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You know what?
How many times have I said if Trump does well, it's bad for the media, it's bad for the Democrats, and secretly, maybe even unconsciously, if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, they want Trump to fail because Democrats want their power back, and the media has been dedicated to his destruction since day one, since even before, well, when he first announced, they were laughing.
Ha ha ha, run, run, run, run, run.
Well, Democrats are now beside themselves almost with rage that the president is having so much success, especially in this case as it relates to Kim Jong-un taking concrete steps towards joining the civilized world.
Okay, let me just remind these Democrats: it was not a good situation when Kim Jong-un was firing missiles over Japan and threatening Guam and threatening to build missiles with nuclear warheads that could reach Boston and New York.
That was not a good time.
And the president, what did he do?
He sent a strike force brigade right out right in the Korean Peninsula, right outside of Kim Jong-un's back door, right in his back door.
and we showed massive military force.
The president, unpredicted and really under-reported, he built a relationship with the president of, are you guys getting ice cream today?
Is that what's going on in there?
No.
No.
Okay.
But he built a relationship with the president of China that, remember, he was supposed to have five, 10, 15-minute meetings with the Chinese president that went on for four and five hours.
Amazing.
The president just hit it off with the president of China, was having dinner with the president of China the first night that he struck Syria and during dessert had to whisper in the president of China's ears, you're going to hear about this soon enough.
I might as well tell you that, yeah, I just bombed Syria.
They're using chemical weapons, biological weapons against children.
And the report is, is that the president of China says, I agree with you.
That's what the report is.
But that relationship led to what?
Now, people predicted China when the president said, no, we're going to have free and fair trade.
And the president said, no, we're going to put tariffs on their product.
Oh, we're going to have a trade war.
I've always told anybody that, listen, the president is just the never-ending negotiator.
He negotiates everything.
If I ask him for an hour interview, he's going to say, I'll give you 20.
And then I'll say, 45, I'll give you 30.
And it's going to end up at 40, and then I'll stretch it to 42 and get the full hour, which is what I wanted in the beginning.
You get my point when he was a candidate.
I did that to other candidates, too.
They were only give you 15 minutes.
I really need a half hour.
And then the half hour always became 42 minutes, and it would be the full show.
If it was a good interview, it was somebody worth giving an hour to.
Very few people are worth giving an hour on television to, or even on radio.
It's just, you know, you've got to be interesting.
You've got to be newsworthy.
That's usually when I go into my news reporter role.
Yes, I am a journalist.
Being a talk show host consists of many roles.
Sometimes you are an objective journalist.
Sometimes you just report the news straight, like on the night Syria was bombed.
I'm being a reporter that night.
I am being a journalist that night.
I'm not advocating that night.
But as a talk show host, I also do opinion.
I'm an advocacy journalist on those moments.
I'm an opinion journalist in those moments.
Sometimes I do a straight interview with just, okay, I just want to extract information from somebody.
Another time I might do a hostile interview or a debate with somebody, or I let two other people debate.
I get it going and I shut up and I start texting my friends.
You know, or pay attention.
If it's really interesting, pay attention.
I'm just joking, of course.
But you get the point.
Anyway, so it looks like, you know, it's sort of like Trump's success envy.
And it's getting so bad that this morning, New York Senator Chucky Schumer actually condemned North Korea's release of three American hostages.
Does anybody remember the condition of Otto Warmbier when he got back to America and his parents jumped on the plane?
I'm actually, Ainsley's going to, she knows the family and interviewed the family.
I think they only gave a couple interviews.
Anyway, remember what happened?
They basically got on the plane and they didn't recognize their son.
So you didn't think when Donald Trump was saying Little Rocket Man that Kim Jong-un was going to stop firing missiles over Japan and threatening the entire region, the president had to step up, show a military force.
The president built a wedge between China and North Korea.
Now, North Korea's economy is dependent on China.
Now, it's their region of the world.
They have an interest in this.
And I don't think they want a lunatic like Kim Jong-un with a nuclear weapon that can reach the mainland of China.
That wouldn't be a good proposition for them to be in.
So the president is a good relationship with the president of China.
They put economic pressure.
We put economic pressure on the North Koreans.
We show military force.
And the next thing, you know, Little Rocket Man is crossing the DMZ into the arms of the South Korean president.
And now Mike Pompeo is on an airplane with three Americans that have been held hostage that are coming home in much better condition than Otto Wambier, who died as a result of his imprisonment in North Korea.
So anyway, Chuck Schumer says the hostage release is all just a giant North Korean trick.
Okay, let's say it's a trick.
Thank God these people are free.
Our fellow Americans are now free, Chuck.
That's a good thing.
You know, you can't find it within yourself.
Let's see.
We have millions of Americans off of food stamps, millions of Americans now back at work.
14 states in the country have record low unemployment, record low unemployment for black Americans and Hispanic Americans and for women in the workforce.
You can't give the president credit there.
We now have the biggest tax cuts, bigger than Reagan, because they passed it without any of your help, Chuck.
And I know Nancy Pelosi is running around, put us back in power and we'll raise your taxes.
You have to be an idiot to put them back in power if they're going to raise our taxes.
I'm going to put out after you said you thought you were going to win the majority that says the title was all at stake.
It said that you would like to institute a single-payer health care program and cancel, raise taxes.
I think they mean roll back the tax cuts that they passed this year.
Is that what do you think of that?
Well, the second part there is accurate.
Oh, the second part: I want to raise your taxes.
That's accurate.
Okay, well, that's just dumb.
So, everybody knows that Nancy Pelosi and Maxime Waters and the Democratic Party, let's say, what do we know that they're running on?
Raising taxes.
Oh, that's what I want.
I want to vote to get higher taxes.
Okay, if you want to vote to get higher taxes, I tell you, you can do a couple of things.
Go move to New York or California or New Jersey or Illinois.
Go there.
All of you that love higher taxes, move to those states, and you can pay all the taxes that you want to pay.
And the rest of us that feel the government takes too much money out of our paychecks every week, that feel we're overtaxed and overburdened by government, will move to those states that don't have state income taxes.
I'm stuck in New York because of my job.
Trust me.
The second I get free and I can do my show elsewhere, I'm out of here.
I'm gone.
And my staff with me.
Everyone wants to move.
We've all agreed.
We haven't picked the location yet, but we'll figure it out.
So for Chuck Schumer to say it's a trick, it's not a trick, Chuck.
You know, let me translate his warning because he says, you know, that Kim Jong-un is trying to con Donald Trump into letting his guard down during nuclear negotiations, and he doesn't want the American people to fall for it.
Hey, Chuck, no, the person that was conned was your BFF Bill Clinton.
This is a good deal for the American people.
He tried to bribe Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-ul-il, and gave him billions in energy subsidies, et cetera, and he still built nuclear weapons.
That was the con job.
Before I take your questions, I'd like to say just a word about the framework with North Korea that Ambassador Gallushi signed this morning.
This is a good deal for the United States.
North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program.
South Korea and our other allies will be better protected.
The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.
South Korea, with support from Japan and other nations, will bear most of the cost of providing North Korea with fuel to make up for the nuclear energy it is losing.
And they will pay for an alternative power system for North Korea that will allow them to produce electricity while making it much harder for them to produce nuclear weapons.
The United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments.
Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the community of nations.
Well, guess what?
We paid billions of dollars and they still got nuclear weapons as a result of Bill Clinton being conned.
So what Schumer's saying here, we've got three American hostages coming home in far better condition than Otto Warmbier.
And I feel so sorry for him and his family and what he had to live through.
So what Chuck Schumer's really saying is, oh man, if all this good stuff keeps happening, Republicans are going to win the 2018 elections and we're not going to be able to impeach Trump and raise people's taxes.
That is what he is saying in all of this.
Schumer warned Trump today against going easy on North Korea in the talk.
You were criticizing him for calling him little rocket man and saying that he had bigger weapons that worked better than Kim Jong-un's.
You know, we can't forget no regime has the right to hold American citizens in captivity without cause.
Under no circumstances should American citizens be viewed as bargaining chips.
We didn't give anything for the hostages.
We didn't force Kim Jong-un to walk into the DMZ zone.
What happened is we used peace through strength.
We showed military force.
We united with the Chinese and we forced Kim Jong-un's hand.
And look, he's talking about the denuclearization.
There's not going to be any money paid or briberies paid here.
If anything, the only thing I would offer, if I'm the president, I would offer American scientists to go in and help them dismantle their nuclear weapons program.
This way we know it's getting done right and getting done safely.
So, you know, Chuck also supported the bribery of, you know, the mullahs in Iran.
It's unbelievable.
These are all good things that are happening.
You know, one of the problems that Democrats are having here is, you know, look at this.
There's a poll that came out.
Six in 10 Americans now say that this country is on the right track.
A USA Today poll and that we're going in the right direction.
CNN's poll that, you know, almost six in 10 now say things in the country are going very well.
Well, very well means very well.
Look at job openings in America.
