Jan. 18, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
30:26
| 
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| This is an iHeart Podcast. | |
| Stay right here for our final news roundup and information overload. | |
| 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. | |
| So Joe Biden is asked this week whether or not he deserves the credit for this deal for a ceasefire and this prisoner swap, which is unbelievably lopsided, which we have discussed in great specificity in detail, which frustrates the living daylights out of me. | |
| And there's no doubt, even the Prime Minister of Cutter, I'm not the biggest fan of anybody in Qatar, because remember, they were they were housing in their luxury hotels, a lot of Hamas's leadership, uh dur right after October the seventh. | |
| But more importantly, you know, this might be the only opportunity we have to get whatever remaining hostages are alive out. | |
| I want to see that happen. | |
| Then I want to see uh Gaza, and that would include, by the way, Lebanon. | |
| That would include the Hooti rebels, all neutralized, demilitarized. | |
| And that would mean taking on the head of the snake and the head of the snake is Iran. | |
| But this is Joe by is this a joke? | |
| Is this a joke? | |
| He did nothing. | |
| It was the it was the real threat of Donald Trump coming into office, very similar to when Reagan was coming into office, and Iran releasing upon the inauguration of Ronald Reagan, 40 uh American hostages held 444 days. | |
| Almost the same amount of time that these hostages, Israeli, American and other have been held as well. | |
| Anyway, here's what here's what President Trump said. | |
| If it's not if it doesn't happen before inauguration day. | |
| Do I have to define it for you? | |
| All hell will break in. | |
| If those hostages aren't back, I don't want to hurt your negotiation. | |
| If they're not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. | |
| And it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. | |
| All hell will break out. | |
| I don't have to say anymore, but that's what it is. | |
| And they should have given him back a long time. | |
| They should have never taken. | |
| They should have never been the attack of October 7th. | |
| People forget that. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Is that a joke? | |
| Oh. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Is that a joke? | |
| No, it's just a fact that we're if not for Donald Trump, there would be no chance of getting any of these hostages back. | |
| Then, of course, you have Joe Biden doesn't mention when when Donald Trump said all hell will break loose, there was somebody standing next to him. | |
| I know that person. | |
| His name is Steve Whitcoff. | |
| Steve Whitkopf is the president's special envoy to the Middle East. | |
| He has been doing shuttle diplomacy on his own dime in the hopes of conveying the message that all hell will break out in the Middle East if these hostages are not released. | |
| Now we had Caroline Glick on yesterday. | |
| She feels a little bit of a uh too much pressure has been put on Israel. | |
| I think she has a valid point. | |
| Uh, but that's who he was talking about. | |
| And then Biden, you know, doesn't mention any of this while discussing the ceasefire talks and this exit interview he did with you know, of all people, Lawrence O'Donnell. | |
| Good grief. | |
| Listen. | |
| I rem kept in mind my friend and he is a friend, uh, although we don't agree a whole lot lately, um, Bibi Netanyahu, that he has to find a way to accommodate the legitimate concerns of a large group of people called Palestinians who have no place to live independently. | |
| And so how did you how do you deal with those things? | |
| So I did really put together uh if it doesn't work, I got things to blame for it, a plan with my national security team. | |
| But I believe that we can make it attractive to the Arab world as well as to the Jewish community to accommodate the kind of changes and this get the prisoners released, get a ceasefire, move in a direction where we agreed how this was going to work and how Israel's troops are gonna move, how we're gonna bring in rebuilding the Gaza Strip and the economy, how are we gonna clean all this up, how we're gonna protect Israel? | |
| Uh pretty unbelievable. | |
| Anyway, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is with us. | |
| And and like me, deep in my heart, I'm very conflicted. | |
| And this this should be an unconditional surrender. | |
| They are the evil, radical Islamic terrorists that in an unprovoked way, you know, murdered the equivalent of 40,000 Americans in a day. | |
