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Feb. 22, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
33:21
Ukraine's Future - February 21st, Hour 2
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All right, our two Sean Hannity show toll-free this Friday.
It is 800-941, Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, we have focused a lot of our attention on the president and deporting illegal immigrants and securing the border and his efforts to get Congress now to get rid of the Biden-Harris budget and get a budget in place that is going to be more sensible.
We've focused so much on doge and waste fraud and abuse.
But now the president also is turning his attention in major ways to international issues, things that he campaigned heavily on, and that is ending war in Europe and ending war in the Middle East.
We saw the utter barbarity on display.
One of the saddest things I've ever saw in the sickening, disgusting, repulsive spectacle of this handover yesterday of the remains of two toddlers, their mother and another hostage, and the actions of Hamas, you know, no dignified transfer of the remains of innocent people just slaughtered for no good reason at all.
They staged this twisted parade of coffins in a cemetery before the crowd cheering, you know, of cheering civilians.
You know, and this is why Gaza will be demilitarized by the end of this.
Prime Minister Netanyahu in this case said he's going to settle the score.
It's coming.
You know, we're outraged at these Hamas monsters, the voice of our dead one, dead ones, blood cries out to us from the ground.
It requires us to settle accounts with the depraved murderers, and we will settle the score with them.
And he quoted Psalm 94, O God of vengeance, O Lord, O God, show vengeance.
And the Israeli defense minister echoed that outrage, said that Hamas will pay for what they have done.
Hamas abducted, Hamas murdered, Hamas will be destroyed.
But there's got to be a resolution and it's got to be permanent.
Now, the Ukraine situation is also gotten way out of control.
And I'm going to be honest, you know, yes, Putin is a murdering dictator thug.
I've never said anything different.
He had his territorial ambitions and he starts building up troops along the border.
It's going to be, what, the three-year anniversary, I believe, on Monday.
Now, part of the negotiations have been, okay, well, the U.S. spent nearly $200 billion plus dollars because of Joe Biden just handing money over left and right.
And it became a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia.
And it all could have been, both these conflicts, I believe, would have been stopped.
And one of the questions that came up that President Trump said that they agreed to was this mineral deal that would pay back the American taxpayers all the hundreds of billions of dollars that they gave for this conflict.
Zelensky, apparently, according to Trump, agreed at the time that they had a deal and now has pulled back on it.
That's where some of this hostilities is coming from.
Anyway, it's a bit of a complicated mess.
Rebecca Koffler is with us.
He's with the strategic military intelligence and analyst and wrote the book Putin's Playbook and served as a senior official in the Defense Intelligence Agency and worked with the CIA's National Clandestine Services.
And Cliff May is the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Welcome both of you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sean.
Neither one is an easy fix, but I think in both cases, I think there is a way to thread a needle.
I don't have all the answers, Rebecca, but I would imagine in Europe it's going to be exactly what I said.
And that's going to be no NATO, number one.
Number two, there's probably going to be some mineral deal with America that would probably result in some defense agreement.
And likely, you know, the Donbass region, I would imagine, would be Russia's.
Absolutely.
This is the only solution, Sean.
President Trump is doing the right thing.
There was absolutely no path for victory from Ukraine from the very beginning.
It was mathematically impossible.
And I was talking about it for three years.
Why is that?
It's because from the combat potential standpoint, which is calculated as a combination of weapons systems, military forces, the ability of the multi-industrial complex to scale up to produce the necessary amount of armaments to win the war and defense economics.
Russia outweighs Ukraine massively.
And they also have three times more people to throw into Putin's lead grinder.
And Europeans never wanted to provide for their own security.
So this is why they decided to throw Ukraine and Ukrainians as human shields to protect themselves from Putin.
Well, President Trump wants to stop the killing of Ukrainians.
He wants to stop the bloodshed.
And he wants to stop the bleeding of U.S. cash and our own armament because we have depleted our weapons arsenals by giving it to Ukraine to dangerous levels.
It's going to take from five to 18 years, depending on weapon system, to replenish it.
And that's the only solution is to bring peace to Ukraine.
And President Trump is the only one who is capable of doing it.
I agree with him 100%.
Cliff, what's your take?
Look, my take is the following.
I would love to see Putin, who, as you suggested, is an outlaw, is a war criminal, is a thug, is an aggressor trying to restore the Russian empire by pulling Ukraine back into it, who took two provinces from Georgia, who's made a vassal state out of Belarus.
I'd love to see him defeated.
