All Episodes
Feb. 22, 2022 - Sean Hannity Show
32:53
Russia's Next Move - February 22nd, Hour 2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is an iHeart Podcast.
Well we have come in.
to your city We'll all be fired.
How then a jail?
And if you want a little bang in your yin-yang, come along.
Russia further invades Ukraine.
The United States, together with our allies and partners, will impose significant and unprecedented economic costs.
But even though the blockades are lifted uh across border uh openings right now, even though uh things seem to be resolving very well in Ottawa, this state of emergency is not over.
Freedom is back in style.
Welcome to the revolution.
Yeah, we are coming to your centipede.
Don't play our guitars and say new conscious songs.
Sean Hannity.
The new Sean Hannity show.
More behind the scenes information on breaking news and more bold inspired solutions for America.
This is a special edition of the Sean Hannity Show.
America trapped behind enemy lines.
Day number one ninety-two.
All right, hour two, Sean Hannity Show, toll-free, our number 800-941 Sean.
You want to be a part of the uh program.
And what was this like, you know, five, six minute rambling, incoherent, incomprehensible, you know, Pablum from uh President Incoherent Cognitive mess, Joe Biden.
You know, he announces all the tough sanctions, and they're gonna get tougher.
It's sort of like you know, I couldn't believe the vice president and how humiliating it was over the weekend to say, yes, it's likely to deter uh Putin from invading Russia, but we fully expect they're gonna do it in the same breath.
Anyway, here's uh Joey from earlier today.
I assume he's probably about ready for his nap by now.
We said all along, and I've told Putin to his face some months a month or more than a month ago, that we would act together.
And the moment Russia moved against Ukraine, Russia has now undeniably moved against Ukraine by declaring these independent states.
So today I'm announcing the first tranche of sanctions to impose cost on Russia in response to their actions yesterday.
These have been closely coordinated with our allies and partners, and will continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates.
We're implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, VEB and their military bank.
We're implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russian sovereign debt.
That means we've cut off Russia's government from Western financing.
It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.
Starting tomorrow and continuing in the days ahead, we'll also impose sanctions on Russia's elites and their family members.
It was the Russia ambassador to Sweden to probably put it best.
Moscow doesn't give an atom shif about sanctions.
And by the way, last year, 2021, Joe Biden's first year as the rambling, mumbling, bumbling, stumbling, incoherent cognitive mess of a president, uh, he himself imported into the United States over 232 million barrels of oil from Russia.
So who has all the leverage here?
And what impact?
Now, it's Biden's economic and energy policies that have paved the way to push our allies, Western European allies, our NATO allies, right into Putin's arms.
He artificially reduces the supply of oil in the world market, demand remains constant, even maybe going up, and that's why we have hundred dollar a barrel oil uh and Putin has gotten rich thanks to Joe Biden.
And meanwhile, American, you know, energy production is has come to a Standstill because he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.
He put a all new drilling efforts in Alaska, including Anmar on a permanent hold.
Donald Trump had opened that up.
He disrupted new exploration and development auctions in the entire country.
He suspended new exploration on all federal land, and he hurt the American liquefied natural gas production by lifting sanctions on Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Gee.
Oh, you're doing great.
Um now if you look at the language that Vladimir is using in the ball about ref in reference to the Baltics and Belarus uh and the situation that's on the ground there, and then annexing Crimea in 2014 with little to no concern.
You know, it makes relevant what I played that Donald Trump said to NATO in 2018 when he beat the crap out of them over number one, them not paying their fair share for the NATO alliance, and number two, and the whole purpose of the alliance is to protect European countries from Russia, and yet here it is, they're making Russia rich again.
And more specifically, it'd be pointed out Germany in particular with these billion multi-billion dollar deals that they keep making.
Um anyway, we go to our experts, Daniel Hoffman, Fox News contributor, 30-year CIA ops officer, a lot of that time uh with you know, doing work with Russia.
Rebecca Koffler, former defense intelligence agency, she was born in Russia, currently a strategic intelligence analyst with the Lindsay group, she wrote the book, Putin's Playbook, Russia's Secret Plan to Defeat America.
