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March 11, 2022 - Sean Hannity Show
30:50
Hoffman on Russia - March 11th, Hour 2
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
Sean Hannity Show 800 941.
Sean, you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Look, just to give a summary here, um, as we have been telling you, the Russians now clearly are preparing a major offensive assault on Kiev, as is now satellite imagery is is showing us.
Uh we now know that it was Joe Biden that personally vetoed the delivery of these jets to Ukraine.
Now, why is it okay to give them javelins and give them stinger missiles?
But no, we can't give them fighter jets.
It might make Vladimir mad.
Um we have White House climate concerns are slowing the plan to deliver the much needed natural gas, liquefied natural gas to Europe.
Are you kidding me?
So we're gonna push what Europe it further into Putin's arms, it's insane.
Um we're following the WHO report and and other reports about Ukrainians, you know, told are told by the WHO to destroy any pathogens they may have in these biolabs.
Um anyway, the pending Iran deal is more dangerous than the original.
Uh thank goodness, apparently they've hit it they've they've hit us uh uh of stymied a block here.
They just haven't been able to finish it, thank God, but we still have a president that is unwilling to use our own natural resources, which we have an abundance of, and he'd rather kiss the ass of Mullers and Iran, the murdering thug dictator Maduro in Venezuela, and keep getting on his knees and begging and pleading with OPEC and Saudi Arabia.
It's insane.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan vice president is meeting with a good friend from Russia, one of the top Russian officials, and uh, yeah, we're headed towards a recession.
Um and Kim Jong-un is gonna launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.
I mean, uh that that that that's just a quick summary here.
It is weakness on a level that I I cannot even comprehend.
I don't understand it.
It is such a disaster.
Um, our friend Dan Hoffman wrote an incredible piece in the Washington Times Profile and Courage about President Zelensky, and you know, we did this on TV, and I think it's actually more effective on radio.
And it's when Zelensky quoted Winston Churchill when he went to the British Parliament seeking assistance.
Now we're still not giving Zelensky what he's asking for.
He needs anti-missile battalions, he needs more javelins, he needs more stingers, and yeah, he needs the fighter jets.
Anyway, here is Churchill and Zelensky.
Uh it was a pretty powerful moment.
We should fight on the seas and oceans.
We should fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
We shall defend our island.
Whatever the cuts may be.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds.
We should fight in the fields and in the streets.
We should fight in the hills.
We shall never surrender, Mr. Musa.
We will not give up and fight.
We will continue fighting.
Whatever the cost is.
We will fight in the forest in the fields.
In the streets.
Pretty inspiring.
You know, I've said this before.
Uh oftentimes when moments in history like this come about, the presidents of countries, prime ministers of countries, they usually end up saying, uh, okay, my life's in danger.
Uh get me a private jet.
Uh I want you to fill it up with gold and uh other precious metals and and and millions and tens of millions of dollars in cash, and then they'll find the country that offers them a sanctuary.
That's not the case.
Anyway, Dan Hoffman joins us, Fox News contributor, 30-year CIA ops officer.
Uh, he's the one that wrote this uh op-ed in the Washington Times, where he d addressed the war in Ukraine.
Uh welcome back, sir.
Hey, thanks a lot, Sean.
Great to be on the program.
Throughout my career at the CIA, I was regularly struck by the extent to which our policymakers relied on analytical profiles of foreign leaders, especially during times of crisis.
It is those leaders that who make the most critical, critically important decisions for their own citizens, decisions that can have a global impact as well.
And you took it from there.
Explain why you are so inspired by Zelensky.
You know what really struck me uh about this crisis in Ukraine is the way that Zelensky has risen to the occasion.
Here's the guy uh who had no prior experience in the affairs of state.
He was a comedian.
I I've watched his uh movies in Russian uh and his TV show, uh Observant of the People.
Uh, you know, and in the most stunningly unlikely of circumstances, he emerges as a great leader.
He's reminiscent to me, Sean, of uh President Reagan, who also had a you know a career, of course, uh in acting.
And President Reagan was known as the great communicator, and Zelensky, uh he's the twenty-first century leader.
He knows how to deal do social media.
