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Oct. 9, 2024 - Sean Hannity Show
29:10
Operation Helo - October 8th, Hour 2
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This is an iHeart podcast.
Thanks, Scott Shannon.
Hour two, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-SEAN.
If you want to be a part of the program, 28 days till Election Day, early voting now rolling out all around the country for details on how to register and details on when early voting starts in your state, when it ends, all the information you'd need on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz that the state-run media mob will ignore is all there as a public service.
It's on the Hannity social media everywhere as well.
Let's go back to last Friday and Joe Biden recklessly lying, saying, oh, everybody in North Carolina and Georgia and Tennessee and South Carolina and Florida have everything they need and everybody's happy.
Happy, happy, happy.
What are the states in the storm zone?
What do they need after what you saw today?
Oh, and the storm zone.
Yes, sir.
I'm holding what storm is talking about.
They've gotten everything they need.
They're very happy across the board.
So we're just telling you, they have to go back to the font and get some more money for your friends.
Getting everything they need, and they're very happy.
And Joe Biden is now angry and criticizing, you know, saying criticizing hurricane response is un-American.
Meanwhile, they still have not helped the people of North Carolina and a lot of these states in ways that are unimaginable.
People still are unaccounted for.
And if it weren't for neighbor helping neighbor and groups showing up and rescuing people, probably the death toll, whatever it eventually becomes, would be much higher.
But you can't criticize the government and their response when it was the worst response in the history of any hurricane in history.
Listen.
Those who do it do it to try to damage the administration.
Well, we can take care of ourselves.
But it misleads people.
It puts people in circumstances where they panic, where they really, really, really worry.
They think now we're not being taken care of.
And it really is, it's going to sound using an old phrase.
It's un-American.
Well, I've talked to more people on the ground, especially in North Carolina, that feel that they were abandoned.
We did a focus group last night.
We'll do another one tonight on Hannity on Fox News.
Now, there are groups out there that are doing incredible work.
I've talked a lot about Samaritan's Purse.
They were like the first on the ground, local churches.
I know people that have come from Florida and they've driven up to states like Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina to help out and people from other states.
There is a group, Operation Halo, and they have been on the ground.
They've actually been up in the air and out and about, and they've been helping people that have otherwise been left to fend for themselves.
Matt McSwain is a volunteer helicopter pilot.
Let's listen to him talk about helping people in North Carolina when FEMA didn't show up for a full week and still isn't really on the ground the way they should be.
No military eight days after Hurricane Helene.
Listen.
During this whole mission, we didn't know what we didn't know, right?
So we started calling friends, started calling buddies, social media.
We're pilots.
We're in that world.
People started to show up.
How can we help?
There was no military presence.
There was no military help.
There was no FEMA.
There was no nothing.
Still no FEMA, still no military, still no nothing.
We're begging.
This is day eight, nine now, and we're tired.
Man, we've been, but if we go home, mama and papa don't get their medicine and they die.
So that's why we're still forging on.
But going digressing, going back to the helicopter operations, this isn't something that we've ever seen before.
This is The communities that we're trying to get to, we have forged over 400 LZs into the mountains, into the remote locations.
It's not that these people don't have power, they don't have windows and doors on their home if they even have a home.
So we're flying over 400 missions per day.
We have over 90 helicopters registered.
We got 40 squawk codes the FAA gave us.
We're doing the best we can to keep these people alive.
We need the military here.
We want to go home.
We want to turn this over to an operation.
We want some help.
We need some help.
I don't know what else to do to get it.
How does that reconcile what people on the ground are actually doing and saying with the lies that's being told by Joe and Kamala?
Now, joining us, the person you just heard, Matt McSwain, as well as Eric Robinson, both with Operation Hilo.
They've been doing the work of getting people out of harm's way.
Thank you both, number one, for being on the program, and thank you both for what you've been doing.
Matt, I just heard what you said.
Eight, nine, ten days later, there's no FEMA, there's no military.
You have a group of people.
You're flying 400 missions a day.
You got 90 birds in operation that are being.
My understanding is they're being donated by people.
It's not like the government is providing those helicopters and that you've been saving people's lives.
And Joe Biden, you just heard him in his own words, said, Everybody has been taken care of and everything is fine.
Is that true?
Well, Sean, I appreciate you having us on today.
I want to quote Colonel Chetsey Pool or uncommon valor as a common virtue.
The citizens that have dedicated their time and their efforts and their machines to this operation is uncanned.