| They tortured people, beheaded people, and they took these people, innocent people, hostage. | |
| They were raping women as well. | |
| All things we know took place. | |
| And like you, Senator, I I there's I I don't love a lot of aspects of this deal. | |
| However, I'm not going to be so critical of Israel and the U.S., you know, putting such a high value on life that they want to get them out. | |
| As long as in the back of their minds, they know that Gaza's day of being a militarized zone are over. | |
| Period. | |
| End of sentence, whether they say it or don't say it. | |
| Well, Sean, I agree with you. | |
| Um it's not my preference to ever negotiate with terrorists. | |
| We didn't negotiate with Japan after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. | |
| We said unconditional surrender and release our 40,000 prisoners, and that's exactly what they did. | |
| The reason we've reached this sad point, though, where Israel and America hopes to get 33 hostages out in the next six weeks. | |
| Um we hope will be alive at the cost of hundreds, if not thousands of pardon and convicted Palestinian terrorists, is Joe Biden's weakness and failure from the very beginning. | |
| If President Biden had simply backed Israel to the hilt on October 7th, 2023, and after, this war would have been over much earlier. | |
| These hostages would have been released earlier, fewer fewer of them would have died or been tortured or raped in captivity, and Israel would be in a much stronger position. | |
| Now, all that said, I I understand why Israel chose to conclude this deal at this point, and it is better than what President Biden was urging on Israel last summer, which were required Israel to for, for instance, give up the buffer zone on the border with Egypt so Hamas could potentially be resupplied, as well as declare that the fighting was over. | |
| But as Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Heggseth, and Mike Walshold made clear the fighting is not over. | |
| The fighting will be over when Hamas is totally destroyed. | |
| Do you have any doubt? | |
| Because I do not. | |
| Now, according to my sources, according to reports, the consensus seems to be that the Iranians are three, four, five, six months away from having the capability of building out a nuclear weapon. | |
| So that means we have a very short window in which Israel, the United States, and maybe other countries will have to make a very tough decision, but one that they better make, and that is to take out those no nuclear facilities before the Iranians get them. | |
| Because I do believe with with these radical Islamic terrorists, the number one state sponsor of terror, if they had nuclear weapons, I believe they will use them. | |
| That would mean a modern day Holocaust. | |
| That means in my mind, I'd be taking out Iran uh Iran's refineries, and I'd be taking out their nuclear sites, and I would not hesitate in doing so. | |
| Am I wrong? | |
| Um, Sean, I don't think you're wrong. | |
| I've seen the same report to say Iran could be just a few months away from having a viable nuclear device, not just in terms of the highly enriched uranium that forms the explosive core of a nuclear weapon, but also the technical weapon designs as well that can be mounted on a uh missile and delivered effectively, obviously, at Israel. | |
| Um I I will observe, Sean, that we have an almost perfect record when it comes to Iran's nuclear and other weapons programs. | |
| We have never gotten it right. | |
| We have almost always underestimated their timelines. | |
| I should say overestimated their timeline and missed critical weapons facilities. | |
| So I think we should assume that they're even closer than is widely perceived. | |
| Um however, they are also more exposed and at greater risk than they have been, perhaps at any time since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, thanks to Benjamin Netanyahu and the brave men and women of the Israeli defense forces and the refusal to take Joe Biden's consistently bad advice. | |
| Another reason Israel took this deal now is because they're in a much stronger position than they were six months ago. | |
| The heads of effectively every terrorist proxy of Iran have been targeted and killed like Yahya Senmar in Gaza and Hassan Mesralla of Hezbollah in Lebanon. | |
| Lebanon's missile forces, which is awesome they actually got the top six guys out of Hamas. | |
| And they got the top guy inside of Iran, which is even more spectacular. | |
| And and Sean and Hezbollah I I'm the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. | |
| I don't even know who's in charge of Hezbollah these days. | |
| It must be someone who wasn't important enough to have a pager up through last September though. | |
