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April 11, 2023 - Sean Hannity Show
29:51
Fight for Taiwan - April 10th, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
We're here for our final news roundup and information overload.
All right, news roundup, information overload hour, 800-941-SHAWN, if you want to be a part of the program.
I'm looking at the front cover of the Drudge Report right now.
It's got a picture of China state television showing their war plans and how China is ready to fight and have a showdown with the U.S. Navy.
And by the way, echoing the comments of President Xi saying that China is now preparing for war, I guess that means against the United States.
My question is, what is Joe going to do?
Because I think the answer is going to be nothing.
That's what I think.
General Milley made the comments that China's military believes war with the U.S. is inevitable.
Listen.
And my analysis of China is that at least their military and perhaps others have come to some sort of conclusion that war with the United States is inevitable.
I don't believe war is inevitable.
I don't think it's imminent.
But I do think that we need to be very, very pragmatic and cautious going forward.
And we will reduce the likelihood of war if we remain really, really strong relative to China.
And China knows that we have the will to use it if necessary.
Pretty scary scenario.
Mike McCall, Congressman, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, saying that sending troops to Taiwan is on the table.
If this is about invading Taiwan or what President Xi calls reunification, we know it's anything but, but listen.
So, Speaker McCarthy and yourself have said that multiple times now, that we need to arm Taiwan now before there's any sort of invasion.
What about U.S. troops?
I think, you know, then you're talking about an authorized use of military force that would come out of my committee or a declaration of war, which we haven't utilized since World War II.
Would you support that?
I think if China, Congress China invades Taiwan, I think that is certainly, if the American people support this, the Congress will follow.
So you're saying that the option to authorize war powers is on the table.
If Congress China invaded Taiwan, it would certainly be on the table and something that would be discussed by Congress and with the American people.
Are they prepared to do this?
Is Taiwan worth it?
I can argue for a lot of reasons why it is.
Okay, now this goes to what I call the new axis of evil, and that is China aligning with Russia, aligning with Iran.
I'm sure North Korea will soon be a part of the mix.
The Saudis watching America abdicating their role as the leader in the free world and doing nothing when a Chinese spy balloon is allowed to fly over Alaskan airspace down the west coast to Canada into Idaho,
straight across the country into right over our military installations around the country, including Montana, where our ICBM missile sites are, and down to Missouri and Kansas and Kentucky and then the Carolinas.
Then they finally shoot it down after it's out at sea.
Well, we didn't want to shoot it down over America.
But then we have three other shootdowns of unidentified objects.
They still have never told us what they shot down.
Anyway, Gordon Chang joins us.
By the way, his Twitter handle is at Gordon G. Chang.
If you're on Twitter, he's the author of The Coming Collapse of China, The Great U.S.-China Tech War.
And he has talked about how China has simulated precision strikes against key targets on Taiwan and its surrounding waters.
Well, Gordon, we've been watching almost on a regular basis the communist Chinese flying over Taiwan airspace with their fighter jets and nobody's lifted a finger to stop it and nobody did a thing about the Chinese spy balloon and nobody did anything about Russia taking down a drone.
I would expect that the U.S. will not be sending troops over to Taiwan and that they will walk in and probably be far more successful than Russia has been in Ukraine.
Yes, and that's the real concern, Sean, because Taiwan, after the collapse in Afghanistan, just the catastrophic withdrawal, after the failure to deter Russia and Ukraine, Taiwan has actually become the test of American credibility and resolve around the world.
It's not just in East Asia, it's all of our alliances.
Everybody is looking at what we're going to do.
And you have outlined all of those things where the Bind administration has completely failed.
And therefore, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin think they can do what they want.
Just utter disregard.
The Chinese, when they flew that large spy balloon over the United States and Canada, they had utter disrespect for the Bind administration.
And we can see this in so many other places as well.
What do you think China's plans are?
I think their territorial ambitions are very clear.
And they call it reunification.
You and I would call it a hostile takeover, an invasion of a sovereign country, Taiwan.
