Defending Our Borders: A Matter of Life and Death - 8.23
Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Legal Analyst and author of The Geraldo Show and Salena Zito, author of The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics, debate the comments made Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick today who has said that people like Geraldo Rivera should be held accountable for supporting illegal immigrants, following the harrowing death of Molly Tibbetts. 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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Oh, Jeff Sessions firing back at Trump, they say the DOJ will not be improperly influenced.
Not sure what that's all about.
I have no idea.
Unbeknownst to me, are get away from me.
You're annoying.
Her and Blair, they conspired behind my back, and we're now doing this via what?
At Twitter, at Sean Hannity.
We're doing a Twitter live.
Is it called a Periscope or is it called Twitter Live?
What's it called?
We don't know.
Twitter Live, video.
We're streaming this thing.
I know they love me over there at Twitter, apparently.
At least some people might, but I read recently that at Jack, well, we only wanted to talk to Hannity's audience, not Hannity.
I'm like, oh, okay, forget me.
I couldn't have been nicer to the guy.
I was asking him questions, giving him an opportunity to respond.
There are a lot of questions as it relates to who gets to decide editorially on these really important decisions.
Like, for example, you can't have somebody on social media making threats against individuals.
You can't, nobody that has a social media site is going to want people that are racist bigots on their site.
You're not going to want your social media site to become a haven, you know, for people that have, you know, hate gay agenda or racist agendas or bigoted agendas against particular religions.
We don't want that.
They didn't want that.
But then it raises the question, who decides?
Who's the arbiter?
How do you decide?
What about freedom of speech?
What if the owners of a particular social media site, what if they have a liberal bent and they don't like conservative points of view, period.
Everything that a conservative says, that's bad.
What do you do then?
We heard the other day that what, Facebook is now going to put stars or grades next to everybody's name, except you can't see them.
In other words, and then it gets into the issue of shadow banning.
And then it gets into the issue of, you know, again, it's kind of, look, as I said to Jack Dorsey, who is the CEO of Twitter, it's more nuanced, it's more complicated than people think.
And because I tried to do an informational interview as a talk show host, we play many roles on this show.
We give strong opinion.
We break more news than the entire fake news media altogether.
We also sometimes allow debates to occur.
We might have one such debate as we know that Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, has gotten into a little bit of a row and battle on Twitter with Geraldo Rivera, who's actually on, and Geraldo will join us later today, but he was actually on, I guess, one of the shows on Fox earlier today, America's Newsroom.
Okay.
He's on there earlier today, and he said, look, the fact that there are people that won't support building a wall, that won't support vetting and finding people that are in the country illegally, that they are now becoming accomplices.
This is in part reaction to Molly Tibbets.
We've got to solve the problem.
I mean, I sat with Rick Perry in a security briefing, and he showed us, and we had security experts put up on the screen, and I've showed it on TV many times, 642,000 crimes committed against Texans alone in just a, what, seven-year period.
Some of them very violent crimes, some of them more petty, but these are real people, real victims of crime here.
And the idea, and this is where I guess for some it gets controversial when you get into the travel ban issue.
If you grow up your entire life in a country that has values that are the antithesis of our constitutional republic, you grow up in a country that actually thinks it's okay for men to tell women how to dress or to tell women that they cannot drive.
Or in some countries, I know this is insane.
You know, marital rape in some countries is not a crime.
Or the fact that gays and lesbians are killed just for being who they are and they're thrown off roofs and they're hung.
You know, that happens in this world today.
Or that if you happen to have a different faith, you can't build a temple or a Christian church, for example, in Saudi Arabia.
You just can't.
Now, somebody that grows up, that is the culture, the only culture that they have known.
They hear about the United States.
Maybe they study all about the United States and they want to come to the United States.
Maybe, you know, some people want to come here because they don't like the system that they're growing under, growing up under.
And they believe more in our constitutional system where all men and women are created equal.
And while imperfect, there's never been a country that has accumulated more power and abused it less than ours.
Country that has advanced the human condition, using its power, sacrificing its treasure, our people, and our resources to advance the human condition.
And what's so bad about trying to ascertain whether or not people that want to come here, you don't have a right to come here.
We have to first protect the people that are here.
First thing, we got to start in Chicago.
I can't believe nobody is talking about Chicago.
Two weeks ago, 71 people shot.
This weekend, 61 people shot.
These are our citizens.
Why are we helping the people in Chicago?
Why don't we have a military presence in Chicago?
Why don't we have the National Guard out in Chicago?
Why don't we put people that are wanting to help Chicago?
Anyway, but just anyway, so all of this sort of comes together that these issues of, you know, people are mean.
I always call these people weak.
They're sort of like keyboard warriors.
They're in the privacy of their bedroom, their basement.
They're in their PJs, their underwear, their sweatpants, you know, and then under some anonymous name, and they're saying all sorts of crap.
And you know what?
They're so brave when they're down there all alone and no one knows who they are.
And so it has now become a system where people are literally just venting and saying the most horrific things to other people in social media.
Okay, so now where do you decide?
Where do you draw the line?
Now, it might be that America has to accept that there are bigots, that, you know, there are horrible, evil people out there that say horrible things.
But do you have a standard for a social media platform that maybe says, you can, we are not going to monitor the things that people say.
We ask, we request that you be respectful and then let people have at it.
It is truly a free speech forum, which allows even hateful people on there that say hateful things, as long as it's not advocating or inciting in any way a violence.
Or do you try to monitor it in a way that, all right, this site not only will not allow violence, but we're not going to allow bigotry and hatred and racism on our site either.
Okay.
Then you've got people that, what about people that use, you know, whatever, they think they're being clever.
You know they're being racist, but they're trying to use code words to be racist.
You know, you can see it, you read it, you know what it is.
It's sort of like pornography.
You know it when you see it, famously once said.
But, you know, these things happen.
How do you do it?
I don't want to, I wouldn't want to be in the decision of making that decision, in the position of making that decision.
By the way, if you're watching on at Twitter, this is all Linda's fault.
She sprung it on me at 30 seconds before.
You can participate.
Your audience loves this.
You know how many people are talking about this?
My audience does not like how many people are watching right now.
How many?
How many?
You can't tell that right now.
Can you tell right now?
He can't talk to you about it.
He's not on a microphone.
Excuse me, Justin.
He's not on a microphone.
I'm talking while he's.
I'm talking too.
How many?
250,000 people.
See that?
That's more than a CNN has given on any day.
That's probably true, actually.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
Hi, everybody.
I had no idea.
This is annoying.
You know what?
You do a better show when I make you angry.
So you're welcome in advance for your good rating.
You're making me angry.
Can you put your mic down for a second and let me do my opening monologue?
I'm reclaiming my time.
Really?
We're claiming your time?
Maxine Waters.
When you're on my time, I can reclaim.
Stop.
Are you getting irritated?
Are you getting irritated?
Everyone, just stop.
What I was going to say until I was so rudely interrupted is that the great thing about being in a radio studio and not having anybody watching is the mystery, the old mystery of radio.
People can see me on television.
Television is a different medium.
But you look a lot better on radio.
I look the same, except I didn't comb my hair.
I don't look the same.
Do I look the same?
Let's put a vote on Twitter.
Let's take a poll.
I don't want to take a poll.
You know, I'd like to.
That's because you know I'm going to be right.
Yeah, okay.
So people, it's like when I meet people in person.
I'll be out.
I was out grocery shopping last weekend.
It happens every time I go to the grocery store.
People are like, what are you doing here?
Do you use self-checkout?
I do.
Now I do.
I totally picture you doing that because you have zero patience.
Zero.
What happens when the UPC code doesn't come up?
You have to call for help.
Well, the problem is, is when I was there last, I was buying some Coors Light.
Shocking.
Then you have to show your ID to the machine.
I'm like, forget it.
Take a picture.
But you look a lot younger in real life.
I would card you too because you're a card.
But that's what people say.
I'm skinnier, taller.
Better looking, younger looking.
Are you done?
I am never done.
I've got hours.
I'm trying to bring you back into a good mood.
You stop with being on her side, too.
See, you've ruined the whole opening of the show, just so you know.
I don't know about that.
Let's take a poll on that, too.
You and your polls.
I've got polls.
We have, all right, so we are 75 days now outside of this most important midterm election in our lifetime.
And things are heating up.
I will tell you this, that as you watch the media just clinging with dear life onto Cohn and Manafort, I don't think that's going to be the big issue of the campaign because it has nothing to do with Trump.
Nothing to do with Russia.
Nothing to do with the election.
Nothing to do with collusion.
But the media thinks we're just going to hammer this every, okay, people's big news on what went Tuesday.
It's now Thursday.
How many more nights are we going to be talking?
We know what happened.
We know how it ends.
