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April 18, 2022 - Sean Hannity Show
31:07
Mike Pompeo - April 18th, Hour 2
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All right.
Hour two, Sean Hannity Show, toll free on numbers 800-941-SEAN.
If you want to be a part of the program, we'll be joined by the former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in just a minute, responding, obviously, to the situation in Ukraine.
We'll talk about Iran.
We'll talk about China.
A lot on the table to worry about, North Korea, even.
But President Zelensky, in an interview over the weekend, invited Joe Biden, said Joe Biden should come to Ukraine.
We watched Boris Johnson do it.
Why hasn't Biden been out there?
He was right next to Ukraine when he was in Poland.
Then Zelensky says something that really caught my attention.
He accused world leaders of empty rhetoric in saying the words never again to genocide.
Senator Steve Daines of Montana was there.
He saw the mass graves.
He saw the atrocities.
He saw dead men, women, and children.
And he's been talking about it.
Nobody seems to pay a whole lot of attention to it.
And then Zelensky says the world needs to worry about Russia using a nuclear weapon and says he can't give any definitive numbers as the city of Mariupol has pretty much turned into rubble.
95% of that city has been bombed to smithereens.
Listen.
Do you want President Biden to come here?
Yes.
Are there any plans for him to come?
I think he will.
You think he will?
I think he will.
And I think he, but it's no, no, I mean, it's his decision, of course, and about the safety situation.
It depends.
I mean, that.
But I think he's the leader of the United States, and that's why he should come here to see.
When the world says never again, do they ever mean it?
I don't believe the world after we see what's going on in Ukraine.
I mean, that I don't believe to this feeling that we should believe to some countries or some leaders.
We don't believe the world.
After the escalation of Russia, we don't believe our neighbors.
We don't believe all of this.
Even I don't believe documents because we also had a Budapest memorandum.
I think you know all the details of this.
For me, that is just a piece of paper and costs nothing.
And that's it.
So we just believe contradict, pragmatic things.
If you are our friends or partners, give us weapons, give us hand, give us support us, give us money and stop Russia, kick Russia.
You can do it.
The director of the CIA warned that he's worried Putin might use a tactical nuclear weapon in this fight.
Are you worried?
Not only me.
I think all of the world, all the countries, have to be worried because you know that it can be not real information, but it can be truth.
Because when they begin to speak about one or another battles or involve enemies or nuclear weapons or some chemical issues, chemical weapons, they should do it.
They could do it.
I mean, they can.
For them, life of the people is nothing.
That's why.
We should think, not be afraid.
I mean, not be afraid.
Be ready.
But that is not the question to Ukraine and not only for the Ukraine, for all the world.
I think so.
What can be done to help the people of Mariupol?
The situation is very difficult in Mariupol.
It's clear that things won't get better.
With each passing day, it's growing more unstable.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for different reasons.
I will not talk about the cruelty with which the Russian authorities have treated Mario, the Russian military.
There are two components.
No one knows how many people died among the civilian population.
If anyone gives you a figure, it would be a total lie.
Hundreds of thousands were evacuated.
All right, joining us now, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is with us.
You know, the two things that I see the world has fallen short on as it relates to Putin's invasion of Ukraine is one, I think we fell short on getting the weaponry they need to fight and defend their country fast enough.
And still we have Western European and NATO allies relying on Russian energy.
And why aren't we solving that?
You know, Sean, I think those are both spot on.
We collectively, not just the United States, but the West, the Europeans whose backyard this is in, were slow with weapon systems.
They were late in delivering actually committed weapon systems, and then the weapon systems they committed to were too small and didn't quite meet the needs of what the Ukrainians actually needed to be successful, to win, to drive the Russians back second today.
Even as we sit here, the Europeans are underwriting this horror that we're seeing in Ukraine.
They're buying energy from them.
This is underwriting Vladimir Putin.
It is his lifeline.
Is it his financial lifeline?
