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May 31, 2023 - Sean Hannity Show
29:57
Trial of the Century - May 30th, Hour 3
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So many of you might not have heard of this.
And the great legal scholar, friend of this program, Greg Jarrett, is now out with a new book.
And it's phenomenal.
I mean, since I picked it up, I can't put it down.
About a century ago, you have famed liberal attorney Clarence Darrow, most of you have heard of, defending a school teacher, John Scopes, in what became a blockbuster legal proceeding that brought the attention of this, you know, to the entire country of a small town called Dayton in Tennessee, not Dayton, Ohio.
And Darrow's, you know, defense of freedom of speech helped form the legal bedrock on which our civil liberties depend today.
I mean, like everything Greg does, it was expertly researched, and it is just, it's, it's just, you know, why most people don't know about it, I don't know.
I'm glad he actually took this topic and ran with it, and it's out now in his brand new book.
It's called Trial of the Century, Amazon.com, Hannity.com today, bookstores everywhere around the country.
If you want a first print signed edition, you can go to thegregjarrettbook.com, thegregjarrett, one word.com slash book.
Greg Jarrett joins us now.
How are you, sir?
Hey, I'm well.
And thank you very much.
I'm glad you enjoy the book.
I appreciate it.
It's a subject that, you know, anybody under 50 or so has never heard of the trial of the century.
Back then, it was known as the Scopes Monkey Trial, which is what the press dubbed it, a misconception that man evolved from monkeys and other primates.
And, you know, our free speech rights were hanging in the balance in this case.
States were banning books on evolution and other subjects.
In Tennessee, they literally made it a crime for an educator in a public school to teach evolution, a cornerstone theory in science.
And, you know, America could have gone one way or the other.
And this really made the Scopes trial the trial of the century.
It really has.
Why don't you take everybody through it and tell them the background, the story, and then the impact that it's had.
It's been lasting ever since.
Yeah, you know, 1925, after World War I, you know, America turned inward, and there was this great fundamentalist movement that swept the nation, led by the iconic William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate for the Democrats.
And he pressured states into banning books on evolution.
And in Tennessee, as I say, made it a crime.
And within days, literally, this young school teacher, John Scopes, was arrested and criminally charged and taken off to jail under this new statute that said you can't teach evolution, even though it was taught in the state-approved textbooks everywhere.
And Clarence Darrow is reading about this as he sits in his office in Chicago, the famed, acclaimed lawyer, the finest troy lawyer who ever lived and who became my idol.
He's incensed and he volunteers to defend Scopes.
So it pits this titanic clash between two great American icons in the 1920s, Darrow versus Bryan, evolution versus creationism.
You know, the law was passed because the fear was that evolution undermined and conflicted with the story of the divine creation in the Bible, which it did not.
And that was Darrow's argument all along, that these are two concepts that live in harmony.
And, you know, he tried to convince the judge to allow esteemed theologians to take the stand, to say just that.
By the way, it's important that you point this out.
There are people that think it's mutually exclusive.
Either you believe in evolution or you believe in creationism.
No, creationism and the belief that a natural law or that rights come from God and that God is a creator didn't also create an evolutionary process.
Actually, that is the heart of science, which is the heart of creation as well.
You're absolutely right.
That was Darrow's position.
Indeed, it's the position of 98% of theologians in the world, the position of Pope Francis, who said not long ago that evolution presupposes creation.
They live together in harmony.
But back then, there was a different belief.
And Darrow argued that if you make the Bible the yardstick by which all learning is measured, where do we stop?
Are we going to ban magazines and newspapers?
Are we going to ban all thought?
As I say in the story, he and his young schoolteacher client fought for the indispensable proposition that no one should be told how to think, that, you know, our intellect is an open canvas of possibilities.
We should be free to paint it as we see free.
And so America stood at the precipice.
And, you know, most people think Darrow won.
He actually lost.
But what he did was he shifted America's opinion.
And it was a sea change.
And it stopped the banning of books.
Evolution and other scientific theories were then allowed to be taught in public schools.
But, you know, free speech was at risk, and we cherish it today, which makes this trial just as relevant now as it was nearly 100 years ago.
You know, it is fascinating.
And, you know, fast forward to the debates we have today, Drag Queen Story Hour and teaching transgenderism to even young kids in school.
I would argue that's indoctrinating our kids or the battle over CRT.
And meanwhile, we spend more per capita per education than any industrialized country, but the kids can't read, write, do math, science, or history, and certainly don't know a thing about computers.
And we have failed them spectacularly.
