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Aug. 2, 2022 - Sean Hannity Show
30:42
US and Taiwan - August 1st, Hour 1

Speaker Pelosi is traveling and is likely to stop in Taiwan as a measure of support.  Sean covers the visit and the confusing posture of the Biden administration.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Day number 352.
All right.
Yep, day uh 365, one full year ago since Joey promised he'd never abandon Americans and the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan.
One full year ago today, he made that promise.
13 days later, guess what?
He abandoned them.
800-941 Sean, our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
We got a lot of economic news we'll get through uh in the course of the program today.
We're obviously watching the Chinese government, our enemies threatened to take uh uh the plane with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, out of the sky and shoot down Nancy Pelosi's plane.
He had a tweet posted Friday by the Chinese government-controlled media outlet threatening to shoot the plane down if she dares to visit Taiwan.
It was quietly deleted by Saturday.
Was the threat real?
Does it represent the official position of President Chi's government?
Based on the phone call with Biden late last week.
Uh, it sounds like uh you play with fire, you get burned.
Uh there are a lot of threats on that call.
You know, what's so frustrating about it is all of the things that Biden should have been asking President Chi about his unfair trade practices, about intellectual property theft, about saber rattling with Taiwan, uh, about the origins of COVID-19 and why did you put your travel ban in effect uh long before Donald Trump did by prohibiting people in Wuhan province from traveling inside anywhere with inside of China,
but it was perfectly fine for them to travel around the world and spread whatever it was that was going on there that you knew about around the world and then demanding compensation from China.
You know, free and fair trade practices.
None of that came up.
Joe just sat there and got lectured and threatened by President Chi.
It's pretty despicable.
Anyway, so they pulled down the threat that they put up, I guess, on Twitter, and Reuters pointed out the prominent Chinese commentator said on Saturday they deleted the tweet warning of military retaliation should the U.S. fighter jets escort Nancy Pelosi on any visit to Taiwan after Twitter blocked the account.
Now, Pelosi, number three in line, you know, she's two heartbeats away from the president.
Put aside Democrat Republican for just a minute here.
And she'd be third in line in terms of presidential secession.
Now, after Biden and Kamala Harris.
And anyway, it was signaled on Friday she was embarking on this trip to Europe.
Now, if you look at the official itinerary that they have put out, Taiwan is noticeably absent from the itinerary.
Now, all reports are that she probably is going to go there, and I'll explain that in a second.
Um, but if you look at state tabloid media and what they wrote on on what's being conveyed To the to the people of China that if the U.S. military sends fighter jets to escort Pelosi to Taiwan, then the move would take a vile nature of such a visit and would constitute aggression, and our fighter jets should deploy all obstructive tactics if those are still ineffective.
So anyway, we have a pretty large military presence in the region, and tensions are running high, and Newsweek is raising the possibility the now deleted tweet didn't represent the official position of the Chinese government.
Well, they pretty much made the same threat on the phone call.
Now, it raises questions.
Now, if you look at the media in Taiwan, they are reporting that Pelosi's schedule to arrive Tuesday night.
Taiwanese media outlets reporting Pelosi would arrive Tuesday night, local time after visiting Malaysia on the second leg of her ongoing Asia trip, making the speaker the highest ranking U.S. elected official to visit the country since then House Speaker Newt Gingrich did in 1997.
He'll join us later.
But by the way, the same threats or similar threats were made when Newt was going there back then, the island nation's three largest newspapers, all reporting that the Democratic congressional delegation led by the Speaker would spend Tuesday night in Taipei.
Pelosi's office previously confirmed that she would visit Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, but didn't say whether Taiwan was on the itinerary.
She is scheduled to be in Malaysia on Tuesday, South Korea on Thursday.
Her schedule for Wednesday remains unclear.
Now, um, do you really believe that America should capitulate?
This is an allied country of the United States of America.
And if they're threatening to shoot down a high-ranking U.S. official, is it anything other than an act of war?
Because it is an unprovoked attack.
Our elected officials can visit any allied country anytime they want, whether they like it or not.
At this point, Nancy Pelosi doesn't have a choice.
Joe Biden does not have a choice.
Because unless they want to show nothing but weakness and the ability to be intimidated by the communist Chinese, they better get her to Taiwan.
Now, do I think anything is going to happen?
I do not.
Do I think that there are crazy, insane people all throughout history?
You have to take it seriously.
You take every threat seriously.
