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Jan. 7, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
30:17
Future of Canada - January 7th, Hour 2
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So the issue of Canada being the 51st state, Panama, whether or not they are allowing Chinese control over the Panama Canal, without which, without the help of the United States would not exist.
Certainly one of the worst deals ever made by an American president and ratified by the U.S. Senate, I think, in history, has taken center stage.
And Donald Trump Jr.
arriving in Greenland saying, well, it's time to make Greenland great again.
And this is what he said.
I just want to say that it's a very special place.
It needs security for itself, but it also needs security very much for the world.
The location really, you see the people and the ships sailing around, and they're not the right ships, and they're not the ships you want to know about.
So we need security, and our country needs it, and the whole world needs it.
Yes, you're so strategically located.
You're alive.
I just want to thank everybody.
You guys like that, right?
It's been great.
Actually, incredibly beautiful place.
The people are incredible.
The welcome was spectacular.
It's pretty amazing.
Well, that's great.
Well, you go have a good time, everybody.
And we're going to treat you well.
You know that.
And just take care of yourselves.
Thank you all very much.
See you soon.
Thank you.
Anyway, so that was the trip Don Jr.
made and President Trump calling into it.
It seems to have some people just it's a little shock and awe, which we told you was going to happen.
A lot of people didn't listen to us.
Like a lot of people didn't listen to the lead up of the election.
I've made the argument that I think that legacy media is dead.
Those people, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSDNC, Fake News, CNN, The Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, they're all dead because they spent nine long years and they had one mission, one fixation, one focus, and that was to hate all things Donald Trump and to basically be an extension of all things liberal, radical, Democrat, their press office.
And they didn't tell people the truth.
They didn't tell people the truth about what was happening at our borders.
They didn't tell people the truth about the economy.
They didn't tell people the truth about why you were paying a buck buck fifty more per gallon for gasoline.
They just kept moving forward with their woke agenda.
They were not exactly transparent when it came to Joe's cognitive decline.
They weren't transparent about the war in Ukraine and they're sending billions and billions of dollars rather than de-escalating that situation or their lack of support for Israel for that matter.
And they paid a very dear price.
You know, people ask me all the time, what about the future of media?
I was on the ground floor of a transformation, which was talk radio, and then the Fox News channel, which continues to do well, thanks to all of you.
And I think now with social media and the developments with Meta in particular today, I think they're very relevant.
The president addressed that in his press conference, as I mentioned earlier.
And social media in general, podcasting in general.
It's a new world out there.
And I think those people that will survive and thrive are going to be people that tell the truth.
One such person that was bucking that trend throughout the entire 2024 election cycle and saying things that his former colleagues, former friends at big networks didn't particularly like is Mark Alpert.
And he's the editor-in-chief of this new interactive video platform.
It's called Two-Way, and it's growing by leaps and bounds.
And it's great to have you back.
How are you?
Sean, thank you for the kind words.
Happy New Year.
Great to be back with you.
One thing that we did, the two of us, individually, and then we compared notes on every single day, and this is what I never understood about the media in this election, is we were getting early voting numbers, and they were nowhere near the numbers that Democrats had had in 2020.
For example, on Election Day, I went on with Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer at 9 o'clock in the morning that morning, and I said, starting out today, Kamala Harris has a math problem.
She's down 700,000 votes from where Joe Biden was in 2020.
She'd need a massive turnout, a historic turnout in Philly, Allegheny County for her to catch up.
She's down 45% in Wisconsin, and she would need a massive turnout in cities like Milwaukee for her to make up that ground.
It would have to be a historic turnout.
All day long, I was calling my friends and sources in all these locations and finding out they were not getting historic turnout.
And we saw it coming, and I remember even writing you once or texting you and saying, am I missing something here?
And you told me I was not.
No, I mean, Election Day, you're right.
It was emphatic.
But even two weeks out when early voting started, I said about three days into sort of the first tranche of early voting, I said, if things stay like this, we won't need Election Night.
Well, no, on the morning of.
And as you say, our colleagues, for some reason, just decided to ignore the data.
This isn't about rooting for Trump or having a gut feeling about MAGA.
It was just the math.
And for some reason, they wanted to buy the Democratic spin that, well, the late deciders were going to go decisively for Harris.
No evidence of that either during the campaign or on Election Day.
Or, you know, these are not votes that matter because they're just Republicans voting early who would have voted on Election Day.
