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Jan. 25, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
28:40
Craig T. Nelson - January 24th, Hour 2
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All right, Leonard Skinner, Simple Man, that can only mean one thing on this radio program.
That means all things self-proclaimed, Simple Man.
That means all things Bill O'Reilly, all things Bill O'Reilly of BillOReilly.com.
Mr. O'Reilly, there's no shortage of news.
I, for the first time, I'm gulping water every hour of every day just to keep up with the news.
However, when Donald Trump yesterday signed an order to declassify the files on JFK, RFK, and the MLK assassinations, I kind of thought of you.
I mean, because you're working on a book now, Killing Hannity, and you have your whole killing series, which is the best-selling in history.
But I've got to imagine that this is right up your alley, and I'm sure you're pretty excited about it.
Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing what they have, particularly in the James Earl Ray MLK Jr.
assassination, how he got from Memphis to London.
This guy's a drifter.
He didn't have any access to money.
And all of a sudden, he's on a worldwide manhunt, goes to Canada, goes to England.
How did he get there?
I had, no, no, I think a lot of questions are going to be answered.
I think one of the things the American people want to know is whether or not there was any involvement with anybody within our own government.
I believe, you know, that's been a theory.
It's been, many have called it a conspiracy theory.
I have no knowledge of any of that, but I think the American people do have a right to know, and I think the time has come, and I'm glad the president is going to be transparent.
I agree 100%.
There is involvement in the JFK assassination.
And if you read my book, Killing Kennedy, which was the second book after killing Lincoln, you'll see there was a man named George DeMorinshield who, a real shadowy figure, was a close friend of Lee Harvey Oswald.
DeMorinshield did work for the CIA.
That's not a theory.
It's not a conspiracy.
It's a fact.
And I established that way back in the 1970s when I was a local reporter in Dallas.
And to this day, that has been ill-defined.
I do not expect it to be part of what is released by the government because the CIA will hold back stuff.
They always do.
I don't know if they're going to be able to.
Donald Trump has said he's releasing all of it.
Let's see if that happens.
But you're right about the process.
The process is that the CIA will try and redact certain information.
Keep in mind one name, George DeMorinshield.
If that name is not in the papers that is released that the president has ordered released, then you're not getting the full story.
So I've been to the grassy knoll.
I have been to the bank depository.
I've read all about the magic bullet.
I don't believe it's scientifically possible.
What say you, Mr. O'Reilly, in terms of what you think really happened?
Well, we've debunked all of that in killing Kennedy by getting the actual documents that the FBI put together on the week after the assassination.
What happened was JFK was killed.
It was taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, pronounced dead.
The local jurisdiction had power, not the feds.
And the locals were not up to it.
And so as president, the new president, LBJ, ordered the FBI to go in.
And they immediately did, took the investigation over.
And they kept voluminous notes.
We had them all.
The first publication ever to get them.
So there's no doubt in my mind Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger, killed JFK from the book depository.
He ordered the gun.
Gun was found.
Prince on the gun.
He fled.
He killed a Dallas police officer.
You wouldn't do that if you were just some Patsy.
Okay.
And why was he killed?
Because of who he knew or who might have been involved in a conspiracy?
No.
Jack Ruby had terminal cancer.
He loved JFK.
He went in and he shot Lee Corvey Oswald.
And he had access because all the cops in Dallas worked with Jack Ruby.
They were all involved with his strip club and all that.
So when I lay it out, you'll see how it makes perfect sense.
also got the ballistics report and we got the uh autopsy report all of that but i will be looking at the other way if you if the autopsy photos of of jfk are online and available I don't think they ever should have been made available, but they are.
They're so gruesome and it's so sad.
And you see all his brain matter hanging out.
I mean, it's terrible to look at.
I had a conversation off the record.
Well, it wasn't off the record.
It was a conversation, a private conversation, and he's already made it public.
I'm not disclosing anything new, but RFK actually has taken the time to really study the assassination of his father.
And that's RFK Jr.
And RFK was the one assassinated.
What's so interesting is he went to the prison to see the so-called assassin, Sir Hans Sir Han.
He is convinced that was not the assassin after meeting with him and all the other evidence he's accumulated over the years.
What's your reaction to that?
It's bull.
There were seven eyewitnesses to the shooting.
