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Our number is 800-941-SEAN.
If you want to be a part of the program, she is the youngest White House press secretary in the history of that position.
He's doing a phenomenal job.
How he deals with these lunatics.
And the state-run legacy media mob is uh is an art form uh because she's doing such a great job.
We welcome uh back to the program, our friend Caroline Levitt is with us.
Caroline, how are you?
I'm doing great, Sean.
Happy Friday.
Thanks for having me.
And you know, I just want to say to you, people talk so much about President Trump's energy, but you have a heck of a lot of energy.
You're on the radio for what, three hours a day, and then you have the number one cable news program at night.
It's pretty impressive what you do, I have to say.
And and now we do a audio podcast and a video podcast.
It's not like I have much time during my day.
I'm not gonna lie, uh, but I'm um I I don't get up at 4 a.m. like you do.
What's my how does your day start?
What time do you get up in the morning?
Uh my alarm goes off every morning at 5 a.m. sharp.
And oh man.
Uh that's that's that's about when I'm going to bed.
Okay.
Yeah, I don't stop until uh probably 11 p.m.
Your phone, my phone is ding-ding-dinging off the hook um all day and all night long.
Uh, and that's just what you get when you work for a man who makes news every second.
So um I'm on the Trump sleep schedule, and I'm on Trump, as we call it.
If you if you're on the Trump sleep schedule, I've known this man for 30 years.
We've been friends for 30 years, and I can promise you I've spoken to him every hour on the 24 hour clock.
That I and that I promise, and that he will confirm, and he would confirm it publicly because it's all true.
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me.
He you you gotta keep your phone on high even when you sleep working for this man because you never know when he's going to call.
Uh, it's truly remarkable and very impressive, and I feel like I can never complain because I'm like a third his age, and I can't even keep up with him.
It's incredible.
Uh, but he keeps us all moving very quickly here at the White House.
You know what's funny about that?
I think back to Joe Biden being president, and then I mean, uh we only should be so evident.
I mean, the the amount of energy that Donald Trump has on any one given day represents maybe five months in the in the presidency of of Joe Biden.
And I remember early on when I was calling out his cognitive decline and and getting smashed left and right for doing so and stating the obvious.
It was funny uh people like Circle Back Gen Sakua, he has more energy than people, you know, our age.
We can barely keep up with it.
I'm like, you are must be in really bad shape then if you can't keep up with that guy.
Um in this case, it just happens to be accurate.
And um I you know, we're all watching this.
The hardest part of my job every day is to get out as much information as possible because information is coming out at the speed of light, so I if it's hard for me, I've got to imagine it's that much harder for you.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's amazing how much news President Trump makes on a daily basis.
And we just did a press conference in the Oval Office earlier today.
He made a ton of news, and that's what we do almost every day.
And when he doesn't want to do it, that's my turn to go out and go to the podium.
So there's breaking news every pretty much every hour out of this building.
But it's because he's doing so much, Sean.
I mean, the man is uh negotiating an end to the war in Russia and Ukraine.
He's negotiating an end to the situation in the Middle East.
He met with eight hostages this week who were uh recently released from Gaza.
He gave a record breaking State of the Union address.
Uh, you know, you look at uh everything that he's done this past week alone, it's a more than uh most administrations do in an entire month.
So it's incredibly impressive.
It's a lot to keep up with.
But as his staff were used to it, you know who isn't used to it is the press.
Uh they are not used to the pace uh at which President Trump is working, and they tell me that all the time.
They come in my office and they say, Can you guys slow down?
Can you not do a press conference today?
We don't have enough room in our packages or on our shows uh to fill up all of this news.
But um, you know, there's no slow slowing down in sight from uh President Trump.
Let me go to the State of the Union.
I want to get your take.
I I thought it was one of the most disgraceful displays I've ever seen in my life.
And as a matter of history, I've I've been to State of the Union addresses.
I've covered them all of my career.
I was in the you know, I I was I was I was in the room when Barack Obama gave one, for example, and when he came in the room, I stood up and I clapped.