But China's Pelosi threat needs to also be a wake-up call.
You know, America does need to understand our number one geopolitical foe.
Now, Russia's Putin is all for this showdown with China and the United States, because he doesn't like the fact that the United States has spoken out against and supported Ukraine over the invasion of a sovereign country by Putin and his hostile regime.
But that's neither here nor there.
If China is actually going to carry out their threat, that is a declaration of war.
That will be World War III.
And if something that minor and minuscule were to trigger World War III, it means it was going to happen anyway.
So we might as well call them out on their threat and show a little spine and a little backbone, and she better follow through on the promise to make that visit.
Now, luckily for us with the threat against Pelosi's China's leaders have lifted the veil of some very uncomfortable facts that we can't ignore.
And that we have been telling people for the longest time.
China is not a friendly nation to us.
It's a hostile regime, just like Russia is, just like Iran is, just like Venezuela is, just like North Korea is, just like I would even argue the Saudis are.
China's not merely a competitor.
They are an adversary, our number one geopolitical foe.
They're an enemy, an enemy that poses a clear and present danger to America's future.
They view us as the enemy.
The problem is, you know, why didn't we see all of these hostilities?
Why is it that Putin invades Crimea, annexes Crimea when Joe Biden's vice president and Obama's president, but they don't do anything when Trump is president?
How is it that Donald Trump finally got the communist Chinese to agree to tariffs because he's the only president to call them out on it.
How is it Joe Biden, as he continues to make concessions and capitulate to the Chinese?
Why are we giving one million barrels of our strategic petroleum reserves to China at a time we're paying record prices for gasoline?
Why is he contemplating removing the tariffs that have been so effective in terms of getting to the point in free of fair trade with China that Donald Trump put in place?
Why is he considering doing any of this now?
Why when is he going to challenge them on the origins of COVID?
When is he going to challenge them on their never-ending intellectual property theft?
I know a lot about intellectual property theft because it happened to a friend of mine, technology that he developed, ripped off by the communist Chinese.
I mean, they stole every bit of it.
Anyway, as uh General Jack Keene and many others have warned recently, our Pentagon has war game the possible outcome of any military conflict between the U.S. and China in the Pacific, and uh they don't think that we're ready.
And I would argue that's probably true.
That's what our military experts are telling us.
So nobody should be willing, nobody should want a war with China, period, end of sentence.
Now, they've made it very clear.
When they talk about reunification, they're talking about taking over Taiwan.
I don't think the world is going to lift a finger in that particular instance because we've allowed them to get this strong.
So we'll have to see what happens over time.
But my guess is that she has no choice but to go at this point.
And I don't think the communist Chinese are going to shoot any plane out of the sky unless they've unless their desire is to have World War III.
Because that's exactly what's going to happen.
And over this, I don't see it.
It's possible, but the you know, the penalty that we would pay by backing down to their threat is incalculable.
And the message it sends to the entire world, the damage that would be done is incalculable.
Um the big thing that has come out this weekend is just how bad this deal is that it was struck between Schumer and Joe Manchin.
Um, you know, if you look at the resulting tax hike, for example, we did not raise taxes.
Manchin was on Fox News Sunday.
Yes, they did.
As they did this deal as he did this deal with Schumer.
You know, he means the deal wouldn't raise the top tax rates, but it does impose a 15% corporate minimum tax for businesses with more than a billion dollars overriding normal accounting rules, et cetera, et cetera.
And the resulting tax hike, $313 billion, thereby targets companies whose business is capital intensive, meaning they have to invest heavily to function.
So what Manchin is calling an all-American bill slams U.S. manufacturing, which would suffer half the total tax hike, or 155.6 billion dollars.
But what do I always tell you?
That in fact Americans, the American corporations don't pay taxes.
The Congressional Joint Tax Committee on Taxation actually analyzed the bill, and they found that taxes would go up 16.7 billion dollars on you, the American people that make less than 200,000 just next year alone, another 14.1 billion uh on people that make between 200 and 500,000.
During the 10-year window, the average tax rate would go up for almost every single income category.
And they're not the only ones that have taken the time to study what's actually in this bill.
For example, if you look at what the Wharton School of Business is saying, UPenn, that the, and by the way, it's a joke that they call it the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 because it does anything but help inflation, that the breakthrough U.S. legislative deal, key parts of it, won't reduce inflation at all, according to the UPenn study.
Not at all, not one bit.
