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March 13, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
34:22
Trump Tour Protests - March 13th, Hour 2
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Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, well, the never-ending New York City pro-Hamas protesters continue.
This time, several dozen of them supporting this pro-Hamas Mahmoud Khalil occupying the lobby of Trump Tower earlier today, calling for the release of this guy who was detained over the weekend.
And protesters dressed in red holding up signs, Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine.
This was at Trump Tower.
And this is protesters chanting, free Mahmoud, free them all, you know, at Trump Tower.
All right, so that took place earlier today.
Greg Jarrett wrote a pretty amazing analysis of all of this, how Mahmoud Khalil cannot use the First Amendment as a shield for lawlessness.
And he joins us now and will lay out the legal reasons why he believes that and why I happen to agree with him that you can't hide behind the First Amendment deployed as a shield for lawlessness.
Anyway, Greg Jarrett, sir, how are you?
It was also something called intimidation, if I recall, last year, and his spoken words of support for a terrorist organization.
I believe that Marco Rubio is right in his analysis of the law.
What are your thoughts?
Well, look, people who are non-citizens do not enjoy the same free speech rights that American citizens do.
You know, so many in journalism, news organizations I've been watching over the last 24 hours don't seem to comprehend that fundamental fact.
They're just not well educated.
A green card holder like Khalil was granted lawful residence, but that's not a right.
It is a conditional privilege.
And one of the conditions is he must abide by immigration laws until he becomes a citizen.
And all you have to do is look at one of the main sections of the Immigration Naturalization Act, Section 212.
And it specifically forbids resident aliens like Khalil from supporting or promoting terrorist activities.
And if they do that, ICE and Homeland Security can revoke their green card and deport them from the U.S.
The First Amendment does not protect Khalil.
He cannot use our free speech principles as a shield for either lawlessness or wrongful conduct that's prohibited by the statute I just identified.
He does not even have to be officially charged with a crime to be expelled.
Instead, if our government determines that his conduct violated immigration standards codified in law, then it goes to an immigration judge, and that judge can and should evict him.
So here, ICE and DHS have determined, based on their evidence, that this is a guy who espoused terrorist acts of Hamas, promoted Hamas.
They're a designated terrorist organization by our U.S. government.
And that's one basis for losing his green card.
The other basis is, as you point out, Sean, the Secretary of State, because the law says that if an alien's presence or activities have a serious adverse foreign policy consequence for the U.S., he's deportable.
And that's what Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined.
He said that what Khalil and others did is antithetical to our foreign policy and our national security, and he should be deported.
So frankly, this should be a slam-dunk case.
But what Khalil has done is he's rushed to a different judge who has no authority or jurisdiction.
A federal district court judge, an Obama appointee, who's halted everything and said, well, I want to hold hearings on free speech and First Amendment.
So we'll see where it goes.
Well, I mean, that's the sad part of our system, right?
I mean, even if you're a non-citizen, you get to use the courts.
Now, all these reports about the major role that he played in the protests against Israel at Columbia University, you know, if we go back in time and we witnessed what happened, you know, if you recall, they were setting up these encampments and they were taking over buildings, again, lawless behavior.
And then they were also confronting Jewish students.
It became an unsafe environment.
And at one point, Columbia was telling Jewish students to stay home and take remote classes, confronting people and asking them if they were a Zionist or not before they'd even let them walk through.
So all of that happened as well.
And you're right, the Department of Homeland Security, the DOJ, the State Department are investigating Khalil as a possible national security threat.
I would imagine that anybody that is supporting and aligning themselves with a designated terrorist organization has to fit that definition, don't they?
Yeah, I think the evidence is pretty compelling here that he was helping to organize and then he later mediated these violent protests at Columbia.
You've described them.
They were hideous, disgusting acts of anti-Semitism, vandalism, destruction of property, attacks on Jewish students and attacks on law enforcement.
That's not protected speech, nor is the spreading of printed pro-Hamas propaganda flyers that glorified the murderous atrocities by Hamas visited on innocent Israeli civilians October 7, 2023.
46 Americans, by the way, among the nearly 1,200 who were massacred.
Sorry, the First Amendment doesn't protect you for that.
I think Trump has taken a two-prong approach, arrest and deport people like Khalil, but also punish higher education institutions like Colombia.
He's already yanked $400 million in federal funding for Colombia.
Why?
Their failure to protect students and faculty.
They were encouraging and placating these things by their own inaction.
As I wrote on my column, colleges and universities are supposed to offer classrooms of learning that are safe from intimidation and threats and acts of violence.