Yet they've been very hostile to the U.S., lecturing American elected officials about even visiting Taiwan, lecturing the current Speaker of the House with meeting with the Taiwanese president, even in California, then, you know, openly hostile, you know, statements that China's ready to fight and showing their war plan clearly against the U.S. and proudly boasting about a showdown with our Navy in the South China Sea.
Well, their ambitions are, and they've been very clear about it.
They believe that they are the world's only legitimate state.
And they've also said publicly since 2017 that the moon and Mars are sovereign Chinese territory.
That makes the United States a colony in their view.
And I know that sounds ludicrous, but we ignore what the Chinese have been saying.
They actually declared a quote-unquote people's war on America in May 2019.
That's a phrase that has resonance in Communist Party lingo.
And we have the president who says, oh, well, you know, they're not an enemy.
They're not even an adversary.
They're just a competitor.
No, they're not a competitor.
And we have seen this in so many different ways, whether COVID-19 or fentanyl.
China is assaulting the United States, and we're not defending ourselves.
For well over a decade, the Communist Chinese have been building up.
It's been a massive military buildup.
President Qi announced last week that he is preparing his nation for war and up the defense budget by nearly 10%.
So it sounds to me like they're serious.
And I do not believe, and I say this with some sadness, I do not believe this president is capable of dealing with a force like China or Russia or Iran or North Korea for that matter.
I think that they will walk into Taiwan, and I don't think there'll be much U.S. assistance except for, you know, maybe some military equipment.
And I think that'll be about the end of it.
And it's not only the president.
We have a senior leadership in the Pentagon, both civilian and in uniform, that are not prepared to deal with the world the way it is.
For instance, that spy balloon, it went over an uninhabited Alaskan and Canadian territory for essentially four days.
And they could have shot it down then.
They say they were tracking it when this balloon took off from Hainan Island.
They saw it all the way across the Pacific, and yet they didn't do anything.
I mean, this is a failure of the highest order.
So how does China view this?
Because I know your book is about the coming collapse of China.
I'm not sure I believe a coming collapse in China is inevitable.
I think just the opposite.
I think that their territorial ambitions are about to be realized.
Yeah, Xi Jinping has been acting much more aggressively because he's got problems at home that he can't solve.
At the top of it is plunging property market and a contracting economy, which this year may eke out some growth, but very little.
And he's got other problems like worsening food shortages, deteriorating environment, falling currency.
So that, I think, means he sees a closing window of opportunity.
And by the way, they also sit on the edge of the steepest demographic decline in history in the absence of war or disease.
And that's forcing Xi Jinping to act fast.
And we have a Pentagon that is oblivious to that, as well as, of course, a commander-in-chief who's oblivious.
How do you feel this is going to play out?
Because it seems to be accelerating in terms of the timeframe.
That's a great question.
You know, in 1950, Dean Acheson, Secretary of State, said we would not defend South Korea, which we did.
1990, we said we would not defend Kuwait, and we did.
We Americans don't know our own mind.
And unfortunately, we've now got a commander-in-chief who is not prepared to deal and think about these issues seriously.
I don't know how he's going to react, Sean.
But the problem is the Chinese think that they can get away with all sorts of horrific acts.
And that means they're going to try, which means they're going to destabilize the world, which means that whatever we do, we are going to face a horrible situation.
And they now have more military might than ever before.
Let me ask you this.
Do you believe that America has the military advantage over China?
In a war on Taiwan, no, because China can concentrate its forces where ours are spread across the world.
We've got a better military than China.
How much better?
Because it's been weakened in recent years.
Yeah, it is not as good as it looks.
The CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has done the most extensive war gaming over Taiwan in the unclassified sector, and they show us winning, but only after horrific losses.
And that's probably going to be the case.
Wow.
Do you think America would commit U.S. troops on the ground in Taiwan?
Not until it's too late.
If the U.S. were to put troops in Taiwan and offer Taiwan a mutual defense treaty and make clear declarations, China would not invade for a lot of reasons.