Everybody that was saying that, oh, Lanny Davis was proven to be a liar.
It is not against the law.
We have campaign laws that are very crystal clear.
And as Alan Dershowitz said, this would be legally like the equivalent of jaywalking.
It's not what Lanny Davis has been saying.
Has anybody questioned why Lanny Davis, except me, why would he ever say that his client would never accept a pardon?
That was pretty dumb.
I know he loves the Clintons.
Who is he representing here, the Clintons?
Or is he representing Michael Cohn?
Because maybe a year from now, you know, I'm just, I can envision a scenario after a year in jail, maybe Michael Cohn's wife would beg the president for a pardon and that maybe the president would be moved to compassion.
And would that be such a horrible thing?
And maybe whatever money that he owes and back taxes, maybe he could work and actually pay it back, which the IRS makes those deals every single day.
All right, we'll get into all these aspects.
For all you folks on Twitter, goodbye.
Hit the goodbye button.
Bye.
See you later.
Now I can actually do a real show when we get back.
All right, so Jeff Sessions spoke out today, and the president last night in his interview on Fox and Friends, you know, was very clear and said, look, I put in an attorney general, never took control of the Justice Department.
Jeff Sessions never took control.
It's an incredible thing.
I think the biggest issue with the president, and it is, I don't care what your political views, it is a legitimate one.
The day after he was confirmed, the very next day, he recused himself from what now has turned out to be the biggest abuse of power scandal in history.
He's the only president that's never had his attorney general in charge.
Because if he did and had somebody else, it is likely none of this muller anything would have happened, which as we can see now is skidded off the rails into, you know, taxi cabs and, you know, 2005 tax and bank fraud cases and nothing to do with Russia collusion, the president, or 2016.
And so Sessions says, well, I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have an unprecedented success at effectuating the president's agenda, one that protects the safety rights of the American people, reduces violent crime, enforces immigration, promotes economic growth, advances religious liberty.
He said he will not allow political considerations to derail the Justice Department.
While I am the Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not improperly be influenced by political consideration.
I just demand the highest standards.
When they're not met, I take action.
No nation has a more talented, more dedicated group.
All right.
Well, here's the problem, as I see it for Jeff Sessions and where we are right now, because I think this is a big deal.
And I actually have sent a note over to the Department of Justice today.
Does the Attorney General, does he believe that Hillary Clinton violated the law with her private server that had top secret and classified information on it?
Because nothing's happened.
Does he believe that she obstructed justice when 33,000 subpoenaed emails were erased, hard drives erased, devices destroyed?
Because nothing's happened.
You know, is the Attorney General concerned that Hillary's exoneration was being written as early as May 2016?
I'm sorry, yeah, 2016 by Strzok and Comey before 17 key witnesses were ever interviewed.
Does the AG believe Pfizer court judges were lied to?
Now that we know the bulk of information, Grassley Graham Nunes memos became the steel dossier that was used to obtain Pfizer warrants on Carter Page, fraud perpetrated on the court.
The attorney general concerned that the applications did not reveal that the Pfizer court to the FIS court that Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for the Steele dossier.
Is the Attorney General concerned nobody had ever bothered to verify, independently corroborate the salacious contents of the dossier used in the FISA warrant applications?
People signed off on him.
Even Steele himself says he didn't know if it's true.
Are they concerned about that?
We don't see any action yet at all.
Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn't have done, or he should have told me.
Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself, and then you wouldn't have put him in.
He took the job and then he said, I'm going to recuse myself.
I said, what kind of a man is this?
And by the way, he was on the campaign.
You know, the only reason I gave him the job, because I felt loyalty.
He was an original supporter.
He was on the campaign.
He knows there was no collusion.
You know, and just think of it now.
None of this happens except the Attorney General decides to recuse himself.
And then look at what it's now become.
We're now headed to day 500 of non-stop, never-ending, and then you add to the media, you know, hysteria.
I mean, I've watched a little bit last night for as long as I could take, which is about three minutes.
And you just watch the media impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.
Today, the likelihood of impeachment.
I'm not saying it's high necessarily, but it certainly went up.
Impeachment.
Impeached.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
Impeach.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
The president is clearly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
He should resign his office or be impeached.
Today, the Trump presidency took a giant step toward impeachment.
Impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
Impeachment implications are now in the air.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
If it is a crime, it certainly is an impeachable offense.
Impeach Trump.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
And I could keep going.
Literally, saw something on Drudge earlier today that what?
Cable news says impeachment 222 times in one day.
And it's the same pattern.
And it all started the day that this president comes down the escalator with his wife and announces he's going to run for president.
And everyone's laughing.
He's going to run for president.
You know, then, all right, then we get at different times.
He's a racist, racist, racist, racist, election night.
This is a white lash.
Donald Trump was elected.
A white lash.
You know, that's cable news.
What?
That's news?
And then it's Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, stormy, stormy, stormy, stormy.
Is there a difference if the president said holder house?
Do you think these countries are Donald Trump has turned the Oval Office into a whole pollers built this country 110 years ago?
In addition to the president's comments yesterday, a few more.
Whole countries.
Whole country.
Rich, do you have any example of any whole country that the president referred to that is predominantly Caucasian?
Polar s holes.
Polar's.
I work for I'm proud to be a puller.
I don't know in a million years thought I would be saying on television.
This could be the last nail in the coffin.
Stormy Daniels is causing stormy weather.
Porn star Stormy Daniels claims President Trump broke the law, had her bullied.
Does Stormy Daniels have the president's number?
It sure seems that way.
President Trump might have met his match with Stormy Daniels.
How is Stormy weathering this?
Stormy speaks.
We're hearing quite a bit from Stormy Daniels.
Stormy's, in her own words, isn't going anywhere.
Stormy Daniels has a good lawyer.
The porn star Stormy Daniels was telling the truth.
Stormy Daniels is on a tail.
Quick preview of Stormy Daniels interview this Sunday.
Breaking news that Stormy Daniels.
Stormy Daniels.
The reason he can't engage with Stormy Daniels is because she's got his number.
New fallout tonight in the Russia investigation.
Russian.
Russia's Russians.
Russia.
Russia.
Russian.
Russian.
Russia.
Russian to Russia.
Russian.
Russia.
Russian.
Russians.
Russia.
Russia.
The Russians.
Russia.
Russia.
The Russians to Russia.
Russia.
The Russian Russia.
The Russian to Russia.
Russia.
They go from crisis to crisis to crisis to crisis to panic to panic to panic to panic.
They never talk about the success of the president, just like they never talked about the failures of the last president.
They were invested in Obama.
It's the hope and change.
Thrills went up and down their legs.
And now they just sucked up and bowed at the altar of Obama.
What did it get the country?
Got us, what?
The worst economic record, the worst recovery since the 40s.
More people on unemployment.
You know, literally, we have, what, 13 million more Americans on food stamps, 8 million more in poverty, lowest labor participation since the 70s, lowest home ownership rate in 51 years, more debt than every other president before him combined.
We got an apology tour out of it.
What else did we got?
Mullahs and Iran very happy with the Obama presidency.
$150 billion into the coffers of those that chant death to America, death to Israel.
He never talked about this in negative terms.
He was the great peacemaker.
Donald Trump's going to start a nuclear war.
That was another mantra of the media.
Nuclear war, nuclear war, nuclear war, nuclear war, nuclear war, nuclear war.
His rhetoric is so over the top.
You know, our buttons bigger than yours and it works.
Fire and fury, little rocket man.
They couldn't handle it.
They can't handle anything.
You know, it is, I think the analogy that I've been hitting on lately is just dead on accurate.
Donald Trump never was supposed to win the presidency.
Now we know why too.
Because of all the underhanded deep state maneuvers and actions that had taken place, unbeknownst to us.
I don't think most Americans knew that when Jim Comey, July 5th, 2016, when he in fact gave that exoneration of Hillary, that he had begun working on it in early May of that year with Peter Strzok.
And he spends 13 minutes basically saying, I'm sitting there, oh, I can't believe it.
He's going to indict her.
Wow, we will have justice in America.
And then he basically lays out the case.
Then we find out she wasn't even interviewed for three days till three days before.
But they wrote the thing in May.
You know, that's why, you know, I sent over questions about Jeff Sessions because, you know, all right, now that we've gotten to the bottom of all the important stuff, now that the taxi medallion issue is over.
Now that the, okay, you didn't file tax returns in 2010 or 2009.
Now that that's over, now that you filed a loan application and you put inaccurate information on it, now that that's all taken care of, Manafort convicted on eight of 18 counts, and then you've got Michael Cohn, you know, making a plea deal, could get him up to five years in jail.
And his attorney, his genius attorney, Clinton Lover, Lanny Davis, oh, he wouldn't take a pardon.
