Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and is chairwoman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, and discusses the problems for hospitals, nursing homes, and our front line medical responders and Mark Simone, Host of NY’s #1 Morning Show, discuss Cuomo’s path to destruction, as his lies finally begin to implicate him in the deaths of so many elderly at NY nursing homes.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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Happy Monday.
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800-941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
So we've got a lot on the table today.
There is now, as things begin to shake out, we're finding out more and more, you know, who really, really deserves a good grade, if you will.
Who handled the COVID pandemic the best and what states were atrocious.
And there is now a real significant growing effort for Gavin Newsom to be recalled in California to impeach Governor Cuomo in New York.
I know the people in Michigan have had it with Governor Whitmer.
And the same thing in New Jersey, Murphy and Pennsylvania, Wolf.
People have had it.
Turns out you got governors like DeSantis with a very high percentage and a high population of the elderly population doing much better in terms of distribution of the vaccine, everything in between.
How do I know?
Because I have friends that live down there telling me, not shutting down everything, every business.
There's four pages in the New York Post today about shut down businesses all over New York.
Well, we think that maybe by 2025 or six, New York City might begin a comeback.
I mean, the stock exchange now, because of threats of massively increased fees and taxes, they want to charge for every single transaction, stock transaction in New York.
Why would any of these companies pay the highest amount of money in the country for rent?
Now that we've learned teleworking works, telecommuting is efficient and effective, just like people can go to school online, just like people can do a lot of things online that we never knew of.
Telemedicine is another one.
We learned a lot that we can apply in ways of reducing costs for everybody.
And these companies usually, they're not stupid and they always look at, quote, the bottom line.
And if they can see that moving to Texas or moving to Florida or moving to the Carolinas or moving to Nashville or Tennessee or any other place is going to be better for them, they're doing it.
And it's just going to continue to get worse.
But to hear now, Democrats taking on quote more, it's not Republicans.
They are now talking seriously about an impeachment of him and getting him and removing him from office.
So we're watching and waiting.
Then you see, you know, we passed the 25, the 500,000 mark of people that have died.
Then there is the ever, I'm getting tired.
Megan McCain said it today.
I am getting a little bit tired of Fauci politicizing everything.
I've tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The man has spent the better part of his life trying to help people and save lives, but he's not the authoritative voice on COVID or anything.
I mean, less than a month ago, he's saying, no, we need to wear two masks.
The guy that said in the beginning, you don't need to wear any mask.
All the experts, all the models, all the predictions, they all turned out to be wrong.
And what worked the best was Operation Warp Speed.
What worked the best was Donald Trump building the hospitals in the areas that were hit the hardest at the time.
You have the highest concentration of people in the smallest geographic area, New York City.
And all these hospital beds, this is what makes this so inexplicable, remained empty.
President built them, converted them into COVID capabilities so you could take on COVID patients, man them, in other words, staff them.
All the shields, gloves, masks, gowns, ventilators that New York didn't have and weren't prepared for.
80% of those hospital beds that Trump built remained empty.
And then you say, okay, well, we're going to blame the nursing homeowners.
The nursing homeowners were screaming, we can't handle COVID in our nursing home.
And then, well, now we have a whistleblower saying that they purposely withheld the real death toll for the purpose of preventing the Department of Justice from knowing.
Like, man, oh, man.
And it's not much better.
How is it?
They have pretty much the same temperatures out in California.
Explain California versus Florida.
You really can't.
Because you've had these draconian shutdowns in California, but you didn't have them in Florida.
And Florida did it a heck of a lot better.
So it's going to be like governors like DeSantis and Christy Noam in South Dakota.
And she never had any restrictions.
She just said to the people of South Dakota, okay, here's what they're recommending.
Follow the recommendations.
Be smart.
Consider other people.
Think about grandma, grandpa.
Think about elderly people, those with pre-existing conditions, comorbidities, compromised immune systems, et cetera.
Now you got a COVID relief bill, $1.9 trillion.
And as the Wall Street Journal points out, this is a non-COVID spending blowout.
And, you know, the definition of COVID-related provisions are like $825 billion that they've been able to add.
And more than a trillion is a combination of bailouts for Democratic constituencies, expansions of progressive programs, and pork and unrelated policy changes.
It's basically under just like changing the election laws under the guise of safety in the day and age of COVID.
The one thing they never wanted to quote Dr. Fauci about was Fauci said, oh, yeah, people can vote in person if they socially distance and wear a mask.
But no, they, of course, want to institute widespread mail-in ballots and change the rules last minute, even defying some constitutional orders.
But you look at the amount of money, you got $350 billion with a B for state and local governments, cities, and counties, and even as state revenues have recovered since the spring.
Well, where's that money going to come from?
That money is going to come from states, like, for example, states that were responsible and that balance their budgets every year, don't even have state income taxes.
Those states are now going to foot the bill and bail out states that for decades elect irresponsible Democratic governors that never balance their budgets, never fund their pensions, and use the money to basically maintain power.
It's unbelievable.
And so this is just the beginning.
Now, when you get to the bottom line, how are we ever going to afford it?
Let me not get to that question.
Members are slipping in pet causes in this COVID, quote, relief bill.
Do we really have to spend a million five for the Seaway International Bridge connecting New York to Canada?
Well, why is that in there?
Because that benefits Chuck Schumer or the $500 million for what the CBO calls grants to funds activities related to the arts and the humanities and libraries and museums and Native American language preservation.
Okay, I'm not saying not worthy causes in some places, but that's a lot of money.
Then you've got kickbacks, the Republican Study Committee.
They put out a three-page memo and outlining all of the left-wing items that I can spend the better part of this program that Democrats are hoping you, the American people, are not going to find out about.
You know, provisions, $1,400 stimulus checks going to families, but it also includes people that are in the country illegally.
It also includes monies for Planned Parenthood so they can be a part of the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program funds designed to keep small businesses afloat, $600 million for additional emergency paid leave, et cetera.
It just is a laundry list.
And a lot of it's going to sound great.
Okay, we're increasing food stamps.
We're increasing the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children, et cetera, the WIC program.
And then I'm not saying that there aren't some valid that there's not valid relief.
There is valid relief.
But also, these governors got to do a better job of opening up businesses and opening them up safely.
And there's been a reluctance and resistance, and they're paying the price for their bad policies.
You know, you got kickbacks now to leftist causes, and a lot of it, too, is now going to this Green New Deal wish list.
And I'll explain more of that over time.
So now we found out, justthenews.com reporting that James Comey absolutely never verified Hillary's dirty Russian disinformation dossier, but he still signed three of the four FISA application warrants to spy on a president and a presidential candidate.
So you got Merrick Garland, who's up for AG.
It didn't Take long to demonstrate how completely, well, political he is.
And I don't know, not exactly meeting the bill in terms of what I would be looking for in a fair attorney general.
Anyway, any public official that he won't acknowledge that Comey drove the FBI.
You know, it says at the top of a FISA warrant, does he not know if he's going to be the Attorney General?
It says verified.
And if you sign it, that means you verified something.
He signed it three times, but yet he admitted in January, the very same day he signed the second FISA application, the first renewal application, and then signed one thereafter, that he couldn't verify what even people like Andrew McCabe and Sally Yates said were the bulk of information needed to obtain the warrants to spy on a political candidate using a dirty,
untrue, debunk dossier of the other candidate.
And he won't say a single negative word about Comey.
Senator Ida, I don't really want to get into analyzing previous directors, Garland said.
He says, well, you've been very political and appropriately so at times.
I just find it stunning that you can't say, in my view, that he was a terrible FBI director.
Well, if you sign a warrant and you don't have any information, that doesn't make sense.
Garland also said today, no reason why Durham should be left in place for the origins of the Russian disinformation probe, which I think pretty much says, there we go.
That's going to put an end to that investigation.
We've been waiting forever.
Garland said the DOGA would advance Biden's pro-gun control policies, which, as I explained last week, is pretty much the policies sounds a lot like Beto Bozo.
Then you've got the candidate for Office of Management and Budget, Nina Tanded.
You know, she had to delete 1,100 tweets.
And by the way, Susan Collins said that she's not going to support her.
Doesn't look, you know, you can't wait for Republicans to do the right thing, according to the Independent.
