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Feb. 14, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
32:10
Senator Mike Lee - February 13th, Hour 2
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
Scott Shannon, and welcome aboard.
Glad you're with us.
Hour two, Sean Hannity Show, toll-free.
It's 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, I know many are as bewildered and frankly just disgusted as I am over the fact that we have 22 Republican senators that voted for the Senate $95 billion emergency defense spending bill.
Of course, in the early morning, 22 Republicans joining the majority of the Senate Democrats to pass the package.
Final vote, 70-29.
And we'll go over what's in this in more detail as we've been doing today.
The one good piece of news, if there is any, is that Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, has said in a statement that he released last night that the bill would not be taken up in his chamber.
And they have to continue to work on what conservatives are seeing as a much bigger issue and a more pertinent issue, which is my argument, which is we're not even taking care of our own borders.
We can't afford this kind of money, and yet we have wide open borders, and we've seen the disaster that is our southern border today.
And anyway, joining us now is Senator Mike Lee of Utah.
He's been very outspoken about the bill.
I guess the one thing that you can take out of this is the fact that it's not going anywhere in the House.
And I give a lot of credit to House Republicans for standing strong on this.
We've got this vote in District 3 in New York today with Mozzie Pillop going up against Democrat and 100% Biden supporter Tom Swazi.
That's my old district when I lived in New York.
And anyway, Senator Lee, welcome back.
Glad to have you.
Thanks so much, Sean.
Good to be with you as always.
You know, the first question I have is whether this supplemental includes this hidden impeachment clause because it expires in 2025 into the next presidency.
Would that then be a trap, if you will, for, let's say, Donald Trump gets reelected?
And would that be a trap that if he dared to cut off spending, that they would say, okay, now we're going to impeach you yet again?
You know, in a normal, well, Sean, before TDS had fully set in, we wouldn't necessarily expect something like that to happen.
But this kind of language, when read against the backdrop of the 2020 impeachment against Donald Trump, could certainly open the door to that.
And my friend and colleague JD Vance, who's been an absolute hero in regard to this legislation, circulated a memo yesterday making the case that that's what it would do.
And I think he makes a compelling point.
It's one of many reasons why I applaud Speaker Chelsea for heroically refusing to bring this up and announcing it as dead on arrival.
Like this thing is bad across the board, but among its many other flaws, this thing, in just broad political terms, it unites Democrats, sharply divides Republicans while advancing Democratic priorities.
And it does so in a way that's really offensive to our voters, to Republican voters, and to many who may not even be Republicans, but who nonetheless find this offensive.
I don't know why we're doing that, especially after the border security provisions proved not to do what we needed them to do, and we said those are insufficient, and all but four Republicans voted against that package.
Then immediately we gave up our leverage.
And our leverage was provided solely to the Democrats to achieve these Democratic priorities.
This is not going to bode well for Republicans in political terms.
And it's not going to bode well for the American people generally, regardless of their political affiliation.
Let me go back to this supplemental impeachment time bomb, as they're calling it.
You know, President Trump has said that, you know, if he became president again, that he'd bring an end to this war and he'd do it expeditiously.
The bill includes $1.6 billion in foreign military aid in Ukraine, $13.7 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
These funds expire September 30th, 2025, nearly a year into a possible second term of President Trump.
So my real question here is these are the exact same accounts that Trump was impeached for in December 2019, or they're very similar, and every House Republican voted against the impeachment resolution.
Is it an impeachment time bomb in your view?
I think it could easily become such, but here's another way of viewing it.
Look, if the Democrats have the chance, if they control the House of Representatives, they're going to find something on which to impeach them.
We know that because they did it twice within two years.
And this would be as easy and as convenient, as likely an excuse for them to go after that as possible.
But how constitutional can that be when the president is the commander-in-chief?
And in terms of past legislation, we know from budgetary bills that have been passed, we know that usually you get your tax increase and the spending cuts that are promised in any bill never happen.
You always get the amnesty or the Republicans acquiescing to some or capitulating to some issue involving illegal immigrants, but you never get the border security.
So it sounds to me like they want to tie the hands of the next president.
Maybe they're assuming that Joe Biden's really not up to the job and that's their insurance policy.
No, I think that's right.
And none of this is to say that constitutionally this checks out.
None of this is to say that in constitutional terms or prudential terms, common sense terms, any of this makes sense or that it would be a valid basis for impeaching the president because it wouldn't be for about five different reasons.
But nonetheless, it appears that they're setting this one up.
This is an Easter egg that they're planting, that they're hiding, sort of in plain sight, just knowing that they'll utilize it if they can.
