The Most Dangerous Scandal In American History - 12.18
Former Nixon Aide Monica Crowley fills in for Sean and discusses the latest on immigration and today's news that General Flynn won't be sentenced until March. Plus, Crowley digs in on the most dangerous scandal in American history! The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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All I want for Christmas is an America that hasn't been plunged into a deep state hellscape.
Is that too much to ask?
I don't know, maybe.
Maybe I should just ask Santa for a pair of Manola blonics.
Maybe that's easier.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
So happy to be here and to have you with me.
We've got a fantastic show ahead.
You're not going to want to miss a minute of it.
If you'd like to join me, the telephone number here is 800 941 Sean.
That's 800 941 7326.
Also, please check me out on social media on Twitter at Monica Crowley.
You can tweet me there during the course of the program at Monica Crowley.
Also on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY for New York.
And on Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
In fact, we just took a photo before we started of me preparing for the program, adjusting the microphone.
The lovely and talented, gorgeous, brilliant Linda took the photograph.
Linda, what's up?
Do you want a pair of Manola Blonnox for Christmas?
I want a pair of Manola blonics every day, actually, not just on Christmas.
Join the club.
You can already tell that this program is different than the kind that Sean.
I assure you that when he comes back, it'll be the first thing I ask him.
Uh maybe we should uh appeal to Sean for those shoes, Linda, right?
Dear Santa Sean.
Dear Santa Sean.
Monica and Linda won.
Anyway, it's great to be here.
Linda, Ethan, thank you so much.
And big thanks to Sean for having me in today.
Merry Christmas to everybody.
We have news coming at us from all sides.
We've got news on the border wall.
May not be the best of news, but we're gonna take that apart.
Also today, former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn was supposed to be sentenced uh in a courtroom today, but there was high drama there.
And the judge, Emmett Sullivan actually put off the sentencing for Flynn uh until March.
So 90 more days.
We're gonna unpack all of the latest on the biggest and most dangerous scandal in American history.
That is not an overstatement.
What we are witnessing is the biggest and most dangerous scandal in American history.
What President Obama's administration, including his Department of Justice and his FBI, may well have done in using the nation's chief intelligence and law enforcement agencies to spy on their domestic political enemies.
Makes it the most dangerous scandal in U.S. history.
Let that just sink in, the surveillance part, the targeting part of this entire deep state coup.
If this all bears out as we suspect, based on the evidence we've gotten so far, if this all bears out, this is the greatest abuse of power probably ever in U.S. history.
Since I work for former President Richard Nixon during the last years of his life, I I think I've got some unique insight into all of this, which I'm gonna share with you over the course of the program Today.
We're gonna break down this whole the this latest sorted chapter uh with our good friend former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy.
He's gonna be joining us in a little while.
I've got a couple of really big questions for him.
We'll also get his insight into what happened uh with General Flynn in that courtroom uh in Washington today.
Also, don't look now.
I hate to scare you.
I hate to be a Grinch.
But the 2020 presidential election cycle is upon us.
I know.
It seems like uh the last one just ended.
And it seems that way because the Democrats just will not let it end.
They still cannot believe Mrs. Clinton lost to President Trump.
They cannot believe it.
They did everything, and I mean everything to try to stop it, and they still failed, and they just can't let it go.
The Democrats are they're sort of like uh John Cusack in the movie Say Anything.
They're standing outside the bedroom window of the American people with a boombox, begging us to take them back.
So even though 2016 uh seems like uh just yesterday, and in a way it was, we're all still exhausted from that one.
2020 is upon us with a pack of about 325 possible Democratic candidates.
We're gonna talk to our good friend Doug Schoen a little later in the show, uh Polster, and one of the last remaining moderate Democrats about the Democratic field, and uh the fact that they all think that they can beat President Trump, which is amusing.
Also, today we're gonna have a fun chat with pro-football great Herschel Walker.
I met him a couple of uh years ago.
I've got big respect for Herschel.
He supports the president, which uh of course makes him a target, but he doesn't care.
He is a smart, tough, patriotic guy who supports the U.S. military.
I also want to ask him what in Sam Hill is going on with the NFL.
The protests, the trouble finding a halftime act.
I mean, if they're really desperate, I'll do it.
I'll do it.
I have a costume ready to go.
I can kinda sing a little bit.
I mean, wouldn't you guys love to see me perform with Maroon 5 during the Super Bowl halftime?
Yeah, of course you would.
Uh, we're gonna talk to him about all of that.
We've got a lot more coming straight up.
Again, our number, 800-941-Shawn 800-941 uh 7326.
All right, so the first bit of breaking news I want to get to.
Um, and again, this is this was just unfolding in the last couple of hours.
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, President Trump's first uh national security advisor.
As we know, he has been uh maybe he was patient zero in this deep state coup.
I mean, we all know that the the ultimate target is the president of the United States, Donald Trump, because Trump represents an existential threat to all of them.
That's why we're seeing all of this go down.
It's not a giant mystery here, but it is big and it's profound.
The reason that President Trump and pretty much everybody around him has been targeted from day one, and by day one, I mean the first day he gained real traction in the Republican primaries.
That's how long this has been going on.
Three years, is because he is an existential threat to all of them.
Who do I mean by all of them?
Democratic establishment, Republican establishment, media, of course, deep state, permanent bureaucratic state, and the international order and community, such as it is.
Not when he was in office.
No, not when he was in office.
Um, and he and I used to talk about Watergate all the time and the fact that he was targeted from the very beginning of his uh political career, Ronald Reagan, same thing.
Anybody who's a conservative is obviously a target.
But I have never, and I I haven't talked to any historians who have ever seen anything quite like this.
And the reason is because Trump is an outsider, he doesn't owe them anything, and if he succeeds, it is curtains for them.
They're a whole corrupt gravy train of power, influence, money, the whole ball of wax goes down the train.
And they know it, which is why they literally have been pulling out all the stops to try to destroy his candidacy and ultimately his presidency.
And they're not going to stop.
They won't stop.
And the Russia thing is falling apart.
There was no collusion.
There was no obstruction.
That's falling apart.
They will find something else to try to nail him with.
And they're they're basically using the law to legally machine gun or politically machine gun everybody around him so that he's stripped of the people he wants.
He's stripped of his loyalists.
And he's basically, you know, the cheese stands alone.
I have never seen this kind of monolithic opposition to a president in my life.
I'm sure you haven't either.
And it's because Donald Trump is such a unique political character that they must destroy him lest they be destroyed.
That's what all of this is about.
So as we get into what happened today with General Flynn and how he was targeted, just understand that he, like everybody else who has stood up for this president, defended him, voted for him.
Doesn't matter publicly, privately, you name it, you're in the crosshairs of something much bigger than anything we have ever seen before.
So Flynn, a cog in this wheel, uh, you know, he was supposed to be sentenced today, and he went before the judge, Emmett Sullivan.
Um, and Sullivan decided that he was going to postpone the actual sentencing for another 90 days until March because uh the uh General Flynn is continuing to cooperate uh with the Mueller investigation.
He's providing details on some of the foreign lobbying done for Turkey, which is one of the things that he didn't account for when he was being questioned.
So that's one of the things that they nailed him on.
So the sentencing, now you got another 90 days of this, and um uh we'll see what ultimately happens.
But there was this crazy moment in the courtroom where the judge, who by all accounts is a very fair judge and and believes in the rule of law and he's a very effective judge.
He at one point during the proceedings, he basically asked General Flynn if he were a traitor.
He actually used the word treason.
He was actually uh asking the prosecutors if they had even considered treason, and the prosecutors sort of stumbled in their answer and did weren't quite sure how to answer it.
And ultimately the judge came back and he walked back that statement saying, quote, I made a statement about Mr. Flynn as a foreign agent in the White House that was incorrect.
The prop prosecutor said that his uh Flynn's foreign lobbying ended before the Trump administration began.
So the judge then uh added, I'm not suggesting Flynn committed treason.
Well, I mean, that's a nice how do you do, right?
You cannot unsay that someone isn't a treasonous traitor after you've basically already said that, especially in a courtroom, especially in a case like this, where the entire world is watching and listening to every single word and running with it, of course.
So social media, I was on Twitter at the time.
Social media blew up, oh, the judge calls Flynn a traitor or asks if he's a traitor or if if he's committed treason.
And then the judge comes back and corrected himself.
So that was a good uh part of this.
