goes on and on even an acknowledging and admitting that he didn't look at the videos.
You know you have the neighboring town and city police those cops got there arrived went right in the building there was no protocol to stay outside while the shots are are going on.
You know remember in the last since 1950 98% of these shootings that happen are shootings that are happening in gun free zones.
So obviously there's a correlation here, and I've gone through my suggestions, what I think we ought to be doing to protect every kid in every school and making every sch school safe and secure.
You know, yet the the sheriff is saying, Well, I hadn't looked at the video.
Wow, wasn't my job.
It's not my fault when my deputies fail.
I've given amazing leadership as the sheriff of Broward County.
And then we found out yesterday a stand down order, in fact, had been given to Parkland deputies.
It never made sense that four deputies wouldn't go in because I I can't imagine one cop that I've ever known in my life that wouldn't be racing in there because that's what they do.
What makes them so amazing.
Anyway, what we found out is in these critical moments, as first responding deputies were searching for this active shooter outside the school, a commanding officer on the scene apparently ordered even some of the initial responders to quote stage to set up a perimeter outside instead of immediately ordering or allowing the officers to rush in and try and neutralize the suspect, Nicholas Cruz.
I mean, uh every law enforcement officer I know can't believe it.
And then of course we we find out and discover thirty-nine times they went to this kid's house 39 times.
I think that's a pretty good indication.
We've got a big problem with this kid.
Kids thrown out of school, but in the year before he got thrown out of school, he wasn't allowed to bring a backpack in before fear of what would be in that backpack.
It's another pretty good sign.
And you have two people reporting to the FBI independently, one grabbing a screenshot of Nicholas Cruz literally saying that I want to be a professional school shooter.
And the FBI met with the guy, nothing happened.
And then just weeks before this, you have a woman calling in saying, Yeah, this is the guy.
He's gonna shoot up some s a school, he's gonna do something horrible.
And there was no follow-up.
The FBI, whoever answered that call never sent it to the field office in Miami.
And all of that anyway, joining us now to discuss and debate this.
John Lott, he is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, and Harry uh Casianis is with us, and he's the director of defense studies at the Center for National Interests.
And he's normally here to warn us, by the way, about what's happening with North Korea.
Today is a personal story where his life and his family and their lives were changed by guns forever.
Welcome both of you.
Harry, tell us your story.
Thanks for having me, Sean.
Well, when I was about thirteen years old, my family was changed by guns forever and in not a good situation.
Uh my father was robbed at knife in gunpoint in our family restaurant.
Uh I'll never forget it.
I can remember as as clear as day.
He was actually on the phone with me and my mother.
He was just checking in on us to see how we were doing.
And a gentleman walked behind the restaurant counter and he joked to us, Sean.
He said, Uh, I think of being robbed.
Let me call you right back.
And in fact, literally 30 seconds later, a man with uh uh a massive machete type object pointed at his stomach and said, Give me all the money in the register.
The man was on drugs.
He actually backed my father up all the way into the counter and was thinking about killing him.
And another man pulled a knife on my father.
Uh they ended up actually running out of the restaurant.
But to make a long story short, my father came home that night and said to us, This can't happen again.
I I'm not gonna be taken from my family.
I just trying to make a living.
So he went through this process, Sean, of of of thinking about how he could defend himself, what what steps he could take.
You know, he he lived in libraries for for weeks.
He talked with law enforcement, and he didn't made the the decision to go and purchase a firearm.
And it was actually members of the NRA, NRA trained instructors, certified professionals that actually helped my father look at different options of arming himself.
Now, I'll be honest, Sean, there's there's no talk of politics.
They weren't trying to indoctrinate him on anything.
But if this was the option that he wanted to take, those professionals were there to help him.
So they not only sort of helped him get comfortable with the idea of being a gun owner, of of defending himself if he ever had to do that, but NRA members' instructors also got my family sort of involved with with this decision that we had to make.
And again, they I mean I was a kid.
They didn't they weren't talking politics to me or anything like that.
But they made it clear that if I wanted to learn more about what my father was doing, they'd be there to help me.