He's destroying Vladimir Putin in social media.
He owns it.
He owns the narrative.
Uh, he owns a psychological and a moral edge because of his sophisticated understanding of how to get out the right optics.
While Putin uh is is seen on television twenty-five meters away from his national security staff, Zelensky is hugging his Minister of Defense and and having you know Ukrainian food, basic Ukrainian peasant food.
Uh it's just been an extraordinary thing to watch.
He wakened uh the Western democracies out of their post-Cold War slumber and mobilized us all the fight for freedom and democracy.
Uh he has been the key leader in this crisis.
You know, it's uh it's very difficult.
Can you explain now that we know a little more details about what happened with the offer by Poland to give these MiG fighter jets to Ukraine and that it was Joe Biden himself that made the decision to deny him uh those those MiG fighters, and I'm sitting back thinking, okay, is well javelins are okay, stingers are okay, but we can't provide fighter jets.
Why not, considering if uh an independent sovereign country and you know was invaded and he's killing innocent men, women and children, which we've chronicled at length on this program.
Yeah, so look, first of all, we have a moral and ethical responsibility to do everything we can to stop the carnage in Ukraine.
Uh it's on the conscience of our elected leaders, first and foremost, President Biden.
When we ask afterwards, did we do everything we could?
Well, we didn't do everything we could to deter Russia's invasion.
We know that.
We threatened them with sanctions.
So we we knew that wasn't going to be enough.
Uh and we threatened them that we would we would support a Ukrainian insurgency also not enough.
We didn't give Ukraine the the the javelins uh and the stingers back in April a year ago when Vladimir Putin put Putin put 70,000 troops on the border, Putin got a summit with President Biden.
Uh and now we're looking at these MiG fighters, and yes, Ukraine has, according to Jennifer Griffin, our great Fox News colleague, you know, roughly fifty aircraft that they can use, but they need more.
Uh and those aircraft would help them take out these Russian tanks.
Um and I agree with you.
If we're giving them stingers and javelins, well, give them the aircraft.
That's what Senator Romney very eloquently uh was practically begging the Biden administration today.
Give them the aircraft.
You know, and th this administration is going to be held accountable for that.
Frankly, I don't know how they could some of them can put their heads to the pillow at night uh without having done the right thing.
So the answer that we were giving and uh given, and now the decision we now know is Joe Biden's himself, and the Pentagon used the excuse that and the warning Wednesday that Putin might start using chemical weapons, which obviously would escalate this crisis to a whole new level, which is against Geneva Protocol, not that he gives a rip anyway.
He's already uh a a war criminal by killing women and children.
Um and you know, declaring that Putin will he may use tactical nukes here.
We've we've got to be careful.
We don't want to make him angry.
If that's America's thinking, then there's nothing that they will ever do to stop Vladimir Putin.
In other words, he could walk through Europe based on on that mindset and do pretty much anything he wants because we're just afraid he might go ballistic.
Look, Ukraine is fighting for their survival.
They are fighting to win.
And we're not.
We're allowing Vladimir Putin to deter us from doing the right thing, and that's unconscionable.
I I just uh you know, we we need to provide Ukraine with humanitarian assistance and all the military assistance we can get him.
It's debatable whether we should have a no-fly zone.
Look, a lot of what the uh a lot of the the Russian attacks on Ukraine are from the ground forces, their artillery and their rockets.
Uh so you know, a no-fly zone's not going to stop that necessarily.
And and you can debate the the risks of a no-fly zone uh resulting in kinetic action between the United States and Russia, which we have never had going back to the Soviet days.
But aircraft, of course we want to do that.
And uh gosh, you know, it's uh it's it's surprising to me that this administration is being so tentative right now when democracy is on the line in Ukraine.
The frontline defender of democracy right now is President Volodymyr Zelensky.
And good on him for doing it.
I wish we were supporting him uh more strongly quick break more with former 30 year CIA ops officer he knows Russia better than anybody Dan Hoffman Dan Hoffman is with us.
He wrote a great op ed as it relates to President Zelensky, 30 year CIA ops officer, as we continue.
So maybe try and explain to this audience and myself, you know, how sending lethal anti aircraft and anti tank weapons won't provoke Russia towards a tactical nuclear weapon or chemical or biological weapons.
