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May 22, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
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Rep. Matt Gaetz - May 21st, Hour 3
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For our final news roundup and information overload.
All right, news roundup, information overload hour.
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So Matt Gates had been in the courtroom with President Trump, and we had him on, and we got his take on all that's been going on in the courtroom.
And now we see the judge desperately trying to move the case in Alvin Bragg's direction because it's fallen apart so disastrously.
He took to the floor of the House of Representatives and talked about the election interference that is going on in this courtroom.
And here's what he said.
I rise to alert this House of election interference that is going on in a Manhattan courtroom right now.
And we ought to assert our equities to ensure that federal elections aren't subject to this type of devious behavior.
This entire case in New York is based on Michael Cohen.
He's one of the few people walking around the planet Earth today who's lied to all three branches of government.
He lied to the investigators.
He lied to his own sentencing judge.
He lied to this very Congress.
But as if that wasn't enough, Michael Cohen lied to this very jury Tuesday.
There's a reason he was held to the end of this case.
They were hoping to corroborate him.
They couldn't.
It has failed, and it should be dismissed.
And otherwise, the Congress should certainly assert our equities to stop election interference.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
I yield back.
Anyway, Congressman Matt Gates, he's with the panhandle out of Florida.
Sir, welcome back to the program.
How are you?
Thanks so much for having me, Sean.
And remember, this is a federal election case, but the federal prosecutors at the Southern District of New York who looked at it, they said it wasn't worthy of a charge.
And then the Federal Election Commission, who also looked at this, did not believe that any crime had been committed, that any prosecution was necessary.
So this is a novel legal theory where a local DA is trying to bring this case.
And it really fell apart before our very eyes when Michael Cohen there was exposed, not just being for a liar of yesteryear in times past, but even in this trial before this jury, lying about his communications and the substance of those communications as part of all this nonsense that they've tried to criminalize because they want to keep Trump off the campaign trail.
So it's quite something.
And, you know, I don't know that your listeners can really appreciate how dank and dreary this place is.
You think about New York being this grandiose place with all the atmospherics of the big apple.
The reality is, I think this courtroom got frozen in time about 50 years ago and hasn't changed.
And it's incredibly close proximity.
And you get to see the smirk on this judge's face.
He believed that this prosecution was his entry ticket into high society of New York, that he would be celebrated forever as the judge who got to put away Donald Trump.
And he's desperately trying to preserve that despite all of the evidence cutting against the principal witness for the prosecution, Michael Cohen, a liar proven over and over again.
What did you make of the judge's meltdown yesterday as it relates to Costello?
You trying to stir me down?
I mean, if it wasn't so ridiculous, it's laughable.
And then, of course, Bradley Smith, former FEC chair, who I interviewed, I played it early in the program and said there's no crime committed here at all.
And, of course, preventing the jury from hearing from him and limiting what they could hear from Bob Costello that would impeach everything Cohn said.
And now here we are.
We'll have closing arguments.
I assume that in closing arguments, they'll probably try and limit what the defense has to say there and you have to give free license to the prosecution.
I mean, did we really need to hear Stormy Daniels' talks to dead people or the salacious details that are immaterial, irrelevant to the case that he allowed to drone on and on and on?
Did we really, you know, even as that has nothing to do with the case?
But David Pecker talking about catch and kill operations that he does for so many people.
Again, irrelevant, immaterial to the case and the allegation and even the charges, as novel a legal theory as this is.
And it just really, it does begin to make one wonder, you know, what jury instructions are going to look like.
And now I think the judge in this case is purposely trying to tip the scale back in favor of the prosecution because they got destroyed and he knows damn well they got destroyed.
Maybe a lot of things, but you can't be that dumb.
It's an incredibly rare and powerful thing when someone's own lawyer stands up and says that that person has been a liar.
That was what was occurring with Michael Cohen's former lawyer, Bob Costello.
And it seemed that really triggered the judge, that that got the judge so enraged that he cleared the courtroom and had this kind of bizarre maturity.
By the way, the only other person that I know gets people that pissed off is you.
You and Trump.
I guess.
I mean, I've never gotten a judge.
I'm not talking about a judge.
I'm just speaking generally.
All right, I'm joking around.
Go ahead.
Yeah, no.
Well, witnesses before Congress, for sure, I'll plead guilty to getting a few of them hot under the collar.
But here for a judge to be so intemperate is indicative of someone displeased with the direction of this trial and how it seems to be going on the presentation of the evidence.
And so I think you're right to be concerned about what these jury instructions look like.