Sir Anne Saran admitted to it.
Prince on the gun.
You know, look, people believe what they want to believe.
And I feel terrible for the Kennedy family.
You and I both know members of that family.
And I have not made it a crusade to go against Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s theory.
I actually noted it in one of my books.
But it's bull.
Sir Hans did it.
He is still in prison.
He'll be in prison forever.
And he should be.
All right.
Let's move on to some other issues here.
Donald Trump, you know, forget about that first hundred days.
Let's look at the first hundred hours.
I don't think in our lifetime we've ever seen anybody move at the speed of light that he's moving at on a variety of issues successfully.
And when I spend time with him, and we both have known him 30 plus years, when I spend time with him, it is very obvious, and I asked him about this.
He is the most relaxed I've ever seen him, number one.
He's the most dialed in I've ever seen him, number two.
And he's the most committed I've ever seen him.
And the commitment is to the agenda, the promises that he made to the American people, and a desire to accomplish all of it and more and exceed expectations.
That's what I walked away from after that interview with Donald Trump.
I saw the interview.
I use the word ferocity.
So you're absolutely right.
Not in the modern times, but in any times.
There's never been a president who walks in the White House and operates at warp speed the way Mr. Trump is doing.
Never.
And it's not even close.
There's no close second to it.
Usually it's deliberations, it's meetings, it's sorting out, it's deliberating, it's ruminating.
There's none of that.
Two mistakes he made this week.
One, going to that prayer service because that woman's a nut.
That bishop, that Episcopal, and everybody knew it.
That'd be like going over.
Well, but you could not have anticipated she would go down that road, Bill.
Come on.
Could have.
I disagree 100%.
She is an absolute left-wing loon.
That would be like going to a service by Al Sharpton.
Okay?
I mean, it's time after time after time with this woman, and she's not subtle about it.
Anyway, by the way, you took a lot of heat years ago for having lunch with Al Sharpton.
I took a lot of heat for debating Al Sharpton.
I tried to forge détente with that guy, but he's a grifter.
I gave him $25,000 because he ran out of money on Thanksgiving to feed his folks up in Harlem.
I never made that public.
But we gave him $25,000 so he could buy turkeys and food and distribute it under the banner of his National Action Committee.
And I did it out of charity.
And that guy turned around and knifed me in the back.
He's an awful, disgusting human being.
And that would be like Trump walking in for service with him because this bishop, this Episcopal bishop, is an absolute disgrace.
What she did, the disrespect she showed, and the absolute lies, the way she presented the merciful thing, when both you and I know that hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead because of the open border.
Did she mention that?
Nope.
She didn't.
You know what, Bill?
I think I'm the only one on TV, and I don't know if you've done it on billarile.com.
I would scroll the names of every American murdered, and it's not just Lake and Riley and Rachel Morin and Jocelyn Nungari, but there are hundreds of them.
And Americans raped, including children and victims of other violent crimes.
And we have terrorists, cartel members, and gang members in our country.
And for her to make that lecture in front of the president was beyond despicable and repulsive.
Where's the mercy there?
But I'm glad it happened so Americans can see it.
And that was mistake number one minor.
And then I would have done the judge reviewing the violence against the cops, Jay 6th.
That's the way I would handle that.
Because there's some bad people there that got pardons.
And you know it.
I know it.
Everybody knows it.
Now, I understand why the president did it.
And I don't think it's going to haunt him politically.
I think people will forget about it mostly.
But, you know, both you and I have something in common, Hattie.
I hate to admit it.
But we want public servants to do the right thing.
Would that be an accurate statement?
Very accurate, of course.
I want them to serve the people of this country, the people that make the country great.
Sometimes you and I don't see the right thing.
You know, we disagree on it, but we both want to do the right thing.
And we want our public servants to do it as well.
I don't think letting some really bad people out of jail talk tax hops the right thing.
Simple.
I'm a simple man.
The argument and the answer that the president gave, because I did ask him that question, was actually pretty interesting and profound.
And if you look at it through the prism of how much time they spent in jail, how much time they were sentenced to jail compared to other people.
For example, go back to the summer of 2020, 574 riots, Bill.
They were all riots.
They were labeled as riots.
