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Feb. 5, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
32:36
Defending Tariffs - February 4th, Hour 2

House Ways and Committee Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri joins us to discuss the new tariffs, as well as Mexico and Canada backing down and sending 10k troops to the southern border. As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Chairman Smith is the top trade person in Congress.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Thanks, Scott Shannon.
Hour two, Sean Hannity Show, 800-941-Sean, a number.
If you want to be a part of the program, there is some intramural battling over the budget, which we expected, and the amount of spending cuts.
And we're going to have battles over tax law, extending the Trump tax cuts and making them hopefully permanent on top of moving forward with no tax on tips, Social Security overtime, get this economy moving again.
Energy is going to be a big factor in all of this.
And anyway, Democrats, they are just losing it over the cuts to U.S. aid.
And I spent a lot of time, an inordinate amount of time talking about all the waste, fraud, abuse that went on.
I'll be honest, after I went through this full list, we were lied to.
I feel like we were stolen from.
And the entire radical left, you know, green woke agenda was being implemented worldwide, and nobody had any control or knowledge of it.
And the left is furious with Elon Musk for exposing it.
And then the president, you know, he's now gotten a number of countries to blink.
Canada, Mexico, Panama, Denmark, Colombia, Venezuela.
And it's probably only a matter of time until Iran and China will blink as well.
More complicated, but I think it's coming.
Here's the president discussing the issue of tariffs with Mexico and Canada.
I had a great talk with Mexico, and we had President Scheinbaum is a woman.
I like her very much.
We've had good relationships, but we have to stop Fenton from coming in, whether I like somebody or not.
And we have to stop the illegal aliens from coming in.
Canada is very tough.
They're very, very tough to do business with.
And we can't let them take advantage of the U.S. Tariffs are very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want.
Tariffs are us.
Nobody can compete with us because we're the pot of gold.
But if we don't keep winning and keep doing well, we won't be the pot of gold, and then tariffs won't be so good for us.
But when you're the pot of gold, the tariffs are very good.
They're very powerful.
They're very, very powerful, which is why you see the capitulation and things that Mexico and Canada and Colombia, and then we have El Salvador now offering to take in any illegal immigrant in our country and house them and even U.S. criminals.
I mean, you just, it's amazing what a little bit of American strength means.
In light of, I can't, I just don't have the time to go through everything that we spent an inordinate amount of time on.
You know, the $20 million Sesame Street show in Iraq from USAID, the $40 million to build schools in Jordan, the $56 million to boost Egyptian Tunisia tourism, all of the money on green projects worldwide.
I've got like nine pages here of hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars just being wasted to advance this agenda.
And I'm somebody who reads the news every day and I've not been familiar with it.
Anyway, Democrats are freaking out over this and freaking out over Elon Musk over this, as if Elon Musk is the problem for identifying and exposing what it is they have been doing behind closed doors and how this massive amount of money could be spent on these programs worldwide.
And we have Americans going hungry.
And we have veterans that have not been taken care of.
And we have Social Security and Medicare going bankrupt.
And we have wide open borders.
And, you know, it's remarkable.
Give credit to Elon Musk.
And he's taken a lot of heat for basically exposing a truth we should have known about a long time ago.
Listen.
Elon Musk, you didn't create U.S. aid.
The United States Congress did for the American people.
And just like Elon Musk did not create U.S. aid, he doesn't have the power to destroy it.
And who's going to stop him?
We are.
We're going to stop him.
We are witnessing a constitutional crisis.
We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one, and here we are.
This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like.
Today, it's USAID.
Tomorrow, it's our health care.
It's Social Security.
It's our livelihoods.
It's our freedoms.
So stand up for USA today, USAID today, so that we can stand up for all of our freedoms in the days ahead.
This is a constitutional crisis that we are in today.
Let's call it what it is.
The people get to decide how we defend the United States of America.
The people get to decide how their taxpayer money is spent.
Elon Musk does not get to decide.
We are here to save lives because that is what AID does.
And no one elected Elon Musk to dismantle it.
