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March 11, 2022 - Sean Hannity Show
27:35
Hoffman on Russia - March 11th, Hour 2
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Look, just to give a summary here, as we have been telling you, the Russians now clearly are preparing a major offensive assault on Kyiv, as now satellite imagery is showing us.
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.
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 going to push, what, Europe further into Putin's arms?
It's insane.
We're following the WHO report and other reports about Ukrainians are told by the WHO to destroy any pathogens they may have in these bio labs.
Anyway, the pending Iran deal is more dangerous than the original.
Thank goodness.
Apparently, they've hit us 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 Mullahs in Iran, the murdering thug dictator Maduro in Venezuela, and keep getting on his knees and begging and pleading with OPEC in 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 yeah, we're headed towards a recession.
And Kim Jong-un is going to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.
I mean, that's just a quick summary here.
It is weakness on a level that I cannot even comprehend.
I don't understand it.
It is such a disaster.
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.
It was a pretty powerful moment.
We shall fight in France.
We shall fight on the seas and oceans.
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on the beaches.
We shall fight on the landing grounds.
We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
We shall fight in the hills.
We shall never surrender.
We will not give up and close at sea.
We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost.
We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets.
Pretty inspiring.
You know, I've said this before.
Oftentimes, when moments in history like this come about, the presidents of countries, prime ministers of countries, they usually end up saying, okay, my life's in danger.
Get me a private jet.
I want you to fill it up with gold and other precious metals 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.
He's the one that wrote this op-ed in the Washington Times, where he addressed the war in Ukraine.
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 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 about this crisis in Ukraine is the way that Zelensky has risen to the occasion.
Here's the guy who had no prior experience in the affairs of state.
He was a comedian.
I've watched his movies in Russian and his TV show, Observant of the People.
You know, and in the most stunningly unlikely of circumstances, he emerges as a great leader.
He's reminiscent to me, Sean, of President Reagan, who also had a career, of course, in acting.
And President Reagan was known as the great communicator.
And Zelensky, he's the 21st century leader.
He knows how to do social media.
He's destroying Vladimir Putin in social media.
He owns it.
He owns the narrative.
He owns a psychological and a moral edge because of his sophisticated understanding of how to get out the right optics.
While Putin is seen on television 25 meters away from his national security staff, Zelensky is hugging his Minister of Defense and having Ukrainian food, basic Ukrainian peasant food.
It's just been an extraordinary thing to watch.
He wakened the Western democracies out of their post-Cold War slumber and mobilized us all to fight for freedom and democracy.
He has been the key leader in this crisis.
You know, 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 those MiG fighters?
And I'm sitting back thinking, okay, well, javelins are okay.
Stingers are okay, but we can't provide fighter jets.
Why not, considering 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.
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.
We knew that wasn't going to be enough.
And we threatened them that we would support a Ukrainian insurgency.
Also, not enough.
We didn't give Ukraine the javelins and the stingers back in April, a year ago, when Vladimir Putin put 70,000 troops on the border.
Putin got a summit with President Biden.
And now we're looking at these MiG fighters.
And yes, Ukraine has, according to Jennifer Griffin, our great Fox News colleague, roughly 50 aircraft that they can use, but they need more.
And those aircraft would help them take out these Russian tanks.
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 was practically begging the Biden administration today.
Give them the aircraft.
This administration is going to be held accountable for that.
Frankly, I don't know how some of them could put their heads to the pillow at night without having done the right thing.
So, the answer that we were giving and given, and now the decision we now know was Joe Biden's himself, and the Pentagon used the excuse 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 a war criminal by killing women and children.
And, you know, declaring that Putin will, he may use tactical nukes here.
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 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 just, you know, we need to provide Ukraine with humanitarian assistance and all the military assistance we can get them.
It's debatable whether we should have a no-fly zone.
Look, a lot of what the Russian attacks on Ukraine are from the ground forces, their artillery and their rockets.
So, you know, a no-fly zone is not going to stop that necessarily.
And you can debate the risks of a no-fly zone 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, gosh, you know, 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 more strongly.
All right, 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 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 need the jets because their other weapons are more effective.
I don't believe that at all.
So sending less lethal aircraft will lead to World War III, but not arms that are really deadly.
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's just not even 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 going to escalate.
There's no diplomatic off-ramp.
You know, he's on the highway, barreling down the road as fast as he can into those Ukrainian cities.
And he's going to use whatever he needs to.
And we know from if past his prologue, he's going to go scorched earth.
That's what he's doing.
He's launching these attacks on civilians, on hospitals, on residential areas, on schools.
He's doing it deliberately.
And he's going to 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 going to 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 going to get.
That's a predictable outcome.
Listen, one of the reasons, and 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 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 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 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 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 troops to go enjoy sanctuary in Iran, and we never took the fight to them like we should have.
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.
And there's so much more we can do for Ukraine before we even consider any U.S. troops anywhere near Ukraine.
Certainly in those NATO countries is fine.