I would expect that a good amount of the summation from Pod Blanche will revisit all of the points he scored during the cross-examination of Michael Cohen.
The dishonesty, the thievery stealing from the Trump organization.
This wasn't someone who was just lying to protect Donald Trump.
This was someone at all material times was working for his own benefit, for his own financial benefit to try to move into a societal and governmental class that he thought he deserved to be in.
And it may have just been an intermeddler in this whole bizarre matter.
While I thought we were definitely headed at a minimum to a hung jury, maybe an outright acquittal, I think the judge now is trying to tip the scales here in favor of the prosecution.
And he's doing everything he could possibly do.
And I'm listening to people on TV.
I really think they're stupid and dumb and don't know what the hell they're talking about.
I know the Trump team rightly has put forward a motion to dismiss.
That's not going to happen.
I know everybody's talked about the right thing to do would be a directive verdict.
We know that's not going to happen.
We know that this judge, the Biden donor judge with conflicts who should have recused himself, we know he's gone all in now with the prosecution, and he's now got a double, triple, quadruple down on it.
And the media mob, they're doing the same.
Let me play a quick cut of, you know, Lawrence O'Donnell.
Lawrence lost his mind.
He's actually trying to downplay Michael Cohn and the fact, the revelation yesterday that he's stealing, you know, tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump organization.
He very effectively got Michael Cohen to say, to agree that, yes, he stole $30,000.
Later, when Cohen was asked about that on redirect by the prosecution, it didn't really sound like stealing $30,000.
It sounded a lot like Michael Cohen doing the little that he could within that calculation to rebalance the bonus he thought he deserved, and it still came out as less than the bonus he thought he deserved and the bonus he'd gotten the year before.
Cohen admitted he stole from the organization.
What part of it does somebody at MSDNC not understand?
Lawrence O'Donnell has acknowledged how devastating the cross-examination was of Michael Cohen, and now he's trying to suggest that there was some rehabilitation.
But it's not just the volume of lies that will, I think, encompass the testimony of Michael Cohen.
It's also the nature of those lies.
The key distinction that Todd Blanch brilliantly brought out is that Michael Cohen was not just lying because the job required it or because Donald Trump wanted him to or it was for Trump's benefit.
Cohen was someone who was just a gratuitous liar for his own benefit.
And when he admitted that it was stealing on cross-examination, it showed that the prosecution didn't really lay a sufficient foundation.
You know, in court, you always want to get the bad information out yourself.
You don't want the other side drawing it out of your witnesses.
And in this case, the worst of Michael Cohen was undeniably drawn out by Todd Blanch.
And I think it left the jury wondering whether or not this whole thing was done for retribution because actually Michael Cohen wasn't the inner circle guy that he thought he was once Donald Trump was transitioning out of private life and into the presidency.
And this is a circumstance of a sad man who's bitter and trying to take it out through a criminal prosecution that, again, the FEC didn't believe was proper.
The Southern District of New York didn't think was proper.
The only guy who thought this was proper was the DA who had literally campaigned on getting Trump, had said he had gone after him more than 100 times, and it was a campaign promise to bring this goofy prosecution.
That should not be how criminal law is utilized in our country.
You spent time at the trial, in the courtroom, time to really, really take a good hard look at the jury.
But, you know, a lot has happened since the last time we spoke.
How do you think all of this and clear the courtroom and the drama yesterday?
How is this playing out in the minds of jurors in your view?
Well, it's quite a commotion when the jury has to get up and leave and come back into the room.
They literally have to walk within about two feet of Donald Trump between Trump and the judge in and out to get the alternates as well as the principal jurors from their specific seat in specific row in and out.
It showcases the, I think, frustration on the part of the judge that he really wanted to unload on the witness.
And in some ways, that only makes the jury think more about that particular witness's testimony.
I was there for hours upon hours of testimony with Michael Cohen and the jury, and it was obvious to everyone in that room, whether they liked Trump or didn't, whether they were in the media or they're supporting a particular cause.
Those folks knew that Michael Cohen was lying.
When he got caught in the lie about why he was communicating with Keith Schiller, Donald Trump's body man.
By the way, this is the one-minute and 36-second call and the text messages that actually were time stamped at the time of the call leading up to that call about him being upset over a 14-year-old that he described as a stalker making phone calls to him and asking Keith Schiller for help.
Right, so Michael Cohen initially said that the only purpose of this call was to talk about the Stormy Daniels deal, and then text messages were unearthed showing that there was indeed a different purpose of that call.