And Elon, if you want to run AID, get nominated by Trump and go to the Senate and good luck in getting confirmed.
Yes!
I mean, they could claim it's a constitutional crisis.
This is for the American people.
Really?
A DEI musical we're funding in Ireland and $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam and transgender operas and transgender comic books and $2.5 million for DEI in Serbia.
And I mean, I could just go on and on and on, but I would take up this half hour like I spent a big part of the last hour on this program.
Anyway, joining us now is Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri, friend of the program, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
They're going to be dealing with a lot of issues of taxes and spending.
And it's a pleasure to have you back, Congressman.
How are you?
Doing great, Sean.
It's always great to be with you, sir.
I mean, did you take a look at how this U.S. aid money was spent?
And then you hear the reaction of the left.
Can you explain this to me?
You know, Sean, just listening to the different comments of my fellow Democrat colleagues here in the House of Representatives, where they're drawing the red line, Sean, is for money that goes to foreign governments and foreign entities.
They're not drawing a red line for items that affect Americans.
It just shows how out of touch the Democrat Party is, Sean, that this is what they care about.
And all Elon Musk has been doing is showing how U.S. tax dollars are being spent in inappropriate ways across the globe.
And that's all it is in regards to U.S. aid.
But apparently, they don't like for people to be digging into efficiencies or fairness when it comes to the government.
This is all money that is going to foreign governments.
This is not money that is including China, including Somalia, where Donald Trump just took out ISIS fighters this weekend.
This is not money going to the American people, and we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
And, you know, I follow the news pretty closely every day.
And when I read the full list that I got a hold of today, I was numbed by it.
Well, Sean, whenever Congress created U.S.AID, it was to help countries that were in need, such as individuals in Africa who are starving and providing rice and basic food.
So that's the purpose of U.S. aid.
It definitely was not for DI drag shows in Serbia or you name it.
That's not what the purpose is.
And that is why Musk is pointing it out and demanding changes.
Well, I mean, I think he's doing us a service.
We do have a little battle going on.
It's about, you know, we're looking at either one big, beautiful bill.
I don't know if that's been resolved or whether or not there'll be two bills between the House and the Senate reconciliation bills.
But the bottom line is when it comes to tax law and issues that are very, very critical to the Trump agenda, as the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, you're going to have a big say on this.
I'm hoping and praying that the Trump tax cuts are permanent.
I'm hoping that no tax on tips and Social Security, no tax on overtime are in there.
And I'm hoping the energy, the committees involving energy do their part to increase revenues that way.
Where do you see this going?
How do you see this going?
You know, Sean, Republicans are, we're ready to hit the ground running to put in place the policies needed to make America great again.
We can't afford to waste any time getting our country back on the right track.
And we can deliver on critical pieces of President Trump's agenda very quickly.
No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on seniors, Social Security.
These are items that we've been working on for months.
We need to make permanent the expiring provisions of Trump's tax cuts.
And if we do this, you talk about the economic impact that that will bring to all Americans.
I mean, 207 million taxpayers, Sean, will face a tax increase if Congress allows the expiration of Trump's successful tax cuts from 2017.
At the end of this year is when the expiration.
When you think about the child tax credit, which Trump increased to $2,000, that will get slashed in half to $1,000.
The guarantee deduction, which the majority of Americans use to file their taxes, that gets slacked in half.
And then every individual tax rate will go up on all Americans.
These are things that we cannot happen.
We cannot let happen.
And Republicans are prepared to push some policies to put on the president's desk.
I can't imagine one Republican opposing, cutting, and gutting everything that I've laid out here.
The entire leftist agenda, the green agenda, the woke agenda, et cetera.
I mean, I feel like the American people have been stolen from at the highest level with this exposure of U.S.AID spending.
You know, the only concern that I have is some members like to put their own personal agenda ahead of President Trump's agenda.
And we know what President Trump's agenda is.
It's delivering economic relief.
It's delivering energy independence.
It's creating and securing the border.
These are things he campaigned on.
We can deliver that in one big, beautiful bill, and that's in fact what we will do.