And that's how I actually learned about guns and gun safety, about how to go to a range.
What would yet the you know that a gun is not a toy?
And this is sort of the the positive narrative about the NRA that nobody in the media, Sean will ever talk about.
We're so all stuck with the politics about this narrative of that we have to quote unquote do something.
But the NRA has been a force of for good in many people's lives.
And after I wrote this story, Sean, I can't tell you how many people who reached out to me and said, You know what, Harry, I have that same experience as well.
It was NRA members who helped me when we were robbed, or we had to defend ourselves.
So there's more to this out there than I think those stories need to be told.
Yeah, well, one person that has been telling them for years and uh kind of like me gets the crap beat out of them by the liberal media is John Lott.
John, you've been telling these stories for a long time, and you've been giving people the statistics, and every time you update your best selling book, More Guns Less Crime.
I mean, it literally the left in this country, they bubble and fizz like Alka Seltzer and give off energy and scream.
But that's the truth.
Yeah.
I mean, you look at the police.
The police are probably the strongest supporters of private gun ownership in the country.
They know how important they are in solving crimes and stopping them, but they also know that they virtually always arrive on the crime scene after the crimes occurred.
And the question is, what do you recommend that people do when they're having to confront a criminal by themselves and simply telling people to behave passably turns out to be pretty bad advice?
You know, um uh you look at surveys, police one has about 400,000 members, 380,000 are active full-time law enforcement.
You'll find ninety-one percent of the officers support uh concealed carry laws across the country, support reciprocity.
You you look at surveys of them, eighty-six percent think that if you could get rid of gun-free zones, you would either greatly reduce or even possibly eliminate these types of mass shooting tragedies that we have.
You know, anybody who goes and reads the diaries or other statements that these killers make know how they purposely try to seek out those targets where people aren't able to go and defend themselves.
Well, I I you know I always ask people, if God forbid you're in any type of municipal building and there's an active shooter, you know, the the scenario that I'm laying out here, do you want to know, would you feel better knowing that right there on the scene are retired trained military with concealed carry, retired trained police with concealed carry, because uh as as we have now been pointing out, the average the average length of time that these instances, you know, are finished at is about three minutes.
You don't have time.
There's no police department in the country that can respond in that time.
Look, about hi ha half the states, twenty-five states allow to varying degrees teachers or staff to be able to go and carry permanent concealed handguns on on K through twelve campuses.
There's not been one mass public shooting that's occurred in those places.
You know, people would never put up a sign in front of their home that says this home is a gun-free zone.
They if you are being stalked or threatened, does anybody really believe that that would cause the criminal to say, well, geez, I can't take my gun in there, I'm not gonna go.
Instead, you have states from Ohio and Oklahoma and Texas and and New Hampshire and other places where there'll be signs that say, you know, warning some selective teachers or staff uh have uh concealed handguns and will use them to protect themselves and others.
You know, in Utah, you have about five percent of the teachers ha have concealed carry permits and carry with them, and about ten to twelve percent of the support staff.
Uh, you know, every place from janitors to librarians to secretaries, uh, to people who do the food, uh, have permanently concealed handguns with them.
You know, I don't think anybody's going to go and attack a school in Utah.
You know, there's all these concerns about what possibly might go wrong.
We heard Senator Rubio last week uh when he was on that unbelievable CNN town hall, uh saying, well, you know, he had heard from relatives that their concern was that if a teacher stopped the attack, somebody bringing in a gun would accidentally shoot uh the teacher, one of the police officers would.
Well, on our website at CrimeResearch.org, I have dozens of cases in recent years where civilians with permanent concealed handguns have stopped mass public shootings.
They usually only get local news coverage almost always, but there's not one case.
Why is there this mysterious reluctance and red resistance to do what I'm saying?
That you give a full threat security assessment of every school in the country by by professionals, and you make sure that there's only one entry point in a school, IDs are Used, metal detectors are used.
Uh you have people that cover the perimeter, retired military, retired police, concealed carry, and then also they're on every floor of the school, so they're there in that environment.
