Sept. 17, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
29:49
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| This is an iHeart Podcast. | |
| Stay right here for our final news roundup and information overload. | |
| All right, news roundup and information overload hour. | |
| Here's our toll-free telephone number. | |
| It's 800-941 Sean. | |
| If you want to be a part of the program, we are only fifty short days till an inflection point in this country. | |
| That would be election day, early voting starting now in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth, and will be rolling out around the country. | |
| I can't think of a more important moment choice election for the hist for the future of our country. | |
| I can't think of a more radicalized candidate that has been unvetted, ignored by a complicit corrupt media. | |
| And then of course other forces like big tech, etcetera, etc. | |
| Kamala's still never answering pertinent questions about her radical position on no restrictions at all on abortion and mandatory gun buybacks and no border walls and decriminalizing illegal immigration, offering free housing and health care and education and even a legal driver's license. | |
| Minnesota free free college that you pay for, uh then a path to citizenship. | |
| And on top of that, uh taxpayer funded sex change operations for not only illegals but for convicts as well. | |
| Uh her position on federal drug possession for personal use, that would mean hard drugs like crack heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, uh her ninety-three trillion dollar Green New Deal, which she sponsored, co-sponsored with Bernie Sanders, eliminate the filibuster to get it passed. | |
| That would be the end of capitalism as we know it. | |
| Her government health care for all, elimination of private health insurance. | |
| You know, don't say the word radical Islamic terrorism or illegal alien. | |
| And then of course raise every tax imaginable. | |
| Never mind her support for the insurrection and rioting, six hundred riots in the summer of twenty twenty. | |
| It is insane. | |
| And that's just a part partial list. | |
| Anyway, we've been talking a lot about the second now assassination attempt against President Trump. | |
| This is taking place at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach in Florida. | |
| And uh the person that was playing golf with him happens to be a personal friend of mine. | |
| Uh I even had breakfast with him and another friend of ours, another guy that was with us. | |
| Uh I don't think he had he's way more private. | |
| He didn't play in the golf game. | |
| Uh, but Steve Whitcoff was there, watched the entire thing go down. | |
| He is a real estate investor, developer, incredibly successful, extremely an extraordinarily nice and generous human being. | |
| He's the founder, chairman, CEO of the Whitcoff group, was with President w with the president playing golf when this assassination attempt occurred. | |
| Uh I talked to him many times uh uh immediately in the aftermath. | |
| Uh I did, by the way, by the call you Steve Wynne once on TV. | |
| I got to apologize for that. | |
| Uh uh it was a rushed moment on television. | |
| I apologize to you for that. | |
| That's okay, Sean. | |
| Um, so we have breakfast together, and you were kind of like saying, well, why don't you just come play? | |
| Now, meanwhile, the president is close to scratch in terms of a golfer. | |
| You're uh you're I think close to scratch as well. | |
| And I'm like, I'm not playing with you guys. | |
| You're much better than I am, and and you you probably wouldn't want to play with somebody that uh you know doesn't get to play very often. | |
| But I will I will take you up on that offer in the future for sure. | |
| But walk us through you you meet with the president, you go out to play some golf, tell us every walk us through every detail. | |
| Well, you know, we uh you and I had had that breakfast at at City Diner. | |
| It was pretty fabulous. | |
| I think it would have been great if uh if you had been out on the course with us, and not not to witness this shooting, but more because you're just a great guy. | |
| Who wouldn't want to spend time on the golf course with Sean Hannity? | |
| And I think the president would feel exactly as uh as I do about that. | |
| But the feeling the feeling is mutual, by the way. | |
| You're one of the nicest guys I've ever met, one of the most generous, and and so is our other friend. | |
| But you know, uh when you call me, I was in a state of shock, Steve. | |
| I'm like, not again. | |
| Please tell me God, not again. | |
| Yeah. | |
| You know, Sean, the you know, the president was an amazing athlete. | |
| He played football, he was a great tennis player. | |
| But but at this stage of his life, a lot of people play golf. | |
| They they switch from these other sports that they've done and they play golf, and he uses it as a decompression tool. | |
| I think about all the all the tension he has in his life, particularly with what he's had to endure for the last several years, being vilified. | |
