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Oct. 2, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
28:44
Aaron Cohen - October 2nd, Hour 3

Aaron Cohen, is an Israeli-trained career special operations and intelligence veteran who has served in the counterterrorism space for over two decades.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is an iHeart podcast.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour.
Toll-free, our number is 800-941-Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, I went into great specificity and detail about how outrageous it is that Joe Biden, the comments that he made earlier today, you know, for whatever reason, you know, he wouldn't let Zelensky fight his war in Ukraine.
He had all these restrictions.
They couldn't fight an air war and take MiGs that were offered by Poland and then is dictating to the Ukrainians after they were invaded by Vladimir Putin and Russia how they got to fight the war.
I think Europe has not done enough to step up and protect their own continent, number one, which infuriates me.
Number two, I think when you get to the $200 billion taxpayer dollar range and you have such a mineral-rich country, they ought to be paying for the weapons that we're providing if you believe in their cause, which clearly Joe does.
They've only given a fraction of that money to Israel.
You know, I think under $20 billion, Israel's not looking for any support.
They're willing to pay for the weapons.
They need the ability to shoot these ballistic missiles out of the air.
What we saw yesterday was just unprecedented military might on the part of the Israelis.
But in light of the clear threat and the forefront war that has emerged, it is a very chilling scenario because every group that we're talking about here from Hamas out of Gaza, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad out of Lebanon, and the Houthi rebels, and now Iran fighting Israel directly.
I mean, these groups are all dedicated to wiping Israel off the map.
Never mind the ignorance you hear in the halls of Congress, the ignorance that you hear on college campuses, and then Joe Biden getting on Air Force One earlier today.
You know, anything other than Israel has the right to win its war against radical Islamic terrorism is the wrong answer.
It's that simple.
The fact that Kamala Harris thinks every American should be courageous and never utter the words radical Islamic terrorism or illegal alien is just outrageous to me.
So Biden has asked in terms of what would be a retaliatory strike, but he's asked about, well, what about a possible preemptive Israeli strike?
No, it's any response Israel would take here would be in retaliation to the ballistic missiles, 200 of them that were fired by Iran from Iran at Israel that thankfully didn't kill people.
But there's only so many of those missiles that they're going to be able to take out of the sky before some of them start landing.
And we keep hearing they're on the verge of nuclear capability and their radicalism married to that insane convert or die mentality could create a modern-day holocaust if we're not paying attention and don't have the moral clarity to understand the nature of the enemy that is hell-bent on destroying the state of Israel.
And that's their first goal.
Their second goal would be the destruction of America and the free world and a worldwide caliphate.
But here's Biden getting on Air Force One, asked directly if Israel, they say preemptive, but it's really retaliatory, were to strike Iran's nuclear weapons program, would he support it?
His first words.
The answer is no.
Who the hell is Joe Biden to tell Israel after they just had 200 ballistic missiles fired at them what they need to do for their own security?
The only message of moral clarity that America needs to give Israel is we support your right to win your war against radical Islamic terrorists and we need to say the words.
Listen.
The answer is no.
And I think there's things we'll be discussing with the Israelis what they're going to do.
But they were all seven of us agree that they were right to respond, that they should respond in proportion.
Sir, can I ask you, what is your advice to Israel as far as how they should respond to this right now?
I believe that's we're giving them that advice.
Okay, when will you talk to Bibi?
Well, we've been talking to BB people the whole time.
And that's not necessarily to talk to B.B. I'll probably be talking to him relatively soon.
Well, Donald Trump talked at length with Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday.
And remember, when Joe Biden became president, Iran was on the verge of bankruptcy because Donald Trump enforced the sanctions that prevented them from selling their oil on world markets.
You know, he wasn't offering waiver after waiver and turning a blind eye to the sanctions as Harris and Biden have been doing.
You know, Harris and Biden themselves offered $6 billion ransom to Iran.
They allowed the Iraqis to pay them $10 billion.
This is insanity.
And with those hundreds of billions of dollars that they've been able to acquire, well, the number one state sponsor of terror just continued what they always do, and that's to sponsor even more terror, which has led to total, complete chaos and death and destruction all throughout the Middle East.