Now, for those that say you can't pay for it, well, what's wrong with the idea of what about them giving them a tax cut that they don't pay any federal income tax?
Or they don't pay any state income tax.
How's that?
Or they get a reduction in their property taxes.
I think it would work out great.
Look, I mean, the puzzle to me, Sean, has been that we have this debate, and the gun control advocates keep on putting forward rules that would have nothing to do with stopping these attacks.
I mean, you're directly trying to address it in your solutions.
I'm when I'm talking about concealed care permit holders.
As you mentioned, virtually always these attacks are occurring in these gun-free zones.
They these guys may be crazy, but they're not stupid.
They want to kill as many people as possible.
And as you say, the amount of time that elapses between an attack starts and somebody's able to arrive on the scene with the gun, the greater that is, the more harm you're going to do.
All right, I gotta I gotta take a break, John.
Stay right there.
More with John Lott.
More guns, less crime.
Harry Casianus has given a very personal story about what has happened in his family and how it changed his attitude about firearms.
Uh 800 941 Sean is our toll-free telephone number.
Take a quick break.
We'll come back on the other side.
Then we have my buddy Eric Bowling at the top of the hour and your calls in the final half hour of the program today, straight ahead.
All right, as we continue with John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, author of the best seller, multiple editions, more guns less crime.
Harry Casianzis is with us.
He's the director of defense studies at the Center for National Interest.
You know, go into a little bit more detail.
What was your family's attitude before this incident that you just told us about with your father?
What was the attitude towards firearms?
Sean, we didn't do anything about firearms, to be honest with you.
We lived a very nice, comfortable life.
We we had, you know, never any issues with crime or robbery or we never we never even thought about guns.
But we we didn't have I would say a negative attitude or a positive attitude.
It just wasn't something that we that we really thought about.
Now, luckily, after my father ended up purchasing a firearm going through training, what actually ended up happening was is one of the patrons at his restaurant ended up figuring out he got a firearm.
He somehow maybe saw it concealed in some way or another.
And he he approached my father and said, You have a firearm, don't you?
And my father tried to deny it or whatever, but word got out on the street that that he was armed.
Do you know what happened, Sean?
They he never had a problem again.
I know I'm a foreign policy guy.
That's what you have me to come on to talk on the show about.
It's called deterrent.
In other words, people will not mess with you or mess with your country or mess with you personally because they know that you have the ability to defend yourself.
You know, I just want to touch on uh another point, John made.
We're talking about ways to stop people when they come into schools and try to do these horrific things.
We need to be brave enough, Sean, to talk about why these things are happening.
Because we keep saying people keep saying we need to ban this gun, we need to ban this type of ammunition, we need to ban this type of clip.
That's all well and great.
But we need to be brave enough, Sean, to talk about the societal issues that are causing these problems.
And I have a two-word solution, two-word way to figure this out.
It's called societal breakdown.
Think about this statistic for a minute.
From 1960 to 2016, the nuclear family, in other words, a two-parent family has been dying.
It has gone from eighty-eight percent to sixty-nine percent.
So there are so many different children who don't have a mother and father that can help them.
Let me tell you something.
When I was a kid, I was bullied severely.
I was beaten up every day.
If my parents hadn't been there for me, Sean, I don't know what would have happened.
I'm not saying I would went off and been a school shooter, but my life would not have been the same if I hadn't had a mother and father who would help me and guide me through those tough times.
There's so many people who don't have that.
That's sad.
Um anyway, listen, I appreciate you sharing that story with us in our audience, and also uh John Lott, always great information.
We appreciate it.
When we come back, you will hear another story being shared, that by Eric Bowling.
Remember, he lost his son.
Uh well, I'll let him tell you the the reason why he was with the president on this opioid summit yesterday and a couple of weeks ago as well.
And it is devastating.
Communities all across the country.
We'll touch on that next.
We'll get to your calls.
Final hour free for all straight ahead.
People that go to the hospital with a broken arm and they come out and they're addicted.
They're addicted to painkillers and they don't even know what happened.