And that's coming from researchers that Senator Manchin says whose vote was was crucial to sealing the deal.
Joe Manchin, the study from UPenn, Wharton budget model, estimates the act would cause inflation to Very slightly rise rather than be reduced.
You know, they always put these, you know, cute little names.
It's just the opposite of what a bill is.
Oh, it's the uh inflation reduction act.
It's doing nothing to reduce inflation, not a thing.
But it's going to raise taxes on every single American at a time when we can not least afford to do so.
Then you have the Joint Committee on Taxation saying nearly every income group is going to see tax hikes under the Schumer Mansion bill.
Then the people of West Virginia got to be asking themselves, what the hell did our senator give into this for?
Remember Biden's pledge, oh, no new taxes on anyone that makes less than 400,000 a year.
Well, that's not gonna happen.
16.7 billion next year alone for Americans earning less than 200,000 a year.
Just on them.
You know, Joe Manchin does the full five Sunday shows, and you would think, oh, this is the second coming.
Anyway, got to take a quick break.
800-941 Sean, our number on this Monday.
You know, the sad thing is when you show weakness or you have a weak U.S. president like we do, because the world sees Joe as weak and frail and a cognitive mess.
You know, look at the saber rattling by Iran.
Oh, we could turn our peaceful nuclear program into a weapons grade program overnight.
That came out over the weekend.
More saber rattling by North Korea.
China way, I'm sorry, Putin weighs in in full support of China.
I mean, all you think these are all happening by accident?
No, they're not.
The Chinese military posting a video boasting of their military might and you know, videos of their troops launching missiles, grabbing weapons, taking off in fighter jets.
Quote, if uh Pelosi insists on visiting Taiwan, China will take resolute and strong measures to defend its sovereignty and territorial and integrity, according to the Chinese foreign minister telling reporters today.
And that rhetoric comes after sources confirmed to the Wall Street Journal Pelosi would be visiting Taiwan as part of this trip.
Those who play with fire will perish by it.
You know, echoing the comments that President Xi made to to to Biden last week.
U.S. and China now have both deployed military forces uh to Taiwan.
And the Chinese Communist Party announced that through state-owned media that they're deploying forces for live fire exercises in waters north of Taiwan between mainland China and South Korea.
Those exercises are the latest in a series of back-to-back Chinese drills in the region.
They are notable, however, in that the announcement was accompanied by footage of China's D-17 hypersonic missile, dubbed the aircraft uh carrier killer.
The D-17 is a nuclear-capable ballistic missile fitted with hypersonic glide vehicle that allows its payload to glide into low orbit at great speed before plunging down on its target.
According to other video they released this week.
Iran declared that they are now just one step away from producing their own nuclear weapon.
Gee, it's amazing.
This is all happening because we have a strong U.S. president.
You know, say what you will.
One thing Donald Trump has that Joe Biden will never have.
A jet the genuine unpredictability.
And there is that fear factor that goes along with that.
This guy's crazy enough that he might do it.
That's what they always thought.
Putin thought it.
Kim Jong-un thought it.
The Iranian mules thought it.
The Chinese president thought it.
They all knew it.
The Taliban knew it's breaking news straight from the source.
This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, 25 now till the top of the hour.
800 941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Uh, does anybody in there disagree with me?
There's no way they're going to shoot Nancy Pelosi's plane out of the sky.
You all agree with me on that, right?
There's no way.
Because if they do, it's it's World War III.
Now, does China want to start World War III?
They have they have their own economic issues, by the way.
Go ahead.
What'd you want to say?
No, I mean, I think it's uh there's a strong point here for the role that Taiwan plays.
We were talking about this last week in a little bit.
I think we'll talk more about it this week, but they're providing 90% of you know the global semiconductor chips that we need for basically everything.
So, you know, China depends on them, you know, Beijing and the communist CCP.
I mean, they all depend on Taiwan just as much as the U.S. does.
So I don't think that they want to cause a global war.
They still need them.
They got to figure that out first.
Yeah, they got a lot to figure out.
Uh, all right, moving on to the economy again.
Um, this was interesting in the Epic Times, high-ranking Federal Reserve official warning on Sunday that inflation continues to rise and is now expected to outpace previous projections.
You think we've already outpaced previous projections.
Remember, it was Biden in December.
Oh, we've I think we've hit its peak, but before that it was all transitory.
Yeah, whatever.
So, anyway, so the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis president warns Sunday the current rate of inflation is troubling and will spread across the country.
