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March 19, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
39:05
Putin and Trump - March 18th, Hour 3
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If you want to be a part of the program, um, the president uh has this conversation.
We do have a readout of the conversation that took place today.
And uh joining us to discuss and and talk about it is Rebecca Koffler, strategic military intelligence analyst, formerly with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.
She is the author of the best-selling book, Putin's Playbook.
Uh, great to have you back.
Rebecca, uh, I'm sure you read the readout as I did.
What is your overall take on it?
Well, Sean, I'll cut to the change here and mention the most important thing, which is a huge accomplishment by President Donald Trump.
Uh there's a lot of uh fluff in this read out typical uh Russian uh diplo talk, but here, and I'm gonna quote the most important part in the context of the U.S. President's initiative to introduce a 30-day truth, the Russian side identified a number of significant uh points.
The agreement was made that there will be a mutual refusal of the parties to the conflict to strike energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days.
Vladimir Putin responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the Russian military the appropriate command.
This is why here's why it's important, Sean.
Uh the Russians have been pounding Ukrainian infrastructure for three years to the point where 50% of it is destroyed, and that is the assessment of the United Nations.
Why is that?
Because Putin wants uh to make Ukrainians' lives a living hell.
I frankly, as as an intelligent self staff, I was not anticipating this kind of breakthrough, but Donald Trump made it happen.
Well, the readout specifically says I I know the provision in which you are referring to, and in this is in response to the president's recent appeal to save lives and Ukrainian servicemen surrounding the Kirk Kursk region, where there were reports, contradictory reports to be very fair, uh, that Vladimir Putin uh might have had a lot of Ukrainians surrounded, and they were pretty much sitting ducks.
But during the conversation, Trump put forward a proposal for mutual refusal of the parties uh to the conflict to strike energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days.
Vladimir Putin responded positively to that initiative and immediately gave the Russian military the appropriate command.
He also reacted constructively to the idea that Trump of of him implementing a well-known initiative regarding the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, and it was agreed to start negotiations for additional study on specific details, and they talked about a prisoner exchange as well.
Yes, absolutely.
The prisoner exchange was also uh big.
Uh Putin committed to uh releasing tomorrow, uh, March 19th.
The Ukrainian prisoners and the Ukrainians, you know, will hopefully agree To release the Russian prisoners, 175 to 175.
In a 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian servicemen are being treated in Russian medical institutions and will be transferred as a gesture of goodwill.
So Putin is playing ball with President Trump, which in my assessment is the only US president who could be fierce and with whom Putin will agree to deal on a transactional basis.
It's because President Trump, unlike former President Joe Biden and Tomel Harris, who were continuously exasperated by uh Putin's recount interest.
They called him a killer, they called them this and that, uh, basically showing their frustration.
President Trump is methodically trying to accomplish his goal, and he is making progress because he knows how to deal with Putin.
He has seemed to have found the key on how to conduct transactional business with the former KGB officer that nobody so far has uh found the key to working with.
The one thing that might be a sticking point for if I was on the Ukrainian side of this and I'm on the side of this has got to end, how many more people need to die, and how much more destruction do we need because there's not going to be a Ukraine left if this continues, you know, if for an extended period of time, in my humble opinion.
And you know, if we could get a peace in Europe, I think it would be beneficial.
Um maybe a sticking point would be Russia's desire for a need to stop any mobilization in Ukraine, any efforts to rearm their their forces in Ukraine, which I don't believe that Russia would be capable of of participating uh in on their end.
They they'd have that time to re-arm while they're demanding that Ukraine not have that right.
Exactly.
That is consistent with my intelligence assessment uh, Sean.
That is some of the uh conditions that Putin is trying to place on the Ukrainian side.
Uh no more mobilization, no training of Ukrainian soldiers, and no more foreign military aid.
And that is gonna be uh sort of an uneven situation because the Russians, on the one hand, Putin has mobilized uh additional thousands of troops to the maximum allowable by the Constitution.
Actually, even above the maximum allowable by the Russian Constitution.
