Battle of the States - December 1st, Hour 1
Sean recounts the Desantis/Newsom debate and shares his thoughts on how it went.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sean recounts the Desantis/Newsom debate and shares his thoughts on how it went.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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| This is an iHeart podcast. | |
| You want smart political talk without the meltdowns? | |
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| I'm Carol Markowitz 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. | |
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| Join us every Tuesday and Thursday, normally, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. | |
| 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 with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, 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. | |
| All right, thank you, Scott Shannon, and thanks to all of you for being with us. | |
| Write down our toll-free telephone number this Friday. | |
| It is 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program. | |
| I had a great time last night. | |
| Linda, could you tell you me? | |
| You could tell I was having a good time. | |
| I mean, you were in your prime. | |
| That's for dang sure. | |
| I was in my prime. | |
| I don't know how to take that, but. | |
| No, it's a good thing. | |
| Like, I was, you know, like I said, it's your first time being a moderator. | |
| You did a good job. | |
| It's harder than you think. | |
| I mean, the amount of work, research, fact-checking that goes on behind the scenes. | |
| I've been working hard on this for a couple of weeks, and I wanted, we got every single fact right as a basis to every question. | |
| As far as the noise that is going on in terms of people complaining, I don't really care because I know the truth and I have evidence of the truth if need be. | |
| But, you know, and the funny thing was, is Gavin Newsom was fine with it. | |
| Look, here's the challenge if you're a moderator. | |
| You put out a question and if a candidate does not want to answer that question, they're not going to. | |
| Now, you can go back, and I did go back on a number of questions that when I would ask, for example, the first question out of the box about migration. | |
| You know, and I put up on the screen facts. | |
| The facts are from the U.S. Census Bureau in this case. | |
| 750,000 people in the years, I think we had 2021 and 2022 had left the state of California. | |
| That's the first time in the history of the state that that's ever happened. | |
| They always had people moving into the state. | |
| Having lived there five years, it is a beautiful state. | |
| If you've never driven the Pacific Coast Highway, you got to do that at some point in your life. | |
| It will be worth every bit of all the time in the world. | |
| It really will be. | |
| And I didn't have a lot of money when I lived in California. | |
| That's where I eventually got started in radio in the 1980s. | |
| I'm aging myself here. | |
| But it is a beautiful state. | |
| I mean, coastline, it is spectacular. | |
| It was the state of Ronald Reagan. | |
| It was the state of Richard Nixon. | |
| And it is now so solidly blue, it's amazing. | |
| And as I've been pointing out, I couldn't understand in the lead up to the debate why some people didn't understand this. | |
| I think people now understand it a little more because we've discussed it. | |
| But if you don't pay attention to what your local government is doing, your state government is doing, they can have a greater impact, overall impact on your life more than whatever might be going on with the federal government, although that is obviously important as well. | |
| I mean, for example, start on the local level. | |
| Start with your local school board. | |
| If your local school board is woke and they want to teach about gender identity and CRT, et cetera, and you're a parent that would prefer they stick to the basics, reading, writing, math, science, history, computers, understand, if you don't pay attention to it, they're just going to do whatever they want and they won't be held accountable and your kids won't be getting the traditional education that I think is so critical. | |
| I mean, on every issue that we talked about, it impacts people's lives. | |
| But, you know, in this particular case, I felt Governor Newsom just came in with his own opening statement. | |
| I went back to him. | |
| I said, but you haven't addressed the issue of why are people leaving your state? | |
| Why are states like Florida? | |
| I mean, in that same time period, nearly a half a million people, 454,000 people moved into the state of Florida in a two-year period. | |
| That is massive migration. | |
| And the phenomenon, it is blue states that are losing the population. | |
| Now, you might argue that, well, maybe people in New York are retiring and maybe they don't like the winners in New York or New Jersey or Illinois. | |