It's unprecedented.
And I want to clarify, and this is kind of a weird situation and an honor to work with these guys.
The military presence that we have here are all volunteers that have taken off their time personally from the military.
A lot of special forces guys basically said, screw you, we want to take time off.
We want to go help.
So we have been working directly with a lot of, I won't specifically name what units, but a lot of special forces guys come here and say, hey, put us on a helicopter, put us in, Coach.
We want to, you know, we want to help.
So the military presence that we have is in no way, shape, or form, an official capacity, but it's just patriots that want to come help us.
And let's get your take.
Eric, you're also on the ground.
You've been there.
You've been on these flights.
You've been saving lives.
Let me go back and play Joe Biden again because I think it's worth it.
Joe Biden said Friday that everybody's getting everything they need and everybody's happy.
And then I want your response directly to what Joe Biden said.
What are the states in the storm zone?
What do they need after what you saw today?
Oh, and the storm zone.
Yes, sir.
I don't know what storm you're talking about.
They've got everything they need.
They're very happy across the board.
So we just got it.
I'm going to have to go back to the finesse and get some more money for the crew.
They're getting everything they need, and everybody's happy across the board.
Eric Robinson, how many days have you been in North Carolina?
So we started this operation on we stood it up on Sunday of last week.
So we've been out here.
I think this is, they all run together, probably day nine or 10 at this point.
But let me address the back half of that first by him saying everybody's happy.
I can guarantee not a single soul here is happy.
There's people up in the mountains that have lost literally everything, not just cars, not just their yards messed up.
They've lost entire houses.
So no one is happy.
But I will say that on the backs of a civilian operated helicopter militia, they are getting everything they need by donations from civilians carried to them by civilians, paid for by civilian donations.
So they are getting everything they need, but they're not getting it from the government.
At this point, I don't even know why we pay taxes.
If we can send $358 million to Lebanon for exactly what's happening in the mountains, people not having food, aid, clothes, shelter, why can that money not be redirected here?
That's that not a single person is here is happy.
So how could they possibly be happy?
Their entire lives have been upended.
And, you know, you're talking about the money that went to Lebanon.
I mean, Kamala Harris posted on X just two days ago that the people of Lebanon are facing an increasingly dire humanitarian situation.
I'm concerned about the security and well-being of civilians suffering in Lebanon and will continue working to help meet the needs of all the civilians there.
And to that end, the U.S. is giving $157 million in additional assistance to the people of Lebanon on top that brings the total to $385 million, as you rightly point out.
That's money that I believe should be going to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, every other state that is in need of it.
It doesn't include, for example, the three, the added $8 billion that they gave a week and a half ago to Ukraine, nearly $200 billion total, on top of the fact that we spend every year, you know, all of this money.
Ethiopia gets $2 billion.
The Taliban, $1.3 billion, another $1.3 billion for Yemen, more than a billion to Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, $18 billion on the anti-American, anti-Semitic United Nations, $850 million for the corrupt WHO that was the propaganda wing for China during COVID, millions more for the Globalist World Economic Forum.
But FEMA, we're told, is out of money.
They rated that, the coffers there to give $1 billion to Harris Biden unvetted illegal immigrants.
You want me to keep going on how they spend money?
No, I mean, you laid it out perfectly.
And again, I just get back to, in all honesty, it just shows you how out of touch our leaders are with what's really going on inside the United States of America.
And I think Joe Biden said it himself, show me a budget and I'll show you what you care about.
And the people in the mountains of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, they're obviously not cared about because of the budget items and where that money's going.
So I'm sorry, it just makes my blood boil at this point because Matt and I have been on the ground since day one helping orchestrate aid.
But I'll be honest, I'm glad it happened like this because we were probably more likely able to get more aid to them than the government could ever dream about through private citizens, private donations.
So this is probably I'll be honest.
I'd never heard of your organization before.
And Linda brought your organization to my attention.
I knew that there were private groups there.
And we have Corey Mills from Florida has been involved in operations like this.
And I knew from day one that Samaritan's purse was on the ground and they were meeting the immediate needs of food and water and fuel and supplies for everybody.
I knew that Elon Musk, after he got a call from Donald Trump, was bringing Starlink and communications capability to areas that had no communications at all.
And then I keep reading about all these helicopter flights that are saving lives.
Are you both confident?
Matt, I'll ask you first that everybody has been, everybody in trouble has at least been contacted and helped in some way, or do you feel that there's still people out there that we don't know about?