And we all know this war gets fought out as much economically as it does on the ground.
And when I watch President Biden say, well, we sanctioned everything we can.
They left banks unsanctioned.
They left major financial institutions unsanctioned.
It wasn't a serious effort to actually drive down the ruble, drive up the cost for the Russians, and make Vladimir Putin make the difficult decision about whether he wanted to fight on in the face of a global economic onslaught on him and his leadership team.
When I look at the Ukrainians, I think they've shown incredible courage, valor, when given the weaponry to fight back an army that is afar outgunning them and outmanning them and do it with great effectiveness.
It's an insurgency battle that's proven it can work.
But if you look at the entire country, I mean, we have now a city like Mariupol that is in rubble.
You see, we had, I guess Senator Daines was there last week, and he saw the mass graves in Busha, and it's devastating.
We hear other reports of 900 up to nearly 1,000 people in a mass grave, and that's including innocent men, women, and children.
What should the American doctrine be here?
I saw that Senator Chris Coons had mentioned from Maryland that he thought it might be a good idea to put American boots on the ground.
I am dead set against that.
President Zelensky and the Ukrainians haven't asked for the 82nd airborne or the 101st air assault, right?
What they've asked for is the tools that they need to continue to put the whoop on the Russians, as they have.
It's been remarkable to watch.
Imagine if when the Biden administration had known last fall, when they knew Vladimir Putin was about to undertake precisely the type of activity he's undertaking, this aggression.
Imagine if they had begun to provide with any missile systems then, air defense systems, intelligence systems, all the things that would have been a cohesive force multiplier for the Ukrainian defense services.
I'm confident they would have even been more successful.
But even today, you watch the Biden administration hesitate, be slow, hold more meetings.
The time is now.
Vladimir Putin's not going away.
He's going to continue this assault.
We've seen it with just the last 24 hours of activity inside of Ukraine.
We should continue to provide the Ukrainians the tools they need.
We don't need to send our kids there.
The Europeans should do their part.
And when we do, the idea, the idea that says that the United States will do the things it needs to do to help sovereign nations defend themselves when they're prepared to do so, whether that's the Taiwanese or someplace else, those will be things that world leaders across the globe will understand.
They'll see that we're good for our word.
And when we do, the risk that we'll have the horrors that we're seeing in Ukraine take place will be reduced elsewhere in the world as well.
You know, Vladimir Putin, you've negotiated with Vladimir Putin.
Do you agree with President Zelensky that the world needs to worry about Russia using nuclear weapons?
Of course.
Vladimir Putin, if threatened, if he feels like his regime is at risk, whether that's from inside or outside, will use the tools of weapons of mass destruction he feels like he needs to do to protect himself.
I don't think the probability of this is particularly high at this point.
But if we're counting on Vladimir Putin to exercise restraint, I think we have seen evidence that this is a ruthless, nasty thug who is smart enough to know that he has watched his military fail.
And if he feels like his regime is about to fall, I am very confident that he will use the tools he feels like he needs to use to defend his continued stay in power, whether that be chemical weapon systems or even greater terror on civilian populations, or I pray it doesn't come to be nuclear weapons themselves.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back more with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the other side, 800-941-Sean.
number we'll get to your calls at the bottom of the hour all right we continue with former secretary of state mike pompeo So do you agree with my assessment that the U.S., NATO allies, Western European countries have been slow in getting the necessary military aid to Ukraine?
And I think you nailed.
I mean, it's the intelligence they need, missile defense systems, air defense systems, javelins, stingers, tanks.
And I'm not sure why Joe Biden vetoed the MiGs that Poland was offering Zelensky.
I'm not sure exactly why they canceled a delivery of attack helicopters last week as well.
That makes no sense to me because I believe if the world is able to stop Vladimir Putin and his territorial ambitions in Ukraine, the world is going to be better off in the end.
And I don't think most people have the sense of urgency that's needed for a conflict like this with an insurgency-resolved army of Zelensky to win.