They go in for something minor and they come out and they're they're uh in serious shape.
As you know, we've been I think we've been involved more than any administration by far.
Uh it's a problem that's growing.
And drugs are a similar but different problem in the sense that we have pushers and we have drug dealers that don't I mean they kill hundreds and hundreds of people and most of them don't even go to jail.
You know, if you shoot one person, they give you life, they give you the death penalty.
These people can kill two thousand, three thousand people, and nothing happens to them.
And we need strength with respect to the pushers and to the drug dealers.
And if we don't do that, you're never gonna solve the problem.
That was the president yesterday talking about the opioid crisis that this country is facing.
Uh I spent some time on the program yesterday, sort of spontaneously addressing this issue.
There's a a new show on Netflix that's called what is it called, Ethan Trade or Trades.
And it trade goes through and it has varying episodes where they literally go from areas where the production of heroin takes place, and then they go to cities like Columbus and Ohio and Atlanta and in Georgia, and where the drugs end up.
Now, what the president is saying here is absolutely true.
And you've got to understand that these cartels now, they have they're targeting people, all socioeconomic backgrounds, and what we have happening is beyond a crisis because we have so over-prescribed pain medicine.
Nobody wants to admit, yeah, we overprescribe it, because for whatever reason, people haven't gotten religion that oxycontin is highly addictive, Vicotin, percocet, all of those pain pills.
And what happens is all right, so maybe grandma has an operation, or maybe a kid has an operation, and the next thing you know, they they run out of pills and they're craving those pills.
They go on the street, they have to pay eighty bucks a pill, and then eventually they'll run into that one person that says, Well, for ten bucks you can get heroin.
And it's a lot stronger, you got a better high, and you're gonna like it.
Next thing you know, you're snorting it and you're shooting it, and you're on the verge of death.
It is happening in every small town, it is happening in every big city, all across this country.
And it really is a massive crisis.
Right, news roundup information overload hour, 800 nine four one Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program twice in the last couple of weeks, Eric Bowling, my former colleague at the Fox News Channel, has been front and center in this.
He spoke yesterday.
Very heartbreaking to to hear his story, how he lost his son who was in college.
Uh and uh we welcome Eric to the program.
Eric, uh I uh I'd rather talk politics with you and and hear that your son is doing well.
When I heard you know, I've talked to you a lot throughout this, so it's it's devastating.
Yeah, believe me, Sean, I would much rather be talking politics with you as well.
And and uh before we go, I just gotta tell you the president has been phenomenal on a personal level.
He's had unbelievable empathy for this cause.
He's called me, called me the day after Eric passed, and he called us on Thanksgiving.
It really kind of helped.
But also, Sean, your listeners need to know how good you've been as well.
You've just been stellar, uh, you've been a such a good friend to me.
What my wife and I just love you for and appreciate everything you've done.
We're in the depths of you know, hell really, because we lost our only child, and you called and said, Hey, bowling, get up and come meet me and talk to me.
And you've been phenomenal.
So yes, uh, you you guys have been you and Trump have been amazing to me.
Um President Trump, I yesterday participated in the opioid summit.
Um there were nine cabinet secretaries there.
There were secret uh two generals, uh surgeon general and and attorney general both there.
And uh President Trump was there in Lonnie Trump.
And it it showed that he really does care about this.
This is an issue that affects everyone.
Uh about a week and a half ago, a week ago, or so I I I spoke at CPAC on this issue.
I didn't think it was gonna be a big crowd, but Matt Slap put me on and he was on we're on the main stage.
I gotta tell you it was the room was packed, and and Sean, I gotta tell you, after that uh speech, for the next thirty-six hours I was at CPAC, literally hundreds and hundreds of young people, predominantly young people came up to me saying, Hey, I lost a friend, or I'm worried about my brother.
Um it's a it's an it's a national epidemic, but it's affecting very, very young people.
People under the age of 30, you're you're most likely to die of an opioid overdose than any other form of accidental death in America, more than guns, more than uh car accidents, more than anything.
So it's an issue that I think on the right, let's do a little politics with it.