In many ways, it's like a modern-day version, isn't it?
Yeah, it sure is.
And look, the climactic moment of the trial came when Darrow, realizing he was losing, pulls a rabbit out of his hat, and he dares to call the prosecutor William Jennings Bryan to the witness stand as an expert on the Bible, knowing that Brian couldn't resist because his ego was as big as all outdoors.
And I had great respect for the man.
He was a wonderful statesman.
So Brian takes the witness stand.
They move it outdoors.
They're fearful that the courtroom is going to collapse under the great weight of all the spectators.
Thousands of people converge on the lawn outside the courthouse, and there they hold a cross-examination.
And Darrow picks apart Brian, who believed that everything in the Bible should be taken literally.
And he utterly destroyed Bryan, so much so that Brian, broken man, laid down for a nap a couple of days later, still in Dayton, just down the street from the courthouse, and never woke up.
Unbelievable.
Now, what got you interested in this in the first place?
I mean, obviously, you love history.
You love the law.
You do the deepest dives in the topics that I've ever seen.
I watched Greg write his previous two number one best-selling books as his office was next to mine at Fox.
And I see the amount of work you put into this and the amount of research was unbelievable here.
Well, I went to the courthouse a couple of years ago and went through the archives, and there was the original trial transcript along with handwritten notes from the court reporter.
And that is upon which the book is based.
I read the lengthy trial transcript over and over, and that's the fundamental part of the chapters on the trial itself.
So you will see as you read along Darrow's withering cross-examination of William Jennings Bryant and how Bryant fumbled and mumbled.
The crowd was in favor of Bryant, and suddenly they shifted as they watched this great man who they expected to have all the answers had no answers at all.
Let me ask you as we move on to some other topics.
By the way, Greg's new book is out.
You can get it at signed first print edition at thegregjarrett.com/slash book.
It's called Trial of the Century.
It's in bookstores as of today and Hannity.com, Amazon.com.
You know, we keep watching the Biden syndicate, and we keep learning more and more about government abuse of power and the DOJ and the FBI and their involvement in things.
You know, one of the questions that somebody brought up over the long weekend was, and Congress is going to look into this, why wasn't anybody, why wasn't Strzok, McCabe, Comey, Klein Smith, you know, how did they get away with not cooperating with the Durham probe?
Well, they got away with it because they simply refused.
And, you know, there was no way to force them.
I mean, Comey refused to cooperate.
He refused to, you know, testify under oath or even discuss it with the Durham investigators.
And, you know, it would have required deep litigation to force him to do that.
And in the end, he might just well have taken the fifth.
You know, so it's unfortunate, but you didn't really need Comey and McCabe and Strzok and all of the others because their documents were there.
The paper trail incriminated them and their lawless actions, their abuse of power.
The Durham Report has vindicated everything that you, Sean Hannity, argued for the better part of the last five or six years, and which I believe I got correct in my first two books, The Russia Hoax and Witch Hunt.
You know, they never have any credible evidence to open an investigation of Trump.
They knew it.
They debunked the dossier, and yet they decided to lie, not just to the FISA Corps, the American public, the president himself.
They lied to Congress.
They did it because they hated Trump and they wanted to destroy him.
Let me ask you this.
Now that we've learned about the FBI's involvement in both the 2016 and 2020 election, and we're talking about the dossier in 2016 and a lot more to it.
I'm just giving a quick summary here.
And now we know that the FBI that had the laptop in 2019 verified it in the spring of 2020.
Why then were they telling big tech that they may be victims of a misinformation campaign on a weekly basis and even specifically mentioning that it may be about Joe or Hunter Biden?
How is it that is not resonating in the country?
Because I could imagine that if there was a misinformation campaign with Donald Trump's FBI and say there was something negative out there about one of the Trump kids, why do I think that the reaction would be distinctly different?
For the mainstream media to admit it, to do stories on it, honest, forthright stories, would be an inherent admission that they committed the worst act of media malpractice in my lifetime.
They won Pulitzer Prizes for getting this story fundamentally wrong.
And those of us who got it right were mocked, ridiculed, and demeaned.
And also, I think they did a little bit of looking into our backgrounds, likely illegally, didn't they, Greg?
Oh, of course they did.
I mean, that's one of the things you learn in the Durham Report.
What is it?
276,000 times they misused FISA by spying on Americans and collecting data without the proper warrant.
I mean, this just demonstrates to me what I have long argued, that the FBI is a crooked organization at the top, not the middle, not the bottom.
Those are honest, honorable people, but on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.