But we're not going to do those things, which means we're going to leave Taiwan vulnerable, which means China probably will attack, which means there can be the worst consequences possible.
All right, quick break.
We'll continue more with Gordon Chang on the other side on Twitter.
It's Gordon G. Chang.
If you want to follow his Twitter account, I wore with Gordon Chang.
His Twitter address is Gordon G. Chang.
If you go on Twitter.
What did you think of this intelligent league exposing U.S. spying on adversaries and allies?
U.S. officials, their foreign allies, scrambling to understand out dozens of classified intelligence documents that ended up on the internet.
They were stunned and in some cases infuriated.
But the documents, which appear to have come in at least in part from the Pentagon, are marked as highly classified.
They offer tactical information about the war in Ukraine, including the country's combat capabilities.
Many of the documents seem to have been prepared over the winter for General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and other senior military officials.
But let me ask you, if you play this out, it looks like China is now simulating what?
Hitting key targets in Taiwan.
So they're doing their part too.
Saturday, by the way, Taiwan said 45 warplanes either crossed the Taiwan Strait median line, the unofficial dividing line between Taiwan and China, or flew into the southwestern part of Taiwan's air defense identification zone.
That usually would be in a lead-up.
They would want to know what systems are triggered once certain lines are crossed.
So that gives them valuable intelligence if they plan a war.
Yes, and China also simulated an attack on a foreign force, which is the United States.
We know that they plan to go after the U.S. should there be a war in Taiwan.
And for them, the Chinese to attack Taiwan successfully, they've got to impose a blockade.
And that blockade to be successful has to be so large that it includes sovereign Japanese territory.
Japan is a treaty ally of the United States, which brings us into a conflict.
So this is not just China versus Taiwan.
This becomes region-wide.
And that's because right now, China doesn't respect the U.S. world.
By the way, they can't respect anybody.
Look at the comments of Macron over the weekend.
He wants to avoid getting involved in any potential conflict between China and the U.S. over Taiwan.
He wants to reduce France's dependence on the U.S. dollar.
He made the comments follow a three-day state visit with President Xi himself.
And meanwhile, now China's aligned with the most hostile and serious threat Europe has faced in our lifetime, and that is war in Ukraine.
Yes, and Biden, when he was campaigning for president, said that he would reinvigorate America's alliances specifically with Europe.
And no European leader dared to make a comment like that during the four years of the Trump administration.
But they're making them now because they think that the American leader is feeble.
So this is a direct rebuke of President Biden.
And we're going to see more of this.
Biden's policies have seriously undermined American interests because we're actually helping China attack us.
We're doing that in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Brazil, you name it.
This is horrible foreign policy.
Listen, the Saudis made a calculated decision that the U.S. abdicated its role on the world stage, and they decided to go with the country that they thought would win the cold part of this war.
They went with China and they went with Russia and they even put aside their differences, which are deep and profound with Iran.
And now they're doing the same thing with Syria.
They have picked a winner, and the winner is not us.
Yeah, and Trump had great relations with the Saudi kingdom.
Matter of fact, Trump had the best Middle East policy of any American president since FDR, and Biden clearly has had the worst.
Biden ran on the campaign of making Saudi Arabia a pariah.
Well, guess what?
Saudi Arabia got back at the U.S., and now we're being chased out of the Middle East, where just a couple years ago, we were the dominant foreign power.
Yeah.
Anyway, Gordon Chang, we always appreciate having you on the program at Gordon G. Chang on Twitter if you want to follow his account and keep up with us.
I am telling you, I know we talk a lot about Tennessee.
I know we're talking a lot about two separate abortion rulings.
I understand we talk a lot about 2024.
But I am telling you, mark my words, this is going to be topic A, probably sooner than later.
And I actually pray that I'm wrong.
I really do.
Anyway, 800-941-Sean, our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
Don't forget we have a live audience show tonight on Hannity, 9 Eastern on the Fox News channel.
By the way, tickets are free.
Hannity.com.