On the right, there's an opportunity to to reach out to young people and say, we conservatives have a heart.
We care about this thing, and and Donald Trump, frankly, is gonna throw a lot of money at solving the crisis from both this supply, which we know about who's who's overselling, overprescribing.
Uh, we're bringing in drugs illegally from China, which is how my son died.
Um, he died of uh an accidental overdose when he thought he was taking a Xanax pill that thousands or millions of uh of pills are taken on college campuses every year for college students who are anxiety written about class.
He took his annex that was a street dance, it had fentanyl in it, and it ended up killing him because it was illegal and the fentanyl is really strong.
So that's the supply side of it, but also the the demand side.
We have to teach people, kids, that this stuff can kill you.
Let me let me uh for those people that haven't heard you tell your story.
Uh look, Eric, I I've know you and uh it's painful to know everything that you've been through.
I've I've watched it.
I can't think of anything worse that happens to any person or individual in life with when they lose their child, and I know how close you were to your son.
Walk us through everything that happened that day.
Yeah, yeah.
So June, it was Father's Day weekend, and my wife said, Hey, why don't you go spend uh Father's Day weekend with our son in Boulder, Colorado?
He's just two weeks uh he was into his sophomore year, in June is the summer.
So I go out there, we have a beautiful weekend, three-day weekend, we enjoyed each other, and he's you know, we share clothes.
We were so close, Sean, as many fathers might understand.
Um we got the phone call.
We're driving home from um a dinner, and my wife and I, and she was driving, and uh the phone about 10 30 rings, and as a parent, you did your your hair in the back of your neck stands up, and I answer the phone as a young man saying, Mr. Bowling, call Kayla right now.
And I said, What's going on?
He said, just call Kayla.
So I called the number he sent me.
Kayla was a young lady, he was kind of on and off dating.
She answers the phone and she's crying.
And I, as a father, I just I went right there, my mind just went right to it.
I said, Is he alive?
And she was crying.
She said, No, Mr. Bowling, he's not.
And and and my world fell apart at that moment.
Adrian heard the conversation, my wife, um, and choosing the driver's seat of the car, we were pulled over to the side of the road, she opened the door and started, literally fell onto the roadway and was laying on the road crying.
I picked her up and we sat and we sat on the curb and cried for an hour trying to collect our thoughts.
You go as a father as a parent, especially someone who had been in media, you know, I mean, we we have pretty much uh an idea of what our next week are gonna be like or a month or a year.
At that moment, everything was a blur to me.
I had no idea of uh even how to how to walk again.
But we uh we got on a plane the next morning and went to Colorado, and the hardest thing that a parent can do is is meet a corner about what happened to your child, and in our case, our only child.
It's it was the most devastating moment of our life.
Um and like I said, President Trump had just called a uh a minute after I met the calling or so it's it was it was helpful.
But that that's how it started.
I you know, and and it's been six months now almost.
Um and I and all I really want to do, people are talking to me, what do you want to do?
You want to come back?
Look, God is lighting this patch for me right now.
I don't know why he did it, and I believe it had a great relationship with with the Lord, but frankly, it's strained, or let's call it complicated right now, because I'm not sure why it happened, but for some reason, um I'm becoming the voice for parents who are going through this or who don't want to go through this, and and hopefully maybe we we'd save a few lives.
And have the cop the recommendation, Sean, have the conversation about opioids, how dangerous they are.
Tell them in critical shape, happy kid, perfectly adjusted, and in one pill that he thought he was gonna take to relax, uh, you know, after a a busy work uh busy school week, ended up killing him.
So have these discussions and maybe maybe we save a life or two.
Well, I don't think you're talking about saving a life or two.
I mean, I think institutionally we can we can change everybody's mindset on it, and and people have got to understand it's not like having a beer.
You know, and when you're when you're buying drugs, you know, we have pharmaceutical Companies.
We we have um, you know, and to be honest, I think at some point we've got to address, you know, how people are getting addicted.