I mean, they need the equipment, and if they don't get it, they can't win.
Sean, we've seen this now for months, not just weeks.
I know folks talk about this being six, eight, 10 weeks on.
Truth is, we could have been providing these tools to them for many, many months.
Frankly, I've watched the Biden administration behave in a way that was reactive, right?
They allowed Vladimir Putin to have the strategic hand and guide the direction of this.
When he decided he wanted to attack in the North, we simply responded there.
We should have done an awful lot more to provide the Ukrainians with the tools that they needed early on.
There's still time, but I still watch the delay.
I can't figure out why.
Those helicopters haven't moved either.
The Biden team talks about the risk of provoking Vladimir Putin.
I think we've demonstrated that those kinds of weapon systems, those operational tactical weapon systems, aren't going to cause Vladimir Putin to behave in a way that is escalatory.
He's made his decision about how he wants to fight this war.
We should provide the Ukrainians with tools they need to push back against it.
They've shown not only resolve and bravery, but really good tactical capabilities as well to do just that.
They need these weapons.
They need additional ammunition.
We talk about the nature, but there's something that is really important about the volume of the weapon systems we provide to them.
We should do it.
We can afford to do it.
They're willing to pay for these things.
We ought to get them to them just as quickly as we can.
time is upon us.
Sean.
You recently found it important enough to go over to Taiwan.
And I think we all know the President Xi of China is watching the events unfolding here very closely.
He certainly has been aggressive in his territorial ambitions and he's not been quiet about quote reunification.
His words, not mine with Taiwan.
We both know that would be a takeover of Taiwan.
Very aggressive invasion of Taiwan's airspace with Chinese fighter jets.
That is ongoing.
It would appear that that plan, that seems like the next card that's going to fall here.
And I'm not sure that Taiwan will be able to put up much of a fight.
And I'm not sure America has the stomach under this president to do what would be necessary to provide the people of Taiwan with the weaponry that they can fight off the Chinese.
Sean, when you lose the idea that America will simply do the things that it said it would do to protect its own interests, right?
We have deep American interests that are connected to Taiwan.
Not just everyone talks about semiconductors.
That's a big deal.
But there are enormous American interests in our economy and things that matter to every American that take place in Taiwan each and every day.
This is the window, Sean.
Before the first missile, before the first ship is launched across the strait to attack Taiwan, this is the window to provide those tools, those armaments, the training that the Taiwanese need.
And we shouldn't limit it to that.
We should make sure that the Japanese are doing their part, that the South Koreans and Australians are doing their part.
That every country in the region who is threatened by the Chinese Communist Party, be it Taiwan or someplace else, gets access to the best weapon systems that would prevent them or permit them to be able to defend their own sovereignty and importantly send the right message to Xi Jinping, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, that says, no, you're going to, we're going to deter you.
We're going to stop you.
The cost of you taking that kind of action is going to be really, really high.
Don't even try it.
This is what we worked on diligently, day in and day out in the Trump administration to establish a lot of people.
It's interesting.
None of this happened under Donald Trump and there wasn't a threat of it.
This revitalized or new version of this Iranian deal, I hear would free up tens of billions of dollars for the Iranian mullahs that chant death to America.
We have Russia, quote, brokering or helping negotiate this deal, which is a form of insanity to me.
Also, the possibility that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would be taken off American no-fly list.
That's insane.
This is the number one state sponsor of terror.
And these are the people that are their elite fighting force.
Then the possibility that Putin would build a nuclear facility there and that we would import oil from Iran.
You've been reading the reports as I have.
Is this really under consideration?
Because that's madness to me.
It appears that it is.
It is absolutely nutty.
There is no logic to arming the Ayatollah, who has killed hundreds of Americans, who threatens Israel with its destruction, wiping it off the face of the earth, the little Satan, we're the big Satan, to provide them with billions of dollars in money.
Some of which, Sean, will go to.