So now Michael Cohen is saying, well, there were in fact two purposes of the call when he previously said there was only one, and the text message suggests something else altogether.
There was one juror who seemed to almost bust out laughing as Michael Cohen's lives were being exposed.
It was almost hard to hold back laughter because you saw this guy get confronted with his own text messages complaining about a 14-year-old's messages to him about the Trump transition into office and him wanting the Secret Service.
Michael Cohen wanted no less than the Secret Service to hunt down this 14-year-old and give him the what for.
Under any circumstances, in spite of all the prejudice of the judge in this case and all of the fundamental unfairness that we've been discussing, do you see any scenario under which there's a guilty verdict here?
Because I would argue, even at this late hour, before they hit into next Tuesday and closing arguments, I don't think if I surveyed that jury that anybody would be able to tell me what exactly it is that Donald Trump is being charged with.
Yeah, I mean, you are left wondering as the viewer, what's the crime here again?
Because familiar transactions, familiar activities, just like the David Pecker testimony, what?
If it's a crime for candidates and campaigns to try to shape the media coverage of what they're doing and what their opponents are doing, then they're going to need a lot more jails for literally everyone else in American politics today.
So I think that a guilty verdict is certainly the least likely outcome here.
I can't imagine on these facts and with this twisting of the law, any reasonable person can conclude that President Trump had committed a crime.
But remember, they've got to get all 12.
And I think that that is exceedingly low.
I think that they're, you know, I got the sense looking into the eyes of at least some of these jurors that there was a real appreciation for how bizarre, strange, unfair, and unjust this prosecution was.
And really all 12 of them should conclude that if they're looking at the evidence and not bridled by any preconceived notions about Donald Trump or his presidency or his policies.
Well, we really appreciate you being with us, Congressman Matt Gates, Florida.
Thank you.
800-941-Sean, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
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 Podcast, or wherever you listen.
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 Podcast, or wherever you listen.
All right, before we hit the phones here, well, it hasn't been a good couple of days for Joey.
This from just earlier today, where Joe Biden talks about signing a PAC and PAC and LAC Act into law.
Let me close with this.
After I signed the PAC and PACLAC Act into law.
After I signed the PAC and PAC Add LAC Act into law.
Linda, you know what that means?
Can you interpret that for me?
I think what he was really saying is, I love alpaca.
I love alpaca sweaters.
I'm signing a sweater law in that all people must wear alpaca sweaters.
That's what I got from this one.
Just so you know.
Unbelievable.
Now, it's not been a very good day for Clueless Joe.
And by the way, it's only Tuesday, not exactly a hard week.
Now, yesterday, they had to make nine brutal corrections to his speech to the NAACP.
Nine.
I mean, Biden's first mistake at the very beginning of the speech tells a story about Obama dispatching him to Detroit during the pandemic.
They had to fix that mess.
Then moments later, Biden telling the NAACP he's humbled to receive this organization.
In the White House transcript, they crossed that organization, corrected it with award.
We're cracking down on corporate landlords who keep rents down.
Was changed to, we're cracking down on corporate landlords to keep rents down.
While another unfortunate sentence describing those who took part in the Capitol riots as erectionists corrected to insurrectionists.
Do you know what an erectionist is?
Linda.
I think we should ask, who is it, Jayapal, right?
Wasn't it Jayapal who said that in front of a full House of Congress when she was referring to Trump?
They got a lot of erectionists over there.
A lot of erectionists.
Then Biden incorrectly quoting former President Trump as saying that there would be bloodshed if he loses in November.
That was corrected to bloodbath, as was a moment where Biden mistakenly claimed to have saved millions of families $800,000 per year in premiums.
While Biden corrected his $800,000 mistake during the speech, he replaced it with $8,000 a year in premiums, which is also incorrect.
Never mind the millions and billions that you and I talked about yesterday.
Then he tells the White House gathering that an American hostage who's still being held by Hamas is here with us today.
Wow.
Like he talks to dead people, talks to hostages now.
He imagines that they're in the crowd.
Obama orders him to go to Detroit during the pandemic and help fix it.
Wow.
I mean, how do you have so many mistakes in one speech?
It does make, well, a pretty compelling case for those that have been saying and predicting he's not going to be on the ticket.
I'll tell you that.
Let us say hi to Tim in Tennessee.
Tim, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Thanks so much.
Sean, I'm a trial attorney.
I've been so for 30 years, and I just want to magnify what Professor Dershwish and Carley and Trey Gowdy are saying.
It's just extraordinary the favoritism that's being shown by this judge and the fact he hasn't tossed out that trial when there's no elements of a crime.
