As the country celebrates Labor Day, the Sean Hannity Show celebrates the success of the Trump Presidency with the special interview that Sean had back in July. Doug Schoen and John McLaughlin predict the 2018 races with some of the latest Summer polling. 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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For those folks who've lost their job right now because a plant went down to Mexico, you know, that isn't going to make you feel better.
And so, what we have to do is to make sure that folks are trained for the jobs that are coming in now, because some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back.
The truth is, we aren't a single-issue country.
We need more than a plan for the big banks.
The middle class needs a raise, and we need more jobs.
We need jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced.
Jobs that provide dignity and a future.
We can do it by unleashing the innovation of our entrepreneurs and small businesses.
We can do it with new investments in manufacturing infrastructure.
Moments ago, the numbers for America's economic growth, or GDP, were just released.
And I am thrilled to announce that in the second quarter of this year, the United States economy grew at the amazing rate of 4.1%.
We're on track to hit the highest annual average growth rate in over 13 years.
And I will say this right now, and I'll say it strongly: as the trade deals come in one by one, we're going to go a lot higher than these numbers.
And these are great numbers.
During each of the two previous administrations, we averaged just over 1.8% GDP growth.
By contrast, we are now on track to hit an average GDP annual growth of over 3%, and it could be substantially over 3%.
Each point, by the way, means approximately $3 trillion and 10 million jobs.
Think of that.
Each point, you go up one point.
That doesn't sound like much.
It's a lot.
It's $3 trillion, and it's 10 million jobs.
All right, as we continue Sean Hannity show, there was Obama saying, yeah, in his own words, that some of these jobs are never coming back.
The only president in American history never to hit 3% GDP growth in a single year.
And he's accumulated more debt than every other president before him combined, including 13 million more Americans on food stamps, 8 million more in poverty.
And we've gone from the lowest labor participation rate in history now to the highest.
And that's only part of the economic story of today, explosive 4.1 GDP growth.
Joining us now is the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Mr. President, congratulations.
And on top of that, I think one of the more underreported stories is that we now have a trade deficit that dropped by more than $50 billion.
Well, thank you very much, Sean.
And you're right.
That to me is so important.
Your phase two of the question, $52 billion drop in trade deficit.
That hasn't happened in decades.
And it's really something very special.
And a lot of that is because of the policies that we're putting in place.
And it's going to get better, Sean.
It's totally sustainable.
I look so forward to next quarter.
I look forward to watching what happens over the years.
It is something very special that's taking place.
How is it that trade is so interconnected to all this?
And a lot of people thought you were going to start a trade war with Europe.
Well, that was put to rest pretty much this week.
And you said you found a new favorite word, which is reciprocity.
Well, reciprocal is very important to me because, you know, we have countries out there, Sean, and most of you folks know exactly what I'm talking about because they'll watch and they'll see.
We have countries that charge us a 100% tariff or tax, and we charge them nothing for the same product coming into our country.
We have countries charging us far more than that, close to 300% in certain cases.
And yet when I say, well, we're going to tax them or we're going to be reciprocal and charge them the same 300%, everyone goes crazy and they say, oh, you can't do that.
It's not free trade, which is sort of laughable when you think about it.
In other words, they can do it, but we can't.
So those days are over.
And I think that's had a huge impact, even though it's very early.
I've only been doing this a little more than a year and a half with some of these and the policies really.
It takes a while to get them enacted.
But it's having a tremendous impact.
And if we can straighten out trade, which I'll do absolutely, and it's already happening.
You see what happened with Europe yesterday.
But as we straighten out trade, we can pick up a lot of points on GDP.
To be clear, though, you don't want a trade war.
You want free trade, but you want fair trade.
Right.
I want fair trade.
I don't want trade that people think is fair and free, but we're being charged 50%.
As an example, China, and I have great respect for President Xi.
I think he's a friend of mine.
He may not like me so much anymore, but we'll be friends again.
But China charges us 25% when we send a car to China to be sold.
When they send a car to us, we charge them essentially nothing.
They say 2.5%, but it's not even collected.
So they get 25%.
We get like nothing.
And it doesn't make sense.
It's not fair.
You can't compete.
That's like a baseball game.
I give an analogy.
That's like you're having a big game with a very good team, and they score 15 runs in the first inning.
So the score is 15 to nothing.
Now you're going into the second inning.
It's not looking good.
That's what happens when they charge 25% and we're charging 2.5% and not collecting.
Essentially, that's what's happening, and we can't do that.
And we don't do that anymore.
You know, one of my criticisms often, a theme on both radio and TV, is the fact that the media is so corrupt and so one-sided.
And it's like every day they have a breathless thing, negative thing to say about the president.
We're 101 days away from the midterm elections.
I'm arguing, in my view, that it's the most important midterms in our life.
But if we go back to 2016, the Gateway pundit actually picked up some really interesting headlines that if you were to become president, you would lead the economy off the cliff.
I'll read you a few of them.
CNN Money said Trump promises 4% growth.
Economists say no way.
The LA Times said if Trump thinks he can get more than 3% economic growth, he's dreaming.
The Wall Street Journal said Trump's 3 percent growth target looks out of reach.
The Hill wrote Trump's growth projections leave economists in disbelief.
And you got your Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman.
Trump's election means we are probably looking at a global recession with no end in sight, and I can keep going.
And Barack Obama, who never reached 3% growth in a year, said, What magic wand does Trump have to revive the economy?
Usually the answer is he doesn't have an answer.
I guess their predictions were wrong, sir.
Well, we've had the answers during the debates, and I think we were very strong in the debates on what we want to do.
And if you look at the predictions, they've all been wrong.
I mean, we are far ahead of what anybody thought, except me.
We can go a lot higher than this.
You know, if you look at regulations, nobody talked about regulations.
Had my opponent won, the Democrats, you would have had an economy that instead of being up close to 40% in the stock market, they would have been down 40 or 50 percent because the regulations were choking this country.
And I'm all for regulations for clean air, clean water.
We want to have great environmental control.
But they had 10 regulations when you could have used one.
And as you know, I've been cutting 22 regulations for every new one, new regulation that's put in, which are very few, because we were totally over-regulated.
You couldn't do anything.
Highways were taking 20 years to get approved.
You have a highway that's really important.
It would take from 17 to 20 years to get your approvals.
By that time, the highway system is different, and the roads are being built a different way, and you couldn't make changes.
No, this is we're doing great.
We could do a lot better.
The fact is that if I can cut the trade deficit from $817 billion, think of that.
We have a trade deficit with other countries that's trading with other countries, $817 billion.
If I cut it in half, right there we'll pick up three to four points.
So you could add that to the four or five, and so we'd be at eight or nine.
Now, I don't want to say that too much, and I didn't want to say it too much during the campaign because I would have been criticized.
People wouldn't have believed it.
But now they're starting to believe.
And you're right.
You look at a guy like Krugman, he doesn't know a thing.
I mean, the predictions were so bad.
A big factor, though, Sean, was regulation.
And obviously, a big factor was the taxes.
But a lot of this, really, the taxes are going to help in the future.
I look so forward to seeing the next quarter because this is so sustainable.
This is going to go for a long time.
You know, we have numbers that are in now, and all during the 2016 campaign, I gave statistics out.
I did it every day because I wanted people to know what eight years of the Obama economy were.
And, you know, lowest labor participation rate, 13 million more Americans on food stamps, 8 million more in poverty.
He took on more debt than every other president before him combined.
You now have accumulated your track record.
We have nearly 4 million new jobs in the country.
We have the largest labor participation rate in history.
We have literally nearly 4 million new jobs created in manufacturing jobs that people thought weren't going to come back.
Well, that's nearly 700,000.
Then we've got 2 or 3 million fewer people on food stamps, record low unemployment in 14 states for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and a 65-year low for women in the workplace.
That's pretty impressive, and now 4.1% GDP.
I think that we can make a comparison that some economic policies work and others do not.
Well, you're really right.
And I've heard those statistics from you for even a long time.
And now when you look back, it's hard to believe that we put up with it.
And much of it was caused by bad trade deals.
People don't want to say much of it was caused by regulation and overtaxed.
I mean, you're overtaxed.
Think of it.
In the election coming up in now, just a little more than three months.
The Democrats want to raise everybody's taxes.
They want to give back these massive tax cuts that we got and reforms that are so good for everybody, but the tax cuts.
So they want to raise people's taxes.
They want to open up borders.
They want to get rid of ICE.
I mean, the things they're doing are so destructive.
We won't have a country.
So they want their crumbs back.
They want their crumbs back.
They want open borders.
They want Obamacare.
They want to impeach you and they want to stop all investigations into deep corruption.
Yeah, no, there's a lot of corruption out there, but it happens to be on the other side of the ledger, the Democrats.
And if you talk about collusion, the collusion is there.
There's no question about it.
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We're going to have more with the president coming up in just a minute, an exclusive interview he gave us after these 4.1% GDP numbers.