You talked about their deals with Russia.
Some of which will end up in Vladimir Putin's hands where he'll go kill Ukrainians.
This is nonsense.
He's already getting.
Not only to that, don't forget these missiles we've seen fired from North Korea over the last few weeks.
These are range different in kind.
The risk of cascading crises is very real.
Well, unless we get the adults back in charge, I'm not feeling very confident about the prospects of things working out well.
I said that to you at the beginning of this year, long before this invasion of Ukraine.
And I think we've both been on the same page here.
Always a pleasure to have you, former Secretary of State.
Thank you, Sean.
Mike Pompeo, thank you, sir, for being with us.
We'll continue.
Hear the
mainstream press talking about this stuff.
Sean Hannity is on the radio.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour, 800-941, Sean, you want to join us?
So Joe's cognitive decline, precipitous decline continues.
I mean, it was the strangest thing last week, and I mentioned this earlier, when he finished his remarks, and then he turns to his right to shake somebody's hand and puts his hand out there.
And then he kept it there, and there's nobody there.
Nobody even around him.
And then after, you know, however many seconds go by, he just, oh, let me go walk this way.
Turns around, walks the other way.
It's just bizarre.
And it just gets worse and worse and worse.
Joe Biden attempting to read a children's book with Joe Biden.
Listen.
Okay, so I'm going to quickly read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, so you're all not soaking wet.
And they're not going to let me read it all.
I'll let you hear.
You can start us off.
Can you hear me?
Can I read backwards?
Go ahead.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?
I see a bird looking at me.
Now you got it.
Okay.
Yellow duck, yellow duck.
What do you see?
I see a blue horse looking at me.
Blue horse.
It's just bizarre.
He's just not there.
And then Joe Biden is told by Joe Biden to just sit there and then told by Joe Biden to wave to his wife saying all this to him, giving instructions.
Listen.
Okay.
Just stay.
Sir, Sally, just sit.
Come on.
Thank you and happy, happy Easter.
All right.
Wave.
I mean, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this point.
Anyway, 800-941, Sean.
You know, a lot of people ask me, well, where do you stand on this race in Ohio?
Where do you stand in North Carolina, New Hampshire?
I haven't made my determination yet.
And in large part, because I haven't talked to the people.
And I do it on a case-by-case basis.
And I know that in Ohio, the president over the weekend endorsed JD Vance.
And apparently, he had said some things pretty anti-Trump and anti-Trump voters.
And that became a big controversy over the weekend.
But since then, he had become a strong proponent of the president.
And I guess some type of understanding must have been met.
From what I've heard and what I've read is that a lot of apologies were given.
I now have another one.
I used to live in Georgia and Newt Gingrich's 6th district.
It was right around where I lived.
And it's since been redrawn.
But anyway, but Newt, by the way, Newt used to represent the 6th.
And there's a guy that I know, Jake Evans is his name.
And he's supporting Newt's supporting him for Congress.
I'm supporting him for Congress.
And after 2020, I know Georgians need to step up and elect bold and unafraid American first conservatives.
And like Newt Gingrich, before me, Jake Evans is the only candidate I see in that race that I trust to never waver from these America first principles.
And that's my criteria.
It's not friendship.
And by the way, I've never met Jake Evans.
I just looked at the platform.
All right, let's get to the phones.
Ed is in Florida.
Ed, how are you?
You're smart.
We're dumb.
We should be down there with you.
Yes, there's been something on my mind for a long time that I hope that you can answer because you talk with the people in high places.
And I think I speak for a lot of us when I ask you, why does nothing ever happen when we have an ever-growing mountain of smoking guns like the servers and the diary and the election fraud and the pay-to-play?
And the list goes on and on.
But my question is, is there nobody on our side who has any power to do anything about this?
It's a phenomenon.
Like, for example, if you look at John Durham and his recent filings, for example, and Durham's very, very clear, and he's been out there that the CIA found data alleging Trump-Russia collusion, the connection was not even technically plausible, that it was user-created.