But I mean, you can't say you're a traitor, whoops, my bad.
He asked General Flynn several times if he wanted to reconsider his guilty plea, which a lot of folks have uh thought that that now means that perhaps the judge was open to reconsidering the whole case because of what we now know about the way the FBI handled the interview, the interrogation of Flynn, uh, the 302s, the documentation seven months later, after the interview, and all of that.
Perhaps The judge, because he did ask Flynn multiple times if he wanted to reconsider his guilty plea.
Maybe he may have been open to arguments about government misconduct.
But General Flynn said, no, I I want to stick with my guilty plea.
Um, and that essentially closed off the option for the judge.
So then the judge said, okay, we're gonna postpone this another 90 days because the the investigation and your cooperation with it continues.
So we will revisit this in 90 days and decide on sentencing or not, then.
Um that is a separate and distinct issue from government misconduct in this case.
So the judge is dealing with this discreet sentencing issue for General Flynn, but that is a separate issue from James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Struck, who was one of the two FBI agents to conduct the interview with General Flynn that's now in question.
That is a separate issue.
And we have not heard the end of that yet.
800 941-7326-800941.
Sean, I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean Hannity.
We've got so much more coming straight up.
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Welcome back to the Sean Hannity Show.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
Really happy to have you with me today.
Our telephone number here in case you want to join 800 941 Sean 800 941326.
Also, follow me on Twitter at Monica Crowley.
You can tweet me during the show there at Monica Crowley.
Also on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY, and on Instagram.
And I am just getting the hang of Instagram.
So follow me there at Monica Crowley underscore.
Um we have been talking about uh General Flynn here.
We're gonna pick it up uh again as well with Andy McCarthy in a couple of minutes, former federal prosecutor, to explain to us what exactly went down in this courtroom.
But just keep in mind as we talk about General Flynn, as we talk about um the fact that the New York Attorney General now is going after the Trump Foundation, all of the Trump businesses, and so on.
The Trump Foundation, which was doing great charitable work, has agreed to dissolve because they've been under attack as well.
Donald Trump, I don't think had any idea when he came down that escalator in June of 2015 to announce that he was running.
I don't think he had any idea that he was about to become the most hunted political figure in recent history, maybe ever.
I think he soon found that out, and I think now he definitely knows he is the most hunted political figure ever.
And it's for many reasons.
Of course, they hate him personally, but again, they do not fear his failure, they fear his success.
Everybody who's been targeted is a part of this.
We're gonna break it down more on the other side.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
We're coming right back.
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And I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
So happy to be here.
Merry Christmas to you.
800 941 Sean, 800 941 7326.
Well, we've got Andy McCarthy on the line to help us break down what happened in the courtroom today with General Flynn and where we go from here.
But before we get to Andy, let's listen to what White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had to say about what went down with General Flynn when she was asked about it today.
Senator, I was in the courthouse last hour when the judge, Emmett Sullivan, Basically said that he was disgusted by Michael Flynn's crimes.
He said that uh he had disdain for Flynn.
Uh Flynn said that he knew that it was illegal to lie to the FBI, and he was ready to accept responsibility.
This is also for agreeing to a delay in the sentence.
Given that, are you in a position now, or would you like to revisit your comments earlier today that uh the FBI ambushed Lynn?
No.
Um I we still firmly believe look the things that may have taken place.
Again, that's for the judge to make that determination uh whether he engaged in something inappropriate.
What we do know that was inappropriate by own self-admittance of James Comey is that the FBI broke standard protocol in the way that they came in and ambushed General Flynn, and in the way that they questioned him, and in the way that they encouraged him not to have White House counsel's office present.
And we know that because James Comey told us that, and he said that the very reason that they did it was because the only reason that they did it, it was the Trump administration, and they thought they could get away with it.
Uh those are facts, and certainly um there may be other issues there, but that we don't uh have any reason to want to walk that back.
I can't even believe that this is where we are in this whole situation.
Keep in mind that General Flynn is a retired three-star general who is known for courage and valor and honor.
And of course, he was forced to resign after serving less than a month as the as the president's national security advisor, but also recall that early on, and for a very long time, in fact to this very day, General Flynn has been smeared as a traitor, as a Russian colluder, and how was some was somehow compromised by the Russians and or other foreign governments, right?
And now we're dealing with questions about whether or not the FBI and the DOJ engaged in uh prosecutorial government misconduct in the way they've handled this entire case.
Joining us now is Andy McCarthy.
He's a Fox News contributor, he's a columnist for National Review.
He is also a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
And he joins us now.
Andy, welcome.
Monica, great to be with you.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you too.
Okay, I cannot think of a better guy to go to on these issues and what went down today.
What can you explain uh because uh we weren't allowed in the courtroom, right?
No cameras, so we're we're counting on reporters to accurately tell us what uh these various exchanges meant.
But this judge Emmett Sullivan at one point suggested Flynn was a traitor and then came back later and said, I want to correct the record.
I didn't mean to suggest that.
Uh really nailed Flynn on a couple of things, and then seemed to turn around and offer General Flynn multiple opportunities to reconsider his guilty plea.
What does all of this tell you?
Well, first of all, Monica, uh Judge Sullivan is kind of notorious for being unscripted.
Um you know, he's He's one of these guys who is uh apt to say anything up there.
Um you and I probably can't say anything like we would normally say if we were just having a chat now that we're on the radio here, because neither one of us has life tenure um but he but he does and as a result uh uh you know life tenure is a wonderful thing.
You can kind of get up there and muse about treason when you're sentencing somebody on a process crime.
Uh so I I think you know, it was actually a useful exchange on both sides because I think there have been narratives about Flynn, and neither one of them is entirely accurate.
You know, there's one narrative that says that he was railroaded, that uh he didn't actually lie to the FBI and he was extorted into pleading guilty, which is a simplistic way of of putting his case.
And then there's the other side of the coin where, as you just pointed out, that you know, he's this treasonous agent of Russia who was working with the uh working with the Kremlin in a conspiracy against his own country, this 33-year decorated combat veteran of the United States who's written a book about how to deal with enemies of the United States,
was somehow conspiring with one of the enemies that he wrote the book about in order to steal an election and got caught in a righteous FBI investigation, which by the way, they still haven't explained why they were investigating him in making false statements.
And neither one of those narratives is true.
And I think what what Judge Sullivan did today by by invoking treason, whether he did this wittingly or not, is kind of show the smallness of what they actually uh managed to got to get Flynn uh convicted on versus what the rationale for the Mueller investigation was in the first place, which is this monstrous crime.
Uh and at the same time, by asking Flynn, well, do you want your plea back?
Do you think you were entrapped?
Uh do you think that they you know did something unlawful that that uh has you in these straits, and having Flynn say, no, no, no, I don't want my plea back, uh, saying that basically I want to keep my deal because he knows if if he breaks the deal that they have other charges that they can bring against him, I think it kind of smashes the idea that you know this is completely woven out of whole cloth.
But the the truth is always someplace in the middle.
And the same thing is true, Monica, for the for the thing that you opened with.
Um it's one thing to say that the FBI to spoke to Flynn, that Flynn knows that you're not supposed to lie to the FBI and he didn't tell them the truth.
But where Director Comey or former Director Comey and the people who are relying on him missed the boat is that history began before they got in that room with Flynn.
There's also an issue about how they managed to get in the room with Flynn.
Right.
And there's doubly an issue of did they give Flynn the same kind of deferential treatment that they gave, for example, Hillary Clinton?
And are people right to ask, are there two systems of justice in this country depending on what your politics are?
Yes.
And and especially if you are associated in any way or support President Trump, that puts you in a whole separate category.
Let me ask you this, Andy, because when the judge asked General Flynn, do you want to revisit your your guilty plea?
He seemed, I could be mistaken, but he seemed open to perhaps arguments that the government did engage in misconduct in the way they handled that interview with him in January of 2017.
Um then Flynn said no for a variety of reasons as as you've laid out.
Maybe he just wants this whole nightmare to end, and so he's just like, let me just take the guilty plea and be done with this.
But I also wonder uh because those two things are now separate issues, right?
They the handling of Flynn, um, how he's dealing with Mueller and so on, and now the issue of possible government misconduct.
Because it seems that when Comey admitted just a couple of days ago that he he sent these guys in, struck and another agent into the White House, that it was i it may in fact have been presented as, well, we just want to ask you a couple of questions regarding this counterintelligence investigation.