Huge win for the American people.
Bad news politically for Democrats, but I want to play something that is really important.
All these Democrats that predicted nothing but failure and the same ones that supported Obama's eight years of failure.
Some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back.
And when somebody says, like the person you just mentioned, who I'm not going to advertise for, that he's going to bring all these jobs back, well, how exactly are you going to do that?
What are you going to do?
There's no answer to it.
He just says, well, I'm going to negotiate a better deal.
Well, how exactly are you going to negotiate that?
What magic wand do you have?
Imagine him being in charge when your jobs and savings are at stake.
Imagine him trying to figure out what to do in case of an emergency.
So it's no wonder, is it, that risk analysts listed Donald Trump, a Donald Trump presidency, as one of the top threats facing the global economy, ahead of terrorism.
He has no real strategy for creating jobs, just a string of empty promises.
And maybe we shouldn't expect better from someone whose most famous words are: you're fired.
Trump and conservatives in Congress are planning a big tax cut for millionaires and billionaires.
To justify it, they're using the oldest song in their playbook, claiming tax cuts on the rich will trickle down to working families in the form of stronger economic growth.
Baloney.
This isn't just about the unemployment rate.
It's about wages rising in our country so that consumer confidence is restored because our economy will never fully reach its possibilities unless we increase the consumer confidence.
And that can only be increased by the better deal, better jobs, better wages, better future, and lowering costs to families.
Frankly, even on the economic front, he got a lot of grief about trade from even fellow Republicans while traveling in the Midwest.
So today felt like an attempt, and you could even hear it.
He kept veering from his remarks and then going back to the remarks and extending them even longer, but all in a sense of trying really hard to say, hey, please pay attention to the economic story and ignore all the other stuff.
I get it.
Politically, he needs to do this, Savannah.
But I can tell you, there is a sense of where you overhype something.
And there were so many times in those remarks that it felt overhyped on how he was talking about the economy.
I feel like the bottom has to fall out at some point.
And by the way, I'm hoping for it because I think one way you get rid of Trump is a crashing economy.
So please bring on the recession.
All right, unbelievable.
All right, we'll take a quick break and more of my interview with the president right after the release of the GDP numbers from earlier today, the economy, and so much more as we continue.
And you're listening to the best of the Sean Hannity Show.
We'll have more of your favorite guest topics and memorable moments.
That's all coming up.
You are listening to the best of The Sean Hannity Show.
You'll hear what everyone really thinks in D.C.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
Veterans unemployment is at its lowest level in 18 years, and that number is rapidly going up.
On top of which, we just received and won from Congress choice where veterans can go out and see a doctor if they can't get service, the service that they deserve.
Unemployment for disabled Americans has hit a record low, lowest in history.
More than 3.5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps, something that you haven't seen in decades.
3.5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps.
That's because they were able to go out and get a job, and they're going to love their jobs.
95% of American manufacturers are optimistic about their company's outlook.
And that's the highest level also in history.
And that's an old survey, been around a long time.
Manufacturing wages are expected to rise at the fastest rate in over 17 years.
Business and consumer confidence has reached historic highs.
So far this year, American exports are up nearly 20%.
I've only been here a little more than a year and a half, over the same period in the year before I took office.
We've become a net exporter of natural gas for the first time since 1957.
When I came into office, 1.5 million fewer prime age Americans were working than eight years before.
We had lost almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs under the previous administration, and you all know they say, well, you have to lose manufacturing jobs.
It'll get worse and worse.
Manufacturing jobs are obsolete.
No, they're not obsolete.
They're the greatest jobs we have.
More than 10 million additional Americans had been added to food stamps past years.
But we've turned it all around.
Once again, we are the economic envy of the entire world.
When I meet the leaders of countries, the first thing they say invariably is, Mr. President, so nice to meet you.
Congratulations on your economy.
You're leading the entire world.
All right, the president from earlier today, GDP growth at 4.1%.
As we continue with the President of the United States, I was with you in Singapore.
I was also in London and in Helsinki.
Now, one of the promises that Kim Jong-un made to you, and we still have not had rockets fired over Japan, our hostages were released.
We're talking about denuclearization.
One of his launch facilities has been dismantled, but now the remains of Americans have come home, are coming home, and we saw that earlier today.
But also, NATO is also paying more money.
Well, a lot of things have changed since I became president.
And when I was with President Obama in the Oval Office, which I guess is something that presidents do, they have a meeting, and I had a very interesting meeting.
But he did say the biggest single problem that our country has is the problem with North Korea.
And he was very perplexed, and I can understand that.
And it could have led to war.
And I did ask, have you spoken to him?
And the answer was no.
And I said, you know, to myself, it would be a good thing to speak.
We did meet.
We had a great meeting, a very, very great meeting.
I mean, I think you could have lost 50 million people more.
If you think that Seoul is 28 million people, it's right on the border.
You know, people say hundreds of thousands, not hundreds.
We're talking about 50, 60, 100 million people could have been wiped out and lost.
We had a great meeting, historic.
And among other things, where the remains are starting to come back, missiles have been stopped.
We don't have rockets and missiles shot over Japan.
The hostages, we got them back.
Even before I left, we got them back.
Nuclear testing, no more.
Rocket testing, no more.
So many things have changed.
And, you know, one thing, all of their propaganda material and the propaganda, which has been up for years, propaganda, the signs, the music, it's all stopped.
It's all been taken down.
So many positive things have happened.
And, you know, we have time.
There's no rush.
I told my people, don't rush.
We have sanctions on.
We haven't taken any sanctions off.
And we hope I look forward to the time when we do take the sanctions off, because when that happens, a lot of good things will have happened on the other side.
So we're very proud of that.
I'm very proud of the fact that with NATO, they were taking in less and less money every year.
But last year, which was my first meeting, they took in 44 billion more because they said you have to pay your bills.
We were paying for everybody else.
And this year, we raised by at least hundreds of billions of dollars.
So we took in 44 billion last year.
And all of that goes toward protecting, most of it, toward protecting against Russia.
And then they say, I'm friendly with Russia.
Russia's not happy about what I did with NATO.
Russia's not happy about all of this tremendous amount of money that now is flowing into these countries who weren't paying their bills.
I mean, they were delinquent in many cases.
And certainly bringing up the pipeline where Germany is paying, as you know, Sean, Germany, nobody brought this up.
Nobody even knew about it.
But Germany's paying to Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy coming out of that pipeline.
And they said, wait a minute, we're protecting against Russia because you're paying billions of dollars toward Russia.
Nobody brought that up but me, and I'm very unhappy about it.
And I told them that.
I hope we can eventually, because we have more energy resources than anybody in the world.
Last question, sir, because I know you've got to run.
That's happening, Sean.
That was part of the deal I made with the European Union.
They're opening up.
Lots of millions of jobs for Americans in the energy sector.
That would be great.
That's right.
Let me ask you a last question, because I want to go back to the election in 101 days.
And I see the agenda just as you described, and I've been saying it as well, that they want to A, impeach you.
We know they just tell everybody to stop saying it.
They want the tax cuts reversed.
They want their crumbs back.
They want to eliminate ICE, open borders, keep Obamacare, stop investigations.
I don't think I don't hear anything that is going to help the American people.
But in midterm elections, historically, the party in the White House in power usually loses seats.
And I know to prevent that from happening, you kind of have to buck the trend.
There's usually about a 15-seat loss.
What do you say to people in this audience that maybe, well, you're not on the ballot that support you, but don't particularly like their rhino congressman or senator?
Well, my endorsements seem to have a lot of weight.
If you look at Georgia, the governor of Georgia, he was down five to 10 points and he won 70-30.
So he won by 40 points.
Many others.
I mean, you can look at New York Congressman.
You can look at all of these different endorsements.
And what I told my people just now, I said to General Kelly, I said to a whole group of people, we have to get our group together.
Give me the top 25 congresspeople that are, you know, could go either way.
And I want to go out and campaign for those people, likewise with the Senate, because we're going to fix everything once we have the votes.
You know, we really don't have when they say a majority.
It's 51.49, but it's not really because you lose a couple and people are sick, people are ill, people can't come to vote.
So in the Senate, we really don't have a majority at all.
And it's a very small, in the House, it's a very small majority.
So I think we can actually, because of a couple of things that are happening, very special things are happening for our country.
You mentioned North Korea.
You mentioned our military is being rebuilt.
So many other.
But look at the economy.
The economy may be the strongest it's ever been in the history of our country.
Now, you know, the famous quote: it's the economy, stupid.
Well, if it's the economy, then we should do very well.
I just don't know any reason why we shouldn't do well.
We're doing well with our military.
We knocked out ISIS.
We've done so well in so many, and ISIS would have never been knocked out.
Now, you've got to keep on it.
I don't want to be saying we knocked it out.
You got to keep on it.
But we have decimated ISIS.