But if we send in this aircraft, the 28 fixed wing aircraft, how do you how do you make that distinction?
Or as the Wall Street Journal points out, that distinction is hard to parse, especially when the Pentagon is also saying Ukrainians don't.
don't need the jets because their other weapons are more effective.
I don't believe that at all so sending less less lethal aircraft will lead to World War III but not arms that are really deadly it's so it seems to me they're cowering in fear.
This seems to be a decision made out of fear not out of strength.
Listen at the heart of this first of all that is an arg that's just not even a a real argument to make but at the heart of this is the concern that Vladimir Putin is just escalating.
He's not escalating to de escalate he's just gonna escalate there's no diplomatic off ramp.
Uh you know he's on the highway barreling down the road as fast as he can into those Ukrainian city cities and he's gonna use whatever he needs to and we know from if passes prologue he's gonna go scorched earth.
That's what he's doing.
He's launching these attacks on uh civilian on hospitals on residential areas on schools he's doing it deliberately and he's gonna keep doing it and he is whether he uses chemical weapons or not the way to deter him from doing that is to defeat him.
If we don't defeat him then it's more likely he's gonna do that because the Ukrainians are going to keep fighting and this is going to look like Aleppo.
So if we don't give the Ukrainians what they need to go push the Russians back and punch them in the face, then this is what you're gonna get.
And that that's a predictable outcome one of the reasons and I I don't think America should ever put another boot on the ground in any foreign conflict that we're not directly involved in.
And I do support arming the Ukrainians who have pro well proven over and over again that they are willing to fight hard for their country.
So I'm willing to support that especially based on the humanitarian crisis that Putin created.
Putin is killing innocent men, women and children.
Putin is leveling entire neighborhoods.
He's bombing you know 40 schools I read today have already been bombed.
He's the one that took out the maternity hospital as well.
So he's not playing by any rules.
The problem, Dan, that we have is everybody gets gung ho about Americans getting involved in foreign conflicts.
And we send our national treasure to go fight these wars.
And then these politicians, they end up politicizing it and they don't fight them to win.
And then we end up pulling out.
And then what do you say to the parents that lost their sons and daughters?
Never mind.
And I'd add, we have new sophisticated weaponry and tech technology of warfare where as Donald Trump used it effectively to defeat the caliphate you can push buttons in Tampa Bay, Florida and hit any location on the map um and do it quite effectively, can't you?
Yeah so I would never take anything off the table ever.
So I'm a little bit different from you on that.
I would I would never have just unilaterally said we'll never deploy our troops to Ukraine.
Now will we?
Probably not I can't imagine a scenario where we would but why take it off the table you know we're just giving up something that we don't have to give up.
Listen I spent three years of my life in unaccompanied war zones and the most frustrating thing is when you don't have the right equipment to keep yourself safe or when the administration isn't fighting to win.
We didn't fight to win in Iraq we allowed Shia militants who were killing our our troops uh to go enjoy sanctuary in Iran and we never took the fight to them like we should have.
Uh there were times we didn't take the fight to Al Qaeda like we should have either.
Policy got in the way.
So look, I agree with everything you're saying.
Um and there's so much more we can do for Ukraine before before we even consider, you know, uh any U.S. troops anywhere near Ukraine.
You know, certainly in in those NATO countries is fine.
Uh but you know more we we could have been given more equipment over the past year, but we didn't do that.
We just ran a ro a rolling Twitter feed essentially declassifying CIA intelligence that the invasion's coming.
Well that's not very good, you know, not super useful if you're not doing something about it.
If there's no policy that that follows up on the intelligence, well that's a zero.
And it's extraordinarily frustrating.
You can hear it in my voice, and I'm not even in the government right now.
Imagine our our our you know, US military intelligence community seeing all this and then not seeing the policy that's gotta come behind it.
Um boy, that's frustrating.
And we don't have time to discuss the disaster that was Kamala Harris yesterday.
Now the White House trying to spin uh her bad appearance.
Oh, she wasn't in Poland to broker any deal of any kind.
