Sean Hannity Show - The Big Beautiful Bill - May 6th, Hour 2

May 7, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show

37:37

The Big Beautiful Bill - May 6th, Hour 2

Chairman Jason Smith, of Missouri, talks about the budget, the economy and President Trump’s effort on the ‘big beautiful bill.’See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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	The economy and how the Republican Party has now emerged and how he calls it an economic rebalancing and a restoration of America in the past in which, you know, the rich would benefit and how the Republican Party is now becoming the party of working
	men.
	men and women, while the Democratic Party caters to coastal elites in California, New York, DC, and Illinois and New Jersey.
	But anyway, he he pointed out what a mistake it was and referred to an economist, David Autris's name, and how uneven the uneven effects of trade liberal uh liberalization, 3.7 million Americans lost their jobs as a result.
	And offshore production to China accounted for 59.3% of U.S. manufacturing uh job losses, and most of these workers entered long-term unemployment.
	And then he talked about, for example, how liberals have always argued for wealth redistribution and and handouts to compensate, quote, the losers of this strategy that is, as he says, failed miserably.
	And he went on to make the case about why America has to take this stand against getting ripped off and and frankly abused by friend and and foe alike and reducing and giving countries the option, free and fair trade, or telling countries there'll be reciprocal tariffs.
	And he talked about supply chain issues.
	We saw this during the COVID pandemic, and and the president even saying that we can no longer, we must manufacture our pharmaceuticals here.
	Uh then he talked about the various, you know, plans that the president has in place.
	One is the tariff issue, two is obviously the president's tax cuts.
	That's a reconciliation bill that we expect hopefully will be completed by the fourth of July.
	And what he pointed out is during the president's first term, the bottom 50% of households saw their net worth increase faster than the top 10%.
	And the Trump tax cuts would cost the median income family with two children more than $4,000 in take-home pay.
	It's got to be passed.
	And the president, you know, taking it to the next step by saying that he's gonna not tax tip Social Security or overtime, again, good for working men and women, the people that make this country great.
	And another component of it is deregulating the economy.
	Not only to build homes faster, factories faster, semiconductors, power plants, uh AI data centers, uh, chip centers, technologies of the future, reawakening our industrial capacity in this country.
	And and that came up in the conversation with the prime minister of uh Canada today.
	Now, the the last leg of this this stool is is going to be energy dominance, which the president has already put in place with his call for an emergency declaration on energy and getting rid of the burdensome regulations that the Biden era brought to us that cost us a fortune.
	And anyway, energy dominance will bring in massive amounts of money for the American economy.
	However, first things first, and one of the most important parts of this, the president cannot do on his own.
	He needs the help of Congress.
	Now it's an arcane, bizarre Senate rule where you can bypass cloture.
	It's called reconciliation.
	We've gone over it in detail.
	I won't bore you again.
	But rather than needing 60 votes using the reconciliation process, which was used for the inflation reduction act, Obamacare, for example, uh when it's issues involving spending and taxes, the president can accomplish his his agenda without having to wait till October 1st, the next fiscal year, and get us out, at least the beginning of getting us out of the Biden economy.
	Now, Jason Smith, who is uh a very important piece of this puzzle, uh Jason Smith is, you know, of Missouri is leading this effort in the House to make sure we don't fail on this front.
	Here's what he said on Fox News Sunday.
	Failure is simply not an option.
	Will it be bumpy, Shannon?
	It absolutely is.
	This is the House of Representatives.
	But will we get the job done?
	We absolutely will.
	Failure's not an option.
	If we don't, Shannon, every single American will face on average a 22% tax increase.
	This is the last thing that they need after the last four years of the Biden administration where they had an inflation tax.
	All right, joining us now is Jason Smith of Missouri, who is spearheading a lot of this effort to get this this one big, beautiful bill done and hopefully done by the fourth of July.
	Sir, welcome back to the program.
	How are you?
	Doing great.