Well, don't they have all of these anti-harassment and intimidation rules for every protected class that you can ever imagine and think of?
And what they just make exception for people that are Jewish?
It's okay to attack them and intimidate and harass them.
The irony that you point out should be lost on no one.
But, you know, it's all about the almighty dollar in these institutions of education.
The only way you can get them to do the right thing is to withhold money.
Only then will they act according to their obligations and duties.
It'll motivate them to do the right thing to protect students.
Let's get on with education.
Let me play Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, and his comments about this issue and about this guy, Khalil.
When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country as a visitor's visa, you are here as a visitor.
We can deny you that visa.
We can deny you that.
If you tell us, when you apply, hi, I'm trying to get into the United States on a student visa.
I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.
If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities.
I intend to shut down your universities.
If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa.
I hope we would.
If you actually end up doing that once you're in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it.
And if you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card as a result of that visa while you're here and those activities, we're going to kick you out.
I mean, it seems to be very straightforward and very simple to me.
It is.
It is, you know, act consistent with the law.
Now, under Joe Biden, he didn't care about the law.
You know, he opened our border to millions of people.
He didn't care if they were supporters of Hamas who were going to make their way to college campuses and wreak havoc and cause harm to Jewish students.
He didn't care about that.
This is a president, Donald Trump, who actually cares and a Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who well understands the law, and he just plainly stated it, as I did in today's column.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
What do you make of these people that are out there protesting?
And I think it raises an entire different question that nobody really wants to raise, and that is I think in many ways, New York Democrats have severely let down the Jewish community in New York.
I think it's going to change, and I think it's going to change rather dramatically.
Am I wrong in believing that?
I think you're absolutely right.
Part of the problem among Democrats is that they are historically illiterate.
You know, I was a correspondent during the second Intifada, and I was there throughout the Middle East and Israel and Gaza and the West Bank and so forth.
If they had seen the carnage that I saw at the hands of some of the most despicable terrorists in the world, I think they would understand the constant state of siege that the Jewish people in Israel are under and Jewish people here now in America with this really despicable anti-Semitism that seems to be sweeping across college campuses.
But Democrats act as though they're utterly unbothered by any of it.
Well, the American people are bothered by it, and Democrats need to wake up from their deep slumber and start serving the interests of the American people and our closest ally in the Middle East, which has long been Israel.
Quick break more with Greg Jarrett on the other side, and then later we'll get to your calls, Senator Ram Paul coming up, and also we will introduce you to a Maine legislator who literally is not able to vote, has been censured for daring to stand against men playing in women's sports.
We'll get to that case and more as we continue.
We continue now with Greg Jarrett, Fox News legal analyst.
Let me go back to the courts for a second, because as you rightly pointed out in your column and what you mentioned earlier is Khalil's attorney, you know, basically went judge shopping, ran to a district judge, an Obama appointee, who halted any deportation pending hearing.
And that hearing is not based on what should actually be the merits of the case, which I find a little bit frustrating.
Assuming that that judge will be sympathetic and liberal, a left-wing, and an activist, then what does that mean for the next step?
And what does the Trump administration do next?
Well, I would like to be optimistic and think that Judge Jesse Fuhrman, as you point out, an Obama appointee, recognize what the First Amendment means and the history of it, as well as the survey.
Why would you even, for one second, believe that's possible after all we've lived through all these years?
I'd like to be a glass half-full kind of guy.
I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, he temporarily halted any deportation proceedings.
And I hope that he will be wise to the tactics here by Khalil's attorneys.
What they're really trying to do is to wrongfully flip jurisdiction from an immigration judge who has authority over Khalil to a district court judge who doesn't.
And this is what your column lays out so simply.
Section 212, Immigration Nationality Act forbids aliens from supporting or promoting a designated terrorist organization such as Hamas.
If they do, their green cards can be revoked and they can be expelled.
That's not a hard provision to understand, Greg.
No, it really isn't.
And, you know, free speech for citizens doesn't trump the immigration law for non-citizens.
It simply doesn't.
Now, if we were talking about a citizen, you know, it's a different calculation, a different equation.
There are greater free speech rights, but even citizens who provide material support to a terrorist organization like Hamas can be held criminally responsible and action can be taken against them.
That's not what's being alleged here.
This is a non-citizen, different standards, no First Amendment protection.
All right, Greg Jarrett, appreciate it.
Thank you so much as always for being with us.
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So we have all these issues that are going on with states that don't want to cooperate.
We saw Tom Holman, who went to Albany, New York, where the state capitol is in New York, and he was getting heckled by people.
And for what reason, I don't know.
He just wants to get rid of cartel members, gang members, potential terrorists.