Quote, it's very concerning.
We keep getting inflation readings, new data that comes in as recently as this past week, and we quote, keep getting surprised.
It's always higher than we think.
Fed branch president, the guy's name is Neil uh Kashkari.
And he said on Face the Nation, he said, and it's not just a few categories, it's spreading out more broadly across the economy.
And that's why the Federal Reserve is acting with urgency to get it under control and bring it back down.
Wages are not going up as fast as inflation.
We've told you that.
So most Americans, real wages, real incomes are going down.
We've given you the price for the average worker, it's $3,400 a year, and Biden inflation tax for a couple at $6,800.
Then you have the high price of gasoline on top of it.
I I know I filled up my tank yesterday.
You know how much it costs to fill up my tank?
106 to fill up my gas tank.
It is so irritating.
Used to take 50 bucks to fill up my gas tank.
I'm so I just sit there and the price gets higher and higher and higher.
And I'm getting angrier and angrier as I as I fill up my gas tank.
I just it just pisses me off because it's all so unnecessary.
It's just money you're pouring down the drain, and that's killing the poor middle class people on fixed income, the elderly in this country.
You know, but we should get a, you know, the more pain the the better, according to Pete Buda Jones.
That's the new motto.
Typically, we think about wage-driven inflation where wages grow quickly, and that leads to higher prices in a self-fulfilling uh spiral, but that's not happening yet.
So it's it's just a matter of time.
When you look at the economy, you know, look at, for example, what have I been warning about next?
And this was on CNBC.
Home prices cooled at a record pace in June, according to housing data firm.
I told you what's going to happen with home prices.
New home construction.
If it hasn't started and it's not part of a supply chain mess, it's just going to get worse.
It'll come to a screeching halt.
It's got to, because people are not people that have grown accustomed to interest rates that are anything below four is I would define pretty much as free money.
Anything above four percent, you know, now you start reducing the the size of home that you're likely able to afford.
Now we're talking about moving up to 7% for a 30-year fixed mortgage.
Nobody's going to want to give up their low-rate, 30-year rate mortgage.
They're not going to give it up.
There's a lot of money at stake.
So you're not going to sell a house and you have a 2.8%, 3.8% mortgage and trade it in for a 7.2% mortgage.
Nobody's going to do that because it's thousands of dollars more every month.
And with inflation soaring, that means sale of sale of existing homes is going to come to a stop.
That means home values will begin to go down.
And you see all these companies on Wall Street, they're they're out there in the housing market and they're gobbling up single family homes, you know, by the hundreds as if as investment properties.
Because when people can't afford homes, then the rental market gets stronger.
Uh federal pre federal, you know, he's so he's saying that the Wall Street Journal, Consumers have powered through the pandemic inflation until now.
The consumers that fueled the U.S. economy through the pandemic are starting to crack.
Data last week revealing new evidence from companies and government that household spending is increasingly strained.
Families are pairing back purchases of items like electronics and furniture as prices for essentials like food, gas have become more expensive.
Inflation drove consumer spending in June to a new four decade high.
Personal incomes fell when adjusting for inflation and for taxes.
I mean, there's nothing here that's good news.
I don't have any good news.
Even Disneyland is raising prices on food, and they're blaming inflation.
And critics are saying they're also shrinking their portions, which has become a good which has become a pretty common practice.
More stories about food banks around the country.
One particular story that I saw that that stood out to me.
Um, a New Jersey food bank, and by the way, this despite providing emergency relief for families during the Great Recession and Hurricane Sandy disaster.
One New Jersey food bank says they've never spent more money to feed so many people whose pocketbooks have been hurt by inflation.
The stories are the same.
Community food bank of New Jersey President Carlos Rodriguez, he said to Fox Business, it's much more expensive to fill up their tank to go to work to drop off the kids at school.
And then, of course, when they go to the grocery store, they get hit with another high cost.
And he said, according to Rodriguez, the nonprofit food bank is spending 40% more to purchase the same amount of supplies that they would have bought last year, in which they served 85 million meals.
This is a real food bank.
I mean, the one in my town is is relatively small in comparison, but I know they've been struggling because friends of mine work there, and I try to help them out whenever they get squeezed.
Whatever they I say, whenever you're running low, let me know.
Let me know.
I'll try and help out.
I don't try, I just do help out.
And I know people are doing the same thing all over the country.
Food banks in America experiencing surging demand.
Another headline, another report.