It's no biggie, right?
It's not a criminal investigation.
Therefore, you don't need a lawyer.
That's a separate issue.
What kind of investigation into that can we expect now, especially now that the Democrats control the House as of uh January 4th.
Well, you won't get to the last part, which is probably the most immediate part, you won't get anything from the House.
They want to close down these investigations.
The Senate can consider continue to pursue them.
Uh and what we've heard is that the Inspector General is looking into at least some of the alleged investigative abuse.
And Sessions did appoint uh John Huber, the U.S. attorney of Utah to look into it, although we haven't heard a whole lot of what's going on there.
I should point out that if you haven't heard about investigations, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing happening in them.
You're not supposed to hear about them from the government until they're ready to charge people.
But I think that the point that you bring up, Monica, is an important one.
Director Comey, as I understand his uh his statements, is essentially saying, you know, look, it's it's preposterous to defend Flynn under circumstances where he pled guilty to something.
And what I would counter to that is that there's a cases that go on in United States courthouses over the in and the state ones as well throughout the country every single day in which somebody has committed a crime or at least has alleged is alleged to have committed a crime, and there are hearings going on in court about whether the police or the FBI abuse their investigative authority to collect the evidence.
It doesn't make the person who committed a crime any less guilty, but we always look into the manner in which the police agencies complied or failed to comply with the rules and the protocols that they're supposed to honor.
And what the courts will frequently tell us is that it's a separate issue whether the police should be disciplined.
The fact that somebody gets convicted doesn't mean that you endorse all of the investigative tactics that were used to get to that result.
And it very frequently happens that even though somebody gets convicted in a case, the police agency or the watchdog of the police agency looks at what what went on in the investigation and says that this is either you know wrong or so wrong that it demands discipline, and sometimes people in fact get disciplined as much as you know being fired.
Uh what happens in cases is very often you have somebody who's a really bad guy.
I'm not talking about General Flynn here, I'm just talking about in general.
You have somebody who's a really bad guy who's committed a crime.
And you have police who have who have used tactics that are very close to the line to the point of being over the line sometimes.
And you have to make a decision about do we vindicate the law and prosecute the guy successfully for whatever it is that he's done, or do we let the guy off because we're so uh we we hold in such disfavor the way the police went about their jobs.
And those are very difficult decisions that go on all the time.
So my my it's a long-winded way of saying the fact that somebody's guilty of something doesn't mean that we bless the police tactics that we use to get that result.
All right, last question for you, Andy.
Um, the FBI 302s, and that's uh department lingo for the documentation of interviews done by the FBI.
Um I just heard from a very good source of mine on Capitol Hill that they consider the FBI shenanigans with the Flynn 302s, the seven-month delay, the fact that we didn't see the original 302 until Judge Sullivan demanded it a couple of days ago, um, and that the 302 that they did produce to the court was actually a 302 of interviewing struck about his interview with General Flynn.
Right.
The whole 302 shenanigans, I was just uh uh told by my source on Capitol Hill that they consider those shenanigans to be quote criminal.
Um, do you and secondly, do you know the incoming Attorney General William Barr and what do you expect he might do with regard to all of this?
Well, let me let me let me separate those two things.
Uh the the answer to your second question is I know Bill Barr very well.
I think very highly of him.
What he'll say about all of this I I hope is along the lines of what I'm about to say about all of it, which is if you don't have perfect information.
Well, we never have perfect information, but if you don't have a lot more information than what we have at the moment, you wouldn't want to make any bold pronouncement about how this is all going to go.
For example, uh you know, I know that they gave the 302 of the struck interview, which was the first one that became publicly available.
They gave that Monica to the court in conjunction with other documents that were sealed.
And at the moment, we don't know, or at least I don't know whether what Judge Sullivan was given uh included the original 302.
And we simply just didn't get that until later in the process.
So you know uh I'm I'm as disturbed about this as as anyone.
I think that you know, this is something that needs to be examined, but I'm not prepared to say, you know, what we should think of it all yet.
I still think we're in the very early stages of this.
I I do.
I think we've got the Mueller investigation, and then I think we've got the investigation of the investigation.
A lot more to come.
Thank you to Andy McCarthy, former federal prosecutor, and our good friend.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean Hannity, back in a flash.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean, 800 941-7326800, 941 Sean.
At the start of the new hour, we are going to uh continue this conversation about the deep state rolling coup against this president, uh Michael Flynn just being, you know, patient zero in many ways, the latest on that.
Also, news on the border wall.
We've got to deal with that, and I promise I will take a lot of your phone calls.
So again, if you want to join, it's 800-941 Sean.
I am Monica Crowley.
Freedom, baby, or what's left of it anyway.
This is the Sean Hannity show.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
Really happy to be here, and Merry Christmas to everybody.
Uh, we've got a great two hours left.
We're gonna talk to Doug Schoen here and just a little bit about the sprawling Democratic presidential field, which uh is like a never-ending uh horizon.
All it's all full of people who think that they can do this, which is fine, except when that extends to thinking that they can actually beat Donald Trump.
Look, anything can happen, but not a single Democrat, with the exception of Mrs. Clinton, actually knows what it is to run against Donald Trump.
To which I say, good luck to you.
You can find me on Twitter at Monica Crowley, on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY for New York, and on Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
My good friend, the brilliant and talented Linda took a shot of me uh right before we went live on the air uh preparing uh in Sean's uh spacious studio.
But of course, Sean being a dude, it's always freezing in here, and I was fine when we started the program.
Linda was all like, hey girl, um, I know you know we're always cold, you know, women are always cold, right?
I mean, I'm sure we're gonna get 500 calls on this from listen, I don't want to make assumptions about people sweating.
I just was like, listen, you're a beautiful tiny little woman.
I'm like, it's like a freaking freezer in here.
Well, you're very sweet.
And I remember last time I was in here, I think it was like leading up to Memorial Day when I was in for Sean, and it was like broiling out there, and then I walk in the studio, I could see my breath.
It was like icicles hanging out.
You have to understand Sean is a ninja.
So at all times we have to keep it very cold in there because he's always, you know, at any moment he could break into like a move, you know.
Yeah, I know.
And he's very talented at that.
Um, however, I am not a ninja, so therefore I need the studio a little bit warmer.
So Linda was like, when I first sat down, she was like, So, dude, it's really cold in here.
I'm like, no, I'm fine.
I'm in a uh like a cute little flannel shirt.
I'm good.
Everything's good.
And now at one hour in, I'm like looking at Linda like, uh, I can't feel my index fingers.
Monica, stop chattering on the air.
Stop it.
Your teeth are making too much noise.
I know, I know.
All right.
So uh that being said, we are still waiting for Manola Blannox.
Okay, moving on.
Moving on on Twitter at Monica Crowley and Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
Um, so we are gonna talk to Doug Schoen a little bit uh later on in the show about the Democratic field and how all these people think that they can take on Trump, which be my guest.
Also, a little later, we're gonna talk to Herschel Walker, who is, of course, a football legend, and I've gotten to know him a little bit over the last couple of years.
He is an amazing, amazing guy.
So we will talk to him about what's going on with the NFL and his new role for President Trump, which is also really interesting.
Also, we've got big news about the wall uh on the southern border, which uh I want to take up here in just a little bit, and we are gonna take your phone calls.
First, though, I want to revisit uh uh this whole situation with General Flynn and the bigger picture that it points to, this whole dark deep state rolling coup against this president and anybody who dares to want to serve uh not just this president, but serve their country.
I think a lot of people who were very excited about uh President Trump, especially at the beginning during the campaign in the early stages of his presidency, wanted to serve a president they believed in, uh, like General Flynn, uh wanted to serve their country, of course, and took the opportunities.
And now what we have seen is because Donald Trump represents an existential threat to all of the powers that be, um he and all of his people are now being essentially legally and politically rhetorically machine gunned to the point where either like General Flynn had to sell his house to pay his legal bills, upwards of maybe a million dollars.
Disgrace.
Uh other people who have served in the cabinet and in other capacities just get run off the rails.
Um this is something so much bigger.
And when I talk about how this is the most dangerous scandal in U.S. history, I used to think that President Obama, his administration's use of the IRS to target conservatives and religious folks and others who dissented with uh the socialist track he had the country on.
I used to think that that was the most dangerous scandal.
The government surveillance scandals of the Obama years.