You know, we have geograding on our maps.
We try to touch everybody, everybody we touch.
We try to map it out.
There's still some red areas in our 15-mile grid system.
The military came to us wanting to use our intel because what we had, they didn't even have.
We were sharing it with local law enforcement once, and I want to give a huge thank you to Donald Trump.
He made these Starlinks happen.
We currently have the largest Starlink gridding system in the United States, all attributed to Donald Trump.
Yavanka brought them personally in her jet and handed them to us.
So you want to talk about patriotism?
That's it.
Elon Musk, thank you so much.
We were able to employ that.
We partnered with Samaritan's Purse.
We were actually putting stuff in the field with Samaritan's Purse.
So to answer your question, there still may be pockets of areas that we can't get to.
I think yesterday we found somebody that still hadn't been touched in nine days.
But, you know, I feel confident that 95% of the area we can go home and sleep at night and say was covered.
It's just so remote that you can't get to them, even by our helicopters in some regions.
So if I had to put a number on, I'd say 95%.
What do you say, Eric Robinson?
So I would say, yes, I agree 100% with Matt.
We are super thankful for the Starlinks that were distributed or donated by Elon to where we could get comms up and running to where we could get aid in.
So, you know, we also, part of this, we have a ground assault that's actually launching today, and we have LZs that are completely stocked with supplies.
That ground assault is going to happen by a team of side-by-side drivers, a huge team of side-by-side drivers that are going to go out and try to get those last pockets.
Our motto is no man left behind, and it's going to stay that.
So we're not going to sleep until we get them all.
But yeah, like Matt said, through our network, we were able to get to at least probably 95%.
The other 5% were coming.
It's amazing.
And the worst of times, I saw this after 9-11.
You see the best in people, and both of you represent that, and all the people that are working with you.
All right, quick break.
We'll come right back more with Eric Robinson and Matt McSwain of Operation Hilo.
We'll get to your calls on the other side as well.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, 28 days till election day, we continue with the best election coverage available on your radio dial.
Final moments with Eric Robinson and Matt McSwain of Operation Hilo, and they have been volunteering their time, their money, their efforts, doing the job that Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, FEMA have failed to do.
And they have nearly 100 helicopters and pilots that have been running about 400 missions a day all over these remote portions of North Carolina, and they have been saving lives.
And I wanted to give them, you know, a final word here before we let them go and also an opportunity to tell us how we can help them.
They've been paying for the fuel for these helicopters, 400 missions a day out of their own pocket.
They just can't afford to keep doing it that way.
Anyway, we continue with Eric Robinson and Matt McSwain.
How can people help Operation Hilo?
Well, I tell you what, Eric's credit card is still on file downstairs.
We're paying for all the fuel for all these helicopters.
Anything anybody can do to help donate.
That was our catch.
You know, hey, guys, you bring your helicopters up here.
We'll pay for fuel.
We'll go do it.
We thought we'd have five or ten.
But we got almost 100.
So our promise, we're still keeping.
We're still paying for fuel.
I don't know that we'll ever get repaid for it, but anybody that wants to go to operationhilo.org and donate to the fuel for all these helicopters, Robinson Helicopter stepped up.
They gave us a lot of support for these Robinson R-44s that have been very instrumental.
So operationhilo.org, we got a link that if people want to help us pay for fuel, man, that would be gracious.
I'll tell you what, we're going to put a link on Hannity.com.
I'll make a donation myself.
And I can't thank you guys enough for what you're doing.
Eric Robinson, Matt McSwain, this is the difference.
This is when you get real people that just roll up their sleeves, get the job done, or you can wait for the government bureaucrats and die in the process.
That's pretty much your choice.
It's pathetic.
And this response has been pathetic.
And this, you know, criticize, how dare you criticize them for being pathetic?
I mean, that's where we're at as a country.
Anyway, guys, thank you.
Stay safe.
And all our best in your efforts.
We really appreciate what you're doing.
Florida, we're coming for you.
Ron DeSantis, we're going to help you, buddy.
We're on our way.
Yeah, it's not looking good for Tampa.
I'll tell you right now.
It really is.
And they just got off.
They got whacked pretty hard by Helene, too.
I have a lot of friends there.
Many have now been forced to evacuate.
And then I have my warrior friends that aren't leaving their house, come hell or high water.
And I've been in touch with them all day.
All right, let's get to our busy phones.