I I just sat there and and they hold their bingo cards up, and then of course Al Green acting like a lunatic who just experienced censure.
And I'm I'm I'm kind of stunned by it all, to be very honest with you.
And I just think it is so sad and and pathetic and demeaning, but I think that's the state of the Democratic Party today.
What was your take on it?
It was truly surprising that they did not stand for their fellow Americans, these everyday American heroes who have lived through such adversity and who have been uplifted and are living their American dream thanks to the policies of President Trump.
And you always expect the opposing party not to stand for policies or not to stand for the agenda, but to not stand for a 13-year-old boy who's fighting cancer, or for the Democrats in there to we be wearing pink allegedly in honor of women, but then you don't stand uh for two mothers whose children were brutally raped and slaughtered at the hands of illegal immigrants was appalling.
Uh in that moment when President Trump named a wildlife refuge in Texas in honor of Jocelyn Nungra, you have to be a soulless, hateful filled individual to not be moved to tears or at least show any sign of empathy for a mother who lost her beautiful twelve-year-old child.
It's disgraceful that this is what the modern day Democrat Party has become.
And I think it was a really clarifying moment, Sean, for Americans in this country who thought maybe the Democrats would have learned from the smackdown that President Trump gave them in the November 5th election.
Nope, they clearly didn't.
They are doubling down on their same far-left antics and on their Trump derangement syndrome.
I mean, these people truly hate President Trump so much that their hatred for him has overrided any common sense or human decency.
And it's really sad to see.
I think it was quite alarming, actually.
But, you know, we're going to continue moving forward at the White House.
The president will continue moving forward, implementing policies that are grounded in common sense and that uplift all Americans, regardless of their race or their religion or their gender or where they live in this country.
Red state or blue state, President Trump is looking out for you and the Democrat Party.
The same cannot be said for them.
It was a week ago where everybody was flailing and they couldn't believe in the incident at the White House with Zelensky, who was being very disrespectful to the president.
And now we see a total capitulation.
Everything that the president had planned for the process of peace with Ukraine and Russia is now coming to fruition.
I said that night, and I've been saying it every night since he'll be back.
He's back.
Uh he sent the letter to the president.
He posted what he posted on X. It seems to be back on track.
It looks like we'll have a rare earth minerals deal.
It looks like we'll have, you know, a ceasefire, and then the the heart will be the negotiations, and apparently Vla now the president's putting pressure on Vladimir Putin to do his part.
Yeah, he's putting pressure on both sides.
And he has been from the very beginning, Sean.
Let's be clear about that.
You know that, but the fake news media has lied like they always have, uh, making you know false assertions about where President Trump stands with Russia and how he views Russia and where how he views Putin.
The President believes dialogue is the best diplomacy, and it's something that we had not seen for the past three years of this war, and that's why this war was a stalemate.
Uh, it was as many people called call it, uh, a meat grinder.
I hate to use that term because we're talking about human lives, but thousands of lives have been lost in this war that would have been really endless if not for President Trump.
And so now he is finally putting both pressure on both sides of this war to call for a ceasefire and to come to the negotiating table to end it.
And President Zelensky, unfortunately, when he came to the Oval Office last week, did not have a a realistic mindset.
Uh he bel I guess he still thinks it's three years ago uh when he Joe Biden was in office.
We were just writing blank checks, and American taxpayers could continue funding this effort.
That's no longer the case.
You have a peacemaker in chief in the Oval Office now who wants to stop the endless funding of this war and wants to stop the endless killing of this war, and that takes negotiating a deal.
And sometimes when you negotiate a good deal, both sides need to leave the table a little bit unhappy.
And so I think President Zelensky is open to President Trump's mindset now, recognizes that without the United States there will be no end to this conflict in sight for his country, and President Trump is doing this to save Ukraine for the Ukrainian people and for democracy as well.
And so um Secretary Rubio and Mike Waltz are traveling to Saudi Arabia next week to restart and kick start uh these negotiations with the Ukrainian delegation again.
Um and as the President has said, we need to s we need a ceasefire, we need an economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine, which will be a great deterrent to Russian aggression, ma may I add.