They are right now at 1,350,000 troops uh compared to let's say uh the US military, which includes also the uh National Guard, is about one million, right?
So, and the Russians are now outproducing the entire NATO alliance in terms of material, military hardware, according to NATO Secretary General himself.
The Russians in three months are producing more missiles than the entire NATO alliance, including the United States in the entire year.
And that is something just think about.
Well, I think it's a lot to think about.
Um, when I interviewed Zelensky, President Zelensky, I said to I I pushed him hard, and it was before the rare earth mineral deal.
Uh I I assume now that that has been completed.
I've never seen an official verification of that, but I believe that there's been an agreement on that part.
Um but assuming that that happens, and he was he kind of dodged all the questions.
I said, you do understand that any negotiated settlement will likely include you're not going to be a member of NATO, uh, although having the partnership with the U.S. would ensure a U.S. presence in Ukraine, which I think would be very helpful to their security.
It would also provide them with a rare earth mineral deal, the monies to rebuild Ukraine.
The second aspect of it was there's there's probably going to be more land that will end up in in Russian hands.
Um you have the Donbas region, for example, Which my understanding is was what 80% Russian anyway, not even able to uh vote in those elections, correct?
In Ukrainian elections.
Yes, correct.
Uh well, Zelensky has uh ruled out uh, at least for now, holding the elections all together, and the Ukrainian parliament backed him up, and that is because Zelensky invoked a uh uh martial law and it's uh against the Ukrainian constitution to hold elections during the war and this sort of thing.
But the guy is uh is very, very uh a talented actor, I would I I would call him.
So he is, even though he doesn't have any cards, like President Trump said, he is trying to uh continue the flow of uh US billions of dollars into Ukraine.
And so um it is really uh remains to be seen how open he is gonna be, Zelensky that is, to come through on his part of the deal and actually save Ukraine, and you're absolutely correct, Sean.
If he doesn't, then there will be absolutely nothing left of the country to save.
I mean, that's the scary part.
I mean, there's been so much death and so much destruction.
At the end, what's gonna be left, and especially if the United States is not going to commit hundreds of uh billions of taxpayer dollars to basically end up being a proxy in this war, Europe has not stepped up and and contributed their fair share as far as I'm concerned.
No, they absolutely haven't.
And and and look, the truth is is that if the Europeans were uh stepping up to the plate, if they paid for their own security, as President Trump, you know, during his first term, asked him to do, even was compelling them to do.
If they started doing it 10 years ago, which is when they knew about the uh what Putin was going to uh do, I breached them personally, then Putin would have never invaded.
He didn't invade during President Trump's uh first term, precisely because President Trump understands Putin's strategy, and he took a series of measures that basically mitigated the strategic vulnerabilities that we have because of our reliance on technology.
That was the actual point, why Putin was feeling very emboldened to invade Ukraine because he knew we couldn't step in, right?
Because he kind of boxed Joe Biden in with his uh his nuclear cards.
But during President Trump's terms, they didn't do that.
And one point on Zelensky, just um uh something that you mentioned, and you're absolutely correct.
The security guarantee that Zelensky was demanding from Trump, he was too dumb and too too too dumb, I would even say Zelensky, to pick up that on the fact that President Trump was offering him security guarantee,
not in the NATO membership, but by placing US businessmen onto Ukrainian soil to start, you know, the explorations of those uh critical minerals, and that was President Trump's backdoor way of ensuring those guarantees because Putin would not dare strike those uh areas where US business limits were because the Russian intelligence knows that our red line has always
been if you target US personnel wherever it is, in uh on US soil, you know, God forbid, or even outside of the US and foreign territories.
But you target US personnel, they'll be held to pay.
But Zelensky, unfortunately, was too dumb to recognize the art of the deal that Donald Trump was offering to him.
So, with all that said, where do you see this going now?
I mean, there have been those that have speculated that Putin is just gonna want to drag this out as long as possible.
Uh does Putin ultimately see the wisdom in ending this considering their economy is in shambles.
They they they have more people leaving the country because they don't want to be signed up to fight in this war or this conflict.
It's not a popular conflict.