| But, well, California doesn't fit into that category. | |
| They're not leaving because they don't like the weather. | |
| They actually probably love the weather. | |
| Then you go into the issue of taxation. | |
| And okay, so you talk, well, Governor Newsom believes in, quote, taxing the rich. | |
| They have a high marginal tax rate, the highest in the country at over 13%. | |
| But yet if you're a married couple making $84,000 a year, you're still paying 6% of your income for state income taxes. | |
| And then all the other taxes. | |
| And again, fact-based, I put it all on the screen, let people see it. | |
| I think that informs people. | |
| It makes it a healthier debate. | |
| So I did my best and then did my best to allow Governor DeSantis to be the one debating Gavin Newsom after I threw out the topics. | |
| And I was very transparent with both sides. | |
| I said, guys, you don't have to overthink this. | |
| I am going to be talking about all the obvious issues. | |
| It was very, very clear. | |
| In other words, that this wasn't going to devolve into some type of debate about questions that you would never have imagined or prepared for. | |
| I wanted them to be prepared. | |
| I wanted them to explain it. | |
| If you look at the border, I mean, it is shocking to me that there's not a sense of urgency at what is a clear and present danger to our country. | |
| When you look at the number one state sponsor of terror and the number of foreign nationals that we've caught, not including potential gotaways, how did 659 Iranians end up at our southern border? | |
| The number one state sponsor of terror. | |
| Look at Afghanistan, where we know al-Qaeda still exists. | |
| 6,386. | |
| Egypt, 3,153. | |
| Last I checked, the Muslim Brotherhood is still very large and active out of Egypt. | |
| Syria. | |
| Syria, of course, has been involved in proxy battles on behalf of Iran, 538. | |
| Then you go to countries like China. | |
| Why are we allowing 22,000? | |
| How come 22,187 Chinese nationals showed up at our border? | |
| And why did 22,000 Russians show up at our border? | |
| Again, not including gotaways. | |
| That's our number one, number two, number three, if you include Iran, geopolitical foes. | |
| Is there not a strong possibility that they come here with the nefarious intentions and agenda, maybe to create a terror cell in the hopes of another 9-11 or maybe even, God forbid, worse? | |
| That wouldn't be good for this country. | |
| And these are very important issues. | |
| Now, I give both candidates credit that they were not candidates, both governors credit for coming to the debate. | |
| They got in the arena, and I appreciate that fact, but you can't stop people that have their own agendas. | |
| But I thought this was a very, very, very important debate to have, you know, besides a little over talking. | |
| And I tried hard not to, I tried to let the debate breathe, as I was saying during the debate. | |
| I tried to allow each side to get their say in. | |
| I thought they both had enough time. | |
| At the end of the debate, it was actually Gavin Newsom that had spoken more than Ron DeSantis. | |
| But the idea that, for example, if California embraces what they have embraced, which is sanctuary state status, and Governor DeSantis sends people to Sacramento on an airplane because he believes in law and order on our borders and our sovereignty and the rule of law and believes it for security reasons. | |
| And then you have a sanctuary state. | |
| Well, if that's your policy, take it. | |
| Then, okay, then I thought that's what you were promising people. | |
| By the way, in California in January, health care is going to be provided to anybody. | |
| You can walk into that state. | |
| You can get on their Medi-Cal plan. | |
| Well, what's that going to do to the high cost of living in California and the high rate of taxation? | |
| There are Democrats around the country now that are sounding off on Joe's border crisis. | |
| Governor Healy of Massachusetts is calling it a crisis of inaction. | |
| The governor of Illinois, Pritzker, is calling it an untenable situation. | |
| The mayor of New York is saying this will destroy New York City. | |
| Arizona governor, I'm sorry, Arizona Senator Kelly is saying that it's chaos. | |
| It's an utter mess. | |
| You know, it all impacts things. | |
| Now, what are the reasons that people are leaving? | |
| You know, 750,000 people left California in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. | |
| That's a large amount of people, and that had never happened before. | |
| You look at New York, they lost 528,000. | |
| You look at Illinois, they lost 262,000. | |
| New Joyce lost 142,000. | |
| And they all seem to be moving to states like Florida and Texas and Tennessee and the Carolinas. | |
| People just getting out. | |
| When you look at the southern border encounters, it's $6.5 million according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. | |
| And again, we were very meticulous in our fact-checking last night. | |