It has now hit a record high.
Job openings hit the level of 6.6 million according to the open, the job openings and labor turnover survey that was recently released.
We're at 3.9%.
I mean, Reuters is so shocked that they had to denounce their own poll because it showed 50% of swing voting independents support Trump, 80-plus percent of GOP supporters support Trump, and 20% of Democrats support Trump.
Oh, that's too good a poll, so we're looking at it as an outlier.
It can't possibly be true.
There's too much good news here.
And the president's keeping too many promises like he did yesterday with Iran, which I guess surprised a lot of people.
Because they're not paying attention because they're all fixated on Russia and stormy.
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Can you please.
What did Twitter say about my account?
It was compromised or something?
Compromised.
So I usually now, I took Twitter off my phone because it became a full-time job.
And I'll call Linda or Kristen or somebody on my staff and I'll dictate a tweet if I want it.
But mostly we use it now for news.
If it's a fight, it's me.
If it's me fighting with somebody or taking a shot at somebody, it's me.
This may go down as one of the greatest tweets in history.
Did you retweet it yet?
No, I wanted you to read it on the air first and then we can retweet it.
So Donald Trump has tweeted out, I am pleased to inform you that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the air and on his way back from North Korea with the three wonderful gentlemen that everyone is looking so forward to meeting.
They seem to be in good help.
Also, good meeting with Kim Jong-un.
Date and place set.
Now it's going to be Singapore, we've been told, right?
I think we ought to go to that.
I think we ought to.
That's history.
I think we should go.
All right, we'll go.
We'll go to Singapore.
Great, let's go.
Then Mike Pompeo retweets the president in what might be the greatest tweet of all time.
I can confirm that no pallets of cash were given in exchange for these three gentlemen.
Oh, ouch.
Boom.
Bam, Batman.
If you don't know what that means, well, that just is a generational thing.
Don't worry about it.
Kapow.
We used to have a show Batman.
You probably only know Batman the movie, but it used to be a show with Bruce Wayne and Adam West was the Adam West and Robin.
Who played Robin?
Do you remember?
You have no idea.
It's been so long since I've seen it.
Yeah, it's been so long.
60s.
All right, exactly.
You know, with Bewitched and Mr. Ed.
I remember Bewitched.
By the way.
That was on TV land.
Right, right, right.
Hi, I'm Mr. Haney.
That's from Green Acres.
Are we just talking about Bewitched?
Okay, did there's other shows?
That was a sideway.
No.
Hogan's Heroes?
Hogan's Heroes was the best.
team.
I didn't want you to say that you're way younger than me.
That was not the biggest.
But I know Mr. T. I've met him.
They're supposedly bringing back Magnum P.I., possibly.
With Tom Selleck.
Tom Selleck is an awesome man.
I love Tom Selick.
I actually met him a couple of times.
I like him.
He's an amazing person.
He's a big NRA guy.
I can confirm no pallets of cash were given in exchange for the hostages.
Go, Mike Pompeo.
Why did you hand me this tweet and then tell me afterwards?
I never said it was the real account.
I said it was hysterical.
Well, I'm on the air saying it's Mike Pompeo.
It wasn't Mike Pompeo.
I apologize.
You never said.
You gave me fake news.
You're just like CNN and MSNBC.
Okay, so you can see that you handed me fake news.
First of all, we never said it was a verified account.
We said, this is so funny.
We just saw this on Twitter.
That's 100% true.
So what I'm saying, this is the greatest tweet ever.
This is the greatest tweet ever.
Well, it is, but I said it was Mike Pompeo because the account says Mike Pompeo.
Listen, maybe Mike Pompeo can retweet it.
It's your job not to give me fake news.
This is like CNN.
This is funny news.
Yeah, that's right.
See that?
You ought to apologize to the audience for handing.
The audience is thanking me for the chuckle they received.
Maybe that account identifies as Mike Pompeo.
That's right.
That's right.
Okay.
Let me just tell you how it works on this show.
Everybody in the world that is not me or talk radio, you know, or our friends in talk radio or our few friends at Fox, that's it.
The rest of the news media hates what we do.
They're dying for the little...
Hannity did this!
And when they can't do it, so as a result of my wicked sense of humor, I gave you a tweet that is not technically Mike Pompeo, but is someone who appreciates what Mike Pompeo is doing and as such has some funny tweets.
I recommend that everyone go to Twitter now and check out this tweet and check out all of this man's other tweets.
It's very why don't you tweet it out on my account and then say this is Linda, not Sean.
No, no, no.
Say not real Mike Pompeo, but this is funny.
Okay, boss.
America, I'm so sorry for misleading you down the road of humor.
Okay, no, I hate to say it, but you came very close to a CNN moment.
That's pretty insulting to any of us.
That's like the most insulting thing you can say.
I said came close to a CNN moment for Krono.
I'm not talking to you for the rest of the day.
What do you mean you're not talking to me for the rest of the day?
I'm not talking.
What do you mean you're not talking?
I'm not.
You want some coffee?
No.
You're drinking coffee.
You just sent somebody on a coffee round.
That's because I needed it.
What kind of coffee is it?
It's a non-shot.
I thought you weren't talking to me.
Somebody put some moonshine in that coffee before.
By the way, this is the funniest thing.
So we've got like two people.
Who are the two groups, Linda, that gave us, who gave us the Marasciano cherry?
First of all, it's Maraschino.
Maraschiano.
I don't know Marasciano.
Whatever.
Who knows?
It's all Smokey Moonshine and then Tiny Roberson.
Tiny Roberson.
Who isn't tiny at all.
Who looks like he could be on Duck Dynasty, guys.
Historical.
So we start talking about moonshine one day.
Everyone keeps sending us moonshine on it.
I am pork rinds.
No, pork rinds, I start talking about that.
But you have, you never did it.
You never went to watch the video of how they make pork rinds.
You didn't know what you were doing.
Why would you get to watch that?
Because it's the coolest thing.
I'm too busy surfing the web for fake Mike Pompeo tweets.
Now, apparently you've got too much time on your hands.
I know a lot of people is not okay.
Does anybody at Fake News CNN do a radio show?
I can't think of anybody.
They don't think so.
None of them have a big enough following to have more than one show.
That's probably true.
Does anybody on Fake News MSNBC have one?
They used to have Ed Schultz.
Remember him?
Whatever happened to that blowhard.
Oh, that's right.
Morning.
Liberal Joe had a show.
But wait a minute.
They went away, but they're coming back.
It's any day now.
They've got a big announcement coming.
Remember that, oh, we're going away, but we're coming back.
How many years ago was that?
Anyway.
I don't even have anything against him anymore.
I just can't watch it.
It's, oh, oh, I have the vapors.
Oh, Donald Trump.
Oh, the sight of Donald Trump.
Oh, my gosh.
I've never seen things so.
Oh, did you see his tweet, Joe?
Oh, did you see?
Yes, Mika, I saw the tweet.
It's like everybody on that show feigns moral outrage, moral indignation every day.
And I've never seen a show with such low ratings that gets so much press.
I've never seen it in my life.
Anyway, the media is just trying to kill us.
You know what the funny thing is?
I've known Donald Trump all these years.
I'm not surprised he kept his Iran promise.
I'm not surprised he was able to negotiate the release of these hostages.
I'm not surprised he kept his tax cut promise.
I'm not surprised he's fighting so hard to keep his build the wall promise.
I'm not surprised that he moved us to energy independence.
I'm not surprised that he's putting conservative originalists not only on the Supreme Court, but on other courts.
I'm not surprised at all.
Well, but when he was in New York, this is what Never Trumpers would argue with me.
He was a liberal.
No, he was a businessman.
And he gave money to liberals and to Democrats because that's the way the crappy system works.
And if you donate, they'll take your meeting.
And he said it.
He was honest about it.
You know, remember when he actually said, well, I actually try to pay as little taxes as possible.
I don't know any American that pays more than they have to pay.
You know, I think I'm the only other idiot.
That is told, or the only idiot that it tells my accountant guy, no, just pay it.
Just pay it.
Forget it.
Pay it.
Because I know that it's getting extra scrutiny.
You just know it.
It's unbelievable.
And you dot every I, you cross every T, and, you know, you just understand that the deep state and people within government, they hate anybody that is critical of them.
I'm not critical of all government workers.
You know, all this, all this, all that we have exposed about Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Rosenstein.
I'm not sure the proper pronunciation.
It's Rosenstein.
Rosenstein, okay.
Then you got, who else?
You got Strzok, Paige, Orr, Nelly Orr, Bruce Orr, Loretta Lynch, you know, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissman, you know, the merry band of Democratic donors.
You know, their case has fallen apart before their very eyes.
Thank God.
But it's not rank and file men and women in the CIA that put their lives on the line every day for us or in the intelligence community.
Mike Pompeo was the CIA director.
I like Mike Pompeo.
Don't agree with everything, but he did a great job for the country today.
He's escorting home Americans that have been held hostage.
Thank God they're coming home.