And the same thing in Maine, the governor is threatening a battle with Donald Trump.
Here's Donald Trump tearing into the Maine governor.
The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way.
That's good.
But I understand Maine is Maine here, the governor of Maine?
Are you not going to comply with it?
I'm just fine with the state and federal laws.
Well, we are the federal law.
Well, you better do it.
You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't.
And by the way, your population, even though it's liberal or low, I did very well there.
Your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports.
So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding.
Every state.
Good.
I'll see you in court.
I look forward to that.
That should be a real easy one.
And enjoy your life after, governor, because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.
Now, there is a state legislator in Maine who will join us in a second that will tell us about these ongoing battles that she's having in a very liberal state.
And her name is Laurel Libby.
You might recall that she decided to stand up and protect girls in sports.
The idea that there are people that don't support this is mind-numbing to me.
And reminding her state what Title IX was all about in the first place.
And they responded by rejecting her right to even voice her opinion.
So she filed a suit against the House Speaker in Maine.
And the judges who were supposed to hear the case, every single one of them, I saw this yesterday.
I couldn't believe it.
Every one of them recused themselves, which is unprecedented.
And, you know, all four active federal judges in Maine won't take the case.
And anyway, she is not going to stop this fight.
And she said Maine's Democratic leadership has asked me to take down my post exposing their failure to keep biological males out of girls' sports.
My answer is simple.
I will not.
I will do everything in my power to ensure our girls' voices are heard and that their rights are respected.
And I respect her for doing it.
And anyway, Laurel Libby, state legislator from Maine, joins us now.
How are you?
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm great and thrilled to be on with you today.
I make fun of a friend of mine who lives in Maine that I grew up with.
I call him a mountain man.
He's got this long beard, and he literally lives like a mountain man.
He cracks me up.
But it's a great state, and I have a lot of friends there.
And the people are fiercely independent.
And I can't imagine that the people of Maine want men and women's sports and that the governor, I believe, is way out of touch with the thinking of the people of Maine.
The governor is completely out of touch with her fellow Mainers.
And you're right.
Mainers are fiercely independent.
And they don't believe that biological males belong in girls' sports.
And so the governor and the Speaker Fecto and the Democrat majority are out of line with Maine people and pushing for a policy that folks don't agree with in our state.
Why is the state's slant so left?
When I think of Maine, I think of maybe only second to Alaska in terms of people that are willing to live slightly off the grid, not completely, obviously, but people that believe in rugged individualism that are very, very committed to handling a lot of life's challenges on their own.
I'm surprised because that usually doesn't sort of lend itself to more liberal politics.
I think folks don't understand that Maine really is a purple state, and I'll give you the math on that.
Out of 151 state representatives across our entire state, we only lost the conservative majority by 60 votes across the entire state in 2024.
Wow.
So that's how close things are.
We are not a dark blue state yet, I don't think.
And yet the Democrat majority and Governor Mills are pushing these aggressively woke policies that Mainers don't agree with and don't want to see in our state.
Mainers want to see biological males out of girls' sports and see that we have a safe, level, and fair field of competition for our girls.
Well, you know, as the father of a daughter who happens to be an athlete, I totally sympathize with this.
As somebody that's interviewed Riley Gaines many, many times, I sympathize with what she went through.
And my question is, how is it possible after you bring this lawsuit that you have four separate judges recusing themselves?
And what does that mean for your suit?
The end of the goal here is that we have our day in court.
And whether that is before a Maine judge or it looks like a Rhode Island judge at this point, we're confident of the merits of our case and are looking forward to being able to defend my First Amendment rights.
And more importantly than that, my constituents' right to representation in our Maine House of Representatives.
Because right now, they are voiceless and voteless.
And that is absolutely not something that should be able to stand in our state, that 9,000 people would not be represented.
Okay, so how did the jurisdiction switch to Rhode Island?
All of the judges recused themselves and put out a statement yesterday regarding a familial relationship with an employee.
No specifics there, but really, I don't think...
Sounds to me like they don't want to touch it.
Perhaps, but at the end of the day, I don't think it's going to matter because this case will be heard on the merits, whether it is heard and we win in the first go-around or whether we have to move up further through the court system.
I think we will prevail in the end regardless of the jurisdiction.
As somebody that lived in Rhode Island at one point in my life for five years, I can tell you that I would not expect the odds are high on the lower court level that you'd win, but I think you'd win this on appeal probably pretty easily, depending on what jurisdiction it went to.
I mean, it's a really important fight.
And how are your fellow legislators reacting to this?
Anyone willing to join in with you?