Uh even the former press secretary to President Zelensky said that if she ever became president, it would be a tragedy.
Uh you can't you can't get a higher compliment than that, I guess.
Uh anyway, Dan Hoffman, thank you.
Great piece, great editorial.
Thanks for sharing.
We appreciate it.
800 941 Sean, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
Quick break, right back.
Quick break.
James Comey, you have the right to remain silent, and you might want to use it.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour.
We'll get to your calls here in a minute.
Linda, did you get any chance at all yesterday to watch this judge excoriate uh Jussie Smollett uh before he handed out a pr in my view, a pretty light sentence.
You know very light sentence.
I I I mean, it was a long, like 30 minute monologue from the judge, just just it was a beatdown.
I've never heard anything like this in my life.
And by the way, all of it appropriate.
You know, if if I did this, then it means that I've shoved my first uh my fist in the fears of of African Americans into this country uh for over four hundred years in the fears of the L G B T Q community, Smallett said, Your Honor, I respect and your decision and the verdict.
And then he gets up and he starts going nuts.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, well, you know, this is this is all this is all a game.
He's one of you he's one of those sociopathic manipulators.
He thinks that he can get up there and talk and you know, it's like when Alec Baldwin cries.
It's it's just all nonsense.
It's they're actors, this is what they do.
I don't believe anything they say.
You know, he was a weak actor at best.
He was trying to get some notoriety.
It was the worst possible way to do it, and to become a part of the woke victimization culture of oh, whoa is me.
And it's like you totally lied.
The judge said you are a disgrace.
You're not a victim of a racist hate crime.
You're not a victim of a homophobic hate crime.
You're just a charlatan pretending to be the victim of a hate crime.
It is shameful.
Uh, especially you have another side of you that is arrogant and selfish and narcissistic, and that bad side of you came out during the course of this.
Your performance on the witness stand, uh, this can only be described as pure perjury.
You got on the witness stand, you committed hour upon hour of pure perjury.
Then he only sentenced him to thirty months probation, a hundred and fifty uh days in the Cook County jail, and ordered him to pay the city of Chicago a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in restitution, twenty five grand in a fine, uh which I guess was the maximum.
Um then uh right after the sentencing, and they were mandated immediately, took him right to jail.
Uh his mugshot is now out.
Uh but anyway, the he he just stands up screaming, I'm not suicidal, I'm not um and I'm innocent after being scolded by the judge.
Listen to this, it went nuts.
Jokes.
Comedians, mainstream talk show hosts.
They make jokes about you.
They do sketch uh sketches about you.
I I can't imagine anything worse than that.
No, this is all self-inflicted.
These are things you did to yourself.
This is self-damage.
You've embarrassed your valuable friends in high places, elected public officials, people in the media.
You've embarrassed them.
You have to live with that.
I don't know if those relationships relationships can be repaired.
You become toxic in your own workplace.
Your career uh future is uncertain at very best.
It was really on a rocket ship uh to success, and now you've you've turned yourself into richest drags, and it's so unfortunate.
Your very name has become an adverb for lying.
And I cannot imagine what could be worse than that.
People talk about uh situations where somebody's uh lying and trying to manipulate and maneuver a story, and and your name comes up and says, Oh, pulling a justice, something like that.
That's awful.
You're the butt of jokes.
Comedians, mainstream talk show hosts, they make jokes about you.
They do sketch uh sketches about you.
I I can't imagine anything worse than that.
No, this is all self-inflicted.
These are things you did to yourself.
This is self-damage.
Do you have any questions?
No, I would just like to say to your honor that I'm uh I'm not suicidal.
That's what I was about to say.
Okay, I'm not suicidal.
Okay, I am not suicidal.
I am innocent and I'm not suicidal.
If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community.
Your Honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this.
And I am not suicidal.
And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself.
And you must all know that.
I respect you, your honor.
I respect your decision.
Jail time.
I am not suicidal.
Okay.
I am not suicidal.
Stop laughing about taxes.
I am not suicidal, and I am innocent.
I could have said that I was guilty a long time ago.
Okay.
Did you Linda?
Did you get that?
He's not suicidal, but he is delusional.
Uh and he has He would have made a great Hamlet, I tell you.