I found it all very confusing because, again, it was just straight reporting and it wasn't hard to find.
You could even find Democrats who said, we're super worried because what makes everybody think we're going to have a superhuman turnout on Election Day?
Well, they would have, they would have, that would need to be historic.
And the interesting thing, if you want to say it's interesting, is the madness continues even to this day.
I mean, yesterday was January 6th.
And if you turn on a lot of legacy media, all they wanted to do, like on ABC and that hard-hitting news show, The View, they're comparing January 6th to the Holocaust.
And they're doing it on, you know, pretty much every single channel.
And they seem to have doubled down on stupid.
And they learned nothing from this campaign.
And I assume that the American people will continue to distrust them because they've given them no reason to trust them.
Well, the ongoing story that I find the most just sort of incredible from the press point of view is the Biden mental acuity issue.
You read piece after piece about Joe Biden's final days, Joe Biden's legacy, Joe Biden's maneuvering to make certain decisions in the final fortnight.
And the articles don't mention his cognitive decline or the fact that he was unable to, he was forced to give up the nomination because he had no chance to win.
And I said since Election Day, if the press doesn't come clean on not just the failure to cover it, but its role in the conspiracy to cover it up, how could they possibly expect to have credibility going forward?
And yet that continues.
It continues.
It's barely mentioned.
And when it is mentioned, it's mentioned as a political issue as opposed to the national security issue and the credibility issue of a White House, which to this day says Joe Biden has no cognitive decline.
Joe Biden is perfectly capable of doing the job.
Joe Biden didn't give up the nomination because he had a cognitive decline.
He gave it up for unspecified other reasons about the good of the country.
It was before the 2020 election.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Wasn't it before then when Joe said we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women, his words, not mine, were created by the thing, the thing, you know, God Joe, the creator of everything, endowed by their creator, Joe, the creator of everything.
They ignored moments like that.
And when I criticized them, and I'm a conservative, I don't even know where you stand politically, to be honest with you.
I've never asked you.
But I mean, I was excoriated for pointing out something's wrong here.
I'm just an old-fashioned reporter.
I'm for the public interest.
Look, you're right.
There were things leading up to 2020.
He couldn't have won without COVID.
COVID allowed him to hide.
But in 2017, I've told this story before.
In 2017, I saw him do a book tour event.
And this is after he left the office as vice president, well before he announced he was running.
And I said after the book event to my wife, I'm so glad he's out of public life.
I'm so glad he'll never be asked to do anything again that involves speaking in public because he was exactly the way he is now.
He lost his train of thought.
It was a book event.
He was being questioned by a very friendly interviewer, and he could barely get through it.
He was glassy-eyed.
He was lethargic.
As I said, lost his train of thought.
This was three years before he ran the first time.
So the notion that this was some sort of secret, you know, you read these stories now, and the Wall Street Journal wrote a story that got a lot of attention that say, behind the scenes, people say, you know, this was happening, this happened.
You don't need behind the scenes.
It was all happening in public.
And yet, again, not only did the media not write about it, they covered it up, and then they still haven't come clean about their role in the cover-up.
It's so true.
Did you see Meet the Press this weekend and Chuck Schumer's questioning on this very topic?
He got very defensive when asked about whether he knew that Joe was in cognitive decline.
The answer is we know for a fact they all did and that they all covered it up.
They all lied about it.
New York Post has a piece today.
Well, what about the people that covered this up?
Don't they have, didn't they have an obligation to the country to tell us?
The New York Post had an editorial today.
Stop lying, Chuck.
It was unfortunate.
You know, he's a skillful guy and he finessed his way through.
I give credit to the interviewer for asking, but she let him get away with giving an answer that makes no sense.
You know, George Clooney, to his credit, belatedly, acknowledged what he saw at a fundraiser late in the campaign that led him to join them.
Well, is it really to his credit, or do you suspect, as I do, that I got a call from his friend, and I know their friends, Barack Obama, and was asked to do this as part of this coalition that was created to basically kick Joe out of Obama, Pelosi, and Schumer.
It was part of that effort, but I like to give credit for effort.
And he spoke out before others were still unwilling to speak out.
You know what?
It was weeks after he had praised Joe Biden.
I don't give him as much credit as you do.
He had been with Joe Biden at some fundraiser praising.
So I think it was expediency, part of a plan.
They didn't think he could win, and it was all about winning at that point.
I agree.