| Um I mean, to me, uh his his active public service in in becoming the president of the United States ought to be commended, and yet in this crazy time, uh he's vilified. | |
| He's conspired against he's wrongly accused, in my opinion, and in in every one of these cases. | |
| so for him to get out on a golf course is a time for him to decompress. | |
| And I love playing with him. | |
| We just have a wonderful time together. | |
| And so there it is, this beautiful golf course. | |
| It's hot, it's humid, uh, but we're we're enjoying ourselves, and nothing bad is supposed to happen. | |
| And out of the blue, I hear the first shot, the Secret Service was nothing short of incredible. | |
| You you would think that they had practiced an evacuation like this five hundred times before. | |
| And I I say to the entire team, Sean, who was right there that day, and to the agent in charge, that that team was very, very well prepared. | |
| Um that's how it began, and then in quick succession there were three other shots. | |
| And but they had him out of there quick, and all I could hear and see, first of all, he was looking back at us. | |
| Uh and I mean that. | |
| He I I stood up the entire time. | |
| Maybe a drop reckless on my part, maybe I should have got behind the golf cart, but for some reason I stood up and was looking at the corner of the golf course where clearly the shooter was, because there were agents on top of him almost immediately. | |
| And then of course we found out that it was the it was an agent running in front of us who was in charge of scanning the perimeter of the course in the hole that was in front of any hole we might be playing, it was him who identified him, and that's where the shots came from. | |
| And so that was the beginning of it. | |
| So when the first shot goes off of the f I I my understanding what you told me yesterday, you heard pop pop pop and then another paw pop. | |
| You've heard four shots at the time you knew immediately it was a gunshot? | |
| Yes. | |
| And when that happened, immediately you see the Secret Service around him jump into action. | |
| And I I assume uh and based on what you told me, they they jumped on him, covered him. | |
| In other words, they they put their life on the line in case he is being shot at. | |
| He they're gonna take the bullet for him, right? | |
| There's no mistaking. | |
| They they one hundred percent surrounded him, they had him on the ground, so he was out of the line of s uh of fire. | |
| Uh they were on him. | |
| They put him in a independently uh an independent cart that uh was faster than the others, and they had their lives on the line at every moment. | |
| And by the way, the two snipers who were three and a half half, four yards away from me. | |
| You mean the Secret Service snipers? | |
| The Secret Service snipers with tripods out were immediately down on the ground, but fully exposed, because they were there to contain gunfire if if they had to. | |
| And uh they were down on the ground right there. | |
| I was uh I no more than four yards away from them. | |
| And I just stood up. | |
| I must tell you, uh I I you know I've had this discussion with people. | |
| I'm like, maybe a drop reckless, but I never really thought about getting down on the ground. | |
| I just was mesmerized this operation. | |
| I I I I know you said that to me, and uh I I I don't think anyone would ever be prepared for such a moment, especially because you're not uh public figure or a controversial figure that leads your life needing security every day, so it's it's this is not the world that you live in, thank God. | |
| I don't think you'd want to live in that every day. | |
| I just I I don't like that the president has to live in it every day. | |
| And so they very quickly get him out. | |
| They have this other golf cart to get him off that it is a lot faster and safer than the usual golf cart. | |
| What happens now? | |
| Did you know the direction where the shots came from immediately? | |
| Did you have a pretty good idea? | |
| Oh, it was very clear, yeah. | |
| The the uh the Secret Service snipers had their barrels pointed towards the corner of the golf course by Congress Avenue. | |
| There was a cart out there, so an advanced Secret Service uh agent or detail had already gotten gotten out there and and um there was also a person I saw on the other side of the tree line who was now as I understand it another Secret Service agent whose job it was to scan the outside perimeter. | |
| He had evidently just passed the area and just missed finding the guy. | |
| It was the guy on the it was the the agent on the inside of the tree line, Sean, who was in charge of following forward from us who identified the barrel sticking out of the fence, and he's the one who engaged the uh the the uh the assassin. | |
| What happened next? | |
| Yeah, well I understand that the golf course was cleared, but obviously you were the first to be cleared because you were closest to the road, which we now know is about three hundred yards away from the hold that you were playing. | |
