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Feb. 27, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
32:52
Art of the Deal - February 26th, Hour 2
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Mr. O'Reilly, sir, how are you?
And uh welcome back.
Thank you for having me as always.
And uh I am by the way, why does the sound of your voice make me laugh?
I can't help it.
It just does.
I'm Bill O'Reilly, and um speaking for the folks, and here we go, and uh you just crack me up.
You're such a dominant personality.
Yes, it's the voice of authority, Hannity.
That all right, so combined between the two of us.
How many years have you been in media?
50.
Okay, so 85 years combined experience between the two of us.
That's a lot, that's a lot of time in media, right?
Yeah, and uh it was time well spent for me, and I think for you as well.
Uh I've I think that we were well, in my case, I I was right there at the at the beginning of new media, I would argue, and talk radio only had 200, 250 stations when I started, and now it's exploded to 5,000.
It's the top format in radio, and we're now on nearly 750 stations.
And then we were both there uh for the beginning of the Fox News channel, uh, which I would argue is still new media, although some people would say, well, you've been on the air twenty-nine years.
We're certainly not legacy media.
That would be a false characterization in my view.
But something is going on here, Bill, and I I have said, I said in 07, and I've said it many times that journalism is dead in America.
After this election, I said legacy media is dead in America, also because they threw everything they had at Donald Trump, and they they turned a blind eye and supported lawfare and weaponization and all that.
I won't repeat it all.
And since Donald Trump's election, Nora O'Donnell is out at CBS.
Chuck Todd is out at MSDNC, Andrea Mitchell is out there as well.
Lester Holt now moved over to be the face of the franchise called Dateline.
And Lester I found to be a great guy.
I know you work with him.
Um he was always nice to me when he interviewed me on the Today Show.
And uh now we have uh Jim Fake News Acosta is out, Joy Reed is out, Alex Wagner is out, and I don't wish anybody ill, Bill.
My success, your success is not predicated on other people's failures.
So I'm I'm not I'm not dancing on their grave.
And you know, for example, Rachel Maddow went up went on air and and said this is a terrible mistake and implied that there was a a racial component to the firing of Alex Wagner and Joy Reed.
Um now MSNBC DNC didn't really care because they now fired most of her staff.
My big question, what is going on?
Well, you've come to the right place, Hannity.
See, this is why you crack me up.
Go ahead.
I am the last of a breed.
I was a network correspondent at CBS and ABC.
CBS under rather at ABC under Jennings.
That was old school.
And I covered stories all over the world.
I've been in 86 countries.
And I am mass an amazing amount of experience doing that.
Covered wars, the Berlin War all coming down, um trafficking in Thailand, you name it, I was there.
So what has happened is that there were three signatures about the news media in America.
Watergate, and that changed everything because the Washington Post brought down Nixon.
The Iraq war, where the media and mass turned against Bush the younger, because while we did the right thing by deposing Saddam Hussein, the nation building did not work.
And Trump.
As soon as Trump gained power, the media basically collectively said we don't have to go by the old rules of checking our sources, of trying to get both sides of the story.
We think he's dangerous.
We don't like him.
So our mission changes from reporting to the American people to trying to destroy Donald Trump.
Once you're into the activist realm, which is where the corporate media is today, then you lose all journalistic credibility.
Now it took a while for the folks to catch on.
But now they have.
And it's all because of Joe Biden.
This is fascinating, Hannity.
Joe Biden did such a terrible job that every single American was affected negatively by him.
Yet the corporate media kept telling all of us what a great job he was doing.
There was no problem with him.
And that was the tipping point into the folks turning against the hate Trump cadre of media.
And now they're scared.
Comcast, NBC, CBS, ABC Disney.
They're scared because Trump is coming after them.
Unprecedented in American history.
Teddy Roosevelt was pretty tough on a press, but he didn't have TV, didn't have radio.
But this has never happened before where the most powerful man in the world is coming after media corporations.
So how about that for a summation?
I don't think he's coming after them.
He's holding them accountable.
No.
And and uh and I and I think it's it's warranted.
Um I went through I did an interview with uh the the website.
It's a sort of a trade website called Mediaite.
And they they cover the news industry.
And I don't you know I don't do many interviews.
I just don't.
I don't I don't have time for it.
I don't need it because I have my own platforms and I I just uh but uh but I wanted to do it and I did it.
And in the course of this interview, I kept pointing out certain things.
The media never asked Kamala why she wanted wants to use taxpayer dollars to pay for sex change operations for convicts and illegal immigrants, or her running mate wanted free college tuition, taxpayer-funded college tuition for illegals.