It's also a great economic partnership for the Ukrainian people.
Um those are two necessities put on the table by President Trump, and we hope that President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people will agree to them so we can move forward with a true peace agreement that is lasting under this President Donald Trump.
The other thing that is happening too, and the President was very clear in a truth post this week about uh Hamas and how the killing must stop and how the bodies must be returned and hostages must be returned, and if not, there's gonna be held to pay, and that the weaponry that Israel will need to w to wipe them out will be given to them.
Uh a pretty stern warning warning, and I would just say that knowing Donald Trump as well as I think that I know him, uh when he says something like that, he means it, and that is real, and I think that that's probably coming to a head sooner than later.
He does mean it, and there's a maximum pressure campaign on Hamas right now, and the president has lost his patience, and he's been very clear about that.
And I'd like to add, Sean, that the president put that statement out moments after leaving a meeting with eight of the hostages from Gaza, and I had the honor of being present for that meeting, and it was one of the most moving things I've ever been a part of.
These people were in dark tunnels in Gaza just weeks ago, and now they were standing in the Oval Office before the President, who they claim this is not me as his spokesperson.
They told the president, if not for him, they would be dead.
They would not be alive, or they would still be held hostage.
It was incredibly moving.
And the president heard these stories, the the atrocities that were committed by Hamas against these individuals.
They are so lucky and blessed to be alive, uh standing to tell their stories, and the president heard them.
He took them very seriously, and then uh moments later you had his truth go out, uh, a very strong message to Hamas.
And so you have the president working directly, you have Adam Bowler, his special envoy for negoti uh hostage negotiations, and then of course Steve Woodcoff, Secretary Rubio, Mike Waltz.
There couldn't be a better or more stronger team working on this effort on behalf of the president to end this conflict um in the Middle East.
And the President, again, he sent a very strong message to Hamas, um, and we hope that they will release all of the hostages, including those who Have unfortunately tragically perished because their families deserve to have those body bodies back so they can have closure and peace in their lives, and that's what the president is looking for.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back.
We'll continue more with the assistant to the President White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
We'll get to your calls on the other side.
800 941 Sean as we continue on this Friday.
Hey there.
I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started normally a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional SAS.
You're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
We break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So Down a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Now we have spoken at length, and I understand the state-run legacy media mob that I have declared dead after this election.
I understand they're never gonna get it.
I I I understand they don't want to understand Donald Trump.
They don't want to know his thinking, his mindset.
Uh they don't they they don't want to understand that he is negotiating constantly.
That's fine.
When Donald Trump talks about tariffs, he's really not wanting to put tariffs on people.
That's why he uses the term reciprocal tariffs.
As a result of the president's policies, we have seen massive movement in terms of now manufacturing moving back to this country.
Nissan had planned to build a plant in Mexico.
They're now building that plant in America.
The same with Honda.
They're gonna build their new version of the Honda Civic in America, where they originally had planned to build a plant in Mexico.
Uh, the same thing with Apple.
Apple is now going to invest in the next four years five hundred billion dollars in a plant that they're building in Texas that will create tens and tens of thousands of jobs.
This is all good for the American people.
And for those displaced workers that were working in jobs that we now know they shouldn't have been working in in the first place, considering all the waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, and agenda-driven spending by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their administration on wokeism, DEI ism, new green deal ism, transgenderism.
Well, I mean, this is an insane amount of money, and these are going to be high paying career jobs for Americans.
Is it hard to transition to a new job?
Yes, but these opportunities are going to be huge when the president opens up the energy sector, so we are on a path to becoming the most energy dominant country on earth.
Is that going to help create high-paying career jobs for Americans?
Yes, it will.
So all of these policies, they might take a little bit of time, but a lot of these government workers are getting payouts until October the first.
Enough time to transition to the next career move, which has which happens to most people in this day and age.
But it's not like the old days where you work for one company your entire career and then you move on.
Uh I have I've been fortunate, but most people that I know in my industry don't work for just one company.
They move around quite a bit.
Now we also have the semiconductor company out of Taiwan.