| And then you talk about what Senator Ron Johnson said they estimated, what, 1.7 million gotaways. | |
| That's a lot. | |
| Homeland, the House Homeland Security report on how much this is costing, we, the American people, okay, up to $450 billion a year at a point where we now have very close to $34 trillion in debt that, you know, this year alone, we're going to pay a trillion dollars in interest on the debt. | |
| Well, that's 25% of our budget. | |
| Before you pay a dime into Social Security or a dime into Medicare or a dime into defense or a dime into any other program, guess what? | |
| You got to pay the debt off first before you can do anything else. | |
| I mean, that is a massive amount of money. | |
| How are we ever going to pay that back? | |
| Now, what I would do is I'd become the most energy-dominant and energy-rich country on the face of the earth. | |
| And I don't see that they're going to do that. | |
| You know, but all of these issues, gas price comparisons. | |
| I mean, why is it that the national average is $3.25 and Florida's cost per gallon is $3.10. | |
| And for the record, gas never averaged nationally above $3 under Donald Trump for four years. | |
| And then you go out to California, it's $4.88 a gallon. | |
| And then they're suing the oil companies. | |
| And what happens when the oil companies, they've got to get that money back. | |
| They've got to hire expensive lawyers. | |
| They got to put them on retainer. | |
| Then they probably have to fight it in court. | |
| That's going to be probably tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars. | |
| Well, what are they going to do? | |
| How are they going to pay for all that? | |
| Well, they're going to start charging more for the price of energy, as if that's the last thing that we need. | |
| But they still do have prop 13, which is on the books, which is one tax where it's a little bit lower than Florida in California, 0.75%. | |
| Florida's 0.91%. | |
| But the sales tax is higher. | |
| The gas tax is much higher. | |
| Corporate income tax, a little bit higher in Florida. | |
| But the bottom line is there's not a penny, not one penny in income tax in the state of Florida for anybody. | |
| But if you're a family of just a married couple and your combined income is $84,000 a year, in a state like California, that is not a lot of money. | |
| In that state, that really is you're just getting by if you are getting by. | |
| Well, that couple has to pay 6% income tax on top of their federal income tax. | |
| I mean, this is all impacting people's lives. | |
| Anyway, we'll get your thoughts throughout the day on it and have analysis play some of the debate last night. | |
| Linda, you liked it, right? | |
| You said you were kind of riveted to it. | |
| I liked it a lot. | |
| I liked the conversation on abortion. | |
| I thought that was interesting. | |
| Okay, that was one big issue, too. | |
| But what states do really does matter. | |
| And they're having huge impacts on people's lives. | |
| I know we tend to focus more on the federal government, naturally, but state regulation, state taxation, state policy, local policy, local regulation. | |
| Let me tell you, it plays a big part in your life. | |
| And many of you may not even be aware of it. | |
| Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hammond. | |
| And I'm Carol Markowitz. | |
| We've been in political media for a long time. | |
| Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane. | |
| That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity. | |
| We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor. | |
| We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously. | |
| So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional tax. | |
| You're our kind of people. | |
| Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday. | |
| On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. | |
| 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. | |
| 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. | |
| It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory. | |
| Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre? | |
| Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit. | |
| We kill the ambassador just to cover something up. | |
| You put two and two together. | |
| Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy? | |
| Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years. | |
| I'm Leon Nayfok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. | |
| This is Fiasco, Benghazi. | |
| What difference at this point does it make? | |
| Yes, that's right. | |
| Lock her up. | |
| Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. | |
| Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm. | |
| And I'm Carol Markowitz. | |
| We've been in political media for a long time. | |
| Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane. | |
| That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity. | |
| We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor. | |