Really just stunning performance.
Really beautiful.
And I tell you what pisses me off the most.
This really really just takes me to another level.
This really makes me angry.
This guy goes out there, waste of resources.
This guy, this guy right here, let me tell you, first of all, let me tell you this guy, this guy thinks that he can take our resources and our cops and all of our district attorneys and all this time and attention for some BS claim that never happened while real people are getting hurt.
Real people are suffering hate crimes.
Real people need police assistance.
That's the damage.
Because now people that are legitimate victims of hate crimes.
If uh are they gonna be believed, or oh, or is this person pulling a smolette?
Uh he's just he's such an ass.
Uh all right, Pennsylvania Liz.
How do you really feel?
And uh Liz in Pennsylvania, how are you?
Good, Sean.
How are you doing today?
I'm good.
Happy Friday, glad you uh checked in.
What's going on today?
Well, it's not quite my Friday.
I'm a truck driver, so it's not quite my Friday yet.
So you're so your Friday is basically when you get to your next location, then you get another load, and then you drive to the next location.
When's your next day off?
Uh probably not till well, my birthday is March 22nd, so I'll probably be going home that weekend.
Oh man, that's a lot of time on the road.
That's you're working hard.
Good for you.
Now, do you are you an owner operator?
You work for a company or what?
Yeah, I work for a company.
Good for you.
I can't afford the fuel.
I can't afford the fuel.
I mean, no point in driving a trial or buying a truck now, he can't afford it.
Well, so friends of mine run a trucking company, and I'm not saying I'm just telling you what they tell me.
They say they look for women drivers.
They say they're the best drivers.
They're the most reliable.
Can you believe that?
Well, no, I've heard that from lots of people that you know we're more dependable and you know, because w we don't drive like maniacs like the men do.
Well, they they love their drivers.
They really do.
They take good care of them, they really love them.
They come they're kind of become part of their family.
Then you got a group of drivers, they'll make enough money to live for a period of time, take off, and then when they need more money, they go back to work.
It cracks me up.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
That's probably what I'll be doing in about ten years when I'm ready to retire.
I'll just work when I need to.
All right, I I get it.
So but aren't you getting compensated?
I know you're paying more for diesel.
It's over five dollars a gallon in some places over six.
Um doesn't that get factored into the price of of what you get paid, the price of the load?
Well, no, because I'm paid per mile, so it doesn't matter what the load pays the company, and I'm sure they're charging more for the loads now because it you know Yeah, but that money's not coming out of your pocket, is it?
No, no.
I make fifty-eight cents a mile no matter if I go a hundred miles or a thousand miles.
So you're not you're not paying for the diesel out of your pocket, is what I'm getting at.
Oh, no, because I'm not an owner up.
Got it.
Okay.
Thank you.
You know what?
You're you're in a good position then, because your pay's not being cut.
And by the way, I guarantee you the loads are costing the retailers a lot more, for sure.
We can see it.
Definitely.
Yeah, because our company isn't gonna book a load and make you know, do it for nothing.
You know, they all that stuff is you know, they figure so much sense from per for a mile for fuel for you know whatever.
You know, there's all that cost stuff in there, you know, and I don't really know how to do it, nor do I want to know how to do it.
I'll never be an owner up because there's just too much into it that I don't know, and I would just probably bankrupt myself if I did.
So I just I give you more credit than you give yourself.
I bet you would do a great job.
You'd run a great company.
Um obviously you're conscientious and hard working, and with that kind of dedication, I don't think I don't think you could fail.
How do you like that?
Well uh well, maybe I will try it one of these days.
Who knows?
Yeah, but I wanted to talk to you about that Jen Sauke.
She drives me nuts every day.
She gets up on that podium and she lies, lies, lies, lies lies.
And she said the other day that uh Joe Biden has pumped more oil out of the ground than than Donald Trump in his first year.
I nearly hit the roof of my truck.
And I'm like, you know, I hope you're in a like a rider truck, a really safe one.
Are you in a good safe truck?
Oh, I drive a big Volvo.
I mean, I got everything in this truck.
This thing is huge.
But uh it it's just how can something that absurd come out of her mouth and people believe it.