And I go, oh, that's great.
Who are you friends with here?
Who are you representing here?
I don't know.
I don't think that's a particularly smart thing for a lawyer to say.
You know how many people put in pardon requests every year?
I don't know how many, but I got to assume it's a pretty high number of people.
You know, you've got a few people that have been right about all of this.
And we certainly have been right in pointing out other crimes that are not being paid attention to.
People like Alan Dershowitz have rightly pointed out that we are criminalizing, we're criminalizing political differences.
You've got the Russian hoax, you know, number one book in the country, three weeks in a row now by Greg Jarrett.
And that's the Russian hoax, the illicit scheme to clear Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.
And we now have the struck page text messages, and we'll stop him and their insurance policy.
Now we've got the Bruce Orr and Christopher Steele emails.
Are the firewalls set for when Comey testifies on Tuesday?
I hope the firewalls hold.
After all, I'm getting a little worried.
We're going to be exposed here.
What are the firewalls?
What firewalls plural is he talking about?
Exposed, exposed about doing what?
And of course, we broke the story by the government accountability office yesterday, and we're going to do this again on TV tonight.
Well, we now find out that James Comey leaves and for five years is working for Lockheed Martin, and he's the guy that apparently has power of attorney for all these officials at Lockheed Martin.
They get billions and billions of dollars in contracts from the federal government, including, you know, they're getting into it.
I'm not saying it's unnecessary.
I mean, I want us to have the best technology as long as we don't abuse the tools of intelligence like we know has happened with the intelligence gathering and the unmasking of human beings, citizens of the United States.
You know, why is Samantha Powers unmasking a person today?
We never got to the bottom of that.
What other Americans were unfairly surveilled and unmasked?
Who else had raw intelligence leaked on them besides General Flynn?
That would be a crime, too.
And then we find out that Lockheed Martin in the year 2009 is paying Jim Comey $6.1 million, according to this brand new book by Seamus Bruner and the forward written by Peter Schweitzer.
I think that's pretty, I think that's a pretty big deal.
I don't remember anyone revealing how much Jim Comey got when he went to work for Lockheed Martin.
And if he had the power of attorney and he's signing off on this new technology for, I guess, some type of retinal human identification system that they want to build, which I guess is all part of having the latest best technology, maybe necessary.
But Robert Mueller is the guy that signs the contract and he's the one that's lobbying Mueller and their best buddies.
And then it's Comey that leaks to the Columbia professor, who then leaks to the New York Times, that then gets the special counsel, which he even admitted that he wanted to get.
And that also turns out to be Mueller.
And then you look at the relationships of all these guys, include Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe and Strzok and Page and everybody else.
And you got one hell of a corrupt system here.
And then we have real crimes they had committed.
Or, you know, why was Jim Comey getting $6 million in a year from, you know, one of these big hedge funds?
What was that about?
And then he went back to the FBI.
And then Robert Mueller leaves the FBI.
And Robert Mueller's making a few million dollars a year on the speaking circuit.
And he has contracts.
And now we're told that even two of his witness companies in the special counsel want Facebook and Google.
Well, now we've learned about them that they're now witnesses, but they were his clients back in the day or the clients of his law firm.
Did anyone ever expose that potential conflict of interest?
Now we also learned that John Brennan and his little temper tantrum over the revoking his security clearance has inadvertently pointed out what we have been pointing out now for some time, and that is that there is this revolving door with government and the private sector.
And what's interesting about it is, you know, everyone wants to keep their security clearance, the president said.
It's worth great prestige and big dollars and even board seats.
And that's why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan.
He's right.
If you're not in the government, you don't need a security clearance.
Now, if we need to call you back in a national emergency for some type of service, we can reinstate it very quickly.
Very quick.
It won't take that long, I'm sure.
More than 4 million private sector individuals hold clearances now.
The secret of private intelligence agency is a massive ecosystem right for what this book says is concealed cronyism.
Where do you see what we do tonight on TV with all of this?
You know, and by the way, some of these guys have big TV contracts now.
Why?
Because of, well, their backgrounds, I'm sure.
That plays a big part of it, but also their security clearances.
You know, this is stuff nobody's ever heard of before.
This isn't just a cushy job.
$6.1 million in a year.
How much did he get from Lockheed Martin the other four years that he worked for, meaning Jim Comey?
I mean, he likes to portray himself sort of like Peter Strzzok.
They're the super patriots.
They're the ones that they are of the highest ethical order.
They're the ones that know better than we, the smelly Walmart people, as Strzzok referred to us as.
You can smell them.
The Walmart, Virginia.
You know, we're the ones that are looked down on as irredeemable deplorables.
People that cling to God, their guns, their Bibles, their religion.
Oh, my.
I guess that's a horrible thing in the eyes of some people.
We know one NSA leaker was sentenced to five years in jail for doing what Jim Comey did.
There's an article about an NSA contractor, reality lay winner, was something like that.
Somebody, this is in the Gateway pundit.
Can't even read my own writing on this, but I'll put that aside.
Employment increases in the last year, 90% of America's largest counties.
Employment increases.
14 states, record low unemployment, record low unemployment African Americans, record low unemployment Hispanic Americans, record low unemployment for Asian Americans, record low youth unemployment, women in the workforce.
And then people go on TV with a straight face and say, Obama did that.
Oh, why didn't it happen in the eight years he was president?
But that's neither here nor there.
All these questions, and then nobody goes near it.
They don't touch what is the important questions.
How is it crimes were committed by Hillary?
Espionage Act, obstruction, you know, exonerations before investigations.
You know, FISA court judges fed what even Steele doesn't confirm as being real, this phony Russian dossier that Hillary paid for.
You know, why didn't they tell them?
The bulk of information used to perpetuate a fraud on courts to get warrants against opposition party candidates and members of their campaigns.
You know, are we concerned that, you know, Hillary paid for all this and they didn't tell the court?
Nobody's ever verified it and they signed their names on it?
Yeah, I know.
What can I say?
I guess that's the way it's going to be.
All right, as we roll along, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941, Sean, remember Philip Haney?
Yeah, every email, founding member of the Department of Homeland Security, Bill Benny.
Every email, every text, every phone call, metadata stored and the double standard.
We have Haney, Binney, Sarah Carter, and more.
And Geraldo is going to respond to the Texas Lieutenant Governor.
All right, glad you're with us.
Hour two of the Sean Hannity Show.
Write down our toll-free telephone number.
It's 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, as part of his interview with Fox and Friends this morning, President Trump said he was leaning towards declassifying Justice Department documents that could blow the lid off a cesspool of corruption by top FBI and DOJ officials.
Mr. President, a lot of people are frustrated.
A lot of your supporters are frustrated with the DOJ, with Jeff Sessions.
There are rumors that you're going to fire him after the midterms and Rosenstein.
They also want these documents.
They're wondering if you will use your power to get these documents released.
At the right time, I think I'm going to have to do the documents.
I didn't want to, but I think I'm going to have to.
There's such corruption before I got here.
It's from before I got here.
It's the Obama administration.
And you look at what happened.
They surveilled my campaign.
It's very simple.
The Pfizer report, the phony FI.
Rosenstein signed the last Pfizer report.
It bothers me.
It's always worth it.
Will you fire him?
Will you fire Sessions?
Well, I'll tell you what.
As I've said, I wanted to stay uninvolved.
But when everybody sees what's going on in the Justice Department, I always put justice now with quotes.
It's a very, very sad day.
All right, so that was part of the interview yesterday.
There is a lot.
Jeff Sessions came out today with his little warning, I guess, that he is going to remain above it all and do the work of the Justice Department.
And as I said, I wrote the Justice Department spokesperson earlier in the day, and I wanted to know answers to simple questions about like, you know, does the Attorney General believe that Hillary Clinton violated the Espionage Act, private server,
classified top secret information on it or obstruct justice when she deleted and erased, you know, 33,000 subpoenaed emails and devices were destroyed or an exoneration written in early May of 2016 by both Strzok and Comey of all people.
None of the 17 eyewitnesses or witnesses to that case were ever interviewed.
Three days after Hillary was interviewed, I struck.
James Comey came out, exonerated her.
That was July 5th, 2016.
You know, does the Attorney General believe that FISA courts and judges were lied to now that we know the bulk of information to obtain the FISA warrant?
Four of them, what warrants?
That all four applications had the bulk of the information being the dossier that was put together by Christopher Steele, that we now know that Christopher Steele doesn't even stand by?
Was a fraud perpetrated on the court?
Is the Department of Justice concerned that the applications didn't reveal to the FISA courts that Hillary and the DNC paid for the Steele dossier?
That all those people, including Rod Rosenstein, it was just mentioned, or Sally Yates or James Comey himself, signed off on these FISA applications with the dossier as the main bulk of information.