Disparaging comments about Republicans, GOP senators.
It's heartbreaking that the GOP lied about death panels.
Well, if there's any lies about Obamacare, that would be Joe and Barack claiming that you're going to keep your doctor and your plan, and average family is going to save $2,500 per family per year.
You know, some of the election conspiracy information that she supported, you know, Stephen Miller shared a screenshot of some of her tweets.
You know, she helped drive this Russia Trump-Russia truther nonsense.
You know, she had a headline that said FBI Russian hackers access Florida voter information, et cetera.
It's just sad.
I'm sorry, did I say Nira?
Sorry, Nira Tandon.
I want to get things right always.
But anyway, it looks like that pick is in deep trouble and she vows to target pro-Trump protesters.
So this is Merrick Garland.
Okay.
You're going to have the same standards for all protesters, all rioters?
Because I think that we got to stop it wherever it comes from.
That's my position.
Pretty consistent.
800-941 Sean, our number.
We got a lot of other news to get to.
Oh, these winter storms.
We got an interesting segment coming up with Joe Vistardi and Mark Morano.
You want to hear.
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 Podcast, or wherever you listen.
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.
All right, Supreme Court ruling actually that the grand jury in New York can see Trump's tax returns.
I'm going to make a prediction here.
I'm going to go out on a limb because the president released a statement, former President Trump released a statement, in exile, President Trump in exile, depending on whether you want to follow Jim Acosta's line.
This is going to go nowhere because they use the best accounting firms in the country and the world.
With that said, we'll see.
Justice Clarence Thomas in a pretty scathing dissent today, the Supreme Court ruling 6-3 to reject the review of two Pennsylvania presidential election cases.
Justice Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas believed they should have been given hearings.
What Clarence Thomas argued here, the Constitution gives each state legislature authority to determine the manner of federal elections, yet both before and after the 2020 election, non-legislative officials in various states took it upon themselves to set the rules instead.
And as a result, we received an unusually high number of petitions, emergency applications, contesting those changes.
The petitions here present a clear example.
The Pennsylvania legislature established an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots, by the way, and the legislature bypassed their own state constitution.
We've gone into great detail about this case.
And then an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.
And then the state Supreme Court extended that deadline by three days.
Then the court also ordered officials to count ballots reviewed by the new deadline, et cetera, et cetera.
You know, if the Supreme Court is not going to weigh in on such a critical, crucial, important matter of state law, the constitutionally laid out principles of what role state legislators play,
the process by which you would bypass literally amending a state constitution and just by passing a law, which would be far easier.
If that's not a Supreme Court case, they should weigh in on what's the point?
This should have been taken.
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.
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.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941 Sean.
You want to be a part of this extravaganza?
I'm reading all these news articles about so much happening at once that nobody seems to know about.
Like you might, I doubt most of you, because we're all busy people, right?
Everyone's busy.
You get up in the morning, you shovel your coffee down your throat.
Maybe you make your kids lunch.
Maybe you don't.
You throw in some cereal together.
You're putting on your tie, whatever you wear to work, you're putting on your jeans, whatever.
And you take your kids to school, take them to the school bus, whatever, make sure they get on the bus.
Boom, you're off to work.
You put your 12, 14 hours in.
So, you know, a lot of people aren't really noticing things like Biden's move to give up on President Trump's policies to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran.
You know, Congressman Joe Wilson actually said, yeah, this is pretty dangerous because Biden basically just legalized Vladimir Putin, President Xi, selling arms to Iran.
That would be a bad outcome.
And there's a story that came out.
It's a pretty long-winded piece, Washington Times, but it's interesting because you know that if Donald Trump were president, what would the media be saying and doing if that were the case?
How there was an attempt to undermine the president's tough sanctions on Iran.
The president obviously wasn't going to send $150 billion in cash and other currency to the Iranian mullahs that chant death to America, death to Israel, burn our flag, burn the Israeli flag.
Anyway, and they go into great specificity and detail.
It's a little scary to me about how John Kerry was meeting with and forging relationships with, for example, Mohammed Zarif is his name.
And how during the Trump years, well, what were they doing?
Because they actually, the meeting took place at a point in a period when Donald Trump was taking a hardline stance against the Iranians.
John Kerry's meeting with Zarif during the Trump years, as well as the Obama-era energy secretary and others, top U.S. negotiators in this deal that gave Iran all this money.
And what was it, a wink and a nod?
We hope we can beat this guy and things will get back to normal.
Pretty unbelievable.
By the way, more on Neera Tandon for OMB director.
She's apparently met with 35 senators, both sides of the aisle, questioned really hard by Bernie Sanders.
Joe Manchin revealed these a no vote.
Susan Collins, a no vote.
This thing's probably dead on arrival.
We'll have to see.
The border policy alone.
Now, we're watching with the stroke of the pen all these jobs being, you know, just gone, high-paying career jobs, energy sector.
And you got Hollywood liberals there lobbying Joe Biden, his administration.
Yeah, get rid of all the pipelines.
Get rid of all energy independents.
Sure, it's easy for them to say they're not losing their jobs, and all of them are already pretty rich anyway.
And anyway, what's fascinating is, you know, we're looking at maybe on top of all of the people that will get amnesty, estimated between 11, 15 million, depending what statistic you're reading, 78,000 arrivals, people coming into this country illegally, nearly doubled the figure for the same month last year, the highest for January in a decade.
And if the current pattern holds, the U.S. would be on track for 1 million more migrants coming to this country via the southern border, illegal immigrants.
And that's, by the way, that warning came from a senior official in Obama's department from Obama's Department of Homeland Security.
That's a lot of people.
So you have the worst pandemic since 1917 and 18, all these Americans out of work, all this money in aid that is being allocated.
And by the way, that aid money is not insignificant.
When you dig down deep into the roots of all this and what is it going to cost you, and you add the wish list in there of everybody else, okay, that amounts to, according to the New York Post, Democrats will be leaving you, the American taxpayers,
a tab of $17,000 per individual, $70,000 for a family of four when this $2 trillion relief bill is combined with the monies that have already been spent and allocated by Congress.
It's a lot of money.
And a lot of this now we're learning is going to go to states, blue state bailouts, a lot of pet projects, and a lot of it, building out the foundation of what is the Green New Deal.
This is all happening in America, is not really paying a whole lot of attention.
So now we're going to have more people out of work.
We already have enough people out of work.
We already have enough businesses shut down.
And you have the energy sector pretty much getting shut down and pink slips coming out here, there, and everywhere.
And then we're going to move into: okay, now you've got to add all these illegal immigrants and amnesty on top of that.
All these people competing for jobs.
You don't need an economics degree from Harvard business to figure out that it's going to drive wages down even lower.
And the progressive caucus chair in Congress, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, thinks that they're going to include the $15 minimum wage.
Well, there's been a lot of studies that show that's going to prevent hiring, especially of young people, students, et cetera.
That's not going to work out well for anybody either, looking to break into the job market.
What are these kids graduating from school?
They're also thinking of adding $50,000 as part of the plan in loan forgiveness.
It almost makes me wish I never paid back my college student loan.
I took out a student loan.
Man, oh man.
And some of it's not even going to be used right away.
They're going to pass a $2 trillion spending bill, bailouts for state governments that lock down their citizens when other state governments were far more judicious and yet did a better job all the way across the board.
And then you're going to have all these red states bailing out all these blue states that keep electing for decade after decade after decade irresponsible Democrats that take on all this debt, never live within their means, never balance any budgets, and never pay down their pensions.
You'll be paying the money.
That's how you will be rewarded for electing good politicians.
It's like I keep saying, if you're going to leave California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, if you're going to leave Michigan, okay, don't go to Texas, Florida, or the Carolinas and bring your liberal policies with you and keep electing the same people that destroyed the state that you abandoned because of bad policies.
Some of this money we're finding out, $670 billion, is not even going to be spent until 2022.
Well, how do we count that as relief monies?
Then on top of that, another $140 billion will be withheld for fiscal year 2024.
Well, how does that give immediate relief to people?
That doesn't make any sense at all, but we'll have to see what happens.
But they're trying to include the $50,000 in student loan forgiveness.
I doubt it's going to be retroactive for we suckers that actually thought if we borrowed money, we had to pay it back one day.