I used to think that they were incredibly dangerous.
And all of that is true, but they they don't hold a candle to what we are experiencing and living through right now.
This is based on what we and we probably just know a fraction of what actually has gone down here.
This is the greatest abuse of power that I think the country has ever seen.
Because it involves the government use of one of the most fearsome arms of the federal government, the Department of Justice, which is supposed to be balanced and blind with the law applied evenly across the board to everyone, because that fearsome government agency, the DOJ, and of course the FBI, because they were used for political targeting purposes.
That makes Watergate look like tiddlywinks.
Remember, they went after President Nixon, for whom I worked during the last years of his life.
He and I spent a lot of time talking about Watergate and his role in it, uh in the cover-up and so on, his taking of responsibility for his role in it.
But they went after Nixon for involvement in the cover-up of the break-in at the DNC, right?
And yes, of course, President Nixon made mistakes.
But this, What we are seeing now, this is a whole other level.
This is the coordinated, premeditated, systematic weaponization of the DOJ and the FBI leadership.
Not the rank and file, the leadership to target a presidential candidate, his team, and ultimately his presidency.
And by the way, this is an ongoing process.
This isn't something that sort of ended a couple of months in or something.
This is an ongoing process.
James Comey, the former director of the FBI, who President Trump was 100% correct in firing, in fact, should have fired the first day.
His only error was in waiting a couple of months to fire him.
James Comey continues to make the scene in front of Congress, in front of the media, trying to deflect what his responsibility was in all of this.
Listen to this exchange with the great Catherine Harridge, a fantastic national security reporter for Fox News.
My understanding is that when you shared your memos with your legal team, that there was a follow-up for a classified containment operation by the Bureau.
Was there a spill of classified information when you shared those memos?
Yeah, I'm not gonna talk about something like that.
Well, that's important to talk about whether classified information was mistaken.
Whether you think it is or not, I'm not gonna talk about it one way or another.
I'm not gonna talk about it one way or the other.
First of all, his dismissive attitude toward Catherine Harridge, I guess because she works for Fox News, which he also slammed a couple of days ago, right?
Put his nose in the air about Fox News.
Yeah, because Fox News is pretty much the only place holding the guy accountable and all of his unethical, if not straight up illegal behavior.
But also, you know, Catherine Heridge is uh she's a really smart, she's been doing this a long time.
She's a really smart, fierce reporter.
She's also a woman.
So you know what, James Comey, um, I don't think you treated her very well.
In the Me Too era, you know, you might want to be a little bit more careful in answering Catherine Herrich's great questions.
Let me say this about James Comey also.
Comey is a master of projection.
What do I mean by that?
Projection is accusing someone of what you yourself are guilty of.
Leftists are great at this anyway.
Yasser Arafat was great at accusing the Israelis of what he himself was doing.
Uh, leftists just generally are very good at this, and they do it with straight face all the freaking time.
James Comey is a master of projection.
So he has been constantly accusing President Trump and his team of what he and his team have been guilty of.
Namely, lying, breaking the law, corruption, being uninterested in the truth, all of those things that he's trying to smear President Trump and President Trump's team with, he and his team, McCabe, Strzok, Page, uh, or the whole dirty lot of them.
He and they are guilty of all of those things.
But do you see the little rhetorical jujitsu that they do?
They turn it, they deflect it onto their target.
And he's been doing this now for a long time.
He comes out with a straight face.
I mean, you know, the guy, the guy was FBI director.
He's been trained in this kind of stuff.
It's like John Brennan as head of the CIA.
Same thing.
John Brennan will take to his Twitter and blast Trump for all of these things.
Well, hold up the mirror, right?
James Comey is the personification of the deep state.
Even the way he dresses, the way he carries himself with the suit, and and he's like what, six foot ten or some like crazy height.
He is the personification of the deep state.
But I will also say this about James Comey.
Comey, like Brennan, and a lot of these professionals from the deep state are way too slick to be caught.
Now, maybe because we have a President Trump and not a President Clinton, we might actually see the truth about what he and his cohorts Actually did.
But I do know that they have always been extremely careful.
Careful in their total ruthlessness.
Comey is so slick that the idea that they're leaving breadcrumbs where they could be caught doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.
He is totally ruthless.
He, like the rest of the operators in the deep state, self-elected, self-elected, right?
They elect themselves the saviors of the Republic.
Oh, well, I see Donald Trump, oh, what a vulgarian buffoon, doesn't know what he's doing.
The country is not safe.
Therefore, I will take it upon myself to save the nation by undermining this president.
Self-elected, surrounded by acolytes and flunkies.
Again, all the stuff that they accuse Donald Trump of doing in being.
Unaccountable.
Everybody in the deep state unaccountable and generally untouchable.
Unless, and there's one condition here, unless Comey and his deep state cohorts are ambushed by history.
What do I mean by that?
I mean the election in November of 2016.
There is no way that they expected Donald Trump to pull the whole thing off.
I did from day one.
I said it on Fox News, a couple of uh days after he came down the escalator.
He's gonna pull the whole thing off.
They never expected that.
They should have been listening to me.
Hello.
Smart people listen to Monica.
They should have been listening to me because they would have known that Donald Trump was going to pull the whole thing off.
This is where Trump comes in.
Remember, during the campaign, when they started this whole deep state hoax, trying to tar uh Donald Trump for being a Russian colluder and in bed with Putin and the Russians and then Flynn and everybody else.
Well, that started during the campaign.
And the reason that we're seeing a lot of this now evidence and a lot of these facts now just starting to come to light is because they never expected this stuff to come to light and they were very sloppy.
They were very sloppy.
They thought Mrs. Clint would be president, everything would go in the shredder, lost to history forever.
Guess what?
That night in November of 2016, they had a holy crap moment.
And after that, then it went into phase two during the transition.
And now it's still in phase three, where they are trying to do two things.
One, destroy the president because they hate and fear him, and they fear his success.
And number two, to cover up their own quote, dirty deeds.
That's it.
Makes complete sense.
800-941 Sean 841.
Excuse me, 800 941-7326.
I am Monica Crowley on Twitter at Monica Crowley on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY, and on Instagram with the pretty pictures at Monica Crowley underscore.
What's the name of your book?
What the Bleep Just Happened, which I wrote about the first Obama term, but can also apply to the deep state today.
So please go check it out.
Thanks, Lynn.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean, and I'm laughing, but I can't tell you why, because Linda and I are sharing a little uh dirty inside joke.
No!
Linda, you are a bad influence on me.
Yeah, Sean says that all the time.
800-941 Sean 800-941-7326.
Let's hit the phone straight away and say hi to Monty listening in Idaho.
Hi, Monty.
Hello.
Hi, what's on your mind?
Hi.
Well, I just was having a comment about uh Flynn and the judge decision to put this off for a while.
I thought possibly maybe what the judge was doing is giving himself more time to collect more information that hasn't been turned over to him.
You know, that's an interesting thought.
I know a lot of people, Monty.
Thank you for the call.
I know a lot of people have been uh discussing that, and it's entirely possible that uh they sprung this on him at the last minute about the 302s and and different things.
So we will see.
The game is not over yet.
I am Monica Crowley on Twitter at Monica Crowley and on Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
Back in a flash.
Welcome back.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
Great to have you on board.
Thank you for sharing part of your day with me.
Our telephone number 800-941-7326.
That's 800-941.
Sean, uh, before we get to my good friend Doug Schoen to talk about the Democratic field, uh, I just want to make note that at the top of the program, I wished for from Santa this year.
I I basically have one thing on my two things.
One to get rid of this deep state nightmare that we're all going through and allow the president to actually govern the way we all know he can without this burden.
And my wish number two is a paramonolos.
So I've got a big wish and then a slightly less big.
I think you need to identify which of those is the big one, which is the last thing.
I've spoken just like a good girlfriend.
You know, shoes for girls are very important.
I just want to point out that early on in the program, uh, we had a caller named Greg from Chattanooga who told Linda that he wanted to buy us those shoes.
In fact, Linda, correct me if I'm wrong, but he said, I will buy you two shoes.
He said, Greg, my dream man, wherever you are in Tennessee.
He said, Listen, I heard you and Monica talking about shoes, and I just wanted you to know that I will buy you those shoes.
And then he went on to talk about Muller and Flynn, and I said, Listen, you had me at shoes, please.
Listen, no more.
I mean, you know, when you start talking about um really nice shoes to women, everything else just falls away.