And now we're on the verge of a much wider war.
They made Iran rich, and knowing that they would foment terror, they went back to this idiotic, insane Iranian deal, which gives the Iranians a path towards nuclear capability.
That is more insanity.
Anyway, joining us now, our good friend Aaron Cohn is back with us, and he's an Israeli-trained career special ops and intelligence veteran and served in the counterterrorism space for over two decades.
Aaron, great to have you back.
I'm so sorry what's happened.
You know, it broke my heart watching what was unfolding yesterday.
But frankly, my response, and this is just my two cents, if I was president and somebody asked me that question, I would say Israel needs to do what they need to do to win their war against radical Islamic terrorists that have attacked them.
And if it means taking out their refinery so they cut off their money supply and taking out their nuclear site so they never have a nuclear weapon, I'd be fine with it.
Yeah, Sean, I agree with you 100%.
Here's where I'm at with all of this.
And here's the sense that I'm getting from my colleagues in Israel.
After that missile attack, which was almost 200 missiles fired into Israel, first of all, that's a knee-jerk reaction from Hezbollah.
That's fear.
That's Hezbollah reciprocating because they have so much egg on their face, Sean, because we have systematically assassinated all of their top leadership, their Rodwan brigade, thousands of missile-launching batteries.
And that was a knee-jerk reaction.
That's them sort of trying to flex, if you will, in the Middle East.
That's the language like we say in Hebrew.
But here's where I'm at.
Hezbollah no longer belongs to Iran Sean after that missile attack the other day.
And you're right.
Hundreds of people could have been killed if it wasn't for our multi-tiered Iron Dome David Sling aero defense system, brilliantly manned by those IDF kids.
And as far as I'm concerned, they've signed over the deed after that missile strike on ownership over Hezbollah, the IRGC, that is.
So where I'm at is at this point right now, it's stay out of Israel's way as we dismantle Hezbollah, or you will be permanently removed from the Middle East.
And I mean that.
And that's the general tone that I'm getting from my friends at Glilot, the intelligence base in Israel.
And Israel will continue to degrade Hezbollah's military capabilities, Sean, to the point where they're no longer even a smell as a viable proxy, a scent for Iran.
Target and eliminate every one of those missile launching capabilities in southern Lebanon, where our commandos are now in the fifth wave of this operation.
It started with the Pagers, 3,000 injured.
I would say several hundred killed.
The Iranian media reporting far less.
Eliminate those missiles after that Pager operation, the takedown of those Hezbollah leaders, then the Radwan Brigade, and then Hassan Nasral.
And don't forget, we sent a little package to Ismail Khania, and so Iran is scared.
And then that third piece is I believe that Bibi knows that Biden is going to put the brakes on.
He's already starting.
And they did that in Rafa.
And those brakes that they put on Israel could have rescued those six hostages.
Nobody does hostage rescue better than us, Sean.
Our Yamam, Marseille, Matal.
We practically invented it starting in 1976 back in Entebbe.
So at this point right now, I think.
By the way, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who lost his brother and was part of that raid himself.
That's right.
And I know you guys are friends.
I know you and Bibi go back 35 years, and Bibi's an incredible wartime leader right now.
And even though there's some divide in Israel, that's part of a democratically elected country.
But I think Bibi is going to degrade the military capability of Hezbollah completely, eliminate those missile threats, going to start going after the Hezbollah, excuse me, the IRGC leadership as well.
And Iran knows we can get to every one of them, Sean.
And Farsi, if any of my friends at the IRGC are listening, that's Dr. Seed Darim.
It means they're all within our reach, Sean.
You've seen the work that we can do.
By the way, we saw that after the April attack.
And I went over this with you on TV the other night.
The ability of Israel to penetrate so deeply into Iranian airspace and with such ease and to bypass their air defenses was staggering to me.
And then they did send a little message because one of their targets happened to be right next to one of their nuclear sites.
And I think we're going to see some more of that, Sean.
And I think the reason why is because I think Bibi knows he's on the clock.
He knows Iran is scared.
That nuclear capability of Iran is, it could be a couple of weeks away.