It's not in the cards.
I understand that.
I wrote a column earlier this week for the Washington Times, and I said, what is possible?
This was before the spat between Zelensky and Trump.
And I said, look, there are goals that President Trump has set out, and they're good ones, and they're very simple.
Here's what would happen, is that you would end Russia's war against Ukraine.
You would establish an economic partnership between Ukraine and the U.S.
And that would be based on an untapped natural resource, rare earths.
And you'd help Ukraine build the deterrent capacity it lacked three years ago.
And that would be a reasonable outcome.
By the way, if Ukraine is sending rare earths to the U.S., that means Ukraine is not under the jackboot of the Russians and sending rare earths to China.
That's a good outcome.
Is it the best outcome?
No, but it's a good outcome.
Well, it's the only outcome based on the mess that Donald Trump inherited here.
I mean, now there's little signs that we're seeing here.
The U.S., I don't know, maybe, maybe just accidental timing.
I don't think anything's accidental, but our military successfully launched an unarmed ICBM, Vandenberg Space Force Base, out in California, about 150 miles from Los Angeles.
I don't think that was an accident.
I don't think it was an accident, Rebecca, that bunker buster bombs arrived in Israel since Donald Trump has become president.
I think that's a wink and a nod that once these hostages and these bodies are recovered, I think the handcuffs are off.
And I think there's going to be hell to pay for Hamas, Hezbollah, and for Iran.
What President Trump is doing right now, he is signaling that our strategic deterrence doctrine is at play here.
The reason why Putin invaded Ukraine in the first place is because he knew that he boxed us in with that nuclear escalate to de-escalate.
And President Biden was not capable of providing the right amount of weaponry to Ukraine in order to win the war because Putin threatened tactical nukes.
While President Trump likes to win the right way, the art of the deal for President Trump is to win without fighting.
How do you do that?
The ancient Chinese military strategist San Tzu wrote in his seminal treatise, The Art of War, is to win 100 victories in 100 battles is not the supreme excellence.
The supreme excellence is to subdue the enemy, to break his resistance without fighting.
President Trump does not want to fight the stupidest way.
He wants to fight the right way.
And by telegraphing that we have the capability, whether it's ICBM or whether it's building the ballistic muscle defense shield over the United States that, by the way, right now doesn't fully protect the U.S., he is signaling to the adversary,
not only we are protecting ourselves and our ally 100%, we also are capable of inflicting the incalculable damage on you, whether it's the Ayatollahs, whether it's the Rocket Man or Hamas.
And they understand when Trump says something, he means business.
But words don't count by themselves.
So that's why when Biden called Putin a kill or this and that, Putin knew that Biden does not have the cojunas and we didn't have the actual fully operational capability to fight a nuclear war with Russia.
Well, that is all going to change because Trump is going to back up his words with full combat capability that if Judy fails, we can fight and actually win this war.
What's your take, Cliff?
A couple of things.
One is it's important to remember that Putin is right now in a no-limits partnership with Xi Jinping in Beijing.
And he has a military economic relationship as well with the jihadis in Tehran, with Tehran sending various drones and missiles to Russia to use against the Ukrainians.
Putin also has a relationship that's very close, getting ever closer with Kim Jong-un in North Korea.
Kim Jong-un has been sending munitions and sending Korean soldiers mostly to die as cannon fodder in Kursk, which is a region of Russia where the Ukrainians have invaded and taken over so they can trade it later.
This is a kind of axis of aggressors.
There are those who think, oh, we can make Putin into our friend.
Let's do another reset of our relationship the way Obama did.
I think that's total, total fiction.
So the way this works out is you can think of South Korea after the Korean War.
South Korea is chronically threatened by North Korea, but not imminently threatened because it's an ally of the United States.
Or another example is Finland.
In 1939, the Soviet Union tried to invaded Finland, tried to pull it into the Soviet Empire.
The Finns were very courageous like the Ukrainians are.
They fought.
How did it end?
They lost 11% of their territory, but they retained their independence.
And guess what?
Two years ago, they joined NATO.
Yeah, they really did.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back talking more about how we can have peace in Europe and the Middle East with Rebecca Koffler and Cliff May.
And then we'll get to your calls this Friday, 800-941-Sean, our number, if you want to be a part of the program.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Ham.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
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All right, we continue now, talking about the possibilities of peace in Europe and the Middle East with Rebecca Koffler and Cliff May.
Don't give you the last word, Rebecca.