Like we don't we tune you out after shoes.
So Greg from Chattanooga, if you are still listening, call Linda back because we do want to take you up on that offer of buying us how many pairs?
Ten pairs each.
I think it was 15.
Oh, yeah.
No, I thought I heard him say, stuttered a little bit, and then I realized he was saying 15.
He tried to say two, and I was like 15.
Right.
I heard you correct it.
Thank you, Greg.
Well, we will take it and you will make these two New York girls very happy, Greg.
So once again, Greg and Chattanooga, 800 941 Sean.
Um, you know who actually might buy us those shoes, Linda, is our next guest.
Doug Shon.
Subtle Monica, very subtle.
Well, if you hear any noise in the background, it's I'm, you know, uh in the Monano Milano Monola.
Having just come from Jimmy Chews, where I found nothing of use for either one of you, but I love this man.
No, he knows.
And and and I do have to ask you both one serious question before we get started.
If a man showed up with a diamond necklace, would that be better than shoes?
No.
Okay, I'm gonna say yes, and I'm gonna have to school Linda in this off the air.
You always go for the more valuable, Linda, and then we can negotiate down to the shoes after you have the diamonds around.
No, it's not negotiate down, it's get the necklace, and then we go get the shoes.
I'll get the necklace.
I get the necklace and wear it while I'm buying the shoes.
Do you see why do you see why I wanted to book Doug Schoen on the program every Christmas?
See why Doug is such a dear, valued friend of mine.
By the way, for everybody else who's not in on the joke, Doug is one of the nation's premier pollsters.
He is a top political strategist and consultant, and I dare say one of the last remaining moderate democrats in America.
Doug is the last remaining one because there are not many of us left.
Well, you're getting pretty lonely in your own party.
I mean, what is going on?
This is now the party of Barack Obama, right?
The radical left.
Well, I think it may be the party of Bernie Sanders or Ocasio Cortez now.
Well, so how does a moderate like you continue to survive in this party?
And do you think that the party has any hope of sort of regaining its sea legs back toward being a center left party rather than a radical left party?
Well, I was gonna say the best thing the Democrats have going for them is the Republicans.
I think had the Republicans governed more effectively, the midterms would have been a much more successful endeavor at the congressional level than they were.
But as to your question, I really don't see any hope.
Uh I mean, there are individual members of Congress who have to be moderates to get elected, but this is a party that believes in redistribution of wealth, guaranteed annual income, Medicare for all, and that's the problem.
And they also, I mean, just separate and distinct from the ideology you just laid out, they are also now obsessed with uh an investigative feeding frenzy, which we will see once the Democrats take control of the House in a couple of uh well, I guess two short weeks now.
Um they they are likely to overreach, right, Doug?
I mean, Mrs. Pelosi is trying to restrain some of her members here, but I would think that they are going to that they're not gonna be able to to stop themselves or help themselves, and that they will move to uh investigate and impeach this president.
Am I wrong?
I I think there's a substantial likelihood of that we need to see what Robert Muller comes out with.
But I also believe, Monica, if you take what happened today, uh, which to summarize for the listeners, the president has apparently backed off the six billion for the wall.
He said he'll take the Democratic offer of one point six billion for border security, and the Democrats apparently have said no to that one.
So I I I'm I I'm sort of befuddled, you know.
Um we may have a government shutdown over completely nothing that would be profoundly misguided.
What we're gonna talk about the wall here in a in a little bit, but I I did want to turn with you to the possible uh democratic field because yeah, the Democrats are gonna control the House and they're gonna go on this in investigative, like go going hog wild with investigations which are gonna lead legislatively to paralysis and and anything that they might pass will uh surely die in the Senate with an expanded Republican majority there.
But I'm interested in looking at 2020, and I know it's uh absurdly early and it means nothing.
But I do note this week that former vice president Joe Biden is already trying to clear the field by hooking up with Robert Francis Beto O'Rourke out of Texas.
So let's talk about them first.
First of all, do you think Biden is is running?
What are his chances at his rather advanced stage?
Yes.
First, I think he probably will run.
My experience is when people are leading the polls, as Biden is, they almost never say no.
So I think he will run.
And uh I think it's way too early to talk about who he'll run with.
But uh my guess is he and every other Democrat will run with both a woman and most likely a woman of color.
You know, that's a really interesting point.
And uh Doug, you and I have talked about this.
I've been saying this a long time too.
I think, and please correct me if you disagree, but I think that the lesson that the Democrats took in 2008 with Barack Obama and then in 2016 with Mrs. Clinton, is that woman is not enough for them.
That if they're gonna inspire particularly their minority constituents to come out in the the numbers that got Obama elected and then re-elected, you can't simply have a woman.
You've got to have either a minority woman or a minority man at the top of the ticket.
I think this is the the way that they are calculating this going forward.
So number one, do you agree with that?
And then number two, what does that mean for a Joe Biden, a better or work, a Terry McCaula?
Well, I think it means that we will have on the ticket, regardless of whether it's Biden, let's hypothetically say it isn't for a second, uh, that you'll have a woman and you'll have a person of color and potentially and I think indeed likely, as I suggested, a woman of color.
And I think that that's probably a good thing uh for the party in terms of inclusivity, but it is not a good thing for Robert Francis Beto El Rock.
So it would be good news for uh California Senator Kamala Harris, right?
Yeah, I think I think regardless of how she does in the primaries, and I assume she'll run and be respectable at the very least, I think it's gonna be pretty tough for the Democrats to keep her off a ticket.
What about let's talk about a couple of other U.S. senators?
Core Corey Booker, uh Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
What do you make of their chances?
Well, well, I'd say um Booker did not distinguish himself during the Kavanaugh hearings, and uh I don't think he'll be a particularly strong candidate.
Uh Bernie, I think is a potentially strong candidate.
He's running ten, fifteen points behind Biden, but uh certainly he has enthusiasm uh and a constituency as to Elizabeth Warren Monica.
You know, the whole notion of whether she is indeed uh a Native American has so clouded things for her that with uh Bernie in the race it's gonna be hard for me to see her getting traction.
Her time I really believe was um uh 2016 and she chose for her own reasons not to run you know a couple of days ago she gave a speech in which she said I am not a woman of color so I guess she was trying to put that whole controversy to rest but in this day and age where everything moves so fast and especially with social media once you make a mistake or an error like that is very difficult to recover from right?
That's that's my attitude and certainly um you know you just play that in a commercial her saying I'm a Native American I'm not a person of color you sort of say well when are you and maybe that's not fair but that is how politics is played nowadays.
It'll be very interesting to see if Bernie Sanders can recapture the magic you know we talk about politicians missing their moment when you know they should have run whether you know it's governor Chris Christie a couple of years ago um chose not to run Elizabeth Warren or you name it.
Michael Bloomberg I know you've done some consulting for him in the past I know he you know obviously former mayor of New York City but also with presidential ambitions do you think he's going to take it on this time?
I I don't know and I don't think he knows I think he is in the process of taking soundings and making a decision whether the party he just joined the Democratic party will be receptive to a guy who, you know, obviously I'm biased but he's got a great record as a mayor as a business leader as an environmental leader.
I think he'd be a great candidate whether he runs I think is still uh undetermined uh do you think he would like to be president most people I have seen in political life Monica from the lowliest member of uh a city council on up wants to be or would like to be present or actually believes that they should be president Mrs. Clinton speaking of whom Mrs. Clinton do you think she is going to
again?
I think if she sees an opportunity, an opening, I think she would.
I think at this point, given how her speaking to her has gone, she's not going to be received too well.
But hope springs eternal.
You know, what's interesting about the Clinton dynamic, too, is her husband, Bill, for whom you worked in the 1990s and did polling for.
In the Me Too era, it's amazing that the guy is still welcome to in polite society or at least some polite society but I also think that it's the case that in the Me Too era Bill Clinton having faced uh serious incredible allegations of rape sexual assault sexual harassment and so on that it's likely we will never regard whether Mrs. Clinton runs again we will never see Bill Clinton on a campaign trail again.
Am I wrong?
I think I think you're exactly right I think given the allegations given the AE uh documentary on the Paula Jones case and on the Lewinsky case I don't think Bill Clinton has the frankly credibility to go back out on the trail and be well received.