Rebecca, let me start with you.
As I look at Crimea annexed in 2014, as I look at, you know, him basically now annexing these two republics, and I look at what's happening in Belarus, and I'm starting to think to myself, uh, and some of the rhetoric as it relates to the Baltics,
I think these territorial ambitions go way beyond, and Dan had said this yesterday, way beyond uh what we're going to see unfold in Ukraine, which I believe ultimately is going to be Putin taking over the entire country because he doesn't even recognize it as a country.
Absolutely, Sean.
Uh Putin's actions are part of a very big extensive master plan, uh, which is to reintegrate their form a USSR or an alliance just like it.
And regretfully, President Biden is clearly incompetent and ignorant of who Putin is.
Sanctions have no ability to change Putin's behavior.
Because A, Putin has a sanctions proving Russia's economy, and B, it's because we're talking about minuscule amounts.
Russia's GDP is 1.48 trillion.
U.S. trade with Russia is 34.9 billion.
There's nothing to sanction, really.
And on top of it, the same folks who keep screaming how Russia is uh Russia's economy is the size of Italy or Spain, Russia is a gas station mastering um as a state.
How are they going to sanction it if there's nothing to sanction?
It's not going to do anything in terms of tampering down Putin's ambitions.
Well, especially because the price of oil has been rising dramatically, especially because of Biden's energy and economic policies.
Uh, that is emboldened Putin and and made Russia rich again and made Putin rich again, which probably even has helping to finance his territorial ambitions.
What's your take, Dan uh Hoffman after after these quote sanctions were announced today?
So Rebecca makes some really important points there, and I agree with her wholeheartedly.
Uh the sanctions, absent diplomatic use of diplomatic and military tools.
Vladimir Putin's calculus.
When we sanctioned Russia in 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea, it was as if that was the easy thing to do.
It was something our government could agree on.
Uh and we took out about one percent of Russia's GDP.
Again, it never changed Putin's calculus.
And the reason why is because Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia, not because of Ukraine's military prowess or anything of the sort.
It's because Ukraine uh is a country that uh wants to develop uh a democracy and to be tied with the West economically.
And Putin knows that if liberty and freedom and democracy made their way to his own country from a neighboring state like Ukraine, uh, then his regime is over.
And and that's why he has launched repeated attacks on Ukraine uh for the better part of the past decade.
So how far is this?
Yeah, go ahead.
about the sanctions?
What thing to watch for?
Russia now for their hydrocarbon increasingly is going to lead to China.
And Russia's the junior partner in that alliance, and Russia will likely grow more dependent on China.
I can uh I would believe that our analysts in the intelligence community uh will be tracking that closely.
Well, I think that's already happened, and I think that you're gonna see a situation where great we'll support your territorial ambitions, but you're gonna support ours when we take over Taiwan.
Fair analysis.
I I think uh that that China is is absolutely watching the extent to which the Biden administration has button been unable to deal with this threat from Russia, as well as of course start uh our chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, where we just disengaged and left behind a terrorist state with massive swaths of ungoverned space, which we know from 911 is a threat to our homeland.
We did that, uh, and I think that emboldened both Russia and China.
Let me ask you, Rebecca.
You wrote this book, Putin's playbook.
You understand Putin's mind.
Where's Putin going with all of this?
What do we what should we expect in weeks, days, months from now?
So in the uh days and uh more likely months, uh, we should expect Putin to make certain moves to take control over the entire country of Ukraine.
This is what he actually uh laid out the legal basis for and the rationale.
As you mentioned earlier, Sean, um he said that Ukraine is not even a country.
Russia created Ukraine, it never had its own statehood.
And he also laid out how Ukraine presents a threat to Putin.
So this is what uh Dan just mentioned, except uh Putin portrayed Ukraine as a threat because it may become part of NATO, and then the distance between Russia and NATO forces would be dramatically reduced.
And Putin's believes that while NATO is saying that it's a defensive alliance, Putin is paranoid, and he believes having watched what happened with Kosovo around Afghanistan, he believes he's next.
He's fears the regime change, and therefore I believe he would move in to the entire Ukraine.