And I was going to make that point, which is those who did it did it not because they suddenly said, you know what, the country deserves a president who can do the job.
It was because they thought not only that he would lose, and this is a particular concern of Speaker Pelosi, that it would drag other Democrats down.
But their politicians, right, and Biden's a politician, they're going to act out of self-interest.
It's the press whose obligation is not to hurt Donald Trump and prop up Joe Biden.
Their obligation is to safeguard the public interest and to tell the truth to the American people.
It's the press whose behavior, to me, is more outrageous and more requiring of explanation than the politicians.
The politicians said, this guy's got impairment, but we don't want Trump to win.
And if he steps aside, it will probably be Harris and she can't win.
So we're going to prop him up.
Irresponsible, but again, political behavior.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back more with Mark Halpert on the other side.
Your call's coming up, 800-941-Sean.
Our number, if you want to be a part of the program as we roll along this busy news Tuesday.
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, to continue now with our friend Mark Halpert is with us.
In 2007, I declared journalism is dead, and now I officially have declared legacy media is dead.
How do your former colleagues at these major networks treat you?
I'm just curious.
I mean, the ones who are my friends treat me fine.
I don't have tons of interaction with just kind of the rank and file, but a lot of them watch Two-Way, and they like Two-Way because they recognize that it's not, the ideology is part of it, but it's also just quality.
It's authenticity.
It's journalism.
You were telling truth that they were not willing to step forward and tell themselves.
On that stuff, they ignore it because very few of them are willing to even confront it.
They pretend it doesn't exist.
They pretend there's not liberal media bias.
It's bizarre.
I've dealt with it my whole career.
I worked with a few people like Peter Jennings who acknowledge it existed.
Michael Jordan used to say he didn't endorse Democrats because Republicans buy sneakers too.
I don't understand a place that's in the business of selling news that says, you know what, we're not interested in selling it to half the country.
We're going to cut our market share in half.
I don't get that.
You know, more liberals that watch cable news watch Fox News than any other cable channel?
The Fox numbers are so big, more of everything watches Fox News.
I don't know, but I mean, it is interesting.
Oh, I know.
But they do allow conservative voices like mine.
But I'm also a truth seeker, and I tell truth.
And sometimes I have to tell the truth that I don't even want to tell about conservatives and Republicans, but I just, you know, I owe it to my audience to always be truthful.
But anyway, Mark Halperin, Happy New Year, my friend.
God bless you and keep up the good work.
We're going to pay very close attention to your work throughout the year.
Thank you, sir.
Good to talk to you.
Take care.
All right.
It's getting very interesting what is happening with Canada and little Justin now being out.
There was an interesting national review.
Canada's Financial Post article on how Canada and their economy has gone to hell under little Justin Trudeau, not a fan of his.
It looks like Canada is on track to move dramatically to the center.
Donald Trump addressed it today.
I thought it was very, very interesting that he would literally be very interested in joining forces with Canada.
And anyway, here's what the president said earlier today and what he said about Justin Trudeau.
I said you were considering military force to acquire Canada and Greenland.
Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada?
No, economic force.
Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.
You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like.
And it would also be much better for national security.
Don't forget, we basically protect Canada.
But here's the problem with Canada.
So many friends up there.
I love the Canadian people.
They're great.
We're spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada.
We lose in trade deficits.
We're losing massive.
We don't need their cars.
You know, they make 20% of our cars.
We don't need that.
I'd rather make them in Detroit.
We don't need anything.
So why are we losing $200 billion a year and more to protect Canada?
And I said that to, as I called him, Governor Trudeau, I said, listen, what would happen if we didn't subsidize you?
If we didn't, because we give them a lot of money.
We help them.
As an example, we're buying icebreakers and Canada wants to join us in the buying of icebreakers.
I said, you know, we don't really want to have a partner in the buying of icebreakers.
We don't need a partner.
There's over $53 billion more dollars in goods and services that come into Canada each year than we export to Canada.
That's how big the trade deficit is.
On top of that, you can really make the argument that but for the United States and its military might, Canada would not be doing as well.
The U.S. provides millions of dollars in foreign assistance to Canada every year.
And we now have seen in just the last number of years, for example, on the issue of the border, the Border Patrol chief at the northern border has said they've apprehended nearly 20,000 illegals from 97 countries in fiscal year 2024.
That is higher than the prior 17 years combined, which is unheard of.
They're not doing their part in terms of controlling the border.