It's one of many reasons why I'm disappointed that as many of my colleagues in the Senate have did it, voted for it in order to unite Democrats and divide Republicans and alienate our base.
But here's the thing, though, Sean.
As hard as they whipped this thing, and as much as the military-industrial complex really moved aggressively on this one, and so did Senate Republican leadership, there's still a minority of Republicans in the Senate who voted for it.
And there still is a Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson from Louisiana, who's heroically saying it's dead our arrival.
So let's just hope and pray that holds.
And let's be grateful that as many Republicans as did voted against it.
This was still a minority position among Senate Republicans.
It shouldn't, in my opinion, have been something that any Republican was willing to support, simply because the minute we did that, we lost our bargaining power.
We struck this bargain.
We made a deal, an agreement with each other.
We made a commitment to each other as Republican senators, to our Republican allies in the House, and to Republican and non-Republican voters everywhere.
No more money to Ukraine, not another dime to Ukraine, at least at a minimum, until such time as the border is secure.
And we were going to get to the - I think the two issues should be border and budget.
Let me ask you about your fellow Utah Senator Mitt Romney.
He said it's the most important vote we'll ever take as U.S. senators, and then added, if your position is being cheered on by Russian President Vladimir Putin, it's time to reconsider your position.
We're not asking, being asked to send American troops into war only to help the Ukrainians defend themselves, he said in this post.
He said, if we fail to help Ukraine, Putin will invade a NATO nation.
Ukraine is not the end.
It's a step.
And letting Putin have his way with Europe would jeopardize our security.
I don't know that Putin has plans to invade Poland or any other NATO country.
At that point, that would obviously be a game changer.
Ukraine is not part of NATO.
But it almost sounds to me like he's saying that, you know, well, you've got to be like a Putin sycophant or a traitor almost if you don't support his position.
What the hell is that?
Yeah, so in the first place, this was certainly an important vote.
I don't know that it's the most important vote that someone will cast in their entire career.
I have grave doubts about that.
But I'll grant him that it's an important vote.
Only I think it cuts the other way.
It cuts the exact opposite way.
This was an opportunity for us to force the issue of border security on an otherwise unwilling administration.
We've now lost that.
It was an opportunity to show the American people that we'll stand with them.
An opportunity to show the American people that by voting no on this bill to Ukraine that didn't secure our own border and that spent way too much money on priorities that are not ours, by voting no on that bill, we've demonstrated to families, to schools, to governors, to mayors, to city councils, we're willing to stand with them.
We're willing to defend the rule of law.
We're willing to defend civil society and effectively operating communities rather than supporting international drug cartels, rather than siding with other nations and siding with the military-industrial complex in this country.
Let me tell you, it's a matter of prioritizing.
And this isn't about, you know, I'm very sympathetic towards what has happened in Ukraine.
Putin is a dictator.
He is a thug, and he's a murderer.
You're not going to have any argument from me.
And I think the people of Ukraine have fought valiantly and courageously to defend their country.
And I think, frankly, they've outperformed everybody's expectations.
However, this is now with the massive amounts of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
It's almost like this thing has become a proxy battle between Russia and the United States, as without our funding, I don't think they would be as successful.
And the reality is, this is another continent.
This is called Europe.
And I don't think Europe has done enough to step up and pay their fair share.
Number one, I don't like from the get-go that Joe Biden has basically tied the hands of the Ukrainians by saying, well, you can't have the MiGs that Poland is offering you, nor can you use cluster bombs or this type of bomb.
And I'm like, you're really going to try and micromanage a war that they're trying to win?
Because all you're doing is creating a scenario under which a best case scenario would be a draw, a tie, you know, a war in perpetuity.
So, you know, those are things that I think would need to be addressed before any more money would ever go to Ukraine.
And financial corruption.
I should have added that.
And I frankly find it a lazy, irresponsible slur on anyone who expresses doubts about more U.S. aid to Ukraine for anyone to attack anyone who expresses skepticism about this bill when we have set $113 billion already to Ukraine, more than any other nation on earth, more military aid than every other nation on earth combined.
Say that anyone who opposes that bill or has doubts about it is somehow an accomplice with Vladimir Putin, is sympathetic to Russian aggression.
That's just a lazy false accusation, and it's way, way overused.
And it shows the lack of creativity on the part of those who insist on this.
Meanwhile, what we are doing is we're perpetuating an endless war.
It doesn't help the Ukrainian people to help prolong this war.
And the more we backfill their economy, this bill contains $8 billion or so to pay, among other things, the salaries of Zelensky's bureaucrats and to backfill the Ukrainian social welfare system and to buy concert tickets to Ukrainian concert goers and things like that.