So many things have taken place, but the economy is the strongest ever.
And I think that's going to have a very positive impact.
And I am going to work very hard.
I'll go six or seven days a week when we're 60 days out.
And I will be campaigning for all of these great people that do have a difficult race.
And we think we're going to bring them over the line.
So I really believe that because we're doing so well as a country and so well with the economy, I think we're going to be surprising a lot of people.
All right, Mr. President, I know you're busy.
Thank you for taking the time.
Congratulations, 4.1% GDP growth.
Thank you, sir, for being with us.
And hopefully we'll talk soon.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Sean.
Thank you.
All right, 800-941, Sean is on number if you want to be a part of the program.
Bringing jobs back to America and getting America back to work.
Our phones.
We have a very special guest today, and we're very honored to have him.
Elwood, or his name is really Woody Snell.
And today is his 100th birthday.
Born July 27th, 1918, raised on a farm in Ohio, and literally was a hero, went to fought in World War II for this great country, has an incredible life.
And we wanted to say happy birthday to Woody.
Woody, thank you for being with us.
Happy birthday, sir.
And you're a great American.
Yes, sir.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And I think you're a great American, too.
Thank you so much.
You're very kind.
I mean, did you ever in your life think you'd make it to 100 years old?
Well, I never thought about it.
I just kept plugging along.
And finally, when I got up to 99, I got to wondering about it then.
I thought maybe I might make it.
Now, your health, I hear, is very good.
Obviously, your mind is very sharp.
Is there anything special you've done to keep yourself healthy and so strong these years?
Well, I try to walk as much as I can, which is getting shorter all the time.
And I'm quite a vitamin freak.
I take a lot of vitamins.
And I had a wonderful, wonderful wife for 63 years, and she took good care of me.
Let me ask you about this.
So you grew up, as I understand it, on a farm in Ohio, and you graduated from high school in 1938.
I read your whole bio, and then you went to fight World War II.
Tell us about it.
Well, I graduated in 1936.
Okay.
And then I didn't go to war to fight a war.
I went to the Air Corps to learn how to be an airplane mechanic.
I thought that was a coming thing in this world.
And then the war came along.
And I was very, very fortunate in the war.
I was sent, I finally became a crew chief on a C-47 in a troop carry outfit.
And then when I got to be a crew chief, I got to flying all over the United States, hauling different things to different air bases.
And then in January 1943, we were sent over to India, and we went into the northeastern area of India.
And we had to fly into China through a valley in the Himalayan mountains called the Hump.
And the reason we had to do that was because China was completely blockaded by the Japanese.
And the only way the 14th Air Force could get any material was through this hump by us taking it over by plane.
And we did that.
And we also flew down into Burma.
You're a member of the India-China-Burma Wall of Fame.
And by the way, you even got a medal from the government of China honoring your service in World War II.
Wow.
Well, I got those medals.
But what I got is called the Air Medal.
It's a medal from the Air Force for flying.
It was $1,500.
And I'm very proud of them.
I was a master charging sergeant when I was discharged.
And I'm a very proud American.
And I will always be a proud American.
I want everybody to know because a high percentage of these planes, historic, and crews crashed.
And at that time, there was no way to rescue any survivors.
No, there wasn't.
And that was called the aluminum trail because when you flew over from India to China or China to India, you could look down there and you could see these crashes laying around different places.
It didn't give you much faith in where you were going over there at the time.
Well, I want to say, listen, first of all, happy birthday.
Second of all, you know, you just remind myself.
My dad fought in World War II.
He's been gone a lot of years now, but all of the World War II vets were heroes.
And, you know, your love of God, family, country shines through you.
I wish you another 100 years of good health and happiness and peace.
And thank you for all you did for us.
And happy birthday.
Thank you.
It's a very honored, deeply honored thing to be able to talk to you, sir.
Very honored.
You're a great American.
Sir, you're a great American, and the honor is all mine.
God bless you, and happy birthday.
I hope you have a great day today and every day.
Thank you, sir.
Can I say one more thing?
Yes, sir.
I'm very kind of upset about these famous millionaire football players desegrating our flag and our national anthem.
I wish I could take one of them guys over there and show him where these people are, what they did for our country.
But I am so ashamed of these guys that can't even stand up and salute the flag.
That really bugs me to death.
Bothers me too.
I'm not even going to watch.
I'm watching college football now.
That ought to be the one thing that unites everybody.
I think so, too.
I'm greatly appreciated to be able to talk to you, sir.
All right, my friend.
God bless you.
Always, we appreciate all you did for us.
And happy birthday, sir.
Thanks, Woody.
All right, 800-941.
Sean is on number.
You want to be a part of the program?
We'll take a break.
We got a really, really special Hannity tonight.
We're all over the place tonight, including the president on the Good Economic News, Janine Pirro, Bannon, Raldo, Jim Jordan, and a little more of my Roseanne interview.
That's Nine Eastern SetU DVR, Hannity on Fox.
Quick break will continue.
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This is how we move.
We light it up with our hands.
This is how we reworld.
I called his behavior treasonous, which is to betray one's trust and to aid and abet the enemy.
And I stand very much by that claim.
Do you think that John Brandon's hyperbole is an issue here?
Well, I think it is.
I think, you know, John is sort of like a freight train, and he's going to say what's on his mind.
Holding them accountable.
Sean gets the answers no one else does.
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A couple years back, you gave a speech saying if we fall in love with our own virtue, we can go sideways.
Hey, dude, sir.
Can we hear you?
Excellent.
Excellent.
At any point over the last two years, did you fall prey to that?
Did you fall in love with your own virtue?
I don't think so, but I worried about it constantly.
And the guardrail for that, because that's a big worry I have about myself, was to surround myself with people who will hit that, hit at the certainty, hit at the pride to make sure I've thought about things well.
But at the end of the day, you got to look at yourself in the mirror, and you've got to make the decision, the right decision, but most of all, for the right reasons.
Yeah, James Comey's virtue and his superiority and his honor.
Well, is that exactly right?
Well, we have a new book out, and we've been telling you about investigating the investigators, follow the money, and something that, you know, and it's interesting considering that all the Trump-Russia collusion as it relates to Paul Manafort and his trial and all of that that we have followed.
This is the great work of Robert Mueller and his merry band of Democratic donors and, you know, real winners like Andrew Weissman and Jeannie Ray.
And it just is, how did we get here?
How did we start Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 presidential race and end up with a tax case of Paul Manafort from years ago that had already been dispensed of that they dug out of mothballs for the very purpose of putting the screws to him so he'll sing or compose in the hopes of getting the president impeached or impeached or prosecuted?
And we're going to raid the president's attorney's office.
We'll do that.
Now we got, you know, a taxicab medallion issue.
Oh, okay.
Well, if we're going to follow the money, this new book that we have been telling you about is pretty interesting.
Now, if you remember our good friend Peter Schweitzer, he's the one that told us about Clinton Cash, and he wrote about secret empires, how the American political class hides corruption and enriches their family and their friends.
He's the president of the Government Accountability Institute.
And also with us is Seamus Bruner, and he is the author of this brand new book that is telling the story.
It's called Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption Every Day.
Welcome both of you back to the program.
Now, Peter wrote the introduction to this book.
Seamus, listen, you work for a great guy.
He's very good on TV and radio.
I hope you don't mind him stepping on your book a little bit here.
No, happy to have Peter with me.
Yeah.
But so with all this talk and again, Trump-Russia collusion, 2016, election influence and all this, how did we spin off into, oh, Paul Manafort's taxes and a tax fraud case and issues going back to 2005?
How did we spin off into Michael Cohn's medallions?
And then we look into the investigators.
And this is what I see in your book.
And tell me if any of this is wrong, but you're reporting in the book Compromised, How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption, which is now out at James Comey's net worth went over, skyrocketed over 4,000% when he left the DOJ in 05 and returned to the FBI in 2013.
You point out James Comey made $6.1 million after Mueller's FBI granted his employer at the time.
I guess he had a consulting firm of some kind.
But James Comey made $6.1 million from Lockheed Martin and one of the largest contracts and contractors in American history in what you describe as a billion-dollar boondoggle.
And under Mueller's direction, he was the FBI director at the time.
The FBI granted multiple spy contracts to the very firm that employed Comey or his team to Lockheed Martin while Comey is advising them on the legality of their operations and that Comey received another $6 million working for one of the world's largest hedge funds and an additional 500 grand for unused vacation time.
Do I have any of this wrong, Seamus?
Or is that exactly corroborated, right, just and true?
Because they're not getting back to me.
We've tried to confirm it with them.
No, you have it exactly right, Sean.
This is a familiar story, the revolving door, turning public service into self-service.
And I think the question you asked, how did we get here, is a very smart and important question.
So we followed the money, we followed it to the top, and we found that these choir boys or Boy Scouts, as the media likes to depict them, James Comey, Robert Mueller, they're really no better than anyone else in the swamp.