Even Steele himself testified he didn't know the contents were, he didn't believe them to be true.
This was raw intelligence, maybe 50-50.
Then you have Senator, well, Attorney General Sessions going out there, and the president is really ticked off because he feels like I've never had an attorney general.
He said in his interview yesterday, I've never, you know, because who does this?
The day after he's confirmed, he recuses himself.
Recused himself, which he shouldn't have done, or he should have told me.
Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself, and then you wouldn't have put him in.
He took the job, and then he said, I'm going to recuse myself.
I said, what kind of a man is this?
And by the way, he was on the campaign.
You know, the only reason I gave him the job, because I felt loyalty.
He was an original supporter.
He was on the campaign.
He knows there was no collusion.
Now, Jeff Sessions responds today that the DOJ will not be improperly influenced and that he is in control of the Department of Justice.
And then he said, we'll not allow political considerations to derail the Justice Department from its work.
And while I'm Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.
I demand the highest standards.
And when they're not met, I take action.
However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the U.S. All right, so where does this all go?
We do have one other article that has come out.
Two key Republican senators have now signaled to the president that he could replace Sessions after the midterm elections in November.
And the president's entitled, it goes on to say, to an attorney general that he has faith in, somebody that's qualified for the job.
And I think there will come a time sooner rather than later where it will be time to have a new face, fresh voice at the Department of Justice at Lindsey Graham.
And he may be in line to head the Judiciary Committee next year.
Clearly, Attorney General Sessions doesn't have the confidence of the president.
Sessions defending that.
Anyway, joining us to delve into all of this, Phil Haney.
He's one of the founding members of the Department of Homeland Security.
His security clearances, interesting, have been revoked.
And the documents that they had put together in the 12 years that he was with the Department of Homeland Security, he had to erase when Barack Obama became president.
And he believes it could have had an impact in both the Orlando and San Bernardino shootings.
Information could have helped us prevent it.
Bill Benny is the former technical director of the NSA, World Geopolitical Military Analyst and Reporting Group.
And he also had security clearances revoked.
And Sarah Carter, Fox News contributor, investigative reporter.
Sarah, let's start first with this back and forth between Sessions and the President.
Well, it was bound to happen, Sean.
And, you know, earlier today, I just spoke with Senator Lindsey Graham and had a long conversation with him.
And he was very direct.
He said, look, you know, Sessions obviously has no confidence in the president.
The president and his relationship has deteriorated to such a point that the administration and the country is being affected by this.
And the president has every right to choose who he wants to be, you know, the attorney general.
And he has the right to do that.
And I think what we see now is that both, you know, Graham as well as Senator Charles Grassley are ready, you know, they're coming out.
They're trying to get their Republican colleagues on board.
They know they're not going to get the Dems on board.
The Dems are going to scream, you know, murder at this point, you know.
But they believe that at this point in time, it is time for Sessions to move on.
Now, I, you know, I told you, and I talked to you about this last night on your show, that there is some talk as well within the DOJ and up on Capitol Hill that maybe Sessions himself will find a moment to resign because he is so close and we're so close to the campaign, and that there may be some conflicts.
But I think the biggest conflict right now for Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the fact that his president that he is supposed to be serving no longer had confidence in him.
And we know there's a number of very important cases that should have been brought front and center for the DOJ, and we haven't seen any information on those cases yet.
Michael Flynn, who leaked his information on the tech cuts.
We haven't seen any information on what's happening with the Hillary Clinton Foundation investigation, which we know is ongoing, and many other investigations that you and I have discussed.
Let me go.
Bill Benny, by the way, I heard about your loss recently.
I don't know if you want to talk about it, but I want you to know that you're in our thoughts and prayers and we're thinking about you.
How many years were you at the NSA, sir?
36 total, four in the military and 32 as a civilian.
And you lost your security clearance?
Yes, they trumped up charges.
The FBI and the DOJ and the NSA got together and manufactured charges and got some knowingless, you know, mindless judge to sign it who didn't know any better because they labeled it nationalist security and they don't know what they're dealing with there.
And they simply had to believe them and they had a pack of lies.
It took us five years to find out exactly what they said because we had to sue them to get that affidavit to get the warrant.
And it was just a list of lies.
Let me ask you: does our government, you know, are they surveilling every American?
And by that, I mean when people send text messages or phone calls are made or emails are sent, does our government or do they use proxy governments or others in any way to store that data?
No, they're doing it directly through taps inside on the fiber network inside the United States.
It's the Fairview program, which is ATT with 100 taps inside the United States distributed with the population.
Those taps are going after Americans, not foreigners.
I mean, if they were after foreigners, all they'd have to do is be at the coastal points where the transoceanic cables surface.
They're right across the country with our population.
That's the target.
Are you saying that everybody's emails and text messages and phone calls are recorded?
Yes, and digitized and searched mostly with software.
Wow.
Wow.
And is that your experience, Phil Haney?
And you had your security clearances revoked, too?
It happened to me, too.
They told me they looked at my emails and my phone calls for several years before they actually were investigating the incidents that I was supposedly involved with.
I asked them, what is it?
Why do you have the authority to do that?
And they very plainly told me we can do exactly what we want to do.
Wow.
And it's true that when you had worked, you're a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security and you build up, if I can use the term dossiers on people that you believe we should keep an eye on as a country that could be possible or involved down the line in some terror activities that you were told to literally get rid of that?
Yes, literally.
I mean, I have the proof of it.
It's as literal as you can get.
I have the time stamp and the name of the person that did it.
I wanted to also mention about the misuse of FOIA and the process.
The fellow that's on the line that lost his clearance, it took him five years to find out why they did it, but it only took him five minutes to revoke it.
You see, it just shows you what they can do.
They can do things in the snap of a finger if they want to, but if they want to hold it up and keep you from finding out, they will literally make you force you to spend years and years trying to find out why they took the actions that they took.
Bill, what did you want to add?
Yeah, I mean, we had to go to a court to do a lawsuit against them to get them to even return our material that they stole from us.
Unbelievable.
You know, Sarah, if that's all true, wouldn't we be able to prove this?
And don't we have a Constitution and a Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure?
And why are we all getting worked up about FISA warrants if all this information is out there anyway?
But, Sean, we have a system that doesn't check on itself.
It basically runs itself.
It's a machine.
And both Phil and Bill are absolutely right about what they're talking about.
Remember, we broke those stories on your show last year.
Unwarranted surveillance, monitoring of U.S. citizens, people from inside both the FBI and NSA that were saying the same thing.
Look, they can just change the name of the operation or project.
They have plans for this stuff to come out.
As soon as this stuff leaks, they shut everything down.
They open something else up, and nobody knows what happened.
This is the reason why Senator Rand Paul and others, and remember the Democrats used to be on board with this, said we need checks and balances.
We need to know what is going on inside our intelligence community because right now it's being abused.
And how many unmaskings occurred?
How many unmaskings were reported?
Even the courts themselves were stunned at the abuse that was happening within the NSA and other departments.
But nothing ever changes.
Nothing ever gets done because Congress has to hold people accountable.
We'll take a break more with Sarah Carter, Bill Benny, Philip Haney, and more on the other side.
All right, as we continue with Bill Benny, Phil Haney, and Sarah Carter.
All right, so now that this battle is going on, and I don't know why Lindsey Graham would say, well, he might be able to do this after the election.
What's the point of him saying that, Sarah?
I think there's concern that there's so much happening right now that they won't be able to get confirmation of somebody else in that amount of time.
But now we also know that Senator Chuck Grassley is saying, well, wait a minute, we might be able to make this happen before the election.
We might be able to get this done.
I think there's also a lot of concern about a lot of politicking, how people are going to use this before the election.
Are they going to try to charge that the president is getting involved before the election?
Is that going to be a problem?
So there's a lot of back and forth, a lot of debate as to how this should play out and when it should play out.
Now, there's always that option that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will just resign.
You know, we don't see any movement on the issues that I've engaged in, Philip Payney.
And, you know, I don't see any reason that anyone should have any confidence that anything's going on behind the scenes.
All you get when you ask a question is, well, we couldn't comment if there was an ongoing investigation, and we can't confirm or deny there is one.
But it seems like everything always moves against Trump, and all this deep state, these deep state shenanigans are never brought to fruition.
And the indictments that should have been given have not been given.
Well, that's what struck me listening to the comments today is the absolute lack of respect for the position of the president and the presidency.
Everybody's telling him what to do.
But that's one of the things that I admire most about President Trump is his ability, his timing.
He's been waiting like fruit on a tree for these issues to ripen before he got, you know, before he took action.
But now some of the fruit is ripening.
One more thing about Attorney General Sessions.
If he says that he's running the Justice Department without undue political influence, then remember why he recused himself in the first place.