The more we do such things, to say nothing of the tens of billions of dollars in weapons that are involved in this bill related to Ukraine, to do all of that, quite arguably, prolongs this war by foreselling the need for and the desire for a brokerage settlement, which is what needs to happen there in order to bring peace to Ukraine.
All right, quick break.
We'll continue more with Senator Mike Lee of Utah, 800-941-Sean, our number.
If you want to be a part of the program, we'll get to your calls, comments, observations.
I know a lot of people have been wanting to weigh in this week on all these issues.
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I'm not sure when or why.
I'm not sure if there's some conspiracy going on.
Maybe you don't want people to know who the winner was.
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What's going on there?
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Quick break, right back.
Your calls are coming up, 800-941-Sean, as we continue.
Senator Mike Lee is with us.
Then we'll get to your calls.
800-941-Sean is our number.
What did you make of Joe Biden's report by her?
What did you make of the characterization of the president not remembering even the years he was vice president?
He's wondering whether he was still vice president in 2009 and not remembering, sadly, the death of his son Bo.
I mean, how do you interpret that?
Well, it's chilling, to say the least.
Look, to have the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces not be able to remember what year it is, not be able to remember basic things, and to be gamed by federal investigators and prosecutors, perhaps not fit to stand trial.
That's really troubling.
And if that's not fodder for and a fuse to ignite the powder keg of the 25th Amendment, I don't know what is.
This is really, really troubling.
Meanwhile, I just read today, I believe he's expressly declined to take a cognitive test.
And that's correct and of itself.
I don't think he knows that today happens to be Tuesday.
Anyway, Senator Mike Lee, Utah, appreciate you being on board.
800-941-SHAWN, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
Sean gets the answers no one else does.
America deserves to know the truth about Congress.
All right, Linda, I don't know if you saw this.
You know, they have this Senate runoff.
You got the congenital liar.
Adam Schiff is running for Diane Feinstein's seat.
Steve Garvey, the former baseball great with the Dodgers and the Padres, he's running in this.
And then you got Congresswoman Barbara Lee running for Diane Feinstein's seat.
She's now calling for a $50 minimum wage.
Let me tell you what a $50 minimum wage will end it.
If you think $18 for an adult happy meal, if we can call it that, you know, a quarter pound to a cheese meal, which I still occasionally get, or a Big Mac meal, if you think $18, which has been a recent high, is a lot, you're going to be paying $40 because there's no way these fast food places can stay open.
Just not going to happen.
How much money do you think if you buy a happy meal for a kid and you got to pay, what, $7 for a hash brown for breakfast, an egg McMuffin, $7, a happy meal to make kids happy with a little bitsy, itsy bitsy toy, and you got to pay, you know, $10 for that.
I mean, people are going to just, unfortunately, they'll stop going to McDonald's.
And the CEO in his recent earnings call said, no, we're going to try and drive prices down and make it affordable for people.
I happen to like fast food.
I just don't eat it very much because I can't.
It sucks, by the way, just as a side note.
Anyway, here's Barbara Lee calling for a $50 minimum wage.
You're calling for a $50 an hour federal minimum wage.
That's seven times the current national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
Can you explain how that would be economically sustainable for small businesses?
You have 60 seconds.
First, let me say I owned and ran a small business for 11 years.
I created hundreds of jobs.
Benefits, retirement benefits, also health care benefits.
I know what worker productivity means, and that means that you have to make sure that your employees are taken care of and have a living wage.
And so just do the math.
Just do the math.
Of course, we have national minimum wages that we need to raise to a living wage.
You're talking about $20, $25, fine, but I have got to be focused on what California needs and what the affordability factor is when we calculate this wage.
I mean, unbelievable.
It'll drive all of these businesses.
And with that, job opportunities for young people.
By the way, what a great first job for somebody to work at McDonald's.
I think it's a great opportunity.
What a great, I started as a dishwasher and I did it.
And at 12 and 13, at 12, I loved it.
13 when they let me cook and I learned how to cook fettuccine alfredo and shrimp scampi and stuff lobster and steaks and burgers and fries and have the intensity and the pressure of getting that food out cooked properly on time.
I loved it.
Absolutely loved it.
And that's going to take those jobs and basically they're going to go away and all of these places will probably have to close down.
The profit margins are not that big.
I can't tell you how many times I've been approached by people.
Linda, you know this is a fact to be a partner in a restaurant of some kind.
We'll call it Hannity's Pub.
I'm like, no, we won't.
Because the restaurant business is extraordinarily competitive and difficult and the margins are tiny.