| So it just goes to show how remarkable Israel's success is done on the battlefield. | |
| They've largely destroy Hezbollah's ability to threaten their people with rockets and missiles. | |
| And most notably after two Iranian strikes on Israel, Israel has effectively destroyed Iran's air and missile defense system. | |
| So Iran is totally exposed. | |
| Israel seems to have made the decision to finally settle all the family business. | |
| We need to back them to the hilt that's exactly what we should have done since October 7th. | |
| That's what I think President Trump will do starting Monday. | |
| Well I I tend to agree with everything. | |
| Regardless of what this deal is and maybe I'm wrong in my thinking but I think I know Donald Trump pretty well and I've known him for thirty years. | |
| And I don't think Donald Trump if if the hostages are released and he is presented with information that the real existential threat to the world is a nuclear armed Iran and the Israelis have already proven they can penetrate deeply into Iranian territory. | |
| They did that in April after the first missile attack directly from Iran but if you want to stop all of the proxy wars that they're funding and that they're operating the only way to do it is to take out their refineries that cuts off their ability to make money and number two to take away any possibility of a nuclear weapon in the future there really is no other option. | |
| Do you do you agree that this has to happen probably within the next year the latest I I think maybe even sooner than that, Sean and again it doesn't have to be an American operation or certainly an American-led operation Israel has the capability to do so as they approved last year when they destroyed all of Iran's air and missile defenses what they certainly will need though is American support not just military and intelligence support but diplomatic and | |
| political support unlike what's been the case the last four years where at every point America has put pressure on Israel and tried to restrain Israel. | |
| But as we already said Iran is at its weakest point in maybe 35 years and this is a chance not just for Israel's sake but for the sake of our interest in the region and world peace to deal a final blow to Iran's nuclear weapons program and much of its military and as you point out much of its economic basis through which it funds terrorism through its oil and refinery capabilities. | |
| Yeah you and I are definitely on the same page I don't love this deal. | |
| However for the sake of the families I am not going to sit here as a you know outside quarterback and criticize them. | |
| All right quick break right back more with Senator Tom Cotton on the other side 800 941 Sean our number as we continue this Friday. | |
| Hey there I'm Mary Catherine Hammond. | |
| 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 SAS. | |
| 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 we continue now. | |
| Senator Tom Cotton, Arkansas is with us. | |
| Now, I think one of the biggest challenges is going to be getting Donald Trump's agenda through Congress with slim majorities in the House and Senate. | |
| Are you confident that his agenda will get through? | |
| Yes, Sean. | |
| And by the way, that would include his cabinet fix. | |
| Yes, John. | |
| I I think the vast majority, if not all of those kicks, will get through the U.S. Senate. | |
| Sean, just to take your listeners on a brief trip down memory lane. | |
| It's Bill Clinton's transition. | |
| There have been seventy-two nominees for the cabinet secretaries in a transition. | |
| Only two of those, Sean, only two have ever received a single no vote from a senator of the president election party. | |
| Much less than enough no votes to take their nomination. | |
| So no one should be surprised, no matter what the liberal media says, that Republican senators by and large will vote for a Republican president elected nonese. | |
| Once we have done that, that takes us on to the broader agenda. | |
| Some of which President Trump can do in the early days of his administration next week. | |
| And though we have very small majorities in the House, and those majorities can sometimes be difficult to manage, I am confident that we'll produce legislation that cuts taxes, that secures our border, that unleashes American energy production, that rebuilds our military, and that implements the agenda on which we all campaigned last year. | |
| If that happens, this will be one of the most transformational presidencies in the last hundred years. | |
| Is that especially cutting two trillion dollars in waste, fraud and abuse and cutting back on big government and returning to constitutional order, limited government, greater freedom. | |