And Chuck Schumer's not happy because it makes the president look good.
And that Kim Jong-un, little rocket man, is now coming to the table.
You know, it's funny how the president in this case of the AG of New York, his guy's name is Schneiderman.
Back in 2013, Trump tweeted out Wiener's gone, meaning Anthony Wiener.
Spitzer's gone.
Next will be lightweight AG Eric Schneiderman.
Is he a crook?
Wait and see.
Worse than Spitzer or Wiener.
September 11th, 2013, he tweeted that.
It's a little eerie, you know, that he used Spitzer and Wiener.
And then in light of what happened, and I guess his first excuse was, oh, I believe in rough sex.
Well, the women are claiming you punch them in the face and slap them in the face full force.
Well, that case is now moving forward.
I was looking at the paper today.
The governor of New York is saying, investigate.
And if warranted, prosecute any and all matters concerning the public allegations against Mr. Schneiderman.
The Nassau County district attorney has said we will vigorously investigate the allegations for which jurisdiction has been granted.
They gave it to Nassau County.
We're going to get our investigative game plan going forward to make sure we contact people identified in the article.
This guy is in serious trouble and obviously was out in three, you know, he's out of his job in three hours after it was released.
Unbelievable.
We have more Russia gate redactions.
They always seem to cover up DOJ misconduct.
We're going to ask Jim Jordan about this in the program today.
Andy McCarthy has a great piece out, pointing out that time and again when the Justice Department, remember, they're slow walking, they're not responsive to congressional subpoenas.
Congress has oversight.
They have constitutional oversight, checks and balances.
Anyway, and when the Justice Department redacts key information from the Russiagate documents they send over to Congress, the redaction of that information almost always ends up hiding some serious Justice Department misconduct.
DOJ claims they have to redact the documents for national security reasons, and they insist that if the redacted information ever get out, it could compromise sources and methods and even get our intelligence assets killed.
But in every case, when the Justice Department finally relents, Congress gets their hands on the unredacted version, we find that national security excuse is bogus.
Now, I will tell you that as a private citizen, have any of you tried that crap?
Just like subpoenaed documents, emails erased and acid-washed by Hillary?
Good luck to you.
A little over a week ago, the House Committee chaired by Devin Nunes published a lengthy report on Russia's interference in the 2018 election.
The report was completed weeks earlier, withheld while the committee battled to disclose information that the Justice Department and the FBI was insisting on blackening out.
DOJ claiming the declassification, the release of information would damage investigations and national security.
No, it wouldn't have countered Chairman Nunes and other Republicans.
When the Comey memos are finally disclosed, what do we find out?
We learned that there was no investigative or national security reason to have concealed them as they had claimed.
The only thing they were afraid in that case is it was embarrassing because the FBI and Comey, who said he didn't say it, they all believed that Michael Flynn was telling the truth.
And we also learned that the FBI and DOJ had used the unverified steel dossier to obtain the surveillance warrant on at least one person tied to the Trump campaign in contravention of express guidelines that, quote, only documented and verified information may be used to support FBI applications to the FISA court.
Who's going to pay the price for bringing unverified documents to the FISA court judges in the original application and subsequent three renewal applications?
By the way, you know, the big deal, oh, General Flynn violated the Logan Act.
Okay, he was talking to his soon-to-be counterpart.
He was already named National Security Advisor.
That's his job as an incoming National Security Advisor.
But John Kerry trying to work against the United States and the President of the United States and pulling out of this deal and going and doing his own personal negotiations.
By the way, there is an interesting question as it relates to the Stormy Daniels attorney guy that's all over TV every five seconds.
You know, I've read some reports on his claim this morning that some Russian oligarch paid Michael Cohn money, and that was money that was used to pay Stormy Daniels.
I don't know how they go from A to Q, but they do.
But then apparently, the Hill comes out with a piece.
Now, it begs the question, where did he get, meaning Avenatti, where did he get this information from?
I don't know.
Was it the special counsel?
Who would have such information?
I don't know, but I'd like to know.
Anyway, he's saying that all this information turned out not to be true, that the money came from an American company.
It does have connections to other entities outside the U.S., but it came from an American company, and they say the money did not come from this so-called oligarch.
Let's see, what else do we got here today?
So much news.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Oh, the president just spoke at, what was he talking about, women and children or something?
Military spouses.
Oh, he's talking to military families.
Okay, let's go to it.
To all of the military spouses here with us this afternoon, welcome to the White House, a very, very special place.
We're honored by your presence and we celebrate your heroic service, and that's exactly what it is.
Too often, military spouses do not receive the recognition they deserve.
Do you know that feeling?
Do you know that feeling?
I don't think so.
You endure long separations during deployments, and some of them are much longer than you ever bargained for.
You routinely move your families around the country and all over the world.
You maintain morale in your family and across the military community.
Your support is essential to making our military the mightiest fighting force in the world and getting stronger all the time.
We just approved $700 billion for our military.
So we're going to be having the best equipment ever now.
And next year, $716 billion.
I wanted to let you know.
And by the way, I know you don't care about this, but that also includes raises for our military.
So I nugged.
First time in 10 years.
Obviously, the president has a strong bond with the military families.
All right, a lot of ground to cover here.
When we come back, we're going to check in with Danielle Hoffman, not only on what's happening in Iran, but also the battle over Ms. Haspell, who would be a great CIA director.
This woman is a champion, and literally, she saved American lives.
Also, John McLaughlin and Doug Schoen, Congressman Jim Jordan, Ainsley Earhart, all coming up.
Former CIA Consul General John Rizzo described how in 2005 Jose Rodriguez was promoted to be Deputy CIA Director for Operations and installed as his chief of staff an officer from the Counterterrorist Center who had previously run the interrogation program.
Is that you?
Senator, I'm so pleased you asked me that question.
Yes or no will do.
No.
And for the record, if you have your staff checked, Mr. Rizzo has issued a correction.
It is true that it is hard for in a secret understanding that is not actually recently confirmed that it was you.
No.
He issued a correction.
When people write books, I didn't read Mr. Rizzo's book, so I didn't even know that was out there.
Mr. Rizzo, and actually I read about it in the Washington Post last night.
Eric Wempel, I believe, wrote a story talking about the failure of certain organizations to correct their facts, and that was one of them.
And he noted that Mr. Rizzo, about 10 days ago, he was wrong.
He didn't fact check, and that has been corrected.
I would never even served in that department, nor was I that.
Once more, Jose installed as his chief of staff an officer from the counterterrorist center who had previously run the interrogation program.
Between them, they were the staunchest advocates inside the building for destroying the tapes.
Senator, I did not run the interrogation department.
In fact, I was not even read into the interrogation program until it had been up and running for a year.
I never saw it.
Were you an advocate for destroying the tapes?
Senator, I absolutely was an advocate if we could within and conforming to U.S. law and if we could get policy concurrence to eliminate the security risk posed to our officers by those tapes and the consistent legal advice.
No, I never watched the tapes, but I understood that our officers' faces were on them and that that was very dangerous at a time when there were unauthorized disclosures that were exposing the program.
But it also exposed how the program was conducted because they were tapes of the actual interrogation of certain of 92 detainees, as I understand it.
No, the tapes were recordings of only one detainee.
It was 92 tapes of one detainee.
All right.
Well, thank you for that.
It has been suggested to me by my team that if we tried to declassify some of my operational history, it would help my nomination.
I said that we could not do that.
It is very important that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency adhere to the same classification guidelines that all employees must adhere to, because there are very good reasons for those classification guidelines.
Exposing operational information can be damaging to sources and methods, as you know.
All right, that was part of the exchange with Senator Dianne Feinstein and the CIA, well, probably soon to be CIA Director Gina Haspel.
You know, I love how everybody now wants to go all the way back and forget what happened on 9-11, 2001.
We lost nearly 3,000 Americans.
Did we forget that two towers were hit?
Did we forget our Pentagon was hit?
Did we forget what happened in a field in Pennsylvania?
Did we, you know, we had had all the warnings imaginable that they were at war with us, meaning radical Islamists, and we weren't at war with them.
As part of our ongoing efforts to prevent future attacks, we did find those people.
The mastermind was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
And for all the talk about waterboarding, waterboarding, waterboarding, or enhanced interrogation techniques, oh, sleep deprivation, remember, they were done under strict medical guidelines.
This is not something that the government did haphazardly.
They were done as safely as it could possibly be done to gather information that these people had about potential future attacks or plans to attack the United States of America.
These were enemy combatants.
Now, I know liberals, they were all happy to build a multi-million dollar soccer field at Gitmo and take care of all the dietary concerns and all the other personal needs of enemy combatants.
But what Gina Haspel did, A, was legal at the time.
B, it's what she was told to do.
C, it worked.
A, we know it worked because it was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed himself, who, by the way, wants to testify at this hearing for Gina Haspell.
I'm sure there's going to be some liberal that recommends it.
The mastermind of 9-11 wants to testify before the Senate committee.