You had dozens of dead Americans, thousands of cops pelted with bricks, rocks, bottles, Molotov cocktails, and you had billions in property damage.
We had all of the evidence in the world, videotaped evidence of the people that were responsible.
How many people do you think, Bill, were held accountable?
And what about the vice president at the time or running for vice president Kamala Harris saying the rioters won't stop, the rioters shouldn't stop, and we're not going to stop.
And nobody ever investigated any of that, Bill.
You do need equal justice and equal application of our laws.
They did pay a price, a very dear price, for their actions that day.
Those people that were violent.
There were a whole bunch of other people that did absolutely nothing.
Maybe the worst thing they did was walk into the Capitol and took videos.
And those people did not deserve to be treated the way they were treated.
And by the way, a lot of the information on J6 was not told the American people.
We know for a fact that five people testified and are witnesses that Donald Trump called up and was willing to call up 10,000 guard troops.
We know in writing Muriel Bowser, who had the authority, denied in writing those troops.
We know that the Capitol Police Chief's son was begging for troops.
We know that Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the sergeant of arms, they didn't do a darn thing.
So if Donald Trump really wanted an insurrection, I doubt he would have approved 10,000 National Guard troops.
No sane person or fair honor person believes that President Trump wanted that to happen.
But again, you come back to the right thing.
And I think, you know, when I talked, and I talked to a lot of police officers about this, and I say, what did you think about it?
Because they're on the front line.
And about 80% of them said, no, I think we would have liked to have had more definition on those people before they get the pardon.
And I think that would have been the right thing to do.
But again, look, it's emotional.
Donald Trump made a promise.
And what I'd like to see him follow up on is there was prosecutorial misconduct directed at some people who got into this fracas and got punished far beyond their crime.
I'd like to see some of that uncovered because, as you said, we don't know that.
I had a guy on last night on the No Spit News who said, look, I was just a photographer.
I was just taking pictures.
And I was in the group.
I never set foot in the Capitol.
I was on a property and they made me, you know, under threat of felony sign a plea for a misdemeanor.
And now I have this on my jacket and it was ridiculous.
That's the kind of stuff that we should go back and look at because the prosecutors who did that should be held accountable.
I think you agree with him.
Is that right?
No, I totally agree with that.
And I think getting to the bottom of it was smart.
I'd like the fact that they're going to now, both Comer and Jim Jordan are committed to going into the Biden family and finding out whether Joe Biden got monies from these foreign business deals.
We know he lied when he said he never talked to his son, his brother, or anybody for that matter.
We know that money, according to Hunter's laptop, went to Joe.
And they've given up their Fifth Amendment rights.
They can't plead the fifth, and they'll have to testify.
And similarly, all the J6 committee members and Dr. Fauci, they all need to come up and testify as well.
And they don't have the Fifth Amendment right that they had having gotten and accepted a pardon.
Mr. O'Reilly, it's great to have you.
Hope you are having a great new year.
We wish you the very best and thank you for being with us.
Thanks for having me in.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hale.
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.
You know, I'm not the biggest fan of everybody in Hollywood.
There are a lot of people that I know and a lot of people I respect and a lot of people that I like.
And there are even people that have different political views than me.
They're very talented, gifted people.
And I just like talented people.
I don't really care what your politics are.
But anyway, so one such person is going to join us in a minute, Craig T. Nelson, and he's got a new movie we want to tell you about.
Whenever I see a good movie, whenever I know there's a good movie out there, I want to support it because there's so few good movies that we can all see, that your family can see, that you want to see, that you want to spend your limited time watching.
I mean, it just doesn't exist.
But anyway, I happen to be a fan of his, and I think he's done a great job.
I mean, when you look at his resume, it's pretty amazing.
He's worked with Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candace Bergen.
He's worked with Matthew McConaughey, Will Farrell, Kevin Hart, let's see, Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Afflack, Kevin Costner.
I mean, and Ryan Reynolds is hardly anybody he hasn't worked with.
Sarah Jessica Parker, and I can go on and on.
And he just has had an amazing career.
And anyway, he has a, he's an actor, writer, director, and he's got a new movie out.
He plays Buck in the upcoming movie called Green and Gold.
And anyway, we welcome to the program, Craig T. Nelson, sir.
How are you?
What a career you've had.
It's unbelievable, actually.