He has the capability to do it, and it's not by chance that he has assembled a formidable force there of 190,000 troops, having the weaponry, pretty much surrounding Ukraine practice nuclear tests and all of these things.
This is all a deterrence posture, and it's also to demonstrate to NATO stay away while he's doing taking care of his business.
So just NATO has no choice because the NATO is too these NATO countries, our Western European allies are too dependent on Putin, right?
Uh Daniel, how do you negotiate from that position of weakness?
Joe Biden imported two hundred and thirty-two million barrels of oil from Russia himself last year.
Right.
I I mean, for Russia is trying to drive a wedge between the United States and our Western allies.
It's an old strategy of that the Soviets used.
He's using uh for sure he's using uh Russia's natural gas and oil uh as a way to do it.
And even just today, the deputy national security advisor Midedev, who once served as as as as uh as prime minister and his president, uh he uh he was uh telling the Germans that you know now you can expect incredibly high prices for your natural gas.
And he was kind of laughing that off.
Uh and and you know, he knows there will be an impact on the German economy uh and Russia, you know, we live in democracies and say about the foreign policy, and Vladimir Putin, you know, he's got a black belt judo, and he knows that the best way to target us uh is by using our own strength against us.
That's our freedom of the press and democracy and liberty.
And so when we face higher gas prices in in Europe and in the United States, that's going to put pressure on our on our political system, and that's exactly what Putin wants.
It's gonna work, and the the obvious alternative would be to return to energy independence and being a net exporter of energy and supplying the energy needs of our NATO partners and our Western European allies.
That isn't gonna happen.
Uh Rebecca Kaufler, thank you.
Daniel Hoffman, thank you.
Eight hundred nine four one Sean, our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
We'll get right to the phones uh for the rest of the hour.
At the top of the hour, Paul Sperry has a really, really good investigative piece on real clear investigations as it relates to the status and what this what these new Durham filings are really all about.
Sean Hannity.
I was just calling to say first, thank you for always doing your best to expose the truth about the corruption that's going on in our upper government.
And then my second thing was a question, but it has a little bit of frustration with it, is this all started for me when James Comey came on TV years back and explained to us that federal laws were violated when it comes to Hillary Clinton, but nobody would prosecute her.
And then you have this daisy chain of other things that she's been involved in that we know is corrupt.
And then you have Joe Biden's son and his corruption.
And you know, it's just like when when Republicans win in the presidency and in the House and Senate, all of a sudden there's these tons and tons and tons of investigations, and nothing really ever comes out of it.
And believe it or not, you're the only one besides uh the great uh limbaugh who would expose the truth about what was really going on, but it never really comes out in the House or the Senate.
It's just that you know, I guess everybody gets together and has a good old boy conversation about what's going on.
I'll tell you what would be the game changer though, is November's coming pretty quickly here.
I mean, we're almost at the end of February, it's the twenty second today.
And the game changer is gonna be in November.
Republicans take the House and the Senate.
Things will change dramatically in Washington.
And and it will give the country an opportunity to write the ship.
And if Republicans, I I really loved Senator Rick Scott of of Florida laid out his vision for what Republicans need to do.
Kevin McCarthy is doing the same thing in the House.
And and I see I I don't know how it'll ultimately unfold, but what I'm while what I'm seeing is a a set of or list of very specific America first, make America great again, conservative policies that I would imagine in some way,
form or fashion that Republican candidates are gonna sign on to, like with the contract with America, and that Americans are gonna respond to, because it'll all be the antithesis of what we've been living through for now over a year, and the this th there's not a single policy that we can point to where Biden's been successful.
What's happened with the economy and with gas and energy prices, what's happening abroad is not by accident.
These are very specific policy issues, and you can tie it directly to the things that Joe Biden has done or refuses to do.
Like in the case of uh of Russia, I I would just outproduce them with energy.
In the case of China, I'd go after them on trade and and I'd create an alliance so powerful that it would it would literally stymie their entire economy.
I don't think that's in 'em.
We'll continue Sean's got more behind the scenes information.
More contacts than anybody.
More friends behind the curtain.
