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Jan. 11, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
32:17
Adam Carolla - January 10th, Hour 2
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This is an iHeart podcast.
All right.
Thanks, Scott Shannon.
Hour two, Sean Hannity Show, toll-free.
It is 800-941-Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, a couple of nights ago when I had comedian Adam Corolla on my TV show, it was up in the air.
He didn't know whether his house would survive the wildfires.
Thank God for his sake.
He was not one of the thousands and thousands of victims that lost their homes, have had their entire lives, not a pun intended, go up and smoke.
A lot of this, if not most of it, completely preventable.
And anyway, he talked on his own show at length about, you know, there will be more people in Winnebagos that will be on the Pacific Coast Highway before Hollywood elites ever return to their homes because of the permitting process, which is formidable.
Jillian Michaels brought this up on TV and on radio yesterday in California.
Listen to what he said.
On a happy note, I guess all the Winnebagos that were parked up and down PCH where they're cooking out of those things surely are gone.
They'll be the first ones back.
The comedy is the guys who lost their $20 million homes on the ocean side of PCH will be knee-deep in the permit process.
They will be trying to pull permits when the guys in the Winnebagos will have been back for months, months before those guys ever get a permit.
As a matter of fact, Alan Hamill and Suzanne Summers moved because they could not get a permit to rebuild their home of 40 years on the ocean on PCH.
You know how Bill Maher seems real conservative now when he's like arguing with Jane Fonda about regulations, too many regulations, like strangling everything?
Because remember, when Bill Maher tried to put solar in his house in Beverly Hills, that's when he turned against the government because he saw what the government and the overreach of government and over-regulation does.
Now, he's not wrong, by the way, if you don't live in California, you may not know PCH is the Pacific Coast Highway.
If you've never driven it from Northern California all the way down to Southern California, it is one of the most spectacular, picturesque, beautiful drives you'll ever go on in your life.
It's unbelievably stunning.
Then he predicted that these wildfires will convert Democrats, and he's going to join us in a minute after evacuating their homes.
I'm not sure I agree with him on this part, but listen.
You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles.
You all voted for Gavin Newsome.
And now you get what you get.
Oh, now that your house is on fire, well, now you're thinking about something else.
Now you want to know what's going on.
What's going on around here?
You didn't give a shit about what was going on when other people's houses were on fire, but now you care.
So here's what's going to happen.
All these people who were deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild.
And they're going to get the 28-year-old from the Coastal Commission telling them to go f ⁇ off.
And then they're going to vote for Trump or whoever's Trumpian next.
You see, they're going to get turned.
All right.
So Adam Carolla joins us now.
When I last spoke to you, you weren't sure if your house was going to survive.
I mean, I assume a lot of homes around where you live burned to the ground like so many others.
And what you were saying, by the way, about the permit process is dead on accurate.
Jillian Michaels, I think it was back in 2018, lost a home and it took well over a year to begin to get the permits needed to rebuild.
It's insane.
Yeah.
like I said, Alan Hamill and Suzanne Summers, Alan is Suzanne Summers husband, good friends, loved Malibu.
Alan told me at dinner, took him seven years.
It was a seven-year process.
They finally packed it in and they moved to Palm Springs because the Coastal Commission would not let them rebuild where their home formerly stood.
So it's a big deal.
I was a builder, Sean, you know, a contractor.
I've been dealing with these people since my early 20s.
So I've been screaming about this for a million years.
But these folks, like Jane Honda, especially, they have no idea.
They've never pulled a permit.
They've never dealt with this city.
They've never dealt with the Coastal Commission.
So when they do, that's when they start turning the corner and they start thinking like us.
Now, obviously, they're not all going to vote Republican the next time around, but you can bet that they're going to take a real good look at the next Gavin Newsome character who comes down the pike.
Well, we already know who that is.
That's going to be Kamala Harris.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
That's true.
That's true.
And look, this is no different than a sanctuary city.