Why would I not be shocked if some genius Democratic senator wants to bring him in?
But anyway, he was the one that pointed to the courier.
Remember, Bin Laden was not using technology at the time.
He had a courier passing on information to him that way.
Once we found the courier, we found bin Laden.
So without enhanced interrogation, we never would have had it.
All facts.
Anyway, joining us now is Danielle Hoppin.
He is a former chief of station with the CIA.
30 years of distinguished government service, including high-level positions, not only within the CIA, but the U.S. military, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Commerce.
And welcome, sir, back to the program.
Is there anything I said here that I got wrong, or do you want to fill in any extra blanks?
No, you got it right.
And thanks for having me on the show.
It's a real pleasure.
I would just highlight this for you and for the listeners is I was struck by how much time was spent relitigating the past and debating Ms. Haspell's so-called moral compass, whereas very little time was spent on the current threats we face.
You know, Senator Rubio raised China.
Senator Lankford raised the narcotics challenges we face.
But nobody asked about Russia election meddling, targeting our electoral process, for example, in any detail.
And I have to tell you, Sean, Gina's been deputy director now 15 months.
She's testified numerous times.
She's met with all of these senators in private and in private closed testimony.
If they can't judge her moral compass based on all of that interaction, I just don't understand.
I just don't understand how that's possible.
They should know her quite well at this point.
I watched Gina make decisions when I worked with her in our headquarters and crossed paths with her overseas numerous times where there was an ethical and a moral component.
She was right on every time.
Let me tell you something.
Gina Haspel, Jose Rodriguez, and everybody else are heroes because I know for a fact lives were saved.
Bin Laden's body would not be sitting at the bottom of the ocean someplace, which I think that was even a mistake.
We should have shown the pictures to the world, but what can I say?
I interviewed Jose Rodriguez.
He was in the room when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was being waterboarded, and here's that exchange.
So, in other words, you're saying that the accusation that these enhanced interrogation techniques were used beyond what we had already been disclosed, you're saying is false, number one, and that in spite of their suggestion that they were not successful, you're saying that, in fact, that's not true.
You were there.
It was successful.
It was very successful.
And for those of us who were there, it is just amazing that they could have come to this conclusion.
Those of us who read the intelligence coming out of our black sites every morning and who acted on that intelligence know the value.
And basically, it led to the destruction of the organization.
Then he went on to say exactly what I said.
That without enhanced interrogation, we never would have gotten information on the courier.
The courier led us to bin Laden.
Yeah.
Hey, Sean.
Yeah.
I'll tell you what, I'm a little bit biased because I was Jose's executive assistant for about eight months.
And I think the world of them, and he made a very courageous decision, and in my view, the right one to destroy those tapes.
But what I find.
Well, wait a minute.
We're not allowed to see dead pictures of bin Laden, but it's wrong to destroy the tapes of enhanced interrogation.
And by the way, I need to remind people, this happened to three people, three, when they weren't playing soccer on the multi-million dollar soccer field that Obama built for them.
Yeah, and here's another disconcerting element for me.
The means, the motives, and the results of the CIA program should not be construed to be the same thing that was done to Senator McCain in Vietnam, which was obviously abhorrent.
And I can tell you, I've seen what torture is when I served in Iraq, and what was done to Senator McCain was torture.
But Senator Camilla Harris tried to equate the two.
And frankly, I found that at the very best unseemly because, you know, that's just not what we do.
And the way the terrorists, she tried, she said that, you know, what would have happened if one of our people had been captured by terrorists and waterboarded, and how would we react to that?
Would we call it torture?
That's not what terrorists do.
They don't have a medical guy in the room to make sure that your prisoner is being taken care of and is not suffering any duress.
You know, this is where I don't understand America.
I don't understand, what are we supposed to do?
What are we, America was attacked.
It was, they slaughtered 3,000 of our fellow citizens.
Now, we missed the attacks with the USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
You know, all the signs, the first trade center bombing, all of the evidence was there that we were going to get hit, and we did nothing.
And now all of a sudden, it seems like we're going back to a pre-9-11 mindset, which means that we are not defending the country.
The enemy still exists.
You know, we got a threat from Iran yesterday.
And people are upset that the president isn't going along with the idea that the Iranians get $150 billion in cash, continue to spend their centrifuges.
And even though Prime Minister Netanyahu has the intelligence that they have a nuclear program, it seems like Democrats in this country want to put their heads in the sand and not believe what is obvious and right in front of their faces that they are violating the agreement.
I don't understand it.
I mean, the Clinton administration imposed a so-called peace dividend on our Departments of Defense and the CIA.
And so we really were gutted in terms of our intelligence collection.
You're right.
It comes down to recruiting spies and stealing secrets so that we can obtain the intelligence that's going to keep us safe.
And what I would say about Gina Haskell is there were a lot of people up in the chief seat who were not involved.
She was in the arena trying to keep us safe.
And one of the things she said today at the hearing that really struck a chord with a lot of me and a lot of my former colleagues and me was she said, experience is a great teacher.
She's been there.
She was present at creation for post-9-11 counterterrorism program.
And she is so absolutely the right person to lead us going forward.
I wish there had been more questions of her about the big threats out there, North Korea, Iran.
She could have been asked to comment on the Iran nuclear deal.
She wasn't.
It was just this overwhelming focus on relitigating something from 16 years ago, which, in my view, it didn't deserve all the time that it got.
Yeah.
And as we continue with Danielle Hoppin with us, former chief of station with the CIA, combined 30 years of distinguished government service at the highest levels, you said you work with Gina Haspel.
I really hope she gets confirmed.
The country needs somebody like her.
She conducted herself amazingly well today.
But I want to ask you now that the hostages are free.
I never thought a year ago we'd be seeing little rocket men walking across the DMZ into the arms of the South Korean president.
Now is going to meet with the president, and they're talking about denuclearization of the entire Korean peninsula.
An amazing turnaround.
Peace through strength works.
The president put forward a big military presence.
He built up a good relationship with China.
That helped in terms of putting the screws.
I'll use a special prosecutor term here.
Putting the screws to North Korean's dictator as it relates to their economy.
And lo and behold, it worked.
Yeah, I think, Sean, I think that the release of those three hostages was a precursor to any summit.
Just had to happen.
And it's a demonstration that North Korea is serious about coming to the bargaining table with us.
Now, make no mistake, it's going to be a tall order, and it's going to take some time to negotiate this deal.
But Secretary Pompeo is the right guy to do it.
He's got the background of having served as director of CIA.
He knows all the intelligence that there is to be known about North Korea.
And he's now made a couple of visits out there, and he's establishing personal relationships with North Korean decision makers.
And with all summits, that's really key.
He'll be the president's right-hand man on this very challenging negotiation that we're going to see unfold before our eyes probably within about a month or so.
Yeah.
What do you, as you watch the president, and I guess they finally made an announcement today, they're going to be meeting in Singapore.
Is that a good location?
It's as good as any, right?
I think it's a good neutral location.
I think, you know, my personal opinion was meeting in a demilitarized zone might be good for theatrics down the road if we signed a deal, but I wouldn't go there first.
I think going to Singapore makes sense.
Again, neutral location, we would never want, obviously, to have met in China, and, you know, the North Koreans wouldn't want to have met in one of our allied locations.
So I think it makes a lot of sense.
And again, I think that the president has been very forceful and direct and consistent with his message towards North Korea.
And we're lined up for what, again, I believe, again, realistic expectations here.
This is going to be a long, drawn-out negotiation, and it's going to be challenging, but I think we're ready to put our best foot forward.
And we've got a lot of mistakes to make up for over the past two decades plus of our foreign policy.
Well said.
All right.
A real hero, Daniel Hoffman, will continue to follow the hearings of Gina Haspa.
We'll have more on this tonight on Hannity 9 Eastern when we come back.
The latest on the obstruction out of the DOJ, they keep slow walking congressional subpoenas, and they keep throwing in redactions that aren't necessary.
And they keep claiming there's national security, and it's proven wrong, and they keep not wanting to comply.
Why?
We'll check in with Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio next.
The only thing left that we can do is we have to move quickly to hold the Attorney General of the United States in contempt.
And that's what I'm going to press for this week.
The Department of Justice has written him a letter and responded as appropriate to him.
The request he's made is one that the intelligence communities and Department of Justice feels is not grantable.
We've explained that we'd be willing to talk to him about it before, the details of which I couldn't discuss.
That was the Attorney General Sessions.
You know, we still have this issue about whether or not he is going to be held in contempt.
The people that are leading the way are the House Intel Committee Chair Devin Nunes, Freedom Caucus member Jim Jordan, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows.
Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio joins us now.
He's been extremely outspoken about the increasing overreach of not only Mueller's special counsel, but the inaction of the Department of Justice, the Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as it relates to handing over documents, they are slow walking everything.
They're putting in redactions in the name of national security that turn out to be proven not true.
Comey is the perfect example.
