House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows and House Freedom Caucus Member Jim Jordan, join Sean to reflect on last night’s rally in Texas and the President’s words on illegal immigration and the need to protect the American people, first. Plus, Sean reacts to the idea that President Trump may have other means to close the gap on funding for the wall...it will be built!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.
What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi.
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I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
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Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
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All right, glad you're with us.
We are loaded up today.
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Sean, you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Let not your heart be troubled.
Let me explain in detail why I am not at all worried about what is a garbage, typical swamp sewer, compromise, whatever you want to call this bill.
That the we've had we've had people on both sides in the negotiating room and we believe we have come to a conclusion that it never gets the job done.
Okay, fine.
We're going to get to that in detail.
We've got huge developments, including Devin Nunes indicating that criminal referrals on FISA abuses are now soon to be coming.
Finally, the real criminals may be held accountable.
We're going to go back to Hillary Clinton, and by the time this is all said and done, we'll find out with the new Attorney General.
We have new information, thanks to, I believe, Judicial Watch documents that the FBI was negotiating with the State Department to change classified status of Hillary's emails.
You don't get to do that after the fact.
And more indications of a crime.
We've got more people running for president that will tell you about the 2020 list keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
And of course, the Senate Intel Committee saying, no, we found no evidence of collusion and we saw everything.
It's unbelievable.
John Dowd, I'll play it later in the program, the president's former lawyer, he just was like apoplectic, doesn't even think Mueller will even come out with a report and thinks the whole thing was a colossal waste of time and money and energy and an unprecedented attack on the executive branch, which I agree with.
We'll also have more on the new radical extremist Democratic Socialist Party and they're just losing it day by day.
And that's actually part of it.
I told you this would become entertaining at some point.
Well, we're kind of getting to that point.
Let me begin with this deal.
Let me tell you what this, I guess, so-called compromise is all about.
Now, it is interesting on the one hand because Democrats were arguing funding deal is not everything the president hoped, but a good step, said Mitch McConnell.
Yeah, whatever.
But let's start with, you know, they were arguing this is immoral, that building a wall is immoral, but yet they just negotiated a $1.35 billion, quote, compromise deal that's for border security.
So they're willing to be immoral at a price, $1.35 million, billion, rather.
Anyway, so this all starts getting announced as I'm going on the air last night.
And I'm literally ad-libbing it in my opening monologue and then the president, of course, in El Paso.
And so what they announced is they reached the deal.
It avoids a government shutdown.
The deal, which I never care about.
I care for the furloughed employees.
It becomes a hardship for some of them.
Obviously, Democrats claim to care about furloughed employees, just like they claim to care about DACA and DREAMers, but they wouldn't even sit down at the table.
They obviously, their hatred of Donald Trump surpasses any desire to do anything good for the country, which is sad.
Anyway, the details, Washington Post's $1.3 billion in border wall funding.
President, you recall, requested $5.7 billion.
The funding is set to provide 55 miles of new border wall along the roughly 2,000-mile-long southern border.
A lot of this, I understand, is going to be used in the Rio Grande sector, which needs it desperately.
And I'll tell you why, because literally you can walk across that body of water.
It'll take you less than a minute, and you go from Mexico into the United States.
You're right there.
And there's nothing to stop you, except for border patrol agents.
And the most insane thing that I heard was the desire of Democrats to limit the beds for immigrant detention facilities.
You know, and I'm thinking, well, what if we have more illegals entering the country and criminal, the criminal element of all of this?
You know, the sad part here is we now know that the Democratic Party is willing to play politics on what is a life and death safety and security issue for the American people just so they can oppose Trump.
Now, they hate Trump more than they care about the 90% of heroin that gets into this country comes through the southern border.
They hate Trump more than the human trafficking that's going on at our southern border.
I interviewed a guy, 13 years, border agent, border patrol agent.
He worked almost exclusively in the human trafficking aspect of this.
He talks about young girls from Central America, Mexico, trafficked into the United States, raped 30 to 40 times a day as they follow them.
I mean, it's unbelievable.
I thought Democrats had human compassion or the cartels, etc.
All of these issues that we bring up are important, but they don't seem to care because they just want to get back at Donald Trump because they don't like Donald Trump.
And for them, that's what it has come down to.
But the more important aspect of this is what's right for the country, what's right for the American people, and what is in the best interest of our safety and our security as a country.
Because if we put that first, then we've got to secure the southern border.
Stop the cartels, stop the gang members, stop all these people that want to bring harm to Americans.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's, I'm saying repeatedly, it's only 2% of the population that come into this country illegally.
The other 98, I will firmly admit, just want a better life for themselves and their families, and we're just asking that they do it legally.
Anyway, the conference committee was formed after the president reopened the federal government, and as usual, government has failed to do its job adequately because this is the state of the Radical Democratic Party.
And rightly so.
Jim Jordan, who's going to join us later, Mark Meadows, he's going to join us later.
You know, they said, well, the president was giving a great speech in El Paso.
Congress was putting together a bad deal on immigration.
And Jordan tweeted, retweeted by Florida Congressman, also Freedom Caucus member Matt Gates.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows laid out his specific issues with the tentative deal and said this conference agreement is hardly a serious attempt to secure our border or stop the flow of illegal immigrants.
It kicks the can down the road yet again, failing to address the critical priorities outlined by the Border Patrol chiefs.
And specifically, we're talking about the some 60 of them that went and met with the president yesterday.
Now, here's where I'm going to go out on a limb and give you my best thoughts.
Now, if you remember, there was a point, even during the primaries, remember there were 17 Republicans that started out in those primaries.
And I tried to be fair to everyone that got into the race, went to where they were, put them on TV, put them on radio, offered people, you know, at one point, you know, some people said, well, you're putting Donald Trump on too much.
I said, because your team doesn't want the time.
We called and offered equal time.
Just to try to be fair.
I don't like to get in the middle of primaries.
Anyway, it became clear when he won Indiana, he was going to be the nominee.
And there was a long period of time where I have known Donald Trump.
I've known him for over a couple of decades.
He has a couple of characteristics that I've never seen as strong in any one individual.
One is the guy is absolutely fearless.
Two is he's the opposite of a politician.
You know, he can take all the stress and all the fighting 24-7 and it does not bother him.
You know, it could be the middle of whatever, you know, hysterical reporting is going on.
And I'm telling you, it doesn't phase him.
Now, he's going to go out and fight back because that's his nature.
But it's sort of like a blessing is curse.
We can't ask him to go fight for better trade deals and better negotiations with other countries on issues of who's going to pay what for NATO and sit with little Rocketman and get a good deal.
Everything's a negotiation with him.
I talked to him during the campaign and I'd say, hey, listen, I need you, we're going to do an interview.
And he'd go, well, how long?
And I'd say, well, let's do 30 minutes.
And he'll say, I'll give you 10.
I said, look, how about we do 25?
All right, I'll give you 15.
And I really wanted 20.
And he really was only going to be doing 20.
But everything is like a negotiation.
So he gets the nomination, and many of my fellow conservative brethren doubted his conservative credentials.
And by the way, not through any fault of their own.
He grew up in New York.
You know, he was apolitical in the sense that he would donate to both parties, wanted a good relationship with everybody.
And people would look at that or look at the fact that earlier in his life he was pro-choice and later in his life explained the example when he became pro-life.
And I put my nose out there and I said, I guarantee you, he is the conservative he says he is that will keep his promises.
And I think I have proven to be right again and again about Donald Trump.
You know, look at the Supreme Court appointments that he's made.
Look at the tax cut that he's given us.
Look at the endless, you know, the bureaucratic cuts that he's given.
And I know some people were mad when he reopened the government, but he was winning on the issue.
Look at after the State of the Union speech, CBS poll shows 72% of the country agrees with his immigration policies.
80% of independents agree with it.
80% of independents give him high ratings.
He's now got the highest approval rating ever.
So I just know how tenacious he is.
And just as I said at the time when he opened the government, I said, just because he changed strategies doesn't mean he's given up on the issue because he hasn't.
Now, here's what the president said, and this is what I'm gleaning from it.
He literally said today what I said last night on the TV show.
This is a garbage bill.
He said he's not happy with this package hammered out by congressional negotiators, but pledged that if he accepted this inadequate offer, he would, quote, add whatever I have to add to his border wall.
Now, some of you may not believe that promise.
Some of you may have your doubts.
Here's how I interpret it.