| We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously. | |
| So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people. | |
| Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday. | |
| On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. | |
| 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 download Verdict with Ted Cruz Now, 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. | |
| It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory. | |
| Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre? | |
| Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit. | |
| We kill the ambassador just to cover something up. | |
| You put two and two together. | |
| Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy? | |
| Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years. | |
| I'm Leon Napok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries. | |
| This is Fiasco, Benghazi. | |
| What difference at this point does it make? | |
| Yes, that's right. | |
| Lock her up. | |
| Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. | |
| All right, as we roll along, happy Friday, 800-941-Sean, our number. | |
| You want to be a part of the program? | |
| Well, number one, if you wanted to vote on who you think the winner of the debate was, last I checked, it was pretty high for DeSantis on Hannity.com. | |
| You can go there. | |
| Also, we announced today we're getting back into town hall time with, what, close to only about 40 days left to Liowa. | |
| We have a Donald Trump town hall in Davenport on Tuesday. | |
| If you want tickets, you have to sign up. | |
| It's simple. | |
| Just go to Hannity.com. | |
| You can also vote on the debate. | |
| I noticed the Drudge Report also, they had a poll up that showed DeSantis winning by significant margin on the Drudge Report. | |
| It was nearly 70% the last time I looked. | |
| I think it's 68%, 69% or something. | |
| So ours is 88. | |
| Okay. | |
| We'll put it in the middle. | |
| They'll split it. | |
| We'll call it 78 if you want to do that. | |
| But anyway, if you want to sign up, that's next Tuesday, Davenport. | |
| Maybe you want to make a trip of it. | |
| We'd love to have you come. | |
| They're a lot of fun. | |
| I bring a lot of footballs. | |
| I throw them out to the crowd. | |
| And we have not interviewed President Trump in a while, so it's time to get back into it as now we head into the election season and so much left, so much to talk about. | |
| I mean, this was the thing about last night. | |
| We could have gone easily four hours. | |
| I could have sat there four hours, and I promise you, I would not have run out of questions. | |
| The hard part for me as the debate was going on is, I really want to ask these five questions, but I can only get two of them in. | |
| Drives me crazy when that happens. | |
| All right, 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program later on, Steve Moore on the economy, Joe Concha on last night's debate, Carrie Lake on the issue of the border, which came up extensively last night as we continue. | |
| When fake news gives you lies, Hannity supplies the truth. | |
| Sean Hannity is on right now. | |
| Hi, 25 to the top of the hour. | |
| I'm loving this piece on the politico. | |
| I know you probably read it, Linda. | |
| Newsome cam. | |
| Hannity DeSantis cheated because they say, well, Ron DeSantis, Governor DeSantis, brought out a prop. | |
| He took out a piece of paper out of his jacket. | |
| They cheated. | |
| Is this the minutiae that these people are getting into? | |
| Can someone please tell me how bringing out a piece of paper out of your own pocket? | |
| I can't make it up, man. | |
| Give me a freaking break. | |
| I mean, it's just annoying. | |
| I actually find it amusing. | |
| And apparently, they were not happy when Gavin was having a great time. | |
| He then tweeted out, oh, I had the best time ever. | |
| And thanked me when I left. | |
| But I guess the people behind the scenes didn't particularly. | |
| I don't know why they didn't like it. | |
| I have no idea. | |
| Because they're liberals. | |
| They're jobs. | |
| If I ever told the real story, yeah, the people that were, let's just say, not exactly prone to keeping their agreements and words. | |
| There's a pretty big story for me to tell, but I'm going to stand by my word as of now and not tell these stories because they're so it's almost to the point was unbelievable. | |
| I'm glad they debated. | |
| I applaud both of them. | |
| It was a fair debate. | |
| And, oh, and then complaints, I guess that I actually used nobody, nobody has disputed a single fact that I used in my questions. | |
| They're just mad that I put it up on the screen as part of my questioning. | |
| And if that is your position, if that is your record, why don't you defend your record? | |
| Defend your policies. | |
| Defend your decision. | |
| There are people that think higher taxes are better. | |
| That's how some liberal minds work. | |
| Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. | |
| Yeah, and then guess what? | |
