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July 23, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
30:32
The Butler Attempt - July 22nd, Hour 3
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This is an iHeart Podcast.
Coming up next, our final news roundup and information overload hour.
All right, news roundup information overload hour.
Toll free.
Our number is 800-941 Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, is you know, whenever you listen to President Trump, I I think he has forever tattooed uh the words fake and news into the brands of fake news CNN, MSDNC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, MBC, CBS, which is why in 2007, I declared that journalism is dead.
And after this last election, I said that legacy media is dead, and I was proven right because they threw every lie, every conspiracy theory, every attack they could ever think of.
Uh, gave Kamala and Joe the, you know, the soft glove treatment the entire time.
Joe's president.
They never called out Joe's cognitive decline.
They never called out the open borders.
They never told the truth about the economy.
And the American people have come to not only uh distrust them, but they distrust them deeply, and they they just totally negated anything they reported or had to say about Trump in the lead up to this last election.
They have no influence anymore.
Uh there are outlets, thank God.
Uh we have talk radio still, thank God.
We have Fox News and and people like me and some others that that give fair opinion that get, you know, this I was telling this to Patrick Beth David today on his podcast, and I said, you know, there's a reason that is not luck that I've got Richard Jewell right, that I got Duke LaCrosse right, that I got UVA right, that I got Freddie Gray in Baltimore right, that I got Ferguson Missouri right, that I got George Zimmerman right.
Uh there's a reason we got the Russia hoax right, with the reason we got FISA abuse right, the Ukrainian, you know, phony impeachment right, uh, the 51 former Intel officials right, and all these other other media outlets get everything wrong.
And sometimes that means I go a little bit slower.
You know, whenever I see people just like racing to a conclusion, you know, that usually, you know, gives me reason to pause.
And and I've been a little hesitant.
The the story about the Epstein files is a I I just know instinctively is not done as evidenced today by new information uh that Maxwell is going to be interviewed by Pam Pondy, number one, that the grand jury uh testimony has been requested to be released.
And do I think that they believed that there was more information that could be shared with the public before they actually got to it?
Yeah.
Um, but with all of that said, you know, Merrick Garland, Joe Biden, his Justice Department had all this information, and they never they never did anything with it, which tells me Nia it doesn't have the stuff they that people think might exist on Trump.
But I think more people are concerned about, oh, is there any information in there about known pedophiles or associates with him?
You have to be careful with that too, because you know, this guy seems like a guy that was uh, let's see, a star chaser.
I will say that very nicely.
Did I that that was done pretty eloquently, wouldn't you say?
I would.
Because he he wanted to be around very famous people.
And so he put themselves in in their orbit.
Uh, you know, everybody seems to forget that Donald Trump threw this guy out on his ass twenty plus years ago from Mar-a-Lago in a pretty humiliating way.
And if Donald Trump thought this guy had anything on him, I kind of tend to doubt that that would have gone down that way.
Uh, but with that said, um, you know, what I said today on this podcast, it turned out to be exactly true was I got home and I'm like, oh, they're gonna interview Giselle in in prison.
Maxwell.
And so they're not hiding anything.
I I just thought people rush to judgment all the time.
And if if it means that I'm not gonna be first on a story, but I'm gonna get the story right, I'd rather be right.
Uh one story that I knew from the beginning we were being lied to about was what happened a little over now a year ago, but just about we just passed the one year mark of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And I'll tell you, it was within one millimeter, and Donald Trump loses his life.
He would have been assassinated.
What's frustrating to learn is that there was information available of of a threat to the president and well, then candidate, but former President Trump, candidate Trump, uh ten days ahead of that incident.
Kimberly Cheadle, who was the Secret Service director at the time, tried to make the claim, well, it's a sloped roof, so we didn't want the agents on a slope roof.
Should that roof have been secure, period?
That building in particular has a sloped roof uh at its highest point.
Um and so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be cons considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof.
Uh and so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building uh from inside.
Who is most responsible for this happening?
What I would say is that the Secret Service is responsible for the protection of the former president.
So the buck stops with you?
The buck stops with me.
I am the director of the Secret Service.
You plan to stay on, absolutely.
I do plan to stay on.
Um you know, I've spoken to several people who look at the perimeter, hearing that news, look at the perimeter, and say how, knowing that there was a credible threat against the former president, how could that perimeter be uh so small that it excluded a building just 150 yards away from the podium?
I can't get into the specifics of of any threats, uh, but obviously with all of our protectees, we're constantly monitoring the threats that are out there, and we design our security plan based on that, uh also depending on the venue and the environment that we're in.
And on that particular day, uh a full advance had been completed.
But this is also why we are doing an internal review.