Where does it end?
So you're correct.
Putin does see the wisdom in ending this.
But it's gonna take time and Putin wants to end it on his term.
And the situation is that as President Trump admitted Putin has all the cards.
I think President Trump is being uh a little too generous and uh with him by saying that but I think it's because President Trump knows what buttons to push with Poopy.
You know, he's trying to keep them on his good side.
We do have some cards.
We don't have too many, but we do have some.
It's going to be a very gradual process.
And Putin, like, for example, look at these.
He is also wanting to be seen next to President Trump, right?
That's why he's likely asking.
It's not in this readout, but I have through my sources that Putin is wanting a meeting in person with President Trump.
He wants to be seen with the leader of the free world.
He also requested in this readout to organize a hockey match between the United...
I saw that.
the U.S. and and Russia which actually I would love to see as a hockey fan.
I would love that, too.
I'm a huge Hotsky fan as well.
That would be fantastic.
I also watch now different MMA, you know, the UFC, Dana White's outfit and all the fights between the Russians and Americans.
And those are actually excellent.
And if Moscow and Washington were able to emulate that type of relationship that the Russians and the Americans have right now, like, for example, when they're in space, the International Space Station, right, they're able to work together hand-in-hand as colleagues.
Or the relationship that the athletes have, you know, for example, during the MMA, the Russians and Americans can beat the heck out of each other.
It's almost like a scene from Rocky, what was it, Rocky 5 or whatever number it was.
All right, Rebecca Koffler, thank you.
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We're awaiting the return of SpaceX and the rescue mission of the, astronauts that have been nearly 300 days in space 286 to be a specific and they're only supposed to be there eight days uh I am told and we've been told that they're gonna have a a pretty tough time adjusting uh after being in zero gravity for such a long period of time that's not what their training was was for they were there for an eight day trip.
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All right, 25 now till the top of the hour, 22 minutes away from an anticipated splashdown and recovery of the stranded space station astronauts.
We're going to be going in and out and listening to some of the NASA coverage.
Obviously, there's a partnership there, but honestly, SpaceX has taken on most of the responsibility of this.
But the two astronauts, 286 days in their space odyssey.
And this has been a 17 hour, now 21 minutes until we expect a splashdown.
And we expect Wilmore and Williams wearing SpaceX pressure suits to fly.
to land um they were about to they're now in the twenty seven minute freefall is where I understand, Linda.
We'll get to that in a second, and the spacecraft will plunge back into the discernible atmosphere for the final twelve minutes of descent, making a parachute assisted splashdown.
It's expected to still land at this time at 557 p.m., 257 on the West Coast, and a SpaceX recovery ship will be stationed nearby to haul the spacecraft on board so the crew um can be helped out of the uh crew dragon's cabin and onto the stretchers for initial medical checks, as I went through earlier.
There are significant medical issues that, especially if you spend a prolonged period in space that that these astronauts will go through.
Um we'll we'll dip in and out of NASA's coverage here, and uh all prayers are with these guys on their final descent and anticipated safe splashdown.
Uh, want to remind you, uh, I'm a big Second Amendment guy.
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Um, want to remind you that we have Elon Musk on Hannity tonight.
We'll be talking about this uh the stranded, these stranded astronauts now returning to Earth and and other topics of the day involving him.
Um it's it's really sad that somebody that has helped so many people is so hated, and I can't think of a reason why.
It makes absolutely positively no sense at all whatsoever.
Uh these astronauts, assuming they can land safely in, you know, literally what is it now?
20 minutes?
Less than 20, 19 minutes, you know, is because of SpaceX.
And he's the chief engineer, and he's a genius behind it.
A guy that dreams of going to Mars, a guy that has successfully done this many, many times, and the only times you ever hear from liberals is they cheer uh a new rocket that he's testing out that may not go successfully well or be successful.
You know, now we have incidents of shootings.
They're shooting into Tesla dealerships, they're burning Tesla cars on dealer parking lots.
They are burning charging stations around the country, and they're doing everything they can do domestic terror-wise to hurt this man.
What has he done?