They use their public service, they use their contacts, and they cash in through the revolving door.
So we followed the money, did a full cash analysis, and like you said, we found James Comey's net worth was a modest $206,000 before he went to Lockheed Martin.
And by the way, he wasn't just consulting Lockheed Martin.
He was their general counsel and a senior vice president at the corporation, which kind of begs the question, why would you choose a young James Comey?
He's got no corporate experience of that kind.
So he was working directly for Lockheed Martin.
Directly.
All right.
And explain the $6.1 million that Lockheed Martin, who how much were they paying him a year?
Do you know the yearly salary?
Right.
So it's a good point.
And in fairness to James Comey, he could have been making $6.1 million before Lockheed Martin received a billion-dollar boondoggle from Robert Mueller's FBI.
But this is according to SEC documents.
They only disclose the full compensation to James Comey in the year 2009.
So it's possible he earned that much before then.
We just don't know.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
You're saying the $6.1 million was only made in one year?
Just the year 2009, a single year, $6.1 million.
And how long did he work for Lockheed Martin?
He worked there from 2005 until 2010 and then jumped over.
Oh, wait a minute.
If he made $6.1 million in one year, I'm assuming he made a lot.
Why don't you know the other years?
Right.
So it's the way financial disclosures work.
We only have what they give us.
We'd obviously like a lot more.
Well, let's say he was making $3 million a year for the other, how many years now?
It's five years total.
So if he was making $3, it could be $18 million.
Exactly right.
And what does somebody do for five years to make, you know, at least in one year, $6.1 million?
What did he do for the $6.1 million?
That seems like a lot of money to me.
I think most Americans are going to open their eyes and say, how much?
Right.
So in Lockheed Martin's annual reports, James Comey has power of attorney for all of the executives.
So he literally signs off on all of their operations, including some of the invasive surveillance programs like this billion-dollar boondoggle.
That's not my word.
It was reported in Huffington Post that it was called a boondoggle, and that's because it was plagued by cost overruns and delays.
But this program, the billion-dollar program to Lockheed Martin, was called Next Generation Identification, and it was a biometric facial recognition program trying to capture all of the faces of every man, woman, and child in America and turn them into a fingerprint, essentially.
So that came the year before.
Can I interrupt you?
Can I just go back to he worked there from 2005 to 2010?
Correct.
And you only could get his pay for 2009, which was $6.1 million.
Correct.
Where are the other four years?
That's a great question.
What about the years before?
If you can get 09, I would think you can get 08, 07, 06, and 05.
Why wouldn't you get those years?
I would think they would be released first.
Yeah, trust me.
I went through every single year and looked for it.
They just don't total James Comey's compensation for those years.
But what we do know is in 2004, the previous general counsel made about $6.1 million.
So we used very conservative estimates here.
We didn't want to go a bridge too far.
So he made $6.1 million.
And is it possible it could have been for the four years together?
Not possible.
I guess anything's possible, but it specifically lays out the compensation for each executive in the year 2009.
And this is a combination of cash and stock options, which, interestingly, the stock options were valid through 2020.
So he could have exercised them when he returned to the FBI.
We just don't know.
All right.
So if he has the power of attorney of all the executives at Lockheed Martin, doesn't that mean that he signs off on this stuff?
Correct.
He signs off on all of their operations.
In the annual reports from Lockheed Martin, they state that James Comey helped successfully resolve certain litigation.
They're often sued for various reasons.
So he's signing off on operations.
He's advising on the legality of them, which helps when you're getting surveillance contracts that many civil rights organizations say are too invasive.
And he and he and his buddy Robert Mueller, it looks like, worked kind of like a pitcher and a catcher.
So in other words, so it would have been on the Lockheed Martin side, you know, pushing to get the government contract, that would be Comey's role.
And then on the other side, the person that signed off on it was Robert Mueller.
Right.
Well, Robert Martin.
Did Robert Mueller know that he was getting $6.1 million in 2009?
The annual report comes out at the end of the year, so it's not, I mean, it's not clear, but he obviously would have known that James Comey was at Lockheed Martin, and he obviously would have had to sign off on a billion-dollar program.
So based on what you perceive and your research shows that the role that Comey had at Lockheed Martin, it was his job to sign off on such projects like this, this new generation of ID and facial recognition.
Correct.
And would this be something that Congress had to sign off on, or would it be something Mueller needed to approve within the FBI as the FBI director?
Right.
Well, James Comey and Robert Mueller have this long history together going back to the 90s at the DOJ.
And they've been very concerned with matters relating to surveillance, especially FISA and the Patriot Act.
So we see repeatedly throughout the early 2000s and all the way up through today, Robert Mueller, James Comey wanted to tear down the wall, so to speak, between intelligence agencies and had issues with what they called the going dark problem where they didn't have enough information.
So they really rapidly expanded, and I call it the surveillance state, which is now, of course, being used against journalists, citizens, and even now a presidential candidate.
Got to take a quick break.
We'll come back more with Peter Schweitzer, Government Accountability Institute president, and also Seamus Bruner, author of the Blockbuster new book.
It's called Compromised, How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption, which is now out in bookstores today.
You can get back new jobs home.
That's Jobs, J-O-B-S.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
As we continue, Peter Schweitzer, and he is the head and president of the Government Accountability Institute.
Seamus Bruner is with us.
They have a brand new book.
It's called Compromised: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption, which is now out today.
I mean, it sounds like a lot of money, but on the other hand, there is a certain expertise that one would have that I could see somebody like Lockheed Martin wanting an FBI director and a security clearance would be of great value to them and the contacts that they have would be of great value to them.
It doesn't necessarily mean something nefarious happened here.
And if you're looking at a company that is getting, what, $50 billion a year in taxpayer-funded contracts, $6.1 million is kind of small potatoes, isn't it?
Well, Sean, I think what this highlights is this problem.
It happens at Health and Human Services.
It happens at DOD, where you have government officials who basically, while they're in government, create demand for their own services when they leave.
And so in the case of Jim Comey, he goes to Lockheed Martin from the Department of Justice at the Department of Justice.
He helped establish some of these very programs that Lockheed Martin was getting contracts to implement and carry out.
So he sets up these programs.
Who is Lockheed Martin going to look for to give a paycheck to who understands this program better than anybody else, the government official who helped put it together?
And that is sort of a tried and truth story in Washington, D.C.
And the point is that, you know, you played that clip at the beginning of Jim Comey talking about, you know, how sensitive he is to the appearances of, you know, doing something wrong or wrongdoing.
The fact of the matter is this is a very familiar story, unfortunately, in the swamp.
And that, I think, is what's so troubling about it.
And what Seamus shows is this pattern where, you know, when Mueller is in the private sector and Comey is in government, there seem to be contracts and resources that flow in that direction as well.
It's kind of a tag team arrangement that these two have.
And so it speaks to the financial underbelly that exists even at the Department of Justice, which is an agency, the FBI, that we expect to be focused primarily on enforcing the law.
There are lots of ways in which these officials self-enrich themselves.
Wow.
This is a mind-blowing episode here.
By the way, if you're just joining us, the book is called Compromised, How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption.
Now out in bookstores, Amazon.com.
It's eye-opening.
And I think a lot of questions need to be asked by Congress of the people involved so that we know nothing nefarious has happened.
Anyway, I want to thank you both, Peter Schweitzer and Seamus Bruner.
Thank you both.
800-941 Sean is on number.
All right, when we come back, Jim Jordan, by the way, he's running for speaker.
We support him, would love to see it, and don't think that if, in fact, Republicans hold the House, that he couldn't win.
In the age of Trump, anything can happen.
Of course, that's 76 days away.
And remember, I also warned you that this election is about what?
They want to impeach the president.
They want to keep Obamacare.
How's that working out?
Let's see.
Fire, ice, and open borders.
And they want their crumbs back.
And they want to stop all the investigations into the deep state and their corruption.
So that's what that is all about.
Anyway, we'll talk about the elections.
We'll talk about Bruce Orr and his loving relationship with Christopher Steele, considering they see, text, or email, oh, 70-plus times.
How did that happen before and after the election?
Also, don't forget Hannity tonight, 9 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
Sarah, Gregg, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Malcolm, Pambondi, and Ainsley Earhart with her exclusive interview with President Trump from earlier today.
It's all coming up at 9 on Fox.
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Do you think that John Brandon's hyperbole is an issue here?
Is one of the reasons we're having this crisis?
Well, I think it is.
I think John is sort of like a freight train, and he's going to say what's on his mind.
I think, though, that the common denominator among all of us that have been speaking up, though, is genuine concern about the jeopardy or threats to our institutions and values.
And although we may express that in different ways.
And I think that's what this really is about.
But John and his rhetoric have become, I think, an issue in and of itself.
You indicated that you've had lawyers contact you about possible legal action.
It's 48 hours later.
What would that look like?
Is that something you're serious about?