Our intelligence is the best in the world.
We've got the best targeting officers in the world.
Every one of those Mossad agents, I mean, they can flip officers and military.
Maybe this goes all the way back to the 50s, Sean.
Ellie Cohen, one of our great spies, worked his way up to the top of the Syrian leadership and was mingling with all the military and the president of Syria.
And, you know, listen, we got Jews who speak every language, Sean.
And if we can't get one of our Israelis in there, you know, we'll set up shale corporations just like we did with that Pager operation.
And we'll sell our enemies those Pagers, which I believe was not just laced with Sintec, Sean.
There was probably tracking devices in there.
There was probably listening devices.
Helped Israel for over five, six months map out all of Lebanon to figure out exactly where they needed to go with this air campaign now.
And so I think Bibi knows he's on the clock, speaks the language of the Middle East, comes from that.
What do you mean by saying he's on the clock?
I believe that Biden and Harris are going to continue to elevate the pressure on Israel to respond with constraint.
Why would Israel care one iota about what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris think?
Kamala Harris, who doesn't even want to acknowledge that radical Islamic terrorism exists.
We don't, Sean.
We don't.
But at the end of the day, BB still has to play nice, publicly still has to show that we're grateful.
It's just politicking.
You know, just the other day, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin talked about how they were warning Iran that if they fired, this is before the missile attack, if they fired directly into Israel, then the U.S. would respond and defend Israel.
And here, you know, I tweeted him back, and I said, Sean, or I said, with all due respect, sir, missiles coming in from Hezbollah is a direct missile attack from Iran.
So there's politicking.
Well, they listened to Joe the last time.
They listened to Kamal the last time before April.
What was their one-word answer?
Don't.
Don't.
Well, they did.
That's right.
And the problem, Sean, in the Middle East is that the Mullahs, the leaders of the IRGC, listen, you can put as many aircraft carriers in the theater that you want, but aircraft carriers don't scare terrorists.
And the U.S. needs to start getting on board with Israel's tone of how they're conducting special operations with our baldiness.
I don't know how else to say it.
Forgive me for your sponsors, but there needs to be a certain chutzpah that the U.S. needs to start.
It doesn't offend my sponsors, and it doesn't offend me, I promise you.
Because that's exactly what it takes.
You know, here's what people don't understand.
I mean, they are dedicated to wiping Israel off the map.
This now, this is a forefront war.
This is all hands on deck.
And there's really only one option, Aaron.
We have a minute left, and that's for Israel to win and for them to lose.
That's right.
And just like BB said when he addressed when he was over here and gave his last speech, every time they say death to America, Sean, they're saying death, or excuse me, death to Israel.
They're saying death to America.
The extremists and the radicalists and the Islamists, and I know them well, Sean, I speak their language.
I know their mannerisms.
I know their culture.
All of the deceit and deception, all of the box that Iran's been sponsoring, brainwashing these kids via TikTok and social media, which you and I discussed the other night.
All of this is coming to the West.
And that open porous border is a nightmare waiting to explode.
And Israel needs to get business handled, and the U.S. needs to get serious about their posture on the global war on terrorism.
And I don't see it happening with Biden.
Certainly not going to happen with Harris.
But Israel's going to do what it's going to do, Sean, with or without the U.S.'s help.
And that's kind of where I'm at.
Well, our prayers are with the people of Israel and their full, complete victory.
Aaron Cohn, our prayers are with you, the people of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we wish you Godspeed in beating back the forces of evil in our time because that's evil.
800, you're very welcome.
800-941, Sean, is our number.
We'll continue.
And it's sick and getting sicker than ever.
It really is true.
Anyway, so I was in New York.
Linda, it was good to see me in New York yesterday, wasn't it?
It was indeed.
And we had fun.
I was there for the vice presidential debate last night.
The debate ends.
I'm in the middle of my opening monologue.
I knew JD Vance was coming into the spin room.
He not only came into the spin room, he walked right by the mob and said, excuse me, I got an interview with Sean Hannity.
But anyway, I got to interview J.D. right after the debate.
I thought it was a spectacular display on his part.
And smart, knowledgeable, tone-pitched, cadence, message, knowledge.