They never asked Kamala Harris about her comments.
We had 574 riots in the summer of 2020, and when you look at the coverage of January 6th compared to the 574 riots in the summer of 2020, Bill, dozens of Americans died.
We had cops, thousands injured, pelted with bricks, rocks, bottles, Molotov cocktails, and we had billions in property damage, and we had a ton of evidence, and it was mostly ignored, and Kamala said on Stephen Colbert, they're not gonna stop, and they shouldn't stop, and we're not gonna stop.
She didn't get asked a single question on that during the campaign, Bill.
And that to me is a dereliction of duty on their part.
Thoughts.
Well, you're putting out corruption.
That's what you're pointing out.
But I disagree with you with that.
But it's all it's not just corruption, Isn't it why they lost why they're losing audience and people didn't trust them any longer?
They they were lied to about the cognitive state, immigration, the economy.
You're right.
but also lied to them on other issues.
There are many other issues, but that's corruption.
And when you have a corruption and the people understand the corruption, They walk away or they vote you out.
But I disagree with you about Trump, and let me make my case because it's a fascinating story.
Trump has an obligation.
It's coming from you, of course it's fascinating.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm me.
Oh man, you are feeling it today.
Go.
All right.
Trump has an obligation to basically try to stop the media corruption.
He's the president.
He's the president.
If the f if his people, Americans, are getting hurt by giant corporations misleading them and lying to them, the president is an obligation to try to stop it.
Wouldn't you agree?
I I agree, and I think, especially those for broadcast licenses.
Sure.
Uh that is a gift from the people, and with it comes a responsibility.
Right.
So that's so Trump is trying to expose and mitigate the damage done by these corrupt agencies.
He's doing it three way lawsuits, exposure in the overall office by just calling them out, and denying access like he did with the AP.
Because he believed it's not about the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.
That's just a pretense.
He believes that the associated press is not an honest broker of information.
Well, they're not.
I I would argue that they're not.
I mean, did they ever I uh agree?
I made the case on my broadcast and no spin news.
I just took their style book.
And you can't say illegal alien, you can't.
There's a million wokes things in there and had no business being in any kind of a journalistic style book.
Well, I'll uh I think that the corruption goes even beyond woke.
I mean, we got the Russia hoax right.
Everyone else in the media got it wrong, and I had to work hard for three years to get to the bottom of that, and and we unpeeled every layer of that onion.
And the same with Pfizer abuse, and the same with the a weaponized justice system, and the same with a d uh a dual system of justice, not equal justice when they rated Mar-a-Lago, but they didn't go after Joe and Hillary for the same offense.
Uh we we talked about, you know, all of the for example, nobody in the media corrected the false valuation of Judge Ngoron of $18 million of Mar-a-Lago.
You and I both know it's worth a billion or more.
Uh it's just the and it sounds crazy, but that's the prices of Palm Beach, Florida.
Uh insane, but that's that's the price.
And they didn't care about, you know, stacked charges by Alvin Bragg for uh uh a case at legal NDA labeled as an NDA, put together by a lawyer, uh, and then turned into this novel federal legal theory, which they had no authority or jurisdiction, uh, and they stacked 34 charges on it.
The statute of limitations had run out.
But they didn't care.
They just wanted to get Trump, get Trump.
That's right.
And and now, because of Biden, people know that the fix was in and has been in for almost ten years.
So that when Trump goes after the media now, the media doesn't have any defenders anymore.
And they're losing the court cases.
And the people aren't behind them.
Which is why, getting back to the original premise, NBC cut loose, MSNBC.
MSNBC is not part of NBC anymore.
They're not in the same building, they can't use the NBC reporters, and uh Comcast NBC won't sell it.
If you want to buy it, you got enough money, you could buy it.
Um I think Alexander Soros.
What do you mean if I have enough money I could buy it?
You could buy it, you go buy it.
Well, if it's on sale, I could buy it, but you could buy you could buy it wholesale.
Uh Thanks a lot, O'Reilly.
Anyway, um why were whatever why would I want a failing network?
Keep going.
Well, you did they turn it into a paragon of virtue, Hannity.
You put me.
Uh I think I I think I'm comfortable in my lane right here.
I'm staying I'm staying with what I know.
But I'm what I'm saying is it's up for sale.
Anybody listening got a lot of money.
And it wouldn't be a lot.
NBC would give you a big sale on that.
And that's why they're firing everybody and booting everybody out of there, because they want to stream it down for a sale.