You know what I mean?
Like you you gotta realize what Trump inherited.
Trump inherited what Biden and Obama did, which was nothing.
I've never seen a more lazier president.
Okay.
And then you get a lot of people.
So that's why he as he said to me last night, and we're gonna play some of this interview at in a final half hour today.
What he said to me last night is yeah, I inherited no energy independence.
I had to build it all up.
Now, when he left office, he handed Joe Biden energy independence, and we were a net exporter of energy.
And then Joe put all those regulations in place.
So, you know, it's a sleight of hand.
It's a it's a they sophisticated way of lying.
So rather than look at the fact that we're now a net importer of energy and all the regulations that have that he's put on the energy sector and tell the truth, um, and blaming Putin for the high cost of gas when gas was already up a buck fifty a gallon on average.
It rather than take ownership, no, they they say, well, we took we we we produced more oil in our first year than Trump did in his first year.
Okay, it's it's it's just another way that they lie.
They're lying to us constantly.
And and I thought the media was, you know, all aghast at Donald Trump not telling the truth on every occasion, and they'd be all over them.
No dis no media criticism.
No.
Well, we don't have a media.
I mean, we don't have a press anymore.
They're all just bogus idiots.
So as far as I'm concerned, I don't w listen to CNN.
I don't listen to MSLSD.
Um I call CNN Comedy News Network.
I don't listen to any of 'em.
You know.
So i you know, because it would just make my blood boil.
Well, just make sure when you stop driving for the day that you you're you're in your cab and at nine o'clock at night and you can turn on Hannity, okay?
Oh, I do every night, hon. I do every night.
And have Trump on more because I love that man and I hope he runs in 2024.
He was on fire last night.
He was great.
By the way, you think Joe could ever do an interview like that?
I don't think he could.
Yeah.
I miss he's gotta have a rally so I can watch it on you know, uh uh Fox Nation.
I I love his rallies.
I I you know, even though sometimes he says the same thing over and over again, I could listen to it over and over again.
I don't care.
Because you know why?
It is his policies work.
It's that simple.
Yes.
Liz, it's not any more complicated.
We have we everything was great.
You know, fuel was two something a gallon, you know.
We didn't have to worry about the border.
We didn't have to worry about wars, and we didn't have to worry about, you know, if he was still in office, we would have gone out of Afghanistan Afghanistan without an issue.
And it's just a everything that Biden has touched is a disaster.
Listen, thank you for your hard work.
God bless you, drive safe on the roads, and we appreciate all you do to uh fill every store shelf uh in the country.
We appreciate it more than you know.
Thank you.
Yeah, take care.
All right, back to our busy phones.
John in Indiana.
John, how are you?
Well, Sean, how are you?
Good.
What's going on?
Well, I just wanted to talk a little bit about Ukraine.
Um I feel like uh Putin is not going to stop and he's not going to lose.
I was just wanted to get your thoughts on what the end game was for him.
Um I believe that he is gonna continue uh to encroach into Ukraine.
I feel like if it involves, you know, guerrilla warfare on the Ukrainian side, I feel like he's just gonna continue to push and go harder and harder with either chemical weapons or limited uh low new low yield nuclear weapons.
So I just am concerned that at what point does Ukraine say, Well, that's it.
I've had enough.
I don't think uh would you give up on your country?
You know, there's a scene in Gladiator, you know, where uh Maximus is asked by one of his top guys, uh why doesn't an enemy know when they're defeated.
And then Maximus says, General Maximus, would you know if you were defeated?
Would you give up?
Would you give up as an American if it was our country under attack?
I wouldn't.
You give up.
I absolutely agree with what you're saying.
The point being though is our country is vastly different than Ukraine.
And I understand your point.
Uh absolutely I would fight to the death.
And you know, mostly everyone I know would, but the answer is right.
So you're giving the right answer.
And the answer is you never give up.
You never give in.
And I don't think they're gonna.
Um and that insurgency is gonna take out a lot of uh MIGs and a lot of uh tanks and a lot of Russian equipment, and it's gonna be harder than they think.
Uh listen, I gotta roll though.
John, God bless you.
Have a great weekend.
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