Sean Hannity Show - War Powers Resolution

Jan. 10, 2020 - Sean Hannity Show

01:47:09

War Powers Resolution

Sean visits with Congressman Devin Nunes of California to discuss the vote on the War Powers Resolution and the preposterous proposals of Nancy Pelosi on the impeachment process.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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	I'm Carol Markowitz.
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	We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.
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	I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
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	As we defend our people and interests, let me reiterate that the United States is not seeking a war with Iran, but we are prepared to finish one.
	I salute the incredible skill and courage of America's men and women in uniform.
	For far too long, all the way back to 1979 to be exact, nations have tolerated Iran's destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond.
	Those days are over.
	The clock is ticking.
	T minus 298 days left till the presidential election.
	Yeah, we're coming to your city.
	Gonna play our guitars and sing you a country song.
	From coast to coast.
	From border to border.
	From sea to shining sea.
	Sean Kennedy is on.
	Thank you, Scott Shannon, and happy Friday.
	298 days to go till the moment that you, we, the American people, you got a shot at shocking the world again.
	And just imagine, just let your mind wander for a second into a happy place.
	And all of a sudden, all these news organizations so vested in their rage, their psychotic hate Trump every second minute hour of any 24 hour day, every week, every month, every day of the year, even leading up to Christmas, the urgency.
	We got to do it urgently.
	It's got to be urgent, urgent, urgent.
	Impeach, impeach, impeach.
	Well, not so fast.
	And you hear the words, we can now project.
	Let's go through it.
	CNN Fake News can now project that Donald J. Trump has been re-elected the 45th president of the United States.
	Who's going to get that duty over at Fake News CNN?
	Or could you imagine?
	It was so bad the last time.
	It's almost entertaining.
	Over at Area 51, Roswell, Rachel, Matto, the conspiracy theory channel.
	All things nutty, all things loopy, all things wrong.
	You know, just what we can now project.
	Oh, Donald J. Trump has been elected, re-elected 45th president of the United States.
	Look, I'm, I don't know, I just the way I've been brought up, I'm always waiting for the next bomb to be dropped on my head.
	Maybe it's an Irish-American thing.
	What do you think, Linda?
	You're Irish, right?
	It's kind of hard to do.
	Six pack and a potato never failed anybody.
	What's that?
	Six pack and a potato.
	Never failed anybody.
	Now, these are things you can only say because you're Irish.
	What is a diary seven-course meal?
	A six-pack and a potato.
	Unless you're Howard Stern, you can say anything you want.
	He's the only one that has, he's like grandfathered in with freedom that nobody else has.
	Even he's cut off at the knees anymore.
	Forget about it.
	Nah, you know, he's still Howard.
	It's fine.
	Now, let me just start with good news here today because there's a lot of heavy stuff.
	Looks like impeachment madness.
	The trial will begin Wednesday.
	And I want to reiterate something that I said on television last night because I am serious about this.
	And I want all of these Republicans, they better pay very close attention.
	I am not.
	The American people are not going to tolerate senators in Republican senators trying to do the job of the House.
	We went over this yesterday.
	Constitution very clearly empowers the House and the House of Representatives only.
	They get to do the impeachment.
	Then the trial is in the U.S. Senate.
	Then we have the Supreme Court Justice.
	In this case, Chief Justice John Roberts presiding.
	Now, they did their impeachment.
	It's pathetic.
	We first had the closed-door auditions to see if we can get hearsay or fact witnesses to be more than what they really are.
	That didn't work.
	But then they hid the information, but they were really auditioning.
	This is all part of the shift show.
	First, they took it out of the judiciary, which constitutionally is where it should have been in the beginning.
	But somehow Nancy Pelosi favors the compromise, corrupt, congenital liar, and he is a liar, Adam Schiff.
	I'd love to have him come on this program.
	Give him three straight hours.
	The only guy I know colluding with Russians to get dirt on Donald Trump, which one of the funniest tapes we've ever played.
	We're not going to play it now.
	But it's their constitutional role to do it.
	It's all right.
	They've now gone down.
	They jumped out of the airplane a long time ago.
	They've been wanting to do this.
	They thought Mueller was the holy grail.
	That failed.
	Four investigations failed.
	Trump, Russia, lie, lie, conspiracy theories, hoax, whatever you want to call it.
	It's, you know, for three since Donald Trump's been elected, two days after, they begin their quest for impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.
	Can we impeach him, impeach him?
	I've played all of these tapes with all of the dates all through the end of 2016, 2017, 2018, all through 2019, impeach, impeach, impeach.
	It's to the point, it's like everybody's non-plussed by all of this, nor should you be.
	What the media mob and the Democrats have not figured out yet is the American people knew they were electing a disruptor.
	They knew it was different.
	They knew he was not going to be any establishment-like figure that was not the presidency the American people voted for.
	They knew Donald Trump wasn't perfect.
	They knew that he was a businessman.
	They knew he probably had a learning curve.
	But whether they want to in the mob, as they feign their outrage every second, every day.
	I mean, even the mob and the media, when they attack me, it is so old.
	It's laughable.
	And I'm like, I sent the email to Linda yesterday.
	One of these, by the way, the one publication that was called out as liars, they're asking me a bunch of ridiculous questions because the special counsel, they mentioned that in his name.
	Oh, wow.
	All the text messages.
	And I'm like, yeah, so I do my job.
	The one thing I can say after three years, we got it right.
	We've been proven right.
	We've been vindicated.
	Everything we told you, FISA, FISA abuse, about Hillary, about the corruption, about the emails, spying on the president, campaign, a president, transitioning, all happened, all proven.
	And now we have a criminal investigation.
	Now, now it's going to start getting real for everybody.
	Nobody else in the media did that.
	We are proud of the work we have done both on this radio show and on Hannity the television show on Fox News.
	We got it right before everybody else.
	We had a great team of investigative journalists busting their hump every day.
	And we dug deep and we found our sources and we confirmed and we double confirmed and we triple confirmed sometimes.
	We even held back confirmed information to quadruple confirm it to make sure we were getting it all right.
	They were getting it wrong.
	When are they ever going to apologize, you would think, and maybe change their ways and maybe have a little introspection or self-reflection.
	You know, it's not a bad thing every once in a while to look inside and say, you know what?
	We messed up.
	We got it wrong.
	We didn't get this right.
	We should have done this differently.
	Maybe we are.
	Maybe we do have an agenda.
	Maybe there's a reason that they're chanting CNN sucks at us.
	Maybe, maybe we should listen.
	Maybe we can focus group and talk to people and ask them, well, what don't you like about our coverage?
	It's biased, abusively biased.
	You know, that's why I get such a chuckle out of, you know, all of the, you got these Jeff Zucker stenographers over there led by Humpty Dumpty.
	I don't have anything wrong with Humpty Dumpty.
	You know, Linda, I saw Humpty at the media i party.
	I heard.
	Did you address him as such?
	Of course I did.
	That's his name.
	I call him Humpty.
	And he apparently, I didn't know he actually takes it personally.
	I don't know why he would.
	Yeah.
	And he's got this, I guess, assistant.
	I don't know.
	This guy, I don't know who he is.
	He comes up to me.
	No, who?
	No, that's.
	Anyway, his name's Oliver.
	I don't know.
	Oliver, somebody, Oliver, whoever Oliver is.
	And he goes, Hi, how are you?
	I'm like, hi.
	It's me.
	I'm like, have we met?
	Who are you?
	I don't know who you are.
	But I get such a kick out of it.
	It's like, maybe, Jason, get that audio racked up.
	It's like, and it's like you're being stalked by these people.
	And it's an obsession about all they care about is to trash Fox.
	And all we do is keep setting record ratings, one after another.
	Thanks to all of you.
	Thank you so much for making us another year, number one in all of cable news, the Hannity program.
	I can't thank you enough.
	And we're going to double down and work harder this year to do a better job and to dig deeper and harder and give you the best election coverage on radio and TV.
	That's what we do.
	I live, eat, breathe, sleep this all week long.
	I'm going to try and shut down on the weekend completely and recharge the battery.
	That's it.
	And we are committed to doing this.
	We love that you give us this microphone and that camera every night.
	Thank you for that.
	So if you got ratings that are like, we've got three or four times their ratings, sometimes even higher, you would think maybe they'd be a little self-reflective here.
	But no, they just, you know, that noise, Jason?
	It's like you got these stalkers over there.
	They're so obsessed with us.
	And I'm like, am I supposed to know who you are?
	That's how irrelevant they are to me.
	Like, you know, fake news Acosta comes out with a book.
	He mentions me so that he'll get attention.
	Linda remembered that he was on a bus with us.
	I never saw the guy.
	I didn't know.
	What country were we?
	I don't even remember.
	That's maybe Jason next to me.
	It's Finland.
	Right.
	And we're with all our crew guys, and we're carrying all these cameras.
	And so fake news across the John Hannity didn't have the courage to say on fake news to my face.
	Well, I said it to Humpty and this Oliver guy, assistant of Humpty Guy.
	I don't know who he is.
	And that's them.
	And I'm like, so he tries to use my name.
	He's like, begging to be on the show.
	I'm like, go sell your stupid fake news book on your network.
	But they try to, why would I have him on this show?
	First of all, I don't want to insult the audience's intelligence by putting these people on.
	And at the same time period, the great one, Mark Levin's book, comes out.
	He sells a half a million copies in the same period.
	The guy sold 14,000.
	And I'm like, okay, of course you want to be on our show.
	Now, Mark doesn't need our help.
	We love Mark's books.
	Mark's a great author.
	And, you know, he exposed the media mob for who they are.