I mean, and then you've got this nervous wreck that, you know, just lied through his teeth repeatedly throughout the debate, Tim Walz.
And we talked about the debate.
And here's how the interview went out.
Joining us now, the man of the hour, Senator JD Vance is with us.
Senator, it was funny.
When I first interviewed you at the RNC, we knew each other, but we didn't know each other well.
And I was supposed to have you for like a 10-minute interview.
I think I kept you there like 30 minutes.
By the way, I hope you're not doing anything for the next half hour.
You're welcome to stay.
I don't know if I can stay that long tonight.
And as I was watching you tonight, I felt like you really got a chance to introduce yourself to the American people.
And I felt it was extraordinarily effective.
Because now that I've gotten to know you, that's the person that I know.
Yeah.
Well, look, I mean, I just wanted to talk about issues, right?
I saw this as an opportunity to get 90 minutes with the American people.
It's an unbelievable opportunity for a person who wants to be the next vice president.
And you should just make it as much as possible about substance.
And, you know, one of the things I tried to do, Sean, obviously is criticize Kamala Harris's record, but also remind the American people that Donald Trump is not the caricature that Kamala Harris and the media have made him out to be.
But he was an incredibly effective president for four years in the Oval Office.
And he actually solved problems, right?
I think most Americans, Democrats, Republicans, people in the middle, they're sick of Congress being like a high-class debating society.
They actually want their elected leaders to do something to solve the country's problems.
Donald Trump did that more than any person I've sort of observed in my 40 years of being on this earth.
And it was such a good opportunity for me to just make that point to the American people.
We had low inflation.
Things were going well.
The world was more peaceful.
And actually, Sean, it's an easier argument to make tonight.
I hate to say it, because of the incredible tragedy unfolding in Israel, which looks increasingly like it could become a broader regional conflict.
Like when the world is going to crap and it looks increasingly more violent, you want steady, proven leadership.
That's Donald Trump, not Kamala Harris, the person who has sort of broken the entire world.
And I just tried to make that point as much as possible, man.
Just make it about substance and let the American people make up their mind.
One of the things as I was watching the 181 ballistic missiles being fired from Iran into Israel, and I'm so thankful they got most of them down, but they're now really fighting a forefront war.
Their very existence is at risk here.
No, that's exactly right.
And of course, not just their existence, but America's national security here.
I mean, if Iran becomes a regional hegemon, it will have a nuclear weapon the next week.
That will seriously endanger the United States of America because the Iranians have shown they're clearly not rational.
But you think about this.
This happened, Sean, because of confused policy from American leadership.
We ask ourselves, like, how did it get to the point where Iran is launching 200 ICBMs at America's most important regional ally?
And the answer is because they don't actually know where Kamala Harris stands.
Now, you talk about how they've cozied up to sort of this weird pro-Hamas wing within their own party.
Well, they're doing that, of course, because of political reasons, but it shows that that confusion that comes out of that policy invites a lot of aggression, invites a lot of bad guys doing terrible things.
And it also, Sean, motivates a lot of really stupid policy.
200 ICBMs, that's not cheap.
Iran has a lot of other weapons.
How did they fund it?
Two reasons, Sean.
Number one, Kamala Harris went to war against the American energy sector.
That radically increased the amount of oil revenue the Iranian regime was benefiting from.
Number two, they unfroze $100 billion of Iranian assets.
They're effectively handing these guys pallets of cash.
The Iranians are buying weapons.
And real leadership would be to say, we screwed up.
We got something wrong.
Let's go in another.
Let's do what Donald Trump did.
But they just can't do that because of the political.
They've turned a blind eye to the sanctions.
The sanctions may be.
They literally made Iran rich, and that allows them to fund these proxy wars.
That's Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthi rebels, and now Iran directly firing into Israel.
And what should America's response be here?
Well, look, I think it's tough, Sean, because we don't have a president that we can actually trust.
I don't even know who the president of the United States is.
And that's one thing we didn't actually get into the debate that I really wanted to hammer Kamala Harris on: is that for three and a half years, America has been saddled with a president of the United States who can't do the job.