And they went into great detail.
I know that Foxnews.com went into great detail.
And so they're going to seek immunity for a fusion GPS employee during the trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman.
The whole thing was a lie.
And as a result of that, you think of, all right, look at what they did to this poor kid, Papadopoulos.
Look what they did to Carter Page.
Look what they did to Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.
And those, you know, you get pre-dawn raids, 20, 30 people, CNN cameras in one case, and quick convictions.
And meanwhile, Durham is still working on his report.
I don't have a good answer for you.
You know, we've had this Hunter laptop since before the 2020 election campaign.
And all these people that went out there and lied to us and said it was Russian disinformation, they made these comments based on nothing, no evidence whatsoever.
They did it just to make up a story, stick by the talking point, and lie to us, including 51 former intelligence officials that knew nothing at all about the laptop.
And they told us it wasn't true.
You know, all these connections, and we've gone into great specificity and detail that Joe Biden knew a hell of a lot more about Hunter's foreign business dealings than he ever let on, and that he lied to us.
And you and I both know if the last name was Trump, there would have been an impeachment by now.
And it doesn't happen.
So I can't give you an answer that you're going to like, but I've come to the conclusion that we don't have equal justice under the law anymore in America or equal application of our laws.
And if this continues, we're not going to have a country anymore.
This needs to be resolved.
We can't be criminalizing political differences.
And that's what's happening.
You can't have one set of standards for one group of people because of their political beliefs and a whole other set of standards for people that have contrary beliefs.
And at some point, there's going to be a tipping point to all of this.
And it's not going to be good for the United States of America in any way.
And people are getting fed up with it.
I'm getting fed up with it.
It just is so fundamentally unfair.
Look, if we had equal justice, Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, belongs in jail for deleting 33,000 emails.
You know, we found out about bleach pit and hammers and SIM cards removed, et cetera.
Or those people that spread the Russia collusion hoax and the lie and their complicit spokespeople in the media mob.
They're all guilty of this.
Why hasn't anything happened?
I can't give you a rational explanation.
This case has been proven overwhelmingly.
This show and people on this show have been vindicated.
We were right.
They were wrong the entire time.
You can see it in the Inspector General's report.
You can see it in every filing now that Durham is making.
But the people that are responsible are never held to account.
So I don't know what to tell you.
I'll give you the last word.
Yes, sir.
Do we know where the log jam is?
You know, these cases make it up the chain, and I guess they die on the line somewhere.
Where's the bottleneck?
You know, where does it start and end?
So that makes sense.
It's everywhere.
This is what we refer to as the deep state.
And it protects itself and it keeps and maintains its power.
And if anything, after all of this, my prediction is there's going to be more abuse of power and more corruption because they know they're going to get away with it.
And they know their allies in the media will get away with it.
Take something as simple as Joe Biden's cognitive decline.
It's not, it's incontrovertible.
The evidence is overwhelming.
Everybody sees it.
Our enemies see it.
The Saudi in Saudi Arabia, they're mocking Joe Biden, you know, kind of just the way Joe Biden was whispering in the ear of Joe this weekend.
The same thing.
They had a skit where it was Kamala Harris, you know, telling Joe what to say.
And the world is, you know, what we're seeing is with a weak America, you can almost see the world's alliances now on very shaky ground.
And we're living in a transitionary period where we don't know who's going to be aligned with who at the end of this.
It's kind of scary.
Anyway, Ed, we're going to keep fighting.
November is going to be here soon enough.
And that's when we can be most effective, in my view.
busy phones.
We'll stay in Florida.
Eric is next.
Eric, how are you?
Glad you called.
Okay.
Thank you, Sean, for taking my call.
I'm a Democrat, but I will vote Republican in November.
And there's two reasons why I'm switching.
Reason number one is the agenda to teach gender identity to very young children.
But first, let me say I am empathetic and I feel compassion towards people with gender identity problems.