Last week, they had a redaction about Jim Comey basically saying that, oh, nobody thought that General Flynn lied.
Well, why did he get in trouble for lying and why did they claim it was a national security issue?
So the slow walking, the noncompliance, the redactions have now led to a crisis point where Congress may hold the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General in contempt of Congress.
Jim Jordan is with us with the Freedom Caucus.
Mr. Speaker, oh, I'm sorry.
Congressman, great to talk to you.
Good to be with you, Sean.
And you are so right.
We should be pursuing contempt for both Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein in my judgment.
How is it, Sean, that the New York Times can get Michael Cohen's financial records?
And the Inspector General of Treasury has now said he's going to look into how they did that.
So the New York Times can get Michael Cohen's financial records, and yet we can't get stuff as a separate and equal branch of government from the executive branch.
That is what's driving everyone crazy.
And so certainly, Devin is right.
If they're not going to give us the information, then we should pursue contempt against both of them.
But explain the slow walking.
Explain the ridiculously high level of redactions.
How many times they claim national security, and it's been proven it was not a national security reason for the redaction.
And the outright just denial and refusal to hand over to Congress what constitutionally you have the authority to see because of checks and balances and co-equal branches of power and congressional oversight.
No, you gave the best example.
It was, no, you can't see the Comey memos.
They held that up.
They slow walked that.
It was like pulling teeth.
And finally, when we see him, there was really nothing classified there.
And then the example you just used as well with the House Intelligence Committee report where they tried to redact and say that, oh, Michael Flynn actually didn't lie.
Every agent who interviewed him said they felt he was being straightforward, and yet they tried to redacted in the initial report.
So that's how they operate.
But the best example, Sean, was last week.
When this federal judge said, I want to see the August 2nd memo, and you got two weeks to get it to me.
Mr. Meadows and I sent a letter five weeks ago to Rod Rosenstein, and we said, show us the August 2nd memo, which in some way modifies the May 17th memo that outlined the scope of the inspector, or excuse me, of the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
He did this August 2nd memo.
We want to see what that says.
It's all redacted.
We want to see what that says.
So we asked for it five weeks ago.
The federal judge asked for it last week.
Now you have two branches of government, the legislative branch and the judicial branch, both asking to see something so the American people can know exactly the scope of the investigation into the president they elected.
That's the kind of treatment we've been getting from the Justice Department, and that's what's got to change.
And if it doesn't, it's time for contempt.
Well, and how soon do you think it looks like we're now hitting that point here?
And what is Congress asking for?
Congress has a constitutional role to play in this, and that is oversight.
You know, I love what the judge in the Manafort case said on Friday, where no American wants unfettered president, unfettered power, be it the president, be it Congress, be it the judicial branch.
That's why we have checks and balances.
Congress is constitutionally required to use their oversight to make sure there's no abuse of power.
If Rod Rosenstein had his way, well, we know that the Nunes memo never would have come out because he was begging Paul Ryan up till the final hour not to release that information that we had a right to know.
Lying to a FISA judge in a FISA application, withholding information to a FISA judge, using one party, Hillary Clinton, one presidential candidates bought and paid for Russian lies, and presenting it as the bulk of information before a FISA court.
That seems to me to be a crime.
Yes, yes.
Well, look, Rod Rosenstein's name has never been on a ballot.
Who elected Rod Rosenstein?
No one.
You have the legislative branch, and I actually asked Mr. Rosenstein in person about that August 2nd memo.
You should have seen how defensive he got then.
So now you have, Sean, this idea where you have the legislative branch who's asked for this information so the American people can see what, in fact, is the scope, what, in fact, is the framework for the investigation into the president that they elected.
And you also now have the judicial branch wanting to see the exact same document.
And you have Rod Rosenstein and the Justice Department saying, we don't want to show it to you.
We got 70% of it redacted.
That is what's wrong.
And remember this, too.
The Justice Department could have told us all kinds of information that they didn't disclose.
We had to go find it the hard way.
Like, did the Justice Department tell us that Daniel Richmond, the guy Jim Comey leaked information through, was actually a special government employee at the Justice Department?
By the way, he only said he leaked to one person.
It turned out it was him.
It was Patrick Fitzgerald and another guy, and all three of them are now his lawyers.
How convenient.
Yeah.
So, Sean, we're at a point now where I think the best thing to happen is for the President of the United States to tell Jeff Sessions to tell Rod Rosenstein explicitly and directly, give the United States Congress everything they are asking for.
Transparency is good.
It's good for the American people to see what's going on.
It's good for the American people to know the scope of the investigation into the president that they elected, who's duly elected, whose name was on a ballot.
So the President of the United States should, in fact, tell Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, give the United States Congress the documents and the information that they are requesting so we can get answers to the American people.
All right, let me ask you, because Paul Ryan is leaving, and I have always said, and I stand by this right now, that but for the Freedom Caucus, there are very few people I trust in Washington today.
And if you're a conservative, as I am a conservative, I look to people like you and Mark Meadows, and frankly, I've got to put Devin Nunes in the group.
I don't know if he's a member of the Freedom Caucus, but I put you guys at the top of people that are actually getting the job done.
We wouldn't have known about the FISA abuse.
We wouldn't be pursuing the fact that not only did Hillary Clinton commit crimes and was information taken from foreign intelligence sources off of that mom-and-pop shop server that she acid washed and bleach-bid and broke up her devices on after she violated the Espionage Act, but I then look at the treatment that she received from Comey and Strzz and Paige and Strzzok who interviewed her and the exoneration written before the investigation.
Did you ever hear of exonerations being written months before you interview the people involved in a case?
Yeah, before you interview all the witnesses and before they had interviewed the key witness, who was in fact Secretary Clinton?
No, you're right.
Well, I've never heard.
Why would they begin that in early May and they don't interview her till July?
Yeah, I mean, look, James Comey messed that investigation up from start to finish.
We all know that.
We suspected the fix was in after we saw the strzok page text messages.
We knew the fix was in.
And as you have pointed out, and you've been great on this, clear back last fall and sooner, you've been great on this entire thing.
But remember last fall, Sean, when we had the FBI director in front of the Judiciary Committee, and we had just learned that the Strzok and Page text messages had come out, and they were supposedly kicked off the Mueller team because of their anti-Trump bias.
And we all suspected it has to be something more.
And you were talking about, we were talking about it.
We said it has to be something more.
And our gut told us it was about the dossier.
And then lo and behold, all the information on the dossier came out.
And we found out that, in fact, was a key thing taken to the FISA court.
So you've been right on this from the get-go.
We've been right on this from the get-go, linking it all to that dossier document.
That's the problem.
And again, that's why we're at a point Where it is time for the Justice Department to give Congress, give the judge who is asking for the document as well, give us the information that we're asking to get.
All right.
So let me ask you this.
I keep hearing from my sources that there is bombshell information about people like Rod Rosenstein, and that's one of the reasons they are slow walking, using redactions, not complying with subpoenas.
Is that true?
I don't know what the information is.
I do know that it's amazing the roadblocks, the slow walking that they've, remember, Sean, they told us when Congressman Meadows and I met with Mr. Rosenstein, they told us they think the approximate number of documents that the judiciary and the oversight committee are entitled to see relative to the investigation into Clinton and the investigation into stuff dealing with 2016 and 2017.
They think the approximate number of documents is 46,000 documents.
To date, over seven months, we've received 9,000.
At that pace, we're going to be midway into President Trump's second term before we ever get the information that even they say we are entitled to receive.
Should the problem.
Should Rod Rosenstein be fired?
I mean, at some point, I know articles of impeachment have been drawn up.
Do you see any reason at this point that he should be impeached?
I think the best thing that can happen now is if they don't change, and look, our patience is almost completely gone now.
I know Devin's is the same way, and we should pursue contempt.
And frankly, I think the best thing is, though, for the President of the United States, as the guy whose name was on a ballot, who was elected by the American people, who is the head of the executive branch, to tell his people who work for him to tell Rod Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions, give the Congress what they're asking for.
Then we'll get the answers.
Then we'll know the questions you just asked.
We'll know the answers to those.
And more importantly, the American people will ask.
Are you going to run for Speaker?
The plan is, if and when there's a race, I plan to do that.
There is not one right now.
And as I've said on the House floor, more important than who the Speaker is next year is what we do this year.
And what we do this year is get the answers to these key questions that you've been raising on your show to build the border security wall, to make the tax cuts permanent, to reform welfare, the things we told the American people we were going to do when they elected us in 2016.
So that's what I'm focused on.
But if and when the race happens, I plan to be a part of it.
There are rumors that Paul Ryan may get out a little early, maybe as early as Memorial Day.
Is there any truth to that?
Are you hearing rumblings of that?
There's been that talk, but I don't think he should.
And, you know, I think the answer has been cleared.
Why not?
I mean, he's retiring.
Let's have the race now.
I think the speaker has indicated, Sean, that he plans on staying for the remainder of this Congress.
What do you make of what the president did by withdrawing from the Iranian deal yesterday?