It's a little scary.
There's a lot of chatter.
It was actually, one of the things I've been saying, I know the media gets mad when I say that President Biden looks weak, frail, and cognitively that he struggles.
And every time that I say it, I back up what I say with a pretty long montage.
I won't play here.
And Joe's been struggling.
People around the world seem to be noticing it as well.
In Australia, we found this report.
They said it, what?
I think this is before the election.
Listen.
Well, look, there's just no doubt at all that Biden has had some cognitive decline.
I mean, I think some of his aides or friends have said he's lost his cognitive fastball.
Now, normally, one of the great things about an American primary season and presidential campaign is that it is the most searching, searing examination of a candidate's fitness.
But one reason I suspect that Biden might actually be quite well ahead in the polls is that he's hardly been campaigning in the last week or 10 days.
And that suggests to me that his campaign thinks he's well ahead and that the only danger to his election now is some catastrophic verbal lapse on his part, which is always possible.
Now, it is true that 30 years ago, when he certainly had all his marbles and was a smart guy, he was still prone to verbal gaps, as was the senior George Bush.
But it's impossible to watch Biden perform in a spontaneous setting and not conclude that there has been some cognitive decline.
I think we're one of the few people we have a name for.
We called it the Candidate Protection Program, hiding in the basement bunker.
Then the big tech companies, they hid the story.
There was a poll out.
I think it was one in six people said that had they known at the time that Joe was, you know, some of the scandals that he was involved in and Hunter and zero experience Hunter, et cetera.
And by the way, he's not a kid.
He's 50 years old.
Amount of monies we're talking about, directly related to trips on Air Force 2.
That's what the whole first impeachment was all about.
Anyway, many now, New York Post talking about him becoming a part-time president.
It got very weird last Thursday when he postponed that trip to Michigan.
Remember, he was going to tour the FISA vaccine-making plant.
And 8 a.m., they call a lid, meaning you're not going to hear from him or see him in public for the rest of the day.
Why?
Because D.C. got some snow.
Planes take off when it's snowing all the time.
Kamala Harris still went ahead with her schedule.
They canceled the Michigan trip on Wednesday evening before any of the expected four-inch snowfall hit the ground in Washington.
By the way, meanwhile, it wasn't even snowing at all in Michigan.
I don't know.
It wasn't the first time Biden canceled the foreign policy speech at the State Department this month after D.C. got a whopping two inches of snow.
Well, all these airports have plows and the ability to do that.
Now we, again, candidate protection program.
I don't recall getting an answer before the election.
Joe Biden is now out in support of Sheila Jackson Lee's reparations bill, according to Jen Saki.
She confirmed it on Thursday.
That is being considered in the House.
Biden, this is a weird story.
Apparently in 2007, appeared on David Letterman and was bragging that he was once arrested for trespassing at the Capitol at age 21.
Now, who knows if it's true or not?
I mean, he does have this penchant for lying and not exactly telling the truth.
We'll have to see.
Biden's interior nominee failed to report casino income on congressional ethics reports.
So, but what are they really?
This is now, this is all about spending.
This is all about the new Green Deal.
This is all about redistribution.
This is what this is, this, and by the, and a lot of it now is you look at where the monies are going.
This is the predicate.
This is the beginning of the spending.
You look at the items inside this: federal minimum wage increase, animal.
They're going to spend money $300 million for animal COVID studies.
Socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers as we look at what's in there.
Student loan outreach, probably forgiveness.
Money for the National Endowment for Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities.
That's back.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services, $200 million.
Vaccine information.
What does that mean, vaccine information?
It's everywhere the information.
All you need to do is hit Google.
It's free.
Just tell everyone to Google it.
Dr. Google will tell you anything you need.
And you can go to the official CDC website.
So we're going to have to watch all of this.
This is going to be a full-time job getting to the bottom of what this is the transformation that we warned would happen.
And all the while, then you have other Democrats.
It's been on the back burner for a while.
Cancel culture.
You got two House Democrats questioning 12 television and content providers on why they would ever carry Fox News.
Okay.
Washington Examiner reporting.
You have two California representatives sending letters to television content providers, ATT, Comcast, Verizon.
Why are they carrying news outlets that function as misinformation rumor mills?
Well, excuse me, Fox News wasn't.
And look, not by a long stretch, does everybody on Fox News, are they a conservative as I am?
As everybody knows.
We're not hiding.
I'm a member of the press.
We do breaking news, investigative reporting.
We actually end up being right when they're wrong all the time.
Yeah, why carry, what are we going to now try and silence voices just because we don't like them?
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.
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.
I'm glad you're with us.
Hour to Sean Hannity Show 800-941.
Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
You know, I was watching, you know, all the insanity, the coverage of, well, Ted Cruz dropped his daughters in Cancun and came right back.
And this is despicable.
I'm like, okay, what about no show Joe?
You know, remember, he called a lid on his public schedule twice last week.
You know, you would think he had some time to focus maybe on what was the Texas storm disaster, which has now been going on there for nearly a week.
And still, so many people don't have their power back.
They're freezing.
And reports, people even burning their furniture and fireplaces to stay warm.
I've read in one place.
And Biden, you know, okay, declared a national emergency.
Why hasn't he been down there?
60 generators in a state of 29 million people where hundreds of thousands of people don't have power is a drop in the bucket.
Our friend Joe Bastardi said, put out an article.
He's going to join us in a minute.
Add yet another aspect to the assault on the Texas deep freeze and how fossil fuels are now also being blamed for what happened with climate change and global, et cetera.
But he pointed out the cold before the five-day stretch of this worst winter weather event in Texas history, which to his credit, he got in touch with us and I got him in touch with both Governor Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz.
And both were working, you know, round the clock in the lead up to this.
They've got specific details as to everything that was coming as Summit downplayed what was on its way.
But, you know, when you have a model saying it's going to be 40 and it's 30 degrees in a place like Dallas and you're having snow in places where they don't have plows and sanders and salt machines, et cetera.
But I mean, it's pretty unbelievable here.
And then you look into the aspect, well, how does, you know, this is one of the energy capitals of the entire country.
You know, you have one energy expert saying this was in the blaze.
The real lesson in Texas is their power failure is inadequacy of unreliable energy with as much oil and gas that Texas has, not to mention their own power grid, why would Texas experience these bad power outages?
How is it these rolling blackouts?
You know, it's kind of like a mainstay now in places like California.
Why Texas?
And Alex says he believes this guy, Alex Epstein, Center for Industrial Progress.
You know, he says the fundamental problem is the insistence on using unreliable wind and solar energy instead of reliable energy, coal, nuclear, natural gas.
And I think it's really that simple.
And you say, well, I don't, and by the way, I don't really care if you want to use wind turbines, but you got to understand it's a use it or lose it proposition.
It's not like you have or they have the ability to store it.
Anyway, joining us in a second here, we're going to check in with our experts.
Listen to what Chuck Schumer says about this.
The bottom line is Texas thought it could go at it alone and built a system that ignored climate change.
It was not what's called resilient.
And now Texas is paying the price.
I hope they learned the lesson.
When we build power, when we build anything now, we have to take into account that climate change is real or people will be caught the way the people in Texas were.
When I wrote the Sandy bill, $60 billion for New York, we made sure everything was resilient.
When they built back the subways, built back this, built back that, they were going to be resistant to climate change changes.
And we have to do that.
That's not what happened at all.
Texas did not want the burdensome regulation of the federal government on their own electric grid.
That's the point.
And if anything, it's kind of the opposite of what he's saying.
Mark Murano's with us, author of Green Fraud.
And by the way, which is just out, and it hits the fraud of what is the Green New Deal, Joe Bastardi, weatherbell.com, official meteorologist of this radio program, author of the book, The Weaponization of Weather and the Phony Climate War.
All right, Joe Bistardi, what really caused what happened in Texas from your perspective?
Well, they've constructed a circular firing squad.
Let's keep in mind, Senator Schumer is selling me books because in my book, The Weaponization, that's exactly what they're doing.
And I wrote that thing a year ago.
And I could see this coming.
I didn't know that Joe Biden would be president, but now that he's president, they're just out in the open and they're not bashful or shy about anything.
But hey, Senator Schumer, you wrote that bill after Sandy.