It had to do with Russian collusion.
He has not drawn any boundaries around the investigation.
He's let it run wild.
And that's what President Trump is so upset about.
And the other thing is the campaign promise to look into designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
That's in his purview.
And we haven't heard a single word about that for months.
Bill Benny, we'll give you the last word.
Well, I mean, you know, even with the Rosenstein indictment, I mean, we proved that the Gooseford II material, it's a fabrication.
And he's using that as a basis for the indictment, along with the D.C. leaks.
I mean, and then the indictment simply lists all the charges under Title 18 instead of Title 52, where all the violations of voting and election fraud crimes are.
I got to let you all go.
But Bill, I'm sorry again.
Phil Haney, thank you.
Sarah, we'll see you on TV tonight.
Thank you all for being with us.
My meeting with Putin was a tremendous success.
I got killed by the fake news.
They wanted me to go up and punch him in the face.
I said, I want to get along with Russia.
I want to get along with everybody.
They said I was too rough on North Korea.
Remember that?
Too rough.
But with Putin, they said it was too soft.
My meeting with Putin was a tremendous success, including Syria, Ukraine.
And if you look at Crimea, that was given away by President Obama.
It has nothing to do with me.
Nobody wants to mention that.
So we've had tremendous success.
And just to finish, NATO, I raised hundreds of billions of dollars from these countries that weren't paying.
They were delinquent.
They weren't paying their bills.
The press doesn't like to talk about that.
The press talks about the fact that I insulted a lot of the leaders because I was strong on the fact that they had to pay.
I said, no, the United States is not going to be paying your bills.
With that, I'm having a good time.
Given the events of today, the likelihood of impeachment, I'm not saying it's high necessarily, but it certainly went up.
Impeachment.
Impeached.
Impeachment.
The President is clearly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
He should resign his office or be impeached.
Today, the Trump presidency took a giant step toward impeachment.
Impeachment.
Impeachment implications are now in the air.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
If it is a crime, it certainly is an impeachable offense.
Impeach Trump.
Impeachment.
Impeachment.
The man who once said he'd take a bullet for Donald Trump today in federal court was essentially calling his old boss and client, now the president of the United States, a crook.
So there are a lot of players now who start to potentially construct an enterprise, a criminal enterprise that is around or may even involve the president.
It's very baked in as of now and is not going to change that Donald Trump is indeed a scumbag.
Voters know that.
I just, I think there is something worse than a useful idiot, and that would be a useful idiot under legal siege.
And that is what President Donald Trump is this morning.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour as we continue.
800-941 Sean is our toll-free telephone number.
Pleasure and a privilege to have back in our studios Ron Christie, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
How did you get such a prestigious job?
Good grief.
Hey man, I've got a lot to say, and I love teaching.
It's been a great gig.
Yeah, it's been six years.
I bet you're a great teacher.
I bet that you're probably pretty nice, but tough.
Very nice, hard ass.
And I'll tell you.
You are a hard ass.
Why are you a hard ass to those students?
Because they come in and they think it's a sanctuary space and a safe space.
I'm like, no, I'm not here to coddle you.
You're here to learn.
You're not here to text each other.
You're not here to chew gum.
You're not here to have dinner.
This is my class, my space.
What about kids that aren't paying attention in the back row?
Because that's who I was.
Oh, no, I kicked them out.
You throw them out?
Oh, yeah.
Hey, sunshine.
Yeah.
Hey.
Am I boring you?
No, literally.
So not only do I teach at them at court school, which is public policy, but the business school.
Yep.
Those kids, they don't want to pay attention.
I'm like, hey, there's a spot for somebody else.
There's a wait list.
If you don't want to be in here, I'll bring somebody else in there.
So do they sit up straight and put an apple on your desk every day?
I don't know about the apple.
But it's a Wi-Fi free zone.
But I really enjoy it.
The opportunity to really see my students from six years ago to now.
They're doing amazing things.
Really?
So you've been teaching, following them for six years.
Yes.
And I'm going to get back to that in a minute.
Anyway, Jonathan Gillum is with us.
Our liberal friends, he's so polite.
It's so annoying.
Danielle McLaughlin, who's with us, and we know the good news.
I don't know if we're allowed to announce it yet, but you've got to tell us whether that's a yes or a no.
Danielle, how are you?
It's a yes.
Yes, you can, and I'm great.
Okay.
Danielle is expecting a beautiful baby what?
Girl.
Congratulations.
And this is your, what, second, right?
Sick and yeah, I have a three and a half year old.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
I think you should name her Shauna after me.
What do you think?
Sean Hannity.
I don't know how that's going to go down.
He should share.
I know somebody named a dog Hannity after me.
I don't know.
Oh, no.
Hannity, get over here.
Oh, no.
Don't go there.
Yeah.
Oh, it's true.
That's really true.
All right.
We're going to get to the election.
I want to just get back to Ron, and you guys can join in here.
So I understand being.
What about the kids that are really?
Can you tell if they're really trying and they still don't get it?
Or these kids are all just brilliant because you're at a high level.
You can tell genuinely when a student is struggling with a concept, and you figure out how can I unlock the door to get them to walk through it so they understand it.
And so you take a step back and you say, okay, maybe I'm being too technical.
It's a great class.
It's the Washington ecosystem.
How does DC really work?
Wow.
And it's so awesome because you call you professor now or doctor?
I mean, they do.
They didn't answer my question, whether I do.
You're my buddy, so you can call me Ron.
Oh, man.
Well, we've been friends a long time.
You know, one day I want to teach a class.
That's actually one thing I want to do.
Well, see, I'm going to do the same thing you're going to do.
I'm going to say, if you don't want to be here, you can show up on this date for the final.
Well, you know what we're going to do, Sean?
We're going to have you come in as a guest speaker one day and not tell the students, and they'll freak out.
Oh, I bet they would freak out.
But I've taught classes before.
I can captivate them.
Here's my first place because I want to do it.
I'm Danielle and Jonathan.
I want you guys to weigh in on this.
I want to teach communications in the political and era of new media.
Oh, look, that is really where so many of the graduate students are looking at because they don't understand in the era of Twitter and all these other tech companies that are out there.
How do we communicate?
Well, listen, I mean, I will communicate.
I'll be more brazen on Twitter than I might be on the radio show or TV show.
You know, that's, for me, it was always about when I had the time to fight.
I've been busy a lot lately, but I would just, you know, go after people and call them a jackass or they're stop kissing the Democrat Hillary Clinton's ass and Obama's ass.
I'd say that on Twitter all the time.
But Twitter now has even gotten meaner.
Oh, it's gotten meaner.
You should see what Danielle tweets at me, right, Danielle?
Oh, it's terrible.
It's terrible.
I'm very mean on Twitter.
Actually, no, I try to be pretty, I try and, I don't know, I try not to be mean in any way, shape, or form.
But if I think you're wrong, I'm going to call you out and showing you know this to be true.
I honestly think it would be amazing if you.
I don't pay much attention to people right at me.
I just write back at them.
Exactly.
I'm an offensive player, Jonathan.
I think your years in the military would say that's a smart way to deal with it.
Yeah, you know, here's the deal.
You've taught me, and this is an honest truth, exactly what you're talking about.
You know, from coming and hosting your show and being around you when I'm on there and seeing the political environment that you have to work in, I've learned a tremendous amount.
I would say I probably learned more from you and David Webb than anybody else in radio and watching how you function.
Just how you do things can be, you could write a book on that and it would be a great teacher.
But I'll tell you, if it's far as throwing people out, all you got to do is bring Linda with you.
And then when she gets her box on the ground, Jonathan, you know what most people's problem is in terms of being honest in life?
And it's really simple, but it's profound.
And I'll get back to the class that I want to teach and how I'd begin the class.
But the biggest problem people have is they want to be liked too much.
I don't care.
Look, and it's kind of a paradox because if I'm not liked by people that listen to the radio program, if I'm not liked by people that watch TV, then my career is over.
But I think people respect you if you are honest about who you are instead of pretending to be something that you are not.
I mean, the difference between Donald Trump and every other politician for the most part is that Donald Trump doesn't spend all day hiding who he really is to create a false image.
He's actually just the opposite.
He is himself 24-7.
He tweets the way he thinks.
He acts the way he tweets.
It's just him.
And listen, take all the political knowledge, all the rules that you thought applied in politics and throw them out the window because he's shattered every rule and has created a whole new environment where people find it refreshing that he is shocking the system in Washington.
It's like, you know, when you put shock in your pool and you open it in the spring.
And it's like, wow, it just jolts the whole system.
The people like it.
Right?
You know, as Ron will tell you about kids coming into classrooms, is that you have to show up with a willingness to learn, not a desire to be taught.
You have to show up in wanting to learn.