	But it's just funny to me.
	Anyway, back to the Senate.
	I want to say this to the senators as we now get up and rolling on all this, Republican senators.
	Do not lend credibility to this despicable, frankly unconstitutional, corrupt shift show where there was no due process, no presumption of innocence, of course.
	It's all political.
	Now, the Constitution allows for the House only to have an impeachment.
	They've done it.
	Okay.
	Now they will pick their House managers.
	It probably begins next Wednesday.
	They will then present their case, the trial that is now in the hands of the United States Senate.
	That's what the Constitution calls for.
	They impeach.
	They have the sole power to impeach.
	They've done it for no reason.
	They did nothing that we've done in the past.
	They offered nothing that Newt Kingridge offered Bill Clinton.
	I mean, and his lawyers.
	They did everything in the worst way imaginable.
	So now they're saying, well, we want you to retry it.
	We want you to do the impeaching of it because ours is pathetic.
	Okay, that's not the constitutional role of the Senate.
	That's the House's job.
	They say they have the evidence that they've impeached the president for high crimes, misdemeanors, bribery, high crimes, misdemeanors.
	Okay.
	The constitutional role in this trial of the Senate is to see if, in fact, they present that case, not to go and do the work for them.
	They only had one fact witness, Ambassador Sonlin.
	Now they're saying to the Senate, you got to bring in other witnesses.
	No, you could have waited for the court to decide.
	You chose not to.
	Now, their constitutional role in the Senate is the trial.
	Chief Justice presiding, John Roberts, the only one fact witness was pretty clear, exculpatory for the president.
	So to Republican senators, what I am saying to you, make them show you why they impeached a president of the United States because they can't do it with any evidence or any facts except opinions and hearsay witnesses, none of which is admissible due to the federal rules of evidence, for example.
	It is not the U.S. Senate's role to redo what was a corrupt political investigation hit job from the beginning.
	Let the House managers, hopefully the cowardly, congenital, compromise, congenital liar shift, and let them present it.
	Let them bring in their one fact witness to repeat what he said or just read back the testimony.
	And you Republican senators, all your job is to do is look at their case, look at their evidence.
	Now, I don't want these Republican senators getting weak and timid.
	You ought not constitutionally, if you revere our constitutional system and co-equal branches and specific roles of the House and the Senate, then you ought not give any credibility to what is a repulsive, corrupt abuse of power political stunt, or you're as guilty as the House is.
	That's what this is about.
	They impeached.
	Let them show you why.
	When they fail, and they will spectacularly then call the roll and end the madness for the sake of the country.
	That's their job.
	Nothing more, nothing less.
	It's not your job to go over, well, you didn't give us enough reasons to impeach.
	Let me see if we can find some for you.
	They have the power solely to do the impeachment.
	That's my message to Republicans, because a lot of them are weak.
	I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
	Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
	Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
	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.
	And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
	We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
	So down a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
	And I'm Carol Markowitz.
	We've been in political media for a long time.
	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
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	So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
	You're our kind of people.
	Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday.
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	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.
	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.
	I'm Leon Mayfook from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
	This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
	What difference at this point does it make?
	Yes, that's right.
	Lock her up.
	Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	I am as serious as I can be.
	All right.
	They now get to present their case to all of you Republican senators.
	Don't make me start giving out the phone number because you need to understand here that their sole constitutional role is they get to impeach.
	They have decided in their insanity and psychosis and rage to abuse that power and to bring up what is a non-case and just politicize this because they're just obsessed and Nancy Pelosi needed to appease the radicalism rising within her base.
	That is not what your role is in the U.S. Senate.
	Your role is also very, very clear.
	You are to run the trial.
	That's it.
	That's what your job is.
	It is not your job at all to redo their corrupt investigation.
	They only first they had the, well, I guess the audition of their big star guests.
	And they had the guest.
	We only had one fact witnesses.
	Rules of evidence, federal rules of evidence don't allow hearsay or opinions.
	So they got one fact witness who has exculpatory things to say about Trump.
	It's not your job.
	They present their case.
	Let them bring in their one relevant witness, Ambassador Sonlin, or read back his testimony.
	And do not let them fail spectacularly as they will.
	That's your role.
	Starts Wednesday.
	Do your job.
	Show fidelity to the Constitution.
	And let's get this country growing and moving forward again.
	All right.
	Glad you're with us.
	25 till the top of the hour.
	Thank you, Scott Shannon.
	298 days until you, we, the people, get to shock the world again.
	We've launched on Hannity.com.
	We're starting slow.
	We don't want to inundate people with that much information yet.
	By the way, I'm not being condescending here.
	I just want to put out one specific thing.
	We want to give you all the information you need to be a good citizen.
	And if you don't know when you need to register by, which is the first step if you want to vote in the election, a lot of states, it's March.
	We put it up on Hannity.com.
	Then we're going to make the map quite interactive.
	Your state, your district, early voting dates and early vote ending and absentee voting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
	I think it's, you know, just to make for a better electorate out there.
	All right.
	Let me go to the president last night.
	I mean, he was rocking.
	I mean, he really was.
	First, I want to play him because this ought to be something he's not going to.
	The Trump doctrine is clear that the president, he'll talk to anybody.
	He got beaten up by the left and the media.
	They're even trying to taunt him today.
	Well, they still shot at our troops and you're not going to do anything.
	They're trying to taunt him into, I got, you know, firing missiles back at Iran so that then they can criticize him for that.
	They just can't win.
	No, he drew a line in the sand.
	Trump doctrine, I'll talk to anybody.
	You want to talk, Kim Jong-un?
	Thanks.
	Let's talk.
	I will give you my time.
	It's worth it.
	I got, let's see, the remains of American soldiers back.
	You stopped firing missiles every other day over Japan and threatening the entire region.
	And we also got some hostages back.
	Ended up being a pretty good deal.
	President gave up time and he talked to Kim Jong-un.
	He's not going to bribe him.
	Not going to make a bad deal.
	President talked to him.
	That's a good thing.
	He said he talked to Putin.
	Oh, Putin, Russia again?
	Okay, why not?
	Said he talked to the Taliban.
	I didn't know if I liked that one that much.
	But you know what?
	I don't see a harm in talking to anybody.
	What's the big deal?
	If you're not going to bribe them, which you can't, because that incurs aggression, and you draw the line, as the president did, he didn't even take the, he did not take the shot after they took the drones out.
	I don't know if I would have had that restraint.
	That's hard.
	You take an American drone out of the air.
	That's an act of war in my head.
	But he showed restraint.
	Now, in other words, he wasn't the caricature that the media tried to paint.
	And then when they took the tankers hostage, you know, might have been thinking about retribution then too.
	He didn't do it.
	And then he had another opportunity when they took the Saudi oil fields out for no reason, unprovoked attack to impact the world economy, the free flow of oil at market prices.
	He didn't shoot back then.
	You killed an American.
	Okay, it's over.
	And the president made it clear last night: if you dare to threaten our citizens, you're going to get hit.
	You do so at great peril.
	Here's what he said: this great power, not to pursue conflict, but to really preserve, and I mean in the true sense of the word, preserve peace.
	We have this tremendous military, and you know what that is?
	That's really a great fighting force, but I hope we never have to use it.
	I really do.
	You saw an example.
	You saw an example of that a couple of days ago.
	So we seek friends, not enemies.
	But if you dare to threaten our citizens, you do so at your own grave peril.
	And then the president dealt with, and by the way, this whole non-Bidening, stupid war powers effort, it's symbolic.
	It has no teeth to it.
	It's meaningless.
	And by the way, you have eight House Democrats defying Pelosi.
	The one I guess I was most surprised at is Matt Gates on this.
	I told him he was wrong on it, but he didn't want to hear it from me.
	And then the president says, well, you know, he was elected.
	We can't have 535 commanders in chief.
	We only have one.
	We'll get to the War Paras Act in a second.
	And he's probably right.
	I don't trust any of these Democrats.
	Would they have leaked the attack plans?
	Here's what the president said.
	Here's a guy who slaughtered and butchered civilians all over and military, whoever was in his way.
	And we have Bernie and Nancy Pelosi.
	We have them all.
	They're all trying to say, how dare you take him out that way?
	You should get permission from Congress.
	You should come in and tell us what you want to do.
	You should come in and tell us so that we can call up the fake news that's back there and we can leak it.
	It's the not only, like, for example, we got new employment numbers out today.
	Our U6 employment number is at the lowest rate of all time.
	Our friend Jamie Dupree pointed that out writing on the Cox News service.
	He points out that the economy ended 219 on a solid note.
	Labor Department reported 145,000 jobs added in December.
	The nation's unemployment rate stays historically low, 3.5%.
	And we have another record U6 unemployment rate, considered to be the broadest measure of joblessness, went down to just 6.7% in December.
	That is the lowest point ever in history, an all-time low.
	When President Trump took office, it was 9.3%.
	It's been kept by the labor department since 94%.
	And if you look at the U6 number, the U6 rate is the unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers who have quit looking for jobs, part-time workers who want full-time employment.
	And U6, that rate is considered by many economists, and I'm reporting now from Vestopedia, is considered by economists to be the most revealing measure of a country's unemployment situation since it covers the percentage of the labor force that is unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged employed.
	So we've got the regular unemployment rate holding at a 50-year low.
	The U6 rate, considered by many economists to be the most revealing measure of our unemployment, plunging to brand new all-time low.
	Oh, well, Bernie Sanders is out there saying, well, it's not true.
	The economy is bad.
	No, it's not.
	The president also, a federal appeals court ruled the Trump administration can use the Defense Department funds.
	Remember, we had that big debate, and I said, no, he's not giving up.