So the president will get a down payment if he goes along with this agreement of $1.35 billion.
He also has another $900 million accessible to him in monies that have been saved.
That is available to go to the wall.
And this is for the fiscal year 2019, which ends October 1.
And then when he says, I'll add what I have to add, my prediction is that means he'll declare a national emergency.
And I think what he's going to do, he's going to take the $1.35, the $900 million, and he's immediately going to allocate it to the wall and start and continue building because they have been building with the money they got last year and the year before.
And then I think the president will declare the national emergency, but he got a down payment now of $2.3 billion.
So for the six months that it might take to fight in court as the Democrats go judge shopping in California and it gets to the Ninth Circuit and we lose the first two rounds, but I would argue that this is not a case that the Supreme Court could reject outright because it involves presidential powers, constitutional authority.
And I would think that expeditiously they'd have to rule on this.
And if they follow the law, which I can read to you when we get back, the president wins hands down.
Now, to me, that actually works out fine.
But he has to declare the national emergency for that to work.
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Some of you say, well, the president could just veto the bill and tell them to go back to the drawing board and come up with more money.
But what are the odds that they're going to do that?
Let's be honest and realistic here.
If they think walls are immoral, what are the odds that they will be reasonable?
This new radical, extreme Democratic Socialist Party, they don't have it within them to be reasonable, responsible.
And really, we're just wasting time.
And if the president, again, if he gets $1.35 billion as a down payment on top of the money he got last year, which is being used even now, the $900 extra million dollars, that's also available now.
And, you know, now we're talking about, you know, at least 60, maybe like 80 miles of fencing that can go up in critical areas.
We're working while the president then declares a national emergency, or to use his words, I will add whatever I have to add.
Well, he's telegraphing that he's serious about invoking the powers that are available to him as commander-in-chief.
And that would be 10 USC 284, which I read on the air yesterday.
And that is that, you know, for the purposes that department agencies, federal government, state, local, tribal law enforcement agencies grants the president the power to construct roads, fences, installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.
It's very clear.
And that's why, you know, so in the interim, while the fight is going on, now, if he vetoes the bill, maybe they figure out he's going to declare a national emergency.
Then the government is shut down again and he's going to get blamed for it.
And in the meantime, we're wasting valuable time.
So I would think the president is telegraphing, I will add whatever I have to add.
And I'm speculating.
I don't know.
I don't have any insider knowledge as the press always seems to think I do.
But in that case, he wins big time.
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By the way, who is this?
What band is that, Jason?
That is not a band.
It's generic.
It's a generic jumping jack flash.
Is that what that is?
Yes.
Some of the songs may sound like stuff you've heard, but it really isn't.
So it's music to get around the rules because he's exactly.
And then apparently, you're not allowed to play a lot.
30 seconds.
That's it.
Only play 30 seconds of a song or what?
They charge you like an insane amount of money.
You have to pay royalties.
Yeah.
Like serious royalties.
Oh, yeah.
Like big, big, big time.
Like we had to get permission to do our Zach Brown band and Florida, Georgia line and rich and Charlie Daniels Friday concert series.
And they were all happy that we were playing their music.
Now they'd want to charge people for playing their music.
It's hilarious.
I remember Bruce Hornsby once when I played The Way It Is.
You got 30 seconds of that, the start of that song.
So Bruce Hornsby once whined and complained that I played his music.
I always liked that.
It was his best album.
And he was actually a really talented pianist and songwriter and even played with the dead, the Grateful Dead for a period of time.
I don't get why people, musicians, would not want people to hear their music, even if they're.
Yeah, but he was smart, though.
This is what he said: yeah, I know.
I've heard it.
People tell me all the time, Hannity uses my music.
I really don't want to get into a fight with the guy, though.
That's what he said, which was pretty smart on his part.
No, he stopped using it.
that particular just for funny sis get a job great song Very liberal in its lyrics.
Play the beginning of it, the piano part of it, where it starts out, because that's a really good part.
Bruce Hornsby in the range from the way it is.
He's going to hear about this.
We go over 30 seconds.
We're dead.
Here comes the cease and desist.
Yeah.
All right, now listen to this as the music comes in.
He's got another great song called Mandolin Rain on this album.
And every song on that album is actually really good.
Right?
That is a very, very cool song.
You hear that?
Bruce Hornsby, it's a very cool song.
Free promotion.
You'd think you'd take the free promotion.
You know, everyone's so uptight about everything these days.
I'm like, okay, do we have to talk for the Super Bowl, for example?
Or football.
I can't, I don't want to watch football if I'm going to watch guys taking a knee while the national anthem is being sung.
This year, oh, who did the, yeah, we had these two young performers who were amazing, and I think they did America the Beautiful, if my mind is working.
Yeah, Chloe and Hallie, Chloe and Hallie.
And then who did the national anthem?
It was Gladys Knight.
Oh, Gladys Knight.
It was amazing, wasn't it?
It was so good.
I think one of the best renditions I've ever heard.
Even better than Roseanne's.
Definitely better than the halftime show.
I was half watching it.
I didn't care.
You know, I'm like, really?
Maroon 5 taking off your shirt.
Well, that guy looked pretty fit.
But, you know, if I went up there and did it, even though I work out five days a week, it's not going to be a pretty sight.
And I don't have those tattoos to cover up that, you know, literally shining Irish skin.
You know, it would glow in the dark in that arena.
And so beautiful.
What a voice.
No lip syncing here.
What so proudly we have.
Better watch the 30-second clock.
I mean, somebody that can sing like that, that is like a gift from heaven.
I don't think you can teach somebody to sing like that.
It's just, and if I could, I'd come back and I'd want to be a singer.
Love that.
Rascal Flats, my buddies, Big and Rich, and Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney and all those guys.
I think it's pretty cool if you get to sing in front of 80,000 people in these big stadiums like they fill all the time.
Zach Brown was at, what, Chase Stadium?
It was great, City Field now.
Remember, Billy Joel closed down the former Chase Stadium?
Billy Joel has now a permanent home at Madison Square Garden.
And I know, I think he does do other gigs, but he just does Madison Square Garden.
He could sell out every single solitary night at Madison Square Garden.
And he loves, it's like his home.
It's like, all right, I'm going on next, I'll do two a month or one a month.
I'll do three this month, whatever.
Sold out in minutes.
Puts on one of the best shows.
He's more down-to-earth than all of these other stars.
And you think of that, that he sells out all this stuff at Madison Square Garden in a snap.
So not far from where I live, he actually has a motorcycle shop.
And I've talked to him.
One day I said, Yeah, I was going to get a Harley, but it was either the Harley or the house.
You know, I'd have no, I'd be homeless.
I can sleep on my Harley, right?
And he goes, No, no, they're garbage.
Don't get a Harley.
I'm like, no, I got to get a Harley.
You had a Vespa.
Oh, stop it.
Really?
Do we have to?
Do we have to.
That's a traumatic moment in my life.
And everybody was trying to be so nice and accommodating to me.
But, you know, it's just a dream that I had.
And everyone says the same.
You're going to kill yourself.
You must have a death wish.
You know what they call it, a donor cycle.
I have surgeon friends, doctor friends, they call it donor cycles.
I'm like, guys, I just want to ride it on a Sunday morning.
You know, take it to the beach, watch the sunrise, right?
Don't even take it on the highway.
Ride home slowly.
No traffic.
That's all I want to do.
Not that I'm not, I'm not going to join Hell's Angels or anything.
Not that they would have me.
It's not that I survived the, even with my new ninja skills after six and a half years of training.
All right.
So, oh, bye, there was one instance.
So, let me go back to the border deal.
It's a horrible bill.
Anyone that tells you otherwise, they don't know what they're talking about.
It's a horrible bill.
Do I think the president may sign it to keep the government open and get a down payment of $1.35 billion on the wall added to the $900 million that we know he has accessible to him?
And yeah, but, you know, I think this president is pretty transparent when he says, I will add whatever I have to add.
To me, he's telegraphing, yeah, but I'm going to declare a national emergency.
And to me, that strategy would be smart in this sense because then he has $2.3 billion on top of the money that he still has from this year remaining.
And that means the wall keeps being built as the Democrats go judge shopping out in California, Oregon, wherever they go, that will end up in the Ninth Circuit.
Ninth Circuit doesn't follow the rule of law.
They write their own laws.
That's why they go judge shopping there.