Remember all the blue cities, New York City, they all loved the sanctuary city.
They patted themselves on the back and they celebrated the fact that they were heroes because they were sanctuary city.
But when the first busloads of migrants started getting dropped off in their slanky neighborhoods, what did they do?
They started screaming, where's the government?
What's going on?
We didn't sign up for this.
That's what's going to happen with the rebuilding process.
I really have got to wonder.
And if you look at everything that we've learned since this tragedy happened, and it is a tragedy.
And I honestly, with all my heart, and I don't care what your politics are, I really feel awful for the people of LA.
I mean, they're now going to have to try and rebuild their lives.
But when you learn that the science of forestry, and you can get degrees from big universities, I've actually listed them on this program, Auburn, University of Florida, NC State, University of Georgia.
I can go on for 20 minutes here and talk about it.
You can get it out at the University of California.
I think Davis has a forestry program.
And you can get a degree in that.
And there are legitimate criticisms here.
Why weren't the hydrants working?
Let's start with that.
We learned also this morning that, in fact, in the Pacific Palisades, that the reservoir was freaking empty.
I mean, how is that possible?
Gavin Newsome doesn't like criticism, but his answer that this is a local issue, why these hydrants weren't designed for wildfires in a state that's known for wildfires and Santa Ana wins.
How does that make any sense to you?
Well, first, just the notion.
By the way, he's just sipping on vodka.
It's not a big deal.
It's a little early in California, but it's fine.
I'm kidding.
Anything to take the edge off, Sean.
Come on.
By the way, at this point in time, I think anybody in L.A. has every right to do whatever they want.
Oh, my God.
Well, I'm in Vegas, so I just took off.
I can't get back to my place in Malibu.
I just found out it was in one piece.
The restaurant in front of it is gone, and the entire Pacific Coast Highway, every house on it in front of me is gone.
And I mean, for a mile.
The devastation is beyond description.
We're talking about multi-million dollar homes and not $3 million homes, $25 million homes, all gone.
Why do you think your house survived?
We had Caitlin Jenner calling the other day, and Caitlin fireproofed the outside of her home, which I thought was brilliant on her part.
And when Malibu burned the last time, her house didn't burn.
You know, the only theme as an ex-contractor I can see is the more modern homes with the stucco and the cement facades with the steel and aluminum windows and steel roofs.
Those fared much better than anything traditional with wood eaves, you know, shake roof, you know, wood trim and molding, all the traditional type homes, the ranch style homes, won up immediately.
The more contemporary modern homes stood a much better chance, but still were going to burn to the ground if everything was on fire.
So you will see weird pockets.
It's just like you do in every fire, just like you do in tornadoes, where you see the house to the right is gone, the house to the left is gone, and the one in the middle seems completely untouched.
That's what just happened to my home.
And I'm happy, but I have obviously survivor's guilt now because of so many friends.
And I know a guy who had...
I don't think you need to have a survivor.
Why would you have survivor's guilt?
I mean, it gives you an opportunity with your platform.
I mean, if you want to help people out that are really desperate and maybe fight for regulations and Sacramento to move the process so these people can rebuild their lives in a reasonable period of time.
By the way, if they even have insurance, and a lot of the insurance companies pulled out because they knew that this was a likelihood.
State Forum pulled out.
They pulled out big time in the last year and a half.
And they did so because they knew that this would happen.
They knew that California wasn't prepared.
And that should have been the canary in the coal mine.
Yeah.
I mean, look, I would liken it to this.
You know, Gavin Newsom wants to talk about, you know, climate change and all the lefts and all the blues want to blame climate change.
Okay, it's here.
We're not going to get rid of it by having electric leaf blowers and converting to electric cars by 2030.
As long as China, as long as India is crapping out coal mines, then we're not going to be able to move the needle on this.
But what are you going to do about it?
Remember, New Orleans is under sea level.
So you have to build seawalls.