You didn't write it before Sandy, right?
So, you know, you're sitting here criticizing Texas after the fact.
And years ago, I wrote the Sandy bill.
Well, the Sandy bill was after Sandy hit.
You weren't ready for that.
All right.
Now, as far as what happened in Texas, they've sort of constructed a circular firing squad in a way where the compressors of the natural gas are powered by electricity.
And if the electrical system, if your reliance on wind turbines start going down, what's going to happen if you're powering the compressors by electricity?
But there are a bunch of things that were going on.
Sean, from the middle of February 10th, I was yelling and screaming as loud as I could and whoever would listen.
But the impeachment, of course, was that circus was getting in the way.
And to your credit, you've stopped for a few minutes to make sure that we got the message out to people by saying the federal government should be mounting a response similar to pre-positioning for a hurricane.
This was a category five hurricane, the winter version of it.
The worst, this is five days before.
This will be the worst five days in Texas weather history.
And when you put maps of 1899 on, and it's different from saying, oh, it's going to get cold or whatever.
When you put the all-time record cold weather event on, say, this is going to challenge it, people should look at that.
But nobody got in the president's ear.
Nobody was paying attention.
And it's not, you know, it's not all the federal government.
But you have to get out in front.
To Donald Trump's credit, whenever a hurricane was showing up, he was getting things out in front and as fast as he could.
But this was unbelievable what was going on.
There was absolutely no response at all.
And if there was a response, I didn't see it.
I didn't even see it in the newspapers Saturday morning.
I was reading the Texas newspapers.
Oh, well, it's been cold before.
This will melt off or whatever.
But this is all part of the weaponization.
What did they do?
As soon as it's done, they hide in the bushes, don't say boo, and then come out and press their agenda.
And that's the shame of this.
Climate and weather is all agenda-driven.
It's no longer about the purity of the weather and climate and fighting the right answer.
And it's really a shame that this has happened.
And, Mark, no show, Joe.
I mean, I got to be clear here.
It was reported in the Dallas Morning News that Joe Biden declared a major disaster for only 77 of Texas's 254 counties.
Quote, he only wanted to focus on the hardest hit parts of the state.
Greg Abbott, the governor, asked for a declaration that covered the entire state as they're still reeling from this winter storm.
Now, this has been a big part of your life work.
And there was a 2016 study I know you're familiar with that 73% of carbon credits provided little or no environmental gain as they supported projects that would have happened anyway.
What's your take on what really went on here?
Well, first of all, remember the media's take on George W. Bush with Hurricane Katrina.
Remember the outrage when the famous picture of George Bush looking out the plane at the destruction of Katrina and the outrage from the mainstream media.
He wasn't on the ground.
He didn't visit.
He flew over it.
He couldn't be bothered.
Where is that same outrage right now with Joe Biden?
Declares a partial disaster area.
It doesn't even show up.
The only Democrats now who are trying to capitalize, or the two key Democrats, are Schumer and you have AOC out there, I guess, handing out water bottles or trying to do something like that, trying to exploit this, as Joe just mentioned, the weaponization of weather.
But in terms of this whole situation here, there was a great analysis by American Experiment, and they gave a reliability score.
And basically, nuclear got an A, natural gas and coal got C's, and that's only because of the lack of weatherization.
Wind power got a flat-out F.
And what's interesting on this is if you had to rely on more wind power for what happened, Texas would have been even more of an energy disaster.
The only thing keeping the state afloat right now is the nuclear, natural gas, and coal.
And even though they were at reduced capacity, not because of the extreme cold and they weren't prepared, but they're still funneling the whole state.
And the lesson from this, if you listen to Schumer, AOC, Biden, we need more windmills.
The energy that scored an F is what they want to expand.
And the energy that can score an A every time, fossil fuels, they want to continue to get rid of.
And this is what we're facing here.
It's a microcosm of the entire Green New Deal.
The more their policies fail, the more they want to mandate them.
And that's the whole unscientific folly of the Green New Deal or the green fraud.
My advice, Joe Bistardi, to the great people of Texas is stay out of any Washington government interference and regulation and maintain your own electric grid.
But with the improvements that both of you would be suggesting here, and that is less reliance.
I mean, didn't you say that the wind turbines, Joe, they couldn't even work.
And it's not what happens that you could store.
They weren't winterized.
And the other thing is, if you know how Texas Arctic outbreaks work, usually there's high pressure over the western part of the state.
The Arctic highs fix the snows in the western part of the state, and it's windy in the eastern part of the state.
There was a warning shot, I believe, back in 2007 when those turbines froze up and they had rolling blackouts, but the cold in the east was not as severe.
The thing that I'm involved in is preparation.
That's what my company does.
We have one of the biggest construction companies in Texas.
They knew this was coming a week away.
I'm not just saying this behind.
Sean, you knew what was going on too.
I mean, we were emailing back and forth and all the other stuff that was going on.
But you have to be able to respect nature and what nature can do and not sit there and say, you did it.
He did it.
They did it.
The fact of the matter is you could not have stopped this.
You could have mitigated it if you got out in front.
If you knew what the weather was going to do, and that's where I come in.
And guess what?
It's not climate change.
It's happened before.
It's liable to happen again.
Mark, you want to add?
Yeah, one thing I was going to say is you have Schumer out there, you have John Kerry out there blaming this cold on global warming.
And this is what they've done for decades now, repeatedly.
Any weather event proves their cause.
And so record cold, record snows, record ice.
It's all because we weren't prepared for global warming.
There's no event that can't falsify their theory.
And that's what makes this so maddening.
In my book, I have a whole chapter about how the solutions to the ice, the global cooling coming ice age scare of the 1970s literally merited the solutions of the Green New Deal.
The environmentalists in the 1970s pushing the global, you know, the ice age scare were literally proposing Green New Deal style restrictions on America and central planning.
It is the most amazing thing.
They don't miss a beat.
No matter what weather event happens, their answer is central planning, coercive government policies, and shutting down free market capitalism.
And in the case of Texas, as you like to say, San, all of the above energy is fantastic, but you have to look at how they got it in Texas.
And the Texas Public Policy Foundation did a study two years ago, 2018, showing that almost all the windmills were just subsidies and government mandates.
In other words, they would not have been built, a lot of them, because many more were built because they were just subsidies payoffs for politicians, lobbyists, and developers down there, not because the power grid needed it.
They should have spent the money on weatherizing and preparing the power grid for events like this one.
All right.
Thank you both, Mark Murano and Joe Bastardi.
We appreciate you being with us.
800-941-Sean, our number.
We'll get to your calls next half hour of the program.
At the top of the hour, we've got a lot to focus on, not the least of which are the difficulties.
Now the Democrats have turned hard against Andrew Cuomo in New York.
And this is literally spiraling downward very fast for him.
We'll give you an update.
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 Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
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.
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So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz Now, wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we got a minute and a half.
We'll give it to Mike in Oklahoma next.
Sean Hannity Show.
Mike, how are you?
Hi, Sean.
Great honor to speak with you today.
Thank you, my friend.
It's my honor.
What's going on?
37 years in the oil and gas business and drilling and exploration.
Have been out of work since March of last year.
I came home, bought two trucks, two days later, didn't have a job.
Had to go back to my old thing of being a general contractor, something I was born into.
I would rather be drilling wells for a living, but that's the way it is.
I've got a raising, co-raising, a 13-year-old granddaughter with my ex and running also on top of my construction business, a animal rescue.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
I love that.
You know, well, first, I got to give you props for being able to figure it out.
I mean, when you face a dramatic career change like that, it's not often easy.
And obviously, you found a way.
You dug down deep inside you and you've figured out, okay, I've got to transition out of this, but you're just the tip of the spear here.
You're the tip of the iceberg.
And all these guys that have these specialized skills, yeah, they're all getting pink slips.
High-paying career jobs gone with the stroke of Joe Biden's pen, and not one Democrat seems to care.
It drives me nuts.
Hang in there, Mike.
We wish you all the best.
Quick break, your calls next half hour straight ahead.
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 Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
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.
Hi, 25 to the top of the hour.
All right, we'll get to a lot of calls here.
We'll update you.
Cuomo in big trouble in New York now.
Democrats have turned on him.