Was that perimeter too small?
The perimeter encompassed the area that we needed to secure for the event uh that that we had on that day.
What happened is a terrible incident and should never happen, and we are obviously going to make sure that moving forward we take whatever lessons we that come out of this and adjust accordingly.
Was every element, every part of his from the intelligence to the counter assault team to the detail agents to the shift agents?
I mean every element top to bottom of the advance in the operation was every element increased after you learned of this credible threat.
What we increased was what we felt was appropriate for the former president and for that particular event on that day.
We have been increasing the assets and the resources and the staffing that we have been providing to the former president uh since he was a presidential candidate, and then the presumptive nominee, if that's what I can tell you.
That sounds like a no.
I am not saying a no at all.
I'm saying that we are have continued to increase the resources that we've been providing to the former president.
Did the Secret Service use any drones for surveillance that day?
So again, I'm not gonna get into specifics of that day in itself, but there are times uh during a security plan that the Secret Service does deploy an asset like a drone.
There were reports that the shooter used a drone just a few hours before the rally.
Start time.
Is that accurate?
I have heard those same reports, and again, am waiting for the final report.
Do you know if you can't answer the question, that's your answer.
But can you answer this?
Do you know?
Do you know?
I'm not asking yes or no, but do you know if the shooter used a drone before the shooting?
That information has been passed to us from the FBI.
At any point Saturday, did the Secret Service have an agent on top of that roof?
Sir, I'm sure as you can imagine that we are just nine days out from this uh incident and there's still an ongoing investigation.
And so I want to make sure that any information that we are providing to the other.
Okay.
Why did the Secret Service not can you answer why the Secret Service didn't place a single agent on the roof?
We are still looking into the advanced process and the decisions that were made.
Okay, okay.
Wasn't that building within the perimeter that should be secured?
Do we agree with that?
The building was outside of the perimeter on the day of the visit.
But again, that is one of the things that during the investigation we want to take a look at and determine whether or not other decisions should have been made.
Meanwhile, the roof where the one FBI agent, it was not a Secret Service agent, took the shot that took down the would-be assassin, uh, was on a much steeper slope roof than the one that Kimberly Cheadle claimed was too steep for these guys to be on.
Now I did roofing in my life.
I fell over for roof nearly three stories and busted up my arm and my face pretty good.
And long story short, I know what a steep roof looks like.
This uh this is the type of roof.
It's one of those metal roofs in the wintertime.
If you have you know sprayed it with a water hose, I mean you could skate on it and not be at risk of falling off if you're not a skate.
Uh it was a ridiculous argument she was making.
Then then she you know, rather than put people around the perimeter of that building so nobody can get on the roof of that building and have a line uh shot line to the to President Trump, you know, they said, Well, we put the agents inside.
Well, what's the point of putting agents on the inside?
That's the dumbest thing you could do.
And we never got to the bottom of it.
But that harrowing day um was, you know, we all will remember where we were when we saw this, either in real time like I did, or whether you know, you you saw it later, we all have seen this.
And when President Trump will never forget got up and he had all that blood on his face, I just thought, uh oh, he might drop.
Because sometimes if you've ever been out hunting, you can hit an animal and they'll go down, but then they get up again only to fall again.
And it's it I was really concerned that they got his head.
And thank God they did not.
Uh but right next to the president of that day was somebody, uh reporter that President Trump likes a lot.
There was a great article recently about Selena Zito.
Trump hates the media.
This is the one journalist he loves.
I she is by far the best, you know, she really knows not only the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but she knows all of these states like Michigan and Ohio and Wisconsin really, really well, but Pennsylvania in particular.
Anyway, she wrote the definitive book on this, and she's now a national political reporter for the Washington Examiner, and it's called Butler, the untold story of the near assassination of Donald Trump and the fight for America's Heartland.
Uh Selena very early on was one of the people telling me that Donald Trump absolutely was going to win uh all three states and in you know the blue wall, if you will, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Uh first congratulations on the book.
We have a link on Hannity.com.
You can get it on Amazon.com.
It's in bookstores around the country.
How close were you were you to the president that day?
Because I spoke to you shortly thereafter.
Yeah.
Uh it w that that day, um, after he was shot, uh the uh first of all, I was not I wasn't supposed to be where I was standing.
He was also not supposed to be doing what he was doing.
And and that led to conversations the next day with him when he called me and he talked about purpose and the hand of God in that moment.
Uh but uh uh uh he never has a chart, and i i i if if he does, if he does, it's on the other side and it's the end of the event.
He also never takes his gaze away from uh the people attending the rally.
He may turn his body, he never turns his head.
But he did both things.
And it was in that moment that the four shots went out over my head.