And then I would think because of the nature of a national emergency and him being the commander-in-chief, you know, this is about separation of powers, his duty and responsibilities as commander-in-chief, and U.S.C. 284 and the provisions that we've gone over in great detail.
I think the president wins in the Supreme Court if they follow the law.
All right.
Now, we have some other things, deep state news that I want to get to as well here, and some of the prejudice of the socialist Democrats and how extreme they've gotten.
All right, so we know that Devin Nunes is going to be on tonight.
Dems are now saying they don't have evidence of collusion.
Well, then why are there these endless investigations?
We have to go back.
promise you at some point, I am going to go back and flag every insane hysterical moment of reporting and every proclamation by the likes of Shifty Schiff, the liar, and all these other people.
Because if Senate Democrats are saying they don't have evidence of collusion and the Senate intelligence community saying as much, you know, but, you know, we got to see what their report also says.
And then we've got John Dowd on a tear.
I'll play it later in the program.
I mean, literally saying that the Mueller report is not going to show the public anything other than what they've done already.
And he says he doesn't respect Mueller's investigation.
I thought we were done in March of 2018.
He was afraid that the president would be forced into a perjury trap.
He said he doesn't have respect for Rod Rosenstein.
Remember, he's in this case up to his eyeballs, had no business talk about conflicted out.
Well, he's the one that recommended the firing of Comey, number one, and he signed the fourth and final FISA warrant application, the third renewal.
And he said, you know, I don't know what Sessions was doing.
And then Dowd said Mueller's investigation was a waste of time, one of the greatest frauds this country has ever seen.
But there really was collusion, which they ignored, and that's the Democratic Party.
Now, with the Senate now saying they have no evidence of any conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia, now Devin Nunes is coming on tonight, and he now says that a cadre of House Intelligence Committee Republicans are now involved in sifting through more than a dozen transcripts as they are now planning on making criminal referrals for an investigation into the alleged political bias into the FBI.
And he further goes on that the work comprised by himself and Bob Goodlatt, Trey Gowdy, we will be continuing our task force.
And he said in an interview that we are now combing through the transcripts, we'll comb through and we'll be sending those recommendations to the Department of Justice, which they've got to investigate when the timing is appropriate.
And they're still going to interview people.
Now, he's also talking about, you know, there's another story out today where a new batch of FBI documents were obtained by Judicial Watch, and it shows top FBI officials offered to lie about the classified nature of emails sent to and from Hillary Clinton, which was discovered on Anthony Weiner's laptop just days before the election.
So they just got a new trove of documents turned over by the FBI, including discussions with former FBI lawyer to the deputy director, McCabe, Lisa Page, is back concerning a potential quid pro quo between the State Department and the FBI,
in which the FBI would agree to downgrade on Hillary's behalf the classification level of a Clinton email exchange for more legal attaché positions that would benefit the agency abroad.
Wow.
No indication that it ever took place.
However, the documents reveal that Peter Strzzok, Page's boyfriend, lied about the classified nature of Hillary's emails and that he discovered on Anthony Weiner's laptop just before the 2016 election.
Fox News reports many of the emails found on the computer were between Clinton and her senior advisor, Uma Abedeen, who said she didn't know she had a private server.
Lie.
When is she going to get the pre-dawn raid?
Now a strange wife.
Weiner's a strange wife.
Despite claims by top FBI officials, including Strzz, several of those emails were determined to contain classified information.
Well, that means, too, that, yeah, Hillary broke the law and violated the Espionage Act.
One email November 6, 2016, before the election, Strzok wrote the FBI's leadership redacted.
John and I completed our review of the potential Hillary Rodham Clinton work emails on Weiner's laptop.
We found no previously unknown potentially classified emails on the media.
Strzzok added that his team was coming to triple-check his methodology and conclusions.
However, at least 18 classified emails were sent from Abedine's account, were found by the FBI on Weiner's laptop, despite Strzok's apparent claim and abuse of power to once again clear Hillary Clinton to frame Donald Trump.
And we're going to have criminal referrals as it relates to FISA as well, as the House Democrats now up what they're doing.
Now, earlier today, intelligence national security correspondent for NBC News, Ken Belanian, is that his name, reported that somewhat breaking news on MSNBC that the Senate Intel Committee admits it found after two years, no direct evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.
You know how hard those words must have been for them to, after two years of lying to the American people?
After two years interviewing more than 200 witnesses, the Senate Intel Committee has not uncovered any direct evidence of any conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.
That's according to sources on both the Democratic and Republican side of the aisle.
And he noted the Republican chair of the committee made remarks to that effect last week.
The report.
Now, by the way, you got to, it's pretty funny.
Listen to the response on NBC.
After two years and interviewing more than 200 witnesses, the Senate Intelligence Committee has not uncovered any direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.
That's according to sources on both the Republican and the Democratic side of the aisle, Hallie.
And careful viewers and readers will note that Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee who leads this probe, essentially said that in an interview with another network last week.
But what I've been doing since then is checking with my sources on the Democratic side to understand the full context of his remarks because that was essentially a partisan comment from one side.
But this is a bipartisan investigation.
And what I found the Democrats don't dispute that characterization.
And by the way, the Democrats say this report will not be good for Donald Trump.
It will question the judgment of many people in the Trump war for having these meetings, for essentially allowing them to be preyed upon by a Russian interference.
When are they going to go after Hillary's support of Putin's thugs in the Uranium One deal with the $145 million kickback?
When are they going to go after the violation of the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice?
When are they going to go after the phony Russian dossier she paid for that was used as propaganda to lie to the American people before the campaign and then used as the basis for a Pfizer warrant?
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith political warfare and, frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
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So I can tell you that, am I happy at first glance?
I just got to see it.
The answer is no.
I'm not.
I'm not happy.
The bottom line is on the wall, we're building the wall, and we're using other methods other than this.
And in addition to this, we have a lot of things going.
We have a lot of money in this country, and we're using some of that money, a small percentage of that money, to build the wall which we desperately need.
Where do these people come from?
Where do they come from?
They go back home to mommy.
get punished when they get home finish that wall because we built a lot of Finish that wall.
This weekend, some Democrats even proposed a measure that would force the release of thousands of criminal, illegal aliens, including dangerous felons convicted of rape, sex trafficking, violent assault, and even murder into our country.
Can you believe this?
Their proposal would put a hard cap on the number of illegal aliens that are brave ICE officers.
We love our ICE officers can detain and thus remove forcing thousands of criminals to be set free into United States communities.
I don't think so.
Okay, I don't think so.
All right, our two Sean Hannity show.
That was the president big speech in El Paso last night.
As he's now, I've spoken to my sources at the White House.
They have not gotten this, what I guarantee you is a horrible bill.
You know, the number one Democrats, you know, now they're, okay, a measly $1.3 billion.
Okay, 55 miles, we'll take it.
But they don't want to give the president any win whatsoever.
Now, the dilemma for the president is going to be: well, does he take the 1.3 and maybe simultaneously or he can't do it before or immediately thereafter declare the national emergency?
Well, that means he definitely has the 1.3 and the emergency, that gives us time to work through the courts.
But because it's an emergency, it should be expedited.
And what a statement that would make.
I know most of you are looking at this deal saying this president can't sign this deal, period.
Yeah, it's a typical, horrible, Washington, D.C. swamp sewer deal among establishment figures that are out of touch with what the American people are screaming that they want,
which is to end the drug importation, to end the human trafficking, to vet people before they get there, to stop the cartels, stop the drug dealers, and keep Americans safe because the crime statistics of the 2% that have access to our borders, like the 98% that otherwise want a better life for themselves and their kids, has been devastating.
4,000 homicides, murders.
You've got 10,000 sexual assaults in two years, 30,000 rather, and 100,000 violent assault incidents with illegal immigrants.
Well, at that point, it's an emergency.
If 90% of our heroin comes across that southern border, well, that too is an emergency.
All right, joining us now to debate, discuss House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows from North Carolina and House Freedom Caucus member, former chairman.
He's been dethroned.
Jim Jordan is with us.
You know, so I'm looking at, look, maybe you guys have more insight than to what I'm actually reading here.
The fact that they were even debating limiting the number of beds for illegal immigrant criminals, I mean, is beyond the pale to me.
You know, if you were 16,501 and you just committed murder, basically they were saying you couldn't detain that person.
But what's your overall impression of the deal?
I think, knowing you both, you probably, like me, think it's atrocious and a swamp deal.
Go ahead, Mark.