Well, I have been contacted by a number of lawyers, and they have already given me their thoughts about the basis for a complaint, an injunction, to try to prevent him from doing this in the future.
If my clearances and my reputation, as I'm being pulled through the mud now, if that's the price we're going to pay to prevent Donald Trump from doing this against other people, to me it's a small price to pay.
So I am going to do whatever I can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future.
And if it means going to court, I will do that.
This is a dictatorial exercise of power that should frighten and call on all Republicans to say, Mr. President, you cannot do this.
You are trying to inhibit the free speech of people who may be in opposition to you.
To use this kind of punishment to chill speech is a violation of the First Amendment.
I mean, this is a striking move towards authoritarianism.
You know, this is what dictators do.
They shut down the press, they shut down dissent, they jail their opponents, or in this case, they steal their security clearance.
What happened here was a pure authoritarian act from an intemperate president who wanted to punish one of his critics.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Ryan Hartline threatening him right now by taking away the name.
They've already written it doesn't influence.
But they've already taken it away from John Biden.
So doesn't that say to everybody else, shut your mouth?
A lot of these people that have these security clearances, and this is the secret in the swampy Washington, D.C., they have them and they keep them because it's profitable for them after they leave government.
Because if you have a security clearance, especially high-level security clearances, your contracts and your consulting gig pay you a lot more money because of the access that you have.
I hope the president continues to do this, and I hope he adds Amarosa to the list, because if she has a clearance, she too, because of her actions, should have it revoked.
Well, I don't know if I'd put Amarosa in the same category, the 75 people who signed those letters, but Phil Mudd, I imagine you want to react.
Profitable Paris, when I am requested to sit on an advisory board, let me ask you one question.
How much do you think I'm paid to do that at the request of the U.S. government?
Give me one answer, and you've got 10 seconds.
How much?
I'll ask you a question.
How much are you paid for your consulting contracting gig for being a former official?
We have no contracts with the U.S. government that pay money.
I'm not talking- And this is the thing about the money.
And I'm asked to offer advice to the U.S. government.
Let's be honest.
Phil, let's be honest.
I'm not talking about your role with the federal government.
I'm talking about who I'm talking about.
You're talking about your consultant and a contractor.
The consulting firms that they form and that you all get is because you get more money when having a consultant for having the security clearance.
It's not acting like that doesn't happen.
I have a lot of people.
That's zero consulting relationships with the U.S. government.
I'm not talking, Phil, that's a good talking point.
I'm not talking about relationship with the government.
I'm talking about in the private sector.
When you have a security clearance, I have relationships with your private sector that involve my security clearance.
Zero.
I get zero dollars from consulting companies that deal with U.S. government.
Are we clear?
Well, I will be clear in saying that everybody in Washington, D.C. knows.
If you don't want to be honest about it, that's on you.
That was a phenomenal debate, believe it or not, on fake news CNN.
Now, I wasn't watching fake news CNN.
I saw it on Media because they had the clip-up.
Paris Denard clobbering this anti-Trumper film money.
I never tell me what contracts I had with the U.S. government.
That's not what he's talking about.
Now, I told you about this new book last week, and we had Peter Schweitzer on and Seamus Bruner on the program, and it's called Compromise: How Money and Politics Drive FBI Corruption.
Now, what are these security clearances worth?
Now, the book points out that James Comey's net worth skyrocketed over 4,000% between leaving the DOJ in 05 and returning to the FBI in 2013.
The book chronicles how Comey made $6.1 million after Mueller's FBI granted his employer.
In other words, Comey's working for Lockheed Martin, which is the largest contractor in history in what was many described a billion-dollar boondoggle.
And under Mueller's direction, he was the FBI director at the time.
The FBI granted multiple spy contracts to Lockheed Martin while Comey advised them on the quote legality of their operations.
That's $6.1 million we're talking about.
It's a serious amount of money.
Well, what are they paying for?
They're paying for contacts, which, by the way, can be totally, completely legitimate.
But the point is, that security clearance is worth something.
And that's the point here.
And to have Clapper even recognizing that the rhetoric of Brennan is so over the top is unbelievable.
But this isn't the first time that this has happened.
Sean Bigley is a partner with Bigley Ranish, LLP, specializing in federal security clearance defense.
And you represent Adam Lovinger, who lost his security clearance after Stefan Halper complained about him.
And you wrote an op-ed about your client.
Why don't I just let you tell our audience what you found and what you said?
Hey, Sean, good to be with you.
That's right.
I do represent Mr. Lovinger.
He's a longtime Defense Department employee who is a very strong supporter of the president.
And in 2016, he complained numerous times to his superiors, all of whom were Obama appointees at the Pentagon about these egregious contracts that were being awarded to Stefan Halper and also to a close friend of the Clinton family's.
And subsequently, several months go by and his security clearance is mysteriously revoked.
And he's now sitting at home trying to figure out ways to feed his family.
All right.
So now, this is fascinating.
So when did this happen?
What year?
So the complaints originally were filed in the fall of 2016, right around the election cycle, and they were ignored.
And subsequent, the administration comes in.
He moves over to the White House as a buy-name request from the new administration.
They had heard about his reputation and wanted him serving in the White House.
And by May 1st, he had been recalled to the Pentagon and his security clearance had been stripped.
You know, when you look at all the FBI departures, for example, and the reasons why, whether they're people are fired like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, fired, Peter Strzok, fired.
Then you got the resignations.
Lisa Page, she got out while she could.
James Rubicki, James Baker, and others.
And then you look at the others in the DOJ, the number of people that have resigned.
People aren't even beginning to pay attention to any of this.
But you got a list between the DOJ and the FBI top people that have either resigned, been fired, or demoted twice like Bruce Orr.
But the reality is these clearances are worth money in the private sector.
And I'm not even saying that anything nefarious necessarily goes on, except it's all this, that they're all the same people all the time.
Why is it Comey is getting paid all this money from Lockheed Martin, according to this book Compromised, at a time when Mueller is the FBI director?
I mean, we keep running into the same group of people.
Seems to me like who you know matters in Washington.
Oh, absolutely.
And I mean, I think a lot of people outside the Washington, D.C. Beltway may not understand that really a security clearance is a meal ticket.
It's the equivalent of a professional license for a doctor or a lawyer.
And without it, you're not going to work in the field in which you practice.
And so for somebody like a Comey or a Brennan who's spent their career in government and who's going to go on to lucrative consulting gigs or sit on boards at various defense contractors, without that clearance, they're not as valuable.
And the same thing, the reverse goes for somebody like Mr. Lovinger.
He's stripped of his clearance.
He can no longer work.
And now we're fighting that on appeal.
And meanwhile, they are pulling out all the stops to make sure that he doesn't get his due process.
It's really outrageous.
Let's go into your original article, How the Pentagon bankrolled an alleged spy inside the Trump campaign and other sorted tales because you literally write chapter and verse on this.
I want you to explain it in detail.
Sure.
So back in 2016, Mr. Lovinger started to notice that Mr. Halper and others in this office were really getting very, very generous contracts to do what he perceived as very little.
The contracts were kept very close to the vest.
They were run by people who were ardent Obama and Clinton supporters, including one of whom was a vocal anti-Trumper.
And he started raising issues and saying, look, you know, this is a perception of impropriety.
What are these people doing for the money?
These are taxpayer funds.
Why are we bankrolling to the tune of millions of dollars people to go out and conduct research studies on things like whether or not there's enough coastal elites in the national security bureaucracy?
I mean, ridiculous, patently ridiculous subject matters that do nothing to inform anybody and were being paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to perform this work.
On top of that, he also said, here's a specific statute, a specific federal law that prohibits contractors from being used to conduct foreign relations, which is precisely what he perceived them as doing.
And he was completely ignored, completely shut down on multiple levels.
He goes off to the White House, and I think they viewed him as a threat there and essentially did whatever they had to do to yank him back, strip him of his clearance, and shut him up.
And, you know, Sean, this is a real problem.
It's not just Mr. Lovinger.
It's an epidemic across the government.
I have people who I represent in the administration on multiple different levels, very senior folks all the way to lower-level folks.
And they're experiencing this problem right and left.
It's a tool that the deep state has essentially weaponized.
It's the low-hanging fruit, if you will, to keep people out of government, to keep the president's appointees out who are going to effectuate his agenda.
And it's something that they've been doing over and over and over.
Who are the people responsible?
Because you wrote another great column on that, how the deep state has weaponized the vetting of Trump appointees.
And I know numerous people that have incredible qualifications, and it seems the only strike against them is that they recognize that there are either holdovers from the Obama administration or people that are at odds with the current administration that are inside these important jobs.
Oh, absolutely.
And, you know, DOD is the tip of the spear on this.
I mean, let's be clear.
There are a good half dozen folks at the Department of Defense who are actively out to thwart the president's agenda and who are using this process as the means to do it.
But it's also happening in the State Department.
It's happening in Homeland Security.