	It's always great to be with you, Sean.
	I understand the slim majorities in the House and Senate.
	I understand the problems associated with the reconciliation process, and that means that the House has to work closely with the Senate and the Senate parliamentarian.
	Um, but I do believe that a lot of the president's goals that he's laid forth here can be achieved as long as Republicans understand that not everyone's gonna get everything that they want.
	That's exactly right.
	We know what 77 million Americans spoke loud and clear when they elected President Trump.
	And President Trump was crystal clear, Sean, on the campaign trail, that he wanted to make permanent his expiring 2017 um tax cuts.
	And he wanted to also provide additional relief to working families, um, such as no tax on tips, uh, no tax on overtime.
	Then he wanted to provide tax relief uh for seniors.
	Um these are all things that the president's been very clear on, and and Congress is going to deliver on it.
	And we'll we'll get the job done even with the narrow margin, but we'll get it done.
	One of the big sticking points is the state and local tax uh deduction, uh, which I guess the vernacular commonly known as salt deductions, and the there was a limit, I believe, of ten thousand dollars, and a lot of blue state Republicans are pushing very, very hard to dramatically raise that level.
	Now, uh during Trump's first term, I ended up paying more in taxes because that deduction was, I believe, rightly taken away from me, because I believe that it rewards uh states for electing big tax and spend liberals uh and and putting massive taxes on on local and and and state income, for example, and other taxes.
	And if you make it deductible, you're only rewarding electing the wrong people.
	Yeah, that's been a huge, huge point of contention throughout this process.
	Of course, the Republican members of Congress from California, New York, and New Jersey in particular, this is a very sensitive issue.
	They feel like the $10,000 cap that was put in place in the 2017 tax cuts is not big enough.
	But what we also are dealing with in the House of Representatives, Sean, is that there's some members in our conference that doesn't believe you should even be able to deduct one dollar.
	And so trying to thread that needle where we can only lose three people to ultimately pass this bill.
	It it is it's a balancing approach, and we're going to have to think outside of the box to get this done.
	But but the numbers that I've heard bannered about are raising it from 10,000 to 30,000 or 50,000, and then some pushing as high as a hundred thousand, uh sixty thousand, another number I've heard.
	Those are the numbers I've heard.
	Do you expect that it will go up, but maybe not as much as some people want?
	So I I believe everyone's going to be unhappy, Sean.
	That's usually how it's probably going to end up.
	But the $10,000 cap is not something that is satisfactory with those members from California, New York, and New Jersey.
	And we can't lose those members, but they have to have a realistic number.
	And that's what we're trying to balance and thread that needle to have the right number.
	I would love for those members to be able to say that such a large percentage of their people are covered by doing this.
	In other words, get to a number where, say, the median income tax earners would be covered and they would have the deduction, but not high worth net worth individuals.
	Absolutely.
	I think it's super important that this tax bill is reflective of the people who sent us to Washington.
	And the people who sent us to Washington are working class Americans who just want government out of their life.
	They want to pay less taxes.
	You know, the average SALT deduction in my state, in my congressional district, is just over $1,200.
	Just over $1,200.
	Because we're a low taxing state.
	By the way, does that include property taxes too or no?
	It does.
	It does.
	Missouri is nice and it's a great place to live and do business.
	So salt covers property taxes.
	That's not something I know.
	It does.
	State and local tax is income and property.
	Got it.
	Well, I mean, it seems to me that there's going to be some increase in the deduct in the deduction.
	And then it seems like the mathematical formula will kind of center around middle income Americans in these states so that these congressmen and women can go back and say, I got you your salt deduction back.
	Exactly.
	It it has to be a very um good point for these members, but also a tolerable point for the members from Texas and Florida who don't have a state income tax and don't really utilize the salt deduction nearly as high.
	But you know, this is just one of the numerous issues.
	Like if you look at the IRA, another another item.
	You have 35 members who sent me a letter last week wanting to repeal the IRA um immediately by the roots.