I saw him grab his ear, I saw him go down, I I saw the blood on his face.
But what I would I um what what I noted immediately was that he took himself down.
So I felt a little sense of relief in that moment.
Time does really stand still still during uh traumatic events, and it seemed to happen in layers.
The the service around him.
Um the next round of shots go again over my head, and and um they keep him in a protective stance uh uh around him until they get him off stage.
But I think what's really important, Sean, and I think people don't know enough about this, what happened after.
He calls me the next morning.
We talked we talk about purpose.
But I asked him, and he said he called me seven times.
And I asked him, sir, why did you say fight, fight, fight?
And he said, Well, Selena, and that moment I wasn't Donald Trump the man.
I was representing everything that is strong about this country.
And I needed to show that we endure, we go on, that that grit and that exceptionalism that we are known for is is standing steady.
I had an obligation to be that symbol.
I was afraid that if I wasn't, the people there might stampede, might run out, or the people at home.
And and so as a president uh or as a former president, I needed to show as much strength as possible.
Well, I had that conversation with him you know, shortly thereafter as well.
And you know, I was feverishly texting everybody that I knew was there and around him.
And in a very short period of time, I was told he was okay, much sooner than anyone else.
And I'm pretty and then I went straight to the studios and and got on TV that day.
And um, just like the day the Trump International incident occurred, I went to breakfast with Steve Whitcoff, who's now the Mideast envoy, and he was begging me to play golf with him and Trump that day.
And I'm like, I don't I don't play enough golf.
You're scratch golfers.
I'm it's gonna suck for me.
And uh, you know, within an hour I got a phone call, they tried to kill him.
And now that that's not what happened, but shots went off.
It was this one sharpshooter, but they didn't even sweep what happened.
I mean, this we have to reform this.
Selena Zito, appreciate it.
Thank you.
Quick break, right back.
More of your phone calls coming up.
800, 941 Shauna's our number if you want to be a part of the program.
I'm 25 till the top of the hour 800, 941 Sean our number.
You want to be a part of the program.
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Unbelievable.
All right, let's uh get to our busy, busy telephones.
Uh let's say hi to Chris in Michigan.
Chris, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Thanks.
Long time listener, first time caller.
What's going on?
Glad you called.
Yeah, uh I heard yesterday uh something about you wanted to run for president.
And uh I didn't say I wanted to run for president.
Linda said there's a lot of chatter that I'm thinking about running for president.
I don't know where it came from.
You and You know, they there's all over the internet right now pictures of me at my wedding getting married.
They have pictures of me, you know, crying as as my bride is singing to me.
It never happened.
I have my best friends calling me.
Well, you didn't have to invite me, but you could have at least told me, and I'm like, it didn't happen.
It did not, it's all AI generated.
I have cake, you know, wedding cake being shoved in my face.
I have pictures of me holding up, you know, sonograms like I'm about to have a baby uh or holding twins.
I mean, Linda, have you seen all this garbage?
I have.
I've answered the same questions like, why don't you tell me?
Did you go?
And I was like, yes, the cake was amazing.
Delish.
All right, you know how I feel about weddings.
That's a different story for a different day.
Um, but anyway, I don't I digress, Chris.
So people are saying it if they're talking about it.
Why do you think I should or shouldn't run?
Well, absolutely.
I think you should.
You and Bill, you'd have a heck of a team.
But would you still uh yell at Linda for drinking that green stuff for uh when she's your president could you imagine Linda's press secretary?
It would be awesome.
I don't want to be press secretary, I want to be chief of staff.
I'm gonna fire everybody and get this place in shit.
No, no, no.
No, I couldn't handle it.
I couldn't handle it.
I think I'm gonna put you like in the department of education in another building.
That's not fair.
That would be well, actually, she would love it because she's one of these, you know, tiger moms that goes to the school board meetings and gives them hell.
It probably was investigated as a domestic terrorist.
I'm sure under Biden.
You have to.
Man, God forbid you open your mouth.
What what job would you really want, Linda?
That's a good question.
I want to be chief of staff.
I want to be the boss.
I'm going to tell everybody what to do.
I want to be, you know, the Linda version of Susie Wiles.
All right.
I'll be there.
Oh man.
I'll take your silence as complete and utter agreement.
So thank you for that vote of confidence.
I'll take it over.
No, because there would be a long list of do's and don'ts that you would absolutely hate.
And then you'll be able to do that.
No, there wouldn't because I'm making the list.
The chief of staff is not the boss.
You're not the boss.
Come on.
We all know who's handling the day-to-day.
You're gonna be out there, you know, hobnobbing with the presidents and the prime ministers and talking about it.
I'd be hands-on, man.