Baby formula crisis worsens as out of stock levels now hit 30%.
Parents accuse Biden of forgetting about them and mom struggling to feed twins, says, Oh, I'm sure these uh politicians' babies eat.
Oof, ouch.
So, you know, how do you this is a sad story.
By the way, do you even know what spam is, Linda?
I don't even know what spam is.
What's that?
Oh, I know what it is.
That was a staple.
That was a staple in my house.
You like spam.
I don't know if I like spam, but I would say people who are, you know, not living the high life could could feed a family on spam for sure.
Yeah, okay.
Jane Sweet Baby James is is in the other room there.
He's laughing.
He knows what it is.
He's also a military guy.
He probably really knows what it's like.
When he was in the military in the Navy, he thought an MRE tasted great.
He goes, I used to like it.
This this guy can eat anything.
And don't ever put like a bar of parmesan cheese in front of them because they'll eat the whole bar, or a long salami in front of them.
Am I right or wrong?
So you're about to tell me that spam light.
What is it?
What is it?
Looks like crap to me.
Looks like salmon.
Spam light is a way for people to eat fattening spam and not feel guilty about it.
That's all spam litus.
Still terrible.
What is but you didn't answer the question?
What I don't even know what spam is.
It's basically all the parts of uh pork that don't actually make it.
Some of them might make it to a hot dog.
I'm not sure.
I don't need hot dogs, but don't make it to the hot dog level in terms of quality.
Is that what you're telling me?
It's kind of hot dogs.
Don't get me wrong.
It's very processed, it's very nitrate-filled, and it has a very long shelf life.
Okay.
Spam now in New York City's on lockdown.
They're putting it in Wayne Reed store.
You know, it's a shelf staple, and now price has gone up.
It's $399 a can, which is very high for spam, apparently.
That is high.
Very much so.
And now they're being stocked in anti-theft cases because that happens to be, I guess, the food of choice when people go into the drugstore to take out because I guess it's it fills you up and is nourishing.
Is that why?
I mean, it is a protein.
It's not the healthiest of proteins, but it is a protein and it's cheap.
And if you're living in New York City under Biden Hochel and Adams, it might be your go-to for sure.
So it says spam chopped pork and ham.
Doesn't exactly sound appetizing to me.
It actually tastes pretty good, I'm not gonna lie.
You like it.
I mean, I haven't eaten it in many, many years, but yes, I have eaten it in my life.
It's unbelievable.
Anyway, Brugman at the New York Times, it goes on.
Um, how is your financial?
If you ask people, how is your financial condition?
It's favorable.
I'm not, I'm not getting that answer from anybody.
You know, I go shopping every week, and I know you everyone laughs when I talk about this.
What do you what do you mean you go shop?
I go shopping every week.
I like to go shopping.
Because when I get to go shopping, you know, I get I meet people every week.
I go, Hannity, what are you doing here?
I'm like, shopping.
Why?
I'm like, because I'm I'm fat, I like to eat.
That's why.
So can't you tell?
And anyway, and everyone will ask.
And then when you stop and you start talking about the price of food, everybody, it like it triggers everybody.
They go off.
They are pissed because they all see what we see that all of this has been preventable.
Wait till people realize this Mansion Schumer deal is a is gonna cost every American household a fortune.
You know, 16 billion next year alone, nearly 17, 16.7 billion on taxpayers making less than 200,000 a year.
You know what that is?
A broken promise by Joe Biden and money that people cannot afford.
So what do we have?
A Democratic Party, they're gonna tax every American, and they they're taking a big victory lap on this and lying about it, which is another thing that pisses me off.
They're gonna hire 87,000 more IRS agents, and instead of what they're they're trying to call this thing the inflation reduction act, it's not the inflation reduction act, it's the inflation uh increasing bill.
Because that's what you're gonna get for the Democrats.
You're gonna get bigger government, more IRS harassment.
You in other words, you're gonna get the Hannity treatment.
What do you mean by that, Hannity?
Uh, because they pull my.
I have to have my taxes done by two accounting firms and by a law firm.
Just to make sure nobody makes a mistake and screws it up.
God forbid, I I couldn't figure out how to do the taxes in a I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
We got you.
Now I'm Carol Markovich.
And I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.
Normally is about real conversations.
Thoughtful, try to be funny, grounded, and no panic.
We'll keep you informed and entertained without ruining your day.
Join us every Tuesday and Thursday, normally on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi.
Nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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