Unless you open up a big steakhouse, most of the money that is made in restaurants is on booths.
When you have fast food restaurants, it's all got to be made on food and the margins are tiny and they're very tiny.
And you got to watch all your waste, et cetera.
I have friends of mine in Tampa.
By the way, if you ever get a chance to go to chicken salad chick, they call it.
I mean, the best chicken salad I ever had.
I talked to my buddy.
He owns a number of these stores.
And he's like, yeah, I'm literally grinding out 1,400 pounds of steamed chicken tenderloin a day.
And then they've got to watch out for waste.
They got to make sure that they don't overcook on a particular day.
It's very complicated because their profit margin is all tied to it.
I'm not saying to underpay people, especially your top people.
I mean, Linda is not overpaid or underpaid.
I think she's paid appropriately.
Why are you doing that?
I mean, listen, I feel very strongly this woman is one of these individuals that has spent her life being divisive.
Everything about her is a woke ideology.
She's all about identifying people by all of these various, whether it's their sexual preference, their gender ideology, the color of their skin, the fact that they're a woman or a man, everything on her website about her when she was a congresswoman, when she is now running for Senate.
And, you know, she ran a business in 1987.
And so I hate to tell her this, but things have changed ever so slightly, you know, in those last 30 years.
And I don't know if she's asleep at the Switch, if she doesn't care anymore because she's been in government for too long.
I'm not really sure.
But to say that you want to pay anybody $50 an hour for minimum wage is absolutely absurd.
And why would anybody ever leave those jobs and give other younger people the chance to learn a work ethic?
I mean, that's the biggest problem we have right now is we're just an entitlement handout society.
It's pathetic.
And she's just going to further the issue.
I really worry, especially about your son Liam.
Once I introduced him to McDonald's fries and a happy meal, you know, thank God he realized that this life after mom's air-fried french fries.
And there's actually better tasting fries out there, as he admitted on this program.
But think about it, Sean.
I mean, you don't want to address that.
I'm just going to skip right over that joke.
I mean, skip D. Lou Michael right pants it.
No, you swore.
My son loves my air-fried french fries way better than McDonald's.
I think he felt pressured.
I think he felt like he was afraid.
Oh, you think I did?
You're saying I bullied a seven-year-old kid.
You definitely did.
You definitely.
In fact, maybe you should read into Barbara Lee's hate crime legislation about how not to bully a young child about French fries.
You know what I did?
Pull the tape.
All I did was ask him now if you have a choice.
Holy smokes.
Wow.
Because you don't want to dig fries.
No, I just love the fact that you were like thinking that he really, really loved yours better than McDonald's.
And I'm like, nobody's fries beat McDonald's, although Wendy's is a pretty close second.
White Castle is pretty good.
In-and-Out Burgers fries are fresh.
You watch him literally cut the potatoes in front of you.
I only take him to one fast food joint, and there's only one, and it's Chick-fil-A.
And that's it.
Because I've been wide Chick-fil-A.
Because they're Christians and they have Sunday, they close on Sunday, and they have a mantra about the business being run by the people who actually own the franchise.
And I just, I like the way that they do things.
Dave Kathy is the best.
He's the best.
All right, they just have an agenda that works, in my opinion.
Let's get to our busy telephones.
Let's say hi to Jim in New Jersey.
What's up, Jim?
How are you, sir?
Did you get hit with this snowstorm today?
Not bad at all.
South Jersey right now, Sean.
So it wasn't bad at all.
Not like when I was a kid when you had real snowstorms.
But anyway, Sean, I'm a longtime follower of you.
Way back, you and Rush.
God bless them.
God bless him, is right.
We miss him.
What's going on?
Yeah, we sure do.
Sean, I need somebody to some reality check here.
Robert Huff, let's talk about him, special counsel, right?
Since he came out with the dementia thing with our president, Sean, it's like a cover-up for the document scandal with Joe Biden.
But yet, nobody in the media, anyone, oh, he's got dementia.
Is that new news?
That's old news.
Well, 90% of the country sees the shape he's in.
And what are we talking about?
Yeah, but it's news in this sense.
I mean, he didn't remember the years he was vice president.
Regarding when they brought up 2009, his question was: Was I still vice president then?
That's the year he became vice president.
I mean, that's chilling.
He didn't remember in 2013, was I still in office then?
From Our Lady of.
It's funny, but it's frightening.
It's more frightening and it's sad on the other side.
Does anybody in this guy's family love him?
Love him enough to say enough?
But, Sean, to me, it's almost another damn scheme because what would you rather be called?
What would Joe Biden rather be told?
That your memory's gone or you're going to jail with cuss on you for the documents.