And if the Army Corps of Engineers builds a good seawall, then the people in New Orleans will not flood.
So we need to take our technology and steer it toward these problems.
Instead of sit around and point fingers and complain about climate change, how about you do something?
Let's just say it is climate change.
Good.
Now, what are we going to do?
All right, quick break.
We'll have more with Adam Carollo than your calls on the other side, 800-941-Sean, our number as we continue this Friday.
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His house did survive.
Pretty much every house around him did not survive.
You know, the LAFD fire department, their budget is slashed, but they have $650 million allocated for the LA port to go green federal state dollars, $800,000 green street sweepers, whatever the hell that is.
Why would you pay that amount of money for that, but not pay firefighters?
Then they have billions of dollars allocated for wind turbines.
And meanwhile, how much do you pay for a gallon of gasoline where you are?
Because I guarantee you I pay about half.
$50, $575.
I pay about $3 a gallon now in the free state of Florida.
$3 a gallon.
Can you explain that?
There's no income tax in my state.
None.
Well, according to Gavin Newsom, all the major oil companies only gouge California.
They don't gouge any other state.
So this is all because of greedy oil companies who just...
They're suing the oil companies.
And guess what?
They're going to hire very expensive attorneys.
And guess what these companies will do?
They'll raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to offset that.
Well, there's another price hike coming soon because he already agreed to that a couple of months ago.
So we're going to get above $6 a gallon.
Yes, it's gross incompetence.
I mean, of course, you know it, Sean, and you brought it up, but we have our bullet train to nowhere that's $80 billion over budget.
That's from Bakersfield to Merced.
Your audience doesn't know where Bakersfield and Merced is.
I live in California.
I don't know where Bakersfield and Merced is.
I've been to Bakersfield in the business conference I used to have out there.
I spoke there many times, but I do know where Bakersfield is.
But you're right.
What's the point?
Said from Bakersfield?
Not really.
No, I mean, you could drive.
What's the point?
Car pointed toward Merced?
Yeah.
Get an auto drive and you're on your way.
Look, I don't mean to laugh at all about this because there's nothing funny about it.
But, you know, if you look at it and you stand back, big picture, there is this sort of intersection between environmental radicalism and radical socialism, statism, Marxism, whatever you want to call it.
And it's kind of summed up in the Green New Deal.
And it's kind of being implemented and tests run out where you live in California.
And why you stay out there, I don't know.
And this is exactly what was on the line, I think, in this past election.
And America, thankfully, rejected it.
But, you know, there's still a fairly healthy percentage of the American people that bought into this crop.
Well, I don't think what they don't know, what the people that bought into it, they bought into windmills and solar and clean renewables and blue skies and clean water.
These people are nihilists.
I think they want it all to go.
I don't think, you know, it's not that they want clean air.
They don't want you to have a car.
It's not that you need to have an electric car.
They don't want you to have any car.
Like what they don't realize is the end game.
The Coastal Commission is not interested in protecting the coast.
They're interested in getting human beings off the coast.
What is the end game?
Like, we have road diets in Los Angeles, right?
They take two highway lanes and they shrink them down to one and they make the other one for cyclists, for bicycles.
But nobody has a bicycle.
You can't use a bicycle to get anywhere.
You can't cycle to work in Los Angeles.
So what are they doing?
Do they love the environment?
Do they love cyclists?
Are they trying to get you out of your car?
They won't say what they're trying to do, but that's what they're trying to do.
That's what the end game is.
And I think the Green New Deal people, the end game is to get rid of you, not to clean up the environment.
Of course, we're the ones, you know, we're pillaging the earth for profit, and they do want, you know, equality, as Kamala says, and equal justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Anyway, my prayers do go out to the people of California.
I don't know why you stay out there.
I would imagine that you're going to make the move within the next five years.
There's my prediction.
Let me know if I'm right.
I got land in Nevada.
I'm looking at it right now.
I don't blame you.
Anyway, Adam Carolla, prayers for your friends.