It's 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Robert is in North Carolina.
Robert, glad you called.
Our prayers are with our friends in your state.
So sorry to hear how bad it has been.
And I'm even more sorry that your federal government has abandoned you and then lied about it on top of it by saying every need is being met and everybody's happy.
That's what Joe Biden said on Friday.
Well, Sean, I'd like to say first that my wife and myself and my mother-in-law, who's 87, watch your show every night.
Thank you.
You're our favorite, and we love the way you are.
You're a patriot.
I'm a Vietnam vet 1971 and 72.
And if I'd have known this country was going to head in the direction it's headed now, I'd have never joined the military.
Now, they never went to Vietnam.
I can't believe we got people dressing up as women and leading our military.
Our military has to feel very shaky right now with the way things are going.
And we're giving all our tax money to other countries.
I don't understand that.
I don't have a say-so in where my tax money's going, but I have to pay.
I'm very bitter right now, and I understand where you're coming from.
But I want to tell you how much we appreciate you representing the real people in this country.
Can you believe?
I mean, our military has gone woke.
We don't have any room for a woke military.
China and Russia are both, you know, they both have, for example, hypersonic missile capability.
We do not.
And we're falling behind.
Military preparedness has never been lower.
We see Russia and Iran and China on the move.
And if Kamala Harris, after watching these interviews on 60 Minutes and this interview on The View, I am just saying that if she becomes president, there will be no respect on the world stage for Kamala Harris.
None at all.
And she will never build up our military.
And America will continue its military decline.
And America will give up its role as the leader of the free world.
It is sad.
It is tragic.
We are going to leave this country when we pass this earth into the next life in far worse shape than we inherited it, you know, from the greatest generation, people like my father that fought in World War II, people like you that fought in Vietnam, amazing people.
And it's if this, you know, I can't, I can't give you a readout today on what's going to happen in the election.
I can only say, with the greatest amount of urgency I can muster within me, that we can't let this happen.
I watched this interview.
I watched these interviews.
He's not qualified to be the president.
He's not an honest human broker running for president.
He has been able to hide with the assistance of a very abusively biased, corrupt, state-run media.
And now she's on her little propaganda campaign instead of helping the people of North Carolina, Georgia, etc.
She's hanging out with people that love her on The View on 60 Minutes and shows like, you know, Call Her Daddy, Call Me Daddy, whatever the hell the show is named, and Howard Stern, who's gone woke himself.
It's sad to me.
And the one guy that can get this done would be Donald Trump.
We could literally change the trajectory.
We can solve our border problem.
We can fix our economy.
We can become energy dominant.
We'll bring back law and order.
And America will regain its place in the world as the leader of the free world.
That's what's at stake in just 28 short days.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know any other way to say it.
But I do appreciate your service and your support because I don't have this microphone without you listening and watching the camera without you watching.
I'm grateful, but I'd be less than honest if I didn't say I'm concerned about the direction of the country.
Comment.
Anyway.
You took the words out of my mouth.
My dad was Navy for 30 years.
My son pulled a tour in Iraq.
And I pulled a tour.
And I love my country, but I hate my leadership right now.
It's not working.
Grateful, but I'd be less than honest if I didn't say I'm concerned about the direction of the country.
Comment.
Anyway.
You took the words out of my mouth.
My dad was Navy for 30 years.
My son pulled a tour in Iraq.
And I pulled a tour.
And I love my country, but I hate my leadership right now.
It's not working.
And we are headed down the tube so fast, I don't know whether or not we're going to survive it.
But we're going to try.
And I haven't given up.
I have optimism, and I'm pulling for Trump.
I don't want to play God for the guy, but I love him to death when it comes to running our country.
He has our people's interest.
He is for the people.
He's not for the politicians.
And that's what I love about him.
And he will get my vote immediately when we can vote.
North Carolina hasn't opened up yet, but as soon as they do, we'll be standing at the door.
Well, I'm praying for our country.
I'm praying for our kids, our grandkids.
Right now, I'm praying especially for my home state.
Don't talk about it because to me, I don't know.
I was, I just, it's just not my personality.
And I'm just asking everybody does their part.
And maybe your part is just voting, but maybe your part is sharing the Kamala files, the Walls files with others, your co-workers, your friends, your neighbors, your family, putting it on social media.
Because I think a lot of people are not aware of how radical, extreme, and dangerous these policies are and who she really is.