	A lot of conservatives out there say, oh, he gave in on the wall.
	No, I just said he just regrouped and he realized he's not going to get the money the way he wanted from Congress, although he got more money also for that recently.
	And he reappropriated funds from the Defense Department and now got a federal appeals court ruling that says, yes, he can do it.
	Two to one ruling, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of the Texas judge's order, which the administration had appealed.
	That's good because that's another $3.6 billion in construction.
	That means the 400 miles that they have as a goal by the election this year should be accomplished.
	By the way, only 24% of Americans now want to identify themselves as a liberal.
	Can you blame them?
	Do you want to be a part of that lunatic crowd?
	Only 24%.
	That's pretty interesting.
	Now, Gallup today said conservatives lead at 37%.
	Moderates, 34%.
	Though Moore still identifies Democrats over Republicans.
	I'm not a Republican.
	I'm not even a registered Republican.
	I am a conservative.
	And I remember I had to, there were a lot of, I can name them.
	Where do I start?
	All of the National Review online guys, they've never adjusted to the fact that they got it wrong on Trump.
	They all said he's never going to be governed as a conservative.
	He's never going to keep his promises on judges.
	Well, he kept them.
	Or cutting taxes, kept that, or deregulation, biggest in history, or fighting to get the money and building the wall.
	He's doing it.
	Or better trade deals, freer and fairer.
	That's done.
	Check Japan, Mexico, Canada, European allies, mini deal with China.
	Hopefully, after he gets re-elected, another one.
	But the economy now, food stamps rolls declined 7 million.
	7 million fewer people on food stamps, thanks to this administration.
	7 million more Americans now working.
	Wow.
	The opposite of Biden Obama.
	Real success.
	You got literally the unemployment number.
	Remember, Department of Labor Statistic Numbers is now almost at 160 million Americans employed.
	That's $1,085 year-to-year increase.
	That's the highest ever.
	Remember, lowest labor participation rate.
	Well, now a second record labor participation rate.
	By the way, Wall Street Journal, rank and file workers, they got bigger raises.
	Oh, why?
	Because they're in a better position with the economy to fight for better wages and better benefits.
	And they're getting them.
	And it's now the fourth week in a row that U.S. jobless claims have fallen.
	That's a good thing.
	By the way, that is a near post-recession low.
	But again, stocks, that's never been my big barometer, although it impacts everybody's, you know, 401k plan, that matters.
	It is historically low unemployment.
	Then demographically, all Americans are being lifted up.
	Thank God.
	Our whole American family.
	Wage growth for workers now outpace wage growth for managers.
	That's awesome.
	Wage growth for those without a four-year degree now outpacing wage growth for those with a four-year college degree.
	We want everybody to prosper.
	All the jobs in the energy sector, they're going to be massive.
	We got record low unemployment for African Americans.
	Their wage growth now outpaces wage growth for any other demographic, Hispanic Americans.
	And don't think that these numbers are an anomaly where you see the support for the president, 34.5% among African Americans, 34%, 33%, 28%, 22%.
	The lowest poll of eight was 16%.
	That's twice what the president had just in 2016 alone.
	That is a massive development.
	In other words, what I always said, the forgotten men and women.
	Told you I bought that John McNaughton painting.
	I'm not big into art, but I like his stuff.
	Now, on the War Powers Act, just a quick primer on this.
	We have our Constitution.
	They divide the war powers of the government between the executive legislative branches, president, commander-in-chief, armed forces.
	Article 2, Section 2, Congress has the power to make the declaration of war, raise support for the armed forces.
	Anyway, this has been a conflict.
	Go back to 1812.
	For the next 100 years, presidents asked for, received congressional declarations for war against England, Mexico, Spain, Japan, European powers.
	Okay.
	What evolved out of that is questions to the extent of the president's authority to respond quickly, especially in this day and age.
	In the Cold War, Harry Truman sent troops to Korea, part of the UN force.
	He didn't get a declaration of war.
	Kennedy sent troops to South Vietnam.
	Congress never declared war.
	Years later, they passed the Tonkin Resolution, what it was called, authorizing then President Johnson to use force in Vietnam.
	73, you get the War Powers Act, which is nothing but an attempt to kind of, by Congress, to rein in a president's ability to be the commander-in-chief.
	I've always believed and believed today it's unconstitutional.
	And a lot of it, the outcrop of the Vietnam War.
	And, you know, this president doesn't want endless wars.
	That's the good thing.
	And by the way, that was Congress was able to override a veto by Nixon when they enacted the War Powers Resolution.
	There's sort of always this power struggle with the legislative and executive branch.
	That's where you can seek remedy, like the president did on the issue of executive privilege when it relates to other issues.
	But Congress has declared war.
	Understand under this resolution that they have, that I believe the War Powers Act to be unconstitutional, they declare war.
	Congress has provided authority.
	Anyway, it also has in there a provision that a president, once military action is taken, must, in writing, within 48 hours, report to the House Speaker and the Senate pro tem.
	And the president's report's got to describe the circumstances necessitating military action, et cetera.
	Also allows an additional 30 days if a president certifies in writing, such time in need of safely removing U.S. from hostilities.
	And that's all gone away.
	Now, here is my point on this, because, and I know we got the impeachment insanity, and I know that that's all probably going to start next Wednesday and that it's going to be madness, but this is important stuff for the country moving forward because we need a president to be a commander-in-chief.
	You can't ask Nancy Pelosi.
	And even some of the Democrats recognize that as well in all of this.
	And I just think if you look at it objectively and you understand the history of this, the president especially doesn't want anything to do with this.
	Where were all the war-power Democrats when Obama ordered hundreds of lethal drone strikes?
	Now, even the New York Times points out some of this information, because it was pretty disgraceful to watch the media mob going after Pompeo like he's a war criminal when he took out a guy that has killed hundreds of Americans and been the leader of state-sponsored terror around the world.
	That was a good thing for the world.
	And we had the shot.
	He was there in Baghdad to hurt Americans.
	We saw what was happening in our embassy.
	We didn't want Benghazi to happen all over again.
	Where was the imminent threat when Obama took out bin Laden, for example?
	Unlike Soleimani, actively plotting against U.S. troops at the moment, Bin Laden was hiding.
	The reason he had the intelligence, you can thank George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and enhanced interrogations.
	But the bottom line is when Obama ordered the Navy SEALs to invade a foreign country and kill bin Laden, thankfully he did make that call.
	Thankfully, we got the intelligence from KSM through enhanced interrogation.
	Thank you, Gina Haspel, Jose Rodriguez.
	Meanwhile, both before and after Bin Laden's death, Obama had been ordering hundreds of drone strikes.
	But those targets posed no imminent threat whatsoever.
	March 19, March 2019, New York Times, the Obama administration estimated over the two terms, drone strikes had killed between 64 and 116 civilians, 542 airstrikes outside major war zones.
	Well, hang on a second.
	Well, what about the Alawaki case?
	Because he used a drone strike to take that American citizen out, Admiral Alawaki.
	Remember him?
	Came the first U.S. citizen targeted kill by U.S. drone without, quote, due process rights.
	He's an enemy combatant.
	Obama did the right thing.
	Here you go.
	I said it because it's true.
	So you got the day that U.S. forces kill Soleimani.
	This is where the Democrats' head is in impeachment and this.
	They're all nuts.
	I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
	Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
	Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
	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.
	And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
	We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
	So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hammond.
	And I'm Carol Markowitz.
	We've been in political media for a long time.
	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
	We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
	We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
	So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
	Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
	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.
	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.
	I'm Leon Nayfak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
	This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
	What difference at this point does it make?
	Yes, that's right.
	Lock her up.
	Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	I do expect that the Judiciary Committee is prepared to move very quickly.
	The president, based on his past performance, will do everything he can to make it not a fair election.
	And that is part of what gives us the urgency to proceed with this impeachment.
	The timing is really driven by the urgency, and that is...
	A national security issue.
	Yes, a national security issue, an issue of our election integrity.
	This is not a rush to judgment.
	It's a rush to justice.
	It is a matter of fact that the president is an ongoing threat to our national security and the integrity of our elections.
	President Trump's wrongdoing and the urgent threat that his actions present to our next election and our democracy.
	We have overwhelming evidence that this president poses an urgent threat to our elections, to our national security.
	Nothing could be more urgent.
	When we talk about the speed of it, is that this is a continuing criminal enterprise that's going on.
	The urgency is a clear and present danger, I think, to our democracy.
	Urgency of the issue.
	Like, we have to act now.
	Like, it's now.
	Well, is that part of the time to screw around?
	Is a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections.
	It's about urgency.
	All right.
	Hour two, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-Sean.
	Oh, the urgency, the urgency for impeachment.
	Nancy Pelosi.
	Yeah, I guess we now know that that's a lie, like the Democrats citing urgency all along.
	And now only because Democrats have finally said this is ridiculous.
	It never was urgent.
	Why are we even here?
	I've got to give props to our next guest because when he came out with the Nunes report, there were Democrats led by the, we now know, confirmed compromised congenital liar Adam Schiff that said that Congressman Devin Nunes was lying.
	He came out with his own report.
	Now we know based on the Inspector General's release that in fact it was Adam Schiff doing what he always does, and that's lie because he was saying, oh, no, no, we have all the evidence about Trump pressure collusion.
	It's all there.
	We've got it all.
	It's all locked down.
	And we didn't use the dossier Harley at all.
	And yet it was, as we reported for a long time, the bulk of information that was used for the FISE warrants.
	Anyway, Congressman Devin Nunes is with us.
	We have a lot of other things to talk about.
	Congressman, props to you.
	You took a lot of heat.