Don't have survivor's guilt.
You can help people out in ways that you can't imagine.
Do a big comedy show.
I'll come out there and say hi.
Thank you, my friend.
Hi, 25 now to the top of the hour.
Toll-free our number, if you want to be a part of the program, 800-941-Sean on this Friday.
So, I mean, sort of anticlimactic.
I believe that with all my heart, I think it's a certainty.
I'm 99.9999% that this case will be overthrown on appeal.
But regardless, I mean, to get the little pound of flesh and to be able to, you know, tattoo the name convicted felon onto Donald Trump's forehead, which it has no impact on people.
If it was going to have an impact, it would have had an impact on the election.
So it's somewhat meaningless, anticlimatic in so many ways.
And as Judge Juan Mershawn sentenced President-elect Donald Trump to this unconditional discharge for his conviction for the, quote, falsification of business records.
And, you know, it really is remarkable that, you know, as Donald Trump said, he actually said, I'm being, I'm getting indicted for calling a legal expense a legal expense.
And that's what it was.
And NDA is a perfectly legal maneuver that happens all the time.
I'd bet everything I had that the DA's office of Alvin Bragg, probably, if you went through the records, has hundreds of them over the years, even before his tenure.
Anyway, here's what Donald Trump said about it.
They're saying, I just noticed where he said I was falsifying business records.
Well, the falsification of business records, as they said, was calling a legal expense in the books where everybody could see them, a legal expense.
In other words, that legal fees or legal expense were put down as legal expense by accountants.
They weren't put down by me.
They were put down by accountants.
I didn't call them construction, concrete work.
I didn't call them electrical work.
I didn't call them anything.
They called a legal fee or a legal expense a legal expense.
And for this, I got indicted.
It's incredible.
And he's absolutely right.
I mean, and the saddest part of all of this, it was a novel legal theory.
The statute of limitations had run out in this case.
They stacked the charges to make it in one charge, basically 34 charges, claimed this to be justice.
It really was a federal matter.
And I think at the end of the day, they never got to the issue at hand in terms of the appeal.
We'll ask our attorneys on our legal panel in just a second here.
But I think it was very, very obvious that they, in my view, that they could have argued something very differently when they went to the Supreme Court, but that's a different issue for a different day.
But, you know, I think the supremacy clause would have been more applicable myself rather than the process that they went through.
Here's Donald Trump saying that this was a political witch hunt.
This was to damage his reputation.
So he wouldn't run for president.
They didn't do this until after he announced he was running for president and then claimed his innocence.
Here's what he said.
It's been a political witch hunt.
It was done to damage my reputation so that I'd lose the election.
And obviously that didn't work.
And the people of our country got to see this firsthand because they watched the case in your courtroom.
They got to see this firsthand, and then they voted, and I won and got the largest number of votes by far of any Republican candidate in history.
And won, as you know, all seven swing states, won conclusively all seven swing states, and won the popularity, the popular vote, by millions and millions of votes.
And they've been watching your trial, so they understood it.
But the fact is that I'm totally innocent.
I did nothing wrong.
They talked about business records, and the business records were extremely accurately counted.
I had nothing to do with them.
That was done by an accountant or a bookkeeper who I think gave very credible testimony and was corroborated by everybody that was asked.
And with all that's happening in our country today, with a city that's burning to the ground, one of our largest, most important cities burning to the ground with wars that are uncontrollably going on with all of the problems of inflation and attacks on countries and all of the horrible things that are going on, I got indicted over calling a legal expense a legal expense.
It was called a legal expense.
I just want to say I think it's an embarrassment to New York, and New York has a lot of problems, but this is a great embarrassment.
And the president is 1,000% right.
Here's Juan Mershon talking about the hush money case, both extraordinary and ordinary.
Never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances.
Indeed, it can be viewed fairly that this has been a truly extraordinary case.
There was unprecedented media attention, public interest, and heightened security involving various agencies.