Simple procedure to go through to get there, and we'd love to see you.
Everyone's having a great time.
By the way, it's so raucous.
Linda, you've seen this up close and personal.
It gets crazy in the middle.
I'm coming again in a week, I think.
I think it's next week or the week after.
When are you going to sit on the stand so I can point you out?
Listen, I'm going to sit there.
I'm going to make a lot of noise.
You didn't sit there.
You were hiding on the sidelines so nobody could recognize you.
Next time, though, I'm going to sit right in the front.
Right in the front.
We'll have a little toss.
Toss.
A little football toss.
You can't catch.
So, how are we going to have a little bit of a drink?
I'm going to say that I could.
I just, you know, I said that I would try.
Okay, so we can do that on live TV and we'll toss the ball.
Let's toss it.
Toss the ball.
It's going to be great.
It'll be great.
Actually, it would be very good TV.
It'd be great TV watching you drop the ball.
You bring your dojo next time, you and McGregor.
That would be cool.
Oh, yeah, sure.
That would actually be a very cool show.
What, him kicking my ass?
You like that on national TV?
The news is very depressing.
I could do with a little levity.
I'm just saying.
I think we all can.
Listen.
All right, let's get to our busy phones.
Let us say hi to Chris in New York.
Chris, hi, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Hi, Sean.
Thank you for taking my call.
I have so much respect for all the great work you do.
Thank you.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Real quick, yeah, I had a point I wanted to make, and as well as a question.
I'm really curious what the Supreme Court, you know, what the justices think about this entire indictment.
Because my viewpoint is that if this case somehow were brought before the Supreme Court, the only way to put this entire thing to rest where people just don't pursue political prosecutions is if the Supreme Court, in a clear-cut, nine-to-nothing decision, can just in the clearest way possible say that this can never happen again.
You know, especially someone even facing 104 years in prison for something that's clearly nonviolent, if there even was anything violated.
But that's my viewpoint: that if this case were to somehow be brought before the Supreme Court and they, in a clear, sweeping, nine-to-nothing decision, just can say this can never happen again, that could just, you know, hopefully put this whole pattern to a halt.
So that's my one general point.
So I was kind of curious about after Mr. Trump's attorneys appeal, or after they try to get a dismissal, I have my doubts about this New York judge granting a dismissal.
So I guess I'm curious once they start appealing that decision, at what point does it leave the jurisdiction of New York?
You know, presumably it would go move up the chain to appellate judges in New York.
To be honest, I don't think they're going to do anything on this particular.
Now, there'll be motions filed, but I don't think ultimately if you got to a jury trial, which it should never get to, but if that happened, I don't think you'd see that until early next year.
By the way, what perfect timing?
Right in the middle of the primary season and caucus season around the country.
And then God knows what else is going to happen.
I mean, you know, even though I've read the transcript of the Georgia phone call again and again and again, and if you take, you know, there's only one line that the media mob and Democrats use.
You only need to find 11,000, however many votes, but they forget all the arguments ahead of time.
And it's a pretty thick transcript if you print it out.
There are a lot of other things said in that call that nobody's taken issue with.
And Donald Trump laying out in very specific terms in many cases exactly where he thinks Georgia failed in terms of following election laws and what needed to be done in terms of ensuring that this was an election with integrity.
So, you know, I think, as I said last week, I think all of this combined, and you got a special counsel looking into January 6th and the document issue.
I think it's all designed to create a tsunami of legal attacks against Donald Trump to either get him to pull out or convicted.
Although some people, you know, suggest that maybe they're just tying him up in knots so he gets the nomination.
I'm not really buying that argument as much as others are.
I don't think that's what it is.
I think they want to destroy him.
That's my take.
No, absolutely.
And I guess with respect to the New York case, I'm just curious, like once his attorneys try to get the case dismissed, which I don't think in New York.
They'll try to get it dismissed.
They'll try for a change of venue.
None of that's going to work, in my view.
So after the judge does not grant a dismissal, they would presumably appeal it, right, to hire judges in New York, I'm assuming.