| I uh my understanding is as a part three followed by a drivable par four, is that correct? | |
| Yes, yes. | |
| The president was was evac was evacuated, but I but I watched him he was looking back at us. | |
| I was there with the two other members of our group, civilians, and it was clear that he was looking at us. | |
| He was wanting to make sure that we were okay. | |
| I could hear see him gesturing and but he was gone and you know that's their job. | |
| Their job is to protect the president first and they did their job impeccably. | |
| Quick break right back more with Steve Whitcoff, real estate developer investor, and he was playing golf with President Trump during this assassination attempt yesterday. | |
| This is his first interview, his first televised interview tonight on Hannity on the Fox News channel. | |
| Uh look the FBI calls it house stealing. | |
| I've been telling you about this for over a year. | |
| He's a friend of mine and I had had just had breakfast with him before he played golf yesterday with President Trump uh before the assassination attempt Steve Whitcoff, developer, real estate investor, founder, chairman, CEO Whitcoff Group, as we continue. | |
| Now you saw all of this activity going on and you had these these Secret Service uh snipers with their tripods up and and you're right. | |
| They're they're out there in an open field which which makes them an open target and yet they moved and they again they put their lives on the line for the president um which is all commendable. | |
| What so you finally make it back to the White House and and you had said to me he was specifically asking where are you and where are the other people you were with and then you were like right behind him and I said I'm right here. | |
| That happened? | |
| Correct. | |
| It did. | |
| He Sean I I must tell you you you know him very well as you know him as well as I do. | |
| He was selfless. | |
| It's almost as if he and it's not almost as if it is if it is as if he was more concerned about me and he's demonstrated this countless times by the way, but he was concerned more about me and his two other friends who were out there and other people include there were staffers out there by the way who were not armed and trained to to be involved in in this sort of situation. | |
| And he was concerned about all of those people who were in his entourage. | |
| I think more concerned about them than he was about his own life candidly. | |
| Wow and uh at that point at s uh I you you told me another story that he walked around and he thanked everybody that was there, all the Secret Service guys. | |
| What what to describe what happened. | |
| Well you know he he's an inspiration because you know this is the second time in two months. | |
| Uh it's it's sort of like enough already. | |
| Like we like we we we lived through the sixties when they assassinated Jack and and Bobby Kennedy. | |
| Who would ever think in this country in this day and age that we would have something like this again but two times two attempts with shots going off if this Secret Service agent didn't interdeck interdict it is clear to me that that he had a he can't he had an in a K 47 with probably a banana cliff in it. | |
| He could have hosed down everybody on the green so you know I I can't say it enough great job by the Secret Service but and great job in protecting the president and he deserves to be protected first. | |
| He he's got he's got the when he gets elected he's gonna have the most important job. | |
| But when we got back to the clubhouse the first thing I heard was where is everybody? | |
| He was he was a he was inquiring because we came back after the Secret Service evacuated. | |
| Their their mission statement is to get him out of the field of fire instantaneously and they did that job impeccably. | |
| Now we then when you get back and he realizes everybody's safe what happened? | |
| He went around to every single one of the guys and said thank you for your service. | |
| Thank you for doing thank you for protecting my friends. | |
| Thank you for protecting me. | |
| He he he's a man of the people he is it's it's inspiring to watch his interaction with people who were paid probably not enough to save to protect his life and to save his life in circumstances like this. | |
| And he is so genuine and authentic in his praise to these people and he does it all the time. | |
| It's it's who he is. | |
| I wrote his wife his right his wife Alanya texted me and I wrote her that her husband inspires me and he does he inspires me. | |
| really is amazing. | |
| And and then when when everything settled, and I was on the phone with both of you, and I did report this on Fox when I was on yesterday. | |
| Again, I apologize once for calling Steve Wynn, who's also a friend of mine, too. | |
| Um pretty good guy to be to be uh to be called. | |
| I'm good with that. | |
| Yeah, well, you're pretty great in your in your own way. | |
| And at that point in time when anything was everything was settled and he had thanked everybody, knew everybody was safe, knew that this the incident was under control. | |