They're trying to boot a misdemeanor up to a felony on a federal statute that state courts have no jurisdiction to bring.
Just incredible.
And if I were a low-information New York voter, I would be ashamed because it would be, to me, like the Edmund Tennis Bridge.
But, counselor, that's a problem.
A low-information New York voter.
You just answered your question.
They have no clue, and now the judge is trying to prevent them from even knowing the law by preventing the FEC former head from explaining what the law actually says.
He's basically trying to help the prosecution recover from the disastrous trial that has been.
And jury instructions are only going to be worse.
Well, those should have already been in weeks ago before the dreams got there.
They should have had those submitted and the last little thing before pre-prial, before they ever started the trial, should have been analyzing those.
How do you like the fact that Bragg, according to Costello, was given all of this exculpatory information that was withheld from the grand jury?
How do you like that little development?
Well, that's clearly what we call plain error.
That's Brady material that should have been given and would have exculpatory their claim of a crime being committed.
There's so many.
You get an A-plus because that's exactly what Mark Levin's been saying.
That's it.
I'm done.
He's been right all along.
Anyway, Tim, I got a roll, man.
No, I've never seen anything like this ever.
Ever.
Rhode Island, Lou, next.
Sean Hannity Show.
What's up, Lou?
Where in Rhode Island do you live?
Well, I live north of Providence.
I live in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
And it's one of your places I know because I was on your show, the Hannity show.
I got one of your footballs.
You're a phenomenal, phenomenal host.
You greeted us all in line.
But anyway, I don't know where you get your stamina from, Sean.
You really are an amazing person.
You're very kind.
Thank you.
I think the gentleman before talked about the exculpatory emails.
But in my situation, I have a case that was 100 missing exhibits.
You had the jury pool who I believe was pre-selected.
And I think what Trump has got to watch out for, which he already knows, 85% of those people are compromised.
And the judge is, he's a lunatic.
I think what he's going to watch out for is he has to get every one of those people that were selected for the jury because every one of them can be compromised.
In my case, I believe the jury was actually selected.
The whole pool was actually selected before my case started.
And I won't get into that.
But I think that's one of the things Trump has to really look out for because as you know, these people have done a lot of planning.
They planned before the case started with the grand jury eliminating all that exculpatory evidence and not letting it come under their purview.
And I really believe that there's a strong possibility that the whole jury pool was pre-selected in some way.
I believe they probably asserted and circumvented the process that normally takes place in New York and picking jury pools.
So I just wanted to put him on.
Well, they're supposed to have a, you know, they're not supposed to choose a judge either.
And they bypass the process of having a random selection and they picked the perfect anti-Trump judge.
I mean, it's pretty unbelievable.
But, you know, welcome to the state of New York, where things are more corrupt than ever.
I can tell you that.
Anyway, my friend, I appreciate it.
800-941-Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
Sharon in my free state of Florida.
Hey, Sharon, how are you?
I'm fine.
I'm fine, Sean.
I wanted to speak to a couple things about the trial, but just quickly, I wanted to say that the United States, the U.N. should have sent just one word over to Iran when this man died.
And I don't like when people die, but he was the head of terrorism and responsible for so many, so much suffering and so many people dying.
We should have sent one word over.
Congratulations.
The one word would have been, you know, good riddance.
Goodbye.
I don't care.
Whatever it is, anyone would be appropriate.
Right.
And I just want to.
It's just sad that the U.S. sending condolences when a you know, terrorists like this dies.
It's just sad.
It's just pathetic.
It just is so lacking in any moral clarity.
And it's just, you know, they're sucking, bootlicking the feet of terrorists.
It's just disgusting and nauseating.
And I'm embarrassed as a country that this guy is our president.
I'm just embarrassed.
I find it embarrassing.
And I find it a dangerous situation on top of everything else.
And humiliating.
Yeah, it's humiliating when you lick the boots of dictators.
Yeah, and terrorists.
Yeah, it is.
Very.
This guy wasn't apologizing when all these people died to us or to Israel.
He wasn't apologizing.
No, they orchestrated it.
They fomented it.
They supported it.
They helped train for it.
And they're in part responsible for it.
Right, right.
But anyway, getting on to the trial.
First of all, this judge is so bitter, like you were saying, bitter and angry because he probably pinned his hopes on being famous for being the one judge who could put Trump away.
You know?
So that's.
Well, let me tell you, this judge is dying to go to all the prestigious New York parties and New York social cycle and all of that.
That's what he's looking forward to.