Yeah, that's all part of the process.
But in terms of it's scheduled to go back to this court, we're talking about December now.
Gotcha.
Okay.
I didn't know if pre-trial at any point.
Well, they could try to expedite it considering you have the presidential run factor connected to it.
They might have some success there.
And I think Joe Takapina is a great lawyer.
He also hired another lawyer that's really good to be on the case with him.
So I think they've got the right people for the case.
It's just a matter of the wheels of justice turn very, very slowly.
Anyway, appreciate the call, Chris.
Thank you.
800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, Chris in Pennsylvania, Chris, how are you?
Glad you called.
Good, Sean.
Thanks for taking my call.
Sean, I just want to make a point that, like you were talking about, President Trump, you're not buying into the whole thing that they want him to win the nomination.
Here's my take on the whole thing.
I think they know exactly what they're doing.
They're playing chess here.
They're way more worried about Ron DeSantis.
And the reason I say that is Ron DeSantis is basically President Trump without the baggage.
They don't have anything on that guy.
He doesn't take any crap from the media.
He doesn't pull any punches and he doesn't take your bait.
They're more worried about him.
Now, what they do know is that Donald Trump has so much baggage, they're just begging, begging for him to win this nomination.
If that's the case, why are they trying to tie him up and then hopefully get a conviction and hopefully get him in jail?
That part doesn't make sense to me.
Well, they know they're not going to get a conviction.
They don't care that they're going to get a conviction.
Well, they're not going to get one in New York.
We don't know what will happen in Georgia.
I mean, if I pick three places, I would not want a conservative or not think their odds are going to be fair in terms of any legal matters, it would be New York, D.C., and Fulton County, Georgia.
Those would be, that'd be on my top 10 list right there.
I agree with you.
I agree with you.
Look, listen, Ron DeSantis has been a great governor, and I think Trump was a great president.
Now, in terms of the issues involving Trump and what you call baggage, or how much of this was induced by the media?
The Russia hoax, that was three years of his presidency and him having to fight back every day.
It didn't put him in a posture where he could focus just on his work.
Add to that the first impeachment.
Add to that the double standard with Hillary and the Clintons and the Bidens, etc.
Add to that the second impeachment.
Add to that all of the other, you know, investigations that were ongoing.
I never saw one man attack like he's been, and he did a great job as president.
And I'll add that Ron DeSantis has done a great job as governor.
I agree with all that.
But here's the point I'm trying to make, Sean: is all of that being said, all of that is 100% true.
They're counting on him getting the nomination, but they're also counting on, because of all of that, a lot of the Republican base is going to be afraid.
They're going to back away from it, and they're planning on getting, they're hoping that.
Are they going to be afraid or are they going to say, go out and in droves and say, I'm sick and tired of this crap?
And we need, for example, I mean, look what's happening in the world.
China, we spent a lot of time today talking about China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea.
You know, these are real clear present dangers.
Then you add the economic mess.
You know, are you going to want, if the world is on the verge of war, do you want the guy that is viewed as strong and maybe even a little bit crazy that he would do what he says he's going to do?
Or do you want a guy that has not been tested in that arena yet?
Now, I think Ron, you know, one day will be president.
But I'm just saying, you just, it doesn't seem like I hear what you're saying, and I've heard other people say this to me.
I'm not convinced that they are trying to do anything other than destroy Trump, the obvious.
I'm not convinced that they've thought through we'd rather go up against Trump than Ron DeSantis, because if they really believe that, they'd leave him alone.
Well, they would leave him alone.
However, I mean, it's a double-edged sword.
No matter what happens, in their eyes, in their arrogance, they win no matter what happens because they really believe, and I believe this is all my heart.
They believe that not only will it taint him and dissuade Republicans for voting for him again.
Yeah, they're trying to bloody him up, no doubt about it.
But let me promise you something else.
Whether the candidate is Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, let's see, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, which is a joke.
Who else is it?
Maybe Glenn Young.