Well it took 40 years but we're finally done with him I'm not so sure about her but uh Hope Springs Hope Springs eternal Doug um you you know when you think back to 2008 nobody saw Barack Obama coming he was a state senator you know a little known U.S. senator for less than two years when he chose to run nobody saw Donald Trump coming in 2016.
Is there anybody not on the radar screen on the Democratic side um a business leader, an entertainer, somebody that we are not thinking about, someone out of the box that you think might actually make a run uh for the presidency, or might even be thinking about it.
Well, there's only one person uh who I believe could actually clear the field.
And that woman is Michelle Obama.
And I believe if she threw her hat in the ring, she would be the very veritable superstar that uh you have been alluding to.
I I agree with you.
I think number one, she's a woman, number two, she's a minority woman.
Number three, she's got the Obama name.
Number four, she's very, very intelligent.
Number five, she's got the political experience.
Number six, she is great at retail politics.
So she's probably the one that scares me the most.
I don't know if she's gonna do it, but we shall see.
Doug, thank you so much for your expertise.
So much, Monica.
Buy those vanolas.
Okay, I'm gonna charge them to you.
Doug Schoen, let's get rid of him before he can uh, you know, fight us on that.
Okay, Doug Schoen, my very good friend.
Thank you so much.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean on Twitter at Monica Crowley, on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY for New York, and on Instagram with all the pretty pictures uh at Monica Crowley underscore.
When we come back, we have a lot to talk about on the border wall.
We're gonna take your phone calls at 800-941 Sean.
Also, we're gonna speak with the football great Herschel Walker about what he's doing for the president and what the hey is going on with the NFL.
We got a jam-pack hour coming up.
Do not go anywhere.
I'm Monica Crowley, in for Sean.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
Merry Christmas to you.
We've just got about a week to go before the big day.
I hope you're all uh shopped out.
I am done.
I am proud to say done.
And I'm looking forward to a pair of those shoes under the tree.
I am Monica Crowley.
You can find me on Twitter at Monica Crowley on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY for New York, and on Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
So please check me out on social media.
You can also tweet me here during this last uh hour of the program at Monica Crowley.
Jam-packed final hour here.
We are a little bit later.
We're gonna talk to Herschel Walker, who is of course a pro-football great.
By the way, did you know Herschel Walker was also an Olympian?
He did the bobsled.
I had no idea.
I was doing a little research, and I've met Herschel a couple of times over the last couple of years.
He is a wonderful guy.
He is a true American patriot.
He is now serving the president on a sports commission.
Uh uh because he's long supported President Trump.
So he is doing that.
We'll talk to him about that.
But also I might have to ask him about the bobsled because this guy, I mean, world-class athlete in every way, really good human being, and uh uh competed in the Olympic games on the bobsled.
So we will talk to Herschel Walker as well.
First, though, I want to get to the border wall controversy.
Uh there has been a lot of back and forth in the last like week or so about a government shutdown and whether or not there would be one over the president's request for five billion dollars, which let's keep in mind, five billion dollars in the scheme of things related to the federal government is like zero.
I mean, the federal government spits and spends more than five billion dollars.
Cash for clunkers is more than that.
I mean, uh they they waste so much money on BS and nonsense that five billion dollars to begin this border wall is uh that's like an easy give for the Congress.
It's an easy the federal government, I mean, again, five billion is is like nothing.
It's like spitting into the ocean for them.
And yet, because it's so politically charged, uh the Democrats do not want to budge on this.
Now they have more leverage because they are taking control of the House of Representatives, and Chuck Schumer is emboldened in the U.S. Senate as well.
So the president uh has been talking about this for a very long time, about building the wall on the southern border and getting that done.
Now, remember last week when the president sat in the Oval Office with Chuck and Nancy, and they they had this exchange.
One thing I think we can agree on is we shouldn't shut down the government over a dispute.
And you want to shut it down.
You keep talking about it.
The last time, Chuck, you shut it down.
No, no, no.
And then you open it up.
Twenty time quickly.
I don't want to do what you did.
Twenty times you have called for I will shut down the government if I don't get my wool.
None of us have to do that.
Do you want to know something?
You've said you want to put the I'll take it.
Okay, good.
You know what I'll say?
Yes.
If we don't get what we want, one way or the other, whether it's through you, through a military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government.
Okay, fair enough.
And I am proud, and I'll disagree.
I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country.
So I will take the mantle.
I will be the one to shut it down.
I'm not going to blame you for it.
The last time you shut it down, it didn't work.
I will take the mantle of shutting down.
And I'm going to shut it down for border, but we believe you shouldn't shut it down.
Mic drop moment for President Trump, right?
I mean, at the time I tweeted that exchange, and I said, watch and learn, people, watch and learn.
That was presidential leadership.
By the way, Schumer, who is never I don't think he's ever been put in his place like this, maybe ever.
He was sitting there crouched on the couch in the oval, and his ears were on fire.
I don't know if you saw this, but his ears got like bright red.
He was so mortified that the president was putting him in his place.
And then at the end of that clip, you heard and saw, if you watched it on TV, Nancy Pelosi trying to chime in.
I mean, it's I first of all, none of them still have learned how to deal with Donald Trump.
Nancy trying to like chime in, oh, I'm here too.
And meanwhile, the vice president is like whistling past the graveyard, like, don't look at me.
Yeah, the president didn't need any help in that exchange.
He handled it beautifully.
That was presidential leadership.
Now this week, however, we're getting closer to the Friday midnight deadline for when they need to fund the government.
And that's why things have changed a bit, particularly on the border wall.
Um let me just make a bigger point about all of this.
Why is everything in America a nail biter?
Why?
I mean, down to the very last vote on Brett Kavanaugh, pushing everything to the last minute, they can't fund the government.
I mean, is nobody down there organized?
We know that the president is.
We know his White House is on top of things, but the rest of the government, everything is a nail biter.
And it doesn't have to be this way.
Oh, we're going into Christmas Eve.
Let's pass Obamacare.
It's always this way, and this is not how a great power should operate, but this is where we are.
So now, because they've got to uh uh do something before the Friday midnight deadline to fund the government, we're looking down the barrel of a possible government shutdown, but not a full one, a partial one.
By the way, the president has already uh signed into law uh funding for a bunch of of various uh departments, including the Department of Defense uh and some other uh health and human services and so on.
So critical uh services will continue to go on.
He's they're already funded.
So this would be a partial shutdown.
Here is the thing the president was elected because he's fearless, because he you know, he's never done any of this before.
He's not beholden to anybody.
And uh that was one of the big reasons why he was elected to shake things up and to get things done as successful business leaders do, as he did when he was in business.
But once they get in there, um something happens.
Now, Trump, uh Trump has really been immune to a lot of this.
I mean, he is marched to his own drummer and really had an extraordinary list of accomplishments in just two years.
But when it comes to the idea of government shutdowns, last week he was saying I would be proud to own a government shutdown over this.
And he was right then, because you know What?
If you don't have sovereignty, if you don't have the rule of law, if you don't have an immigration system that is under control, and if you cannot control your borders, you do not have a country.
You do not have a nation.
It doesn't exist.
So everything else that we talk about, none of it matters if you don't actually have a sovereign country that abides by the backbone of America, which is the rule of law.
You don't have it.
And therefore nothing else matters.
So he was right last week when he had that exchange with Schumer to say I'd be proud to own a shutdown over this.
Now, holy hell broke loose on the Republican side because look, Donald Trump has made tremendous progress in putting the backbone into a lot of Republicans who, if this were a President Bush or a President Romney, these people would have run for the hills at the first sign of trouble with Kavanaugh.
Instead, you had Senators Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham stepping up.
Why?
Because Trump is out there doing the political blocking for all of these people.
Some of them appreciate it, some of them don't.
Some of them take advantage of the political blocking, some of them don't.
But Trump cannot do everything by himself.
He needs Congress on a lot of this stuff, including, you know, funding for various things, including the border wall.
And the narrative has been spun over many years that any kind of government shutdown is bad.
I don't think that assumption is correct, but it's out there.
The perception is that any government shutdown is bad, and it's all the Republicans' fault because that's how the media portrays it.
So a president like Trump, who's generally very fearless, then gets uh hit with something like this: well, well, the government shutdown's really gonna hurt you, and then other Republicans in his ear going, well, it's really gonna hurt us collectively.
So there's a story today, uh, wolf funding off the table, that's what Drudge has.
But I just want to be really clear about this.
It's not that the president is changing his tune about the wall.