So the House will do that.
The Senate has said they want two bills.
You'll send one bill to the Senate.
I assume at that point, they're going to have to take it up in some capacity.
Are they going to try to separate them?
And would the House take that up?
Or, you know, when the House and Senate try to reconcile these bills, do you believe that, I mean, they have the votes in the Senate.
I don't see why they wouldn't be able to, although there are strict rules regarding reconciliation in the Senate.
John, I like to remind my colleagues that the only reason why we control the House, the only reason why Republicans control the Senate, and the only reason why Republicans control the White House is because of Donald Trump.
And we need to get over the arguments on process and focus on the policy and put the policy on the president's desk, whether it's one bill, two bills, or seven bills.
The focus is to deliver the president's priorities to him.
Unfortunately, you know, in a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives, you'll find a couple members here and there that will push their own agenda and demand things in return for the president's priorities.
But that's not how it's going to work with President Trump.
When he starts smelling that, you know how things work out.
All right, quick break.
We'll come right back.
We'll have more with Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri.
He is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Yeah, that's the committee that implements tax law on all Americans.
And this is a big part of the Trump agenda.
As we continue, we'll get to your calls coming up as well.
800-941-Sean, straight ahead.
Exposing the Felosi Party's chaos and corruption all day, every day.
This is the Sean Annity Show.
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We continue now with Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri.
He's the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
What is the timeline, do you think, to get these reconciliation, the bill, the big, beautiful bill, or bills done?
When do you see this happening?
What's the timeline?
Well, Speaker Johnson and the leadership team put out a plan that they would like to have the big, beautiful bill that has energy policy, border policy, and all of Trump's tax cuts in it by Memorial Day.
That is the goal.
That's the plan.
What I would warn people is if you look at just history, the last time that Congress was able to pass two different reconciliation bills, which is what the Senate is pushing for, was 1986, and it was in a bipartisan fashion.
It wasn't even a partisan reconciliation bill.
So we have a much smaller majority now, Sean, now than what we did in years past.
So let's just get all the stuff together and push it to the president's desk.
I think that Republicans have got to understand, which is why I did the town hall.
I went to Washington and I said, you all understand you're not going to get everything you want.
You all understand that you're going to win or lose together.
You all understand that the American people voted for President Trump's agenda and not your own individual agendas.
Anyway, we got to watch.
We're going to watch very closely.
We'll stay in touch with you.
Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Thank you, sir.
We appreciate you being with us.
Thank you, Sean.
Always great to be with you.
Hey there.
I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
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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.
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This is pretty, actually, entertaining in many ways.
I talked about it yesterday.
So the Democrats selected a new DNC chairperson.
And if you thought it was not possible for them to double down on ridiculously stupid, then you were wrong.
Because they, you know, Tim Walz, you know, I see that they selected David Hogg.
Remember that guy?
I don't remember it was involved.
He's very anti-gun for securing a position with the DNC as vice chair.
The chairman is radical left.
Everybody at this conference was radical left.
And it is fascinating that the Democratic Party has learned nothing.
I was listening to James Carville talk about, well, we have so many stars.
I'm like, yeah, who are they?
I'd like to know their names because I don't really see them.
Anyway, this is part of their conference when they were selecting their leadership from over the weekend.
How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris's defeat?
They all raised their hands.
Okay.
You fight on, you fight all.
You fight on, you fight all.
When your government is doing you wrong, you fight on, oh, you fight all.
Will you pledge to appoint more than one transgender person to an at-large seat?
And will you commit to making sure those appointments reflect the gender and ethnic diversity of the transgender community?
In order to be gender balanced, we must elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender.
You fight on, oh, you fight all.
Will you pledge to appoint more than one transgender person to an at-large seat, and will you commit to making sure those appointments reflect the gender and ethnic diversity of the transgender community?
In order to be gender balanced, we must elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender.
Okay.
Let's get to our busy phones.
I think what is so startling about the USAID monies that we've been going through all day is just how they have effectively the left, unbeknownst to the American people and American workers and our kids and grandkids.