And a teacher has to show up and be willing to go the distance and teach people.
And I think it's pretty interesting because the people who show up that just want to be taught and they don't want to give the effort, they remind me very much of the people that are not sitting back and looking at what Donald Trump does and literally learning from that because he's rewriting the book.
And people will criticize him because it doesn't fit their opinion of what a politician should be.
And that's what happens when people show up in class.
They say, this teacher is not teaching me correctly.
They should be teaching me this way instead of showing up and saying, I need to learn.
What does this person have to offer me?
Well, it's even worse than that because a lot of these students want to be spoon-fed.
I mean, not only do I teach grad school students at Georgetown, but I also teach undergrads.
And the undergrads are really challenging.
They have what are called helicopter parents.
The parents want to know what the assignments are.
The parents call you and say, why did you give my student this grade?
All right.
I've been guilty of being one of these, but go ahead.
Yeah, it's just really irritating.
In college, when they were young, oh, no, I don't care what my attitude is, you get good grades or you come home.
Yeah, right.
Simple.
But the badass thing that I love doing, Sean, is if a parent calls me and I say, I'm not here to educate you.
I'm here to educate your student.
Tell them to visit me.
And then I hang up the phone.
Ouch.
Good for you.
All right.
So here's my class.
And I'll throw it by all of you.
So I want to start a communications class.
The number one fear people have is speaking in public.
And honestly, I have watched big, strong football players collapse if they have to open their mouth and talk in public.
And you know what?
It's the number one fear people have.
So I would start out.
This is a communications era.
You want to be successful in whatever business you're going to be, and you need to be able to communicate.
How many of you raise your hands and don't lie, are afraid to speak in public?
There are going to be kids that raise their hands.
How many of you are terrified at the idea of ever speaking in public?
Everyone close their eyes, but if it's true, put up your hand.
Okay.
Who is so terrified that if I asked you to now, you would have a complete panic attack?
And then when that person raises their hand, I'm going to say, stand up.
And I'm going to say, I'm going to teach you how to do it.
And then if you listen to me at the end of this conversation, you cannot get less than a B in my class.
It's hard.
It's hard, though.
But then I would teach them how to do it.
There are certain ways most people are so wrapped up in thinking and thinking and thinking.
And their thoughts create feelings and feelings create more thoughts and they're spinning and then the more thoughts, more feelings, more anxious.
Then you get bodily reactions to your own thinking.
And then that becomes sweat.
And then sweat becomes shaking and shaking becomes more thoughts.
And everyone's seeing me and watching me.
And you just, you know, simple relaxation techniques and just taking a deep breath and focused on what your mind, what do you want to communicate?
That's it.
That's it.
And I tell you what, Professor Hannity, I think if you put forth that class, there'd be a lot of people.
I know Jonathan and Danielle and I would certainly sit in on it.
Well, definitely.
No, Danielle already has.
Danielle has this down because all she does is say, Sean, oh, so good to see you.
It's great to talk to you.
Oh, as it relates to that horrible question about how horrible my Democratic colleagues are.
How are your family?
How is your family doing?
And never answers the question.
She's so nice.
I mean, you just, what are you going to do?
Well, speaking of authenticity, I think I really agree.
I mean, honestly, there is nothing wrong with being warm or kind or genuinely caring about the people you're talking to, even if you disagree fundamentally with what they're saying.
And to your point, Sean, you know, being able to stand up in front of the classroom or being able to go on the air in front of millions of people, if you aren't your authentic self, I think you've got real problems.
And one thing I love about our weekly chats is that I know that when I answer that ring, you're going to tell me exactly what you think and I'm going to tell you exactly what I think.
And the same thing goes with your friends.
I got to let you all go.
Ron, good to have you back.
Danielle, thank you.
And Jonathan, always, thank you.
They have been so willing to move the gold post every single time with this president.
No matter what he says, no matter what he does, right?
The fact that he was even sworn in as president after the Access Hollywood tape let me know for a fact that the Republican Party is actually not working on behalf of the American people.
They are working on behalf of Donald Trump.
And he's been able to bully them into their silence.
And I don't think that today changes much.
Unfortunately, I'm sure we'll hear what he has to say about this at his rally.
But Fox News is talking about, you know, a girl in Iowa and not this, right?
I'm so sorry for the family here.
And I know this is hard, not only for the family, but for the people in her community, the people throughout Iowa.
But one of the things we have to remember is we need an immigration system that is effective, that focuses on where real problems are.
Last month, I went down to the border and I saw where children had been taken away from their mothers.
I met with those mothers who had been lied to, who didn't know where their children were, who hadn't had a chance to talk to their children.
And there was no plan for how they would be reunified with their children.
I think we need immigration laws that focus on people who pose a real threat.
I don't think mamas and babies are the place that we should be spending our resources.
You know, you hear the insensitivity of some people.
Oh, Iowa girl?
Really?
Elizabeth Vaughan, really?
Now, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, has actually come out, and he has said that some people, because of their strident anti-law enforcement sanctuary city supporting policies, that they're accomplices.
He specifically actually called out Geraldo Rivera, and they're going to probably debate on TV.
Geraldo's really ticked off about it.
And we'll get his reaction, and then we'll set up that TV debate.
But he'll join us next, and much more coming up as the Sean Hannity show continues.
Final hour free-for-all.
The CNNs, the MSNBCs, most of the print media in this country and the Democrats, they are all accomplices in the death of this young girl and the death of everyone else.
And even Geraldo Rivera, and I've never met the guy.
I seem to like him, seemed like he's got a good heart.
You know, I saw him here on Fox saying, well, I feel badly about this, but there is no but.
And I'll be happy to debate Geraldo Rivera anytime, any place, anywhere on this issue.
We have to secure this border and protect the lives of American citizens.
All right, that was on America's Newsroom earlier today, news roundup and information overload hour.
It's the Sean Hannity Show, 800-941 Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, we actually contacted the office of the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, and he said he will debate on my television show, Hannity, Geraldo Rivera.
Geraldo now joins us.
He responded back on Twitter as well as being pretty angry about what the Lieutenant Governor said.
And also joining us, Selena Zita, who I've always thought is an incredible writer and author.
She has a brand new book out.
I just got a hold of it.
It's called The Great Revolt Inside the Populist Coalition, Reshaping American Politics.
Welcome both of you to the program.
And Geraldo, the Lieutenant Governor, has said yes and is accepting our invitation to debate you on my TV show.
And I know you are never going to back away from a fight, so I'm assuming you're in.
He is a fear monger, Sean, and I accept his challenge for debate.
His claim is outrageous that I am effectively an accomplice to this horrifying murder of this poor woman, Molly Tibbets, just because I beg for compassion and mercy for undocumented immigrants.
How dare he make so false an accusation?
Well, look, I will say this, because you and I have debated the issue of immigration a lot.
Although in this debate, when you guys have it, I'm going to let you two go at it because I don't think it's fair if I get in the middle.
It's going to be two-on-one.
You and I do disagree on some aspects of immigration, but you have come around.
You do support building a wall on our southern border.
And I don't even think that you're against vetting people from foreign countries, if I remember correctly.
Of course not.
I want an orderly immigration process.
But I don't want to leave the, before I get to my willingness to compromise with you and people who hold your much stronger or harder line views than I do, I want to deal with what Governor Patrick has said.
He and others like him are using the Molly Tibbets case, this horrible murder by this savage person who happens to be or may not be undocumented.
Would they care if he wasn't an immigrant?
You know, what about this father in Colorado, a contemporaneous case?
He kills his pregnant wife, an unborn child.
He kills his other two small children.
Was there even a whisper from Dan Patrick and his ilk about the Colorado case?
What if that Colorado father was an undocumented immigrant?
My God, there would be lynching.
This is not the way to solve the problem of the 11, 12, 13 million undocumented immigrants in this country.
But I say this, and I say this with all the vigor in my heart.
This has to be handled compassionately, pragmatically, and the vast majority of this population all over the world.
Well, before I get to Selena, let me ask one more question.
As it relates to the estimated, and I don't think anybody knows the real number, 11 million.
Let's use that number for now.
As it relates to those that are in this country and in here illegally, and maybe some from when they were young, what about the idea that they, if they want to stay, they have to provide to the country the evidence that they are, you know, people that love the country, here to stay, want to be part of the American family, not involved in any activities that would otherwise that we don't need to invite into the country.
We have a right to know everybody who is in this country, documented or undocumented.
The United States has a right to know who is here.
I think that if we would give them a yellow card, not a green card, a yellow card that protects them from deportation and arrest, and let them come to every Walmart parking lot in this country.
You come here, you get fingerprinted, you get photographed.
If you have no crimes in your record in your home country or here, you've been working, you have citizen children, you have a citizen wife, then we're going to give you a pathway to normalcy, a pathway to at least a green card, if not a pathway to eventual citizenship.