He is changing his tune if this story is to be believed in.
I don't think, Linda, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've heard from the president yet today about how he's gonna go about funding the wall of Congress won't get it to him.
Um, and he could say and do anything.
Um, but as it stands right now, what he is saying is not he's backing away from the border wall.
What he is changing his tune about is that that money will in fact come from Congress.
Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said today, quote, we have other ways to get that to that $5 billion that we will work with Congress.
She added that the administration could support $1.6 billion in border security proposed by the Democrats, but as you just heard from Doug Schoen a little while ago, now they're reneging on that.
Democrats don't want any part of this, and they certainly don't want to give President Trump a big win.
So I am very eager to hear uh from the president.
The president has said there are various ways to go about getting the funding for the wall.
Uh, he has talked about using the military in order to do this.
Um, the military has said it has no plans and hasn't heard yet from the White House on Pentagon building of the wall.
But uh it's it's fascinating to watch this because on the shutdown, everybody always runs for the hills.
Nobody wants to shut it down.
And I understand that.
However, I'm not entirely convinced that a partial shutdown isn't a good thing politically, economically, and to try to put pressure in order to get uh this wall done.
So we will see what the president has to say about this.
I'm sure he is contemplating uh his next tweet and possibly composing it as we speak.
And if he does, we will, of course, uh bring that to you.
But here's the thing about the border wall.
The need for the wall, of course, involves national security, it involves economic reasons, etc.
One of the big reasons why we're in this mess is because there has been an unholy alliance between Republicans and Democrats over many years on immigration and and a lack of a substantive southern border uh wall or fence or any kind of enforcement down there.
Republicans have wanted cheap labor, the chamber of commerce, etc.
Democrats have sought to flood the zone, tip the scales, precinct by precinct, district by district, state by state, until they achieve their ultimate goal, which is a permanent Democrat voting majority.
That's what Bedora Rourke in Texas was all about.
I mean, they flipped flipped Texas blue, it's over.
You will never again get a Republican president, ever done finito.
So this unholy alliance between Republicans with their economic interest and having cheap labor and Democrats wanting to flood the country to bring in as many new voters for them as possible has created this mess.
Donald Trump was the only Republican candidate in recent memory to have the um the courage and the fearlessness to go out there and say, I will build a wall, I will enforce our immigration laws, I believe in the rule of law.
We've got to get a handle on this.
We've got to know how many illegals are here so we can even so we can deal with the system and try to improve that.
But mission number one is the southern border wall and making sure that that is enforced because you can't get a handle on the broken system unless you know number one, who's here already, and number two, you stop additional people from coming in.
It is basic common sense.
And that single promise was the biggest thing, the biggest single thing to get Donald Trump elected president.
It crossed party lines.
Think about this.
When people talk about, oh, Republicans voted for him because they all want the wall.
It's not just Republicans, it is independents, it is Democrats, it's others who are taking a look at this country and saying, wait a minute, if you have no rule of law, why am I here?
That's the thing that separates America from everything else.
That's the thing, rule of law that creates the backbone for American exceptionalism.
So when he said, I am here, I owe nobody anything.
I'm gonna build the wall, he meant it.
He's not a Johnny come lately to this issue.
He has been talking about this a long time.
He believes in it passionately.
So I will be very eager to see what the president has to say about how he's going to get this wall done.
He knows he's got to do it, and more importantly, he wants to do it for the country, for the American worker and the American citizen.
I am Monica Crowley in for Sean.
Find me on Twitter at Monica Crowley on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY and on Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
We are coming right back.
Monica Crowley here for Sean Hannity, 800 941 7326.
Let's go right to the phones for a quick call and say hi to Jill in Michigan.
Hi, Jill.
Hi there, Monica.
Thanks so much for covering for Sean.
Say you and the gang are absolutely top of the top.
So here's the deal.
Talking about the border wall and border security.
Here's all Trump has to do, and everybody saw it on television, how it's handled.
All Trump has to do is every time Chuck, Nancy, or Republicans in name only, or any Democrat says, start talking costs actually about anything.
All they have to do is keep saying, hey, Chuck, Nancy, you guys.
You sent 150 billion to our adversary in Iran.
In Iran, if you can afford the Iran deal, you can afford to build the wall.
I am Monica Crowley in today for Sean.
Big thanks to Sean for having me in.
And uh I know he's got a well-deserved break underway.
So we're thinking about you, Sean, and we miss you.
800-941 Sean is our number, 800-941-7326.
Follow me, please on Twitter at Monica Crowley, on Facebook at Monica Crowley NY, and on Instagram at Monica Crowley underscore.
Um before we switch gears here for a moment, uh, I just want to say that Gallup released, I guess as of moments ago, they just released a brand new poll showing that the top problem cited by Americans.
So they asked Americans, what do you think the top problem is in the country?
You know what number one is?
Government.
What a shocker.
Most of the American people say government is the top problem in the nation.
Do you know what number two is?
The second top problem that Americans cite is immigration.
Build the wall.
It is a political winner in addition to being absolutely necessary for economic reasons and national security ones.
I want to switch gears now and welcome to the show.
I'm so excited to have him here.
All-American Heisman Trophy winner, Olympian, and pro football great, Herschel Walker.
Hi, Herschel.
Hello there.
How are you doing?
Oh, I'm very well.
Merry Christmas to you.
Thank you for being here.
Well, Merry Christmas to you and Merry Christmas to all the listeners.
Well, you and I met Herschel about two years ago.
I guess it was during the campaign, and you were very vocal about your support for then candidate Donald Trump.
And I also recall that very early in your football career you played in the USFL for the New Jersey Generals, a team bought by none other than Donald Trump.
So you have known him for a very long time.
What can you tell us about Trump that we might not already know?
Well, you know, one thing I can say about uh he's a good man.
It's been sad to me to listen to all these reports about racism, about this, about that.
And I'm and I'm like, guys, uh this president that we have right now has not one time ever said I'm trying to make China great again.
I'm trying to make North Korea great again, I'm trying to make Metzgot great again.
He said I'm trying to make America great again.
And and that's what is upsetting to me.
This is a good man.
And I would love for the people, for the American people, to give him an opportunity to show what he can do.
Because you look at all the great things he's done without the help of everybody.
And my thing is give him an opportunity to do it with a little help, and I guarantee America will be greater than what it is right now.
You know, that's a great point, Herschel, and and you know, we've been making it that can you imagine how Donald Trump can perform as president?
He's already achieved so much in terms of delivering a strong economy, a stronger military, a stronger U.S. international position.
But can you imagine what he could do if number one he didn't have the Mueller fake Russia investigation hanging over him?
And number two, if he had a little bit of support, not asking for a lot of support, just a little bit of support.
Treat him as a normal president rather than try to tear him down and destroy him.
Can you imagine what he could get accomplished?
Well, that's what I think is so amazing.
Is you know, he he's had his mama thing going on.
And you know, one of the things I people need to stop for one moment to think about.
Since his election, during the inauguration, he had people protesting at that time.
So you gotta think what is this president going through that he did elected into office, you know, the first uh non-politician to go into office to go and now you have ever senators and everyone did not even want to come to his inauguration.
That's just an insult.
When we are a country that was built on law, we're a country that was built on rights, and yet the people that we're supposed to be representing get in by a system we put in place, but yet they don't abide by.
I think that's what's sad.
And now today we're in the situation we're in, we have a president that's doing a lot of great things, but yet we have a country that's divided, and they're blaming him.
Well, it's not divided because of Donald Trump, and I've said many times, excuse me for using this football term, but just because sometimes you don't win the game, it's not all the quarterbacks' fault.
Sometimes we gotta look around and look at other people on the team to see uh what's going on.
Yes, exactly.
And I keep saying, you know, Donald Trump is incredible and is achieved so much, but he can't do everything by himself.
Politics is a team sport.
You know, Herschel, I've been following you over the last uh two years, and you and I have spoken on occasion.
I know that you've taken a lot of criticism for supporting the president.
You still stand by him.
But a lot of the criticism that comes at you, especially comes from the black community.
So talk to us a little bit about how you're trying to get the message out on the president's economic agenda, how black unemployment is at historic lows thanks to him and and what he's been doing.
How are you reaching folks in the black community to let them know the truth?
Well, first thing I'm trying to reach the black community and doing is saying, Yeah, it's first of all, education is so important.
Education is so important and let them know that yeah, you're right.