CBS has basically surrendered.
Alright, they put uh two guys that nobody ever heard of in Fernora O'Donnell, and Disney is pretty much giving Trump everything Trump wants.
Uh because of the Stepanopolis thing.
I mean, Disney gave Trump 17 million dollars to build his library in your backyard.
I understand that's where it's going.
Trump library is going in Hannity's backyard.
That's how big a backyard he has.
And they'll make the interviews very easy.
All you have to do is walk across and you short pan.
They're already pretty easy.
Um as much as Mar-a-Lago's not that far away.
But look, I I think that there's a realignment going on, and if you don't offer your audience truth and news and information, and and I went through this whole thing in the media interview of all the times I've been right and the media's been wrong.
And the reason is is because I care to get it right, Bill.
I do.
Um but I am I am political, but I'm also I believe in truth.
The foundation of your success is that your audience on radio and television trust what you say.
And uh I have the same foundation, so I know it well.
But we don't work, you do, but not really, because you've been there so long.
They're not gonna mess with you at Fox.
But I don't work for anybody anymore.
I work for myself.
And I I work for Fox.
I mean, I have no uh uh compunctions about saying that.
I but they they do they they let they have faith in me because I've I have a good track record.
Yeah, but they're not gonna mess with you, Annie.
I mean, just not.
And you're you're in a unique position because almost everybody else working for the media companies better do what they're told to do.
I what you were there.
I you were never told what to do, and I've never been told what to do.
And I appreciate that freedom.
And that's that's not the case in other places.
But Mr. O'Reilly, it's always uh enlightening, fun, and entertaining.
We appreciate your your insightful wisdom and commentary.
Appreciate you having me on.
Thanks.
We'll see you next week.
All things O'Reilly at Bill O'Reilly.com.
Quick break, right back, we'll continue.
So the president had his first cabinet meeting, as I mentioned earlier today.
Twenty-five members and others were there.
Elon Musk was there, Steve Whitcoff, I noticed was there.
Um it was pretty amazing, and I I i it's worth running.
It's such a dramatic change from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Let's listen in.
Would you have any questions of Elon while we're on the subject of those?
Because we'll finish off with that.
And if you would have any questions, please ask, you could ask me or Elon.
Go ahead, please.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, um, Mr. Musk.
Um, I just wanted to ask you the the President Trump uh put out a uh truth socialist day saying that that everybody in the cabinet was was happy with you.
I just wondered if that's if you had heard uh otherwise and if you had heard anything about members of the cabinet who weren't happy with the way things were going.
Uh and if so, what are you doing to uh address those uh uh any uh dissatisfaction?
Uh unless the cabinet speak just for a second.
Yeah, exactly.
Is anybody unhappy with Elon?
If you are, well throw them out of here.
Is anybody on a lot of respect for Elon and that he's doing this, and some disagree a little bit, but I will tell you for the most part, I think everyone's not only happy they're thrilled.
So go ahead, Elon Grace.
I think the best cabinet ever.
Literally.
So uh I and I do not give false praise.
This this is an incredible group of people.
Uh I don't think such a talented team has actually ever been assembled.
I think it's literally the best cabinet the country's ever had, and I think the company should be incredibly appreciative of the people in this room.
Go ahead, please.
Yeah.
Uh uh Mr. President, thank you, Mr. Musk.
Uh are there about half of the government employees So far appear to have responded to your request for what they've been doing over the past week.
Is there a timeline in place for next moves for people being fired?
And when can the American people expect to see results of that?
Yes.
Well, to be to be clear, like the I think that email perhaps was misinterpreted as a performance review, but actually it was a pulse check review.
Do you have a pulse?
Do you have a pulse and two neurons?
So if you have a pulse and two neurons, you can reply to an email.
This is you know, I think not a high bar, is what I'm saying.
This is uh should be uh anyone could accomplish this.
Um but what we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are uh dead, uh which is probably why they can't respond.
Um and uh that some people who are are not real people, like they're literally fictional individuals that are collecting paychecks.
Well, somebody's collecting paychecks on a fictional individual.
So we're just literally trying to figure out are these people real?
Are they alive?
And can they write an email?
Which I think is a reasonable expectation uh for America, you know.
The American public would have at least that expectation of someone in the public sector.
Mr. Mastermaster, uh roughly around the case.
This is not it's not a high bar, guys.
Come on.
Does that mean that the remaining one million or so federal employees now risk being terminated?
And is it your understanding and expectation when you post a directive on X that the cabinet secretaries will follow that order because several agencies have instructed employees that this is voluntary or not to respond?