And the FBI needs to be deconstructed and reconstructed the way it was meant to be.
We need another church commission to expose the lawlessness of these people and to undertake legislation to stop it.
It's unreal.
Now the CIA can add to the list as well, according to one of the whistleblowers.
Oh, yeah, they invented a lie in order to help Joe Biden get elected, and it worked.
Well, by the way, Kevin McCarthy did warn FBI Director Ray that he's going to face contempt of Congress charges if he doesn't produce the FBI's Biden bribery evidence by the end of the day.
That's that 1023 form.
Apparently, I guess Ray has agreed to meet with Comer.
We'll see how that plays out.
Yeah, there are two courses of action you can take, criminal contempt of Congress and civil.
Don't go the criminal route because that has to be handed off to a U.S. attorney who reports to guess who?
Merrick Garland, as does Christopher Wray.
So nothing will happen.
The better course is to proceed with civil contempt of Congress, file a lawsuit, go to a federal judge, hopefully an impartial one, who will then, I suspect, order Ray to turn over the document because it's not classified and there are no reasonable,
legitimate grounds to be withholding it from Congress, which has an oversight duty to look into FBI abuse, not to mention potential criminal activities existing president.
That's their job, oversight.
You said the right word.
Greg Jarrett, his new book out today, bookstores all around the country.
It's called Trial of the Century.
You don't want to miss it.
Amazon.com, Hannity.com, bookstores all across the country.
If you want to sign first copy, first printed edition, Greg has it up on the website, the GregJarrett, one word.com slash book, thegregjarrett.com slash book.
Greg, we always love having you.
Thank you, my friend.
Sean, thank you so much for your support and your friendship.
Appreciate it.
You bet.
Thank you.
Great work.
We'll continue.
Linda, you drive me nuts about getting on the road.
What now?
I am an eager, eager girl.
You know, I want things to happen when I want them to happen.
And I've been bugging you for quite a while.
I love getting on the road.
I love seeing the American people.
And I'm stoked, man.
You know, being in the Des Moines area and being able to hang out with you in 45.
I mean, I think everybody should go to Hannity.com right now, sign up, get their tickets, and come see us because I think it's going to be unbelievable.
It's going to be, we'll be in Des Moines, Iowa.
It'll be this Thursday night, and it'll be on Hannity on the Fox News channel.
It's going to be a Hannity Trump Town Hall.
For those of you saying, well, Hannity, you're only, no, we're going to put the other candidates on.
We'll give them time as well, as we promised.
And by the way, as we polled all of you and you overwhelmingly, whelmingly yelled at me that that's what you want.
Let me tell you why this is what I want.
And I think that the audience would agree with me.
I do.
The audience?
The audience.
I don't know how they say it in Iowa, but I'm willing to learn.
You know, I really feel like in New York, there are wonderful conservatives.
They're kind of hiding in the corners.
There's even some liberals that have crossed back over to our side of the aisle because they see what a terrible disaster, you know, New York has become in every corner and crevice.
But I really feel like we're going to get out on the road and we're going to see the way people work.
The way, you know, it's kind of like how we talked about during COVID, like Trucker's Truck, Farmer's Farm.
People are out there raising their kids.
They're going to school.
They're trying to feed them and pay their mortgage and all the things.
Like, that's where I want to go see these people.
I don't want to be in the bashing of liberalism trying to get it.
We act like we don't do this.
We do this every election season.
We do, but this is not like these really big live town halls.
Like that to me is so fun.
I've done a few of the, they're amazing.
They're rocking.
They're fun.
I got a lot of feedback on the audience show.
And we'll have one tomorrow night.
If you want to go to Hannity.com, you can sign up for Tomorrow Night Show if you're in the New York, New Jersey, Long Island area.
Or, you know what we're finding is people are building vacations, going for whatever reason, they choose New York City.
Now, maybe because I live in New York, the last place I choose to go on vacation is New York City.
However, other people want to see the city.
I mean, they've never been to an area like that.
And in that sense, it's definitely worth a trip in your life to go see New York City and the Statue of Liberty and see all these tall buildings and the Freedom Tower and the Empire State Building.
I mean, it's got an incredible history behind it.
A lot of people like Broadway shows.
I'm not a big Broadway guy, but some people really love it.
So they have a great time.
I think Mark Simone likes that, doesn't he?
Listen, everybody likes it.
I was just with Mark Simone last week and we're walking around Manhattan and he goes, okay, this restaurant is really good for Italian.
And this restaurant we were, you know, and I mean, it's, listen, you have to keep your eyes and ears open and you have to pay attention, but there, there really is no city other than New York.