And the reason is because Kamala Harris lied and said he was up to the job of president, and of course he wasn't.
And now we're in this, you know, we've got this terrible crisis in Appalachia, these terrible floods, a lot of people affected.
We've got this regional war breaking out in the Middle East, and we don't have effective American leadership.
Look, I think what our response is is fundamentally this is Israel's security, and they have to make the decision about how they're best going to protect their own security.
And they need the support of their American allies, not Joe Biden, as confused as he is, standing behind them, effectively promising that he's going to punish them if they dare defend their own sovereignty and their own security.
Israel is actually very good at this stuff.
It's one of the great things about Israel as an ally, unlike frankly a lot of so-called American allies, is they have a viable military, they have a viable intelligence service, they're going to make their own decision about how to protect their sovereignty.
I think our role here is to support our friends and also get back to some common sense foreign and economic policies so that we can be strong enough to respond to the next national security challenge.
Let me ask you, you kept bringing up a point that I felt was very effective in this debate, and that is she's been vice president nearly four years.
And Walls kept bringing up the issue of immigration.
You brought up the 90-some-odd executive orders that they bragged about, but you also brought up other aspects: how it impacts education and the economy and housing and the high cost of housing.
Look, man, so much of our problem is actually due to Kamala Harris's open border.
You take 25 million illegal aliens, so take a small community, let's say you've got a school district with four or five thousand kids.
Now, all of a sudden, you add a thousand kids who can't speak English through no fault of their own, of course.
But of course, the American education system, the education for our kids, suffers in the process.
Hospital wait times.
A point I actually didn't get to make this evening, but hospital wait times have gotten longer and longer.
Why?
Because a lot of illegal aliens go to the hospital emergency room to get medical care.
Well, that means American citizens aren't able to be seen by a doctor quickly.
Housing is, I think, actually the biggest issue.
A major driver of housing costs is that you have millions of foreigners who are illegally in the country who are competing with Americans for scarce homes.
That's supply and demand and shoots the cost of housing through the roof.
And this is why I talk about substance.
My goal was to talk about substance tonight because I think a lot of Americans sort of intuitively get this country's leadership has failed it.
And I just try to explain as much as possible: here's why Kamala Harris has been a failure.
Here's why Donald Trump has been a success.
And here's how we're going to clean up the mess that she created.
Let me ask one question as you were on the stage.
Tim Wall seemed very nervous tonight.
Now, I kind of walked away with the impression, and I guess maybe I felt maybe this is the reason he doesn't do interviews.
He seemed, well, did it come across as nervous to you?
Honestly, I didn't notice it, man.
Adrenaline's going so much.
I was nervous.
Help me in hell.
Like I do a lot of these interviews, Sean, but I was nervous.
It's the biggest stage of my life.
So I didn't focus so much on his demeanor.
I just tried to focus on what he was saying.
And look, to be fair to Tim Waltz, he had a very tough job, and that is to defend the policies of Kamala Harris.
This is great.
I didn't bring that up.
Yeah, which he did have a tough job.
He does.
And look, it's Kamala Harris has done this.
Her policy failures have made food, housing, energy unaffordable.
We just need a change in this country.
We need to get back to the common sense leadership of Donald Trump.
I'm not surprised that Tim couldn't defend that record.
Who could?
If you put me on that debate stage, I mean, you clearly think I did a good job.
I hope that I did a good job.
But if you asked me to defend Kamala Harris's record, I'd melt into a puddle because there is no defending what she's done the last three and a half years.
Let's talk about the number one issue in just about every poll for most Americans is the economy.
Peace and prosperity drive elections.
Well, we got war in Europe, war in the Middle East, and we've got an economy that is struggling and wide open borders that has made our country not safe.
Yeah, that's exactly right, Sean.
I mean, look, you know, I grew up in a working-class family.
Sometimes we did okay, sometimes times were really tough.
And I can't help but think about this through the eyes of a family that's struggling to make ends meet, where people are sort of looking at the credit card bills, they're looking at the groceries, they're looking at the medical expenses, and they're saying we can maybe afford two of these three things, but we can't afford all three.