And yet, the trial was a bit of a paradox because once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, or extraordinary than the other 32 criminal trials that took place in this courthouse at the same exact time.
Jury selection was conducted.
The same rules of evidence were followed.
Opening statements were made.
Witnesses called and cross-examined.
Evidence presented, summations delivered.
The same burden of proof was applied, and a jury made up of ordinary citizens delivered a verdict.
And it was all conducted pursuant to the rules of procedure and guided by the law.
Ordinary citizens in a part of the country where Democrats outnumber Republicans and Trump hatred is at probably the pinnacle in the entire country.
Anyway, here to analyze all of this, our legal panel, Greg Jarrett, Fox News legal analyst, best-selling author, David Schoen, civil rights attorney.
Welcome both of you back to the program.
And, Greg, start with you.
This is a case that never should have been tried before a very biased jury with a novel legal theory after the statute of limitations had run out.
And then you have the added burden of an immunity decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that just didn't move a judge that was abusively biased towards Trump the whole way.
Yeah, there's a veritable smorgasbord of irreversible errors made by the judge.
A principal among them, as you just pointed out, the tainted evidence that's prohibited by the presidential immunity standard enunciated by the Supreme Court on July 1st.
Testimony from White House officials, numerous presidential records should never have been introduced.
But Judge Juan Rashawn just disregarded all of it, insisting that, oh, well, that evidence was really quite trifling, even though prosecutors emphasized it during closing arguments to the jury.
It was certainly important to them.
You know, overall, Bragg's convoluted, incoherent legal theory was really theater of the absurd.
And I had to laugh today.
You know, the prosecutor, Steinglass, condemning Donald Trump and, you know, using the kind of descriptive language that's normally reserved for serial killers, not somebody convicted of a bookkeeping error.
By the way, this is not a city that takes crime seriously.
Look at the Daniel Penny case.
Look at the case of this guy that stabbed two people a couple of weekend ago on a subway that had 87 prior arrests that was still on the street.
So this is a joke.
This was a legal non-disclosure agreement put together by an attorney, identified as such in their bookkeeping, and the statute of limitations had run out anyway.
How did this become a federal crime to begin with?
Well, it's impossible.
A state or local official is not allowed to bring a campaign finance prosecution.
That's the exclusive authority of the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission, both of which looked at this case and said there's no there there.
No crimes were committed, mostly because the money given to Stormy Daniels did not constitute a campaign contribution.
So, you know, case over.
But this DA decided to resurrect from the dead, you know, expired misdemeanors and morphed them into these phantom felonies.
And as I say, this was theater of the absurd.
It really was.
David Schoen, let's get your take on all this.
Well, Judge Rashawn has said that the same thing happened in 32 other trials at the same time this was going on.
God help us if that's true.
If they had anything like him as a judge in any of the other trials, we're in big trouble.
And if he made as many, those other judges made as many mistakes, we're in worse trouble.
The idea that, you know, this didn't impact the election, I think it did impact the election.
I think the American people are fair-minded and they saw this for what it was.
I think that boosted President Trump in the election.
You're right about the federal crime issue, but I don't even think you get there.
I think that's a secondary argument, because the fundamental problem with this case is the jury was the defendant was never told what he was charged with, and the jury was never told what he was charged with.
You have no idea what they found he did as a purpose for so-called falsifying business records.
Remember quickly, 175.05 makes it a misdemeanor to falsify business records.
175.10 makes it a felony if you did it to commit or conceal another crime.
They never identify what that other crime is.
Violates the New York Constitution, the federal constitution, New York Statute 200.50 in the penal law.
You can't defend against a case if you don't know what you did.
So the prosecution gave the judge three or four choices in a letter they wrote.
And the judge said, well, that's fine.
We don't have to identify the crime.
So it could have been falsifying business records for tax purposes, for election fraud purposes, to boost an election purposes and otherwise affect it, and so on.
We have no idea.