They have been stealing all this money, advancing their green, woke, radical agenda, their leftist agenda, their new Green Deal agenda, and they've done it under the radar.
And that's why, you know, and then you find out that 97% of USAID money donations go to Democrats.
Of course, they're now going to lose a big chunk of money when Elon Musk and Donald Trump cut this thing back to the bone.
If there's anything left at all, I don't think we should be spending any money until we balance our budget.
It's really that simple.
Scott in Long Island, next, Sean Hannity Show.
What's up, Scott?
How are you?
Hi, Sean, calling from your old stomping grounds, Huntington, Long Island, New York.
Yes, sir.
And I miss a few places in Huntington.
I do.
I'm not going to lie.
And I miss a few friends, although one of my friends from Long Island was down here today, and I got to see him.
Excellent.
There you go.
So I'm calling about the Panama Canal.
Big issue about what were we thinking about giving the canal back to Panama for $1 in the late 70s, right?
Believe it or not, it's a myth that we gave it away for a dollar.
All right.
I'm just giving you some facts to that.
No, we gave it to them for free.
We didn't even.
Okay, so we did not get a dollar.
And it was a 20-year process, and nobody stopped it.
And it's ridiculous.
It was the dumbest thing we've ever done.
Now, with all that said, Let's just put it this way.
At the very least, America is going to have operating control over the Panama Canal.
And China now is being kicked out.
And as part of this purge by Donald Trump, forcing countries, and I don't care if it's Canada or Mexico or Colombia or Venezuela.
Now El Salvador is getting in and they're offering to help before the tariff threat even comes their way.
But you see what's happening in Denmark.
Now they want an American partnership in Greenland.
And you see what's happening in Panama.
They're throwing the Chinese out, and America will regain its proper authority.
We did not give the Panama Canal.
We lost American lives.
It took American ingenuity to build it.
It took American engineering to build it.
We didn't give it to them so that they could hand it over to our number one geopolitical foe.
So they clearly have gotten the message.
Now it's going to be a matter of dotting the I's, crossing the T's, and coming up with a final agreement.
And another big, you know, success for President Trump.
I think it all relates to the Church Commission back in the mid-70s when we discovered our horror that the CIA was involved in all kinds of nasty business down in South America and Central America.
So out of guilt, I think that Congress and our president said, oh, we're such bad people.
Let's do something nice.
So we gave away the canal.
That's my theory.
What do you think?
I don't think you're too far off.
I wrote about my first book, I think it was in 2002, Let Freedom Ring.
You know, I wrote about the church committee at length, and I think it definitely played a role in it.
You know, there were allegations, you know, at the time being made that America was this imperialist nation.
But that is the view of the Kamala Harris, Joe Biden wing and AOC squad wing, which represents the dominant end of the Democratic Party.
I see very few Democrats that are showing moderation.
Probably the one that's showing the most is John Fetterman, believe it or not.
Fetterman, sure.
Pennsylvania.
Yep.
Yeah.
And you know what?
He's probably smart to do so.
It's smart politically.
I don't think that his state is far left.
I think it's more, you know, I think it's more purple.
And I think really, I think the American people, when they hear what the amount of money, the massive amounts of money that were being stolen from them, they keep saying, we were looking, this was created for the American people, USAID.
Well, the American people aren't interested in the green, woke, you know, transgender DEI agenda of the left.
And that's where this money's being spent in foreign countries, hundreds of millions of dollars worth.
Exactly.
It's insane.
Hearts and minds are changing every day.
We're in the battle in the trenches.
12 million more people voted for Trump this time than eight years ago.
So over that time, minds were changing slowly but slowly.
I'm going to tell you my favorite place that I miss the most in Huntington, Long Island, to go eat.
Everything with me comes down to food.
Little Vinny's Pizza.
Oh, the best.
Thin crust.
Yeah.
Lots of oil on it.
Little Vinny's Pizza.
And the best part about Little Vinny's is they were open to like 2.30 in the morning every night.
It was great.
All right, my friend.