Things have to change.
There's no doubt things have to change, but it's not Donald Trump's fault.
We've we were the country that was built on laws.
We're a country that was to become a wonderful country because of laws.
Well, today the way we change these laws, not through presidents, we gotta change it through Congress.
So instead of us blaming Donald Trump or President Trump, why don't we blame some of the people that have been in office for a long, long time that continually try to uh pretend like, oh, we want to change things.
Well, I'm not gonna call out anyone, but there's people that have been in office talking about gun control for every all the forever, talking about uh different things, but yet they've done no so little.
So instead of blaming the president, let's blame some of the offensive line that's supposed to be blocking for him.
And whether it's on the Democratic side or the Republican side, because before Donald Trump got elected, I said at this time here, we need to forget about this elephant and this donkey and get down to what's best for this country.
And I think that's what Donald Trump has decided to do.
He's not, I don't think he's Republican or a Democratic.
He said I'm great for America.
Even when he said that I'm a nationalism, people get upset with that.
It doesn't matter what this president says, people are upset about it when yet all he's done in the black community is have the unemployment get better, trying to go into the inner city and do things.
And you know, he's giving men a task of trying to get these young men and these young women in the condition that they need to be in.
You know, he's appointed Herschel Walker position, an African American, and he's appointed other African American positions to go out and do different things.
And we got are we gonna say things are getting better?
I think they are.
But yet we can help for them to get better by coming together as one group.
You know, you mentioned the president appointing you to this presidential commission to Herschel.
It is the president's council on sports, fitness, and nutrition.
And you, along with former Yankees pitcher Mariana Rivera, who have also met another amazing guy and big supporter of President Trump, uh, an Olympian misty made trainer.
Uh you guys are co-chairs of this commission.
Tell us what you're doing.
Well, what we're trying to do right now is get uh the young people incentivize to start working out again.
You know, one of the things that I was doing years before I even got this position is I was trying to encourage people that instead of just talking about physical fit, what we're talking about is health care.
What we're talking about is health care.
What we're talking about is heart disease.
We're talking about a lot more than just PE.
We're talking about a lot more just getting kids in shape.
We're trying to find incentives that we can encourage people to work out.
And uh and one of the things that I w another thing I like to point out is President Trump has appointed a lot of people in this council now that are go-getters.
The young men and women and I have to get Holly Holly Richard uh Richmond a crap because we've we're doing something a little different now.
We have a foundation that we put together that we're trying to go out and get different things done and and we're making things happen there.
Well, I'm so proud of what you're doing on this.
It's so important to reach a lot of kids and adults with this message about physical fitness and a and a good diet versus the Michelle Obama way of taking away kids' chocolate milk and like it's a bad thing.
Well, it's not a bad thing in moderation as long as you get your exercise and so on.
Especially now, Herschel, during the holiday season, when a lot of us are having a little too much ho-ho-ho, right?
Uh that's exactly right.
And one of the things I said, you know, uh Ms. Forman, the first lady, you know, she did a great job with Let's Move uh campaign, pam campaign.
But you know, one of the things I want to add to it, and just as you said, moderation is the key.
Let's not go out and point out any company that said that that's bad.
But what we can do is Talk to those companies and see what they're doing to make their community better and to help within their communities.
And at the same time, you know, today you're you're right.
This is a holiday times.
I tell people all the time, you can pile it on and I will help you to cut it up.
Because what you can do is if you're gonna uh eat that cake, let's say okay, if I'm gonna eat that cake, let me walk an extra mile today.
If I'm gonna eat those donuts, let me go out and do a couple of more push-ups and sit-ups.
But you gotta say I just uh won't.
Because uh today we have a we have a system in place now, and you know, years ago we used to have it in school where we had the PE, we had the physical fit, but now we don't have those things.
Most most of the kids today on their computer.
They're on their laptop.
Right.
But what I is my son is I said for every hour you're gonna be on your computer or your laptop, that's an hour you have to exercise for that.
Yeah, but every time you're gonna do this, that's you have to have a counterbalance to that.
And I think that's what we gotta start putting in place for all the young people.
Well, good for you for doing it, and thank you for helping the president with this as well.
Um Herschel, I've gotta ask you about the NFL, which has become a hotbed of controversy over kneeling during the national anthem and so on, ratings are way down, stadiums are half full.
What's your view of the protests and how the NFL has handled this whole issue?
Well, you know, I said it early on, and I and I hate to jump back on the commissioner, but I think the commissioner uh dropped the ball.
I think he dropped the ball because I think he wanted to be politically correct and make everyone happy.
But I've said many times that if you're the the head person, some people you're not gonna make happy.
I think when it if it first started, at that time he really said no, no one is gonna near, everyone's gonna stand, and if you have a problem, let's go in and we'll confront that problem somewhere else, but not at your job.
And now since everyone thinking that you're supposed to near, everyone said they have their freedom to speak.
And my problem with that is well, you do have your freedom to speak, but not on your job.
Time to do something, a time not to do it.
And I just feel to do a protest on your job is not freedom of speech.
I think that continued to hurt the NFL, and I think the commission now needs to take hold of it, and now he needed to say, you know, that was a mistake made.
You know, you look at what's happening now, uh, the young man in Kansas City that that having to do the incident and kicking in a young lady.
And then you said whether NFL investigated or whether they didn't investigate it, no, who knows.
But I think they should put systems in place to hammer that at the time.
So it doesn't get no down the road when you kick the can down the road and sooner or later it comes back.
I think they should handle that at the time instead of just pretending, but have a system in place that you can take care of that.
And you know, Kevin, you know, he he I think what he was what he was talking about was something great.
But let's be honest here, you don't do it on your job.
I think you have every opportunity to come down to Congress, you have every opportunity to bring, and I would have loved to go down to Congress and march those holes and walk those halls with them to do the uh talking to our Congresspeople about uh police and talking about that because I believe in law enforcement.
I want to be a law enforcement, and all policemen are not bad.
You know, that's what I'm that's what's sad to me.
All policemen are not bad.
And I think we need to realize that that we may have some bad apples in the in the bunch, but that's the same as as as American people.
There's some good and there are some bad.
But the way we do it is through it the correct way.
And I think the way they did it, that was not correct.
Well, and now and now, Herschel, there's a bit of a crisis surrounding the Super Bowl because they've got Maroon 5 for the halftime show, but they can't book any other musical guests.
You know, these celebrities don't want to be associated with the NFL because of the protests and so on.
And I look at this and I think, well, number one, I'll volunteer myself, I will perform at uh the Super Bowl halftime if they'll have me.
But the bigger point, Herschel, is that the NFL is politicized now.
Everything is so politicized, I think it's really unhealthy, not just for the NFL, but it's unhealthy for the whole society.
It's very unhealthy.
And you know, and for it to be the Super Bowl to be in Atlanta, Georgia, you know, that's home for me.
Atlanta have so many great, great entertainers there in Atlanta, and for them now to not be able to get a second act, it's sort of embarrassing.
It's embarrassing and it's sort of insulting.
And I think what the NFL, then that's why why I said that they drop the ball.
To be complet politicizing right now is not the time to do it.
No.
And but I I think we need to take it away from the president.
And I hate to say it.
I think we need to lay it on the plate of the Democratic people, all Republican people.
That is the problem.
And I and I know they're gonna get upset with me.
But these problems have been on our plate for years.
And nothing has been done.
And that's you know, we're talking about border control, but that has been a problem for years.
Right, and that's why Donald Trump was elected in the first place, because he is an outsider and he can get this stuff done.
Herschel Walker, lovely to talk to you as always.
Thank you so much, my friend.
Merry Christmas.
I'm Monica Crowley, in for Sean.
All right, before we close it out for the day, let's say hi to Diane, who's been very patient.
Hi, Diane.
Hi, Monica.
Thanks for taking my call.
I have 25 seconds.
I want to tell you I love you very much, and I want in on those manolos.
I wanted to say, how come what kind of lawyers does Michael Flynn have?
I mean, I am don't understand why he's not being set up for I know he had to spend a lot of money on legal fees, but I don't understand why he's lost his rights, basically, what it seems like to me.
And the other Well, there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes we don't know about yet, Diane, but we shall.
All right, big thanks to Sean for having me host for him today, the hilarious Linda, the wonderful Ethan, and to all of you for rolling with me today.
I am Monica Crowley, in for Sean.
Merry Christmas.
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