Help the people in North Carolina when they had no communications, the same with people in Tennessee, the same with people in California.
You know, now he's rescuing astronauts.
He's also working, he created one of the most technologically advanced cars ever to be made, uh, which is the Tesla, which has a thousand horsepower, is about the version I'm getting, and goes from zero to sixty in two point zero seconds and has self-driving capability, meaning you just put in your address and you don't do a thing.
Amazing technology.
And he's advancing the human condition.
He's Doing that with robotics and artificial intelligence that maybe one day all our menial tasks at home will be done that way.
He's working with Norolink in the hopes that one day the blind might be able to see and people with spinal cord injuries can walk.
So why is he hated?
Because he he's friends with Donald Trump and he's identified all the corruption, waste fraud, and abuse.
Now over a hundred billion dollars identified by Doge in Washington.
What else what else has he done to cause such hatred and vitriol and these vicious attacks?
That's that's why I'm giving away a Tesla.
I am buying a Tesla for the winner.
We you can win it right here on this show.
Today is the first day of our contest, and every day you, my listeners, will have a chance to enter the keyword of the day that's heard on the show.
If you listen every day, I'll give out the keyword.
You simply go to Hannity.com, you go to the contest page, and that'll take you to the entrance page.
You can enter once a day.
Today's word of the day is American.
Why did I pick American?
Because it's the most American-made car in the entire country.
Anyway, good luck to all of you.
You get one chance to win a day.
We take this through, I believe, April the 11th.
And then we'll pick a winner.
And uh I think they have seven days to claim their car.
We'll try our best to get in touch with them.
So, Sean, we have some updates, just so you know, because we're listening to this, but I didn't want to interrupt you because everybody wants to know about the Tesla contest.
But they've just they're just getting into the part uh, I guess, of space where they have no signal anymore.
So they just gave sort of an update to say, hey, we're heading into the no signal zone.
So once we can go on for several minutes, they would describe this in great specificity.
Uh I've read all about this today, yes.
But now they've updated and they're actually going to be landing at 5 51 East Coast time, 2 51 Pacific time.
And they will splash down off the coast of the 100%.
Nine minutes away.
In the Gulf of America.
What better it means?
In the Gulf of America.
And by the way, they actually at NASA said that.
When we get communications back, let me know.
Um, and just pray that we have a good splashdown on this.
Look, imagine, and I'll get into this with Elon Musk tonight on TV, but imagine you know, everything that has to go perfectly here.
Um we have we we watched the launch of this rocket.
We'll show you the video tonight.
We saw the rocket is recovered and it has a system to land gently and successfully back on Earth.
You know what, Sean?
Why don't we do this?
Not to interrupt you, but just so we don't take this.
I know it's my job.
I'm apologize.
You pay me good for it.
No, no, no.
We saw the return takeoff video of the case.
I really do need to interrupt you though.
I want to be able to air this.
And in order for us to do that, I think that we should do our read, say goodbye now, and come back on the other side and then be live till the end of the show so that we don't interrupt anything that's happening with this landing with reads or anything.
Okay, we could do that.
Okay.
So everything so far, and I'll get to this first.
Everything so far has gone perfectly.
The launch has gone perfectly.
The docking, we saw those videos when they they docked at the International Space Station.
We saw the rocket landing um and literally gently just placing itself down on Earth.
I mean, amazing engineering.
Uh, we saw the return.
Well, it was a 17-hour trip, it'll be a little less than 17 hours now, and then now we are waiting for the splashdown, and we will have a successful mission and literally recovery of two astronauts that have been lost in space.
No, it's building up on the exterior of the capsule, um, generating heat in excess of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
So we are unable to communicate or command the cat the spacecraft at that time.
And that includes unfortunately video feeds as well.
So as soon as we get uh the the views back inside dragon, we will bring those to you.
But until then, uh, we are going to stand by and continue to monitor the progress of Dragon.
Um, like Sandra just said, we are anticipating the blackout period to begin at 251 p.m. Pacific time, 551 p.m. Eastern time.
This will last for several minutes.