Yeah, uh well, I mean to speak.
So uh I guess there was uh like last week the president encouraged me via through social uh and also via phone call to be more aggressive.
Um I was like, okay, you know, yes, sir, Mr. President.
We will indeed do that.
Um their president is the commander in chief.
Uh I do what the president asks.
Uh so and I said, can we send out an email to everyone just saying what did you get done last week?
The president said yes, or did that.
Um, you know, we we we got uh a partial response.
We're gonna send another email.
But we're our goal is not to be capricious or or unfair.
Uh it's we want to give people uh every opportunity to send an email.
And the email could simply be uh what I'm working on is too sensitive or classified to describe.
Like literally just that would be sufficient.
You know, I think this is just common sense.
And what is your target number for how many workers, employees you're looking to catch a little?
Uh we we wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing that job well.
Uh but if if they're if if the job is not essential or they're not doing the job well, they obviously should not be uh on the public payroll.
This is I should like to add, wait a minute, wait, wait.
I'd like to add that those million people that haven't responded, though, Elon, they are on the bubble.
You know, I wouldn't say that we're thrilled about it.
You know, they haven't responded.
Now maybe they don't exist.
Maybe we're paying people that don't exist.
Don't forget, we just got here.
This group just got here.
Uh but those people are on the bubble as they say, you know, they maybe they're gonna be gone.
Maybe they're not around, maybe they have other jobs, maybe they moved and they're not where they're supposed to be.
A lot of things could have happened.
Uh I wouldn't say that Biden ran a very tight administration.
They spent money like nobody's ever spent money before, wasted money.
The Green News scam, all of the different things they spent money on.
And you've seen that.
We've seen that with uh some of the things that I read in speeches.
I read them, and people can't believe when I read them.
20 million here, 30 million here for you know, uh a little educational cost on something, circumcision, right?
Circumcision.
Uh 20 million dollars to uh inform the people of such and such a country on other things and other things other than that.
So uh yeah, those people are right now we're trying to find out who those people are that haven't responded.
Now there'll be some agencies like Marco has people within state that are right now doing very classified, very confidential work, and we understand that, and we've talked, and you know, we're being A little more uh surgical, and Marco's doing a lot of things himself.
He's uh and some of the secretaries are we're gonna be going to them, we're gonna be talking about it today.
We're gonna ask them to do their own DOJ.
In other words, they'll look in their group, and uh who I spoke with Lee Zeldon, and he thinks he's gonna be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental, and we're gonna speed up the process too at the same time.
You had a lot of people that weren't doing their job, they were just obstructionists, and uh a lot of people that didn't exist, I guess leave too.
You found a lot of empty spots that the people weren't there, they didn't exist.
Uh and uh I think education is gonna be one of those.
You go around Washington, you see all these buildings with the Department of Education.
We want to move education back to the states where it belongs.
Iowa should have education, Indiana should run their own education.
You're gonna see education go way up.
Right now we're we're ranked at the very bottom of the list, but we're at the top of the list in one thing the cost per pupil.
We spend more money per pupil than any other country of the world, and yet it's uh Denmark and uh Norway, Sweden, and I hate to say this, and uh, and you know we're gonna get along very well with China, but it's a competitor.
Uh they're at the top of the list, they're among the top 10, usually, and they're a very big country, so we can't use that as an excuse, right?
Uh, because we're a very big country too.
But we're we were ranked last time under Biden, we're ranked 40 out of 40.
They do the 40 certain nations that they've done for a long time.
It seems to be 40 for whatever reason.
And we were ranked number 40.
A year ago we were 38, then we were 39.
We're we hit 40.
And uh so we're last in that, and we're first in course per pupil.
So I would say that's unacceptable.
Lawrence, you have something.
I know you like competition, and I know it's early, so which department are you most impressed with?
And then so just department have you received the most resistance from?
Well, I I think both of those questions are a little bit uh well, you're a pretty controversial guy, actually.
Look, it's very early.
Right now, I think I'm impressed with everybody so far.
Everybody, if I wasn't in the first month, would and some of them just got here, they just got approved two days ago, right?
Uh, but I I think I'm very impressed with everybody.
So far, I'm very happy with all of the choices.
I think that Elon uh has done incredibly with some groups, and some groups are much easier than others.
It is true, state is a you know, very difficult situation.
We're right now negotiating uh very successfully, I think, with Russia and with Ukraine, and we have a lot of countries involved, and we have to be a little bit careful what we do and who we're terminating.
But uh Marco's doing that very, I think he's gonna be very precise.