We are going to get it back.
We are going to make it great.
It is not always going to be what it is right now.
He's never going to leave that city.
He's never leaving.
Dude, he is, Mr. D. New York.
I mean, if I'm the only taxpayer, he'll be paying the entire freight.
For the rest of his life.
The rest of his life.
He forgot about it.
Unreal.
We have some other issues.
You know, Hillary Clinton shockingly has jumped into the and chiming in that the state of Florida is not safe for African Americans and gays.
Can we take this new talking point?
Can we just go a little further?
Any red state is not safe for anybody, you know, since they had this travel advisory from the NAACP.
It's such a croc.
And ironically, if that was the case, then why does the head of the NAACP live in Florida?
They haven't been able to do that.
And he got mad.
He got mad when they called him on it.
He's like, that's irrelevant.
I'm like, I'm pretty sure it's not.
Pretty sure if you're in fear of your life, you would get out of the place where you thought they were going to come and murder you.
I mean, this is ridiculous.
By the way, there's a huge bullseye on Target now.
They took a $10 billion hit in their backlash because of, you know, they had the women's bathing suits for men with the, what do they call that area to hide their private parts?
I don't know.
I call it talk you junk, but I don't know what the real name is.
I think talk your junk has a really nice ring to it.
I suggest everyone hashtag that phrase, you know, for or against it works.
It gives, it's a very clear picture of what's happening.
How is it the New York Times wants a little more kink in the children's movie or remake of The Little Mermaid?
What's that?
So does that mean?
It's just gross.
Just leave the kids alone.
Please stop.
Honestly, they got to stop.
You know, we have Drag Queen Story Hour, transgender education for first through third grades in some places.
I mean, this is nuts.
It's nuts.
It's too much.
It's why?
Why are you so hell-bent on exposing our children to all this oversexualization?
I just don't get it.
It makes no sense to me.
Well, that Miller Light didn't learn and Budweiser-Light didn't learn.
And you know who else has fallen in line now?
Coles.
Coles.
Coles has a whole thing out today.
What the hell's going on?
I mean, are they not watching what's happening to everyone else?
Anyway, they became the latest retailer to market LGBTQ clothing to children.
Why are they targeting children in this?
How about you let the parents decide what clothes to buy their kids?
That simple.
You know, because it's not like the kids have the money to buy the clothes anyway.
All right, let me get to my busy phones here.
Roxanne is with us in Texas.
What's on your mind?
Well, I'm sharing my frustration with the whole transgender marketing that's going on right now.
And I think y'all had just an excellent conversation about it just now.
But I am a transgender female here deep in Texas.
And I'm living my life quietly and happily.
I'm involved in my community.
And what I see going on is not representative of the transgender community as I know it.
Because as a transgender female, when I go somewhere and I see a masculine man with his beard and chest and a woman's wedding dress or a masculine figure in a woman's bathing suit with all of his figure going on, I just see that as wrong.
And quite honestly, I haven't met anybody who's in agreement with this that thinks that that's attractive or cute or pretty.
Well, so you yourself made the decision to become trans.
Is that a fair statement?
I made the decision to become female.
I am leading female.
Okay, so such.
So that's called transitioning, isn't it?
I don't want to play word games or parse words.
That's correct.
You made this decision as an adult, correct?
Correct.
Okay, and maybe it's something you struggled with when you were young.
I'm just to it is.
I had a military father, though, who wasn't going to stand for it.
And we had a great relationship.
I'd had a great childhood.
I actually went on to live a quite normal, manly life, except I could never seem to get, I couldn't hold a job, and it just wasn't really anything I was doing.
I was just caught up in this whole recycling and downcycling over and over again that it cost me a marriage.
And through a series of events, this is a long story, but anyways, several years ago, I went into counseling, and they said, have you ever considered gender dysphoria?
And then it all started making sense for me and coming together.
And I will say that I am in a much better place emotionally and mentally for making that decision.
And things are going great right now.
You know, well, first of all, I think most of my audience would agree with me, and I can't speak for everybody, obviously, is as an adult, you have something in this country that we should all cherish, and we're losing a lot of it, unfortunately, on a regular basis.
It's called freedom.
And my belief is if you have the belief that everyone has the right to pursue happiness, and this is your way of pursuing happiness, I'll be very blunt, Roxanne.
It's none of my business.
My hope for you would be that you have a happy, healthy, prosperous life.
What I like in what you're saying is you don't like this indoctrination or inundating our children with it.