| Senator Cotton, you're one of the real heroes in D.C., one of the solid conservatives we can always count on. | |
| We appreciate you always being with us. | |
| Thank you, sir. | |
| Thank you, Sean. | |
| And what I what I think is the last radio program of the Joe Biden era, if I'm not mistaken. | |
| This is the last one. | |
| The next time I come on the air Monday, Donald J. Trump will be the president. | |
| The only downside is I'll be doing the show from the swamp where you have to live half the time. | |
| Well, it's been a long four years, and it is proof that America can almost anything. | |
| Our long national nightmare is coming to a friggin' end, thank God. | |
| Anyway, Senator, we appreciate you. | |
| All right, let us go. | |
| And it's actually pretty funny. | |
| Biden got interrupted by music montage. | |
| Uh you just can't make it up. | |
| I mean, it's like, okay, Joe, just go home. | |
| My poor friend Stephen A. Smith felt bad for Joe. | |
| Felt sad for Joe. | |
| Listen. | |
| Mr. President, are you sworn in by your son being indictment, Mr. President? | |
| Mr. President, are you sworn in? | |
| Southern Hemisphere had access to changes. | |
| Thank you, everybody. | |
| This ends the press conference. | |
| Thanks, everyone. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Bye. | |
| Thank you all. | |
| Mr. President, was your decision-making, was your decision-making was by inflation, Mr. President? | |
| The executive patrol manager? | |
| I'm I'm going on too long. | |
| I apologize. | |
| That must be my traveling staff. | |
| I mean, nothing has gone right for him. | |
| And is he he he tries, as I said earlier, so hard to rehabilitate what was a failed presidency. | |
| And then the people in the media, oh, people are going to look back very fondly. | |
| James Clyburner, he's going to be viewed as one of the greatest presidents ever. | |
| I'm like, what world are you living in? | |
| Because that's not going to happen. | |
| Anyway, our friend Peter Ducey uh breaks down the White House stagecraft uh designed to minimize Biden's mistakes, and they would just blast music. | |
| I mean, he breaks it all down. | |
| Listen to what really happens. | |
| Oh, so it's not an accident after all. | |
| How do you like that? | |
| All right, let's get to our busy phones. | |
| Uh we are on preemptive pardon watch. | |
| As I mentioned earlier in the program today, Joe Biden, you know, commuting the sentences of what, two thousand twenty-five hundred rather drug of offender sentences. | |
| I really don't have a problem with the power of the pardon. | |
| I think it should be absolute. | |
| And I'd I'd like to see Donald Trump take it to the next level, except use it justly, not like Biden. | |
| And uh watch what happens with Jim Biden in the next few days. | |
| James Comer has actually come out and said, um, yeah, uh I think that maybe the referral that we made about Jim Biden needs to be looked into. | |
| Joe Biden said he won't pardon himself. | |
| He may want to rethink that in my view. | |
| Comer urging the soon-to-be attorney general Pam Bondi to prosecute Jim Biden for lying to Congress. | |
| That that's not that's not lawfair. | |
| That is not weaponization. | |
| If he lied to Congress, he lied to Congress. | |
| And if you think it's a problem, well then ask yourself, well, why did Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon go to jail over not appearing before the January 6th committee? | |
| They were held in contempt of Congress, something that rarely happens that didn't happen to the likes of Lois Lerner and Eric Holder and a whole bunch of other people. | |
| Uh speaking of pardons, Kim in Kansas. | |
| Hey Kim, how are you? | |
| Glad you called. | |
| I am doing great. | |
| How are you doing? | |
| I am doing great, and the next show you will hear, this radio show, we will have a new president. | |
| I know. | |
| Thanks to all of you. | |
| I'm excited. | |
| I can't even tell you how excited I am about all of that. | |
| It's pretty it's it's pretty it's a pretty exciting time. | |
| It's pretty cool, and uh like you, I am excited. | |
| Um the the real reason that I called in is because um I'm trying really hard to understand all of this legal processes that are occurring for us. | |
| And like I understand the Supreme Court declined um Trump. | |
| However, they it was my understanding the reason that they were able to lawfully do that is because there had not been a verdict yet as to how his case was going to come to a final decision. | |
| And so I get that, I understand that, respect that, everything with with that circumstance. | |