That's what he wanted.
One judge.
But anyway, isn't this election interference what they're doing, keeping him in court all day?
Not 100% of this.
Sure it is.
So can't he do something to sue them for that?
No, there's absolutely no recourse for President Trump except that on appeal.
This judge is not going to dismiss this case.
This isn't going to be a director verdict.
It's going to go to the jury, and he's going to give them abusively biased jury instructions.
And you just got to hope and pray that there's at least one person on that jury that sees through this farce and is not going to tolerate it.
Right.
Well, it burns me up as a taxpayer that us taxes, we're paying for all the police protection of the police out there.
I'm paying for all this, you know, with our tax.
Yeah.
Anyway, I just had a question to ask you about the debate.
Who makes up the questions for the debate?
Well, usually the moderators.
I mean, nobody knew the questions I had for the DeSantis and Gavin Newsom debate.
And all I told both sides, I told them the same thing.
I said, no surprises, no tricks.
I said, all the issues you would expect that the people in your respective states want to talk about.
And, you know, I was pretty clear: law, order, taxes, you know, all that stuff.
And I stuck to my promise to both of them.
Okay, so darn the people from CNN, then they're making up all the questions for the debate.
Is that correct?
That would be correct.
Okay.
That's why Fake Jake, you know, has no business being on this, being the moderator in that debate.
Right, right.
Well, I think the moderator, there should be one from Fox and one from CNN.
I mean, that's the fair thing to do.
But anyway, as far as the questions go, you know they're going to get them to Joe Biden and they're going to have him all pumped up with all the answers ahead of time.
I mean, wouldn't it only be fair if like they had equal questions from the from the Democrats and equal questions from the Republican side and not to be given in till the last minute?
I mean, that's a fair thing to do.
Or equal questions from CNN and equal questions from Fox News and the last minute.
Otherwise, I mean, he's going to know all the answers ahead of time, all the questions and answers ahead of time.
And they're going to come up, you know.
These are just unbelievable times that we're in, but what else would you expect?
I mean, you know, CNN has a history of giving questions to their favorite candidates ahead of time anyway.
So, you know, I guess we're just going to have to wait, watch, and see what happens.
All right, let's get back to our phones.
Thank you, Sharon.
Appreciate the call as we say hi to John in Florida also.
Hey, John, how are you, sir?
Hi, Sean.
Thanks for taking the call.
What's going on?
Issue.
On the third debate, I think that my suggestion is that President Trump should agree to a debate.
He should proffer a debate on Fox in front of an audience and invite RFK Jr.
And if Biden doesn't show up, he'll have an empty chair on the stage, an empty podium on the stage.
And both candidates will, of course, attack Biden.
And I think RFK Jr.
would draw votes from Biden, which would be all to the advantage of President Trump.
I haven't spent enough time on it, but I will when the time is right over RFK's record.
He doesn't want to take my calls or do a show.
I even did a town hall with him, and I just gave him time to talk and introduce himself to the American people.
But RFK is a pretty radical Democrat, and he supports reparations.
And he just came out in favor of race-based reparations.
We know that his positions on taxes, the environment, he's against fracking, oil extraction.
Keep it in the ground is his campaign.
He's voted for every leftist Democrat that you could ever list or support.
And I just think that he has to show a certain degree of support before he gets in a debate.
And that is pretty standard procedure.
If he shows that he's on in enough states to get enough electoral votes and he shows that he has enough support in the polls, then he'll earn his way into the debates.
But less and until we get to that point, I wouldn't be debating him.
He has to earn that.
Well, I think the objective is to have an empty chair, an empty podium.
Yeah, you can have two empty chairs.
You're going to have an empty chair for Joe.
I absolutely would do that in a heartbeat.
Like Trump accepted the debate on Fox, and Joe Biden said no, I'd have a debate set up.
And if Joe chooses not to show, I'd have an empty podium.
That's what I'd do.
Not that anybody's going to listen to me, but that would be my way of handling it.
Anyway, my friend, I got a roll.
800-941-Sean is a number.
All right, the trial's coming to an end.
The battle over jury instructions has been ongoing.
Pam Bondi's been in the courtroom all day today.
We'll check in with her.
We'll get comments from Alan Dershowitz, Greg Jarrett.
Also, we have Professor Jonathan Turley, Alina Haba, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Katie Britt, also Newt Gingrich and Jim Jordan.
Nine Eastern Seth DVR, great show tonight.
Hannity, you won't get news on any other channel from the media mob on the Fox News channel.
See you then back here tomorrow.
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