| The rich start leaving. | |
| Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich. | |
| We did now, God forbid, the rich leave. | |
| The rich are leaving. | |
| They're leaving New York. | |
| Governor Cuomo called that one right. | |
| They're leaving New York in droves. | |
| They're leaving California in droves. | |
| It's a phenomenon we've never seen before. | |
| I'll think about a response. | |
| It's just like, I guess you didn't feel that your candidate did well or your governor did well if you're just whining like this over the most petty things in the world. | |
| By the way, which most of which is not true. | |
| I don't know who it was. | |
| People are asking me about the report. | |
| I did hear somebody after Governor Newsom said, I'd like to keep going. | |
| Somebody came in. | |
| I don't know who it was. | |
| I did have an opportunity to speak to him twice yesterday with his staff and once with his wife. | |
| She was lovely. | |
| And our first partner, I think they call officially, I want to use the proper term that they prefer. | |
| And it just lovely. | |
| They couldn't have been nicer. | |
| And he in person is a nice guy. | |
| However, the policies are the policies. | |
| The record is the record. | |
| The questions were on the most basic and fundamental issues that impact people's lives. | |
| It is that simple. | |
| Immigration, policy impacts people's lives. | |
| Taxes impact people's lives. | |
| Regulation impacts people's lives. | |
| Crime, law, order. | |
| It's a prerequisite for happiness or the pursuit of happiness. | |
| It impacts people's lives. | |
| All of the issues I brought up. | |
| When I prepared for this debate, the one thing I wanted to do was make it relevant to every single person, not just in California and Florida, but the issues we're all facing. | |
| Crime, regulation, taxation, immigration, illegal immigration. | |
| You know, how do we pay for all of this? | |
| And I felt that we accomplished that goal. | |
| And that was it. | |
| And we were very transparent with both sides saying the exact same thing. | |
| And, you know, whatever. | |
| Anyway, 800-941 Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program. | |
| Look, because of you, this great mission at preborn.com slash Sean is doing phenomenally well. | |
| They've already rescued over 40,000 babies this year alone. | |
| And this is the group. | |
| They use science, the science of 4D ultrasound. | |
| And what they do is they offer free ultrasounds to any expecting mom. | |
| They offer other services as well, like counseling. | |
| They offer, and after a mom gives birth to a child, if they need help, they still offer to help them. | |
| But they don't do it with taxpayer money because, unlike Planned Parenthood, well, it's not the government's philosophy to do that. | |
| Anyway, they just need your help. | |
| If you are in the pro-life community, believe in the sanctity of life, every one of those 4D ultrasounds is $28. | |
| And what they're finding is, and Linda, we've talked a lot about this. | |
| It's amazing. | |
| You had the ability to see Liam with such high definition that I did not have. | |
| That technology did not exist when my kids were born. | |
| And that's the thing. | |
| If you can see a child's face, if you can hear its heartbeat, and you know it's a living creature and it's not just some quote-unquote thing, as many would like you to think, you change your mind. | |
| And that's what pre-born's doing. | |
| It's changing hearts and minds. | |
| And right now, by the way, if you donate to Pre-Born and you believe in this mission, your match, they have a match going on where your gift will be doubled. | |
| In other words, you give 100, it's going to be 200. | |
| Anyway, two ways to donate. | |
| Dial pound250, say the keyword baby, pound250, keyword baby, or just go to their website. | |
| It's preborn.com/slash Sean, S-E-A-M. | |
| Preborn.com/slash Sean. | |
| All right. | |
| Now, we got so much news out there. | |
| I don't even know what to say about this issue involving George Santos. | |
| He hasn't been convicted. | |
| Now, it's actually personal in a way to me. | |
| I don't know how I got stuck with this guy, but he happened to be, he no longer is my congressman. | |
| And what I don't understand, what I don't understand about Republicans is if Congresswoman Talib called, you know, from the river to the sea, the absolute wiping out of Israel and only gets a censure, how is it a guy that's not been convicted of anything, he's been charged, that the Republicans have to race out there and say, nope, we're going to kick him out when they only have a four-seat majority. | |
| Now it's down to three with reports that as many as two other Republicans might retire by year's end or early next year, one of them being Kevin McCarthy. | |
| Okay, now they're down to a one-vote majority. | |
| God forbid somebody had a heart attack and passed away or didn't want to be there either. | |
| Okay, now what, Speaker Jeffries? | |