Well, Sean, let me just tell you, not only is it an atrocious deal, but it is a total capitulation.
I'm at the point where you look at this, and yes, the president may end up signing it to keep the government open, but he better make it very clear that he is not in favor of this.
You only get what you reward, and he is about to reward Congress for not doing its job and continuing to do things the way they've always done.
Only in Washington, D.C., Sean, think about this.
Only in Washington, D.C. can you expect applause for passing a $1.37 billion border security measure when it takes $25 billion to get it done.
But let me say this.
What if the president signed the bill, kept the government open, because then we don't have to go through another 35 days of Democrats pretending like they care about furloughed employees when they won't even sit at the table and negotiate.
He takes the 1.35 of the deal for the border and then simultaneously declares a national emergency for the rest of the money.
Well, he should definitely declare the national emergency.
I think there was a couple takeaways I had.
First of all, it was the irony.
At the same time, the president's giving this great speech in El Paso, Congress is putting together a bad deal in Washington.
It is a bad deal.
There's no ifs, ands, buts about it.
But you may be right.
He may end up signing and say, look, it's a bad deal, but I'm going to pocket the money and I'm going to declare the national emergency and we're going to go down that route because we know, just what you said earlier, Sean, we know the drug problem, what the president said last night, the drug problem, the gang problem, the human trafficking problem, it is a national emergency.
I'm going to start down that road and we're going to get this done no matter what.
Okay.
Now, in that sense, you know what's going to happen.
The media, the hate Trump media and the Democrats at that point are going to realize that he outplayed them, that he got money up front, and then he's going for the rest on his own like he said he would do.
Well, they will see that, but they'll fight it in court.
And this president was willing to fight back.
Jim and I have been talking about that even as recent as just 30 minutes ago.
The president is a fighter, and he's going to fight.
But here's the one area, and I very seldom disagree with you, Sean Hannity, but here's where I disagree with you today.
I think the president should declare the national emergency today.
To heck with waiting for the bill to be signed, to heck with this whole process, there is nothing that precludes him from doing it today.
If this is the best they're going to offer, let him declare it today.
He can do it.
Why not take the 1.35 and then declare the emergency?
Then he's got money to work with while he's fighting it out in the courts.
It's not like they can spend it all in a month or two anyway.
Well, that's an option.
In other words, because you know what the Democrats will then do?
They'll pull the 1.35 off the bill.
Well, but if we did a continuing resolution, you'd have $1.36 billion anyway, Sean.
And see, here's the whole thing.
Well, that's a good way to do it, too.
Listen, all of us agree this is garbage.
I mean, and if there's any Democrat out there that thinks that the president is not going to declare a national emergency, they are dreaming.
And so he's going to do it.
So he might as well go ahead and do it today.
Let them put up their protest today.
They need to go ahead and the American people need to see that this president is serious about building the wall.
You and I and Jim know that he is, but it is important that he goes ahead and acts on this.
Sean, here's the other thing this bill underscores.
Just how radical the left has become to reduce the number of detention beds for criminals, for people who do harm, violent people potentially.
This is how open borders, 70% marginal tax rate, Green New Deal.
They won't stand up when the president talks about the sanctity of life.
They won't stand up when he talks about capitalism and condemned socialism.
And now they want to reduce the number of detention beds.
So that in and of itself shows how ridiculous this legislation is.
But the president is going to get this wall come heck or high water.
He's going to make it happen.
And the sooner he can declare this national emergency, in my judgment, the better now.
Yeah, look, I think that at the end of the day, I think it's a good deal for the president just to do it alone.
If he does this alone, then I think the president is doing much, much better.
And it shows his commitment, his tenacity.
Now, there is this other pot of money that the president has available to him.
We've all been talking about it, some $900 million that he can also reallocate to the wall immediately, too.
Isn't that part of the deal?
Yeah, sure is, Sean.
And he can access that under the 284-274, not using the national emergency, but he can allocate that or go get that money, use it for enhanced fencing and everything else on the border.
He should do, my approach is all the above.
Do that, declare the national, do everything he can to simply do what we told the American people we're going to do and build the border security wall.
All right.
So in that sense, Mark Meadows, the president is keeping his promise regardless of what a crappy swamp deal this ends up being.
And again, he doesn't want to be blamed for shutting down the government.
72% of the American people support his plans, according to CBS, on immigration, so they'll see him acting decisively.
And why do I believe if you use, you know, U.S. C-284, which I know both of you are familiar with, the language is clear, especially on the issue of drug interdiction, that the president has the right to build barriers on our southern border with the military.
Well, you're exactly right, Sean.
And listen, you and I and Jim Jordan all believe that this president is serious.
And as Jim was saying, he's going to build it one way or another.
But it's where is the money going to come from?
And I do believe that the $900 million or so that he could get from one of the executive tools in his toolbox gets us part of the way.
The national emergency, and I guess if I were advising him, I would say use one of the sections of law that doesn't require a national emergency today.
Pass the rest of the bill that is put before you and then declare a national emergency at the end of that.
Have all of that there.
But as Jim was saying, there's two or three different options he can use.
Use them all.
Use them all.
All right, got to take a quick break more with Congressman Mark Meadows, chairman of the Freedom Caucus and former Chairman Jim Jordan.
As we continue, we've got a lot more coming up later in the program today.
800-941 Sean is our number.
I'll battle it out.
Mano Amano.
Geraldo Rivera, one of my best buddies, coming up next.
All right, as we continue with the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Mark Meadows, and also Congressman Jim Jordan.
So, Jim Jordan, even though the bill is bad on the border particularly, which is what we care about, if the president couples that with the $900 million that we all know is available at his disposal any time, which he will use now.
And again, he said last night this is about now finishing the wall.
Then he declares a national emergency for the rest.
That sounds like, okay, it might take a few extra months, battle in the courts.
I think he wins in the Supreme Court because the left will go judge shopping, probably to the Ninth Circuit.
Okay, goes to the Ninth Circuit, which gets overturned 80% of the time anyway, makes it to the Supreme Court.
I don't think the Supreme Court can ignore that issue, do you?
I don't.
I mean, you never know what the court's going to do, but I don't.
Understand there'll be a few steps along that path.
So if, in fact, he declares a national emergency, I think Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi, will do some motion of disapproval, resolution of disapproval.
That will pass the House.
The Senate's likely to do something as well.
The president vetoes that.
There's a veto override attempt.
We will, of course, vote with the president.
There won't be the votes to override his veto.
So it's going to be a long, drawn-out process legislatively.
Then as you write the state of the world.
Well, that's it.
Would you be upset if he signed the bad bill to get the 1-3 immediately to add to the $900 million and declare the emergency?
Yeah, I think that's where it might end up.
We don't like the bill.
We're just like you, Sean, we think it's a bad bill.
We would rather see him declare the national emergency and do a short-term CR and see if we can get something better.
Probably can't.
So he may go ahead and sign and say, look, it's a bad bill.
I'm reluctantly going to sign this, and then we're going to do everything else that I can use under 284 and under the national emergency.
Well, the truth is he's never, with this Congress, these radical Democrats, he's never going to get the money he wants because they've proven that they hate Trump more than they care about furloughed workers or DACA or DREAMers.
They're more about stopping the president than they are about helping the country, and that's the fundamental problem we face.
So in that climate, you are probably right.
He's probably going to have to reluctantly sign this bad piece of legislation and then do everything else we've talked about.
Last word, Mark Meadows.
Yeah, and so, Sean, Jim's right.
Here's the only problem that I see with signing this deal.
And I do believe the president's going to sign it.
And I'm not going to beat him up over that because I know that he is serious about a national emergency.
Here's the problem.
It reinforces bad behavior that continues to happen decade after decade on Congress.
Now, that I agree with.
But again, it gives him the money in the interim to keep fighting and building while he's fighting the emergency issue.
That is correct.
And a continuing resolution would do the same.
But you're right.
Listen, it's a tactical call.
At the end of the day, I fully believe that he signs this deal, and the jury will be out as long as he continues through with executive action.
I think the vast majority of Americans will applaud his efforts for fighting on their behalf.
All right.
I appreciate it, guys.
Thank you very much.
By the way, without the Freedom Caucus, we're totally screwed in Congress.
Totally.
These guys are the only ones that fight every day for their promises and for the president and for his agenda.
And all these other people are so pathetically weak, it's embarrassing.
I don't even know how they live with themselves, have these guys.
Oh, yeah, we'll repeal and replace Obamacare.