	And then I had 25 different members send me a letter saying use a scalpel approach at the IRA.
	So it this is this is all part of it.
	And there's hundreds of billions of dollars in the inflation reduction act that went to woke elites that we can use to pay for the president's priorities for working class families and seniors.
	All right, quick break, right back more with Congressman Jason Smith of Missouri is in the House.
	He's spearheading this effort to get this one big beautiful bill done by July 4th.
	Uh more on the details of this on the other side, and will it pass?
	And then the Oval Office gaggle with the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, fascinating, uh will play that for you.
	And John Solomon has breaking news straight ahead.
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	All right, we continue now with Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri.
	He is spearheading the effort to get this one big beautiful bill done by July 4th.
	What are the other contentious issues that you're dealing with?
	Where do you see the biggest fights coming down?
	So another important priority in the House is to cut spending.
	And so you're looking at a lot of the discussions right now of how much spending can we cut from this current um proposal and what's tall what's tolerated by some of the members who do not like to cut spending.
	But there's there's ways that you can save revenues from work requirements on different different programs to correcting the inefficiencies.
	Like for example, if if we require a social security number um for the child tax credit in the tax code for the child and the parent, that can save over $30 billion.
	So that it's going to U.S. citizens, not illegals.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So, but this one big beautiful bill, it would do a lot of things.
	It would give the Department of Homeland Security and Christy Gnome and Tom Holman the the monies that they need to secure our border.
	My understanding it would help with energy dominance and the president's plan to expeditiously move those projects forward.
	It would deal with everything involving the economy.
	It would make the tax cuts permanent, also adding no tax on tips, social security and overtime.
	It would also allocate money and resources for national security purposes, defense, What am I missing?
	No, you covered it all very well, Sean.
	This is this is a gift to America where they can keep more of their money and not send it to the government.
	They can make sure that their border is protected, their homeland is protected.
	They can make sure that we're unleashing our energy and reducing regulations.
	This is something that would be amazing for the president to sign into law on the 4th of July.
	And this would be a great gift going into that 250th anniversary for our country.
	What are the odds it's going to be done by the last question?
	I think we have a really good shot.
	Um, you know, we're days away from um getting this bill on the floor in uh in the House of Representatives, and then popping it over to the Senate.
	The House and Senate and the White House has been working hands in glove throughout this process to make sure that we're all on the same page.
	And and we're gonna be able to deliver it.
	And I think July 4th is very, very realistic.
	All right, Jason Smith, keep us uh up to speed.
	We appreciate it, Congressman.
	Thank you so much for your time as always.
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	Um all right.
	So earlier today, by the way, at the top of the hour, we do have breaking news with uh John Solomon.
	Uh obviously Canada is a big part of it, China's a big part of it.
	But more importantly, uh, this was fascinating today.
	Watching the president with the new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney.
	Now, by the way, he fashioned himself as a commade Canadian first or Canada first politician.
	And if you look at his background, he is a radical leftist who led the net zero campaign to phase out oil, gas, and coal, champion globalism at the UN, decried as his country's, you know, truckers that were protesting over the the mandates, the the COVID mandates as anarchists, called it sedition, even wanted to prosecute Americans if they would send money to the truckers at the time.
	We cover that story extensively.
	Um, but he's a radical.
	So the president brought him in, kind of schooled him.
	You know, the only thing he fought back on, it will never be the 51st state.
	President Trump answers, never say never.
	But this this was just an interesting dynamic and very different from little Justin.
	And uh, I think it actually was very a net positive all the way around.
	But listen to the interaction.
	Thank you very much, everybody.
	Uh it's a great honor to have Prime Minister Mark Carney with us, as you know.
	Just uh a few days ago, he won a very big election in Canada.
	And uh I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him, but I can't say vote.
	They were his party was losing by a lot.
	He ended up winning, so I really want to congratulate him.