| Then I'm on the phone with both of you, and then he he's like Donald Trump after Butler he got up and he said, fight, fight, fight. | |
| And then he said, Steve, will you please tell Sean I was even up until the fifth hole, and then I was putting for Bertie and I really wanted to finish that putt. | |
| I mean, to me, it should most people probably be crawled up in a ball by that time. | |
| Well, you would you would think that after two attempts on his life in in a two-month you know, inside of a two-month span, that he would have some element of PTSD. | |
| And I I just think that any normal person would, and he just wills it away. | |
| His his really is amazing. | |
| He will I'm convinced why, by the way. | |
| I'm convinced that he believes he has to set an example to the rest of the people in this country that he is a real leader and that he is not going to be cowed, and he is not gonna bow to this type of intimidation or even an attempt on his life. | |
| Or that the land of the free and the home of the brave are not just words, but things that we should live by. | |
| Um Steve, stay right there. | |
| Steve Whitcoff was playing golf with President Trump yesterday during the assassination attempt, more of the story on the other side. | |
| He'll also join us on TV tonight, nine Eastern on the Fox News channel. | |
| We got fifty days till election day, and uh early voting starts tomorrow in Pennsylvania and then rolls out around the country. | |
| It is now time to it's game time. | |
| I hope everybody's paying attention. | |
| Uh Steve Wiffkoff is with us. | |
| He is a developer of real estate investor, chairman, CEO of the Whitcoff Group. | |
| He's also a personal friend of mine. | |
| I had breakfast with him yesterday, uh, prior to him then going to play golf with President Trump, and he was there for the entire assassination attempt. | |
| And uh it has to be a harrowing experience. | |
| And let me let me now ask the hard part, Steve, because there are things that are very troubling to me and to many others, and having spoken with Eric and Laura Trump, I know this is very tr troubling to them as well. | |
| And that is that we had Butler, Pennsylvania come down. | |
| I have a report right here in front of me, and it was put out by Josh Hawley from earlier today, and it is a whistleblower report, failures of the U.S. Secret Service in connection with the attempted assassination of former president Donald J. Trump. | |
| It is what Richard Blumenthal described it would be, the Democrat from Connecticut last week, and that is shocking. | |
| It is alarming. | |
| The failures are on a spectacular level. | |
| I do know that we we learned that an eagle-eyed Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of the gun in a in the bushes, not far from where you guys were playing that that fifth hole, and where the former president was with you, you were within just a couple of yards of the president. | |
| That means bullets would have been whizzing by your head and and you might not even be alive today. | |
| And the thought of losing two friends is just too much for me to bear, to be very honest. | |
| And what's troubling to me and to Eric and to Laura and to many Americans is how is it possible that the Secret Service, and again, the people around you you describe as heroic, and I agree completely with you. | |
| They're amazing. | |
| But there's something wrong in how they are protecting the president if people, in this case, somebody with an AK-47 with a scope on it, can be within 300 yards of the the former president and top Republican presidential candidate, the k the the nominee for president in an election fifty days away. | |
| How does that happen? | |
| There's there's a problem here. | |
| Well, you know, um I'd say a few things. | |
| The first is that uh and it's redundant, but but it's relevant, is that this team on the ground did an exemplar exemplary job, Sean. | |
| They were incredible. | |
| Uh I I everything you've described is they were perfect. | |
| They were amazing. | |
| They were perfect, and this gentleman, this Secret Service agent who was in charge of of going forward, he identified them, but apparently the Secret Service agent on the outside perimeter had just missed them. | |
| He was scanning, like he should, and he had just missed the guy. | |
| The guy basically planted himself there shortly uh after he left. | |
| And so they missed him in that coverage, but they caught him in the inside coverage. | |
| And that's the reason why nobody was tragically injured or or killed, God forbid. | |
| So they did an exemplary job. | |
| Now, I heard, and this is just what I heard on the news. | |
| I heard from uh the Palm Beach Sheriff that the president is not given a presidential detail, which of course makes no sense to me. | |
| It makes sense to me that his detail ought to be augmented or amplified to p or or or um or made smaller, depending on what the threat level is. | |
| And given what the threat level is based on Butler, and given what the what uh some of the security alerts I've heard about uh coming from the Iranians are, I would think that he would have at least a presidential detail um worth of manpower. | |