You go in for an operation, and I know doctors and lawyers and and highly successful professional people and businessmen and women, and you know, they go in, they have that one procedure, the next thing you know, they're addicted to these drugs, and they can't get off of them.
And that's the legal side of it, Sean.
You're 100% right.
That it's that.
Yeah.
And well, then that leads to the illegal side of it because then the doctor cuts you off and you go to the streets and you don't know what you're getting.
Well, look what also happens on the even the legal side of it.
Joe Manchin talks about a town of a thousand people.
Joe Manchin talks about a town in West Virginia where 1,000 people populate the town, but nine million pills were being delivered into that town last year, and they're all legal.
The big farmer sends it to distributors, they distribute them into that town, and guess what happens?
Then people in the town send them elsewhere.
So that's when it goes from legal to illegal.
And think about this.
I was doing a radio show uh the other night, and the guy called in and said, I need I I I have pay chronic pain, and I take seven to eight pills per day of of uh oxycon or whatever he was taking.
He said, but the doctor prescribes a 30-day supply.
So he's getting 200, 250 pills, sometimes 300 pills at a time.
Think about that for a second.
If people in their medicine cabinets have 300 pills, that's very, very tempting for a young person to go in and take some and and maybe go sell them or trade them or do whatever they're gonna do with it.
So it's a multi-pronged epidemic, but the problem is it's killing so many people, Sean.
Seventy-five people per day in America.
If 64,000 people died last year, like they did of all anything else like waterborne or foodborne in our food system, we would be doing a lot more.
And and there's time to do more, but we but the good news is President Trump is on top of it.
Let me ask you this.
What do you say to those parents that uh it can't happen to me, it can't happen to me?
Because you you actually used a line and I was like, I was sitting there, I'm like, wow, that is powerful, because that's every case, isn't it?
You're a hundred percent right.
And I've kind of coined this term.
Um it's called not my kid syndrome.
And and the only reason why I know about this is because on my Twitter account, what what's it's become kind of this clearinghouse for opioids, people come and tell their stories.
Now, what I've noticed is a lot of people have come to me and say, hey, you know, my daughter's a straight A student, very popular, or my son was captain of the soccer team, um, or is valedictorian.
Um, but they're dead.
And the point is this if you think your kid is too smart or too athletic or too good or too good of a person, forget it and have the conversation.
Yep, forget it.
100% right.
You know, uh, I mean, it's so scary.
Well, listen, I know you've been through so much pain, and I know out of this pain, you know, I mean, it's amazing the impact in uh in a short period of time that you're beginning to have on this issue, and I'm I know this is only the beginning for you.
Um, and certainly your relationship with the president has helped him also, you know, get deeply involved.
And this was a campaign issue, but it became very personal for him because you've known him for a long time.
And you know, you said earlier, if we could save one or two lives, it's worth it.
Absolutely.
If we can save a a thousand or ten thousand, uh it would really be worth it because you know the numbers of deaths we're seeing every day in overdoses every single day.
It is it's shocking, it shocks the soul.
And as a country, we have we've got to fix this, and we can't we we're letting our kids down if we do if we continue not to solve this problem.
And it really is, and you highlight a very, very important point.
This is a young person discouraged right now.
I mean, a lot a lot of people, my ARAH, Sean, we talk about it and we see it as a problem in an epidemic.
These kids I I talk to are are terrified of it.
They're terrified of what it's doing to their friends and their family.
So it's something we need to be more aware of.
All right, I'm gonna let you go.
We're losing Eric here.
Eric uh bowling, always in our thoughts and prayers.
Um I know a lot of people are hearing you.
I really do.
There's a a I think it's on Showtime or Netflix or one of them.
I said Showtime, Showtime has this new um series, it's called The Trade.
I I urge you to watch it.
And there are many other National Geographic has some.
If you go back in their archives and on demand and you can see all of these things, just amazing.
All right, I want to play a little bit of Showtime's the Trade.
It's a new series.
If you get time this weekend, pull it up on demand.
It really hits home about how devastating this entire opioid crisis is.
Um so let me play a little bit of this here.
911.
What is the address?
My hill West Broad Street, I mean he's being in a red car.