Well, it's pretty amazing.
Yeah, it is, Sean.
I've been very blessed.
And I just want to tell you, by the way, great job on the interview in the Oval Office.
And also, I wanted to tell you, remember election night, and you came on with that kind of out-of-the-blue prediction.
And I was watching, and I was stunned.
I mean, because at the time, it didn't reveal any of the information that you were sharing.
And yet, here you go.
It hit the nail right on the head.
You want me to tell you the secret?
I can tell you the secret.
The secret was, is every day there's early voting.
And every day I got those numbers.
And every night after the TV show, I would study those numbers.
And I actually went on with Dana Perino and Bill Hammer at 9 a.m. on Election Day morning.
And I said, starting out today, Kamala has a math problem because she was down about 700,000 votes from where Joe Biden was in 2020 in Pennsylvania.
She was down 45% in Wisconsin.
She was down so low in Georgia and North Carolina that there was no way, even with record turnout, that I thought she could come back.
So I felt really good about it, but I did not want to communicate that to this audience because, you know, at the end of the day, turnout on Election Day, that's still going to be, you know, 60% of the votes.
So you can't take anything for granted.
But I felt pretty confident going into that day.
And by that time at night, I'd been checking in all day with Democratic strongholds, and they were not seeing the record turnout that they would have needed to win.
I appreciate you noticing that.
It's amazing, actually, how many people told me they saw it.
But I want to talk about you.
You've had such an amazing career.
And I want to talk about this new movie because I love the premise of the whole thing.
You star as Buck, a fourth generation dairy farmer.
And I love Dairy Farmer.
I love farmers.
I love truckers.
I love ranchers.
And we don't think a lot about it, but they feed us and they make sure that our refrigerators are full every day.
And we don't give them enough credit.
But this is an independent film, Green and Gold.
And anyway, you're facing foreclosure, which is not an uncommon situation for people that own farms.
You wager everything you have on the Green Bay Packers in a Hail Mary to save this little chunk of dirt, this farm.
And anyway, it's an amazing story, but it's really rooted in real life for far too many small farmers in this country.
Yeah, it is.
My family farm goes back to 1860.
They're still in South Dakota, the Nelson farm.
And they went from 60 acres to 2,200 acres, plus 2,200.
Not all of it, but it is there.
Some of it's rented.
But the beauty of that, to me, Sean, the beauty of who these people are is in their heart, their tenacity, and their hope, if you will, resiliency, and their optimism.
I mean, They are truly, I was just talking to the man that runs a farm last night, Bob Nelson, and we were talking.
And the gift that I get when I'm speaking to him or other family members that are farming is this kind of heartfelt truthfulness.
There's a beauty about them.
There's no facade.
There's none of this dancing around an issue.
They're right in the middle of it.
They're seven days a week.
They work hard.
The margins are very, very small, as you know.
But they're a people of the land, and they're Americans.
And it's just a wonderful glimpse into, I think, what the referendum was in our political year this year.
America does have a resiliency and a hope and an expectation.
That is why this country is so great.
One of the things that really, really frustrated me, disappointed me, is after Hurricane Helene, and it was a very underreported story.
We spent a lot of time talking about it on this show, a lot of time talking about it on TV, especially in areas in South Carolina, Tennessee, but more specifically in the northwestern part of North Carolina.
They got devastated by Hurricane Helene and parts of my home state of Florida as well.
And then that got followed up by Hurricane Milton and a lot of property damage.
My understanding is, I think you live out in California.
You've been watching these wildfires.
It is inexplicable to me that the science of forestry is not practiced out there.
It's inexplicable and unexcusable that hydrants don't have water in them, that reservoirs are empty.
The finger pointing has been on a magnitude that I can't even believe.
And it seems that anybody that says, okay, we're going to help the people of California, but they've got to prevent this from happening again, is somehow an evil person.
It's not.
We're trying to prevent future tragedies that are predictable.
Santa Ana winds are predictable.
And wildfires in California are predictable, aren't they?
Well, yeah, I mean, we've been through quite a few.
They're probably more recent and more frequent than ever because of the climate.
But also the, as you mentioned, I mean, the management, the budget cuts and the forest management and what needs to be done to protect the and also, you know, you've got the devastation, Sean, when you see it is absolutely incomprehensible.