Tell me why.
Well, because that's a decision for the family.
You know, that's something that's quite personal.
And I think that when a child is showing signs of that, they should let that play out a little bit and decide whether or not it needs to be going through counseling or whatever.
But that's a family decision.
You know, I'm just, look, I agree with you.
And I think you agree with me that kids that are, you know, in some instances and not even pre-pubescent or teenagers, you agree with me that they're not spiritually, mentally, psychologically developed enough to make such a drastic decision like this.
Yes, I do agree with that.
It could be a phase.
It could be a phase, exactly.
And maybe at that point, they need loving parents.
Maybe they don't like what they're dealing with, however, that are going to be there for them, love them unconditionally, but also make sure that they help the child get to the bottom of it.
You know, we don't need kids in such conflict that they get depressed.
They get, you know, who knows what's going to go through their head next, right?
Well, I think we're in agreement with that.
And to another issue, I'm going to change the subject just a little bit, but as far as men going into women's spaces, a transgender person wants to blend in.
And the term that we don't want to hear is clocked.
Clocked meaning that you've been identified as transgender.
We want to pass as the gender that's in our head.
So for me, I want to pass as female.
And if someone identifies me as sir or male, that's not good.
Do you think some people do it on purpose to just be a jackass?
Well, obviously, I have people here in East Texas.
You know, I'm in the Bible Belt here, and there are people that just won't accept it.
Others have, they can't even remember what I used to be like.
But they're not your friends anyway.
I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, people that truly believe in liberty and freedom, they may not agree with it.
They may have religious conflicts over it, for example.
Another part of this, here's another part of this, that when I am called sir, because it does happen, and it's not out of being malicious or anything, it's just that they've known me for so long, they can't help it.
And they do apologize, and I tell them it's okay.
I don't get militant about it.
I don't correct them.
I go, I understand because I am changing your paradigm.
I am asking you to understand where I'm coming from and believe in what I'm telling you.
And I have been well accepted here in East Texas.
I thought I'd have to move, but the people of East Texas have been wonderful.
They love me because they look at my character and what I bring to the table.
And that's what we need to do.
We need to be part of our communities.
Caitlin Jenner just started a new pack.
I think you'd be perfect to work on her pack.
Now, I knew Caitlin when Caitlin was Bruce.
And actually, when this first all went down, it was public, I literally said, and I was just goofing around, to be honest.
I said, now, if I call you Bruce, you're not going to get all wigged out on me, are you?
And she started laughing.
She goes, no, you can call me whatever the hell you want.
And she had a good sense of humor about it.
We've had discussions.
I understand more than I did before.
Do I wish this for anybody?
I really don't.
And I'm going to tell you why, because what I sense in a lot of people is that there's a lot of emotional and mental and spiritual turmoil that goes along with this process that you all decided to go through.
And that part of it, I don't wish on anybody.
I want everyone to be happy.
Yes, absolutely.
I mean, I grew up Southern Baptist.
I'm an Episcopalian now.
But yeah, I wrestled with that.
And trust me, me and God are completely good on this.
You know, like I said, it all comes down to character and what do you bring to the table.
Hang on, let me call God.
God, are you good with Roxanne?
Okay, Norris.
I think you're good.
You think so?
Well, I think not.
No, I mean, what I'm glad about is the thing that frustrates me in this whole debate and even the drag queen story hour stuff is leave our kids alone.
Values should be instilled by parents.
There are certain decisions that parents and parents alone should be making.
In the instances where there aren't parents, hopefully there are grandparents or there are supervising adults that would take on the role of a parent and work with the child in a loving way that does not cause them great damage.
I got to run, Roxanne.
Listen, call back again.
We'd love to have you, okay?
All right, real good.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
800-941-Sean, our number if you want to be a part of the program as we continue.
And that's going to wrap things up for today.
Nine Eastern tonight, Hannity on the Fox News channel.
Full debate over this budget battle.
Newt Gingrich, Nancy Mace, Kevin McCarthy, I think, is going to join us.
Also, Tommy Laren Charlie Arnold will join us.
We have a lot of woke stuff out there.
And set you DVR, 9 Eastern, Hannity, Fox News.
See you tonight.
Back here tomorrow.
Thank you for making this show possible.
Lastly, don't forget in Des Moines, Iowa, just go to Hannity.com if you're in the area for all the details to join our town hall for Trump on what day is it?
Thursday night.
All right.
Thursday, Hannity, Des Moines, Iowa.
Go to Hannity.com.
See you tonight.
Back here tomorrow.
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