It's happening in a number of places government-wide.
And they're doing it in very sneaky, very technical ways that they use to sort of keep people out.
And here's another irony, too.
Under Brennan, the CIA was one of the worst and remains one of the worst offenders as far as due process.
I have people who have literally put their lives on the line for this country who have been frozen out on bogus security clearance concerns, one of whom has been sitting since 2014 and is now working the drive-through at Chick-fil-A to make ends meet.
So, you know, for him to turn around and whine about essentially him being mistreated is really ironic.
Well, let me go through, because you went through all of this.
Our friend, well, I got to take a break here.
I'll ask you, my friend Rowan Scarborough had a great piece on this that we'll get to as well.
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And as we continue with Sean Bigley, and by the way, he represents Adam Lovinger.
He's the guy that lost the security clearance after Stefan Halper complained about him.
You know, I read the piece, your pieces, and then I also read Rowan Scarborough.
I've known a long time and respect a lot from the Washington Times.
And he's pointing out your client, which, by the way, a Pentagon analyst stripped of his security clearance by Obama-appointed officials after he complained of questionable government contracts that Stefan Halper had.
Now, this is, what, over $400,000, which we're talking about.
And anyway, Adam Lovinger, your client, is a 12-year strategist at the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, and he complained to his bosses about these Halper contracts, and then they yanked his security clearance.
How often has this happened that we don't hear about it?
Maybe not as high profile as, say, John Brennan?
Yeah, it's definitely happening on a pretty consistent basis, not so much in the whistleblower retaliation context as it is in the political sphere.
In other words, if you are somebody who identifies as a supporter of the president, somebody who maybe the president has selected to fill a specific role, we've seen case after case where there are entrenched bureaucrats, many of them Obama holdovers, at various agencies who are pulling out all the stops from a security and a vetting standpoint to prevent people from getting in.
And I'll give you a couple examples.
We've had some agencies where they have essentially instituted a policy that says we're not going to give what's called interim clearances anymore to political appointees.
We're going to give them all day long to career officials, but we're not going to give them to people who the president appoints because we just don't trust them.
We've had other agencies that have essentially, a year after somebody has been onboarded and started work, come back and said, you know what, that little minor thing that you self-reported, maybe you had a DUI a few years ago or some other minor thing that we didn't think was the problem when we hired you.
Now it's an issue, so now we're going to kick you out to the curb.
So it's that kind of behavior that's happening over and over.
And again, and really the only conclusion that you can draw on a systemic level is that this is a coordinated effort to essentially prevent the president from effectuating his policy agenda because, as we know, you don't have people to execute the policy.
You can't execute it.
And I think that's precisely what the idea is.
All right, Sean Bigley, keep up the good work.
We'll continue to follow the story, and we're going to continue to investigate the investigators and follow the money, which now is becoming more interesting by the day.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number, news roundup, information overload is next.
And then we'll check in with Greg and Sarah straight ahead.
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T minus 90 days.
90 days until you decide the midterm elections to keep America great.
Stay right here for our final news roundup and information overload in the final hour of the Sean Hannity Show.
I'm honored, very honored, for the opportunity to represent the voters of the 12th congressional district and who they have bestowed on me.
I have so many people to thank tonight.
Some behind me, right here, my son Joshua, his fiancé, Chelsea, is getting married next April.
My girlfriend Melanie.
I want to thank God.
More importantly, my mom and dad, who aren't able to hear with us this evening, I'd like to thank President Trump.
Tonight, I'm going to promise to you that I'm going to work relentlessly, relentlessly for this 12th congressional district.
America is on the right path, and we're going to keep it going that way.
It's time to get to work.
Over the next three months, I'm going to do everything I can to keep America great again.
so that when we welcome when we what we come back here in november get ready we got to come back here in november i have earned your vote for a second time Danny, can I ask you real quick?
We're live on CBSN.
What's your status tonight?
Have you conceded?
Are you waiting for?
No, we feel great.
This is too close to call.
We're fighting for every vote.
You know, this fight continues.
Working people need a voice.
They need a champion.
What's your understanding of how many votes remain outstanding at this point?
Too few to call this a night.
I think we need to make sure that this process is respected because too many people have worked too hard.
Too many people want to have a real voice in Washington.
Too many people want a congressman that's going to represent every county.
And we need to make sure that we're doing this the right way.
All right, that was the important Ohio 12 yesterday, which was held by a Republican in what was a tight race.
There still are votes out to count and some provisional ballots, et cetera, absentee ballots.
What was really fascinating about it is the early voting.
I talked to a friend of mine who knows Ohio politics so well, it was devastating.
This guy was going to lose.
Anyway, meeting Troy Balderson, Trump went in on Saturday, and it was day of voting that ended up saving his opportunity here, or certainly would have been a seat that got lost.
He made a couple of dumb decisions in the course of the campaign, talking negatively about one of the biggest counties that is in his district, Franklin County.
We don't want to elect a guy from Franklin County.
Great.
I'm sure the people of Franklin County really love that remark.
Did it about another county?
And then he also talked about the third rail taking, you know, changing and shifting and getting rid of Medicare.
I mean, this is the dumbest campaign I've ever seen.
So he's going to have some work to do with the constituents in the Ohio 12.
But I don't think there's any doubt about it that President Trump helped him.
He's now 0.9 percentage points ahead, 1,754 votes.
Exactly.
Danny O'Connor, you know, we have 100% of the precincts reporting, but the president also now declaring victory this morning after the candidates that he endorsed in yesterday's primaries all scored big wins.
And he tweeted at about 10:30 this morning, five for five.
And in the second tweet, he accused the media of downplaying the Republican Party's record of success in special elections.
Republicans now winning eight of nine House seats, but yet if you listen to the fake news media, you'd think we'd been clobbered.
You know, why can't they play it straight?
So unfair.
Republican Party, in particular, your favorite president, he wrote, he also claimed that as long as I campaign and or support Senate House candidates within reason, they will win.
And he said Republicans could have a red wave in November's elections.
We're now 90 days out.
It is, to me, the most important midterm elections in our lifetime.
I see absolutely nothing from the Democratic Party in terms of helping the forgotten men and women, except they would stop the progress that the president has made in 18 months.
And by that time, it'll be two years.
And, you know, this is an important election.
We know that Democrats have stated publicly, although now they're being silent, but they want to impeach Trump.
We know that Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren have said the tax cuts are crumbs.
And, well, that's $1,000, $2,000 for working families.
And excuse me, if they're just crumbs, why are they demanding to have them back?
They want to rescind the tax cuts.
They want to keep Obamacare.
That has not exactly worked out well for people and keeping their doctors and their plans and paying less.
And we know they want to eliminate ICE and they want open borders.
I don't think that's a good idea either.
Anyway, here to discuss John McLaughlin, pollster, founder of McLaughlin and Associates, Doug Shoan, also a pollster, political analyst, Fox News contributor.
Welcome both of you back to the program.
Thanks, Sean.
Let's get a headline from you, John McLaughlin.
I'll tell you, having polled for the president in Ohio during his campaign and set up a strategy where he could win the Rust Belt by bringing in millions of new voters in a record turnout, the president saved the GOP establishment's butt yesterday by bringing out Trump voters.
Trump got 206,000 votes in that district.
Balderson got 104,000 votes less than the president.
Now, here's a fun fact from the Gateway Pundit article.
87% of the Democrats that voted in 2016 turned out in this race.
Only 40% of the Republicans.
The Republicans were losing until the president went in there.
They better get on his agenda and get things done like immigration, like making the tax cuts permanent.
They better get with the president's agenda or they're going to get a shock in November because the president can only pull so many of these guys out of the fire, and that's what he does.
And by the way, you really can't do a transplant of charisma.
I mean, I watched this guy on Saturday night.
I was like, oh, my gosh, this is not going to be easy.
Doug Shon, you know that from years past as well.
I do, but what you haven't said is that there's been at least an 11% swing because of the absent voters to the Democratic Party.
And if we get that in the midterms, we'll have a Democratic pickup of far more than the 23 seats they need to put the House in the Democratic home.
So there were harbingers of ill.
I wrote a piece for FoxNews.com, which said it was a good night for the Democrats and a good night for Donald Trump.
That's how I see it.
All right.
Let's now look at, you know, there had been predictions of a massive blue wave.
I think the senatorial map in particular looks good for Republicans.
I certainly see a pickup in Florida.
I think Rick Scott is a very popular governor, and I think he'd beat Bill Nelson there.
I think Claire McCaskill is in a heap of trouble.
In Missouri, you've got Heidi Heitkamp.
You've got Joe Manchin, and you got a bunch of others.
I would imagine that the Republicans have an advantage in the Senate.
Doug, what do you think?
I think there is a slight advantage, but John McLaughlin is pointing to what the issue really is in the election.
Not so much a Democratic wave in the sense of people rallying to the Democratic Party.