But if you don't show up or if we check you out and you refuse to pay a fine, refuse to wait your turn, then we're going to throw your ass out or going to put you in jail.
There is a way to solve this, this jingoistic lieutenant governor of Texas, and I look forward to the debate on the Hannity program, the number one cable-rated program in the world.
I look forward to debating him because what he is doing is stirring up hatred and fear.
Let me stand up for him, too.
I think he feels like a lot of Americans.
We are fed up.
You know, there are innocent people that are dying and horrible crimes committed, Geraldo.
And you know, I've been down to the border 12 times, and I've seen the drug warehouses and the tunnels, and we've seen the human trafficking.
You know, it's like Kate Steinley.
Now we have Molly Tibbetts.
But when I was down there and sat through a briefing, Selena, with Rick Perry, the governor at the time, there were 642,000 crimes committed in a seven-year period of time against Texans by illegal immigrants.
Some of them trivial, but some of them included murder.
And the only point that I think that I would say is that people are frustrated because this is needless death.
Right.
I mean, look, in the people that I interviewed, not only just for the Great Revolt, which is like an inside look at the different archetypes of voters that the mainstream media did not pick up in understanding who was going to vote for Trump, but also in my daily reporting across the country, you know, people are frustrated because of, on a number of levels.
First of all, safety and security.
You know, they believe that while they believe that most people that cross the border are not criminals, you know, they understand they're coming here because we do have the best country in the world and we do have amazing opportunities.
But that there is impossible when the crossings are illegal to be able to filter out and say, well, these are the good guys and these are the bad guys.
And so they worry about the safety, they worry about security, and they also believe in the rule of law.
Most people in this country, it doesn't matter what race they are, what gender they are, they they they most people follow the law and they expect the same thing from other people's people in their communities or in their state or or within the country.
And so they find it very frustrating to spend their lives doing the right things and following the laws.
And they see other people sort of not get by without doing that.
And they believe that that is not only unfair, but it also has a lot of sort of pressure on social services.
And that in the end of the day, they end up paying for that.
You know, Geraldo, what's your reaction to it?
I mean, there is, at some point, what about the people if they came into this country or they're in this country illegally, and you're talking about we do investigations, they could be very expensive.
Should people have to pay for their own investigations?
Why not?
And I have absolutely no disagreement with the previous speaker.
Everything she said, I agree with.
But I say this and I say it again.
Every survey, every investigation, every look from the Pew Foundation to the New York Times, everyone who investigates the actuality as opposed to the hysteria comes to the same conclusion.
Undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than citizens do.
In other words, when you have undocumented immigrants per capita in your community, it is more likely to make it safer than to make it more dangerous.
To fearmonger and to portray them all as MS-13 or as this scumbag from Iowa is so cruelly.
But Geraldo, I don't see people doing what you're saying.
I think people because we've made them fear, we've made them so fearful.
First of all, you know that Texas and the whole Southwest used to belong to Mexico.
After the United States conquered Mexico, first Texas won in 1836, and then the war of 1846 and 47, we took that territory.
But after that, I think that they've come across the border and gone home and come to the United States.
What is the name of that movement?
There's a movement in California that thinks that all these states should be given to Mexico.
You do know that.
That's ridiculous.
That's stupid.
But I think that we have to remember the special relationship that exists between Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans.
I think the president understands that too.
I actually would predict that there's going to be at some point new trade agreements with Mexico and with Canada that are going to be fair for both sides, free and open trade, and a much better deal than what we have with NAFTA.
You are a conservative, and you can be hardlined, Sean, but you're also a reasonable person and you're a patriot.
And both of us share a love of the embattled 45th president, regardless of everything else.
100%.
Listen, I know you love your country.
And we agree on a lot of this stuff.
You have this situation.
You're not going to round up all these people.
That's what's destroyed the reputation of ICE.
It's not ICE going after the drug cartels or anything.
ICE is doing their job, though.
That is the apricot picker in the middle of the night.
Wait a minute.
But the difference is that we are a nation of laws.
The one person, and I would argue that what Donald Trump did, what Obama didn't do, there was separation of families under Obama and under George W. Bush.
And it was Donald Trump that stopped it.
But with that said, you do need laws and you need a comprehensive plan.
And even though the president had offered, you know, things that I would think that everybody would want, including, you know, the president is literally offering to those kids that are here an opportunity to stay.
And even then, the Democrats want to politicize it because they don't want to pay for the wall.
I think that the election of 2016 mattered.
Elections matter.
A majority of people in the states that had those electoral votes voted for President Trump and his policies.
I get that.
One of his signature policy was the border wall.
If you saw the stories in the Times and elsewhere last week about Spain and its border with Morocco, the Spanish enclaves in North Africa, you see the big fence.
Every country has a fence.
Countries should have fences.
We should have defined borders.
Let the wall begin.
The Democrats a few years ago were all in favor of it.
I don't care about the wall.
They really don't show on.
But what I care about is fairness, first of all, for the dreamers, for youngsters who were brought here at a very early age.
But Selena, the president offered that.
The president put it on a silver platter and they rejected it for political purposes.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it was offered.
So I think what's really interesting in writing The Great Revolt, which is the only book about the people who actually put him in office, when we went back and did a survey with Trump-only voters, we found that the top four reasons why they voted for him of the top, there were four of them.
The first three were all economic, and they were all at about 30%.
Immigration and the wall, while they wanted it, was only at 7%.
It wasn't the biggest priority.
So I think that it is an important thing to these voters.
It is part of why they, some of them, did not vote for someone who shared their values, but shared their priorities.
But I think a lot of this support for Trump is economic and culturally based.
We got to take a break, Selena.
Stay right there.
More with Selena Zito, author of a brand new book.
It's called The Great Revolt Inside the Populist Coalition, Reshaping American Politics.
Geraldo Rivera, also author of The Geraldo Show, more on the other side.
All right, as we continue, Geraldo Rivera and also Selena Zito, Selena's new book, The Great Revolt Inside the Populist Coalition, Reshaping American Politics.
What do you think of, at some point, do we have to blame individuals that are against enforcing the law for when instances like Molly Tibbetts or Kate Steinle happen?
Well, I mean, I think it does have to go and come back to the politicians.
No, I mean, look, you know, all news organizations, you know, report things the way they report things.
But I think that the, you know, and things are a little hot, and he got really hot during that interview.
And I think he handled it rather inartfully when he segued to Geraldo.
I think he was more interested in debating him the merits of his viewpoints rather than his being an accomplice.
But nonetheless, I think that the responsibility does fall on the politicians.
I mean, not as accomplices, but in not being able to do what people put them in office for.
It's one of the things that is incredibly frustrating for a voter, right?
They keep trying to send Washington a message with their votes, and Washington keeps ignoring it.
And on one of those issues is immigration security borders.
What do you think happens in 75 days from now, Selena?
I'm not convinced there is a blue wave.
You know, I'm not saying they're not going to win seats.
They're definitely not going to win seats.
But I think we're somewhere between 2006, where the Democrats might win 30 seats.
They might not even hit the majority.
Or 2010, when the Republicans had a tsunami over the Democrats, only in reverse.
I don't see that happening.
There's too much here.
We'll also get some calls in this final hour.
800-941, Sean is on number.
Geraldo Rivera, Selena Zito, 800-941, Sean.
Quick break, right back.
We'll continue.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941.
Sean is on number.
Continuing our debate, Geraldo Rivera, Fox News legal analyst, author of the number one bestseller, The Geraldo Show.
Selena Zito has just come out with a great book.
I'm reading it now, The Great Revolt, Inside the Populist Coalition, Reshaping American Politics.
And if you're just joining us, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas saying about news media and people that have been unwilling to solve the immigration problem and build a wall and support securing American borders, saying that basically they're aiding and abetting in the innocent deaths like we saw this past week and finding this body of this young Iowa college student, 20 years old, beautiful girl, Molly Tibbetts.
And of course, it brings up memories of what happened with Kate Steinley and sadly so many other innocent people that have been killed by others that have entered this country illegally or overstayed their visas illegally and not respecting American law and American sovereignty and how big an issue that this is going to be in 75 days.
Geraldo, I will say, knowing you, and I know just to go back to what I know about you, I know you care about the issue, but I also think, and I don't know why you got sort of blocked in with some of these people on the hard left that want to eliminate ICE, want to open borders.
You know, we know that Congressman Ellison is one that's saying, you know, he dreams of a country with zero borders.
If we don't have border security and if we don't know who's coming in and out of this country, we are inviting nothing but trouble.
And it means that, you know, I've been down there enough to see all the drugs that are coming into this country.
I've been to the drug warehouses.
We know the crime statistics.