Appreciate you.
Thank you.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, quick break right back to our phones.
800-941-Sean, our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
Up next, our final roundup and information overload hour.
Two smart guys, one smart show.
Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
Noon to three weekdays on 710WOR.
And let's get back to our busy phones, 800-941 Sean, if you want to join us.
Steve in Kentucky, what's up, Steve?
How are you?
Hey, Sean, how are you?
It's a pleasure speaking with you, sir.
I've been a big fan since Hannity and Combs from a long time.
Thank you.
Obviously.
I know my hair is getting a little whiter.
I got it.
I'm 45 years old, and I tell you, you have been a big influence in me getting in, you know, just following politics and whatnot, and as well as, you know, my family.
My daughter is actually a vice president of the turning point chapter at her university.
So I tell you, what your work is is a trickle-down effect and just keep up the good fight.
And I appreciate you, sir.
I appreciate you being around for so long.
Thank you.
What's on your mind today?
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
The reason for the call is just the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party that is driving me insane.
They sit there and they use this tagline, felon Trump, felon Trump.
He's a criminal.
It's a criminal syndicate and everything else, what they're trying to do.
They're really a bunch of activists, if you want to be honest.
But this same token and time that they call Trump a felon, the same people that are doing so knelt at the foot of the golden throne of that of George Floyd.
And that is a real felon.
Okay?
And they have rallies and whatnot around town on these painted murals of George Floyd here in Lexington and just yesterday.
So, and throughout the weekend to, you know, commiserate the Black History Month, which is fine.
But at the same token, out of the other side of their mouth, they're calling Trump a felon.
And, oh, we can't do this and we can't do that.
But yet they'll kneel on the House floor and paint end zones in the NFL and, you know, on the court of the NBA.
That's why people don't take these people serious.
And then as you read.
Well, I think on the George Floyd case, and I speak as a martial artist, and the most vulnerable part of the human anatomy is somebody's neck.
And George Floyd was handcuffed.
There was no reason to put that knee on that neck for that period of time to restrain him.
There were numerous other things that they could have submitted George Floyd in that situation, whether he was on drugs, not on drugs, it's irrelevant.
That shouldn't have happened.
But it did, you know, with all the talk of January 6th, January 6th, nobody wants to talk about the subsequent riots in the summer of 2020 either, where dozens of Americans died, thousands of cops injured, billions in property damaged, and Kamala Harris, who becomes their presidential nominee, saying, oh, these rioters aren't going to stop, shouldn't stop, and we're not going to stop.
So I just think the utter hypocrisy on all these issues.
But with all that said, I want to see our police a little bit better trained.
I want to see new technology like I like Burner.
I mean, I think it's so much better than a stun gun.
A stun gun means you're fighting close quarters.
You can't shoot that thing, you know, that far away.
You know, Burner, you can hit a target 50, 60 feet away.
But I'm not going to dispute that the left has been radicalized to the point they have lost their minds.
And, you know, Jamie Raskin, popular protests are going to become very important.
They've doubled down on resisting Trump.
They've doubled down on everything they've done the last, you know, since Trump got on the political scene 10 years ago.
AOC, you know, they're all attacking Elon Musk.
Can you imagine AOC saying Elon Musk is not smart?
He said that.
Or Joyless Reed over at MSDNC, if you're going to write a playbook on how to steal a democracy in less than 20 days, this is what it would look like.
And the hard-hitting ladies at the View, Elon Musk over access to government bank accounts, what they're doing is actually illegal.
No, it's not.
Lawrence O'Donnell Trump has given Elon Musk the equivalent of the nuclear codes, the keys to the treasury.
What they don't like is that they've been exposed here.
And the American people are going to look at this list that I've been spending time on all day going through and all the money that they have abusively spent abroad.
The American people are not going to respond well to it, especially with the high amount of taxes they pay.
Van Jones, Donald Trump is telling people to die by stopping USAID.
No, he's not.
He's saying we're going to end DEI.
We're going to end woke.
And we're going to end all of the transgender.
We're going to end it all.
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