I think another campaign promise kept, and I think keeping promises means a lot.
And I do believe the Republican Party, you excluded and the Freedom Caucus excluded, need to keep their promises.
And I think that I was happy with the rescission that we had on Mike Mulvaney yesterday.
We were talking about that.
Nobody liked the omnibus bill, so it's a good start.
But I still think more needs to be done on health care, and I think the border wall needs to be funded fully.
Of course.
I couldn't say it better.
It never hurts to keep your word.
And this president has done that.
He said he was going to put the embassy in Jerusalem.
It's going to happen next week.
He said he was going to get out of the Iran deal.
He's going to get out of the Iran deal.
He said he was going to cut taxes.
We've cut taxes.
He said he was going to put a good guy on the Supreme Court.
We've got Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.
He said he was going to take on ISIS.
ISIS is, in fact, backpedaling.
He said the economy was going to grow when he was president.
The economy is growing.
We've got the lowest unemployment in 17 years.
That's pretty darn.
You wouldn't know it listening to CNN, but that's pretty darn good.
Pretty darn good.
Little Rocket Man talking about denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
I think that's another big thing.
What did you think about the hostages being released?
Course.
This is like Reagan.
When you say what you mean, mean what you say, and you back it up.
Good things happen in the fact that the leaders of North and South Korea actually got together two weeks ago.
Who would have thought that was going to happen on the Korean peninsula?
The fact that the hostages were released.
I mean, we could keep going.
Again, you listen to the mainstream press, you wouldn't know it, but you listen to Sean Hindi, you get the truth.
And those are good things.
Is Robert Mueller excoriate Robert Mueller's team and they're putting the screws to Manafort, and this has nothing to do with Trump-Russia collusion.
And why would a tax issue from 2005 to 2007 have anything to do with anything except that you really want to use Paul Manafort, put the screws to Manafort, you want him to sing so that you can follow up on a prosecution or potential impeachment of Donald Trump?
I was stunned at how a truthful the judge was and how right on the mark he was.
I had the exact same reaction, and specifically I focused in on that judge says, I want to see that August 7th.
Because remember the remember what's going on here, Sean.
May 17th, Rod Rosenstein writes the memo saying, Mr. Mueller, here is the scope of your special counsel investigation.
All I know is that judge says, I want to see it.
The same thing that Mark and I had sent five weeks earlier saying we want to see it.
We got a letter back from the Justice Department saying, you know, take a hike.
Outrageous.
But it was interesting.
We got the letter back telling us to take a hike, and two days later, the judge says, I want to see the same thing.
Good.
Well, hopefully we'll get to see it as well.
All right.
Perhaps future Speaker of the House, Jim Jordan of Ohio.
Thank you, sir.
We appreciate all that you're doing every day.
All right, when we come back, news roundup and information overload hour, our pollsters, John McLaughlin and Doug Schoner here.
That's coming up next, and much more as we continue.
This November, every American will face a choice.
Now, they say if the House doesn't make it, it's very important.
You have great congressmen.
These are great people.
These are great, great people.
And thank you.
But we have to keep the House because if you listen to Maxine Waters, she goes around saying, we will impeach him.
We will impeach him.
Then people said, but he hasn't done anything wrong.
Oh, that doesn't matter.
We will impeach the president.
So I don't think we're going to have a lot of happy people if that happens.
I think it's going to be a little bit tough.
But she goes around and some others, we will impeach him.
Doesn't matter if you do anything right or wrong.
They want to do that.
All right, that was the president.
The president's right.
In many ways, this is becoming a historic election.
And instead of referendum on the Democrats, if they get elected, they do want to impeach the president for no reason at all.
We have Maxine Waters.
How many times has she said, you know, impeach 45, impeach 45, impeach 45, reclaiming my time, impeach 45?
How many times have we heard that?
Reclaiming my time.
Reclaiming my time.
Judiciary.
Reclaiming my time.
Okay.
Reclaiming time.
Matter of fact.
Mr. Secretary, I'm reclaiming my time, please.
Because I thought I was allowed to answer questions.
Reclaiming my time.
No, we didn't leave him as a time.
Reclaiming my time.
What he failed to tell you was: when you're on my time, I can reclaim it.
Yeah, okay.
And then every, and then she went as far this last weekend to say, damn the president.
Her words, not mine.
What does that mean?
Damn to hell?
You know, damn him?
You know, now that they're begging Maxine Waters and many other Democrats, please don't talk about impeachment.
All right, we have the results from the election from last night, and what does it mean for November, John McLaughlin and Doug Shoan.
By the way, we have a CNN poll and we have the Reuters poll.
The funniest thing about the Reuters poll is that Reuters said this is an outlier poll.
It's got to be an outlier poll because it's doing too well for Donald Trump, and he's got 50% of independent voters and 20% of Democratic voters and 80-plus percent of Republican voters.
This is an outlier.
We'll tell you about it, but we don't believe it's real.
The CNN poll shows a surge in Democratic support for Trump.
It also shows that what, that the president is not feeling any impact.
Six in 10 Americans now say America's on the right track.
Well, that does not bode well for the so-called blue wave we've been expecting.
And joining us now, John McLaughlin, pollster, founder of McLaughlin Associates, Doug Schoen, pollster, author, political analyst, and Fox News contributor.
Welcome, both of you.
Thank you, Sean.
Yeah, why does Reuters make the case?
Why is Reuters saying, oh, no, this poll of ours can't be true because it's so favorable for the president?
Sean, I remember before the election when the race was tightening.
I think my friend John would have a similar recollection.
The race was tightening.
Poll after poll in both swing states and nationally showed it tightening.
Yet everyone said, well, it's tightening, maybe, but maybe not.
But Hillary can't lose.
Well, she did lose.
And what we're seeing is that despite all the attention that Stormy Daniels gets in the media, voters don't give a darn about that, as they didn't when I was working in the White House for Bill Clinton, and they didn't care about Lewinsky.
I never understood the poll number.
Bill Clinton never had higher poll numbers than during impeachment, ever, ever.
Right, good economy, Sean.
Good economy like now.
And that's what's going on.
And I say to my Democratic friends, do not focus on impeachment.
Focus on the issues.
And you said on your show, fortunately, correctly, that I ought to be muzzled so that the Democrats don't get the right idea finally.
Yeah, you know, I actually should stop putting you on the show because I think your advice is too good for the Democratic Party.
And God forbid they'd follow it.
They'd actually do better.
John McLaughlin, when you put all of this together, you know, six in ten Americans now say the country's on the right track.
You see the president, now we have hostages freed from North Korea.
You know, compare that to how this family, Otto Warmberger, was treated and when he Warmbier was treated when, in fact, you know, he died as a result of the mistreatment in North Korea.
And here, Little Rocket Man is capitulating to the president, and we're talking about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
And you've got alliances that nobody dreamed of in the Middle East with Israel, the U.S., the Saudis, the Jordanians, Egyptians, the Emirates against the Iranian hegemony.
The Israelis broke, I think, the biggest piece of intelligence in the history of the world last week, and not enough people paid attention.
Great.
And what you refer to in the polls is the question you're referring to is called job performance.
And the people approve the job the president's doing because they can see results.
That's what Doug was talking about with Bill Clinton.
Because Bill Clinton, no matter what happened in impeachment or Monica Lewinsky or whatever, they kept on talking about, well, he's doing the job.
He's doing the job.
Well, the majority of voters are realizing that Donald Trump is doing the job.
The economy is growing.
Jobs are being created.
3 million new jobs.
As far as what's going on in the world, America is stronger.
You think about what's, you know, you know that I worked for Prime Minister Netanyahu, and that was a historic election.
Obama tried to beat us with his political operatives over there because he wanted Netanyahu to shut up and not speak out against how bad the Iran deal was.
And now we know what Prime Minister Netanyahu knew and what the Israeli voters knew, which was why they re-elected him in a decisive election.
And now you're seeing Donald Trump, he doesn't want to be a 21st century Neville Chamberlain.
He's saying, let's bring Iran to the table, get a real deal, stop their nuclear program, doing the same thing with North Korea.
And what he's doing is he's not kicking the problems, kicking the can down the road for our kids and grandchildren to have to deal with in a more dangerous world.
And so people are recognizing that.
And you're seeing elections where, you know, people are going to cut through the media bias.
They're going to cut through the fake news.
And they are going to vote for candidates who really will improve their lives on a daily basis.
Let's talk about the midterms.
Will the president successfully turn this into a referendum on if Nancy Pelosi gets power, not only will she do what she said earlier this week, raise taxes and remove the tax cuts the president put in place that are working that people like, but also that even though people are being told in the Democratic Party not to say it, that they would move to impeach Donald Trump, does it become a referendum on Trump?
And if it does, what would that mean, Doug Shon?
Well, midterms are traditionally election referenda on the incumbent and on the incumbent party.
But by Pelosi saying what she did and Trump's numbers going up, there is a chance there could be an election like 98, which ultimately was a referendum on the Republican overreaching on impeachment.