You know, very partisan, of course.
The Democrats voted with a simple partisan vote to censure me.
All of the Republicans stood strong.
To censure you for what?
For exercising my right to free speech.
It really is pretty ludicrous when you look at the nuts and bolts of what happened.
I made a Facebook post, and the speaker and the Democrat majority have politically retaliated against me for my protective speech because they don't want to talk about the actual issue.
They don't want to have an open and honest debate about what's at stake for Maine girls and also for Maine public schools that are now in violation of President Trump's executive order.
They don't want to talk about the real issue, so they're trying to silence me.
But they didn't realize that by trying to silence me, they actually handed me a much bigger microphone to get our issues out there and make sure that they, at the end of the day, get resolved.
The speaker has put in a provision that I can't get my voice or my vote back until I apologize for my post.
And I won't apologize for speaking the truth and for fighting for Maine girls to have a fair, safe, and level playing ground.
So the only recourse I have is the courts.
As far as we understand.
Where are your fellow Republicans standing up for you?
I don't understand this.
Well, you know what's interesting is many of my fellow Republicans shared my post.
And one of them asked on the floor, what's going to happen to us?
Are you going to censure all of us?
Are you going to silence multiple Republicans over this?
And the only answer that the speaker gave was that there were no other censors pending, essentially.
So it clearly is political retaliation specifically against me because other representatives put the same post out there.
There's no accounting for common sense here.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back more with Maine state legislator Laurel Libby is with us.
I can't believe this fight that she's engaged in.
She's just standing up for the right of Title IX and for women not to have to compete with men in women's sports and how she's being treated and silenced and ostracized.
And now she's taking her case to court and how complicated this has all become.
More on the other side.
We'll continue and your calls coming up.
I would continue now with Laurel Libby, state legislator from Maine, who's been, you know, just experienced a censure and literally has been silenced just for a social media post defending the right of women to maintain Title IX and not have men compete in women's sports.
Is there any way if the Republicans were unite together, is there any way they could basically shut down the House until you are officially reinstated?
Because this seems to be a moment, a pivotal moment of truth for Republicans in Maine that they should take a stand on this very important issue, and that's the right of Title IX and women and for men not to play women's sports.
Why don't they come together and stand united behind you and come up with a strategy to counter this?
Well, that's certainly a good question, Sean.
And the fact is, the Democrats are determined to do all that they can by a simple majority this year.
The last two sessions, we've had majority budgets rather than the two-thirds consensus that is required in the Constitution to pass a budget.
The Democrats are well versed in extra-constitutional shenanigans to get their way.
So this is nothing new.
Now, could Republicans just not show up?
Why are Republicans putting up with that, Laurel?
That makes no sense to me if they're not following the Constitution as it relates to spending and spending bills.
Why is that not challenged in court?
Well, it makes no sense to me either, Sean.
The way they've gotten around that is that they adjourn sign a die after passing a majority budget three months early and then call us back in for special session to process the rest of the bills.
And they get away with it because they're, frankly, not used to being challenged.
So this lawsuit is the first time that this Democrat majority has really seen a challenge because we're going through the courts instead of just trying to fight at the legislative level.
This is the first time they've really seen a challenge like that on a free speech issue like this.
And I'm not sure that they really.
It sounds like they need the challenge on the spending issue as well.
I mean, I almost feel like flying up to Maine and giving these guys a pep talk and saying, hey, wake up here and do your job.
Come on up.
I'll make sure you get some lobster while you're up here.
I'll get some Maine lobster.
I do like lobster.
I like to drench it in butter, by the way.
But it's kind of sad that the Republicans, I'm more mad at them now because all this is going on and even unconstitutional passage of spending bills.
And in this case, you're defending the right of women not to compete against men in women's sports.
And yet they sit there on their hands and allowing all of this to go on.
I can't believe what I'm hearing.
They need to grow a spine and they need to unite.
It certainly is a frustrating situation to be in, Sean.
Earlier this week, I was not able to vote on a supplemental budget, which did get two-thirds majority in the House, unfortunately.
One of the first roll calls that I couldn't participate in, the other roll call that we had on Tuesday, you'll love this, was regarding a resolution, this joint resolution commemorating Women's History Month and International Women's Day.
Guess who couldn't vote or speak on that resolution?
Unbelievable.
You.
Yeah, absolutely.
I had a proxy speak for me, and you'll not be surprised that the speaker hammered her down partway through and didn't let her get all of her words out.
Laurel, I appreciate you, and you do have our support.
That's for sure.
If we can help you in any way, please let us know.
Thank you so much.
Bunch of bullies.
Good grief.
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