What is he introducing on?
I think Helen.
My daughter is she's OD or something.
I'm sleeping.
My neighbor and her sister both overdoes from heroin.
Wake up!
America's overdose crisis is worse than ever before because of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
It is deadlier than heroes.
Uh synthetic opioid fentanyl is causing carnage like America has never seen.
Overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.
If hair was the epidemic, fentanyl's the plague.
And the plague is here.
How much more prevalent is fentanyl on the streets enough?
It's just like exponential growth every year.
I know we're over in state of Ohio right now, over eight a day.
You can actually watch this.
It literally goes into Mexico where they're producing the heroin, and then you know, places like uh Columbus, Ohio, and and other places in Atlanta.
And it literally it's impacting every single small town, big city in America.
It's that bad.
It is that bad.
All right, 800-941-SHAUN is our toll-free number.
All right, let's get to our phones.
Don is in Lake Ron Conkuma.
Big Don.
Welcome aboard, sir.
Always great to have you.
It's always great to be here, Sean.
And uh I just want to say your your shows both on radio and TV have been just top notch.
I don't know how you defy the law of physics, but you uh actually cramp three hours worth of news into an hour at night.
We're tr we're trying.
Some nights it's hard.
It's hard, but we're trying.
Thank you, Don.
I appreciate it.
You're more than welcome.
Listen, I'd just like to know do you know where the President Trump's latest stance is on this gun control controversy?
I mean, I saw it all.
I don't know because he met with the lawmakers, then he sent out a tweet because last night he met with the NRA and said everything went really, really well.
Um look, i i it if we would just secure the schools the way I've been describing now for over a week.
If we just would do that.
I don't know why the NRA was even brought into this.
Well, the you know why, because they want to blame somebody and they're saying, well, the only reason we have guns in America is because of the NRA.
Well, most Americans read the Constitution and they say, okay, the right of the people to keep him bare arms shall not be infringed.
Those are pretty straightforward words.
And you know, how the ACLU and the left and and democratic politicians, you know, can twist it and turn it the way they do is well, it's for only they can understand it.
But you know, if you secure the schools, you're not gonna have these situations anymore.
It there's a way to stop it.
And they don't want to talk about that part of it.
They they've they see this as only one side of the issue only.
We secu and same with mental health.
We we've got when we know somebody is absolutely certifiable, and you you know, police are at his home 39 times.
We we have a pretty good indication.
If he's not allowed to bring a backpack to school, pretty good indication that this is not somebody we want with a gun and it really needs help.
What good is expended background checks if people are uh politically motivated not to uh give accurate reporting.
They're not gonna report it.
Yeah, I mean, that's well, the good look, the media's corrupt and everything.
Yep.
You know, here's Devin Nunes' letter last night.
You you would think it never happened.
You would think that he didn't call out the FBI for breaking protocol.
He then call out the FBI for law breaking.
And that their process is they're supposed to verify independently uh anything that goes before a Pfizer court.
We know they didn't do it because James Comey said they didn't do it.
It's unbelievable.
I just hope that this uh gets wrapped up soon because we're uh we're getting really impatient out here.
It's like you go into you know what you go down the expressway and you see a guy zigzagging down the expressway or the parkway, and he's uh he's a menace.
The nicest thing is to see him pulled over by a cop.
That's that's the nicest thing you could see that day.
And when you see people getting away with uh with murder like this, this is just terrible.
It's just awful.
All right, thanks, my friend, for being with us.
We appreciate it.
800 941 Sean Tolfrey telephone number.
You want to be a part of the program on this Friday.
Uh let's say hi to Darren is in Jackson, Wyoming, next on the Sean Hannity show.
How are you, sir?
Hey, Sean, I'm great.
Yes, I'm I I have spent the last couple of days listening to this, and uh I'm just outraged by these cops, these officers that are supposedly there.
Uh, I know I'm a 20-year-retired deputy sheriff, and uh I would have never did what these cowards did.
And they are cowards, they're chickens.
I mean, we lived for the day.
Uh, God forbid this ever would have happened.