And I wish them well in their pursuit of happiness.
I hold nothing against them and I want us to all support them as much as possible.
That being said.
Especially, listen, if you're an adult, you know, in a free country, you should be able to make your own decisions.
But I don't think if you're born biologically a man that you should be competing in women's sports.
And I'll quote Caitlin Jenner, who said it best.
I'm not interested in someone's testosterone levels at the age of 22 after they have gone through this transition.
I'm more, you know, what was their time?
What were their testosterone levels when they were in puberty and when they were 17 and 18?
And I think she nails it.
But anyway, go ahead.
Right, exactly.
We as a society must never forget that the absolute most important lesson a child can learn in school is to be self-confident.
The Democrat Party does not understand that teaching very young children to ponder and question their own sexual identity could lead to self-doubt, indecisiveness, rather than self-confidence.
It seems like I even take it a step further than you, though.
How about we spend all this money on education more per capita than any other country in the industrialized world, and we get the worst results for our money?
And how about we just focus reading, writing, math, science, computers, and get our kids to lead the world in terms of an education.
And if schools really feel that this is imperative and this is important, and if some parents are unwilling to discuss these issues with their own children, and the age appropriateness is a whole separate issue because they're talking about kindergartners.
They don't know anything about gender identity in kindergarten.
We played a tape last week of a teacher saying, well, when a child is born, the doctor guesses whether it's a boy or a girl.
The doctor's not guessing if it's a boy or a girl.
And yet this goes, I think it was a first grade class.
Why are we teaching this to first graders when they can't read, write, do math, science, and computers?
Exactly.
There was a physician senator from Kansas on Fox News a couple of weeks ago, and this doctor said that 80% of the children with gender dysphoria will outgrow it on their own.
Apparently, nature and evolution have mechanisms to deal with gender dysphoria automatically.
We don't know.
Well, remember, the HHS secretary suggested in an exchange with Lauren Bobert that, in fact, it's on the table consideration if parents do not go along with an underage child and their desire to have this surgery, which is life-altering, that it's on the table that they would maybe take their kids away from the parents.
I mean, look, there comes a point as an adult, anyone should be able to make any decision they want.
But as children, parents, you know what?
They're not potted plants.
They're actually meant to guide their children in the values that they believe that they deem are going to help them and assist them and guide them through the rest of their life.
And, you know, the idea that the school thinks they're smarter than the parents is so outrageous to me.
Can I tell you one more reason why I'm voting Republican?
If we had taken the $85 billion worth of military equipment that we left on the ground in Afghanistan.
Yes, we could have given it to Ukraine.
Well, yeah, we could have given it to Grade.
We could have also sold it at a discount, like 50 cents on the dollar to our NATO allies.
We would have recouped $42 billion in cash.
And let's say that one electric vehicle charging station costs roughly $1 million.
I'm guessing, but that's a good round number to build in the United States.
$42 billion divided by $1 million per charging station equals 42,000 electric vehicle charging stations that could have been built here in the United States to help transition over to electric vehicles.
I mean, it just sounds so stupid to me why we wasted all this money.
Yeah, look, does any of this make sense?
No.
You know, it's day 247 that we abandon Americans and Joe's never mentioned them again.
It's unconsciable to me.
And the worst part is, is we've got two years and what, eight months worth of this, and there's nothing really we can do.
Now, in November, we can stop all legislative actions of the Democrats by taking the House and the Senate, or at least taking the House.
The Senate will be more difficult, but I believe that it's very possible that we can take the Senate back.
I hope we do because it would make the country that much stronger and mitigate that much more damage.
But we'll have to see.
It's going to be up to all of you listening right now.
You're going to have to get out there.
Pay attention.
You're going to have to vote.
Anyway, appreciate the call.
Thank you.
800-941-Sean or number.
You want to be a part of the program.
At the top of the hour, Ari Fleischer will join us.
He's like the communications guru of all time.
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