Well, I think President Trump is going to resolve this situation with the axis that Cliff correctly pointed out, the evil axis of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
How is that?
The Russians and the Chinese are actually not strategic partners the way that they are trying to present it to the world there.
They are actually opponents and even adversaries.
The chief of Russian general staff in 2009, the previous one, Makadov, actually stated the quiet part out loud.
The Russians never say it publicly, but we know this from our intelligence analysis.
So Makadov said that China is actually Russian security threat number two, following the United States and MAO.
And why is that?
It's because they have Russia and China an extremely long border in the Far East.
And the Chinese have been incrementally encroaching upon that border by economically trying to integrate that part into China.
And then the Chinese are marrying the Russians intermarrying.
So this is why exactly Putin developed that tactical nuclear capability is to deter China.
Well, President Trump is going to split up that alliance.
And the Chinese are already bothered by the recent phone call that President Trump held with Putin.
Why is that?
Because they're sensing that Trump is actually onto them.
And there's a reason also why Trump held the first meeting in Riyadh, you know, between the Russian team and the American team to kickstart the negotiations on Ukraine, because he wants to unleash the energy dominance that actually,
you know, when Biden canceled Keystone, right, he inadvertently, or maybe purposefully, I don't know, financed Putin's war machine because the supply of oil dropped and Putin's revenues, energy revenues jacked up.
So Trump wants to change all that.
He wants to have Saudis on our side.
Trump is actually playing a multi-dimensional chess game.
And Putin understands that.
And he is actually frightened by that.
So slowly but truly, Trump is going to dismantle, just like he's dismantling the Jeep State here in America.
He's going to dismantle that axis of evil of Russia, China, Rocketman, and the Ayatollah.
We could talk forever, but it's certainly, you know, worthwhile if we can get this done.
And it's going to be better for the world.
And we've got to think out of the box.
And just like with Congress, they're not going to get everything they want.
Rebecca Coffler, thank you.
Cliff May, thank you.
We appreciate both of you.
800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
So the radicalism and the insanity of the left continues.
I played this earlier in the week.
Let me play it again.
It's Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
And, oh, she's against giving Doge savings back to Americans.
$5,000 is nothing.
And I'm sitting there thinking, well, from four years ago, Americans are paying on average $12,000 to $13,000 more for the same items when you include energy as well.
And it's like, what are you talking about?
55% of the country, if they have a $1,000 unexpensive expected emergency expense, they're in trouble.
That just came out a couple of weeks ago.
I mean, that's a dire economic conditions.
I know what it's like.
I've been there.
It's not fun.
But this is the modern, extreme, radical, left-wing mindset.
Listen.
Now, President Trump says he likes the idea of giving some of the savings from Doge back to Americans as kind of a dividend.
Would you support that?
Listen, he's just telling a lie.
Right now, what they're going to do is say, hey, we want to give you a refund, but Congress won't let us because they already know that there's just no money for that.
So no, we are not in the business of giving out money.
And honestly, I don't know what $5,000 will do for you if you are unable to find a job because I am telling people we are headed towards a recession.
What were you telling people during the Harris Biden years?
What were you telling them then?
Anyway, it's pretty unbelievable.
Now, she said other dumb things this week.
Let's go to her actually claiming people who typically vote Republican are less educated and don't want to read and enlighten themselves on the facts.
Let me tell you something.
This is outrageous because this is like Tom Hanks on Saturday Night Live in that 50th anniversary show.
On a Trump supporter, and I'm not going to shake an African American's hand.
I mean, that's what they think of us because that's not who we are.
And they want to create caricatures, but they really, you know, she's out there claiming that, you know, people who typically vote Republican aren't very smart.
Listen.
When you look at who's voting for who, the less educated folk, and when I say educated, I'm not even talking about formal education.
I'm talking about people that literally don't want to read and enlighten themselves on facts.
Those are the people that typically vote for the Republicans.
And it's one of the reasons that we have to stop writing in theses as Democrats, right?
Like we want to give you every single little detail that we can find so that you can have all the information.
But the reality is that the average person that is going out there and voting, they're not paying attention to that.
No, this is what happened on Saturday Night Live with Tom Hanks.
If more folks went to church, we wouldn't be in this mess we're in now.
You know what?
I agree with you, Doug.
I'd like to shake your hand, sir.
Here we go.
Oh, no, no.
Oh, no, no.
It's just a handshake.
Yeah, all right.
You're welcome to Black Jefferson.
Oh, well, all right.
Well, thank you.
My mind, my brother.