	Was one of probably one of the greatest comebacks in the history of politics, maybe even greater than mine, you know.
	But I want to just uh congratulate you.
	That was a great election, actually.
	We were watching it with interest, and I think uh Canada chose a very talented person, a very good person, as we spoke before the election quite a few times.
	And uh it's an honor to have you at the White House and the Oval Office.
	You see the new and improved Oval Office as it uh becomes more and more beautiful with love, you know.
	We handle it with great love, and 24 karat goal, that always helps too, right?
	But it's uh it's been uh a lot of fun going over some of the beautiful pictures that were stored in the vaults that were for many, many years, in some cases over a hundred years.
	It was stored in vaults of the uh great presidents who are almost great presidents, all having a reason for being up, every one of them.
	So it's very interesting.
	But I just want to congratulate you and uh ran a really great race.
	I watched the debate.
	I thought you were excellent.
	And I think we have a lot of things in common.
	We have some tough, tough points to go over, and that'll be fine.
	We're gonna also be discussing Ukraine-Russia, the war, because uh Mark wants it ended as quickly as I do.
	I think it has to end.
	Uh we had some very good news last night.
	The Houthis have announced that they are not, or they've announced to us at least, that they don't want to fight anymore.
	They just don't want to fight.
	And uh we will honor that, and we will uh we will stop the bombings, and uh they have capitulated, but more importantly, they uh we will take their word.
	They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that's what the purpose of what we were doing.
	So that's just news we just found out about that.
	So uh I think that's very very positive.
	They were they were knocking out a lot of ships going uh as you know, uh sailing beautifully down the various seas.
	It uh it wasn't just the canal, it was a lot of other places, and uh I will accept their word, and uh we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis, uh effective immediately.
	And we'll have maybe before we're going to, as you know, the Middle East, uh, Saudi Arabia, we're going to uh UAE in Qatar, and that'll be I guess Monday night.
	Some of you are coming with us.
	I think before then we're gonna have a very, very big announcement to make, like as big as it gets, and I won't tell you on what, but it's gonna and it's very positive.
	I'd also I tell you if it was negative or positive.
	I can't keep that out.
	It is really, really positive.
	And that announcement will be made either Thursday or Friday or Monday before we leave.
	But it'll be one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain subject, very important subject.
	So you'll all be here.
	Uh Mark, would you like to say a few words?
	Um thank you, Mr. President.
	I'm I'm on the edge of my seat.
	Um but uh thank you for your hospitality and uh and above all for your for your leadership.
	Uh you're uh you're a transformational president, uh focus on the economy with a relentless focus on the American worker, uh securing your borders, um, providing uh ending the scourge of fentanyl uh and other opioids and uh and securing the world.
	And I've been elected uh with uh with my colleagues here, with the help of my colleagues here.
	I'm gonna spread spread the uh uh the uh credit uh to transform Canada um with a similar focus on the economy, securing our borders, uh again on fentanyl, uh much greater focus on defense and security, securing the Arctic and developing the Arctic.
	Um and you know, the history of Canada and the U.S. is we're stronger when we work together, and there's many opportunities to work together, and I look forward to you know addressing some of those issues that we have, but also uh finding those areas of mutual cooperation so we can go forward.
	That's great.
	Very nice.
	Thank you very much.
	It's very nice statement.
	Anyone's US MCA dead.
	No, uh it was actually very effective, and it's still very effective, but uh uh people have to follow it.
	So, you know, that's been a problem.
	Uh people haven't followed it.
	But it's a it was a uh transitional step a little bit, and uh as you know, it it terminates fairly shortly.
	It it gets renegotiated very shortly.
	But I thought it was a very positive uh step from NAFTA.
	NAFTA was the worst trade deal in the history of our country, probably in the history of the world.
	And uh this was a transitional uh deal, and uh we'll see what happens.
	You know, we'll we're gonna be start starting to possibly renegotiate that if it's even necessary.