Where were you when you were needed?
It's easy to vote when it's never going to pass.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, so Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her new Green Deal for America.
You know, the one where we're going to have to rebuild every house and building in 10 years, and we're going to get rid of all fossil fuels.
We'll no longer have the combustion engine.
In other words, an engine that runs on gas.
We'll have no natural gas.
We'll get only clean and renewable energy, no nuclear energy even.
We're going to do this all in 10 years, destroy the economy in the process.
Add to that, okay, we have Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Medicare for all, which means, and they've said it, we've got to get rid of all private health insurance for every American that now has it.
Well, that happens to be 187 million Americans.
And what happens when that fails just like Obamacare failed?
Keep your doctor, keep your plan, and save money.
None of those promises were kept at all.
And or the wealth tax of Elizabeth Warren, which after you paid your 65 cents of every dollar to the government, state, local, federal, well, then if you save too much, she's going to come in and take even more.
In other words, they'll legalize stealing your money that you put in the bank.
And by the way, when you die, another 40% goes to the federal government.
You live in a state like New York.
Another 10% goes to the state.
And they take another bite at the apple and you pay to die in America.
This is, oh, and the 70 to 90% tax bracket that Ocasio-Cortez and many of these 2020 candidates are now pushing for.
All right, joining us now, Geraldo Rivera.
Geraldo, I'm calling this the new radical extreme, a party that believes in abortion even during the birthing process.
And in the case of the Virginia governor, after the baby's delivered and kept comfortable, then the mother can decide not to resuscitate.
The party of that, the party of almost full confiscation of income, the party that guarantees everything from cradle to grave, that doesn't want secure borders, that doesn't seem to care about crime in America.
This is the new Democratic Party.
Welcome aboard.
Yeah, really.
Working aboard.
At least they don't say abortion up to age five or ten, Sean.
I'm just count your blessing.
Yeah, listen, they'd go right up to my birthday.
Trust me.
Yeah, right.
I just want to say, first of all, that you were brilliant last night.
Your rage was so pure when you heard that there was a deal in the offing for the wall and that the president appeared to be on the verge of accepting far less money than he had asked for.
I thought that your pure rage is one of the reasons I love you as a brother.
You know, you have deep-rooted, sincere convictions, and you don't make any bones about expressing them.
Listen, if the president signed this deal and declares the national emergency, I could live with that because he's getting $1.35 a billion dollars up front.
Now, if he does that and he doesn't declare a national emergency, then the president got caught up in the swamp and will have gotten rolled.
And I don't expect him to do that.
I think the president's going to fulfill his promise.
I think the president will find a way to fulfill his promise gets to that bottom line.
But by taking this deal, the Democrats lose the high ground.
Remember, they were saying it was a moral issue.
The wall is a moral issue, not a dollar for the wall.
When they said $1.4 billion, then it became a negotiation.
Now it's not a moral issue anymore.
Now it's a negotiation.
I think Trump wins regardless of what the other aspect of the wall building will be, where it will come from.
I'll leave that in the open.
As to your main topic this afternoon about Alexandria Alcasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal and these flamboyant ideas, these are wish lists.
These are, you know, they shouldn't be as frightening to conservatives or to moderates as sometimes they may sound at first blush.
These are just young people filled with verb and spontaneity and compassion.
You know, you want people that are coming in, the rookies who are coming in to have that kind of energy.
Let's do this.
Let's get rid of nuclear power.
Let's do this.
Let's get rid of it.
And then the sober reality dawns on them after they've been around a couple of weeks in a couple of committees and they see, well, what's going to make the electricity go?
How are you going to pay for the tunnel to Africa?
I think that I applaud that freshness and I encourage rather than discourage the thinking that is so cosmic, Sean.
Well, listen, I think that this is what Republicans don't even understand.
And I blame them even more than the Democrats, although the Democrats have now gone so radical, left, extreme.
Even the party now, they're not even critical of people like they were Kavanaugh that are charged with serious sexual assault and even rape allegations.
I don't hear anybody screaming, I believe, or saying, I believe.
And look at the anti-Semitism now of some members of Congress.
You said Kavanaugh, I think you meant Fairfax, right?
Yeah, well, you don't seem the same outrage over Fairfax like you saw with Kavanaugh.
Thank you for helping me.
And the same with, you know, look at the rampant anti-Semitism that is now that ugly strain of Democrat is sort of saying things with immunity, and they ought to be rebuked and taken off any foreign affairs committee, and they're so timid to do it, where if it was a Republican, they would be excoriated and bludgeoned to death.
See, I see even that a little differently than you do, my brother.
I see the fact that you have two Muslim women in Congress now.
One is of Palestinian origin, the other of Somali origin.
You get their take.
Why not get their take?
You know, I think that the Minnesota congresswoman in her characterization of the Israeli lobby was way clumsy and awkward, and she's apologized.
But there is no doubt, and you know it in your heart, that there's two big stories to tell in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine.
And, you know, the United States official policy is still a two-state solution, and it's good to remind people of that once in a while.
No, we're not talking about rampant anti-Semitism.
I mean, when you say the Jews are all about money, that's anti-Semitic.
When you say that Israel is unfair to the Palestinians or is occupying these people and denying them their rights, that's not radical.
That's something I think we need to hear more of.
Well, I think when you look at, for example, Congresswoman Omar's APAC tweet, which you know.
Yeah, it's terrible.
It's terrible.
It's like so dumb.
It's not dumb.
It is anti-Semitism.
It's definitely anti-Semitism.
That's why it's dumb.
And she gets a slap on the wrist for all of this, and nothing happens.
I think she's been diminished.
And look at it.
I think she's been really diminished.
Congresswoman Talib writes a column for Louis Farrakhan's publication a few years back.
And she's going to impeach the MFR also.
But let them be that.
Let the Democrats be that.
And let the president, on the other hand, be the sober, conciliator, stop being tempestuous.
Cool it with the tweets.
He'll be the grown-up in the room.
You'll back him from the right.
I'll back him from the center.
I love Yais.
I love how you put yourself in the center.
I put you more left center, but you know.
All right.
All right.
That's okay.
But what do you make of between the two of us, we could take care of this guy?
Look how insane Ocasio-Cortez's new green deal is, green new deal.
Ask your kids, even conservative students.
They hear this stuff all the time.
They hear, you know, guaranteed national income.
They hear abolish fossil fuel.
They hear it.
They discuss it.
It's exciting.
And then they wake up the next day and say, pass me the kerosene lantern.
I can't see.
You know, it's a lot of people.
Yeah, but we're going to get rid of airplanes in 10 years.
How are we going to get to Europe?
How are we going to get to Australia?
You're going to take the fast train.
What is it?
It's only, what, 4,000 miles of border?
You have to talk about that.
Oh, listen.
It's not bad.
Tunnel under.
I thought they'd come up with a system above water so we'd have a view.
And they'll levitate us.
They'll levitate us.
Yeah, I can't wait for the high-speed train to Australia.
That'll take us a few centuries to get there.
You know, I live in Cleveland.
The train takes a day and a half.
I could use a little high-speed.
I love it.
You know, it's look, all of this, and here we are on the verge.
We're now energy independent.
We produce more oil, natural gas than any other country on the earth, and our resources are more vast.
We are the Middle East of natural gas.
It's great for our national security.
In as much as we don't have to engage in foreign conflicts for the free flow of oil at market prices any longer because we're energy independent.
And number two, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs headed down the pipeline, literally, as two pipelines are being built.
But that means we're going to have great career jobs for many Americans that need them that will change and alter their lives dramatically.
Remember, North Dakota, truck drivers were being trained to making $100,000 a year.
Those are good jobs.
Why not have a Republican real New Deal without what you just mentioned, North Dakota and the expanding job opportunities there?
Talk about different uses of natural gas.
Talk about nuclear energy and the renaissance that that could bring and not add a single degree to global warming or climate change.
Let's give, you know, like our thinkers, put them to work with a pragmatic approach that still has an idealistic, visionary kind of take to it.
Then, when the president talks about the Space Force, let him talk about space.
Let him talk about Mars and beyond.
Get the imagination of the young folks rather than letting the Democrats come up with all the ideas, however, flamboyant and exaggerated.
Why don't we have some of our thinkers being more innovative?
I love that.
Well, I think the president is a doer, and the whole thing is we have two pipelines now that were never going to be built under any Democratic president.
They're now online, and that includes the Keystone and the Dakota pipeline.