There's enthusiasm among Democrats to come out and vote for change, and the Republicans, not so much.
And that's really the issue.
I think John put it exactly right.
But what do they want to change to?
Let's be real here.
What are the Democrats?
Give me a specific program that they're advocating that's going to make our lives better.
Because I don't see it.
They want policies other than Trump.
They don't want a wall.
They don't want the kind of immigration policy the president has pursued.
They want different policies.
It's unfocused, Sean.
I'll be the first to agree.
Is it unfocused, or they basically want us to go back to the horrific eight years of Obama?
Even you acknowledge they were horrible.
I've said it many times on your program.
A large percentage of the Democratic primary voters disagree.
I disagree with Hartley.
They're socialists.
I'm not.
I'm a capitalist.
But you know what?
You can win elections by voting for things and against things.
And this is going to be a negative election.
Of that, I am certain.
What do you think, John McLaughlin?
I would say historically, just a matter of fact, that, yeah, it's going to be very difficult as it relates for any Republican.
Well, you've got, you know, in this race in Ohio 12, the Democrat rejected Pelosi.
So the Democrat ran to the right, if not the center.
And you've got senators like Donnelly in Indiana today who was talking about supporting the border wall.
You're going to see Democrats trying to blur that distinction that Republicans really need to vote on and make the Democrats have a clear contrast.
And by the way, the primaries are still going on.
Like yesterday, in yesterday's primaries, Chris Kobach comes out of nowhere to looks like he's going to beat the incoming governor in Kansas because President Trump supported him.
You had John James up in Massachusetts, who was Michigan, pardon me, Michigan running for U.S. Senate.
He won decisively in the primary.
And the Trump-like candidates, like, you know, I'm running races for candidates who support who are like President Trump, like Bob Stefanowski in Connecticut.
He's running for governor.
He's got a plan to phase out the income tax.
And he's on the ballot on Tuesday, and everybody's attacking us because Donald Trump has put his imprint on this party, and the Trump candidates are winning the primaries.
And with that, hopefully, they can carry an agenda that will basically create the red wave instead of having a blue wave going on.
Because right now, the Democrats are blurring the issues.
Yeah, I think there's some truth to that, but they seem to always go back to the same playbook.
And we know what the playbook is.
Republicans are racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic.
They want dirty air, water.
They want to kill children and they want to throw Granny over the cliff.
It doesn't change very much.
Now, we could use you on our side.
You do that very well.
Listen, I've been in this business too long.
It's every single election cycle.
It never changes, ever.
And, you know, the sad part is, is, you know, then America forgets, you know, how bad it was under people like, I mean, 13 million more Americans on food stamps, 8 million more in poverty, accumulated more debt than every other president before him, combined, lowest labor participation rate since the 70s.
And then you compare it to what Donald Trump has done in a short period.
I mean, I would say, if I would say to Republicans that their biggest problem is they've been weak.
Yep.
And I agree with you 100% sure because I'll tell you what, if the Doug Shoan Republican, Democrats, who are almost Republicans on a lot of issues, if we ask.
No, no, no.
Let me tell you something.
He's not a Republican.
He's got to be a little conservative.
I don't go for all this debt, Sean.
No, I'm with you.
Listen, I agree with you on that too.
But, you know, if we get the GDP growth to where we need it to be, you and I both know that it's going to be great for the American people and the economy.
I got to take a break.
I hope it happens.
Well, just stay tuned.
I mean, certainly we have 4 million new jobs.
We got two or three fewer million on food stamps.
We got manufacturing jobs that Obama said were never coming back, coming back.
We've gotten rid of burdensome regulation.
Companies now are incentivized to actually build their factories and manufacturing centers in America.
And we see dramatic increases in those jobs all across the Rust Belt.
And it's looking good for people.
All right, quick break, 800-9.1, Sean, toll-free telephone number.
You want to be a part of the program.
Making America first, safe and great again.
This is The Sean Hannity Show.
We continue with our pollsters, John McLaughlin and Doug Schoen.
All right, so one of the other things is: all right, so it was a Trump sweep in terms of the people that he endorsed, which is good for him.
Washington Post has a headline: Democratic resistance hit a wall in last night's election.
The Democratic Party's left-wing insurgency found its limits.
We know that, you know, Hollywood nut jobs are now blaming Vladimir Putin for last night's loss in Ohio, which is a little nuts.
Every single candidate endorsed by the rising Democratic star, Casio Cortez, they all went down to defeat.
What does that say, Doug Shoan?
I hope it says that the Democrats' flirtation with Democratic socialism is over and that we'll have more Danny O'Connors and Connor Lambs who are centrists who vote against Nancy Pelosi explicitly, clearly, and unabashedly to set the party in a new centrist, fiscally conservative.
And the odds of that happening, let's be real here, are zero.
Got a bridge for you to barge.
Yeah, I mean, you know, and I know, and John knows that the party's going solidly left, which I actually think helps Republicans in the end come this midterm election in 90 days.
John.
Absolutely, because like most of these Democrats winning primaries, they're supporting like Medicare for all, single-payer, government-run health care.
The Mercatus Center found out that's going to cost us $3.2 trillion over 10 years and would double the personal income taxes, all the personal income taxes and all the corporate taxes in the country, and that's why you don't have it.
The Democrats who tell you they want to repeal the Trump Tax Capt, guess what that means?
You cut the child tax care credit in half from 2,000 to 1,000.
You cut the personal deduction in half from 2,000 to 1,000.
And you raise the rates on 90% of the taxpayers.
And most of them are middle class, the vast majority.
So we ought to make the Democrats vote on this.
We ought to let those votes percolate so the Doug Shoan Democrats will bail on these crazy ideas that are just nothing more than socialism.
Is it a good idea, John, to demand wall funding up front before the election and maybe shut down the government?
I don't like to see the government shut down, but you know what?
That funding ought to be in the middle of the year.
I must be the only person that doesn't care because we all know the government doesn't shut down.
It's just a big game that Washington plays.
And the few people that get paid holidays, you know what?
They're happy as can be.
Well, the last time, Schumer misplayed it because you know what happened?
The military didn't get paid because they hadn't passed that appropriation bill.
So they're willing to shut down the government for illegal aliens and not pay the military.
That's how crazy these Democrats are.
All right, we're going to let you both go here.
We appreciate it.
Well, 90 days, we'll be having you guys on regularly, looking at the polls, looking at the numbers, seeing which way this important midterm election is headed.
Doug Schoen, thank you for being with us.
And John McLaughlin, 800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
We'll come back on the other side.
You're going to meet an individual that is trying to work.
Iran is in deep trouble.
We now see a restlessness that is taking place among their very high youth population.
And with the president's new sanctions, does that mean a change could be on the horizon?
That's next.
Hey, there's still a lot more ahead on the best of the Sean Hannity Show.
Stay tuned for more right after news on this station.
You are listening to the best of The Sean Hannity Show.
Working every day to remember the forgotten man.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
Happy Friday.
And we're going to have our Made in America series in just a second.
You're going to love this guy, the president of Nine Line.
I'll explain in a minute, Tyler Merritt.
But first, it's Friday.
These weeks are long.
These weeks are hard.
It's, what, 81 days now until Election Day.
Labor Day is coming up.
That means everyone's going back to school and work schedules remain, go back to normal, little vacation stops, and, you know, we get back in the grind full time.
That also means that we're getting ready for the most important midterm election in our life.
This Friday, well, you can put your hands up, fire a few bullets in the air, and put your party hat on.
Our Friday Florida, Georgia Line Zach Brown concert series.
Let's hit it.
This is how we do.
We're burning down the night, shooting bullets at the moon.
Baby, this is how we roll.
And a little bit of chicken fright.
Cold beer on Friday night.
A pair of jeans that fit just right.
And the radio, oh, I like to see the summer.
See the love in my woman's eyes.
Feel the touch of a precious child.
And old mother's love.
It's funny how it's the little things in life that means.
She got whatever it is.
It blows me away.
She's everything I wanna say to a woman, but I couldn't find the words to say.
She got whatever it is.
I don't know what to do.
Cause every time I turn up, turn around, feel it comes out.
I love you.
You got whatever it is, keep me in mind.
Somewhere down the road, you might get lonely.
Keep me and mine.
And I pray someday that you will love me only.
Think about your Sundays and the way I would lay waste it day after day with you.
Sweet Anne, can I stay with you a while?
Cause this road's been putting miles on my heart.
Sweetheart, I've been living in a fantasy.
But one day lightning will strike, and my bark will lose its vibe.
But don't give up on me.
Sweet, I got some good friends that live down the street.
Got a good-looking woman with her arms round me.
Here in a small town where it feels like home.
I got everything I need, and nothing that I don't.
Oh no.
Got my toes in the water, ass in the sand.
Not a worry in a world of cold beer in my hand.
Life is good today.
Life is good today.
How do you send my alcohol?
Yeah, I'm leaving GA.