Now, I still think the Democrats have better than a 50-50 chance of winning the House.
I think the Senate is unlikely to change hands.
But if the Democrats don't have a platform, a program, a set of ideas, and it's all Pelosi yes or no, impeachment yes or no, you will see some strange results in the midterm.
And I hope I get a chance to speak to my fellow Democrats, Sean, in a way that will avoid that, at least from my point of view as a Democrat, sad eventuality.
What are your takes?
Is this going to be a referendum?
Do you think, John McLaughlin, on President Trump and raising taxes by Pelosi and impeaching the president?
I would hope so.
It should be a contrast election, but I'll tell you, the dangerous part is we just released a national survey this month where we asked them, are the Republican leadership, is the Republican leadership doing what they can to help drain the swamp with Donald Trump, or are they supporting the swamp?
And 17%, only 17% said they're helping to drain the swamp.
That means the American people are smart and perceptive.
That's all true.
They just say, that's the weak leader, Sean, supporting the Republican leadership in the House and Senate.
That's what the American people are mad at, much more than President Trump.
That's the weak underbelly.
It's something you and I have talked about for many years, Sean.
And the Republicans, for reasons best known to themselves, have still not got their act together.
Right.
And we need to get our act together and support the president.
The president ran on term limits, which the American public supports, 82 to 9, 56 strongly approved.
The president ran on paid parental leave.
He ran on the infrastructure bills.
They need to start getting things done, making the tax cuts permanent so that they don't lapse on people, so they know what they can expect.
Supporting missile defense, supporting yesterday, the president came out with a plan to cut $15 billion of waste in the federal budget.
We need the Republican leadership in Congress to stand up with the president because they're on the ballot.
Donald Trump is not and so what we need but if Donald Trump goes into those those 40 or so districts that are going to matter that are going to make the difference and he says I need this person Is that going to play a part?
It'll help.
Yes.
Sorry.
I'll tell you what.
I worked on the Trump campaign and Donald stood for issues that got him votes that brought out millions of new voters.
The Republicans, it's the issues.
Trump went into Pennsylvania 18.
The president went in there, asked them to vote, and guess what?
The Republican candidate and leadership in Congress hadn't voted on his agenda.
So guess what?
We lose an election that we should have won because 102,000 Trump voters stayed home.
It's the issues that get people out.
And the president's standing up and fighting for those issues and getting things done.
And the people are saying the Republican leadership in Congress isn't getting it done.
They're not even voting on it in the Senate.
And Pennsylvania 18 had a centrist Democrat, Connor Lamb, and that's where the party needs to be if it's to maximize its potential.
Well, listen, I agree, but you know what?
I don't think the Democrats even have an agenda they're running on.
I wish they did.
No, no, no.
I like it just the way it is.
Just keep saying you're going to raise taxes.
Keep saying, like Keith, what about Keith Delison with his shirt saying, I believe in no borders.
I think run around with that shirt on.
Every Democrat should get a free shirt and a free hat, no borders.
I think that'll help the Democratic Party.
Guaranteed.
And they could put another hat that says Impeach Trump.
Run on those three issues and they're guaranteed to win.
Right.
More welfare, more food stamps, fewer jobs, more taxes.
I mean, they haven't.
And higher taxes.
You should get it in one hat.
And Impeach Trump is really about covering up our corruption so that the American doesn't find out how corrupt we are, and they really are the swamp.
As we continue with pollsters Doug Shon and John McLaughlin, what about the, you know, look at the economic numbers.
I mean, you know, I think 6 and 10 is probably now, that number is going to rise, especially with the release of hostages.
If denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula happens, if somehow the president is able to convince our allies to put the screws, I'm using a special counsel Mueller term, on Iran, and Iran now has to come to the table as North Korea came to the table.
You're looking at unprecedented foreign policy success.
We have 14 states with record low unemployment numbers.
We got the lowest unemployment rate and numbers for black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and women in the workplace.
That's a pretty good track record, I'd say, for a guy that's been president 15 months.
And fortunately, you've got a Republican in House and Senate that has passed a limited, limited number of bills.
It's the president who's got a record.
Fortunately, Sean, for we Democrats, it's Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and their colleagues who are held in very, very low esteem.
Well, I agree with that.
But I mean, there's going to be new leadership.
I think Jim Jordan is running on the Republican side.
My guess is the Freedom Caucus will spark some type of deal.
I would expect him to be in leadership by the time this is all said and done.
And that's a game changer to me, John McLaughlin.
Well, what you're seeing right now is there's a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party right now, where it's becoming the party of Donald Trump, where not just on the federal level, but also on the state level, they're kicking out the people who are the swamps, not just in Washington, but in the local state capitals.
I mean, I'm in Connecticut today working for a candidate, Bob Stefanowski.
He's the frontrunner.
We got a poll.
He's the frontrunner for governor in Connecticut because he wants to cut taxes.
He's an outsider.
And the state party chairman, J.R. Romano, won't let him on the convention floor as of this weekend.
So here it is.
There's a swamp in Hartford that's kept the Democrats in power.
There's a swamp in Washington that the Democrats are counting on keeping them in power.
But you know what's going on in the primaries?
The Trump voters are coming back down in the primaries, and they're electing people in the primaries who are Republicans, who represent the same issues and ideals that President Trump does.
So that would say that if Donald Trump campaigns for him, they're going to win.
What about the opportunities for pickups in the Senate, like Claire McCaskill's vulnerable?
Joe Manchin is vulnerable.
Heidi Heitkamp is vulnerable in North Dakota.
There are a number of them.
Donnelly in Indiana.
Yeah, Indiana is another possible pickup for Republicans.
I mean, I.
I see as many as six if they played their cards right.
Absolutely.
President Trump's going to be in Indiana tomorrow.
Yeah.
I would tell you, Sean, the best asset we Democrats have is Republican ineptitude.
As you know, they never miss an opportunity.
Both parties.
That's true.
That's true.
They both, they all suck.
And the one that's getting the job done is the president.
And if the Republicans were smart, they'd support his agenda because it's very popular.
And more importantly, it's working.
And people seem to like his iconoclastic outsider.
Say what he means, means what he says attitude.
It's refreshing.
The difference between Donald Trump and every other elected official is every other elected official hides what they really believe.
He says what he believes, and they can't handle it.
All right, obviously, a lot of news today, 25 now till the top of the hour.
800-941 Sean is our number.
You want to be a part of the program?
The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has left North Korea, and he has three American hostages that were held by North Korea with him.
If you remember the case of Otto Warmbeer and his family, remember, he came back here in brutal shape and died.
And we'll check in with Ainsley Earhart because she knows the family in a minute.
But let's first go back to Gina Haspel, who hopefully will be the next CIA director.
And listening to the testimony from earlier today, I thought she did a magnificent job.
And here she is.
In light of my counterterrorism experience, I understand that what many people want to know about are my views on CIA's former detention and interrogation program.
I have views on this issue, and I want to be clear.
Having served in that tumultuous time, I can offer you my personal commitment clearly and without reservation that under my leadership, on my watch, CIA will not restart a detention and interrogation program.
I support the higher moral standard that this country has decided to hold itself to.
I would never, ever take CIA back to an interrogation program.
First of all, CIA follows the law.
We followed the law then.
We follow the law today.
I support the law.
I wouldn't support a change in the law.
But I'll tell you this.
I would not put CIA officers at risk by asking them to undertake risky, controversial activity again.
Ms. Haspell, my question is this.
On a going-forward basis, if this president asks you to do something that you find morally objectionable, even if there is an OLC opinion, what will you do?
Will you carry that out, that option, that order, or not?
I mean, we're entrusting you in a very different position if you're confirmed.
I just need to know what you want to do.
Senator, my moral compass is strong.
I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that I thought was immoral, even if it was technically legal.
would absolutely not permit it.
So you would not follow the order if you felt it was?
No.
I believe that CIA must undertake activities that are consistent with American values.
Former CIA Consul General John Rizzo described how in 2005, Jose Rodriguez was promoted to be Deputy CIA Director for Operations and installed as his chief of staff an officer from the Counterterrorist Center who had previously run the interrogation program.
Is that you?
Senator, I'm so pleased you asked me that question.
Yes or no will do.
No.
And for the record, if you have your staff checked, Mr. Rizzo has issued a correction.
It is true that it is hard for in a secret understanding that it's not accurate.
He recently confirmed that it was you.
No, he issued a correction.
When people write books, I didn't read Mr. Rizzo's book, so I didn't even know that was out there.
Mr. Rizzo, and actually I read about it in the Washington Post last night.
Eric Wempel, I believe, wrote a story talking about the failure of certain organizations to correct their facts.
And that was one of them.
And he noted that Mr. Rizzo, about 10 days ago, he was wrong.
He didn't fact check.
And that has been corrected.
I would never even served in that department, nor was I the head of it.