You know, maybe I'll start a show for you to come on, and we'll call it What Jeopardy?
No, we don't need it.
We don't need it.
Oh, okay.
I got it.
Here's more Jasmine Crockett.
I'm rooting for Canada and Mexico.
They're the ones speaking truth to power, rooting against your own country.
Really?
Listen.
The fact that I'm rooting for Canada and I'm rooting for Mexico a lot is really wild, but they are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now.
They can see what it is, and they were like, we are not messing with this crazy regime from Mir-a-Lago and basically calling them thugs.
That's what it is.
But I'm like, y'all knew who he was when y'all elected him.
So don't act surprised.
Oh, so don't act surprised.
All right, let's get to our busy phones.
Long Island, New York.
Gene is there.
Gene, how are you?
How's my old stomping ground?
Does anyone there miss me?
Hopefully a few people.
Yes, hi, Sean.
Yeah, we really do.
We miss you.
If I was a little younger, I'll move down there also, but I'm 80, so and all my children are up here.
Well, you know what my accountants used to say to me for years and years?
And I'd look at them like we'd have an annual meeting and they'd be like, all right, whatever you do, don't die in New York.
And I'd look at them like, what?
Oh, okay.
I'll have a conversation with God.
Let me call up God and say, God, please make it so I don't die in New York.
Or as a New York resident, which I am not any longer, so it's not an issue anymore.
But I'll tell you, you like the weather down in South Florida.
Yes, I do.
Sometimes I visit my friends at they live near Miami, so sometimes I go down there.
But the reason I wanted to call you is you've been coming into my living room since the Hannity and Holm days.
We've been watching you for so many years, and you've visited us, and I love your shows.
I enjoyed the interview you did with Trump and Musk.
You really humanized Musk.
You know, here's a billionaire.
How many times do you get to see a billionaire really come down to your own level and tell you what he's going to be doing with a sincere heart?
I mean, I truly, truly appreciated that.
Yeah, listen, it was my pleasure.
You give me the ability to do that.
Thank you for your support over these many years.
I love what I do, and it's only because of people like you.
And that was my goal.
I wanted to get to know him.
I am frankly disgusted that a man of such incredible accomplishment that has done so much good in his life and continues to do it is just viciously, you know, in this repulsive, vile way, demonized, smeared, and slandered.
And it's like that, that's not who this guy is.
And they don't want to tell the story of who he is.
And they're not going to.
So having had the opportunity, I did.
And this is why I try to make this show different than other shows out there.
And I would argue partly that's one of the reasons we've had any success is that we do things other people don't do, won't do.
And if they did do it, they'd sit there arguing over who was in charge and conflict, conflict, conflict.
Then they'd waste all their time and you'd learn nothing about who Elon Musk was.
I did ask those questions, but that was not my main focus of interest, to be very honest, personally, and nor do I think it was what the audience wanted to hear.
I know.
Well, thank you so much.
You know, I met you 20 years ago, close to 20 years ago at a fundraiser with Joe Feldman.
He was running for your district.
And I took my wife and I, Joe and you, and I wanted to send it to you and get a signature or take a picture of it and tax it to you.
We'll make that happen.
We're going to put you on hold and they'll get the picture to me.
I'll sign it and I'll do it with pleasure.
Great.
Now have you?
I have one thing for a new segment for you or a new show that you would take a tour of the White House.
I would love to see you do that for Trump and Melania.
You know what?
I think that's a really cool idea.
You know what?
I think give me time.
I know the president's really busy, but I think that's a really cool idea.
I have done it in the past, but not as exhaustively or extensively.
He's given me a tour personally, and it's an amazing experience.
You know, remember when the hostage got back, he said like three times, if you want to see the Lincoln Better, it's pretty cool, and it is cool.
And just being in that oval office is a very special place, and I'm glad he's the guy that's there.
I'm not going to lie, I had many sleepless nights leading into this election, and I am sleeping better.
I can report.
Anyway, my friend, thank you.
All right, quick break, right back.
And more of your calls coming up: 800-941-Sean, our number.
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And if you get a letter from the IRS or you're expecting one, that could be very stressful.
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The final hour of the Sean Hannity Show is up next.
Hang on for Sean's conservative solutions.
All right, back to our busy phones.
800-941-SEAN, our number.
Eric is in Wisconsin.
Hey, Eric, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean, thank you so much for all you're doing.
We sure appreciate it here in Wisconsin, and we tried to help out this election cycle.
Well, you helped out big time.