And I just want Americans, I want, you know, if you're struggling in this country and you're looking to the future, I want you to look to the future from a place of hope and optimism.
I want you to believe the American dream is still possible.
Because I really do believe it's still possible, Sean.
But man, only if we get the policies that actually make sense for the American people.
I mean, you know, the thing that I've learned most the last eight weeks, Ann, I've had such an insight into this country, and it's so amazing.
People come up and ask me how I'm doing.
And sometimes I'm talking about people who are struggling in a very big way.
And it's sort of like, you know, I kind of had this like Eureka moment of if all of these American citizens are so concerned about the guy running for vice president when they themselves can't afford groceries, there is a generosity of spirit in this country that is so amazing.
We need a leader who actually matches up with that generosity of spirit, a leader who's fit to lead the greatest nation in the world.
We don't have it now.
I think we're about to have it starting on November 5th.
I did wish you brought this up at the end.
You know, she tweeted out a bail fund four days after Police Precinct was burned to the ground and then said, they're not going to stop writing, shouldn't stop writing, and we're not going to stop writing.
In my defense, Sean, there's so much to whack Kamala Harris about with her record that you only had 90 minutes.
I didn't have four hours.
But no, look, you're absolutely right here that her policies, it's not just that she did these things.
She, in some cases, went out and bragged about opening the border.
She bragged about how she wanted to divert resources away from police officers.
She bragged about the green news scam, which, of course, is one of the main drivers of energy and food prices.
She bragged about this stuff.
It happened and Americans have suffered from it.
Now, you made a good point.
She hasn't answered for any of this.
Well, Sean, in her defense, she hasn't answered for anything because she refuses to sit down for interviews.
Don't do press conferences or interviews for Brian Outlaw.
Like, honestly, I will offer Kamala and Tim Walz a whole week's worth of shows if they come.
Sean, I legitimately believe, no kidding, that you would be a much more fair interviewer of Kamala Harris than, for example, like Dana Bash was with me.
You go on Dana Bash's show, you go on Sean Hand, you go wherever you can, because if you want to be the vice president of the United States, you ought to earn it.
You ought to get out there and talk to the American people.
And I think it's the most scandalous part of her entire campaign is that she's running from a basement, hiding from the very people that she wants to lead, while you have a contrast of Donald Trump, who not only was the successful president once, but is so eager to get out there and make his case to the American people that he's doing multiple rallies a day, multiple interviews with newsletter.
That is the kind of guy with the energy that you need to actually run this country.
You know, one of the things I think you look for in a debate is tone, pitch, cadence, intelligence.
Does that person have the ability to step in, God forbid, if you have to become the president of the United States?
At the end of the day, I felt this was maybe for people that had a caricature of you.
You mentioned one of Donald Trump.
I think that came across tonight.
You had a good time?
I had a lot of fun, man.
Yeah, on a scale of one to 10, how nervous were you?
Like an 11.
By the way, it is a big moment.
There's only, you know, 70 million people or so watching.
Exactly.
It's a very big moment.
And yeah, I just, I saw it as an opportunity to look directly at the American people and communicate the ways in which I thought we could do it.
There was one person ahead of you, if I'm not mistaken.
No, there were a lot of people ahead of me, including my wife.
I think she was number one.
She was number one.
She was way ahead of me.
But no, man, I just, it's such a cool opportunity to get to talk to the American people, to get to make your case to them, to get to remind them that Kamala Harris's policies have been a failure.
And I tried as much as possible to make it about policy because I think that's where Donald Trump is such a better candidate.
It's great to see it.
Thank you for stopping by.
Thanks.
Great job, Tom.
Take care.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
We have full post-debate coverage.
Also, the failure that is happening in North Carolina and Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
No response.
FEMA, DEI-oriented.
We'll check in with Newt Gingrich.
Our own Sarah Carter is in Asheville, North Carolina.
Newt Gingrich on last night's debate, Laura Trump.
We'll look at the polls with Robert Cahaley and Matt Towery.
Also, North Carolina Senator Bud will join us.
And part of my interview from yesterday with Melania Trump, the EDVR, Hannity, tonight, 9 Eastern on Fox.
See you then back here tomorrow.
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