| And yet he didn't that day. | |
| So it's hard to imagine that um that with someone uh like President Trump that he wouldn't get the full complement of people necessary to guard him correctly. | |
| That's one. | |
| Two, Eric is is a marksman. | |
| He's a hunter, he's a marksman. | |
| He knows about these things pretty well because he practices it, he's competed and so forth. | |
| And he's got a good point in that maybe some of the security protocols, i.e. | |
| broadening out the the um the the boundaries beyond uh uh within which you guard him, that has to happen because it's the rifle that's the most dangerous. | |
| And there are people out there today that can take shots from a mile out. | |
| And that's uh you know, that's uh that's a pretty complicated procedure to guard a mile out in a three hundred sixty degree corridor. | |
| So um, you know, from where the president is at any one time. | |
| Um can I just as uh as an observation say that they oughta have their own sniper capability with scopes up at a high perch looking out uh around an entire perimeter uh the that full mile, because I did speak to Eric yesterday and and he was hitting targets over a mile away. | |
| That that to me would have to be the perimeter at least for the a president or somebody that has had as many threats as President Trump. | |
| I would argue he's probably the top political target in the country today, obviously he is, because he's now experienced this twice. | |
| I agree with you, and you know, Sean, I've been out with the president at the rallies. | |
| I was I was um with him just recently on 9-11, I was with him at the rally the night before. | |
| When you go to the airport, they've got sharpshooters now, sniper teams on at el in elevated places, and they're looking, and there's m there's multiple teams out there, it's very clear, and they've got their guns trained in all the different directions based on um where the president could be at any particular moment from the moment that he leaves his car, gets on the plane, gets off. | |
| So I saw that uh you see that happen at the airports. | |
| I uh uh this is not I'm not good enough to understand where the different um where the different points are at that golf club. | |
| First of all, I go there with the president, never thinking that this could ever happen. | |
| The president never thinks that this could ever happen. | |
| He's he says things to me about this club repeatedly. | |
| What do you think about this? | |
| I call it our sanctuary. | |
| I played five hundred rounds of golf with him there. | |
| It's a peaceful place. | |
| It's no wonder why I'm never gonna play with you because you're gonna c you're gonna crush me. | |
| I haven't played five hundred rounds in my life. | |
| But let me ask a serious question. | |
| Uh if if there's ever been a picture of Donald Trump playing golf, the odds are it was a photographer hiding in these very bushes where this assassin was, and and otherwise you can't get a good picture of of President Trump playing golf. | |
| And and this is what photographers do. | |
| They get paid big money if they can get a picture that is rare, and that would be a rare picture. | |
| With that said, on Congress Avenue, knowing that it is such a short distance, why wouldn't there be agents on Congress Avenue making sure nobody walks into the area by the bushes? | |
| Why wasn't that surveilled prior to the president making the turn and and going up playing the par three and the par four that you were playing? | |
| To me, this is uh this is uh a failure on uh and and I want to back up. | |
| Um I am so supportive of the Secret Service like you over the years. | |
| I've met so many of these guys, and I've come to love them, and I anybody that's willing to give their life to save another's life, no greater love hath a man to do that, right? | |
| And I admire them so much, and we see them in action. | |
| We've we've seen them now in action twice with President Trump, and you're describing everything I know about them. | |
| But that does not negate the intelligence failure, the obvious failure in this case, or in the case that we've discovered in Butler. | |
| And I'm very concerned that somebody with an AK 47 and a scope is three hundred yards away from the president because you if you are marginally decent shooter, you really can't miss from that distance. | |
| Yeah, look, I I share your concern too, and I would imagine that if you talk to the detail that was there yesterday, they would say the Secret Service detail, they would say the same thing. | |
| They're all pros. | |
| Every one of them would give their life. | |
| Every one of them um would feel a sense of immense sorrow. | |
| I think uh every one of them felt a sense of immense sorrow from what happened at Butler and how close he came to that. | |
| So uh it's not about their attitude. | |
| These guys they they do their job well, they're pros, and most of them really really care about Donald Trump. | |
| I I I know that to be a fact. | |