It's not super exact, even though we are predicting uh acquisition of signal or AOS to come back at 551 p.m. Eastern time.
In the past, we have regained communication sometimes a little bit earlier than that.
So we'll probably start to hear core begin to hail Crew Dragon a minute or two prior to that anticipated acquisition of signal.
But right now, uh Nick Sonny Butch and Alexander are touch screen displays where the current operation and future operations will be displayed as they are able to monitor Dragon's progress continually.
As I said before, Dragon is autonomous, meaning it is flying itself.
So the crew stands by and monitors and those touch screen displays are what will be allowing them to do so and prepare for events such as uh such as parachute deploy.
And while on board the International Space Station, Nick, Sonny, Butch, and Alexander contributed to over 900 hours of science and research investigations, which is really the key purpose of the International Space Station.
Now, the International Space Station is celebrating a major milestone this year where they will be celebrating 25 years of continuous human presence in November.
So if you're younger than 25 years, you've never known a day where there hasn't been a human living and working aboard the International Space Station, contributing to key science and research investigations that impact our lives here on Earth.
There's research being done on Parkinson's on osteoporosis, on cancer research, and a variety of other studies.
Additionally, the microgravity laboratory provides a jumping-off point for us as we venture back to the moon and onto Mars through longer duration space flights.
One such example that the crew worked on during this mission was a alternative exercise device.
In microgravity, the crew has to exercise for about two hours a day because they're not having the effects of gravity on their body.
So to prevent bone and muscle loss, we counteract that with two hours of exercise per day.
On board the International Space Station, they have three ways in which they can exercise.
They have a bike, they have a treadmill, and they have a uh similar to a weightlifting machine that counteracts the microgravity environment.
But a particular experiment that this crew tested out was a combination of all three of those in one smaller device.
And this is really critical as we continue on to uh the moon, Mars, and beyond because space is really important in spacecraft.
Uh so if we have something smaller that the crew might be able to utilize, that can potentially help us venture out even further into the solar system.
So science is really the name of the game when it comes to the International Space Station.
Some of the other science highlights that took place uh during this increment that are particularly interesting to me was we had the first wooden satellite that was deployed.
This is a study to see if other materials might be more um resourceful or renewable uh in space.
Uh so I'm really excited to see the results of that one as well.
Additionally, we had uh a couple of spacewalks that took place to not only uh provide maintenance to the International Space Station, but also uh where we swab the outside of the space station near events to see if any microbes that we all have microbes on us to see if any of those could survive in the harsh environment of space, which again is very important for us to know and understand as we continue to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
Very exciting stuff.
Now, at this point, we have now entered the communications blackout period for the Dragon spacecraft.
This lasts approximately seven minutes due to plasma formation around the spacecraft itself.
During this time, no vehicle telemetry is received by mission control or the recovery team, and no external commanding of the vehicle or voice communication is possible.
But as a reminder, Dragon is designed to fly itself.
During re-entry, the vehicle will be slowing down from orbital velocity, which is approximately 17,500 miles per hour.
The top temperature that Dragon will experience upon re-entry is 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
This blackout period, as I said before, we expect it to last about seven minutes today, uh concluding at 5 51 p.m. Eastern time or 2 51 p.m. Pacific time.
Um we right there have our first view of Dragon Freedom coming home to Earth.
And that view is from the WB 57, Which is one of NASA's high altitude planes that is tracking.
Um now, because of the way that this uh camera is configured, it does look like it is uh dark, but it is indeed daytime, and you're beginning to see that plasma trail as uh dragon re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.
All of that is expected.
We are uh anticipating an acquisition of signal around 251 p.m. Pacific time, so just minutes from now, and you may hear the core begin to hail out um or call dragon uh for communications and see if we can potentially get communications with them a little bit earlier.
Following this, we'll have two events in rapid succession.
We'll have the drogue parachutes deploy at 253 p.m.
Pacific, followed by the mains just one minute later at 254 p.m. Pacific time, ahead of a splashdown at 257 p.m. Pacific time off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.
All right, and we're listening to NASA right now, just uh to update you.