We keep hearing rumors he may want to get in.
Whoever that nominee is, I can promise you with 100% certainty that they will smear, slander, besmirch, and try to destroy them too.
I promise you.
Of course they will.
Oh, and it's going to be the same old song and dance.
They want to come Medicare.
They want to do this.
They want to do that.
Same thing they've been singing for decades.
And none of it's true.
We all know that.
But they now, there was a report last week that they have a 500-page dossier, the left, on Ron DeSantis, and they will unleash hell.
Let me just give you an example here of just the depth of hatred in terms of all things Trump.
Democrats, media mob, you know, and Alvin Bragg running to get one man, one organization, one family.
I mean, just replace the name Trump with any Republican because that's what they're going to try to do to any Republican presidential candidate.
They even tried to do it against Mitt Romney, if you recall.
Anyway, just listen because this puts, it's just, it shines a light on what I'm talking about.
I know a lot of people are wondering, whoever has this job, are they going to convict Donald Trump?
Look, that is the number one issue.
The Times calls Bragg a talented prosecutor whose successful suit of the Trump Foundation could be invaluable experience for the investigation he'll take over.
As the chief deputy attorney general in New York State, I oversaw some of the office's biggest cases from exposing illegal behavior by the Trump Foundation.
We know there's a Trump investigation.
I have investigated Trump and his children and held them accountable for their misconduct with the Trump Foundation.
I also sued the Trump administration more than 100 times.
We know that the DA is investigating Trump.
When I was at the AG's office, I sued Trump over 100 times for his administration's misconduct and brought a case against the Trump Foundation and held him accountable.
Donald Trump pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan courtroom, again, to 34 counts of falsifying business records and conspiracy.
Conspiracy is a very effective tool used by prosecutors to charge someone, charge groups of people, and hold them accountable for all acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.
But the big question now arises, who is the conspiracy?
It's 34 accounts of falsifying records and conspiracy.
It's 34 accounts of falsifying business records and conspiracy.
More information.
And we need to see what was the purpose of the conspiracy, who was in the conspiracy, what were the so-called overt acts.
You actually have to take a step in for servants of the servants of that conspiracy.
You don't actually have to complete the conspiracy.
You don't actually have to go through with it.
You can just intend to go through with it.
Now, the conspiracy count is important because it doesn't just give the district attorney a legal platform to make Alex to bring in the catch and kill narrative, but it actually will likely be what's called a speaking indictment.
We have new information for the first time out of court that the DA is charging this as a false business records and conspiracy case.
We have a conspiracy count that lets you give a narrative that describes the evidence that the grand jury heard and voted on.
There are 34 counts of falsifying business records and conspiracies.
So add the conspiracy element to this.
Conspiracy element here would indicate that he conspired with others, right?
That there are other people involved in this effort.
People have talked about a miracle.
I'm hearing about a nightmare.
This was a whitelash.
This was a white lash against a changing country.
It was a white lash against a black president in part.
And that's the part where the pain comes.
I think some of this cultural anger we should correctly identify as being racial animus.
America is crying tonight.
I appreciate a good call.
800-941-Sean is a number if you want to be a part of the program.
Great Hannity tonight, 9 Eastern audience show, free tickets, Hannity.com.
Free.
Did you hear that?
We should have more liberals show up because it's free.
Anyway, it's better than a Broadway show.
I'll tell you that.
Anything's better than a Broadway show.
That's true.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for tonight.
We have an amazing Hannity lineup tonight.
Jim Jordan going after Alvin Bragg in the latest, the great one Mark Levin.
Greg Jarrett will join us.
Alan Dershowitz will join us.
Charles Payne, Kaylee McEnany, Jimmy Fela, Nine Eastern, live audience show.
Remember, for free tickets, just go to Hannity.com.
We'd love to have you join us.
It's a lot of fun.
Live audience show tonight, 9 Eastern, the great one, Mark Levin, Jim Jordan.
I mean, we got a great lineup tonight.
See you tonight.
Back here tomorrow.
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