We'll give you an update on what's going on there, what it means.
Remember, Joe Biden had once said, Andrew Cuomo is the gold standard for governors.
No, not exactly.
Floyd in Florida.
Floyd, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Wow, it's a real honor.
Thanks so much.
I appreciate it.
Sean, you know, you've raised so many important issues from climate change, Cuomos, nursing home deaths, big city bailouts, and all the rest.
You know, it seems like leadership is really the missing issue here.
You know, from bad leadership with the Democrats to this impotent and vacant leadership the Republican Party.
And so I'm going to ask you if you would please, you listen to us, but it seems like the establishment doesn't.
They don't represent us.
So please, just two quick requests, if you would.
You know, when these people come out with the narrative that, you know, you lied, they lied, Trump lied, would you please ask them which of the tens, which of the hundreds, and which of the more than a thousand affidavits which are signed by American whistleblowers are lying?
Is it the individual who came out with the video of the internet being connected to the voting machines?
Was that a lie?
Was it the 19,521 ballots which were down Trump and up Biden?
A statistical improbability.
Was that the lie?
Was it the American people?
Let me stop you right here.
They don't care what people had to say.
They only care about whistleblowers.
If you're a hearsay whistleblower, non-whistleblower, and if you're an opinion witness or a hearsay witness and not a real witness, this defines the left, and that includes Democratic politicians and the mob and the media that protects them.
And what you're trying to ask me, I think, and what I hear is your question is, well, are they going to care at all about the truth?
The answer is no, they've got an agenda.
Journalism's dead.
And then, of course, I read this on deadline today.
House Democrats queried TV channel distributors over carriage of misinformation rumor mills like Fox News.
Wow.
So you have Democratic representatives asking, you know, AT ⁇ T, Comcast, Amazon, you know, why do you carry channels that have a couple of conservative voices?
Not everybody on Fox News thinks like Sean Hannity.
I think that's pretty clear.
I think I'm not saying anything you don't know.
And now, but this whole cancel culture or, you know, the double standard on witnesses and, you know, whistleblowers, it's obvious, Floyd.
Don't you see this for what it is?
Because I do.
Please, would you please just consider, just consider starting your show by just reading one or two of the whistleblowers and then moving on to anything else.
But just read one or two of them.
They're out there.
They're from the cases.
They're easily available.
They're all sworn.
Floyd, I think we were the only show, radio and TV that I know of.
I don't watch a lot of other shows and I don't get time to listen to a lot of shows.
But we put them on the air.
We put them on this program.
We put them on Hannity, the TV show.
Others did not.
Yeah.
I hear you.
It's frustrating.
Double standard.
Chris, Georgia, next, Sean Hannity Show.
What's up, Chris?
Hey, Sean, thanks for having me on today.
Just wanted to call and share a little bit about my experience over a lifetime with Rush.
Well, and all you guys, really, you and Mark Levant and the rest of the guys that are really just talking about the American people and what's going on in Washington.
I can't ever remember a time not listening to Rush.
I grew up listening to Rush.
When I was eight years old, the only thing I wanted for Christmas that year was Rush's book, The Way Things Ought to Be.
I got it.
I was the only kid on my block with it.
Wow, that's funny.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I don't know.
I guess I'm the weird kid that was into politics.
Hey, Chris, if you're the weird kid, I was the same weird kid in my early teens, staying up late at night, listening to the radio and the great pioneers of talk radio, never dreaming I might have a chance to do this one day.
Well, I can tell you the only reason I was allowed to stay up late is when Rush's show was on late.
Me and my mom would watch it.
I have a great story if you want to hear a quick one.
I brought up a group of winners.
I was a local host in Atlanta at the time.
I think I've explained my story.
I've traveled around, lived in five different states in this radio journey of mine and TV journey of mine.
And I was in Atlanta.
We had a contest, and I actually took a group of winners, listeners up to New York, and we went to Russia's TV show.
And he was, I don't think he hardly knew me.
And he brought me out during the show and gave me a rush tie.
I have that tied to this day.
I remember you on the air here in Atlanta.
That's where I'm from.
And I mean, Rush to me was he gave the working American, the average American, a voice as to what was going on.
And Rush also, he worked for what he had.
And, you know, I feel like with today's administration that, you know, guys like me are the anomaly with this situation.
We're being told that we can't make it without government help.
My mom raised three kids by herself.
She worked five or six jobs.
We cleaned offices on the weekend.
She put us through private school.
You know, we're not supposed to be able to outlive our parents unless we have help for the government.
We're all doing better.
You know, I've worked my tail off to get where I'm at in life.
And by no means am I a wealthy man, but you know, we can get by.
And, you know, just for guys like you on the air that show the truth and rush to share the truth about what they want to try and do and how they want to try and tax us, you know, one of the first things I learned in life is nothing's free.
So when they talk about all this stuff, I know it's coming out of my pocket and my tax dollars.
And I'd like to have more of a say where those go for sure instead of just letting these guys run rampant with my money.
Listen, there's a lot of things, Chris, that we've got to understand here.
The people that will suffer the most under these redistribution policies that are now being implemented as we speak every day are going to be working men and women.
Immigration alone is going to result with amnesty and open borders in millions and millions of other people coming into a country as we still are suffering, the economy is suffering under the pandemic, and they're going to be competing for fewer and fewer jobs available.
Now, all these jobs being lost in the energy sector, people there too will be competing for these jobs.
It's going to drive down wages.
It's going to create more dependency.
This is 101 socialism and its long history of miserable failure.
And it's why I am a conservative.
And this issue of the borders is a real issue.
And we're at this point pre-COVID where all of these unemployment records were shattered for demographic groups that liberals always said they had a monopoly of compassion for.
No, freedom, liberty, less bureaucracy, lower taxes, energy independence.
Those three things, that triangle created jobs and opportunities for every American.
And guess what?
If you just implement those simple principles, we the people succeed.
Because I have faith in the individual.
Every single person has a natural drive to succeed.
It's like, you know, and thank you for a good call.
It's like kids in school, you're not going to keep score and every kid gets a trophy.
They're going to keep score anyway.
And they want to win.
It's instinctive in people.
And now some have different things they want to win at.
That's their God-given individual talent and their God-given interests.
But people have a natural drive.
And that gets stifled under a system in which, well, we're going to take care of everything for you.
Why bother?
Anyway, good call.
Appreciate it.
800-941 Shawty.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, Laura, North Carolina.
Hey, Laura, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean.
I am furious and absolutely scared of what's going on.
I'm not even going to call it cancel culture.
I'm going to call it gulag culture because we're moving towards the Soviet Union style government.
And it's being perpetuated by the Democrats, but it's also being perpetuated by the silence and the inactivity of the Republican Party because they want to stay in the swamp, a lot of them, and they're glad that Trump is gone.
And if I'm not mistaken, all of them, the Republicans, Democrats, Independents, whatever you call yourself, took an oath of office when they came in to protect and defend the Constitution and all our other founding documents.
And what I see right now from everybody in the Democrat Party and some in the Republican Party is they're not doing that.
And I'm really mad.
The Republicans, I mean, the Democrats, we could expect that.
So after 31 days, I can't even believe how much damage Joe Biden's already done.
But the Republicans are sitting back with infighting and or by omission and silence, not doing anything.
And I want them to know that if they don't do anything, their jobs and their cushy swamp is going to be gone for them either way.
Do they better step up?
Let me add to a couple of things.
There's a lot to break down in what you're saying here.
And look, I'll quote the great one, Mark, Mark Levin.
This is a post-constitutional America.
I mean, we saw that.
Why have a Supreme Court if they're not going to take on a case whether state constitutions are relevant?
Well, it's after the election.
It's a moot point.
Well, no, it's a relevant constitutional principle.
Do state legislators just willy-nilly just get to randomly bypass the process by which one is to make a constitutional amendment through legislation where you don't need it's a far easier process to change things.
All right, that's one.
And you have the Democrats now as a party have been radicalized.
This is a radical extreme socialist agenda.
We've never had a major political party in the country reach that far, that extreme to the left.
That is the Democratic Party.
They control the party.
Then you've got Republicans, too many of them, that are so weak, would they like to purge the Trump supporters and go back to, quote, the good old days of losing and watered down Democratic Party light?