Um there are this is the most incredible thing you've ever seen.
It really, I'm trying to describe this for you because you you have this telescope that is able to now follow and track it.
They're in a period of where the the plasma surrounding what will be their splashdown vehicle uh that that prevents the communication.
So right now it's a silent period that they go through, which has to be a little bit scary with the fact that they can track it.
And while the image looks like it's nighttime, it is not, it is obviously daytime because this is going to splash down in the Gulf of America just off the panhandle uh near Tallahassee in in Florida.
Um, a couple of things to watch out for as they make re-entry, you know, they will hit a high temperature.
It's designed and engineered to withstand a temperature of over 3,500 degrees, uh, nearly 2,000 miles per hour, if you want to talk about speed.
And at about 250, well, about 553 in about a minute, they expect the launch of the first parachute, uh, and then the launch of the second and final parachute, which will slow the the spaceship as it as it then descends into splashdown, and it is still scheduled at 557 Eastern time, just as we're going off the air exactly on time, what we were told it was going to be today.
Um I went through this earlier today, and the astronauts themselves will really face a lot of physical challenges upon their return.
It's a there was supposed to be an eight-day stay.
It turned into a 260, what, seven, two hundred two, I'm sorry, two hundred and eighty-six-day stay.
And when they come back, because of the unexpected time they spent, it's going to make it that much more difficult.
And they may face a variety of health problems.
Uh, they might have weaker bones and muscles.
They might experience vision issues, what's called baby feet, which I described earlier.
I'll describe it again.
Their bodies have to adjust to being back with the planet Earth's gravity.
The astronauts uh splashing, you know, this is after splashdown.
And uh Williams and Wilmore, the two astronauts, American astronauts that were kind of abandoned in space, uh, arrived there last June.
We're supposed to stay for eight days.
They were forced to remain in orbit.
Well, now we've have the reconnection.
NASA is now reconnected with the astronauts.
They are wow.
They're literally let's see, three minutes away from splashdown, and we just saw an image of them uh in this in Space Dragon, SpaceX Dragon in their capsule, uh getting ready to develop.
But they they what happens is as they remain in orbit, um, you know, you you can actually gain in height while you're up there because there is this phenomenon where your your bones literally your spine will stretch and it can lead to back problems on the other side of that.
There can be vision issues.
You can have bone and muscle loss, uh, bones become about one percent less dense.
Okay, we now see the capsule making its descent.
It has re-entered our orbit.
We are now about two and a half minutes away from splashdown.
It's incredible.
The first two parachutes have been deployed successfully in about a minute, they are supposed to deploy the third one.
And uh at that point, The capsule looks like it is on target for a perfect landing and an on-time perfect landing.
The visuals on NASA are incredible.
If you can get to a TV, Fox News has just put it on.
And NASA's streaming it.
If you want to go to NASA.com or just go to Hannity.com.
We have images of it there.
It looks like if we get one more deployment of one final parachute, it looks like this mission will be a complete success.
Our prayers are with the astronauts.
As we heard right there, Commander Nick Haig will be calling out the altitude of the dragon capsule from here on out.
Landing in water is simpler and provides more margin against unlikely parachute issues.
You can see those uh those parachutes continuing to slow the dragon capsule down.
Two more parachutes have been deployed successfully.
I can actually see water.
We're about a minute and a half minute and ten seconds away from landing.
From splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, splashdown two minutes from now at 257 p.m.
Pacific.
We do have four healthy mains really doing the job there.
Just breathtaking views of a calm, glass-like ocean off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.
Crew 9, just minutes away from splashing down.
This is really such an incredible shot.
That was the live view from our recovery vessel.
Uh Megan, which is stationed a couple miles away from the splashdown site.
We can see we are literally seconds away from splashdown.
Elon Musk will be on Hannity tonight.
Steve Whitkoff has been negotiating with the president.
He was there during the negotiations with Putin today.
Stephen Miller will be on tonight.
We have full coverage.
Well, we'll get Elon's take on all of this.
Any second now, you can see that the capsule is slowed down, and we expect a successful uh splashdown.
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