On the local front, if you go before the pandemic, Canada's national income per head, which was the equivalent to about 80% of America's in the decade before the pandemic, will be just 70% this year, according to The Economist.
And it further goes on to say the gap between the Canadian and American economies has now reached its widest point in nearly a century.
The U.S. continues to be on track to produce nearly 50% more per person than Canada will.
And the Financial Post goes on to say nearly 3 million people living in Canada have some type of temporary immigration status, with 2.2 million arriving in just the past two years.
And temporary residents now represent a whopping 6.8% of the country's total population of 41.3 million up from 3.5% in 2022.
They're doing nothing to control their borders, and they have a problem there.
Anyway, joining us now is John Baird.
He's the former Canadian foreign minister.
John, welcome to the program.
Glad you're on board.
Great to be with you, Sean.
First of all, we love our friends to the north.
We love Canada.
Like you, I have a shared passion for hockey.
Every Canadian that I know does.
I assume you do.
I hope I'm right in my assumption.
But on so many levels, I would argue that the problems that Canada is facing are self-induced based on the policies that Justin Trudeau espoused in the country.
Am I wrong?
Well, Canada is not a broken country, but we've got a broken government.
Everything is going wrong here, whether it's incompetent macroeconomic policies, high taxes, big debt, woke and politically correct leadership, cost of living going out of control.
That's why we in Canada need a change in government.
And it all started to accelerate on Monday when Trudeau threw in the towel.
He did not retire because he wanted to.
He retired because of the Conservative Party here.
And we have a five-party system, Sean, a five-party system with First Pass the Post.
The Conservative Party is leading by 10 or 25% in just about every public opinion poll in the last 18 months.
So the change will be coming to Canada.
We can rebuild the economy and give it the government that it deserves.
What do you think about, and do you understand President Trump's position about the trade deficit, which is massive, the problem at our northern border, which you're also experiencing internally in Canada, and your military reliance on the U.S.?
Yeah, let me say a number of things.
One is, obviously, the United States is our closest friend.
We think that we consider each other almost like family.
We can step up and do a better job.
Let's look at the trade.
I mean, the trade surplus is almost entirely oil and gas, which goes to U.S. refineries, which creates literally tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of jobs.
And that's a good thing for the United States because it gives the United States power with respect to energy and oil and gas.
But on defense, we've done our share of the heavy lifting.
You know, during the war in Afghanistan, we suffered more casualties than just about any other country other than the United States and the United Kingdom because we were doing our share of the heavy lifting in Kandahar province, the toughest area within the United States, within Afghanistan.
When President Obama was targeting ISIS, Canada was one of the only countries other than the United Kingdom to bomb ISIS targets in both Syria and Iraq.
But we can do better.
We can step up our game and be a better partner on security and defense.
And that includes, obviously, doing our part to raise our defense spending.
And that's where the United States can help us.
You know, obviously, the U.S. is, like Canada, has a lot of military procurement economy, and there's a lot we can get.
When I was in government, we got the, and I was a conservative, by the way, just so your viewers, your listeners know, we bought C-17 heavy-lift aircraft and made it in the United States.
We brought Chinook helicopters and made in the United States.
And there's a lot of help that the United States can provide us when we belly up to the bar and start to pay our fair share on defense spending.
There's no argument in this country about that.
What do you think about the idea?
I mean, the president made a good point in his press conference today.
I thought he made a good point.
I mean, the idea that maybe we should think about joining forces.
I mean, if you just look at the apps, just the pure landmass alone, how amazing that would be.
I mean, he's obviously, you know, it's an offer.
It's an opportunity.
It's a thought.
Would that be something that the Canadian people would ever consider?
No, I don't think Jordan the U.S. is on the table.
It's a non-starter.
Let's be clear on that.
But we are a family.
We have a fairly integrated economy.
If we have open markets, free markets between the two countries, we can both economically boom.
We can step up on defense.
One of the things, two of the things that I think the president has been very clear on since the election are the need to step up illegal border crossings from Canada to the United States.
Obviously, it's minuscule compared to Mexico, but we're a good neighbor and we should be there to ensure that we stop.
And there's a lot of Canadians going through illegally, Mexicans and even from India.
And we can step up our border enforcement to ensure that we do so.
Nothing would make me happier than the United States to look at Canada and say, why can't Mexico be more like Canada in terms of protecting the border?