Yeah, they would if they could.
But I think there's been an awakening in this country.
And I think people are significantly aware.
And if Republicans would follow just the simple principles that Trump showed works, it's not that complicated.
I've been running through my list.
I don't want to do the whole list now.
Cutting taxes, ending bureaucracies, school choice, Second Amendment, First Amendment, constitutionalist justices, energy independence, secure borders, peace through strength.
It's not complicated.
This is, and then, but if you make a promise, then fight to keep your promises.
And if you do, then we're going to win because conservatism wins.
Conservatism as a political philosophy is the best system ever designed by man, and it's predicated on great principles of liberty, individualism, freedom, natural God-given rights, not government-granted anything, not equal results, equal opportunity.
And you always pursue a more perfect union.
It's not hard.
All right, time for one more quick call.
We have a little over a minute.
Peter in Texas, it's all yours.
Good luck with your use of it.
Yeah, Sean, I just wanted to tell you that we basically had a free road trip to the third world down here, as you may or may not know.
You know, it's all this war on CO2, and they're trying to shut us down.
And also, they've been trying to nationalize our grid using every excuse.
But four days without heat or electricity, it was four degrees outside.
My top floor was 32 degrees.
My toilets were frozen.
But I'm not complaining.
I did winter campouts as a Boy Scout.
It was about the older folks.
The senior centers went down.
My girl had to go over to her mom's, who was in a senior center for three days and hug her at night to keep her warm.
It's heartbreaking.
And I will tell you, my recommendation to my friends in Texas, and Rick Perry made me an honorary Texan, and I'm honored by it, is you honestly stay away from government, federal government regulation, but make sure your grid is strengthened moving forward.
Anyway, my niece, who has two young, my goddaughter has two young kids, lives in Houston.
And after the last storm, I bought her a generator.
I got a thousand thank yous.
She says half the neighborhoods live with her.
Anyway, quick break, right back.
We'll continue on the other side.
News Roundup, Information Overload Hour next.
All right, news roundup, information overload hour, Sean Hannity show.
One bit of good news.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it because all of the, quote, experts, you know, every model, every prediction, every everything when it comes to coronavirus, they got it wrong.
And what, like less than a month ago, Fauci saying, wear two masks, wear no masks.
I mean, early on.
I'm kind of sick of the whole thing.
And Megan McCain even said, enough.
Tired of Fauci playing politics every time he's on TV.
It's getting old.
But there is a guy from Johns Hopkins, an expert, predicting that COVID herd immunity will be in place sometime by April.
And that's not going to be into 22 as Fauci is saying.
Let's see who ends up being right on that one.
You know, some sick stories to share.
They have a body cam video showing a Florida woman getting busted, dressing up as a granny to get a vaccine and jump the line.
What is wrong with people?
I mean, it's just unbelievable to me.
I'd never think of jumping the line.
When your number gets called, your name gets called, gets called.
There is huge backlash now in the state of New York as it relates to all things Andrew Cuomo.
New York State Republicans, they want an impeachment commission to investigate Cuomo's COVID scandal.
It's going to be interesting to see.
AOC has called for a full investigation of Cuomo's handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, which is pretty amazing.
You have some Democratic senator, Ed Markey from Massachusetts, saying that racial justice should be the number one priority in vaccinating people.
How about we give it to the people that are at most at risk?
Obviously, we've got to take care of those people on the front lines of the virus every day.
I mean, that's first and foremost.
A big fight has broken out in New York with a New York Assemblyman, Ron Kim, who's claiming Cuomo threatened him and his career.
And we'll play that.
And then Andrew Cuomo is saying, well, I'm going to take on lies about the nursing home scandal.
But now you have Republicans and Democrats saying that they might impeach Cuomo, which is going to be interesting to see how they'd be able to do it.
Listen.
It was last Thursday night.
I was about to bathe my three kids when I received a call from the governor.
He spent 10 minutes threatening my career and ordering me to issue a statement that would be used to cover for the state secretary.
The day before that call, the state secretary, Melissa DeRosa, had implicated his administration by admitting that they withheld life-saving nursing home data because they feared the information would be used against them.
Well, you hired a lawyer in the wake of this call.
Why?
What exactly did you understand Cuomo to be asking you to do?
I hired a lawyer after this call, not only after this call, but after many calls, many other attempts over the weekend.
And this was a weekend for my family.
It was New Year weekend.
I'm spending my time.
And I got about eight phone calls from the governor and his staff.
And I realized that he's continuing to ask me to cover up for his secretary.
And I realized that at that point, I needed to get an attorney, which I did over the weekend.
I'm not going to let New Yorkers be lied to.
I'm not going to let you hurt New Yorkers by lying about what happened surrounding the death of a loved one.
I see that as my job.
And I'm going to do it aggressively because you have no right to lie.
And you have no right to hurt people.
I don't care if it's your politics.
You can't lie and cause pain to people who are innocent bystanders to all of this.
So I'm going to take on the lies and the unscrupulous actors, especially when they cause pain and damage to New Yorkers.
I should have done it before, and I should have done it more aggressively.
Joining us now, Betsy McCoy, former lieutenant governor of the great state of New York and the chairwoman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.
Mark Simone is with us.
He's the host of New York's number one morning show, our main affiliate, New York, our flagship, AM710WOR.
Thank you both for being with us.
I read your piece, Betsy McCoy, about Andrew Cuomo, and now we've got these threats.
These are Democrats speaking here.
These are not just Republicans that are furious with him.
That's right.
And now that we see the Democratic wall of silence within the state breaking, this is going to be just the beginning.
You're going to hear more about Cuomo's other misdeeds and crimes because the Cuomo administration has been mired in corruption for years.
Most notably, when Cuomo would fund these boondoggle projects upstate, give large amounts of state tax dollars to businesses.
And coincidentally, the recipients would make large donations to Cuomo's reelection campaign.
But as long as only money was at stake, New Yorkers didn't become so outraged.
Now that they're losing not just their money, but their relatives, their best friends, there's going to be hell to pay.
And the fact is the Democrats are joining the criticism.
They will leak the other things that Cuomo has done.
And this is the beginning of the end for this man.
After all, remember, Joseph Prococo, his top aide, is now doing time in a federal prison for corruption.
Well, I mean, I think just about every leader in the Senate or the state house, state assembly men and women, I mean, anybody that ever makes it to leadership usually ends up being tried for some crime, some corruption of some type, something we are well aware of, Mark Simone, watching this.
I mean, Albany is just a cesspool of all cesspools.
But these are Democrats now saying that I guess they're sick and tired of the way Cuomo's treated him over now in his third term.
Yeah, first it was this Assemblyman Kim.
Then Rob Astorino, prominent politician here in New York, said he was threatened in the same way.
Politico had a story.
They found half a dozen people that were threatened.
It's real.
Mayor de Blasio said that's typical Cuomo.
But you're not giving him credit.
You got to give me, he deserved that Emmy.
That was incredible acting.
That was the greatest acting I've ever seen.
You know, he has people all over the country convinced that he's a brilliant governor.
I hear that from people all the time.
So lucky to have him.
They don't realize he's been a total disaster.
The state is totally bankrupt, $63 billion in debt.
And that was the case even before the pandemic.
He signed the craziest law releasing violent prisoners with no bail.
We got the biggest crime spike in history.
We had riots all over New York.
He refused to send any National Guard.
If they're not for that, what are they for?
The biggest exodus from any state ever.
We've lost so many people.
We're probably going to lose two congressional seats.
He's been named Realtor of the Year for Florida, not for New York.
He's covered up.
He's obstructed.
He's threatened and bullied.
But watch TV.
Boy, he looks like a great governor on TV.
And how come nobody ever said, why does this guy have two hours a day in the middle of a crisis to do these TV shows?
Well, that were probably prepared by staff, but I mean, the big problem he now has is that we have now a real person, not a hearsay whistleblower, but a real whistleblower that stated affirmatively that they purposefully hid the information on what really happened.
In other words, the real death toll in the nursing homes.
And just to backtrack here for a second, it was totally unnecessary as all of these beds that Donald Trump built and Donald Trump manned and Donald Trump provided every single thing that was needed from medicines to gloves and gowns and shields and masks and everything in between.