Sean Hannity is on.
All right, 25 now to the top of the hour.
800-941 Sean, our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
Uh all right, a lot of you have been wanting to get in, get your thoughts in on a lot of what's happening here.
Uh let's say hi to Travis.
He's in New Mexico.
Uh Travis, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Thank you so much for taking my call, Sean.
What an honor it is to talk to you, and thank you for defending the Constitution every day.
Thank you for giving me the mic.
What's going on?
The reason why I wanted to talk to you is um you know it seems like this administration's thirsty for war, and you know, you and I are both hi uh we're students of history.
We look at this thing and we studied world wars, we've studied world conflicts, we see that something isn't right here.
And when you look at the economic situation in the world, you look at what's going on in Russia and Ukraine, you look at what's going on in China with Taiwan, Iran, and Israel.
I mean, over and over, you've got all these countries, all these sparks flying.
It's not going to take much to ignite the powder cake.
And what I'm worried about, especially is the personal relationship that the Biden family has with both Ukraine and Russia.
It seems like there's something.
Well, hang on a second, you're forgetting Kazakhstan and you're forgetting the big relationship with China, but go ahead.
Oh, that's absolutely true.
I mean, they've got ties all over the place where they've been taking money.
So I just see why it looks to me like there's a little bit of a CYA situation there.
And of course, Biden with his poll numbers so low, maybe he's looking at a way to raise his poll numbers, but also is he trying to protect something that's going on with his family, both between Ukraine and Russia.
And sanctions, what good is sanctions gonna do?
He already gave Vladimir exactly what he wanted with the pipeline, giving him all the energy he wants.
This reminds me a lot of, you know, like when uh when Hitler went into uh uh Romania, you know, started taking the oil deals down there.
I mean, let's state the obvious to just follow through on your point here.
Um I saw that Glenn Greenwald had made a similar point under Obama and Biden, Russian annexed Crimea.
Under Biden, Russia recognizes the the sovereignty of uh and independence of two territories of Ukraine, just takes them.
Under Trump, none of this happened.
Now, uh, does that cause any media reevaluation about whether Trump was in fact uh the puppet of the Kremlin as as the media mob claimed or that he had colluded with Russia in any way, you know, especially in light of well, Paul Sperry will be on at the top of the hour, this this latest revelation about m data that was mined uh to create a false narrative.
I I've I think all of this we were lied to.
But I'll tell you this if if it was the anybody with the last name Trump made a one point five billion dollar deal with the Bank of China, thirty-one million more from China with connections to the Chinese military, uh millions from a Russian oligarch, former First Lady of Moscow.
Uh we know about the Barisma money in Ukraine and then Kazakhstan money and and God knows where else the this the Biden syndicate made money.
Um I think you have to look at it through the prism of what the how compromised is the Biden family?
Because I it seems from the outside to me very compromised.
I think they're incredibly compromised, and you're absolutely right, especially about Trump.
The way they've gone after him, the hypocrisy is mind blowing.
You know, and we see it now.
I think one of the best things that Trump did was expose the hypocrisy.
You know, he called him the fake news all the time.
And at first we kind of laughed at a little tongue in cheek, but then we started seeing it.
We started seeing it for ourselves, and you're right about Crimea.
What did Obama do with Crimea?
Nothing.
Not a stinking thing.
No, you know, and that's what's going on now.
Now, uh I'll give you my my short answer, and it's not really complicated, and that is and General Kellogg said it on my on the TV show last night, is Donald Trump was extraordinarily unpredictable.
And more importantly, is when he said he would do something, there was a belief that he would do it.
He followed through.
And and there was a certain fear that he sh uh literally like a stake in the knife that paralyzed the likes of Putin and Kim Jong un and uh uh President Chi.
You know, everyone got mad.
Oh, he met with Kim Jong un.
What what did he give Kim Jong un time?
That's all Kim Jong un got.
We got the return of Americans that had had been left behind.
Uh we got other concessions from from North Korea that we hadn't gotten.
Uh he stopped firing his missiles, test firing his missiles every other day.
Um there's not that respect for Biden and and there's not that respect.