| However, we have a um we have Biden who is able to get plea bargains for people that haven't even done anything wrong. | |
| Or is he saying and thinking that they did something wrong, so therefore he's just gonna go ahead and get them a pardon. | |
| But if that's the case, how can he do that? | |
| I mean well, you're pointing out something that's important, and that was the silver lining and that Supreme Court decision. | |
| Uh uh look, I'm not the lawyer, but legal scholars that we interviewed and we've talked to, and Mark Levin have been saying it probably longer than anybody, is that the argument to the Supreme Court should have been brought not last minute but a lot earlier, and it should have dealt with issues like the supremacy clause, not issues involving process. | |
| You know, I'm not gonna get into an argument with with the president's attorneys on that because I'm very confident in the end, this is gonna be overturned on appeal. | |
| Uh the statute of limitations had run out on this particular case. | |
| Number one, number two, it was a novel legal theory. | |
| Number three, I don't believe that Alvin Bragg had jurisdiction uh to get into federal election law. | |
| And number four, it also they also had testimony in the case that uh that came from Donald Trump's time as president. | |
| Uh thus the the Supreme Court decision uh in terms of uh presidential immunity then would kick in as well, and the verdict should have been vacated. | |
| It didn't happen. | |
| It will happen. | |
| I'm very confident it'll happen. | |
| It's not gonna be anything Donald Trump, I think, has to worry about ever again. | |
| But it's gonna take time. | |
| There's lawyers will have to work through it. | |
| Do you think that Biden is still going to be able to get pardons for people that haven't even been prosecuted? | |
| Yes. | |
| Or been guilty. | |
| I think I think he will do it for his brother. | |
| I would anticipate Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson. | |
| I mean, there probably is a betting line on this. | |
| Linda, maybe take a look and see if there's a betting line on this. | |
| Uh, who would get a preemptive pardon? | |
| Anthony Fauci would probably be on the list. | |
| And in spite of everybody saying no, I would not be surprised if Joe Biden puts his own name on the list. | |
| I would not be shocked by that. | |
| But we'll see. | |
| Well, that's definitely admitting that they have done something wrong. | |
| Yeah, I think if the the biggest fear, and you could see this in Pam Bondi's, you know, the rude grilling is all of a sudden the very people that never have said a word about weaponization of justice, never said a word about how the FBI and our intelligence community was politicized and weaponized. | |
| You know, now all of a sudden Donald Trump's going back into office, and the very thing that they have put their seal of approval on or been silent on, they're deathly afraid is going to happen to them. | |
| The only difference this time is these would be real crimes. | |
| What Joe did by leveraging a billion dollars to get you know a prosecutor investigating his son fired when his son was addicted to drugs, had no experience in energy, oil, gas, coal, or Ukraine. | |
| Yeah, or the CEFC WhatsApp message, or the implication uh on Hunter's laptop of his own father. | |
| He's got major issues. | |
| You know, whether Pam Bondy chooses to pursue that. | |
| There is something called prosecutorial discretion, and I have great faith in Pam Bondi. | |
| She'll make the right decision at the right time, and I'm not sure what the right decision is. | |
| This country has a whole host of problems, including violent crime out of control, you know, getting illegal immigrants deported. | |
| You know, we have to we're gonna have to prioritize because there are limited resources. | |
| Uh let's let's let's see. | |
| We really do appreciate your call, though, Kim. | |
| Thank you so much. | |
| Um, there actually is. | |
| Linda sent me. | |
| All right, who will Biden? | |
| There's a poly market. | |
| Who will Biden pardon? | |
| Let's see. | |
| Donald Trump, no, 97 uh 97%, only a three percent chance. | |
| Fauci has a 24% chance of getting pardon. | |
| Liz Cheney a 27% chance of being pardoned, Adam Kinziger, 19%, Jim Biden 29%. | |
| Adam Schiff uh has uh eighteen percent chance. | |
| Diddy a one percent chance. | |
| That's pretty interesting. | |
| Uh all right, back to our busy phones. | |
| Thank God for polymarket and the betting markets. | |
| Is there anything you can't bet on? | |
| It I mean, it's insane. | |
| I'll tell you this about about betting. | |
| And you know, in the beginning I thought it was going to be somewhat harmless, but sports betting. | |