	You told the American people the truth.
	You've now been vindicated.
	You were out there alone many times during this process.
	And you know what?
	You held your ground, and I applaud you for it.
	Well, thanks, Sean, on this very urgent Friday.
	It's very urgent.
	Urgent Friday?
	Is that what we're calling it?
	Yeah.
	You know why it's urgent?
	We're 298 days until Election Day.
	I have urgency on that, believe it or not.
	It's just incredible that we're sitting here with if 2019 couldn't be more, you know, you just couldn't think it could be more ridiculous, but 2020 has started out more ridiculous for the Democrats.
	And it's a lot of time, it's just using what they actually said in the past.
	And of course, you know, they love to take any little thing that we may have said just slightly wrong, and they'll blow it up forever, and the media will cover it, and they'll build narratives on it.
	But because there's just no media in this country, it's just become such a joke.
	But I will say, you know, all those times that I was standing alone, I really wasn't because I had guys like you, Levin, Limbaugh, all of your audience, Bongino.
	There's just so many great people out there in the podcast and talk radio world that were standing right there with me.
	So I want to thank you for that, and we're continuing to keep our head down and continuing to work, plow ahead, because there's still a lot of shenanigans going on, and we're in the process right now.
	She's going to eventually, I guess we're going to vote on this next week, send it over to the Senate so they can begin the trial.
	But at the same time, we haven't forgot about things like the ICIG.
	He thought that we went away.
	Well, I want to get into this.
	I want you to explain this.
	I'd rather you do it in your words.
	You said a lot of profound things with Laura Ingram earlier this week, and we haven't had time to do the deep dive that you've done.
	And the deep dive is really just beginning.
	So remember, there were all the questions about the form that the whistleblower had filled out, whether or not he had talked to Congress or not.
	There was also testimony that the IG, the ICIG, Atkinson, gave to the House Intelligence Committee.
	Surprisingly, that's the only interview that hasn't been released publicly.
	So clearly, we've asked for it.
	They're not giving it.
	You know, there's a reason why.
	Now, we didn't.
	Maybe you can't tell us.
	Do you know the reason why?
	I assume you do.
	I mean, look, I think it's pretty simple.
	The stories don't add up.
	The story that the IG told us, the story that Adam Schipp and his staff have told us, they don't jive.
	And of course, the whistleblower complaint doesn't jive with the source, we assume, was Lieutenant Colonel Vinman, if you remember him.
	So people forget about this, and the mainstream media probably thought that we forgot about this.
	And I think even a lot of our conservative friends thought that we forgot, meaning the House Republicans on the intelligence committee.
	But we said at the time the ICIG situation didn't make any sense.
	The change in the forms didn't make any sense.
	And we were going to come back to that.
	We sent him a very detailed letter asking him, it was really a preservation letter.
	So meaning that, you know, we have every intent to turn this over to the Department of Justice that we see wrong.
	We want the evidence.
	He wrote us a letter back on October 8th, didn't really answer the questions other than to tell us, yeah, we just made some mistakes.
	But, you know what?
	You have to provide evidence.
	If you're a fool and you're claiming stupidity, then you have to prove it.
	You have to prove it with emails.
	We need to know what things were changed.
	So if Michael Atkinson has this information, why doesn't he provide all the documentation?
	Because as you said in your interview, you essentially have to either believe he's in on it or he's incompetent.
	Because the bottom line is that this focuses on the changing whistleblower forms to remove the requirement of firsthand knowledge as a condition of urging concern.
	When did that actually happen?
	And do we know exactly why it happened?
	Yeah, and that's the thing, Sean, about, so your audience understands.
	He's either hit on it, like I said, or he's incompetent.
	And if he's incompetent, that's fine.
	It happens in government.
	There's a lot of areas of incompetence within the bureaucracy.
	I think we're well aware of that.
	But there would be evidence of the incompetence, right?
	So essentially what he has told us in his letter to us on October 8th is that what was on the form, that you needed to have firsthand knowledge, was in fact not the policy, that the form was wrong.
	So we are going to be asking over the weekend.
	We're finishing drafting the letter today.
	We'll finish touching it up over the weekend and likely release it Sunday or Monday.
	And it's going to have, it's going to basically read like a subpoena of all of the information that we need to support his and his agencies incompetent, if they indeed were incompetent.
	Well, I think you pretty much have nailed it, which is why this hasn't been released.
	I mean, that is the stunning part of all this.
	And, you know, we have to get to the bottom because we've now lived through what I think is three of the most difficult years in the country's history.
	And that, of course, being this whole Russia collusion madness and what turned out to be a hoax and a fraud and abuse of power.
	And everything you said in your memo in, what, February of 2018?
	Everything you said about the FISA application being the bulk of information used in the FISA warrants, unverifiable.
	Steele was, they warned everybody that Steele had an agenda and that Hillary paid for it, and they hid it all from the FISA court.
	I still am amazed the FISA court isn't up in arms and demanding more faster.
	Well, you saw that the judge who was in charge during all of this stepped aside.
	So, you know, that's a whole nother problem that we still are investigating is that we had notified the FISA court of these problems and then went on her way out late last month.
	And we're glad that they acknowledge that there's problems now.
	But in fact, that's just another lie.
	I mean, the court has to answer for why they ignored what we had told them.
	Remember, it wasn't like they didn't have the evidence.
	They had the full FISAs.
	They actually had more information and more details than we had at the House Intelligence Committee because we remember we had all the redacted FISA information.
	So they had all the information in front of them.
	So they were told by us.
	They were warned by us.
	How is it possible that they just now had an epiphany after the IG came out?
	You know, they would have been better off just to say back in the day, you know, a year ago or a year and a half ago and just say, hey, we have concerns about this.
	We're going to work with the IG.
	They could have said something, but to come out at the end of the year, like I said, and pretend that now something's wrong just doesn't, it just doesn't pass the smell test.
	Just like the ICIG changing the forms only after the media and the House Republicans confronted him with the problem with the forms on the whistleblower.
	It really is amazing stuff.
	Where do you think Barr and Durham are now going?
	Because, look, I think Michael Horowitz, I didn't agree with his conclusion about it not being political, but he said he was basing it only off the data, that in the bubble that he was confined.
	He only could work within the Department of Justice and do the investigation only within that arena.
	We now know that the investigation of Durham, the prosecutor, and the Attorney General Barr, has gone worldwide.
	It is now officially a criminal investigation.
	Grand juries can be convened.
	Indictments could be issued.
	I would imagine they are.
	Where do you see that going?
	Well, the big issue for people to remember is that Horowitz, and we said this, remember all the time, remember everybody was like awaiting the Horowitz report.
	And I think I went on your show many times and I said, look, I would just want to caution everyone.
	The IG has very limited power.
	And what we see with the report is indeed they do have very limited power.
	And that, you know, with the latest that's happened, there's just a problem, you know, as you, as, is getting evidence because Horowitz didn't have the subpoena power.
	So this investigation, Horowitz really only was able to evaluate what happened after July 31st with the opening of Crossfire Hurricane.
	He had no window into what happened before that.
	I don't know exactly why he had no window at all.
	I don't know if that was the parameters that Rod Rosenstein at the time gave him.
	But clearly it makes no sense that the same, what I like to call the spy ring, the same spy ring that was actively involved and used in the FISA against Carter Page that were going up against Papadopoulos and Page and others, the same people that were involved in the spring and early summer way before the opening of Crossfire Hurricane.
	And that really is what we want Durham to get to the bottom of is when and how did this start and also be able to interview the other people that were outside of the Department of Justice and the FBI that were involved in this.
	Most importantly, the Clinton campaign operatives.
	Well, I mean, the Hoover report, I don't even know what Hoover has done.
	I want to get to that, but are you confident?
	Are you confident that those that were warned and went ahead with premeditated fraud on a court, that they'll be held accountable?
	Because James Colmy signed three of those FISA applications.
	Yeah.
	So you're not, I mean, I know your audience, I want to, I just want to get everybody ready for what I think we can expect for sure and what we need to happen.
	The most important thing we can do.
	We'll pick it up there.
	Stay right there.
	That's a good tease, by the way.
	What should happen and will it happen?
	Devin Nunes is with us, ranking member, House Intel Committee.
	Quick break.
	We'll come back on the other side.
	Greg Jarrett, Jeff Lord coming up.
	And at the bottom of the half hour, we have an update on Solomani.
	And, you know, they did shoot down that jet and who did it?
	Why did they do it?
	Was it an accident?
	That's all straight ahead.
	I'm Ben Ferguson.
	And I'm Ted Cruz.
	Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
	Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
	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.
	And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
	We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
	So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Ham.
	And I'm Carol Markowitz.
	We've been in political media for a long time.
	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
	We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
	We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
	So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
	Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
	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.
	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.
	I'm Leon Nafak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
	This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
	What difference at this point does it make?
	Yes, that's right.
	Lock her up.
	Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	All right, as we continue, Congressman Devin Nunes is with us, California's 22nd District.
	All right, so we know what they did.
	It's now been detailed.
	We're going to learn a lot more.
	I want to know whether there was the outsourcing of intelligence gathering to circumvent laws, which would implicate guys like perhaps Brennan and Clapper.
	But do you think what should happen to those that committed premeditated fraud on the court and other things and illegal spying?
	And what will happen?
	Well, we're going to be able to get a little bit of a pleasure to get the money.
	Oh, one minute.
	Wow.
	So the bottom line is we need Durham to get the full story, like how this started.
	There's so many players out there that we don't know who or what they are.
	Like, let's just start with Joseph Mifsud.
	He's the guy that knew about Hillary Clinton's emails, right?
	Or supposedly did it.