And he opened up Anwar, and he's gotten rid of all the burdensome regulation that has been holding back the energy sector.
And I got to be honest, I think this is a renaissance economically for this country, and it also protects our national security.
And as we export more energy, the lifeblood of every economy, well, at that point, we'll be helping keep the world safer and less dependent on foreign dictatorships or people that hate us for energy.
All true.
And you sounded just like Trump in the State of the Union.
That's the winning formula.
Practical, open-minded, celebrate his achievements, talk about the economy every other sentence.
Talk about how the rising tide is lifting all boats.
We have a very good case to make on the substance of it.
Put aside the personalities coming into 2020.
That kind of measured, positive, optimistic, we're all in this together.
We can do this.
I would applaud that.
And I think that with Shine now, our buddy in the communications department there, get that message out.
Not the creepy, she's a commie and this one's this and that.
You know, I love that guy I saw in the House chamber.
That's the president for 2020.
I agree with you.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back more with my friend Geraldo Rivera on the other side, 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, news roundup information overload coming in just minutes.
You know, listen, if you use public Wi-Fi, the answer to that problem is right there in the name, public.
You connect publicly to Wi-Fi, even if it's password protected.
You could be tossing all of your expectations of privacy right out the window.
Why?
Because whenever you're in public, cyber criminals can use the Wi-Fi and steal the personal information that you send and receive while you are online.
In other words, they'll see information like private photos, financial statements, tax returns, which have your social security number.
Now, there is a way to use public Wi-Fi privately, and that is to get north.
All right, as we continue, Geraldo Rivera is with us.
Did you watch last night?
I thought the president was dead on last night and having a lot of fun doing it.
But I thought that you had the most fun, but I think he did have a lot of fun.
And he loved comparing Israeli to Beethoven's.
The Beato's got a great name.
I love that line.
I call him Bozo.
You would.
Well, I mean, but you look at this nutty transfer of wealth.
I mean, look at what eliminating health care, nationalizing energy in the healthcare industry, Medicare for all, free housing for all.
Now we'll offer free college for all, healthy food for all, cradle to grave, womb to the tomb.
That destroys America's ingenuity and wealth that is second to none in the world.
Look, you know, liberals get mad when I say this, but I spent years of my life really without any money, struggling as a contractor and, you know, living, you know, paycheck to paycheck, if you will, for a pretty long period of time.
It's not fun.
I know you brush over your bartender years.
Well, I was making myself to that when you were doing that.
No, listen, I admit I would tend bar until 4 in the morning and close the bar when I was in 11th grade.
Then I'd decide, go to a diner, eat breakfast, read the newspaper, and decide to go home or go to school.
And then you'd phone into talk radio and raise hell.
I'd phone into talk radio and raise hell and say, I want to talk about that Geraldo guy.
All right, Geraldo Rivera, thanks for being with us.
News Roundup, information overload is next.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
So I can tell you that am I happy at first glance?
I just got to see it.
The answer is no.
I'm not.
I'm not happy.
But am I happy with where we're going?
I'm thrilled.
I don't think you're going to see a shutdown.
I wouldn't want to go through it now.
If you did have it, it's a Democrats' fault.
And I accepted the first one, and I'm proud of what we've accomplished because people learned during that shutdown all about the problems coming in from the southern border.
I accept.
I've always accepted it.
But this one, I would never accept if it happens, but I don't think it's going to happen.
But this would be totally on the Democrats.
Okay.
So, Mr. President, are you saying that you may amend and send back the proposed compromise or that you may grudgingly accept it and then move forward?
It's always nice to negotiate a little bit, right?
So, you know, whatever you get.
But I would hope that there won't be a shutdown.
I am extremely unhappy with what the Democrats have given us.
It's sad.
It's sad.
They're doing the country no favor.
They are hurting our country very badly.
But we certainly don't want to see a shutdown.
But you'll be here fairly soon.
The bottom line is on the wall.
We're building the wall, and we're using other methods other than this.
And in addition to this, we have a lot of things going.
We have a lot of money in this country, and we're using some of that money, a small percentage of that money, to build the wall, which we desperately need.
All right, that was the president, of course, earlier today.
This, what I would describe as an atrocious, basically a sewer swamp typical Washington deal.
Remember, you know, one interesting point is the Democrats were arguing that walls are immoral and they're only going to give the president a dollar.
Now we're up to 1.35.
But it certainly is not enough for the president to get the job done.
Now, there's the other $900 million that the president has available to him to fund the wall and other things associated with securing the border.
But we're joined by Lindsey Graham.
I don't know if you agree with me.
I think this deal is atrocious.
But if the president took the money from this deal and simultaneously declared a national emergency, that would at least hold him over for a little while as he's fighting his way through the courts, which I think would be expedited because of the emergency aspect of it.
Yeah, I think you pretty much nailed it there.
So the one thing about the deal I'm not sure about that would make it a horrible deal is if he's required to reduce bed spaces for violent criminals.
I was told a couple hours ago that under the deal, the president can reprogram $750 million to add additional bed spaces for violent offenders, that the $40,000 cap on bed spaces does not include the $750 million he can use at his discretion, which in theory could allow him to go up to $58,000 in bed spaces.
He asked for 52.
So if that reprogramming is available to the president, that alleviates my concern about reducing bed spaces for violent offenders.
Yeah, but you agree with me.
This is not a good deal.
This is not a serious.
Well, it's way short of what we need, absolutely.
So, look, I think I know the president extremely well.
I've known him for over a couple of decades, and we saw him last night, how passionate he was.
I would think that he's looking at $1.35 million and saying, okay, you guys are not serious.
But if he took that money as a down payment and simultaneously declared the national emergency or USC 284, which clearly the language allows him to use the military to build some type of barrier at the southern border to stop drugs from coming into the country, I think he wins in the Supreme Court.
They'll go judge shopping somewhere out in California.
A liberal judge would side with them.
Then the Ninth Circuit will side with the Democrats.
Then I would think the Supreme Court has a hard time saying no to accepting this case and making a ruling on it.
Well, I think that's probably right.
But the real question is, is this a fight worth having?
The answer is yes.
Most things in Washington that really bring about change, you have to fight for.
Now, this guy, President Trump, is fighting for the central promise he made domestically, which is to secure our border by having barriers where we need barriers.
So the $1.375 billion, the question I have, can he use that money for still barriers like he's been proposing?
If the answer is yes, without equivocation, then that's a down payment toward the 5.7.
Then he does what you said.
He takes what's left of the $880 million in the defense bill.
He applies it to barriers where it makes sense.
He declares a national emergency and reprograms money to finish out what's left of the 5.7.
He goes to court.
He fights like hell.
I think he wins.
But more than anything else, he'll be seen as have been fighting for what he promised, and the Democrats are on the wrong side of border security.
There is no losing.
Remember what we said three weeks ago?
Give the Congress a chance to work with you.
If they don't come up with an acceptable outcome, Mr. President, do it by yourself.
That's where we're headed.
I think that's where we're headed, too.
Now, is it strategically better and look, all my conservative friends are looking at this bill and seeing it exactly as I labeled it last night.
I said this is a garbage bill.
I'm frankly surprised because I really do like Richard Shelby, and I'm a little surprised.
He's a good guy.
He did the best he could.
You've got to remember, these people hate Trump.
Okay, but, you know, the bottom line is the president doesn't want a government shutdown.
Now, the other option would be to just do a continuing resolution, maybe short term, and send these guys back to the bargaining table, keep the government funded, and declare the national emergency anyway.
Because if he declares the national emergency first, they're going to take that money back out of the bill, don't you think?
100%.
So this is why old people listen to your radio show.
So here's a couple plays you can make here.
Number one, if the bed space is reduced under this bill for violent offenders, I would not sign it.
Even if it cost him his job, I would not sign it.
I would do a continuing resolution.
However, if under the bill, the deal, you can actually add bed spaces, that would alleviate that concern.
What I would do if I were the president, I'd take the $1.375 billion if I can spend it on barriers like I would like, and I'd do the rest by emergency declaration.
That's what I would do.
I think that is a good outcome for the country.
Now, he's got to fight for the difference between the 1.3, 1.4, and 5.7, but that's a fight worth having.
Look, if the president is going to have, at that point, it would be $2.35 billion or thereabouts.
All right, so that's money that can be used in the interim.
Let's assume this is a four- to six-month court battle, maybe longer.
What do you think?