One of the things that has concerned me, especially in light of the territorial ambitions of China, is we are very dependent on Taiwan to get the chips that are so critical to our technology infrastructure.
Well, now they have committed to investing over a hundred billion dollars in the U.S. so that we will make these semiconductors right here in this country, is the president talking about it.
Today, Taiwan Semiconductor is announcing that they will be investing at least one hundred billion dollars in new capital in the United States over the next short period of time to build state of the art semiconductor manufacturing facilities.
I think mostly it's going to be in Arizona, which is what I understand, which is a great state.
I like it because I want it.
But I won most of them, actually.
But I did we wanted and we wanted big.
The most powerful AI chips in the world will be made right here in America.
And it'll be a big percentage of the chips made by his company.
But uh as you know, they're based mostly in Taiwan, and uh they're far and away the biggest, as nobody even close.
This one hundred billion dollars in new investment will go into building five cutting edge fabrication facilities in the great state that we just discussed, Arizona, and we'll create thousands of jobs, many thousands of jobs, and high-paying jobs in total.
Today's announcement brings Taiwan semiconductor investments to about 165 million.
They've started already.
I mean, that's a serious, significant amount of money.
Uh it's always a pleasure to bring back uh our friend Brian Cannes.
He's the CEO of Burner, and uh anyway, they have their manufacturing facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and he's here to talk about the benefits of working under President Trump and his ability now to shore up production and manufacturing of his products.
And uh unlike others that have been critical as a person in the business world that has built a huge company now.
Uh Burner is now the choice of so many government agencies, police departments, private security firms, and I'm urging all of you if you don't have your burner, please get one because this is a very dark, dangerous, evil world, unfortunately.
I wish it wasn't, but it is.
Brian, great to have you back.
How are you?
Good, Sean.
It's great to uh be on your show again.
Okay, so you know, you made a decision, and I remember when you made this decision, because we've been friends a long time, that you were going to build out your manufacturing center here in America.
Uh the initial costs were higher.
There were no incentives to do it, except that you wanted this to be an American product, and it's paid off in sp in in massive dividends for you.
Tell us about.
Well, uh, you know, what most of your audience probably doesn't know is you were integral in that decision.
Um, you know, if you think back to 2020, you had uh you were one of the early adopters of Berna.
Uh you mentioned it on your show, and uh at the time we were manufacturing everything in South Africa.
Your mention drove 18,000 orders.
Uh, you know, we were, I think, producing 50 or 100 launchers a day, and uh, we had a tremendous, tremendous backlog.
And you know, you called me up and said, Brian, I'm I'm getting a lot of people that I told them to buy a burner, you're you put them on backlog, and I said, Sean, you you really overwhelmed us.
And if you remember what you did is you got me the names of U.S. manufacturers of uh plastic injection molded parts of machine parts, and with your assistance, we actually moved that factory from South Africa to Fort Wayne,
Indiana, and we moved a significant portion of our supply chain because you know it was clear to us number one, we we wanted to be an American-made uh product, but number two, this supply chain spread all over the world, really carried a lot of risk.
And nothing brought that home like the pandemic.
You know, fast forward to four years later.
Um, you know, we're currently probably at 50 percent of our uh supply chain is is U.S. based.
But with uh President Trump and what he's doing, and and I'll tell you, you know, a lot of people uh criticize him.
He is teaching a master class in how tariffs should be used.
You know, as the CEO of Berna, one of the uh largest and fastest growing uh non-lethal gun companies in America.
I talked to a lot of other CEOs, um, CEOs of the big box stores and CEOs of uh a lot of uh the manufacturers.
Everybody is moving their production here because the uncertainty that the even the threat of tariffs creates says, you know what?
We need to have the supply chain in the U.S. It is not just patriotic, it's good business.
So we've announced, and I'll announce again on your show, we are going to be virtually 100% made in the USA by the end of this year.
And again, part of it is we want to uh because we're patriotic Americans, but uh, you know, I think you've got to give credit to the president.
Um, you know, what he's been doing with the threat of these tariffs, and and as you said, it's not just the tariff.