	Talk to Papadopoulos about it.
	You know, why on earth did, you know, Moeller and the FBI never track down?
	You know, we can track down and kill Soleimani.
	We can kill bin Laden, but we can't find like a Maltese diplomat named Mipsud that supposedly had all these emails that we were investigating the president of the United States over.
	Nobody ever finds the guy.
	It's just unexplainable.
	And so that's where I think the difference between why you saw Barr and Durham both come out at the outset of the release of the Horowitz report and said, look, there's more information that we need here.
	And that's what they're talking about.
	How did this investigation begin?
	Well, I'll stop this and end this interview where we started, which is we owe you a debt of gratitude.
	Congressman, you dug deep.
	You found the truth.
	You told the American people the truth.
	You've now been vindicated.
	And the congenital liar who we know is compromised, you're pursuing that truth.
	And we applaud you for it.
	Thank you, Congressman Devin Nunes, 800-941-Sean, toll-free telephone number.
	I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
	Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
	Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
	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.
	And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
	We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
	So down a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
	And I'm Carol Markowitz.
	We've been in political media for a long time.
	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
	We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
	We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
	So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
	Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday.
	On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
	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.
	I'm Leon Nafak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
	This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
	What difference at this point does it make?
	Yes, that's right.
	Lock her up.
	Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	There was a mistake by the Iranians.
	Do you think they assumed this was some sort of U.S. military plane?
	Well, I have been briefed on it, Wolf, and the intelligence committee, so I'm not really at liberty to say.
	But if what is being projected is true, this is yet another example of collateral damage from the actions that have been taken in a provocative way by the President of the United States.
	Well, is this type of miscalculation, let's say, on the part of the Iranians more likely now to result in even heightened tensions?
	I would say that the continued saber, excuse me, the continued saber-rattling by the president doesn't help us.
	I also feel strongly that by taking out General Soleimani, that that did not somehow rid us of any of the planning that the Iranians would be doing or that the Shia militia that is throughout the region is also engaged in doing.
	And we also have the leader of the Shia militia who was assassinated as well that may be the subject of some efforts to seek revenge.
	Sir, Secretary Pompeo, do you believe that the Iranians shot down the Ukrainian International Airways plane?
	And if the Iranians shot that plane down, will there be consequences?
	We do believe that it's likely that that plane was shot down by an Iranian missile.
	We're going to let the investigation play out before we make a final determination.
	It's important that we get to the bottom of it.
	I've been on the phone.
	I was on the phone with President Zelensky.
	Just before I came here, I was on the phone with my Canadian counterpart.
	They were working to get their resources on the ground to conduct that thorough investigation.
	We'll learn more about what happened to that aircraft.
	And when we get the results of that investigation, I am confident we and the world will take appropriate actions in response.
	All right, that was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
	Now, this whole issue of the plane ought to be something that we pay attention to because, you know, you've got the Iranians, oh, they're spreading lies about the jetliner crash.
	Yeah, but they didn't want to give over the black box in the Boeing 737.
	I know the 737 has had problems.
	This Ukrainian flight, we know 176 people died as a result of this.
	It didn't make sense to any one person I know that knows aviation that this plane just drops out of the sky.
	That's not the way it would happen.
	It's also Canada, their Prime Minister Trudeau, saying their country has intelligence from their own agencies.
	Yeah, the Iranians did this.
	Even the mainstream media now reporting what our Pentagon, our Secretary of State, and everybody else has said.
	Apparently, the Ukrainian foreign minister is saying at a press conference that Iran is fully cooperating or is now beginning to fully cooperate and will give them access to the black box.
	Pompeo says, yeah, likely Iranian missile.
	Anyway, here with us is Dr. Tom Stahlkup.
	He is a science advisor.
	He's also co-producer of TWA Flight 800.
	It's an EPICS channel original documentary.
	He's also a private pilot, and he's here to discuss this.
	Sir, thank you.
	Dr. Stahlkup, thanks for being with us.
	I'm fascinated by aviation.
	I have a lot of friends that are so into planes you have no idea.
	And, you know, I don't know why anyone would get in these little trainer planes and ever fly with them because they scare the daylights out of me.
	I prefer a bigger airplane.
	But they have a passion for it.
	And I talk to these people a lot.
	I've learned over the years about spatial disorientation, instrument training.
	I mean, I have a fundamental knowledge of avionics and how sophisticated they are.
	But everybody that I know that knows anything about aviation saw this in the beginning as no way this was an accident.
	Well, it sure seems suspicious.
	Those early videos of a plane on fire still gliding forward certainly seemed odd to me.
	And I guess now the New York Times is reporting that they actually have a video of the missile hitting it.
	And so that's pretty, you know, pretty, that's a lot of confirmation.
	And I also heard they might have some satellite data.
	That's interesting.
	And so it all seems to point to, yeah, a missile, probably not the same type of missile that they shot at the in the Iraqi bases because those were land-to-land missiles, which is most likely an air defense system that was probably on high state of alert after they started launching that attack against Iraq.
	Okay, so let's talk about the, if a plane, let's say both engines blow out, and we've had some problems with the 737, you can discuss if you want.
	But if both engines go at 8,000 feet, a plane just doesn't drop out of the sky.
	Explain that.
	Oh, no, sure.
	You still have momentum.
	You still have your kinetic energy.
	That's the speed you're going.
	And you can use gravity.
	You can turn your plane into a glider.
	I think it was Captain Sully that did a wonderful job.
	And when that just happened, I mean, birds put out both engines.
	He had no power at all.
	He used his plane as a glider, landed perfectly in the Hudson.
	It was amazing.
	So that's what can happen.
	If your landing gear still works, you've got an airport in sight, you go there.
	If there's a golf course, you go wherever you can.
	This plane had definitely something more significant.
	There was a flames seen on the videos.
	And so this was more than just an engine failure.
	This was a fire.
	And from what I've seen, I don't know if that video is the same one that the New York Times obtained, but a video I saw last night seemed to show a bright flash and then a fire, a trajectory of something that consistent with an aircraft heading in a horizontal orientation.
	And so whatever that was, that fire that was on the engine, the engine failure, it looks like it was preceded by a high velocity detonation of some sort.
	Could that have happened by accident?
	I don't think so because it's not part of the same missile battery that was used to take Baghdad.
	Right.
	Just thinking about it from what I was talking about.
	You're talking about like surface-to-air missiles, right?
	Exactly.
	This is an air defense system.
	Now, if you're launching missiles, you start this conflict.
	Well, you better start turning on your air defenses at the same time because you might get hit back.
	And so this is probably a misidentification.
	And unfortunately, it's just terrible to see these over 170 lives lost like that.
	But yeah, it appears, you know, I don't think it would have been the same type of missiles I said earlier, probably some air defense system that just locked on to what the, you know, unfortunately it was misidentified as.
	Either that or just some kind of glitch just caused the launch of things that should not have launched.
	And it might not have been misidentification at all.
	It might have been just somebody just messed up.
	If I was in the Defense Department or if I had any say in things and I was asked to assess any future potential terrorist threats, one of the things I think I'd worry most about are these surface-to-air missiles.
	Because if I'm wrong, tell me I am.
	That seems like something that might be able to be smuggled in maybe across the southern border that we now know is being fixed finally or even manufactured in some way in the United States.
	And they're heat-seeking missiles.
	And God forbid they, you know, one day we wake up and somebody decides they're going to be in five separate big airport locations and they're going to try and take out commercial airliners.
	Would that be something that we should fear?
	Because I think it is.
	Well, I don't know about that.
	I mean, I know that when we went into Afghanistan, some of our Stinger missiles went missing.
	And there was a fear at the time that some of those heat-seeking surface terror missiles.
	Well, wait a minute.
	The Stinger missiles is how the Afghanis beat the Soviets back in the 80s.
	They were provided by us.
	That's right.
	And some of them, I guess, got misplaced and in the wrong hands.
	And we feared that they may use those against us.
	In fact, that was one of the theories that was proffered early on in the TWA Flight 800 investigation that it might have been a terrorist type missile.
	Now, I don't particularly subscribe to that.
	It seems to me this aircraft that I studied was a bit out of the range and way offshore.
	If you launched it from shore, it wouldn't have even reached the plane.
	But we want to talk about that crash.
	It's just things that happen.
	I mean, you can think back to MA-17 over Ukraine.
	That was a mistake, a misidentification.
	The Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf.
	And in fact, there was an Africa, they did shoot some Stingers, I believe, at an Israeli jet, and that was a terrorist attack.
	And that was FOIL.
	Luckily, I'm not exactly sure how, but either the missiles missed or the Israeli had some kind of classified defense system on their jet.
	But that actually happened.
	I believe that was in the early 2000s.
	But yeah, there is precedence for Stinger missiles being used.
	But I do not believe that this was a Stinger or a heat seeker that hit this plane, although it did hit the engine.
	So that is consistent with a heat seeker.
	But we just don't know at this point.
	I can't speculate on what type of missile it is at this time.
	Well, we don't know.
	But I'm just talking about the fear of it.
	For example, maybe this is an opportunity to sort of educate people to understand.
	Explain how, for example, the redundancy in the cockpit.
	You know, we've all had the experience.
	Yeah, we're going to be delayed and you're sitting on the tarmac.
	You're like, oh, because there is some redundant whatever, that light that went on, and now we've got to check the whole system and maybe we have to replace a part or whatever.
	That's all good because you have all these jets, commercial and otherwise, taken off every single day.
	And it's been proven over and over again, air travel is safer than getting in a car.
	So my question is, you know, these planes, in terms of avionics, safety, redundancy, how safe are these planes really?