Right now I see Putin Putin very strategically just driving a massive wedge through the NATO alliance and it's crippling, and I think the next shoe to falls is probably going to be China reunifying to use their term, ridiculous term, or taking over Taiwan.
I think that's next that's the next shoe that will drop.
I mean, Putin says that he wants to reunite, essentially he wants to reunite the glory of the Soviet Union.
Do you think there's more to it than that?
Because it seems like he might be going after natural resources or something as well.
But Biden's not doing anything to stop him.
He's not gonna stop him.
Putin doesn't fear him, not one bit.
Well, and you know, if you look at where they are with uh Belarus, I mean, you gotta wonder, is that the next stop on on Putin's, you know, grand territorial ambition tour?
I don't know.
And you know, everybody that's saying that you you've got to stop it.
I'm not I want to be very clear.
I'm not supporting getting into a shooting war with Vladimir Putin.
But that tape that I played earlier, I'll play it again later.
It's about a five-six-minute tape of Donald Trump with NATO leaders beating the crap out of them over how Germany and other NATO na allied nations were making Russia and Putin rich again, and they're not paying their fair share, and he's not gonna put up with it anymore.
And he's the only president in our lifetime to have done that, and he was dead on accurate that a lot of what Putin is now doing is made possible because Joe Biden's ridiculous economic and energy policies, artificially reducing the world supply of energy.
I mean, we're importing oil from Russia right now.
How much leverage does Joe really have with Russia?
None.
How much w how much leverage, and I give the I look, I give the Germans credit.
They stopped the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, um, and and that's going to be costly.
But I don't st the answer would be America beats the living hell out of them in outproducing the lifeblood of the world's economy, and we get it to our allies at a cheaper price.
It's good for national security, and it's good for you know, inflation, it's good for job creation, it's good for everything.
But it's just not gonna happen with the climate alarmist cult that is governing everything Joe Biden does.
Anyway, good call, Travis, appreciate it.
You seem uh very dialed in.
Uh Keith is I'm sorry, Beth is in Georgia.
Hey, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hi, Sean.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
The honor's all my wondering.
I am wondering why no one asked, with us supporting NATO and sending our troops to be united against the Ukrainian invasion, why we can't send troops to our own border to stop the invasion of human trafficking and fentanyl and illegal alien.
Listen, you you're you're asking me a question that makes uh uh every bit of common sense that any American has would be you control your southern border.
And you and for people that are coming into this country, you don't aid and abet law breaking.
We have a a legal process.
You know, Joe Biden swore an oath to uphold the the laws of this land, our constitution, the foundation of all of our laws.
He's he has now brought back basically um process and release.
Uh he's now in the dark of night.
They call 2 a.m. early morning flights.
Uh they're dropping illegal immigrants all over the country.
They're not COVID testing them.
They lie to us and say, well, they're not gonna be here very long.
There's no vaccine mandates for illegal immigrants, and then states are forced to bear the brunt of the cost of of food and housing and health care and and education, and we can't afford it.
And why is Joe doing it?
I I I really don't know, except that I think the Democrats generally don't care where people come from, but I think they're hoping, and they've tried many times during this build back broke negotiation in the Senate at least to sneak in a provision that would allow amnesty for all these illegal immigrants.
So something of great value that people would get and receive from the Democratic Party, I'm sure in the hopes that they would be lifelong Democrats.
So I I think everything they do is in a a power grab.
Go ahead.
And building and building their voter bay is what they think they're doing.
I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, what are what other reason?
Listen, we're a nation of laws.
If Joe wants to change the law, if he wants open borders, there's a process for that.
He's got to get the approval.
They have both houses of of Congress.
Go change the law.
Do it legally.
But what he is doing, I can tell you right now, if you did it or I did it, and we aided and abetted people uh to and and brought them into this Country and transported them to whatever state they wanted to go to, we'd get arrested, rightly so, for violating the law and probably for human trafficking.
That's what would happen to us, Beth.
Anyway, good call, appreciate it.
800 941 Sean.
Um back to our busy phones, Bob, Long Island, New York.
Bob, what are you doing in Long Island, New York?