	I don't know that it's necessary anymore, but it served a very good purpose.
	And the biggest purpose it served is we got rid of NAFTA.
	NAFTA was a very unfair deal for the United States, very, very terrible deal.
	It should have never been made.
	It was made many years ago, but it should have never been made.
	Canada and the United States, would you like to see the first trade deal?
	I would I would love that.
	Look, I have a lot of respect for this man.
	And I watched him uh come up in a sense through the ranks uh when he wasn't given much of a chance, and he did it.
	He ran a really great that might hurt you.
	But uh no, he ran a really great election, I thought.
	And yeah, something could happen.
	Something could happen.
	Yeah, please.
	What's the top concession you want out of Canada?
	The top concession you want out of Canada.
	Concession?
	Yes.
	Uh friendship.
	But that's not a concession.
	No, I'm just I just we're gonna be friends with Canada.
	Regardless of anything, we're gonna be friends with Canada.
	Canada is a very special place uh to me.
	I know so many people that live in Canada.
	Uh my parents had relatives that lived in Canada, my mother in particular.
	And uh no, we I love Canada.
	A lot of I have a lot of uh respect for the Canadians, Wayne Gretzky.
	I mean, how good the great one.
	Uh you happen to have a very, very good hockey player right here on the Capitals, who I have a lot of reasons.
	He is a big tough cookie, too.
	Just broke the record, and he's a great guy.
	And uh, you know, we had the uh we had the team here, and I got to know a lot of the players.
	But uh now uh Canada is a very special place.
	Yeah, please.
	Mr. President, uh Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to get your responsibilities too.
	Mr. President, you would have said that Canada should become the 31st day.
	No, no, well, I still believe that, but but you know, it takes two to tango, right?
	Uh but no, I do.
	I mean, I believe it would be uh a massive tax cut for the Canadian citizens.
	Uh you get free military, you get tremendous uh medical cares and other things.
	Uh there'd be a lot of uh advantages, but it would be it would be a massive tax cut.
	And it's also a beautiful, you know, as a real estate developer, you know, I'm a real estate developer at heart.
	When you get rid of that artificially drawn line, somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across the top of the country.
	When you look at that beautiful formation when it's together, I'm a very artistic person.
	But when I looked at that beautiful, I said that's the way it was meant to be.
	But you know, it's uh I just I do feel it's much better for Canada, but we're not gonna be discussing that unless somebody wants to discuss it.
	I think that um there are tremendous benefits to the Canadian citizens, tremendously lower taxes, free military, which honestly we give you essentially anyway, because we're protecting Canada if you ever had a problem.
	But uh I think it, you know, it's uh it would really be a wonderful marriage because it's it's two places they get along very well.
	They like each other a lot.
	Well, if if if I may, um as you know from real estate, there are some places that uh are never for sale.
	That's true.
	Uh we're sitting in one right now, you know, Buckingham Palace, and you visited as well.
	That's true.
	Uh and um having met with uh the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, uh last several months.
	Uh it it it's not for sale, won't be for sale uh ever.
	Uh but the opportunity is in the partnership and uh and and what we can build together.
	We have done that in the past, and part of that, as the president just said, is with respect to our own security.
	Uh and my government is committed for a step change in our investment in Canadian security and our partnership.
	And I'll say this as well uh that the president has uh revitalized uh international security, revitalized NATO and us playing our full weight uh in NATO, and that will be part of it.
	That's true.
	And they have they have I must say Canada is stepping up the military uh participation because uh uh Mark knew you know they were low and now they're stepping it up, and that's a very important thing.
	But never say never.
	Never say never.
	What?
	What?
	take this a message!
	What would it take to get the terrorists off of Canada?
	Well, we'll be talking about different things.
	You know, we want to protect our automobile business, and so does Mark.
	But we want to protect, we want to make the automobiles, and we want to, you know, we have a tremendous abundance of energy more than any country.
	We have uh just in Alaska alone.