	Because every pilot I know tells me these things can pretty much almost take off and land themselves.
	And the need for pilots is like with Sully landing in the Hudson.
	Yeah, I think we're moving towards that.
	It is amazing, that self-driving cars, self-driving planes.
	But yeah, it's safety.
	It's safer than driving your car.
	Now, the planes that I fly are smaller and they're not as safe as statistically.
	But the ones you get in at the airport, they're very safe.
	And in fact, they have, you know, like you said, a redundancy.
	They have more than one altimeter, you know, more than one airspeed indicator.
	You know, if one fails, you still got another one there in front of you.
	And that's the thing.
	Now, for example, once you put in where you want to land, how long after a pilot takes off, assuming he's doing it all manually, gets up in the air, how far, what is the altitude necessary before you can turn on the autopilot and explain how far you would be able to fly that to the location that you determined and would the plane almost land itself?
	I hear that they can do that.
	Now, listen, I've heard.
	Yeah, that's true.
	I am not a commercial pilot.
	I'm a private pilot, so that's not something I have ever done.
	However, I have heard that that can be done.
	And, you know, even if the engines fail, like you said before, once you're at altitude, that's why when you take off at the airport, you want to get up as high as quickly as possible to as high an altitude as possible because that's the safest place to be.
	Because the higher you are, the more airports you could glide to if there was a failure.
	Have they made good strides in terms of the fuel efficiency of these newer jets that are coming out?
	What do you think of the Airbus 380 versus Boeing's, what's Boeing's Miles 7, what, 87?
	I don't even know what their compatible plane is.
	Yeah, I'm not certain about that.
	I think what they started getting away from was the 747 and those wide-body planes.
	The wider the body, the more resistance you have.
	So you're fighting against air resistance.
	So I believe Boeing switched philosophies.
	They're going with a longer range, narrower body jets, and they think that's the way of the future.
	More jets, narrower bodies, more efficient jets that definitely do go much further than the 747s were capable of, basically due to physics, just because of the, you know, the wider you are, the more forces you're fighting against.
	And so you could have a very, very narrow jet and a very long jet, and that would be the most efficient way to fly.
	And I believe that's what they're moving towards.
	Listen, this is so informative.
	I'm just fascinated by it because it is so safe and we have the redundancy.
	And I'm thankful for that and grateful to the great engineers, Boeing and elsewhere, that can keep commercial airlines safe the way they do.
	Anyway, thank you, Dr. Stalkup.
	We appreciate you being with us.
	Very informative.
	800-941-Sean, you want to be a part of the program, top of the hour.
	Back to our top story.
	The president yesterday's speakey, and it looks like impeachment trial begins Wednesday.
	We'll check in with Jeff Lord, Greg Jarrett, Daniel Akbari, the author of Honor Killing.
	Remember, he was imprisoned by Iranian officials and tortured.
	He'll tell us his story.
	I'm Ben Ferguson.
	And I'm Ted Cruz.
	Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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	So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz Now, wherever you get your podcasts.
	Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Ham, and I'm Carol Markowitz.
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	Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
	That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
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	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.
	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.
	I'm Leon Nafak from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
	This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
	What difference at this point does it make?
	Yes, that's right.
	Lock her up.
	Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
	All right, let's get a quick call in here.
	Well, final half hour of the show, we'll get some more calls in as well as we say hi to Nicole.
	She is in Philly.
	That is Linda's old stomping grounds.
	How are you, Nicole?
	Happy New Year.
	I'm hanging in there, regardless of my area of affiliation.
	How are you today?
	I'm good.
	Thank you very, very much.
	Good.
	So, my main question is rewinding back to last week.
	I was wondering, were there events leading up to the embassy attack?
	Because it just kind of seemed like it came out of nowhere.
	And I didn't know if you had any insight or explanation as to what, if anything, occurred prior to that happening, because we were listening to all these articles of impeachment floating around over and over.
	And then, boom, it just seemed like out of nowhere our embassy is being attacked over in Iraq.
	So, if you could expand on that.
	Listen, the reason is because they've been getting away with everything else.
	Look, the sanctions the president has put in place for Iran are very simple.
	It has impacted the Iranian economy.
	And our production of oil has also impacted the lifeblood of the world economy and the price of energy worldwide.
	We now determine our destiny more than they do.
	The straits of the Hormuz are less geopolitically, strategically important to the United States because we're now the biggest producer of oil in the world and now a net exporter of energy.
	So, the good news is that they're doing this to get the world's attention.
	We put up with a certain amount that we said, we're done.
	You're done.
	And that was it.
	All right, news roundup.
	Information overload on a Friday.
	Hannity 9 Eastern.
	We got an awesome show straight ahead.
	Great power, not to pursue conflict, but to really preserve, and I mean in the true sense of the word, preserve peace.
	We have this tremendous military, and you know what that is?
	That's really a great fighting force, but I hope we never have to use it.
	I really do.
	You saw an example.
	You saw an example of that a couple of days ago.
	So we seek friends, not enemies.
	But if you dare to threaten our citizens, you do so at your own grave peril.
	So they want me.
	So, you know, these are split-second decisions.
	You have to make a decision.
	So they don't want me to make that decision.
	They want me to call up, maybe go over there.
	Let me go over to Congress.
	So come on over to the White House.
	Let's talk about it.
	When can you make it?
	Well, I won't be able to make it today, sir.
	How about let's say it a couple of days?
	Oh, sure.
	Come on over.
	Now, we got a call.
	We heard where he was.
	We knew the way he was getting there.
	And we had to make a decision.
	We didn't have time to call up Nancy, who is not operating with a full deck.
	Now, they want us to call.
	Can you imagine calling crooked Adam Schiff?
	He's so crooked.
	He's so crooked.
	Shifty Schiff.
	Say, gee, Adam, how you doing?
	Listen, we have the world's number one terrorist.
	Kill thousands and thousands of people.
	Would like to set up a meeting so we can discuss his execution.
	Would you be willing to meet?
	Well, I won't be able to make it this week.
	Well, you know, he's traveling fast.
	We got him lined up, Adam.
	You little pencil neck.
	All right, news roundup information overload.
	The president last night, Toledo, Ohio.
	Maybe my favorite line of the night.
	Great watching the pencil neck, congenital liar, compromised Adam Schiff be the house manager.
	You can't pick a better person, Nancy.
	You go for that.
	Anyway, the president laying it all out, and you see the reaction.
	Now, this is a phenomenal thing because we're 289 days away from this.
	This is the choice election of your lifetime.
	I know you hear that every election.
	This is it.
	America hangs in the balance.
	The only problem is this time it's true.
	Every Democrat has the worst foreign policy ideas I've ever heard.
	You know, the idea that we have quid pro quo Joe, and he believes in bribing maniacal mullahs in Iran with $150 billion in cash should frighten you.
	There's not one Democratic presidential candidate that understood the need to take out Soleimani, spite of all the Americans that he tortured and brutally murdered on top of all the terror that he has been funding and orchestrating around the world, Iran being the number one state sponsor of terror.
	He is the guy that was the second most powerful person in Iran.
	He led the effort.
	Now, what was he doing in Baghdad?
	Now, the president put up with a lot.
	President put up with tankers being taken hostage, impacting the lifeblood of the world's economy.
	He put up with two drones being taken out of the air, unmanned drones.
	He put up with the attack on Saudi oil fields, unprovoked, why?
	Designed to impact the free flow of oil at market prices.
	But then they killed an American contractor and hurt American soldiers, followed by an attack on our embassy.
	He was not going to have, he was not going to be the president of Benghazi II, as MSDNC, the conspiracy channel, had some of their hosts saying, oh, Benghazi II, Trump's Benghazi is breaking out.
	And so the president let all these other incidents go.
	The Iranians, whether they tried to save face or they're incompetent, I don't know.
	I don't know the minds of evil mullahs.
	But the president's clear they're not going to get nuclear weapons.
	And if they kill Americans, there's my line in the sand.
	But here's your off-ramp.
	You want it?
	Take it.
	If not, we're going to bomb the living hell out of you.
	And no, we're not putting boots on the ground.
	And that is called peace through strength.
	I'm guessing the Iranians are scared to death of what Donald Trump would do next.
	I'm guessing they got a loud, clear message that this can't happen.
	Here to help sort through all of this.
	And it looks like impeachment starting next Wednesday.
	Jeff Lord, associate political director in the administration of Ronald Reagan.
	Greg Jarrett, also with us, author of the bestseller Witch Hunt.
	Guys, welcome back.
	Glad you're with us.
	Jeff, you worked with Reagan.
	You worked under Reagan.
	Peace through strength.
	Trust and verify.
	Mr. Gorbachev, we'll tear down this wall and all of the above.
	And it worked.
	Building up our military worked.
	I think his greatest accomplishment will go down as strategic defense.
	And I've said that since 1988.
	Yeah, absolutely, Sean.
	The thing that I find so remarkably similar between Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, they both came from outside the establishment.
	I mean, one, as we all know, was a television actor and movie actor for decades before being elected governor of California.
	The other was a successful businessman who then becomes a television star himself.
	Neither of them had a seriously political background in the way that so many people in Washington do.
	And the town just went crazy about Reagan's election.
	They could not abide him.
	They were, I mean, you know, it's the same thing you hear with Trump.
	The rise of fascism, the dark nights are coming.
	They compared him to Hitler.
	The Ku Klux Klan was going to be let loose.
	I mean, some of these things, and I've gone back and looked to write about it today, are just remarkable.
	They are the same.
	But Reagan persisted.
	He had this vision, and he turned out to be right, and he won the Cold War.
	My favorite line was: he said somebody asked him, one of the staff asked him what his view of the Cold War was, and he says, We win, they lose.