Uh, my hometown.
Because you and I are pretty stupid, because we need to get out of here and we'll save a fortune and we'll live in better weather.
I agree with you, Sean.
But uh, I'm in Leathertown, by the way, and uh I'm part Ukrainian.
And as a matter of fact, I'm part Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian.
So I have an internal conflict with all three parts of my family.
And it now that we understand that the Buddhist memorandum is worthless.
Iran and North Korea have no incentive to give up their nukes.
And having said that, I I wanted to ask you this for a while.
Uh the last time I saw this gentleman with you was probably over ten years ago.
And I think it would be great if we got his input on your show.
And the last time I saw him was with you at the Who are you talking about?
I'm talking about General Tommy Franks.
We haven't heard from him.
We have not heard from we did hear from General Petraeus, and he said he's not sure what Putin is planning.
Tommy Franks is a great guy.
I loved that General Franks was awesome.
Now I had General Kellogg on last night.
I don't know if you saw that.
I don't know what General uh Franks is up to.
I've not talked to him in a long time.
He was a great guy.
Well, I as a fan of his, and and when we saw you at the book review, all I can say is please reach out to him, and we'd love to hear what he has to say.
You know what?
That's a great idea.
Let me uh let me see if he's around if we can track him down, okay?
Terrific, Sean.
Appreciate it.
All right, Bob.
God bless you, man.
Uh Morgan is in Oklahoma.
Morgan, how are you?
Thanks for checking in.
I'm doing good.
How are you doing today?
I'm good, sir.
Oh, wonderful.
I'm I'm I'm looking at it, and I can see I can see I think that any of us, any American that looks and see what's going on, can see that we're just in war.
Uh, we've been in war for a while.
It's an asymmetric war, and we've got people in charge that basically basically Biden's gonna be worse than Neville Chamberlain.
Uh if you look at the strategic points of what's going on, look 90% according to TechSet, they came out with a report on February first, 90% of U.S. semiconductor grade neon comes from Ukraine.
That is going to completely disrupt our our semiconductor production.
And 35% of the U.S. palladium is sourced from Russia.
So we're gonna have a huge cut in our ability to even produce the key component for warfare.
Listen, there are two very, very critical strategic defense initiatives that America needs to engage in yesterday, uh, frankly, years ago.
And one is we have got to get give up all our dependence, uh, for example, like we saw this during the pandemic on medical equipment, on PPE, on on medicines, etc.
and the production thereof coming from China.
I mean, that's insane.
If we if we want to battle China, it's not about a shooting war.
I don't want to get in a shooting war.
Nobody wants to No, no one wants to vote it.
We we shouldn't send one single American over to Ukraine to get involved in this mess.
But we need to send a message to the world that America's not going to roll over, that we understand the geopolitical dangers that are out there, and the way I would attack or fight back against Putin.
I would outproduce him in the energy sector, and I bankrupt him as quickly as possible.
And we have more natural resources than he does.
And we'd have the ability then to strengthen our alliances with our Western European allies by providing them the lifeblood of their economy.
And on the China front, I think the the nations of the world better be ready because their territorial ambitions will be on full display soon too.
And the single, you know, with Russia, half their economy is energy.
With with China, it's all imports.
And I would stop importing everything from China.
Stop it.
If if they're going to crack down on Hong Kong, unleash COVID on the world, they're gonna oppress the Uyghurs and have forced labor camps and then take over Taiwan, again, a sovereign country.
There's there's got to be some punitive measure available short of getting into shooting wars, which we can't with nuclear powers.
So the answer is you go back to the Cold War, Reagan defeated the Soviet Union, he bankrupted them.
And that would be the answer to me in both the case of China and in the case of Russia, and frankly, it would apply to Iran as well.
If anyone wants to ever listen to me, but what the hell do I know?
Anyway, I'm not I should run for president, right, Linda?
Yeah, that's a one I think that's a wonderful idea.
Oh, it'd be great.
You know, I'm sure I'm sure my family I mean we're all living such a peaceful life already.
Why not?
Well, why not add more more pain to the current condition of our lives?
932-8975.
Export Selection