But we could have been given them more equipment over the past year, but we didn't do that.
We just ran a rolling Twitter feed, essentially, declassifying CIA intelligence that the invasion's coming.
Well, that's not very good, not super useful if you're not doing something about it.
If there's no policy 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 U.S. military intelligence community seeing all this and then not seeing the policy that's got to come behind it.
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 her bad appearance.
Oh, she wasn't in Poland to broker any deal of any kind.
Even the former press secretary to President Zelinsky said that if she ever became president, it would be a tragedy.
You can't get a higher compliment than that, I guess.
Anyway, Dan Hoffman, thank you.
Great piece.
Great editorial.
Thanks for sharing.
We appreciate it.
800-941-Sean on number if you want to be a part of the program.
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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 Jesse Smollett before he handed out, in my view, a pretty light sentence?
Very, very light sentence.
I mean, it was a long, like 30-minute monologue from the judge.
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 I did this, then it means that I've shoved my first fist in the fears of African Americans in this country for over 400 years in the fears of the LGBTQ community.
Smollett said, Your Honor, I respect your decision and the verdict.
And then he gets up and he starts going nuts.
I'm not sure if you're not.
Yeah, well, you know, this is all a game.
He's one of those sociopathic manipulators.
He thinks that he can get up there and talk.
You know, it's like when Alec Baldwin cries.
It's just all nonsense.
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, woe 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, 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, 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 30 months probation, 150 days in the Cook County Jail, and ordered him to pay the city of Chicago $120,000 in restitution, $25,000 in a fine, which I guess was the maximum.
Then right after the sentencing, and they remanded him immediately, took him right to jail.
His mugshot is now out.
But anyway, he just stands up screaming, I'm not suicidal.
I'm not, 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 sketches about you.
I can't imagine anything worse than that.
This is all self-inflicted.
These are things you did to yourself.
This is self-damage.
You 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 can be repaired.
You've become toxic in your own workplace.
Your career future is uncertain at very best.
It was really on a rocket ship to success, and now you've turned yourself into riches to rags, 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 situations where somebody's lying and trying to manipulate and maneuver a story, and your name comes up as, oh, pulling a jussie, something like that.
That's awful.
You're the butt of jokes.
Comedians, mainstream talk show hosts, they make jokes about you.
They do sketches about you.
I can't imagine anything worse than that.
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 not suicidal.
That's what I was like 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.
I am not suicidal.
Stop talking about black.
I am not suicidal.
And I am innocent.
I could have said that I was guilty a long time ago.
Okay.
Linda, did you get that?
He's not suicidal, but he is delusional.
He would have made a great Hamlet.
I tell you.
It's 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, wasted the resources.
This guy.
This guy right here.
Let me tell you, first of all, let me tell you.
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.
The damage.
Because now people that are legitimate victims of hate crimes, are they going to be believed?
Oh, or is this person pulling a smollette?
He's just such an ass.
All right, Pennsylvania, Liz.
How do you really feel?
Liz in Pennsylvania.
How are you?
Good, Sean.
How are you doing today?
I'm good.
Happy Friday.
Glad you 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 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?
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.
You're working hard.
Good for you.
Now, 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 trailer buying a truck.
Now I can't afford it.
Well, so friends of mine run a trucking company, and I'm just telling you what they tell me.
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 we don't drive like maniacs like the men do.
Well, they love their drivers.
They really do.
They take good care of them.
Really love them.
They come, they kind of become part of their family.
Then you've 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 10 years when I'm ready to retire.
I'll just work when I need to.
All right.
I get it.
But aren't you getting compensated?
I know you're paying more for diesel.
It's over $5 a gallon.
In some places, over $6.
Doesn't that get factored into the price of what you get paid, the price of the load?
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, you know.
Yeah, but that money's not coming out of your pocket, is it?
No, no.
I make 58 cents a mile no matter if I go 100 miles or 1,000 miles.
But 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.
You know what?
You're in a good position then because your pay is 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 going to book a load and make, you know, do it for nothing.
You know, all this stuff is, you know, they figure so much cents per 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 give you more credit than you give yourself.
I bet you would do a great job.
You'd run a great company.
Obviously, you're conscientious and hardworking.
And with that kind of dedication, I don't think you could fail.
How do you like that?
Well, maybe I will try it one of these days.
Who knows?
But I wanted to talk to you about that Jen Saki.
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 Joe Biden has pumped more oil out of the ground 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 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 it's just, how can something that absurd come out of her mouth and people believe it?
You know what I mean?
Like, you got to 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.
So that's why, as he said to me last night, and we're going to play some of this interview in the 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 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 he's put on the energy sector and tell the truth and blaming Putin for the high cost of gas when gas was already up a $1.50 a gallon on average, rather than take ownership.
No, they say, well, we produced more oil in our first year than Trump did in his first year.
Okay, it's just another way that they lie.
They're lying to us constantly.
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 him.
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 listen to CNN.
I don't listen to MSLSD.
I call CNN Comedy News Network.
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