| This is where Republicans do not, I keep saying, Democrats, they circle the wagons. | |
| Republicans, they create circular firing squads. | |
| And anyway, I mean, one thing John Fetterman said today, I can't believe I'm quoting him. | |
| If Republican George Santos deserved to be expelled, well, the same thing should then happen to the indicted Democratic senator from New Jersey, and that would be Bob Menendez. | |
| What's your reaction to the expulsion? | |
| Well, it's like, I'm not surprised. | |
| But to me, I think the more important picture is that we have a colleague in the Senate that actually did much more sinister and serious kinds of things, Senator Menendez. | |
| He needs to go. | |
| And if you are going to expel Santos, how can you allow somebody like Menendez to remain in the Senate? | |
| And, you know, Santos's kind of lies were almost funny. | |
| And like, you know, he landed on the moon and got kind of stuff. | |
| Whereas, you know, I think, you know, Menendez, I think, is really a senator for Egypt, you know, not New Jersey. | |
| So I really think he needs to go. | |
| And especially it's kind of strange that if Santos is not allowed to remain in the House, you know, someone like that. | |
| I mean, first of all, I would not support that. | |
| Linda, am I like one of the few people that refuses to rush to judgment? | |
| You know, does not go along with this, you know, this constant pattern that people, oh, you're guilty, your charged, you're guilty. | |
| No, I don't believe that. | |
| I believe until you've proven guilty. | |
| Yes, go right ahead. | |
| I just want to give a slight comparison. | |
| So this is the same Congress, House and Senate, that is unable to vote to impeach Mayorkas. | |
| It's the same House and Senate that is unable to vote on funding Israel. | |
| It's the same one. | |
| They had a chance this week to fund Israel in a clean bill. | |
| Voted me. | |
| Standalone bill. | |
| No. | |
| Schumer's up there crying. | |
| Oh, my heart for Israel. | |
| Oh, really? | |
| Why don't you rally the troop, Schumer? | |
| Just start pulling some strings. | |
| We all know you have them. | |
| Knock it off. | |
| We could have cut the check already. | |
| Yep, crocodile tears. | |
| They're so full of crap. | |
| But Santos, oh, yeah, he's the problem. | |
| And this is, listen, I have, I'm not giving my opinion on who he is and what he's about. | |
| That's a different segment entirely. | |
| My point is, when they want to act, they act. | |
| And this is all like pomp and circumstance. | |
| They could do things to help people. | |
| No, not. | |
| I think, how about we wait till they have their trial and give them the presumption of innocence? | |
| Why don't we stop rushing to judgment the way these people do? | |
| I do have other good news, by the way. | |
| Bad news if you're a Chris Christie fan, all 15 of you. | |
| It looks like Christie's days on the debate stage may be numbered. | |
| He's not met the Republican National Committee's polling thresholds for qualifying for next week's debate. | |
| I didn't even know there was a debate. | |
| Oh, there is a debate next week. | |
| That's right. | |
| With only a few days left. | |
| Anyway, let's get to the phones. | |
| John is in the Commonwealth of Virginia. | |
| Hey, John, happy Friday, sir. | |
| Glad you called. | |
| John, how are you doing, my friends? | |
| I'm good. | |
| What's going on? | |
| Hey, I just wanted to comment. | |
| Last night, I was able to listen to the audio of last night, and I thought what you handled it brilliantly. | |
| I think what you letting them talk over one another for the period of time that they did, I thought was brilliant. | |
| What that taught me was how, in typical Democrat fashion, Newsome just, he can't support his own position, so he's got to talk down to, belittle, talk over everybody else. | |
| And I thought when you put up the graphics and then he told us that, you know, it was a lie and that we shouldn't believe our own eyes. | |
| I thought you handled it very, very well. | |
| I think you did a great job. | |
| I honestly, I really appreciate it. | |
| It's a balancing act. | |
| I mean, I've been hosting radio for 33 years now, okay? | |
| And we've had many shootout debates on this program. | |
| And, you know, I have learned it's kind of an art form to the best of my ability. | |
| There are times when they're going at it hard and people actually want to see it. | |
| Now, they'll tell you they don't, but they do. | |
| But then you got to balance that where, okay, people are going to be getting pissed off and it's got to stop and you got to get control of it. | |
| So it's kind of like, you know, I'm always trying to measure. | |
| And usually I kind of go with my own, all right, I've had enough of this. | |
| When I get to that point or somebody writes me and gets and says, and I see my text come in and say, this is getting old, I'll move on. | |
| I appreciate your kind words, though, John. | |
| Thank you, buddy. | |
| Have a great weekend. | |
| Adam in California. | |