80% of the Javits Center remained empty.
The same with the Navy hospital ship Mercy.
It's not like we didn't have a place to send sick people before you put them back in nursing homes that were screaming they didn't have the ability to take care of them.
And now we're beginning to hear all these horror stories.
And he's lashed out at everybody except take any responsibility, Betsy McCoy.
That's right.
And he lied from the beginning when he issued that mandate on March 25th for the nursing homes to take patients being discharged from the hospital for having COVID and barring the nursing homes from even testing them.
They had to fly blind.
Many patient advocates warned him that day, including my organization, Reduce Infection Deaths, we issued a statement that day.
This will cost thousands of lives.
And that's exactly what happened by April.
The corpses were mounting up in some nursing homes, Sean.
They left the dead in bed next to their live roommates because they had no place to put these deceased patients.
And yet, Cuomo and his health department deliberately, and we had the proof from April on, deliberately concealed it.
They deliberately concealed the deaths that occurred when these people were infected with COVID and lied again and again and again about it through April, May, June, July.
And now, of course, they are probably going to face some sort of federal charges because it is illegal to conceal information or lie to the federal government about these things.
You know, I look at New York City.
There were four pages, full pages of the New York Post today, Mark, dedicated to showing every store, every shop, every restaurant shut down in New York City.
How do you possibly bring that city back to life?
He's wiped out 12,000 restaurants, small businesses in New York City.
I think the latest number is 47%.
Small businesses are still closed in New York City, can't reopen.
He's been a total disaster.
Revenue is down 60% in New York.
He's got the biggest exodus going.
If he tries to raise taxes, I mean, the fact that he went to Washington and begged for $50 billion last week shows you how bad a governor he is.
Let me point out also, though, that Schumer, one of Sean's favorite people, is marching around the state bragging about this restaurant bill that he claims to be part of the stimulus bill, $25 billion in aid for restaurants.
But read the fine print, as I did just a few minutes ago.
And the fact is, white owners, white men, for the most part, have to go to the back of the line.
This money, and it's a lot of money, is reserved for minority owners of restaurants and women owners of restaurants, as if all owners of restaurants aren't struggling during this time.
You know, I feel so sorry.
I mean, you look at these people.
I mean, these are livelihoods, people, and some restaurants, Mark, I mean, that have been there, landmark restaurants closing down left and right and all over the place.
Why should we deal with racist and sexist legislation to help them?
Yeah, the owners tell me that the employees, the waiters, the staff, they can't work, so they've got to work.
So they're all taking the train, the bus to New Jersey, and they're working there.
So give Cuomo credit.
He's creating jobs in New Jersey.
No, that's creating jobs everywhere but New York because there's a mass exodus.
Even Wall Street is saying they're going to get the hell out of here and many of those companies are getting out of here also.
You know, this is an important insight into Cuomo.
You had him on at one point during this crisis for about an hour and you couldn't have been nicer, politer.
You just asked him all the legitimate questions and really made him talk about this stuff.
And you notice he never came back ever again.
He ran from.
Why is there not a nationwide stay-at-home order?
Well, look, I think we're in a position where I think every state is going to have to be moving in that direction.
And it demonstrates that it does bend that curve a little bit.
It does increase the prospects that fewer people are going to catch the virus.
And the answer is, I don't fully know.
We've been leaving it to the governors.
Thank God the governors have been moving.
Your governor of New York's done one hell of a job.
I think he's sort of the gold standard.
He ended up being no, not quite.
The gold standard would probably go to DeSantis or Christy Noam or any of the Republican governors.
It's been a disaster in New York, California in particular.
Final thoughts from Betsy McCoy, former lieutenant governor of New York, Mark Simone, number one host on our affiliate here in New York, AM710, WOR.
I mean, Mark, it is a little bit of a joke, but he did get the Emmy.
He did write the book.
He did have his PowerPoints every day.
He sounded authoritative, and Trump built him everything, and he never used it.
Yeah, no, he deserves that Emmy.
He should get a job playing a governor.
You're caught up in the Emmy.
But I think he's got a criminal problem, A, for withholding, obstructing.
But Assemblyman Kim, remember the point of the threats, he wanted him to change his story.
That to me sounds like potential witness tampering.
And Betsy, you add the.
It's unfortunate that New York doesn't have recall, or we could give him the Gavin Newsome treatment.
And I'm not sure their votes are there for him.
To remove him from office, you need two-thirds of the Senate plus the top judges in the state.
But the whistleblower said they manipulated and held back the true numbers for purposes of obstructing a Justice Department investigation.
At the least, they should strip him of his emergency powers.
He can't be King Cuomo anymore.
Well, we'll see what happens.
I don't think I'm going to hold my breath on that.
Mark, you think that happens?
Well, I think if you've got a time machine, he came back in 100 years, you'd still be waiting for the Durham report.
I don't know if this is going to go anywhere, but I don't know.
I hope it does.
I really hope it does.
All right.
Thank you both.
Appreciate it.
Betsy McCoy, Mark Simone.
We'll check in with Ollie North and your calls coming up.
Final half hour, 800-941.
And, Sean, you want to be a part of the program as we continue.
Standing up for what's right with America.
We're back on the Sean Hannity Show.
Hi, 25 to the top of the hour.
We'll get to your calls in mere moments.
Our good friend Colonel Oliver North is back with us to talk about a few things here.
Talent on loan from God.
You wrote a great column on Rush and his passing.
And, you know, when he said that, it was amazing to me because we didn't refer to people back in the day as snowflakes.
Now we have a term for it, snowflakes wokeness, if you will.
But people would just be like outraged over that or have my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Clearly tongue gently placed in cheek and humorless people on the left just couldn't deal with it.
But pretty amazing life he led and leading a movement now for 30 some odd years.
You know, nobody can replace him, Colonel North.
How are you, my friend?
Well, you're close.
You're the next one in line.
No, no, no, thank you.
But I think we all need to up our game to honor his real wish.
That's my answer.
Well, he really wished that America would still be called great and wonderful and offer opportunity.
And that comment about, you know, with talent from God, in fact, isn't hubris.
It's humility.
I mean, you got your talent.
I got my talent.
Our gifts are different in many cases, but it all comes from God.
And Rush was acknowledging that every time he said it, which is another reason why the far left goes nuts, because I don't think they believe in God.
I don't know what they do believe other than selfishness instead of selflessness.
They don't recognize the remarkable perseverance of our friend.
You know, he had so many times tried in various places, as you and I have, to do different things, and finally succeeded at 33 years of remarkable broadcasting, was literally created salvation for talk radio.
And on top of that, gave voice to the concerns of conservatives all over America.
27 to 37, depending on whose numbers you believe, million people listened regularly to Rush Limbaugh.
Oh, my, I mean, and the influence he's had.
And frankly, an entire industry built because of the trailblazing, the path that he forged.
It's, you know, never really to be duplicated.
And so many people, it's just a void.
I mean, you cannot deny he defined modern day conservatism and educated us all for now, you know, what, 33 years on the air.
And, you know, just it's just a void that will be with us.
I can't imagine any big event happening and not hearing what he has to say.
You know, let me give you one big event.
You know, people, they just don't like anything that we say on the radio, it seems.
You know, this whole cancel culture has existed.
Your time in radio, your time in the media, they want any voice they don't agree with, the left does, silenced.
And one of the things I've been saying that seems to really irritate the left, and I said it all through the campaign, and Joe becomes president.
And I state the obvious.
He doesn't have that spring in his step, I would argue, that he had four years ago when he left.
And it's dramatic to me.
That's my opinion.
It's the opinion of many others, too.
The scariest part of that equation is that foreign leaders, hostile regimes of Putin and Xi and the mullahs in Iran and other countries that hate our guts, they're not stupid.
They might be evil, but they're not stupid.
And I found this Australian Sky News report, and the media down under saying what I'm saying, they just came flat out and said it, that there's no doubt Joe is in cognitive decline.
Listen to what they said.
Well, look, there's just no doubt at all that Biden has had some cognitive decline.
I mean, I think some of his aides or friends have said he's lost his cognitive fastball.
Now, normally, one of the great things about an American primary season and presidential campaign is that it is the most searching, searing examination of a candidate's fitness.