And the president's made a very compelling case on fentanyl, where security services need to step up their effort to stop the flow of fentanyl from Canada into the United States.
Frankly, I think President Trump is the one who made most Canadians aware that that was a problem.
And this is something we should do as a good neighbor to protect the United States.
The numbers I have are actually even worse than the number you gave, Sean.
Oh, the numbers in terms of illegal immigration.
I'm giving you the updated numbers that I have, and I'm not surprised that they would be worse, nor are we aware because we don't have as much Border Patrol, as much of Border Patrol presence in the North as we do down in the South.
Why, for example, and the President brought this up at his press conference today, why is Canada charging these tariffs for American automobiles to go into Canada?
I would think that that's something we should have free and fair trade, and it should go both ways.
Why does Canada put those tariffs on U.S. car manufacturers?
I'm not aware of a single tariff on U.S. cars.
You know, I think some parts of a car made in Canada in the United States can go back and forth as many as six times in the production and assembly of an automobile.
I'm not aware of any tariffs that we have on the U.S. auto sector.
We manufacture a lot of cars in Canada, sell in the United States.
You manufacture a lot of cars in the United States to sell in Canada.
And let's have no tariffs and let it be completely open.
Let the free market operate.
All right, quick break.
We'll come right back.
More with former Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird is with us.
As President Trump mentioned, Canada at length, maybe being the 51st state more on the other side, your call's also coming up.
800-941-SHAWN is on number as we continue.
Casting on great radio stations all over the USA.
It's the Sean Hannity Show.
Continue now with former Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird is with us.
While Trudeau was weak even prior to Donald Trump's victory, do you believe Donald Trump's victory played a role in him being finally pushed out?
I think that it's funny.
His team are all, you know, his team was beginning to pre-massively move on, pushing him out of power.
And I think there's only one reason on that, is that he's been trailing in the pools for 18 months.
And instead of the rats leaving a sinking ship, they threw the captain overboard.
And I think that's probably what had to do with it.
This government for the last nine years, Canada's GDP per capita has not grown in nine years.
We used to have a consensus on competent macroeconomic policy, but this government has been a high-tax, high-spend government, and not tough on crime and very woke and politically corrupt.
I think Canadians have had enough of it.
That's why I'm so excited about the next election.
Trudeau resigning, We should go to the polls in May in Canada.
And I'm pretty confident we're going to see a return of a conservative government who will be a better partner for the United States.
And Frank Valley.
We have a lot of calls from Canada for this radio show.
Actually, you know, it surprises me how many people from Canada actually listen to the show, and I'm glad that they do.
And one interesting side note: many Americans have touted the single-payer system, healthcare system that you have in Canada as an example of what America should adopt.
But meanwhile, I can give you example after example of wealthy and politically connected individuals that need major health care services that end up spending their own money and crossing the border and coming to the U.S. and some of the finest hospitals in the U.S. to get their treatment.
What does that tell you?
Yeah, it's a dirty little secret that we have a single-payer system in Canada, healthcare system in Canada that has its drawbacks.
It has its successes as well.
If you're really sick, you get the treatment you need.
But people, I say the biggest private health care operator in Canada is probably Air Canada, because if you have the economic means, you can just fly to Detroit or Chicago or Florida, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and get better care.
So there's advantages definitely to the Canadian system, but there is obviously rationing, which is a concern.
So your next prime minister, how confident are you that the government will move to the right?
And what will that mean practically for the people of Canada?
I don't think it's a right or left continuum.
I think what it is is an elite woke-based effort by Trudeau to a more common sense, competent policy with Pierre Polyev, the Conservative leader.
I've known this guy for 25 years.
He's smart as hell.
He's tough as nails.
He's got experience in government, experience in parliament.
I think he could become a consequential leader.
He will become a consequential leader for Canada.
And I think that one of the things he can do is rebuild our foreign relations with our friends and our foes and our allies alike.
I look back at the days when Brian Lulini was the prime minister.
He had such a great partnership with President Reagan and President Bush.
Stephen Harper worked very well with Bush and Obama.
And I think Pierre Polyev, the Conservative leader, when he's elected prime minister, will be a great partner for the United States.
We do appreciate you being with us, John.
We wish you the best.
We love our friends in Canada.
God bless you and God bless Canada as well.
And hopefully we can repair whatever differences we may have and move on as the friends and allies we should be.
We appreciate it.
We work together for economy boom.
Amen.
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