We'd already made the decision what was going to happen.
I didn't have to think of uh do I want to do this?
Do I really want to go in and give my life?
I that decision was made when I put the badge on.
And and that's what that's what I those are the people that I know.
Those are the people that I know they're in law enforcement at every and any level.
That's the people I worked with every day.
And I knew they had my back, and they knew uh, you know, vice versa.
And that you know, further off, the medics that I worked with would have never taken my uh they would have they would have run me over and run in anyway.
I would have never stopped the medics.
So if if they would have done their job, none of this we wouldn't have been talking about all of this with gun control.
Right.
I'm an avid uh NRA member, uh life member.
Um I teach as an NRA instructor.
Uh it's so frustrating that we are having to go through this if four guys would have done their job.
You know, look, um I don't know how many lives potentially could have been saved.
Between that and the EMT and other first responders getting it, I don't know.
Nobody will ever know.
All I know is it can't happen again.
And uh, you know, I knew that there was something very fishy.
Uh I would have understood in a way it would be hard, but maybe one guy decided that he was staying outside the perimeter, or he said that he had heard the shots and thought they were from outside the perimeter.
You you're gonna find out in pretty short order that the shots aren't outside the perimeter.
Look, let me give you a mental image of what cops do and how dangerous it is.
Remember when Steve Scalise, the congressman was shot, and they were playing that softball game, and the two officers, Capitol Police officers, they're walking, they're up against a rifle and a sniper, basically, with a high-powered rifle.
And once they saw that a shooting had begun, they walked in the middle of a field against a rifle, and they only had pistols.
Now, I've been a pistol firer, uh uh a pistol marksman since I'm 11 years old.
But I'm gonna tell you something in an open field against a rifle, you're it's it's like you're basically saying, I'm going to die.
The fact that they did that is is the most one of the most courageous things you'll ever see.
And thank God they lived, they were both injured.
And I understand on the men, but I mean, that was an incredible act of heroism and bravery.
It's the same thing every single one of those firefighters and policemen and first responders and medics, etc.
that went up the stairs on 9-11.
And everybody else is racing down in the other direction.
Well, you know that that might be the day you die.
I mean, they did probably they had to think this is really bad because they were looking at everything we were seeing.
And yet they went in the building and they went up the stairs, and many of them went way up the stairs.
Incredible acts of heroism.
Amazing, and the worst of times, sometimes you see the best in people.
And those are two examples.
And I don't know what happened here, but it sounds like protocol.
And if that's protocol, that is really a shame.
All right, 800-941 Sean Tulfrey telephone number.
Joseph is in Parkland, Florida?
Joseph, how are you?
Yeah, Sean, just kind of piggybacking.
I think I know why the officers down here didn't do the right thing, and that's because Scott Israel wants to politicize this event.
I happen to know some of the Coral Springs officers that were first on the scene.
Um I went to uh Stoneman Douglas, graduate there.
They said when they arrived, the BSO was already there, and they passed them to get in the building.
And they were the first ones in the building, but they were the second ones there, which is really sad that they did.
And what I understand is, and that's why the note came out from the captain or the lieutenant, whoever it was that sent out that memo.
Uh we did our job while other people are out there, grandstanding, excuse me, we went in.
And I think, and I don't blame the Coral Springs captain for doing this because he wants his guys to get not to get the credit necessarily, but to let the public know that they did their job so that they can be proud of those officers.
Absolutely.
The Coral Springs cops in in general just were the were the heroes of this, and it's sad because it happened in Parkland.
Those guys do deserve a lot of credit.
That's absolutely a thousand percent true.
They went running in, and they were they were not the first people that had arrived on the scene.
All right, that's gonna wrap up what is a huge and busy week here on the program.
Uh that means weekend, that means fun.
Oh, we got 60 mile an hour winds.
We got a northeastern coming uh here in New York.
So it's gonna be a little crazy on on our end.
Uh we are gonna keep breaking open these stories that nobody else is covering in the media.
We are now anticipating that IG report, and when that comes out, it's gonna get interesting from there.