I mean, it's just on a scale you wouldn't believe.
I think, what is it, the reclamation, the rebuild is up to $250 billion somehow.
It's an insane amount of money.
And for the people of North Carolina, I mean, FEMA was going to kick them out two Fridays ago out of their temporary housing if they didn't fill out the proper paperwork.
I mean, it's freezing cold in that area of North Carolina.
No, these are issues that need to be addressed, and they haven't been.
They've been left on the back burner, and they've been, you know, we voted in 2014 for adequate reservoirs, but there's been a water shortage proclamation given in California.
And yet at the same time, you're dealing with in the Wolsey Fire, which hit Malibu, we didn't have water, and we didn't have water drops, and we didn't have FOSCHEX.
So it was left to burn for the most part, if you will.
So, you know, there's a fight going on.
But again, there is a resiliency among the people here and the desire to rebuild in some form.
And I would like to see that not only enabled, but somehow that they're given a pathway that's a lot quicker than the bureaucracy that we've had to deal with for so long.
But this kind of fits into your movie in this sense.
I really do feel that the people that make this country great are not people that are in the public eye.
And I'm sure people ask you for a selfie.
They ask me for a selfie.
And I'm always, I'm grateful to people that give me this microphone every day and that camera every night and give me an opportunity to express my views and basically follow my dream in life.
But the people that really make this country great, the unsung heroes are the people that grow our food, the ranchers that put meat on our table, the truckers that deliver it and fill those store shelves for us, and the entire supply chain line.
And you're talking about a very real situation in this movie, Green and Gold, where there are small farmers have been squeezed out.
They've been pressured to sell their land for development, but they want to keep in the farming business.
And here, you're in a situation in this movie where you're going to lay it all on the line on the Green Bay Packers, which, by the way, is not necessarily always the best bet.
I'm just saying.
Green Bay Packers are fine.
I bet you're probably a part owner.
However, you put it all on the line.
And I know people that have done things like that and have succeeded.
And I know people in life that have done things like that and have failed.
And I'm not going to let people know the outcome of the movie because I don't think it's fair.
I don't want to be spoiler alert here.
I'm not giving it to you.
Well, yeah, no, it's so true, isn't it?
I mean, they are the unsung.
They're not heard.
Their voice, although they did speak up, didn't they?
I think we heard from them loud and clear.
And I think there's cautious optimism.
And I love the fact that they're so generous and so giving.
And the community aspect of it is something that we've lost because we're given 24-7 the fact that we're not that great and that we've done this and we're that.
There's a whole range of people out there that are servicing our needs and our wants and demands, not to mention the fact that they're faith-based.
They have a belief in not only America, but a belief in a God that they trust and want to pass on to their families.
Hasn't Hollywood lost a lot of their connection to the men and women in this country that are great?
I mean, I find so many movies, I have more selections than ever before, and I find myself more often than not saying, this is crap, I'd rather just turn the TV off and go to bed.
I mean, it frustrates me because I'd love to watch a good movie.
Well, you know, Sean, it's like anything else.
It's where the money is.
And they think, and of course, the box office is down right now quite a bit.
But at the same time, it's individually as an actor in this business, you choose those projects that you think people would want to see.
And I try to stay away from anything dark, and I think any promotion of anything that I don't believe in.
So you pick and choose.
It's so funny you're saying that because I won't watch Dark Anything anymore.
Like these series, they get very dark.
I don't watch them anymore.
I love this series, The Chosen.
Did you ever watch that?
Oh, I know Dallas very well.
I'm Dallas Jenkins, the director, producer, creator of the show.
And it's fantastic.
And I love what's being done on there and who they're bringing that message to.
And I would just hope that you can devote, you know, a person can devote what they believe in and their belief system and then find an outlet for it.
Yeah, and you know what?
People are finding it and they're watching it in droves.
I've been a fan of yours for a long time.
We've never had the opportunity to talk.
I wish you all the best.
His new movie, Craig T. Nelson, is coming out.
It's called Green and Gold, and he plays Buck, a farmer about to lose his farm, and he bets everything on the Packers, and you'll have to watch the movie to get the outcome.
Craig, we appreciate it, man.
Thank you.
Come back again.
Thank you.
You're a great American.
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