All right, joining us now, she is the co-host of Fox & Friends, the author of the brand-new New York Times bestseller, The Light Within Me.
It is on barnsandnoble.com and Hannity.com and in bookstores everywhere, Ainslie Earhart.
This is now your third book.
This is your third New York Times bestseller.
Congratulations.
Thank you so much, Sean.
You're so sweet to talk about it.
By the way, I'm never going to be that honest in a book with anybody ever because I did far worse than you've ever done.
But I think Linda's going to write the next one because I think, you know, except there'll be a lot more F-bombs in there than maybe people are used to.
I watched today Gina Haspel, and I'm watching this woman, and I'm thinking, here after 9-11, we lost 3,000 of our fellow Americans, and we're going backwards.
It was legal when we used enhanced interrogations, waterboarding against three people, and one of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
And I'm like, why do we have to revisit this yet again?
She was doing her job and it was legal at the time.
Exactly.
She didn't break the law.
John Brennan also said that he supports her.
His nomination went through with flying colors.
He was confirmed, yet he was her boss at the time and was the one directing her to do this.
So she followed her orders.
She followed the law, and that's what she continuously said today.
She said, I didn't break any laws.
Would I do it today?
No, because our laws have changed and we don't allow this anymore.
But at the time, after 9-11, after 3,000 people were killed, we were trying to find answers so that others wouldn't die.
You know, I remember interviewing her.
I actually played it last night on TV, which I hate to do because it showed me a lot skinnier and a lot younger.
But at the time, I interviewed Jose Rodriguez, and he was in the room during these enhanced interrogations.
And he said very clearly, I asked him numerous times in numerous interviews, if we didn't use those techniques against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we never would have gotten the information about the courier because that was the way that bin Laden was communicating.
Wasn't using electronic communications and the courier led us to Bin Laden, so it worked and we got the guy responsible for killing 3,000 Americans.
I think in that case, we did something good for the country, correct?
Yeah, I agree with you and I think most Americans agreed with you.
Agree with you, but think about how far, or what's changed in our country after 9-11.
No one had a problem with it.
Now they do.
Well, I mean why?
Yeah, I mean does.
Have we gone back to a Pre-911 mindset?
It's pretty scary.
It's pretty scary.
We can't forget.
Yeah um, I know you have spoken with and I have not.
Otto Warmbier, you know, was the prisoner that was in North Korea and we know what happened to him.
He was in such bad shape when he returned to this country.
Basically he was about to die and they released him and he died here.
And you, you got to know this family.
Tell us what they're like and and how do they feel, or if if, you know about the release of these other prisoners that are in much better physical condition.
I did talk to Mr. Warmbier today and called him to tell him I was thinking about them because I have had a relationship with them.
We were one of the two, I believe two interviews that they did.
And when their son came home they went onto the plane and they they heard his cries before they even got on the plane.
It sounded like an animal screeching out, screaming out in pain.
They got on the plane and they saw a son they did not recognize.
They were so glad that he was safe and he was on American soil and back home.
But it was too little, too late.
He died, you know, shortly thereafter and they had, they had destroyed their son.
He was blind, he couldn't hear, he was his brain had been damaged.
He, they said it looked like they had pliers and they pulled out his teeth and then put them back in in different places.
I mean the pain that that child in his 20s went through.
No child should have to go through that.
He was on a trip, he was joking around New Year's Eve, pulled down a propaganda poster allegedly, and they tortured him basically to death for that.
If they're doing him, doing that to an American for something so simple, no telling what they would do to others.
So I was very pleased when I read the tweet from the president that said these three are in good health.
But I did talk to Fred Warmbier and he said he didn't want to do an interview, that he didn't think Americans wanted to hear from the Warmbiers right now, but he said they wanted to just be silent, that they are in the middle of a lawsuit and he said he was thinking about these hostages.
They're in, they're in their thoughts, they're thinking about their families, but and they miss Otto is what he said.
I can't imagine anything worse than than losing a child the way they did and then seeing him on his last legs like that and not even recognizing him.
I know that.
I know that you launched their book and and we had you on the day of the launch of the book and then we were literally was the last segment of the program and you were telling this very personal story.
In the book you get Personal.
It's called The Light Within Me, and it talks about your spiritual journey more than anything else.
And I'm looking over at Linda, and Linda's crying, and you're crying, and then I'm like, oh, I got to go to a break.
And we talked about that.
A lot of people commented on it.
I could never do what you did in this book.
I could never be that open.
I don't think.
Maybe that'll change.
And you get very personal, and you talk about all these life experiences you had, both good and bad.
And I just, I mean, that's a pretty courageous thing to do to open up like that as a public figure.
Why did you do that?
And why does it not bother you?
Because I think that I just feel like my personal life is nobody's business.
Well, I just feel like God put me on this earth to share his story and what he's done in my life.
And when you have a light, I think it would be really selfish if you hit it in a cave and didn't share it with others.
And that's why it's called The Light Within Me, because I found God and I have a relationship with Jesus, and it's beautiful.
And it's not something that I try to push down anyone's throat.
It's just my story.
And I talk about the ups and downs of life.
And there are many ups and downs that we can all relate to.
Many of my situations, my downs in particular, people can relate to.
Going to college, being faced with the peer pressures there, trying to have one foot in church and one foot at the party, a failed marriage, a miscarriage, trying to have a baby, not being able to have a baby, and finally having a baby and how God redeems us and God forgives us and loves us.
And, you know, people think our prayers aren't.
Because this is, I think, a myth.
If somebody says they're a Christian, I really believe in, I was raised Catholic, but I believe everything in the Bible.
I believe that Jesus came, the Son of God, to forgive us for our sins.
But I also recognize that I'm one of the sinner guys.
I'm not one of the good people.
And everyone thinks, oh, somebody's a Christian and they have an imperfect life or they're imperfect.
Why is it the left loves when somebody says they're a Christian and they get caught doing something stupid?
As if when you become a Christian doesn't mean you stop doing stupid things, does it?
No, no, that's why I needed to become a Christian because I'm such a sinner.
And sometimes I find myself doing things that I'm not proud of.
And I have to remind myself and get back in the word and go to church and ask for forgiveness.
We're normal.
We're human beings.
The only perfect person was Jesus Christ.
And the Bible is very clear about not judging other people.
But you've been doing, yeah, you've been doing a lot of book signings.
What are people saying to you on the road when you're signing their book?
Do you have any book signings this weekend?
I do.
I have one in Mount Pleasant, which is right outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
And that's at 7 o'clock, Barnes and Noble.
My sister lives there, so she keeps on.
When is that?
7 o'clock when?
That's 7 o'clock on Friday night.
Okay.
So I'm flying out after the show and going to a book signing there.
And what have people been saying to you?
Do they relate to these experiences?
They do.
Most people hug me and cry and share their stories and say, I can relate to this.
And there are women that have come up to me that have been, you know, my grandparents' age or my mom's age and will say, I had a miscarriage too, and we didn't talk about it back then.
But I'm glad that you're sharing your story because I wish other people had been there for me when I went through it.
I'm also hearing thank you for being a Christian and not being afraid to hide your faith.
It's so refreshing to see that in a news anchor.
And I'm also hearing that Fox is so good to our military.
Thank you so much for supporting our military and remembering the men and women who fought for our flag.
All right.
So you're going to be, I think I heard Charleston, South Carolina Saturday night, Friday night at 7 o'clock.
Friday night.
All right.
And by the way, you guys have the number one cable show in the morning with Brian and Steve, all friends of mine.
We congratulate you.
The book is called The Light Within Me.
We'll put it up on Hannity.com.
It's in bookstores everywhere.
Ainsley, we always love having you on.
I mean, you've always worked on Hannity, the TV show, over the years, and you deserve all this success.
We're very, very happy for you.
Thank you so much, Sean.
I've loved every second of it.
You've been a big part of my story, and I really appreciate it.
You and Linda have always been wonderful to me.
Well, for telling me.
By the way, what do you do when one of your Christian friends like Linda curses a whole lot?
What do you do about that?
I mean, every other word.
Like a good Christian, she knows it's part of my charm.
Is that part of your charm?
That's right.
I guess she are you going to forgive her for that?
Of course.
Of course.
There's no need to forgive.
God created me in his image.
He likes it.
See that?
Well, I curse a lot too, you know.
Yeah, I know.
And look how good you are.
You take the shirt off your back.
All right.
I'm not so sure, but Ainsley, we always love having you.
My best to Brian and Steve.
Saturday, Friday night, 7 o'clock in Charlotte, a book signing, South Carolina.
And thanks for being with us.
All the best.
The Light Within Me is the name of the book.
All right, Hannity, tonight, 9 Eastern, as America awaits the three released North Korean hostages.
We'll have the very latest.
Ali North, Newt Gingrich, Dr. Gorka, Daniel Hoffman, also Ed Henry, Monica Crowley, Joe DeGenova, Sarah Carter, Greg Jarrett.
We got a lot of news tonight.
A big night as it relates to freedom for Americans.