| Adam, how are you? | |
| Doing good. | |
| I'm doing good. | |
| I was in a chat group with a bunch of my friends, and I think I was like one of maybe five conservatives in the group. | |
| It was about 50 or 60 friends. | |
| It was a large group chat. | |
| But a lot of them thought that it was two-on-one. | |
| You and you went to Santis against Newsom. | |
| And I think I was the only one in there that knew that you have a relationship with Newsome outside, a friendly relationship outside of politics. | |
| I mean, if you met him, he's a nice guy. | |
| I will tell you that. | |
| He's very, you know, charming. | |
| Central casting. | |
| I mean, he could have been Michael Douglas and the American president. | |
| I mean, and I think, and by the way, he's also sincere in his beliefs. | |
| That part, I can tell you, it's not a show. | |
| Yeah, the guy definitely is camera friendly. | |
| But they've been saying that for weeks leading up to it. | |
| I actually joke with him in a text. | |
| I'm like, oh, when are you going to start saying it's four-on-one, three-on-one? | |
| He goes, great idea. | |
| That was their way of sort of, it was just their talking point, to be very honest with you, but it's meaningless to me because it was not. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I thought you did a very good job. | |
| And besides, regardless of what side me and my friends were on, we all agreed that it was one of the best debates that we have seen and we've heard. | |
| You could have put it on a pay-per-view and some people would have paid for it, heck, depending on the price I might have. | |
| But we were all hanging on the words of each one. | |
| It was like a boxing match, man. | |
| I mean, you killed it. | |
| You did a very, very good job. | |
| Once the debate part got, once I got the topic out there, and maybe I guess their complaint is they didn't like how I framed the questions. | |
| But all I did was they were all fact-based sourced questions. | |
| Then if they, you know, as long as they gave each other room to breathe and took the time somewhat seriously, I just let them go. | |
| I stayed out of it. | |
| Yeah, you did a really good job. | |
| The fact that you let it breathe was awesome. | |
| You kind of let it mature, I guess, so to speak, in its own way. | |
| You let them talk. | |
| And it was really good at times. | |
| It kind of got hectic, but that added to it because you can kind of feel both of them. | |
| We're passionate about it. | |
| It was awesome. | |
| That part was real. | |
| And that's why I think that debates like this are important to have. | |
| And yeah, sometimes they're going to have a little bit of talk over and that's natural. | |
| It certainly wasn't boring. | |
| It certainly wasn't dull. | |
| It certainly was relevant. | |
| And even though maybe your friends don't like me or agree with me or whatever, I'm glad they watched it. | |
| I will tell you this: that when we added up the total time, Avan Newsom got more time than Ron DeSantis in the end. | |
| So not very many people know that you and Newsome actually are friendly, like outside of politics. | |
| So when they see, you know, when they're like, oh, he's getting biased and stuff, he's like, well, did you guys know that they're actually friendly outside of the show? | |
| You got to give them credit for showing up. | |
| You really do. | |
| You got to give them credit for jumping in the octagon. | |
| I give them a lot of credit for that. | |
| And, you know, that's all part. | |
| It's part of the game. | |
| I'm like, when I saw him yesterday, I said, oh, are you going to say, how many times over, under are you going to say two on one today? | |
| So, but I appreciate your kind words. | |
| I'm glad you watched. | |
| Tell your friends I said hello and I hope they enjoyed it. | |
| 800-941-Sean is a number at the top of the hour. | |
| Oh, man, we got so much going on. | |
| Steve, more on the economic side of the debate last night. | |
| Look, it's Christmas. | |
| It's the holiday season, and that means time for gift-giving parties. | |
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| You want to get compliments. | |
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| I do. | |
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| More Hannity, less big government. | |
| He's your watchdog on Washington. | |
| Hannity is on. | |
| Man, I can't believe it's Friday. | |
| These weeks flying on by. | |
| Happy Friday to everybody. | |
| All right. | |
| A lot of the economic issues that we discussed last night, we'll talk to Steve more about those. | |
| Joe Concha, media analyst, extraordinaire, will join us. | |
| We'll get his take on last night's big debate. | |
| We also had a lot of discussion last night on the issue of immigration, the big, big issue in the state of Arizona, border state. | |
| Republican Senate candidate Carrie Lake coming up in your calls, 800-941-SHAWN. | |
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| What difference at this point does it make? |