	That was.
	I mean, that is, and he did make a little mistake.
	It was supposed to be a joke.
	Bombing begins in five minutes.
	Before a radio address, Greg Jarrett, to me, if you don't see that everything that the Democrats have tried to say about Donald Trump is inaccurate, the caricature that they've been painting all of this time has been false because I think he showed way more restraint than I could have ever shown as it relates to the mullahs in Iran.
	And we know, you know what?
	He's not going to give them $150 billion in cash and other currencies.
	And one other thing, Greg, this president took a lot of heat because he said, sure, I'll meet with Kim Jong-un.
	I'll talk to anybody.
	I'll talk to Putin.
	I'll talk to the Mullahs.
	I'll talk to the Taliban.
	But I'm not giving them anything.
	He gave nothing but time to the North Korean dictator, and we got a lot of benefits out of that.
	Right.
	And he didn't hand over to Iran $1.50 billion.
	Jeff Lord's great piece today that everybody should read draws a brilliant comparison between Trump and Reagan.
	And Reagan is actually the template for Trump, and it's very simple.
	We will seek peace through strength.
	And we will exercise that military strength only when absolutely necessary.
	And it was Trump who said to Iran, if you kill an American, you're crossing a red line.
	You will pay for it.
	And that's what happened.
	They killed an American contractor on a base.
	And Trump had shown remarkable restraint.
	The downing of a U.S. drone, the attack on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, firing rockets into installations housing American personnel.
	But when they crossed that red line, Trump took action.
	And I think the mullahs are now trembling.
	And the hypocrisy of all of this is really striking.
	You know, Barack Obama used drones 571 times to take out terrorists.
	And Nancy Pelosi and Democrats never once complained.
	He initiated strikes on Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Pakistan.
	Pelosi and Democrats never complain.
	Trump takes out a notorious terrorist who killed 608 Americans, and there's mass hysteria.
	And just like Trump, just like Reagan back in 1980, and I was a young lawyer back then living and working in San Francisco.
	I remember everyone said, oh my God, the election of Reagan will mean World War III.
	And of course, we heard several days ago that Trump's strike against Soleimani will initiate World War III.
	That's nothing but irrational hysteria.
	All true.
	I'm trying to get into the minds of those people.
	That would allow the Iranians, and I'll ask both of you the same question, Jeff, you can answer first, to shoot down our drones, to take in the very narrow straits of Hormuz, where about a third of the world's oil passes through every day, take tankers hostage, bomb Saudi oil fields totally unprovoked, then attack our embassy and also kill American contractors and all the Americans that Soleimani directly killed in Iraq,
	and that we're not going to take the shot when he's on the tarmac in Baghdad.
	I'm trying to understand why you would think it's a bad thing to do that, Jeff.
	I don't understand the mindset.
	Like, I can't, it's inexplicable that anyone would give $150 billion in cash and other currency to mullahs in Iran.
	Sean, you know, I've been thinking about this myself.
	And the only conclusion I can come to is that in our lifetime, we have seen the Democratic Party go to the far left.
	I mean, if you have any thoughts about why they would sound like they're the Iranian propaganda minister or something, think back to Jane Fonda sitting there in North Vietnam behind a machine gun of the North Vietnamese that was being used to take American pilots out of the sky.
	This business of siding with America's enemies has been going on for most of my and your adult lifetime.
	This time, it's the Iranians, and it's pathetic.
	I mean, it's truly disgraceful.
	But you can begin to realize here that no matter what the situation, these people are going to take the other side of the argument and carry it out in ways that lots of people think are just seriously unpatriotic.
	They did this when Ronald Reagan sent troops to Grenada to save those American kids in the medical school down there after a communist coup.
	They were crazed about this kind of thing.
	This happens with them reflexively, and I don't know that there's any way that it's going to stop.
	Tend to agree.
	We'll get to Greg's answer on the other side.
	Greg Jarrett, Jeff Lord, 800-941-Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
	All right, as we continue, Jeff Lord, Greg Jarrett, I wanted to ask you, Jeff can't explain it.
	It's inexplicable to me.
	Greg Jarrett, how is it possible, if you can explain, how is it possible to think bribing mullahs that chant death to America and want to wipe Israel off the map, giving them money is a good idea?
	Well, two things.
	It's the easy way out.
	I mean, it's just easier to pay cash than to take strong, aggressive action to stop terrorists.
	And second of all, it is a part of the Trump derangement syndrome.
	If Obama does it, it's great.
	If Trump does it, it's horrible.
	And that's just stupid.
	Well, it is.
	You know, I think we now have the emergence of the Trump doctrine.
	I'll talk to anybody.
	A lot of people said that's outrageous.
	Why would you talk to anybody?
	And I'll also, I want peace.
	I'll even take a little bit of your crap.
	You know, the drones and the ships taken hostage, et cetera.
	But you're not going to kill Americans.
	That's our line in the sand.
	And if you do, you're going to pay a big price.
	Simple, right, Jeff?
	I like that.
	Because I don't want boots on the ground.
	We can't send kids to war anymore because they always politicize it in the swamp.
	And then we say, never mind.
	So we might as well not go there and just bomb the daylights out of them like we did with ISIS.
	Now we have new technology.
	Right.
	You've been making this point repeatedly, and you're absolutely dead on correct.
	Once they get us into a war, then all hell breaks loose, and they protest, and they're in the streets, and all this kind of thing.
	It's just simply not worth an American kid's life to do this.
	And notably, the irony here, I don't know how much attention this has gotten, the lone American contractor that was killed was a legal Muslim American immigrant.
	And what's your reaction, Greg Garrett?
	Yeah, I mean, it's a great point.
	You know, your argument is really Trump's argument, and that is that this is very simple.
	If you attack our people, if you jeopardize our national security, I have a right as president under the Constitution to take aggressive action.
	It has always been that way.
	Presidents have been doing it for decades in my lifetime.
	And Democrats, you know, when Trump does it, Democrats seem to gloss over into this mindless hysteria.
	It's this reflexive Pavlovian response that whatever Trump does must be wrong.
	We must condemn it, regardless of whether it makes absolute common sense to do it.
	Guys, I want to thank you both, Jeff Flord and Greg Jarrett.
	Got to take a break.
	Here we are when we come back.
	Of course, it's Friday.
	Our best sound of the week coming up.
	Your calls and much more.
	800-941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
	Also, Daniel Akbari is going to join us with more intel information about what life in Iran is like.
	He knows because he was tortured and tried and imprisoned in Bulgaria because he converted to Christianity.
	And he knows what the meaning, the real meaning of the killing of Soleimani is and what it should mean to the people of Iran.
	That's straight ahead.
	In the initial hours after the missile attacks on al-Assad and Erbil, it was believed that Iran may have taken steps to avoid U.S. casualties.
	But then the chairman of George Chiefs, Mark Milly, came out, the Secretary of Defense came out, other officials came out to say, no, these missiles were intended to kill Americans.
	If it was Iran's intent to kill Americans, does that not deserve some sort of response?
	I mean, if somebody takes a shot at you and they don't hit you simply because you duck, does that mean that they weren't trying to kill you?
	So, Alec, I'll defer to the Department of Defense on the details, but there's no doubt in my judgment, as I observed the Iranian activity in the region that night, they had the full intention of killing U.S. forces, whether that was our military folks or diplomatic folks who were in the region.
	And I'm confident that the response the president taken is appropriate.
	The president has said, we don't want war.
	We want Iran to behave like a normal nation.
	The reason that the Secretary of Treasury and I are here this morning is to continue this campaign, our strategic effort to get Iran to behave in a way that doesn't continue their 40-year-long effort to terrorize the world.
	Mr. Secretary, the administration said this strike was done based on its imminent threat.
	But this morning, you said we didn't know precisely when and we didn't know precisely where.
	That's not the definition of imminent.
	The president has also suggested that there was some sort of attack being planned against an embassy, perhaps several embassies.
	Can you clarify?
	Did you have specific information about an imminent threat and did it have anything to do with our embassies?
	We had specific information on an imminent threat, and those threat stream-included attacks on U.S. embassies.
	Period, full stop.
	So you were mistaken when you said you didn't know precisely when and you didn't know precisely when.
	Completely true.
	Those are completely consistent thoughts.
	I don't know exactly which minute.
	We don't know exactly which day it would have been executed, but it was very clear.
	Qasem Soleimani himself was plotting a broad, large-scale attack against American interest, and those attacks were imminent.
	Against an embassy.
	Against American facilities, including American embassies, military bases, American facilities throughout the region.
	Sadly, the previous administration had opened up revenue streams for Iran.
	But under our administration, oil revenues are down by 80%, and Iran cannot access roughly 90% of its foreign currency reserves.
	And not even two weeks ago, President Rouhani of Iran admitted that our sanctions have cost Iran over $200 billion and lost foreign income and investment.
	As long as Iran's outlaws' ways continue, we will continue to impose sanctions.
	Finally, I want to reiterate President Trump's concern for Americans and dual national citizens detained inside of Iran.
	Iran knows that these individuals have committed no crime.
	They know the charges against them are fake.
	We will do all that we can to get each of them returned home safely to their families.
	25 to the top of the hour, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo describing, yeah, days away.
	Why is that so complicated for people to understand?
	Why do you think Soleimani was on the tarmac at Baghdad International Airport?
	Not that complicated to figure out because before he even arrived when our embassy was under attack, what did we see written on the wall?
	Soleimani is our leader.
	It's hard for the good people to understand evil.
	And when you talk about it in this sense, over 100 million human souls destroyed in the last century, we discussed Hitler and Stalin and fascism and Nazism and Imperial Japan and Mao and Cambodia and the killing fields.