Well, so, you know, this section that you keep referring to, I think it's 254, whatever section it is.
Section 284, U.S. Code. 284.
Okay, what it says that the president can put barriers in place at drug quarter orders up to $880 million.
Some of that money has already been allocated, Sean, so it's like $600 left.
So you take the $1.375, you add this $600, you can do that without declaring an emergency.
That's appropriated dollars from the Congress plus an account we created last year that he can access without declaring emergency.
Then you declare emergency for the rest.
I think it does go to court.
It's a fight worth having.
He's going to win.
And if you asked me what kind of contrast you want with Democrats, it would be over this issue.
You know, the one thing that I know it's going to irk some people, and some people are going to say, no, he should just veto this bill.
But the problem is, okay, and let's say he vetoes the bill and does the national emergency.
Now we've got a whole issue of a shutdown to deal with once again.
Right.
But more importantly, at least in the interim, he's going to have, based on what you said about the $900 million and the $1.35, whatever the number is, in the bill, he has that money to play with from day one.
That's appropriated now.
And so in the interim, I don't even think they could spend it that fast, to be honest.
You've got to remember, we're talking about money to be spent by October the 1st this year.
That's what this debate is about.
How much money can we allocate for border security between now and October the 1st?
If he does a continuing resolution, the most money available to him is $600 million for barriers, not $1.375.
Because if we have to go back to last year's levels, the last time we appropriated money, he loses two-thirds of what we've obtained in this deal.
Any senator, any friend in the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate that opposes the president doing the right thing to stop drugs, human trafficking, even young girls into prostitution, stop the cartels, stop the gangs, look at the 4,000 homicides, the 30,000 sexual assaults, 100,000 instances of violent assaults by illegal criminals, immigrant criminals.
And if they don't support him, I would argue for them it's political suicide.
Well, let me tell you about the party.
The president beat 17 of us, 16 of us, decisively.
And one of the central pieces of his agenda was to fix a broken immigration system by securing our border as step one.
So here's what I think.
It is an emergency that he's made a compelling case that the border is dangerously broken.
And Democrats might do things in the future with climate change and guns.
But I know this.
Donald Trump should do what he's planning to do on the border.
Declare a national emergency because the facts justify that.
And to my Republican colleagues, if we don't stand behind this president in declaring a national emergency, we must disagree with his evaluation of the problem that is a manufactured crisis, as Democrats say.
How can you listen to this president describe the state of the border and not believe we have a crisis on our hands?
It's obvious.
And look at the crowd reaction last night.
Now, not just the crowd inside the arena in El Paso.
Look at the crowd outside.
You know, look like 30,000 people outside.
And I think Bozo, what did he have?
He had under 1,000 people?
I didn't see it.
This is not my crowd's bigger than yours.
Trump had an enthusiastic crowd.
No, but the passion is real for this.
Real.
Real.
But it's the State of the Union speech.
Go back.
This is the moment when a lot of people are watching, 45 million Americans.
74% of the people agreed with the president's characterization about the state of the union.
The state of the union is strong economically.
We're safer militarily, but our border is broken, and it is a crime problem.
It's a humanitarian problem.
It is a drug problem.
74% of the people agreed with the president.
That's all a Republican should need to know.
74% of the people listening to the president agreed with his assessment.
80% of independents.
I mean, we would be idiots politically.
Talk about suicide.
Well, by the way, there are a lot of idiot Republicans out there, Senator.
Well, now's the time to have less.
But we would be idiots to not back the president because the public understands where he's coming from.
Well, I think the public supports him, and that's where— I do, too.
And the support is getting stronger, as we saw last night.
It's getting stronger, but the argument that the border is broken is compelling.
Even the governor of California said, I'm going to leave 100 National Guard troops because they are making a difference on drug interdiction.
The point is that the drug problem in this country is at an all-time high for opioid abuse.
All the heroin in the country just about comes through the Mexican border.
They seized enough fentanyl about three weeks ago to kill 57 million people.
Human trafficking.
By the way, what if they ever put that fentanyl and poison the food supply in this country?
Just play out all of these problems.
The bottom line is the president has made a compelling case that the border is dangerously broken, that he has power that every other president's had in the past to declare an emergency.
And for the Republicans not to stand by him basically undercuts his assessment of the national security threats we face.
He is our commander-in-chief.
He is not wrong to believe that the border is under siege.
He is not wrong to want to put up barriers where barriers make sense.
And if you don't support him here, you're basically saying he is wrong with no evidence to suggest that you're right.
Well, I'm just going to say what you're saying.
Any Republican that won't back him in the Senate or the House on this is frankly not capable of doing their job.
And if they don't see it, it's the same movie that we're watching.
And by the way, over the years, to be very clear, you and I have battled over issues involving immigration.
We're in full sync here.
Build the wall.
Fund the wall.
Build the wall.
Declare the emergency and get it over.
So when Sean Hennity and Lindsey Gramniste are telling you this is what you should do, you should at least listen.
So here's the point.
Real quick.
I've always believed you're not going to fix a broken immigration system until you secure your border.
Democrats are opposed to border security when it comes to barriers.
They're willing to let criminals out of jail when it comes to bed space.
If you're looking for these people to help this president, they're not going to help him.
They hate Donald Trump.
They want him to fail.
So to all my Republican colleagues who worry about the president we're setting for the future and the legal niceties, here's what I would say: it's not what a Democrat may do in the future should drive your thinking.
It's whether or not this president is right.
This president is right to say that the border is broken and we need emergency funding.
He is right.
It's not about what a Democrat might do in the future.
It's about whether or not this president is right, and I believe him to be right.
All right, Senator Lindsey Graham, you're right on this issue.
And I think it would be ironic.
He takes the money and then he declares the emergency at the same time.
That would piss off every Democrat and liberal in the country.
Thank you for being with us.
You don't think the public's going to see anything?
You think it's $40 million, Mueller investigated it, and that's it.
No, but the rules of the department just put yourself in the president's shoes.
Let's say we investigate you guys and it comes out you're a witness and a subject, you cooperate transparently, and we take all those facts and we say, you know, there's nothing here.
The idea that you would take that information and make it public, you know, violates the whole concept of the grand jury.
What's the grand jury for to protect the innocent?
And by the way, I've read thousands of grand juries and I, it does protect the innocent.
I mean, maybe one in ten cases you would bring.
But you would investigate, I mean, I talk about organized crime, public corruption.
I mean, you come close to really awful stuff, but is it a crime?
Is it prosecutable?
No.
Does that ever get reported?
No.
So you're saying when Mueller's report drops, it's going to be a flop.
You're saying we're not going to.
I will be shocked if anything regarding the president is made public other than we're done.
Do you respect what Mueller is doing?
I know you know Mueller well.
Well, I respected it in the beginning.
And I started out, and it's my style: I always trust the other side until we did it.
In my opinion, on March 5th, we were done.
He had everything.
He said he had everything.
He told me that no one had lied.
He told me they had every document we asked for.
Yeah, he told me that it was nothing more.
He told me that the president was not a target.
That is, he did not have any exposure.
That he was a witness subject, which is perfectly normal for someone's conduct you're looking at, but they don't have exposure.
What people don't understand about the president, and I think the same would be with you, is you have too much information in your life.
When you go back and talk about Flynn or Comey, those events, while magnified in the media, are nothing.
Not compared to the threat of the Soviet Union, the threat of China dealing with Japan, dealing with Korea.
I mean, the amount of information that he intakes every day and gets prepared for is staggering.
And in my questioning him or talking to him, he questioned, you know, first question, easy.
Second question, easy.
Third question, he wasn't sure.
And he doesn't like being unsure.
So he'll guess.
There's your trap right there.
It's not whether he lies or not.
Everybody wants to get into this, you know, this integrity business.
It's not a matter of integrity.
It's overload.
You know, I tried to deal with Rosenstein.
Early on, we wrote a letter to Mueller saying, look, Comey is the accuser in this phony investigation.
We think there are other issues regarding his conduct as to the origin of this whole business.
Turns out, not only was I right, but Comey admitted that there were no facts to investigate the president on.
I mean, there's no collusion.
So Bob said he wasn't looking at it.
So I wrote to Rosenstein.
He blew me off.
That's not leadership.
That's not accountability.
This is very serious.
I mean, we were very serious, and we did it in writing.
We did it politely.
We did it confidentially.
And he just blew us off.
So I lost all respect for Rob Rosenstein.
And Sessions, I don't know what he was doing.