| I think those are the are we are we delineating between the the people that you are describing perfectly as heroic yesterday? | |
| Are we delineating between them and the people that are responsible to make sure that nobody can get within three hundred yards with uh AK 47 and a scope? | |
| Because I'm I'm making a d a very clear distinction here, and I know it's a tough conversation to have, but I to me it's a very obvious failure. | |
| And you know, now that I know the details and the layout of that golf course and having looked at it and spoken to you and spoken to Ron DeSantis and others that have played it and played it regularly and spoken to the president, I mean, this is the most dangerous point on that golf course, and with the trees involved and the fence involved, the idea if it was look how close this this got. | |
| There was one report today that said an eagle-eyed Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of the gun in the bushes a few hundred yards from where the president was playing. | |
| This guy was teed up and ready to go, and and I think the president came a lot closer to being assassinated yesterday than we know now. | |
| That tells me he was he had his sight, he had his GoPro, he had his backpacks, he had been waiting there, and he was ready to take the shot and had this one agent not seen the barrel of that gun. | |
| We we that this would be a very different show today. | |
| I agree with you. | |
| I I don't disagree with uh with that with how you're describing it, but thank God that one heroic agent did see that barrel of the gun. | |
| And thank God when those shots went off, I was able to see I look, I consider it as as um as crazy as this may sound to you, Sean. | |
| I consider it my honor and blessing to have witnessed everything I saw yesterday. | |
| It was almost as if, you know, I buried a son, and I say my son puts me in these places. | |
| It was almost as if he put me there. | |
| He put me on that on that green so I could witness what my dear friend went through a month and a half ago and what it must be like for him. | |
| So I saw these valiant agents and and how they responded. | |
| I saw the president almost fearless, less concerned about his own self and the welfare of his friends. | |
| And I agree with you uh that you know something's got to be done to address some of these issues that you've raised. | |
| But I don't know if it's a question of uh manpower and it, you know, the the Secret Service having, you know, typical bureaucratic aspects to it, and the president not getting enough staff. | |
| Or if there was a lapse somewhere. | |
| I know this. | |
| What I witnessed yesterday was heroism. | |
| There's no doubt in my mind. | |
| I I never got under that golf cart. | |
| I just watched and turned around watching, mesmerized by what I saw. | |
| Well, you and I need to have a personal conversation about you just standing up for the whole incident and not getting not going for cover. | |
| I've I've got to have a conversation with you about uh uh personal safety and security for yourself, and I say that lovingly as your friend. | |
| Well, you know what, you know what I you know what I call it, Sean? | |
| It's the Donald Trump influence. | |
| Says all stand a little bit taller, be a little more fearless, stand up uh sta uh stand up for what we what we believe in a little bit more. | |
| He I he he I think he inspires all of us to do that. | |
| He inspired us that day when he stood up and raised his fist. | |
| And that's why I kind of once he knew everybody was safe, and I was on the phone with both of you, and he said, Steve, I was playing, uh I was playing really well, right? | |
| And you go, Yes, you are, sir. | |
| And he goes, and I had a birdie putting you like, yes, I ah, because I wish I could have got the birdie put in, but it was only after he knew everybody was safe, which again that's a resiliency that uh we all can learn something from, just like fight, fight, fight. | |
| Um, listen, you're a dear friend. | |
| Um, I'm very grateful you're safe that the president's safe. | |
| We definitely need changes. | |
| We cannot have uh assassins or would-be assassins that close to any highly elected official, let alone a former president and top presidential candidate. | |
| We can't have it. | |
| Steve Whitkoff, uh, we'll see on TV tonight. | |
| We really do appreciate all the extra time you gave us. | |
| Thank you, my friend. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Thank you for having me. | |
| All right, that's gonna wrap things up for today. | |
| Loaded up tonight, nine Eastern on the Fox News Channel. | |
| Steve Whitcoff playing golf with the president yesterday, will tell his firsthand account of this now second assassination attempt of President Trump. | |
| Uh, we'll get reaction from Eric Trump. | |
| He is beside himself that this has happened, rightly so. | |
| Uh, we have new polls coming out. | |
| Uh, we'll check in with our pollsters, Matt Towery, Roberta Haley, nine Eastern tonight. | |
| Hannity on Fox, see you then back here tomorrow. | |
| Thank you for making this show possible. |
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