So here, Biden willfully mishandled a classified dogger.
That sounds like a James Comey with Hillary.
No prosecutor would ever really seek prosecution of Hillary.
What's the intent?
In other words, he looks like a puppet master.
Look at my left hand.
Here's an old man.
He's got problems.
And the right hand is behind his back with all the document scandals.
I don't get it.
It's just.
You know, it's almost like maybe you're right.
Maybe there's like a bad mob movie.
I don't know if you've ever seen these older, ailing mobsters.
They throw on their pajamas.
They get in a wheelchair.
They go to court and they try to act like they don't remember a thing.
They don't know what day of the week it is.
And it's, you know, all an act.
But I don't think it's an act in Joe's case.
It's too, it's, it's sad, but it's also dangerous.
Yeah.
I understand it, man.
I know.
Yeah, you're breaking up on me here.
I'm going to have to let you go.
Jim in New Jersey, I apologize.
Thank you, though, for checking in with us.
We appreciate it.
I'm not sure what's up with that line.
Let's say hi to Micah's in the free state of Florida.
Mike, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
My pleasure.
My pleasure.
Welcome to Florida, brother.
Thank you, my friend.
I've been here for years.
I just haven't been a full-time domiciled resident, homesteaded resident of Florida till now.
Oh, wonderful.
Wonderful.
No, I just wanted to make a comment.
I see the press, and I think we're all falling for this.
They're feigning all this outrage saying that he's competent, that he's competent.
Well, let's talk about this a second.
If he's deemed to be incompetent or his memory failing and whatnot, with this Robert Herr report, what they have established is the fact that he indeed is guilty of the crimes.
There's no doubt that he's guilty.
Now, my question is, don't get sidetracked with this shiny object that they want us to look at.
Or if he's competent now, the question is, was he competent then?
Was it premeditated then when he committed the crime?
You raise a great point because I think he was fully aware of his actions and what he was doing.
And the fact that he lied so flagrantly about it.
I mean, it's funny.
The James, Sweet Baby James, hit me with some article, some leftist organization, you know, trying to say Sean Hannity's made-up story about Joe Biden and the Biden family syndicate.
I'm like, none of it's made up.
And in the course of reading it, I'm laughing.
I'm like, yeah, you're finally beginning to get it, although you're just denying the truth and the reality of what evidence exists out there.
And it's pretty overwhelming at this point.
Let's see if they can pull it all together.
Yeah, and how about the fact that if he's not competent now, holy cow, he's got five.
Let me sum it up.
Five more years.
God help us all.
He's not up to the job.
Period.
End of sentence.
He couldn't work at a McDonald's.
I don't think he could work at a McDonald's.
Anyway, we appreciate you, Mike.
Thank you, my friend.
All right, quick break straight back to the phones.
Our toll-free numbers, 800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program as we roll along.
All right, back to our busy phones, 800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
The Free State of Texas, Sarah next, Sean Hannity Show.
Hi.
Hi.
Nice talking to you, Sean.
Great to talk to you.
What's going on?
I want to talk about us holding our Congress to the fire to get that single rule passed about the bills.
The single, think of the name here, single subject amendment.
If we could get that passed, we could keep them from adding so much pork and so forth to our bills and actually get legislation passed that's something people want.
Listen, I would like single-issue bills passed all the time.
And what's so egregious about this, and let me tell you, there's no greater hawk than Lindsey Graham.
Lindsey Graham probably has been to Israel and Ukraine more than any other senator combined, all the other senators combined.
And however, he recognizes what we all recognize, and that is, no, we're not going to aid other countries without securing our own country.
It is the biggest national security risk by Joe Biden allowing 10 million unvetted illegal immigrants into our country.
It is a recipe for an unmitigated disaster.
It's called terrorism.
And it's not if, it's when.
And I pray to God I'm wrong.
I don't think I'm wrong, Sarah.
I don't think you're wrong either.
I'm tired of us having to give money we don't have to a bunch of other countries that are out to kill us.
Well, a lot of them are.
Now, in the case of Israel, Israel's mostly looking, they just want to buy our weaponry so they can win their war against Hamas in the south and Lebanon in the north and literally preserve the state of Israel.
They're in a fight for their survival, but they're not asking much from us.
The amount of money going to Ukraine versus Israel is almost insignificant.
And I'd like to see that happen, but not until they take care of our borders and our budget.
Those are my criteria.
Take care of your own country first.
Secure your own borders first.
Eliminate national security threats here first.
And frankly, any border security bill ought to be coupled with a deportation order for people that didn't respect our laws, our borders, and our sovereignty.
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