| Here's here's what I'm seeing happening, and I talked to a friend of mine that's an addiction specialist. | |
| He said to me, he said this is gonna be worse than every other addiction, probably combined by the time all is said and done. | |
| He said he's seeing case after case after case where people are betting their homes away. | |
| People are uh people are are betting massive sums of money. | |
| You know, there's a book that um Steve that that mentioned Steve Wynn. | |
| It was put out at it's it's called Vegas. | |
| It's a big red book, and I actually got it as a gift from Steve Wynn, who I've known for many, many, many years. | |
| He used to come on my program quite a bit, and he said it to me, and there's a quote in there from Steve Wynne. | |
| The only way to make money money in a casino in Vegas is to own it. | |
| My advice to all of you in this audience, it may make games a little bit more exciting, but it's not worth it. | |
| If you're gonna bet, bet very moderately, but you know, don't bet don't bet the lunch money, don't bet the mortgage money. | |
| Pay close to the money. | |
| Sean, if you look at poly market right now, something very interesting for you to notice. | |
| They have all these. | |
| Your name on the pardon list. | |
| And it has the first the top four are Trump inauguration, uh, macro forecasts, 2025 predictions. | |
| And then if you look at all the individual bets, it's all politics. | |
| Who will Biden pardon who will attempt the Trump inauguration? | |
| Will Trump create Bitcoin Reserves in the first hundred days. | |
| Israel and Hamas ceasefire by January 31st. | |
| Will the which Trump picks will be confirmed? | |
| I mean, it's all Trump in politics. | |
| It's wild. | |
| It's wild. | |
| And now we've got the Super Bowl that'll be come coming up pretty soon as well. | |
| Look, I'm not against betting. | |
| I'm not against casinos. | |
| I've known Steve Wynne for decades. | |
| I knew Sheldon and Miriam Adelson for decades. | |
| Uh and and another wealthy billionaire. | |
| The people that make money in casinos are casino owners. | |
| Period. | |
| End of sentence. | |
| And um, I would just I I just urge this. | |
| I just care about this audience. | |
| It's like I tell this audience all the time don't count on the federal government to do things for you. | |
| You know, for example, LA residents, the ones whose homes burnt down in the wildfires. | |
| Oh, guess the news that they woke up to today. | |
| They'll still have to pay off their mortgages. | |
| They will still have to pay off their property taxes. | |
| And, you know, decades of blue state liberal democratic policies have utterly destroyed California. | |
| The Los Angeles commander has ordered firefighters to abandon burning homes as you know the department was struggling with staffing shortages that they were all warned about. | |
| I like Adam Carolla. | |
| I'm not sure I agree with Adam Carolla. | |
| He thinks the LA fires will bottom out, you know, you know, and uh and Hollywood's gonna flip politically. | |
| I'm not sure. | |
| Last thing in New York City, unions unions have driven the cost per student for education to $36,293 per student. | |
| And New York pays all that money more than anyone else, and fourth graders rank 32nd nationally in reading and 46th nationally in math. | |
| You really want to trust social you really want to trust government, how's social security, how's Medicare, how's fire control, how's Obamacare? | |
| You know, what is government doing right in your life? | |
| How's safety and security in your small town or big city? | |
| That's gonna wrap things up for today. | |
| Tonight, Hannity, 9 Eastern on the Fox News Channel, three days until Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office. | |
| The next show we do will, of course, yes, that will be from Washington, and we'll have a new president anyway. | |
| Senator Tim Scott. | |
| Uh, we have Tommy Larren, Joe Concha, Jessica Tarlove tonight, Jimmy Phaela, and Billy Ray Cyrus. | |
| We'll see you tonight. | |
| We'll be back here on Monday with a new president. | |
| Have a great celebratory weekend. | |
| We'll see you then. | |
| We'll see you then. | |
| Rapid radios are the coolest walkie talkies. | |
| Now, rapid radios are instant push to talk devices with nationwide coverage. | |
| It's amazing. | |
| 100% private, a great communication device for kids. | |
| There's no contract ever. | |
| Just visit their website. | |
| It's rapidra.com. | |
| And for a limited time, just go to rapid radios.com and you'll get up to 60% off free UPS shipping from Michigan and a free protection bag. | |
| Add the code radio, you get an extra 5% off. |
Export Selection