	That's 100 million plus human souls.
	We don't have an exact figure, but that's a lot of people killed because of evil.
	And every case that I just mentioned, that's evil.
	Radical Islamic terrorists that attacked New York City and the United States on 9-11, 2001.
	That was evil.
	What happened in Benghazi in September 11, 2012, that was evil.
	You know, the attempt killing Americans with these incendiary devices of Soleimani, that was evil.
	Funding Hezbollah, state-sponsored terror, evil.
	The radical mullahs in Iran, they don't deserve bribes.
	They deserve they will behave and they can't get nuclear weapons or we're going to have to use our military might and hurt you.
	Don't make us hurt you a lot because we can.
	But how evil?
	Well, our next guest would know, Daniel Akbari authored the book.
	We'll put it on our website, Honor Killing, imprisoned by Iranian officials, tried, tortured, imprisoned in Bulgaria.
	His crime, he dared to convert to Christianity.
	Daniel Akbari, welcome back.
	How are you, sir?
	Thank you so much.
	Thanks for having me on, sir.
	Now, this, you were imprisoned in Bulgaria, but it was first you were imprisoned by Iranian officials, tried and tortured.
	Explain that.
	Yeah, I was imprisoned in Bulgaria for about 30 days.
	Then I was deported in Iran and tortured in the hands of the intelligence service in Iran, broken by dislocating my left shoulder.
	And what did, so, and how long were you held prisoner there?
	I was in prison for about 30 days.
	Okay.
	And what did they do to you?
	Actually, they just cooperated with the Iranian counselor and they deported me to Iran in handcuff.
	And in Iran, I was tortured and my left, they put me in handcuff and dislocated my left shoulder.
	So I can tell a lot about how ruthless they can be.
	How did you get out?
	Actually, I was under bond.
	My father put a bond for me so I could get out under that bond.
	So I'm sure they have appropriated the whole property my father put as a bond.
	Okay.
	Next thing I guess we have to ask is, so you've heard of Soleimani long before we took him out, correct?
	Yes, sir.
	You've heard of the Quds forces, which is the Iranian elite military wing of the radical Mullah's military arm in Iran, correct?
	Yeah, to me, Soleimani, as himself, as he himself described his role as the foot soldier for the Ayatollah Khamenei, he was just a person to try to actualize Khamenei's dream of dominating the whole region first and second, the whole world.
	Khamene wants to be the caliph and run the whole world.
	And in the region, Soleimani was his puppet and his coordinator to make sure that Hezbollah and Hashashab in Iraq and Syria all are on the same page attacking Israel and U.S. interests.
	So we're talking about ruthless murderers and killers, and there's no freedom for the people of Iran unless there is, well, regime change, if you will.
	And I don't say that thinking that the United States, we can't be involved in regime change in Iran.
	That's going to have to be up to the people of Iran, correct?
	Yes, sir.
	But the bottom line is, we don't have to like them.
	We don't have to get along with them.
	But they're not going to hold the world's, the lifeblood of the world's economy, oil hostage in the Straits of Hormuz.
	They don't get to shoot down drones, kill Americans, you know, just bomb their oil competitors in the case of Saudi Arabia for no good reason except they want to make more money.
	Where do you see this all ending?
	Because I agreed with what the president said when he made his statement the morning after they shot these ballistic missiles.
	And he said, thank God, nobody was hurt.
	No real damage was done.
	They all missed the target, pretty much.
	But they can't be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.
	So to me, the only way we're going to be able to defeat them, you know them.
	You think you can reason, sit down at a table with people that think that it's okay to teach your own kids to kill Israelis and Americans and you're doing the will of God when you do it or Allah?
	You think you can reason with people that have that mindset?
	I do not believe you can.
	Yeah, as you mentioned, you know, Islamic regime is suffering economically for sure, and Iranians are uprising.
	Iranians are sick and tired of this regime.
	They have been captivated by this regime for over 40 years, I have to say.
	I mean, for Iranians, nothing is, I have to say, unclear about how crazy and how demonic this regime is.
	But the problem I see is from the liberal side in the United States, how they take side with those, I say evil people, with those leaders of Islamic regime.
	I personally feel very disappointed to witness the liberals, I mean, restless efforts to portray Qasem Soleimani, an army general hero who has been assassinated by the most evil person on the planet.
	You know, they portrayed Trump to be the most evil person on the planet who killed a saint, Qasim Soleimani.
	They portray him as a saint.
	It's crazy how liberals dare to go to that point.
	It's unbelievable how their hatred, the excessive hatred for the president made them so shameless to take side with the most infamous terrorists whose sole mission was to kill as many Americans as he could to actualize Khamenei's dream of becoming a caliph.
	You know, Soleimani described himself as a Khamenei's foot soldier.
	I'm beyond curious to learn how liberals, I mean, have found what they have found in this notorious terrorist that made them characterize the U.S. preemptive defensive strike against him as a terrorist.
	Listen, you raise a great point.
	I mean, how is it possible?
	But I guess, I don't know.
	I'll never understand why you give Mullahs $150 billion.
	We're glad you're out.
	We're glad you're safe.
	We're glad you can identify for this audience exactly what it is we're dealing with.
	Danielle Akbari, thank you for being with us.
	Thank you so much, sir.
	Have a good one.
	800-941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
	Let's go to the great state of Texas.
	Ben standing by next Sean Hannity show.
	What's up, Ben?
	How are you?
	Good afternoon, Mr. Hannity.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	I've been wanting to call you for the past few days to share my opinion about what has going on.
	I'm an Iranian who left Iran at age 16, right after the Iran-Iraq was over, and decided that this country is not for us anymore and walked all the way to Attorney Greece going through Iraq.
	What year is this you're talking about, by the way?
	This is late 1993, and right before, right after the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein went inside the Kuwait, right after that, Triasco.
	And I got on foot and made my journey all the way to Greece.
	It took me six months.
	I became men.
	I became a man overnight with horrible things that I experienced during that journey and turned myself to U.S. Embassy and applied for refugee asylum.
	Waited two years and I was privileged to be granted a green card and I've been living the state since.
	What an amazing story.
	I'm looking at Linda.
	We're just sitting here with our mouths open listening to your journey.
	Wow.
	That's incredible.
	Thank you.
	Thank God for you know, by the way, what would life be like if you were there?
	I'm sorry?
	What would life be like for you if you were there?
	Do you have any communications with people there anymore?
	Well, I speak to, I talk to my cousins and my relatives, but it is very dangerous for them to be in contact with us.
	And we have to talk in codes or in Instagram because internet is not free there.
	It is filtered.
	So they have to pay hackers to give them filter, whatever it's called, to get on internet and so we can communicate.
	Life is horrible there.
	And when you hear my story, you would think I would be the perfect poster child for the left and Nancy Plosi's gang.
	But the fact is, is 100% the opposite.
	What they are doing for the past three years to Donald Trump is the shame and is un-American, is pure communism.
	And what they have been doing since we have killed the most evil monster person that could walk earth after Hitler, it was Soleimani.
	What they have been doing since is just appalling and disgusting.
	They are not speaking on behalf of Iranians and they are not speaking on behalf of anyone who calls himself a freedom lover human being.
	I can, just like your guest said earlier, I just appalled and puzzled.
	Why would you sympathize and send condolences for such a person that has been killing innocent people for over 40 years?
	Okay, so to answer your own question, why would they not understand?
	You can't bribe these radical regimes, these dictators, these mullahs.
	Why do you think there is even a resistance?
	Oh my gosh, we killed Soleimani.
	We should have given him $150 billion.
	They may get mad at us.
	That's what it seems like to me.
	That's absolutely.
	I mean, here's the thing.
	My wife and I are trying to figure out why they are doing this because our PTSD has kicked in and remembering what these people have done to us.
	I was, as a child walking to school, would see people hanging on the street by what force because they spoke out about what they want, you know, and they were part of the opposition.
	As a child, I would see people hanging on the street in public by this guy we just killed.
	And then we have Americans trying to say that they are sorry for what we have done to this person and send condolences to Iranian Ayatollah.
	What a shame.
	What a shame.
	You can be disagreeable.
	You don't have to like Donald Trump, Sean, okay?
	You don't have to.
	It is called democracy.
	You don't like the man.
	Wait four years.
	Go to the polls, vote him out of the office.
	But what are you doing?
	Not only is it anti-American, it's just what is the humanity in that to part with a killer that's been killing people around the world, not just Iran.
	And we keep saying, quotes, military force.
	In America, military is not involved in our country because it's unconstitutional.
	I want to get a contact for you.
	You ever hear of Alexander Soljanitsyn?
	Gave a famous speech at Harvard once.
	You almost remind me of him a little bit.
	Wow.
	Very powerful testimony.
	We will have you back.
	What an incredible life story.
	I appreciate you sharing it with us.
	We're going to put you on hold there, Ben, in Texas.
	We want to get some information on you.
	That is a powerful story.
	All right, Hannity tonight, 9 Eastern, the impeachment madness.
	Looks like the trial starts next week.
	We'll get a full, complete analysis.
	Alan Dershowitz, our congressman friend Louis Gomert is on.
	Laura Ingram, she had an exclusive interview with President Trump.
	We're going to preview some of that sound on Hannity tonight.
	We got a reporter hit on this Russian warship getting close to a U.S. Navy ship.
	And we come back on Monday.
	It's going to be just 295 days till election day.
	Best election coverage on radio and TV.
	We hope you'll join us.
	Have a great, great weekend.
	We'll see you back here on Monday.
	We'll see you tonight at 9.
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