I sat with Governor Perry in the middle of a meeting about such.
642,000 crimes committed against Texans in a seven-year period, including many violent crimes, including murder.
Some of them were petty crimes, but a lot of them, these are real crimes against real American citizens.
Now, you have, over time, conceded, okay, if you want to pay for the wall, you want to build the wall, you're cool with that.
Now, the question is, I think our only big area of disagreement has been, you know, what about the 11 million?
What about the DREAMers?
I don't disagree with you.
We should be a compassionate country, especially for younger people or people that were young when they came here.
Maybe now they're adults.
I'm not talking about banging on doors and pulling people out of their homes at night and sending them back on a plane.
No, they're not doing that.
No, they're not.
You can't hide the fact that ICE is going into private homes and taking mom out and dad out or picking them up at the store in the courthouse.
I mean, it's just outrageous.
This is the fact that cannot be ignored.
Wherever you stand on the ideological spectrum, the science of it does not lie.
The vast majority of this population is otherwise law-abiding.
They commit fewer crimes than citizens do.
They take care of our babies.
They mow our lawns.
They wash our dishes.
They process poultry and those disgusting plants.
They meat pack and those other disgusting plants.
They pick the fruits and the vegetables.
But you're describing my grandparents and you're describing them.
Of course you are.
And it's also describing reaction to the Irish in the 19th century.
No, no, no, but I don't know if the same conversation 150 years ago.
Listen, when my grandparents got here in Boston and New York, it was Irish Catholic need not apply.
I have one of those signs from back in the day.
It's not what ICE, like for example, we have sanctuary cities that literally are aiding, abetting, and protecting that known criminals and some violent criminals that when they're finished with their jail terms, they will not hand them over to federal officials for deportation.
That is that in that sense, Lieutenant Patrick is right, that they're literally now creating a very dangerous situation by letting violent people at times back into the community because they refuse to enforce federal immigration laws.
And they refuse to allow ICE to do their job and support federal immigration laws.
To give people an opportunity to come out of the shadows, if you couple it with the border wall, the president made that offer.
Selena, I think that could be worked out, but you can't have these cities saying we're going to take all the federal dollars we can get, but we're not going to enforce federal laws.
Well, if they do that to me, they should surrender whatever monies they're getting from the federal government.
Right.
And a lot of people, you know, I would argue the majority of people believe that it's important to enforce the law.
It's not good governing to single out a certain part of society and say you don't have to follow the law.
Not only is it not good because of security reasons in case they are not people of moral ground, right?
Like they're going to commit a crime, but also it just makes other people resentful of them.
It doesn't help assimilate and make them more part of the community because they get special treatment.
I mean, they're not helping anybody by doing that.
And again, it's part of the sort of frustration with both political parties in how they have handled this situation, whether they've designated their town or their city in Sanctuary City, but also if they have not gone to Washington and voted and represented their district as opposed to representing their party.
And I think that that is why, I would argue that that's why both parties are unhappy with their establishment figures.
And I still don't think we understand, meaning the political class, understand exactly how voters feel about the decisions they do and do not make on the votes that they do and do not take.
Geraldo, your answer to that.
Absolutely no disagreement with what she just said.
I think that she is spot on and very pragmatic.
I am also pragmatic.
We build the wall.
The wall has, it could have the Sean Hannity door, it could have the Geraldo Rivera door.
We vastly increase the number of temporary visas.
Agriculture workers come and go.
Even let them bring their families.
If that's what it is for the season, they go home.
As soon as they violate the process, you revoke their card and they're out.
There's a way to recognize the historic imperative that these people are necessary.
Russia is dying.
Why is Russia dying?
Russia is dying because the population is aging out.
They're having less than replacement population, as we would if it was just our core population.
Our vitality, Sean, comes from immigration, over a million people legally a year.
They come with their strong backs or with their brilliant minds, and they go to our fabulous universities, and then we tell them they have to go home after they graduate.
Well, they come because they were brought here at three years old and they've been here for 20 years.
We say, you have to go because you're not a citizen.
But wait, I've been here 20 years.
I don't even speak Spanish.
It doesn't matter.
You know, there's a way to be practical.
There's a way to be dignified.
There's a way to give people the compassion that we're known for and still pragmatically tap into that energy, that intellectual and physical energy.
Who was Google invented by?
You know, all of these great innovations, we should be what the Statue of Liberty says we are.
We should be the clarion call of liberty and send us your best.
Send us your final.
We will make people an opportunity where they can be somebody.
They can invent Google.
Sean.
Well, you know, look, we can have contributions from everybody.
All right.
800-941-Sean is our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
All right, Donna, Staten Island, let's go to you.
You're on with Geraldo and Selena Zito.
Welcome to the program.
Thanks for checking in.
Hi there, Sean.
Hi, everybody.
What's going on?
What's on your mind today?
Well, I wanted to say that as an American citizen, whether you live in Brooklyn, New York, or Brooklyn, Iowa, I think it's only reasonable to expect to be safe within our nation's sovereign borders.
I don't think we're asking too much.
And if part of that means that we have to do a better job vetting who comes into our country, we're not being unreasonable by asking that.
What about the, well, that is a good point, Donna.
I mean, what about Geraldo, the idea, everyone had such a meltdown over the president's so-called travel ban and the legality and constitutionality of it.
But if you come from, let's say, any country that practices Sharia law, if people grow up in a culture with a legal system that is the antithesis of ours, where women could be told how to dress, maybe they can't drive, maybe they can't vote, where marital rape in some of these countries is legal, where gays and lesbians are murdered and thrown off roofs or hung for being who they are,
where there is no freedom of religion for Christians or Jews to practice their faith freely and openly.
And you want to come here, but you grew up under that system.
Do we have a right to know how you feel about important issues that are American values?
I don't know about that.
I think it would be on a case-by-case basis.
Wait, let me answer your question.
I noted the treatment of the Irish and later the Italians in the 19th century and the early 20th century.
I note now the treatment of the Mormons in the 19th century, how they were driven out and had to escape with their famous march through the Midwest all the way until they found their sanctuary in Utah because they were thought to be so odd and so out of the mainstream.
And still they're living with the residuals of that all these many years later.
I think what you do is, when it comes to immigration, you'd vet people with an eye toward skepticism and thoroughness and what's the best available information.
And when in doubt, you leave them out.
Whether they come from a Sharia country or a Catholic country or a Protestant or Buddhist or Hindu or agnostic or tribal, you know, if they are people of good character, they come in here.
Our country moderates that kind of behavior.
And by law, Sharia is illegal.
And anyone practicing it could be arrested.
And if they were a naturalized citizen or a legal resident or an illegal resident, they could be deported.
But I think we have to remember that they are the fuel that's keeping us great.
I also think that when you take a Molly Tibbetts case, God rest her soul, and what her poor parents must be thinking as they watch her case be politicized.
This is an awful tragedy.
I saw a tweet from one of her, purporting to be from one of her family members, a cousin who said to a prominent conservative commentator, get her name out of your mouth.
Our family is an equal opportunity, I'm paraphrasing, is an equal opportunity, open-minded family.
We don't distinguish between one group and another group.
We just see good people and bad people.
That's what I want America to do.
But I think Americans understand that.
Listen.
And white people.
But most Americans, and this infuriates me, Selena, every two and four years, this phony BS narrative that Republicans are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.
They want dirty air, water.
They want to kill children and throw Granny over the cliff.
It's all a lie.
You're a conservative, Selena.
I've been a conservative my entire life.
I don't know those people in the conservative movement.
I don't ever want to meet them or know them.
They are the antithesis of what I believe.
But if you grow up in a culture with values that are the antithesis of our values, American values, we can't force other countries to adopt, you know, our constitutional republic as their own.
But if you grow up in a country that systematically abuses women, gays and lesbians, Christians and Jews, and that's all you've known your whole life, and you want to come to this country, where do you go from there?
Well, I mean, I think at least the people that I interview, and I've gone to all 49 states, driven to every one of them.
I just can't drive to Hawaii, so until I figure that one out.
But people expect a vigorous screening of whoever's coming to this country.
I'm going to have to leave it there because we're running out of time.
But Selena, thank you.
Selena Zito.
Great revolt inside the populist coalition reshaping America.
Geraldo, look forward to having you and the lieutenant governor on.
And I will just be a fair arbiter in that debate, let you both go at it.
And we'll let our audience, maybe we'll put up a poll who wins the debate afterwards.
We look forward to that.
Thank you for your time as always, sir.
That's all the time we have for today.
Sarah Carter on the Jeff Sessions Donald Trump feud that is ongoing.
Greg Jarrett, David Schoen.
And we're going to investigate the investigators following the money.
All those people with security clearances, you know, Jim Comey, for example.
How much money are they making?
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