It's it's like when you use a gun to stop a crime, or you use a burner to stop a crime, it is the threat of the tariff that is bringing uh production back to the United States.
I know for a fact the president doesn't want to put tariffs on other countries.
However, um he is right that that these other countries, the European Union in particular, Canada in particular, um, India in particular, and a lot of other quote, allied nations, uh, they have not they they have not embraced the concept of free and fair trade.
Uh and America pays these tariffs, and they they put all of these obstacles up for American companies to bring our products into their countries.
And what he's saying is that's not fair.
That's not free and fair trade.
And when I listen to the so-called experts, economists, the punditry class talk about oh, I'm a free trader.
Well, if you're a free trader, why aren't you?
Why are you speaking out against the tariffs that are slapping on us and the tariffs that are that are hurting American manufacturers and American business?
And where where's the outrage on what they have been doing and getting away with to us?
And all the president is doing is calling it out, and as a result, my prediction, like for example, uh with Mexico, the president again has has lifted the tariff on against Mexico and lifted some of it against Canada after he put it in place, because as soon as he he mentions that it's going in place, they begin to make changes.
And it's the only thing that is an effective negotiating tactic against countries that have been very selfish and self-serving in this whole process.
Yeah, and it's it's providing multiple benefits.
So you on the one hand, you're getting a lot of companies like Berna uh uh to be moving production into the United States, but also, you know, uh although you haven't heard this on a lot of other media channels, you've been talking about it.
The um uh the intradictions at the borders are down 95%.
So it is having an effect in stopping uh uh people coming across the southern border.
It's having an effect in reducing uh fentanyl production in Mexico, and at the same time it's having a very positive effect on business here in the United States.
All right, quick break, right back.
We'll continue more with our friend Brian Gann, CEO of Burner on the other side.
Then your calls coming up and much more on this Friday, 800, 941 Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
The final hour of the Sean Hannity show is up next.
Hang on for Sean's conservative solutions.
Music.
All right, we continue now with Brian Gans.
He is the CEO of our our uh beloved sponsor.
I think everybody should have a burner, burner.com.
How did you get 500 uh government agencies, police departments, and private security firms to adopt this technology?
I have never, when I we first met, I told you I am not a fan in any way, shape, manner, or form.
I am not a fan of uh of a stun gun.
Because at that point, it's a close quarters conflict.
At that point, you don't have the distance.
With burner, I can hit a target 50, 60 feet away.
And in other words, if there's a known threat coming at you, that gives you an option that police don't have with a taser.
And I I always thought it was uh one of the most ineffective weapons that our law enforcement was using.
As law enforcement learns about this technology, they're adopting it in droves.
I would expect probably within the next five years, every law enforcement agency is going to be looking at taking on burner, no?
Yeah, no, I I I think you're absolutely right.
We we've seen a tremendous adoption of uh burner by law enforcement, uh, both here in the United States and also overseas.
Uh we sold over 40,000 burners just in Argentina last year to to law enforcement.
Um, and there have been, you know, uh, I think over 5,000 documented cases of the burnout being used uh to uh apprehend a criminal to stop uh uh carjacking, to prevent a mugging, uh uh to stop a home invasion, and all of them without a single life being lost or taken.
So I think this is what's resonating.
Every time uh law enforcement ends up having to take a life, and you talk about the taser, 50% of the time that doesn't work, which means they then have to resort to their lethal firearm.
When they take a life, that city is sued for a wrongful death action.
Um and there's you know, a seven million, ten million dollar judgment.
So it is really in the uh best interest of these law enforcement agencies to use less lethal force when they can and to resort to lethal force when they must.
Well said, I urge everybody, please please protect yourself and your family.
Look for the less lethal option first.
Uh it is part of my everyday personal safety and security strategies, and uh, we're always honored to have you on the program.
Brian uh Gans, thank you so much.
Appreciate you being with us and and glad you're you're you're building out your facilities here in America.
That's great news for American jobs and uh the people in Indiana.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Sean.
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You want smart political talk without the meltdowns?
We got you.
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.
Join us every Tuesday and Thursday, normally on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
We break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So Dell a verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.