You did.
Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, all of you helped.
Thank you.
Yeah, I just wish we could have got Tammy Baldwin out of there, but it didn't work out too well.
Yeah, well, you came close.
I mean, unfortunately, you know, you don't win every game you play.
Yeah, right.
But hey, I just awesome stuff that Doge is doing with Deont Mosque, and we sure appreciate it out here as the kind of farmers and taxpayers and all that good stuff.
But one thing I'm concerned about, Sean, a little bit, and I'm concerned the liberal media might run with this, is one of our tenants just recently got laid off from the USDA, and he's disabled by multiple deployments overseas.
And yeah, the guy is without a job now.
And I'm just afraid that, you know, stuff like this is going to get out there.
And I know you got a soft spot for military and police and EMS and all those guys.
Just a little concerning that we don't let these guys fall off the wagon here and get neglected because they've done so much for our country.
Look, I don't like to see anybody in a position where they're going to lose their job.
In the case of USAID, and obviously your friend, I'm sure, is not a part of this, but there was tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars just thrown down the drain and stolen from the American people and our children and grandchildren.
It's just unfortunate he worked for them.
With that said, there are going to be a lot of job openings.
A lot of people, for example, retired and took the early retirement and payout.
And then there's going to be jobs, hopefully, created in the energy sector when we blow that out, which I believe the president's going to do as quickly as possible.
And other opportunities, you know, we all have to think of the what if you lose your job.
Everybody has to have that in the back of their head.
My entire career, I assumed I'd be fired any day.
And with, you know, but smart, innovative, hardworking people will always be in demand, always.
And it sounds like I'm describing your friend.
And I would just urge that person to not get discouraged.
And I would, I don't know if he's getting the buyout or not getting the buyout.
I'm not sure.
If he is, that would mean he has until October 1, he will get paid until then.
That gives him time.
And that gives him time to find a job that he's going to thrive in and be successful at and be happy and secure again.
And however, to continue to spend tens of billions of dollars on wokeism, transgenderism, DEI, and the Green New Deal abroad as the country veers off into bankruptcy is not an alternative.
It's not an option for us.
And you can't do this to the American taxpayer either.
And he's just caught up in that, unfortunately, for him.
There are good people that are going to be hurt because the people that have done this to the country have put them in vulnerable positions.
It's really not Donald Trump that put them in the vulnerable position.
It's the people that wasted all this money that put them in the vulnerable position in my mind.
Yeah, no, I agree.
It's tough to see, and especially for veterans that have done so much.
We just know what?
But there will be other opportunities that are now going to emerge in a new economy.
And, you know, make sure that he makes available to them that I would, you know, go and get that government payout till October 1.
That buys him time.
And, you know, what I say to people that are out of work all the time, I say, you get up every day, early in the morning, and you work the same way you would work at a job.
And your job that day is to find your next job.
That's your work that day.
And there's not anybody that I, and maybe you don't get the one you want in the beginning, but there's nobody that I know that can't find a job, at least temporarily, to get them over the hump, you know, pay their rent, pay their car payment, et cetera, get the, and until they get the job that they really do like and the one that they're most suited for.
But you have to, you have to have that mindset.
You can't just sit home and maybe take a couple of days.
After that, you got to start working at finding work.
And I'd recommend that, but I'm sure with his military background and discipline, he already knows that.
I'm not telling him anything he wouldn't know.
But yeah, I definitely feel for some people that were caught up in all of this, that were doing nothing wrong except the jobs they were hired to do.
800-941-Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
Hey, Sean Hannity here.
You might think that using your gun in self-defense would be a tough situation, right?
But defending your actions in today's justice system, good luck with that.
Look at Daniel Penny.
Now, that's where your nightmare can begin.
We are living in a time where there are many government officials and AGs.
They don't even believe in self-defense, and you've got to protect yourself and your family.
That's why I've been a proud member of the USCCA for over nine years.
And with the USCCA, I know that when, God forbid, I'm defending my family, I hope it happens to nobody, but we know it does happen, that I'm not going to be standing alone.
I want to encourage you to protect your family and your freedoms and join the over 800,000 responsible, safe gun owners like me that trust the USCCA to have their back.
Just text my last name, Hannity, to the number 87222.
You can learn more about how membership works and safeguard your family and protect your rights.
Just text my last name, Hannity, to the number 87-222-87222.
And trust me, you'll be glad you did.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
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I'm Carol Markowitz, and I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
We've been around the block in media, and we're doing things differently.
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