It's impossible to watch Biden perform in a spontaneous setting and not conclude that there has been some cognitive decline.
But please clarify specifically.
Have you taken a cognitive test?
No, I haven't taken a test.
Why the hell would I take a test?
Come on, man.
That's like saying you, before you got in this program, you take a test where you're taking cocaine or not.
What do you think, huh?
Are you a joke?
Look, and I can play those.
Well, they endowed by, oh, the thing, you know, the thing, you know, God, the creator of everything.
And I'm not sure there's some ambiguity as to when this was said either before the election or after, but I'm like, well, if foreign countries are saying this, that was my point.
It's scary.
Well, on top of it, we don't have Rush Limbaugh anymore.
We've got you and maybe one or two others that are regional.
But the bottom line of it is there's nobody out there besides you and a handful of others who can give voice to the concerns of the American people.
And the reason why Rush had so many listeners is he gave voice to things that they felt.
And you and I know this happens because it happens to us a lot.
People will walk up to you afterwards and quote what Rush Limbaugh had said a few hours before, a few days before, and he gave them the stimulus to do that.
The frightening thing about what's happening under this administration is that they've taken not just a moderate term to the left.
These guys have gone far left, a 180 from what President Trump was doing and everything, both domestically and diplomatically in foreign policy.
Just the other day, he made the speech over at the State Department, and he admitted that he talked on the phone for two hours to Xi Jinping, who is America's number one adversary on the planet Earth.
And it took him over a month to call B.B. Netanyahu.
If you look at those kinds of things and the efforts to denigrate what President Trump did, it makes the country weaker every single day he does it.
How does this all play out?
Now, you see that the court packing is being now looked into.
You see that D.C. statehood, Puerto Rico statehood is being looked into.
Now you see open borders.
You see amnesty.
You see energy dependence getting away and all these high-paying career jobs wiped out.
Then you see the radicals now that Joe's appointing, and we've been going through some of the history of some of them.
Then you look at the Green New Deal.
Then you add to that, you know, look at all the pork buried in the COVID relief bill and state bailout monies that are going out there.
And I'm thinking, this is going to be everything that I tried to tell people would happen ahead of time.
It's now happening and maybe even worse than I predicted.
Well, I think in many respects, it's worse than any of us thought possible.
Look what he's doing to the military.
I mean, we've had rules on the books a long time about affiliations of the wrong kind of people and publications and the like inside the military.
He's now got the new SEC dev issuing guidance that within the next 60 days, it's actually started on the 3rd of February, within that 60-day period, every unit in the U.S. military, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and the Coast Guard, if they're activated, have to do a stand down that does nothing for military readiness, but it allows them to go back and turn soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen, and Marines against one another.
And if you look at that kind of thing happening, instead of out there training and getting ready and doing deterrence operations like the efforts to open up the South China Sea, if you look at the kinds of things that China is doing in the underbelly of Africa, the sub-Saharan Africa is owned by the People's Republic of China because of the so-called Belt and Road Initiatives that they've done.
You know, the very first book published by my new publishing company was about America's number one adversary.
The book that we've got out right now, which talks about what the heck is happening to our armed forces, the title of it, Vietnam, excuse me, Veterans Lament, is this the America Our Heroes Fought For?
If you look at the comments in there, it's exactly what you and I believe, and none of it is being done properly by this administration.
I got 18 grandkids, okay?
I'm not worried about Betsy and me.
We've done just fine, and our kids are going to do okay.
It's my grandkids that I'm so concerned about.
My grandkids are going to be denied the kinds of freedom, liberty, opportunity that you and I have enjoyed all our lives.
And we did that because we had people in Washington and in the state capitals who cared about it.
You want to see how things are going to go?
With the so-called Green New Deal and what they just did by rejoining the so-called Paris Climate Accord, Texas is an example of the devastation we're going to have because we're A, no longer going to be energy independent because of what he did with the pipeline and what he's doing with fracking.
And when you look at what just happened to Texas, it's just finally warming up down there.
And people are coming back into their homes from hotel rooms and things like that and finding out the home is wrecked because of the frozen pipes.
And that's the America that this guy is pushing us toward.
And this administration, with the help of both houses of Congress, are going to not just do it by executive order as they're doing it right now.
They're going to get legislation through that damages all these kinds of opportunities that Americans have had now for two centuries.
And I just, I look at it and I say, Lord, what are we going to have to hope for?
My answer, for example, on the Second Amendment is right to your congressman because they're going to try to make sure that the Second Amendment is truly infringed.
Okay?
And what they're going to try to do is to make sure at the state levels and in Congress, they pass restrictions on sporting rifles for crying out loud.
If you read the, he actually says the word ban, okay, talking about a very popular sporting rifle in America.
It's not, as he said in his speech, it's not a matter of an assault rifle.
It's not a military weapon.
It's a sporting rifle, and it's a hunting rifle for me.
I use it out here on coyotes.
Okay?
The fact is, what this president aims to do is to take over the lives of the American people.
Whether he makes it for four years or not, it's coming.
And if the American people don't vote in the next election, which is two years from now, if they don't vote, not quite two years from now, they don't vote for the right people in Congress, we're doomed.
We seriously are.
Not you and me, but my grandkids.
And so everything that I'm doing right now is, look at the sanctity of human life.
You know, part of the problem that we've got in this culture isn't the fact that guns kill people.
It's the fact that we've got people out walking around who don't obey the law.
They're not going to turn in their firearms.
Law-abiding citizens might.
But the fact is that the whole thing that this administration is aiming for is the government's going to take care of you.
How?
The possibilities of rampant inflation as a consequence of what they're doing economically is disastrous.
It happens every time.
It does happen.
In the name of promises that will never be fulfilled ever.
Just like they can't deliver on safety, security, law, order, education of our kids.
They never delivered on Obamacare.
Every promise they make is guaranteed to fail.
Guaranteed.
Government runs very little well.
The only thing we can really look towards is the military.
And number two, then you're going to give up your freedoms.
Then it's a matter of how much freedom you give up in the name of false security.
And socialism always ends in more poverty, not more prosperity.
Colonel North, we appreciate you.
Yep, it's about our grandkids.
And I don't have any yet.
I don't have one.
I don't even know if I right.
I'm not ready for any such thing in my life.
Thank you very much.
It is a life-changing experience.
Safe homes, Colonel.
Appreciate you.
SemperFy 800-941-Sean, our number.
All right, time for a quick call here as we say.
Hi, Dan is in Oklahoma.
Dan, a minute 45.
Make it count, sir.
Hey, Sean, I've been doing radio since March of 1997.
Wow.
And so I've been doing a health and fitness show.
In fact, you used to follow me on KTOK on Saturday as a rerun for you.
I had Paul Harvey right before me and you right after me.
You're from St. Louis.
Audience I've had.
No, Oklahoma City.
Oh, you're in Oklahoma City.
Correct.
I'm sorry.
Now, the reason I was calling you, I'm doing a podcast now called Dan's Health Talks.
I just do a health and fitness show, not a political show.
I would do a political show, except I don't want people that have cancer or heart disease or diabetes or something not want to listen because they have a different political view.
But I realized a while back that Sean, I mean, Sean, see where I'm connecting you to?
That Rush, I would not be doing what I'm doing if Rush had not made talk radio so popular.
And Rush is the best example that I can think of, many, but of creation of wealth.
And I have a sister-in-law who's a doctor in sociology.
I'm a doctor in nutrition.
But my sister-in-law, she and I were talking one time, and she actually believes, she's very liberal, and she actually believes that there's a pie that if you have more, then I must have less.
It's not a zero-sum game.
Let me just say this: health and fitness, everybody needs to pay attention to.
I work out an hour and a half a day.
I do a hard martial arts kick-ass workout.
Anyway, good call.
Appreciate it.
Listen, a lot of you want.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
Let not your hearts be troubled.
We hope you'll set your DVR Hannity tonight 9 Eastern Fox News.
Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy.
How these senators and how is the House, how are they going to deal with this radical agenda?
We'll get into that.
Dan Bongino.
And of course, much more news you won't get from the mob.
Set your DVR, Hannity, tonight at 9.
We'll see you then.
As always, thank you for being with us.
We'll see you tonight.
We'll be back here tomorrow.
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