So, whatever you can do, I'm urging people to do it now so you don't wake up one morning, someday after election day, and find out that this opportunity has been squandered.
Because I'm not sure.
I mean, I would say with a pretty high degree of certainty that all of these 20 million illegal immigrants will all be voters in 2028.
And if Democrats give something of such great worth for free to people in this country, don't you think they're going to feel a certain sense of loyalty to that party?
I don't know how do you overcome that, you know, that massive influx of Democratic or likely Democratic voters.
You give something of value like that for free.
I don't know.
Kind of looks like paying off student loans and giving free money away.
If you wanted to be a citizen in New Zealand or in Australia, you'd pay $10 million and then have to spend years there.
Quick break, right to our phones.
We go.
800-941 Sean is our number.
If you want to be a part of the program as we continue 28 days till Election Day, straight ahead.
Let's get back to our busy phones.
800-941 Sean is our number.
Larry, Indiana, next on the Sean Hannity Show.
Hi.
Hi, Sean.
How are you doing?
Hey, I just wanted to give a shout out to all of the civilian pilots.
I'm a retired helicopter pilot Army guy, but I've been fortunate enough.
I've retired.
I built a home built.
It's fast, efficient, and fourth place.
And two other guys that have the same aircraft like me, we've been flying supplies down to Ashe County, North Carolina, outside Franklin.
And so far, it's been, I think we've done 4,000 pounds of goodies, all donated from one of the other pilots as a dock, and they put out the word to hospital.
And two days, they had five pickup trucks of goodies.
I mean, you know, all the usual stuff you need.
And go to the airport land the first time, and they've set up a hangar there that's the distribution center.
And, you know, I'll pull in there and they have people with carts and the vest on unloading aircraft and getting it into the hangar.
And they, you know, get a sandwich and coke and take back off.
And then the locals with floral drive pickups, they'll roll in one side of the hangar and they'll say, what do you need?
And they load them up and they're driving it up in the mountains to the people that need it.
And there's not one official government person on the airport.
And yesterday when I was there, I talked to the lady and she said that since the Sunday after the storm went through, there have been 600 airplanes.
Everyone's privately owned, bought and paid for by the individuals using them.
And then, you know, just doing this on their own, just showing up.
And I just think it's awesome.
I think all of these different groups, too many for me to name, some of which I don't even know, and Samaritan's Purse have done a phenomenal job.
I mean, these guys that we interviewed from Operation Hilo, I mean, they're saving lives.
And the fact that Kamala Harris, you know, prefers to go on a call or call me daddy or call her daddy.
I don't know what the hell this stupid podcast is.
Howard Stern, The View, Colbert, and then just flat out lie about Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump's hurricane response is just, it's despicable, but typical, but it's despicable.
Anyway, appreciate the call, my friend.
Thank you.
And thanks to all those groups you're mentioning.
George in Florida, my home state.
George, where are you in Florida?
And are you bracing for the pending hurricane?
Hey, Sean.
Yes, I'm on I-4 just north of Orlando.
So we're going to be about 100-knot winds around here maybe in a couple days.
You're going to get whacked with very heavy winds and a real storm on the I-4 corridor for sure.
Yeah, we're hunker down.
I got everything in the house that I can't get it in the house.
I tied it down, took the pool down about a foot.
So get that water.
I was spectating about 12 inches.
And I got the refrigerator stocked.
I took a picture of what's in the refrigerator because I'm planning to be out of power for a few days.
So if I can go in and get it, get out, I can know exactly where it is.
I'm out looking for it.
I got the pool so I can flex my toilets.
So I'm ready.
I've been through about 12 of these, but this is one of the bigger ones.
We're going to have level two or three winds here.
So we're going to be pretty, we're going to be rocking for a little while for about 24 hours.
So I'm ready.
I'm going to give you one other suggestion.
And this is what I did, besides getting my generator fixed and all that and getting all the, you know, getting all the outdoor furniture in and all that stuff is I cooked like a million pork spirits and I just put them in the refrigerator.
And this way I've got something to eat if everything else is not working.
I got something, right?
So hang in there.
We have contingency plans to broadcast.
We're going to be on the air one way or the other.
And I'm praying for all my friends, especially Sarasota, Tampa, Tampa, especially.
This could be the worst one ever.
It depends if it goes north or south of Tampa or it's a direct hit on Tampa.
They're talking about the 20-foot storm surge possibility.
So hang in there, buddy.
Appreciate the call.
Glad you're out there.
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