It's gonna be we're cutting down government, we're cutting down the size of government, and we have to.
We're bloated, we're sloppy, we have a lot of people that aren't doing their job.
We have a lot of people that don't exist.
You look at social security as an example.
I mean, you have so many people in Social Security where uh if you believe it, they're 200 years old.
And what we're doing is finding out a checks going out for that, and it's somebody cashing those checks, who's maybe 35 years old, okay?
So there's a lot of dishonesty, there's a lot of fraud.
Uh but I think at this moment I'll I'll take Elon off the spot.
I think that he's impressed, he said it very well, better than I can say it, that he's impressed with the people in this room, very impressed, and I am too.
And uh it's too early to say, but I think everybody's on board, they all know.
We want to balance a budget.
We want to have a balanced budget within a reasonably short period of time, meaning meaning maybe by next year or the year after, but maybe maybe even sooner than that.
Mr. President, your number one issue was the border.
We just got new information that they're boxing agents, they're put in their personal information out there, these activists, and they're just running an operation, so you got Trend or running on the other.
Well, we have activists, that's true.
And a lot of those.
Yes, a lot of those activists are acting uh illegally, and we'll give that to our attorney general, and she'll take a look at that very strongly.
But we also having uh tremendous support from Border Patrol from ICE, the ICE agents have been unbelievable.
Border Patrol, uh their leadership at Border Patrol has been incredible.
And they're working very well.
And as you know, and I saw you reporting it this morning, actually, we set records on the least number of uh illegal aliens coming in, migrants coming into our country that we had that we've had in more than 50 years.
And we did this all within a period of weeks because we took over a mess.
The world was pouring in.
And remember, they were coming in from jails and prisons and mental institutions and insane asylums, and there were gang members and drug dealers.
Anybody wanted to come in, they came.
And from not just South America, from all over the world.
So it's amazing what they've done.
And uh Christine and and Tom Holman, the job they've done has been absolutely amazing.
We set records for uh and we want people to come into our country, by the way, but they want to come in, they have to come in legally.
I I want that to be really understood.
We want people in our country, but they have to come in legally.
Can I follow them?
Mr. President, about the uh the Trump gold car idea that you unveiled yesterday.
I hope you like it.
I weigh more information.
But uh the question is um does this reflect with you on your American immigration system has never been properly monetized as you feel it should be.
Well, not so much monetized, it hasn't been properly run.
Uh I get calls from, as an example, companies where they want to hire the number one student at a school.
A person comes from uh India, China, Japan, uh lots of different places, and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance, they go to uh Yale, they go to all great schools, and they graduate number one in their class, and they're made job offers, but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country.
I want to be able to have that person stay in the country.
These companies can go and buy uh a gold card and they can use it as a matter of recruitment.
At the same time, the company is using that money to pay down debt.
We're gonna we're gonna pay down a lot of debt with that.
And I think the gold card is going to be used by not only for that, I mean they'll be used by companies.
I mean, I could see Apple.
I've spoken with Tim Cook, and by the way, he's gonna make a $500 billion dollar investment in the cut in the country only because of the results of the election.
And I think because of tariffs.
He's gonna want to be in the country because of tariffs, because if you're in the country, there is no tariff.
If you're out of the country, you gotta pay tariffs, and uh that's gonna be a great investment, I think that he's making.
I know it's gonna be a great investment, but uh we have to be able to uh get people in the country, and we want people that are uh productive people, and I will tell you the people that can pay five million, they're gonna create jobs, they're gonna spend a lot of money on jobs, they're gonna have to pay taxes on that too.
So they're gonna be hiring people, they're gonna be bringing people in and companies in, and I don't know, maybe it will sell like crazy.
I happen to think it's gonna sell like crazy, it's a bargain.
But uh we'll know fairly soon.
I think uh Howard and and Scott, a few of you really are responsible for it.
But Howard, if you want to discuss that for a couple of minutes, I think I'd like to have you.
I think it's gonna be a very successful program.
Unmasking the left and holding the right accountable for their promises.
America needs Hannity now more than ever.
This is the Sean Hannity show.
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When we come back, we'll check in with our poster uh friend John McLaughlin.
Poll numbers through the roof for Donald Trump and support for his agenda through the roof as well.
We'll explain next.
You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
We got you.
Now I'm Carol Markovich.
And I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
We've been around the block in media and we're doing things differently.
Normally is about real conversations.
Thoughtful, try to be funny, grounded, and no panic.
We'll keep you informed and entertained without ruining your day.
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