I'm not sure Sessions knows what he was doing.
We did the very best we could to bring it home.
I think it is coming home, and I think it's coming home in the same shape.
People in the press say, well, he must have some surprise.
I know exactly what he has.
I know exactly what every witness said, what every document said.
I know exactly what he has.
And I know what, you know, what the conclusion of the result is.
What does he have?
What's the result?
What's the conclusion?
Decline.
There's no basis.
There's no exposure.
It's been a terrible waste of time.
What's worse is let's get on the other side of this, how it all happened.
This is one of the greatest frauds this country's ever seen.
And I'm just shocked that Bob Mueller didn't call it that way and say I'm being used.
I would have done that.
If I were in his shoes in this thing, I'd have gone to Sessions and Rosenstein and said, look, this is nonsense.
We are being used by Cabal and the FBI.
That's John Dowd and all those comments made earlier today.
Pretty shocking comments about Mueller not even having a report.
He knows the president didn't do any of this, was afraid of a perjury trap.
No respect for Rod Rosenstein and a waste of time, one of the greatest frauds ever committed in the country.
Yeah, the real collusion is with the Democrats.
All right, let's get to your phones.
You've been very patient here as our coverage of the deep state continues.
By the way, Devin Nunes on Hannity tonight, he's indicating criminal referrals on FISA abuse are coming.
Wow.
Let's get to our phones.
All right, let's get to this deal and what people think of it.
If the president, if he couples it with an emergency declaration, that's fine.
If not, that's a problem to me.
Let's say hi to Jane in Arizona.
What's up, Jane?
Jane, how are you?
All right, Bill in Pensacola, Florida.
Bill, you're on the Sean Hannity show.
Hey, Sean, how's it going?
I'm good.
How are you?
Take my call.
Great.
Hey, I just wanted to make a quick comment because, you know, Donald Trump was elected.
He's an outsider.
He's a fighter.
The people are behind him.
And we're like really tired.
I mean, everybody I've talked to, we're like tired of hearing this rhetoric over and over put out by the Democrats and that the fact that the Republicans themselves aren't fine.
I'm a conservative and I'm tired of seeing people think, oh, let's just play their game, you know, let's play by their rules.
And then we get beat because they're not playing by rules.
And, you know, I think that Donald Trump should just declare the emergency, get the law done, and then go after the deep state.
Let's see some prosecutions.
We're tired of them getting away with, you know, this kind of thing.
And we just want to see it move forward, you know?
Well, look, I mean, this is why the deal's horrible.
This is the Republicans.
What I'm worried about more than anything is, you know, the Republicans, you know, I guess you can say they got some money.
They got more than a dollar.
They got $1.35 billion.
And that's money to work with in this fiscal year.
President has another $900 million that he legally can use on the wall now.
That's all good, but it's not enough and it's not fast enough without the urgency that is needed to solve a big problem.
And that's why it has to be together.
If not, I can tell you conservatives are going to be furious at the Republicans.
And I just think my understanding of the president.
and knowing him all these years, and I don't think I've been wrong to date.
Remember, I stuck my neck out and told everybody he's going to govern like a conservative.
Remember that?
And a lot of people were doubting back in the day.
I don't know if you were listening to me then, Bill, but were you listening to me?
I haven't been listening to you for a long time.
Well, you probably remember people say, what are you talking about?
He gave money to Democrats in New York.
And I kept telling people, no, you don't understand.
He was playing the game that they rigged.
That's their game.
And he did it to keep construction workers working, buildings going up, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and business, painters.
Everyone benefits when somebody builds a big building.
But I've known him, and I knew that his political philosophy evolved greatly over the years.
And I also know that when he says he's going to do something, he does it.
So I haven't been wrong yet.
My guess, strong guess is if he will sign this crappy bill, he's only doing it to keep the government open and get a down payment of $1.35 that he'll put with another $900 million and sign the emergency declaration to get the rest.
That's my guess.
That's what I think will happen.
Would that be okay with you?
Oh, that would be okay.
But on the second side of that is how the deep state is just keep, you know, everything, whatever.
You know, it's all out there.
You know.
800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
Let's get to Brian is in, oh, he's down at WOKV in beautiful Ponte Vedra.
What's going on?
How are you, Brian?
Hey, Sean.
How you doing?
I just wanted to comment on the Green New Deal and the high-speed rail.
They've tried to work that out in California.
They've tried to do it in Florida.
And every time we try to build something, the environmentalists come out and say that it's going to harm the habitat of some spider or prairie dog, and nothing ever gets done.
Well, look, you know, this is a government that is now going to alter every single aspect of our economy within 10 years and eliminate the lifeblood of the economy and making all sorts of wild declarations about everything being guaranteed.
I can guarantee one thing about this new Green Deal.
It'll bring Americans to their knees and into poverty faster than anything we've ever seen.
And it'll cause literally, you know, I love this.
We're going to get rid of airplanes.
Well, how are you going to get to Europe now?
What, we're going to have a high-speed train dig a tunnel from here to Europe or we're going to have a high-speed train on top of the water?
How are they planning on doing that in 10 years?
And how are we going to have that high-speed train in 10 years available for Australia or New Zealand or Asia?
How's that going to happen?
You know, it is, how are you going to guarantee people housing, a job, vacations, best health care, best, best, best, best, free, free, free?
It's not possible.
Then you're going to take the lifeblood of every economy and destroy it.
Our path to wealth is our energy resources.
All we have to do is use them.
And you'll see the standard of living of every American skyrocket quickly.
Wait till these two pipelines get online.
Wait till Anwar gets online.
You know what?
It's going to be prosperity for people that deserve it.
And, you know, these people that want to take that away from you, just remember who they are.
This is a pipe dream, but this is how they think.
Take it seriously.
Okay?
Yeah, and remember, John Kerry, we wanted wind power unless it was going to affect his views off of Nantucket Island or Martha's Vineyard, wherever it was.
Right.
Yeah, no, that was actually Kennedy.
And I don't know where these people are, but Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, you know, whatever.
I'm glad they're enjoying the good life.
Look, I just go with the president's own statements today.
And the president earlier today, you know, as House conservatives rightly blast this deal for all the right reasons, and the president's saying, well, I'll add whatever I have to add to build the wall.
That's it.
He's telegraphing what he's going to do.
Now, people aren't smart enough to believe him.
That's their problem.
I believe he's going to do that.
That's what I would say is likely to happen.
Back to our phones.
We've got, let's see here, William in Oklahoma.
What's up, William?
How are you?
How are you doing, Sean?
Good.
What's happening?
Okay.
If Trump decides to go the emergency route, if he says, say, Monday at 2 o'clock, he's going to declare a national emergency, what he needs to do is have somebody on his behalf file a petition in the Fifth Circuit Court preventing him from doing that, saying he does not have the authority to do it.
The Fifth Circuit will overturn it, say he does have the authority.
Then he has a ruling out of a district court saying that he does have the authority to do it because if he doesn't, somebody's going to file it in the Ninth Circuit and it's going to be held up for months.
All right.
That sounds, listen, I think, look, that's actually the beauty in the sense that the down payment actually helps him buy some time because now he's got $2.3 billion to play with, if you will, in the interim while he's fighting in court.
So the wall's being built in the interim.
That's kind of the beauty.
And Democrats are going to lose it big time.
And I think they're going to lose ultimately in court.
They won't lose the first couple of rounds.
They'll likely go judge shopping for that.
But after the Ninth Circuit, I don't see how the Supreme Court stays out of a fight about presidential power and a national emergency and drugs.
And the code is clear.
U.S. 284 is what it is.
All right, Hannity tonight, Nine Eastern on the Fox News channel.
President unhappy with this so-called compromise deal on the border, but he says, well, I'll be able to add to it on my own.
To me, a clear indication that he will go the emergency route and take the money upfront, down payment, the battle over whether he can or cannot use the $900 million, but that's neither here nor there.
And we'll have full coverage of all that.
We also have breaking news on the deep state that looks finally, we now see criminal referrals that will be coming as it relates to FISA abuse and other issues.
Devin Nunes, Alan Dershowitz, Andy McCarthy, John Solomon, Greg Jarrett tonight.
Also, we'll have the latest on the battle for the border, Dan Bongino, Monica, Lawrence, Jesse Jessica, all coming up.
Nine Eastern, incredible Hannity.
Nine Eastern on the Fox News channel.
See you tonight, and we'll see you back here tomorrow.
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