And if it weren't for the key love and pretty senior, you're the healing hand where it used to hurt.
You're my saving grace.
All right, there it is, our Florida Georgia Line Friday Concert Series, Zach Brown Concert Series, 800-941- Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
So we started a Made in America series on the program, and we want to do this every other Friday or so.
And the whole purpose of it is, is every company that succeeds in America, well, those are also jobs being created for Americans.
And I like the idea that we support American companies.
We see a lot of these veteran companies now taking off.
BlackRifleCoffee.com slash Sean, it's the best coffee you've ever had.
And it's amazing.
It was put together by vets that when they were serving over in Iraq and Afghanistan, they didn't like the coffee they were being given.
And they'd order coffee beans where they were into a war zone.
And they experimented and they came up with a better product.
And now we have the benefit of being able to buy it.
And anyway, today we bring in the co-founder.
He's the president of Nine Line.
Tyler Merritt is here.
And he's going to talk to us about how great it's been.
He runs a veteran-owned and operated company right here in the U.S.
Now, they hire, they make, they buy, they sell American, and the company is doing great.
And welcome to the program, sir.
How are you?
I saw you recently donated 30 grand to young Marines.
Yes, sir.
That's an incredible organization.
You mentioned a few other awesome organizations.
That's a very, very flattering introduction to us.
You know, we work with Black Rifle.
We work with a lot of different organizations.
That veteran community, they're doing a lot of great things in business.
And you guys highlighting it, it really does mean a lot to the people.
Why don't you explain exactly what it is that you do?
And by the way, and I saw that you were ranked as one of the top 100 fastest growing companies in the U.S. for the past two years, 31 and 85, respectively.
That's huge.
Yes, sir.
You know, it's one of those incredible blessings.
You know, we just kept on growing.
I was active duty military until about 11 months ago.
So watching this thing go from my garage while I'm deploying with special operations to try to grow that staff here in Savannah to where I am right now.
I'm standing in my facility overlooking over 160 people as they're printing flag-faith firearm and friends, one of our best-selling designs.
We just can't keep these things in stock.
Well, let's talk a little bit about it because at a growth rate of what, 5,000% per year, and that's year over year since I guess you began this in 2012, and you started this company in your garage.
Let's talk about the origins.
Yeah, I was in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, some of the finest pilots in the nation.
It was an honor to serve there.
And I got to learn about the importance of time on target, plus or minus 30 seconds.
That's our mantra.
And we deliver our special operators everywhere to support and defend us to this day.
And that's an incredible challenge.
You take all of that expertise that you've gained over the last decade in military servitude and you apply it to the civilian world.
And it has incredible handovers.
You take that mentality of mission men me and you hire veterans who have that same understanding.
There's a lot of initiatives out there to encourage people to hire veterans in different states.
And I get to work with Secretary Kemp, who should be our next governor of Georgia, hopefully.
And there's a lot of really incredible initiatives that business can take advantage of.
We just did it early on.
And the veterans and the spouses that work for us, that's the reason we grow so fast.
That's great.
We keep talking about employment records in 14 states and for Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, but also women in the workforce and vets now are their employment levels.
And we now have a 50-year low youth unemployment number that just came out yesterday.
But, you know, one of the things I know you focus on is textile and manufacturing.
And the interesting things, those are the jobs that Obama said were never coming back, but we're seeing a massive growth in the area of manufacturing.
Yeah, I think it goes back to leadership.
I think it goes back to what you hit on earlier before we came on of the importance of this upcoming election to make sure that we continue in the right direction.
There's a lot of initiatives out there that I've been able to take advantage of, you know, working with our state government, you know, here in Georgia, which is very pro-business.
And the internal workforce training, all these other initiatives and tax cuts have allowed us to really reinvest back in our own company.
And, you know, the minorities, the spouses, the veterans, all those initiatives, they just take off.
And here in Georgia, it's been incredible.
All right, let's talk specifically about the companies that you work directly with.
You work with one of our advertisers who we love, our friends at BlackRifleCoffee.com.
By the way, they're amazing guys.
And you know what?
From everything I hear, their company is exploding.
Absolutely.
I would say that we are the t-shirt equivalent that they are in the coffee space.
And Evan and I met about a year ago.
The day I left active duty, I actually flew out to Colorado.
And I get to hang out with Evan and Matt and got to know if we want to do business together.
And these are some really awesome guys, similar background.
We ended up going out shooting some guns, throwing some hatchets, having fun, riding dirt bikes, and realizing, you know what, not only do we like working together, hanging out together, we like working together.
And we have their first full-scale franchise here in Savannah, Georgia.
And the mutual partnerships that we've been able to curate, we've got a car in NASCAR together with Extreme Concepts and Jeffrey Earnhardt, the grandson of Dale Sr.
You know, a lot of these companies that you mentioned, the synergies that we have together and how we all recognize the added benefit we give to one another, it allows us to all grow at the same time.
And one of the things that I love is when people actively seek to hire veterans, the point is, is they've got more discipline than the average bear.
They know how to deal with stress better than the average person.
They've been tested under the most difficult of circumstances.
And no matter what they're going to face in the business world, it's not quite the equivalent of having IEDs blowing up nearby you or your friends having their legs blown off or being shot in the face.
So I just see that the amazing accomplishments that they've made.
And I think the fact that they're focusing now on building their own business so that they can be owners and entrepreneurs.
I love that.
It's true.
The purpose of our brand is to try to close the gap between those who serve and those who don't.
So there's a mutual respect and understanding.
And in the employment world, when it comes to looking at a veteran's resume, they don't understand it.
You look at a special operations resume and it says, hey, I'm an air mission commander.
I used to fly to countries we're not supposed to be in in the most austere conditions and had to land people plus or minus 30 seconds timeline.
Listen, when I went over to Iraq, I went on a C-130 once and with two mid-air refuelings, and the pilots were like in their young 20s.
And I'd sit up there in the cockpit and I'm just stunned at their flying ability, their professionalism.
And then at the time, it was a war zone and you had corkscrew down, that pretty much means you're going straight down.
It's almost like a vertical descent.
You don't take a lot of time to get to the ground in case somebody's going to fire a surface-to-air missile.
Absolutely.
But how do you translate that to your resume?
And the employers out there have to be able to do that.
I'm really good at corkscrew landings.
I'm really good at that.
I'm amazing at it.
It's incredible.
The skill set that they have to be able to calculate, you know, to the gnat's butt to make sure that everyone on that plane survives, it translates to almost every aspect of business.
Attention to detail, you know, the grit, the determination, the not giving up on a task because it's five o'clock on Friday.
My guys will be here till midnight, or they'll be gone at four if there's nothing else to do, but they don't know how to fail.
And that's what you get when you hire a veteran.
You know, I actually think that's the thing.
I mean, a lot of it is about attitude.
What other companies are you working with, by the way?
Man, there is a longer list between SIG, Glock, USCCA, NRA, Field and Stream, Cabela's, Bass Pro.
I mean, all these organizations see the value in what we bring, you know, in our name brand.
You know, the fact that we're making conscious efforts to move to U.S. manufacturing when it's not, you know, technically the cheapest route, but we can leverage technology and get the cost down.
But, you know, all of these organizations see the value and recognize wanting to partner with us.
Our problem is I can't deliver fast enough.
You know, we grow way too fast.
I've got a laundry list of people waiting to get products lined up.
What about people that maybe you would want to employ, people that are looking for good jobs, careers?
You know, what are the states that you're working in and where might people go if they're interested in either helping you in one of your projects or maybe working for one of your companies or what?
Absolutely.
We're in Savannah, Georgia right now.
We're headquartered here.
We're actually starting up one of our first franchise locations in the next few weeks.
But we do have plans very similar to Black Rifle to expand and grow all throughout the country.
I have 160 people right now, about 30 people short.
So if you're interested in joining my organization, it's a lot of fun.
We work hard, we play hard, and head on down to Savannah.
Give us your website, and then we got a run here on a Friday.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's ninelineapparel.com.
And for some of our philanthropic endeavors, we have ninelinefoundation.org.
We're building a homeless village for veterans.
It's a hand up to try to get them off the street, get them educated with Georgia Southern and certified and specific skill sets and then get them employed.
That sounds great.
All right.
We really appreciate you being with us.
My best to you and all the guys you're working with and the great work you do.
Tyler Merritt.
Thank you.
President of Nine Line 800-941-SHAWN is our number.
Coast to coast, from border to border, from sea to shining sea.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
Wrap things up for us today.
Manafort, two days, no verdict.
How do you interpret that?
And can you redefine what reasonable doubt is?
Well, I'd say that it's hard to, look, it's hard to interpret, but it certainly sounds like it's not bad for Manafort.
Sounds like there is some doubt in that room, but there's also a lot of charges.
And it's a 90-plus percentage conviction rate in federal court.
We'll find out.
We're going to be, what, 78 days away from the most important midterm in our lives.