And he refused to charge the jury on any express crime.
He couldn't have at that point.
It would have been too late.
It has to be reversed on those grounds alone.
But besides that, you have evidenti problems from the Weinstein case alone.
You know that when President Trump wanted to testify, the judge said he would open up the door to all kinds of extraneous things that the court in the Weinstein case, when they reversed Harvey Weinstein's conviction, said you can't possibly do.
And they moved for a mistrust.
Trump moved for a mistrial at the time, and that's preserved.
So there's so many issues in this case.
It will be reversed.
Well, is there a silver lighting here, Greg Jarrett, in as much as now Mershon is off the case, and this will be brought, all these issues will be brought up on appeal.
And had he not been sentenced, maybe that appeal process would have been stalled until he got out of office.
Yeah, that's the real benefit for Trump.
He can now, in earnest, appeal all of the mistakes and reversible errors that were made at trial.
And I agree with David that this is a conviction that will not last.
I guarantee it 100%.
It'll be overturned on appeal because of all of the prejudicial, inadmissible evidence that the jurors were allowed to listen to in a legal theory that is so utterly incoherent and incomprehensible that, you know, in my 45 years as a lawyer, I can't make sense of it.
I don't understand it.
I don't know what Trump was convicted of.
Such an egregious mistake by the judge to tell the jurors, you don't have to identify the underlying crime and you don't even have to agree unanimously.
So nobody knows what a violation of a bedrock constitutional principle, repeatedly reiterated by the U.S. Supreme Court.
All right, quick break more with our legal panel on this anticlimatic sentencing of Donald Trump today.
I'm certain it will be overturned by a higher court.
At least it's finally out of Juan Mershawn's abusively biased corrupt courtroom.
We continue with David Schoen and Greg Jarrett on the other side straight ahead.
The final hour of the Sean Hannity Show is up next.
Hang on for Sean's conservative solutions.
All right, we continue the anticlimactic ruling and sentencing, which was a non-sentence by Juan Mershon with our legal panel.
Greg Jarrett and David Schoen are with us.
I'm sure this will be overturned on appeal.
Mark Levin was a big advocate that the argument should have been brought to the Supreme Court a lot sooner, David Schoen, and it should have been brought on the supremacy clause and how this was a federal issue and this novel legal theory didn't, you know, had no standing at all whatsoever in Alvin Bragg's jurisdiction.
And more importantly, you know, that this was a case about election interference and had nothing to do with the rule of law.
Would there have been a better argument before the Supreme Court?
Because I would assume at some point it may be back there.
Yes, he's right.
And, you know, there's a principle also that this immunity issue that we're talking about here is a very special kind of immunity, and it's a federal question.
It's a constitutional issue.
It's a federal question.
There is a principle of law that New York has recognized, and many states have recognized, that when there's a federal immunity type issue there, we apply federal rules.
And federal rules would have required a stay to be imposed here.
There's a case from the Supreme Court called Johnson versus Fenkel that says state's not required to do that, but New York State has said an opinion or two that that's an appropriate way to handle the case.
I also think they made a mistake in the Supreme Court by focusing on this presidential transition period.
There's very little or no authority about what the rights are during that period.
The problem here is by entering the conviction, they've done exactly what the OLC opinion in 2000 said as the basis for giving immunity.
That is, this creates a stigma hanging over the head of the president, and it's a distraction while he's in office, not just the transition period.
But you're right, Sean.
You asked a good question, but you always ask good questions.
But one you asked earlier was, is there a silver lining?
That's right.
He had a choice to make.
The president was right to try to litigate the immunity issue first.
It's the narrow issue.
But to me, it's a huge bonus now.
He gets to finally appeal, put all of this thing to bed, throw it out, and get it overturned on the real issues in the case.
I appreciate both of you.
Thanks for being with us.
800-941-Sean is on number.
If you want to be a part of the program, we'll see what happens.
I do think that this silver lining will come into play a lot sooner than many people think.
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