	Anwar has been reopened now, and was one of probably the largest find anywhere in the world.
	They say it's larger than Saudi Arabia.
	I don't know, but it's a lot.
	But we have uh tremendous amounts of energy.
	Other countries don't.
	We're both lucky in that way.
	They have energy, we have energy, we have more than we can ever use, and More than we could ever sell, actually, and you have the same thing.
	We're gonna have a great announcement over the next few days.
	An announcement that will be uh so so incredible, so positive.
	And I'm not saying I don't want you to think it's necessarily on trade.
	Uh just to finish, we also have a situation because everyone says, when, when?
	When are you gonna sign deals?
	We don't have to sign deals.
	We could sign 25 deals right now, Howard, if we wanted.
	We don't have to sign deals.
	They have to sign deals with us.
	They want a piece of our market.
	We don't want a piece of their market.
	We don't care about their market.
	They want a piece of our market.
	So we can just sit down and I'll do this at some point over the next two weeks.
	And I'll sit with Howard and Scott and with with our great vice president who has done a really good job.
	We have some good news to report on a lot of fronts, but JD will be there and Marco, and we're gonna sit down and we're gonna put very fair numbers down, and we're gonna say, here's what this country, what we want, and congratulations, we have a deal.
	And they'll either say, Great, and they'll start shopping, or they'll say, not good, we're not gonna do it.
	I said, That's okay, you don't have to shop.
	Now, we may think, well, they have a right, you know, they're that maybe we were a little bit wrong, so we'll adjust it.
	And then you people will say, Oh, it's so chaotic.
	No, we're flexible.
	But we'll sit down and we'll at some point, some in some cases we'll sign some deals.
	It's much less important than what I'm talking about.
	For the most part, we're just gonna put down a number and say this is what you're gonna pay to shop.
	And it's gonna be a very fair number.
	It'll be a low number.
	We're not looking to hurt countries.
	We want to help countries.
	We want to be friendly with countries.
	So I wish they'd keep, you know, stop asking how many deals are you signing this week?
	Because one day we'll come and we'll give you a hundred deals.
	And they don't have to sign.
	All they have to do is say, Oh, we'll start sending our ships right now to pick up whatever we want or to bring whatever we want.
	It's very, very simple.
	And I think my people haven't made it clear.
	We will sign some deals, but much bigger than that is we're gonna put down the price that people are gonna have to pay to shop in the United States.
	Think of us as a super luxury store.
	A store that has the goods.
	You're gonna come and you're gonna pay a price, and we're gonna give you a very good price.
	We're gonna make very good deals, and in some cases we'll adjust.
	But that's where it is.
	All right, quick break, we'll come right back.
	We'll continue on the other side, 800-941-SHAWN, our number, and John Solomon at the top of the hour as we continue.
	We'll continue.
	The golden years are back.
	Made America great again.
	Hang on, it's gonna be fun.
	Sean Hannity 2025 is on right now.
	Music
	All right, the FBI is warning every single American and user of popular email services, even like Gmail Outlook.
	You've got to be watching out for this increase in ransomware attacks.
	Uh, all of us are subject to identity theft and fraud and abuse.
	More than 300 victims in this case, ransomware, uh, across a variety of business industries, entire industries now have been targeted uh just in February of 2025 alone.
	Now, to protect yourself, your data, your good name, reputation, your finances, you've got to use unique passwords.
	Uh VPNs if accessing your information on any public Wi-Fi.
	And we all have to understand uh lots of places can even accidentally expose your personal information.
	And that's why lifelog.com exists because they monitor millions of data points a second for any risk to your identity.
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	Call 1-800 LifeLock or go to lifelog.com, promo code Hannity, 40% off, and protect your name, finances, and reputation.
	When we come back, John Solomon on a variety of breaking news issues and your calls, 800-941-SHAWN.
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	Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
	From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco Benghazi.
	What difference at this point does it make?
	Listen to Fiasco Benghazi on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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