I'd be like, Yeah, you'd be like Trump.
You'd be like Trump.
You'd be in the, you know, the Oval Office and have a lot of people.
I am like Trump.
You know why?
Because I talk to him at every hour at different hours of the day and night.
I mean, there's not an hour on the 24 hour clock that I have not had a conversation with him at some point.
Not a single one.
And who do you think is running the roost when he's on the phone?
I think I think one of the reasons we became close friends is because I'm like the last person standing that he knows is awake.
He kind of got stuck with me.
Well, he got stuck with you, and America got stuck with Susie Wiles.
And Susie Wiles is rolling the roost.
She didn't get we didn't get stuck with Susie.
She's she's crushing it.
Oh my god.
Doing a great job.
I was using your word.
It meant nothing.
Oh.
All right.
Well, anyway, Chris, I I do not have any intentions of running for any office.
I'm not sure I could get elected dog catcher, to be honest, but I am I I am absolutely positively honored that anybody would think that of me.
Uh, but you know, we'll see what happens.
I don't know.
You don't really think people mean this, do you, Linda?
I do.
I mean, honestly, it's nice to have a disruptor.
You know what else is nice?
And I really do feel this way.
I was saying this the other day to somebody.
It would be nice to have people in office that have done things other than public office their entire life.
Ran businesses, you know, maybe did something with their hands, actually did something other than just sitting in an office making rules that other people have to follow and you don't.
It's a wonderful thing.
I'll tell you one of the main things I would want to do more than anything else.
I would want to look out for the people that make this country great.
My platform would be about hardworking men and women in this country.
It would be a good thing.
Exactly.
The farmers, the truckers, the people that are working retail.
The people we love.
We are looking at some of these farms right now, and I'm watching, thank God the administration's getting involved, but places like Oregon and California and Washington and putting in all these ridiculous rules making it absolutely impossible for farmers to do their job.
I'm like, hello, Brooke Rollins, we need help.
People are getting killed out there.
Thank God we have an administration actually paying attention.
Yeah.
Uh all right, let's get back to our busy phones.
Uh let us say hello to Chris in my free state of Florida.
What's up, Chris?
How are you?
Glad you called.
Doing good, Mr. Hannity.
You're doing good.
Uh I heard they got that UFC event coming up at the White House.
And what do you think?
The odds are getting Don Jr. to call out Hunter Biden for running his mouth on the podcast.
And listen to it.
That would be that would be a great card.
If he won't do it, I'd do it.
Oh, yeah.
Trump versus Biden.
Family honor.
It would be awesome.
Uh it would be pretty cool.
Never gonna happen, but it would be very cool.
I love the way you think.
I think that'd be a great card.
That'd be that'd be pretty awesome.
You know, the first call I got on the that um you can guess, by the way.
Uh but the first call, take a guess, Chris, who called me that they wanted tickets.
Take a guess.
Don Jr.
No, Don Jr. wouldn't need to call me.
Uh Linda, you want to give a guess?
Who in my life wanted tickets for this?
I would say Glenn.
Sensei.
No, but that's a darn good guess.
My son.
Oh, I just figured he's like a given.
Can me and Morgan go, Dad.
I'm like, Dad, please, Dad.
Please.
You know what I give my son for like presents?
Like my son, it was game seven.
The Florida Panthers were playing Toronto.
It was a tough series.
Toronto had a good team this year, and they they they didn't play their best in that series, but they won back-to-back Stanley Cups.
And it was a work day the next day.
And and my son runs two businesses on his own, and we work together in another one.
He goes, Dad, I gotta I'm me and my friends were going to Toronto.
I'm like, What?
He goes, Yeah, I'm gonna take a day off.
Is that okay?
I'm like, you mean you make your own schedule, just get the work done.
And so he goes to Toronto, and then he comes back and he goes, That's a hellhole up there.
That's what he said to me.
Um, but he went up there and the Panthers won, and they won back to back Stanley Cups.
I love my Panthers.
Love my Panthers.
All right, Chris, appreciate it.
It's good, it's good.
It's gonna be only you know what?
Make America fun again.
I like that too.
Greg in California, the United Socialist Utopia of Gavin Newsom.
How are you?
Haven doesn't like me like he used to.
I don't know why.
I'm doing good, Sean.
Good to talk to you again.
What's going on?
Good to talk to you.
Uh you had good news yesterday.
In and out's leaving California, coming the East Coast.
You don't have to just come to California anymore to get the burgers.
You gotta thank Newsom and the Democrats for that, you know, because that's the only good thing for you that the Democrats of Newsombury dad.
So I had a conversation uh in the past with Lindsay Schneider, who is the CEO of the company.
Um very, very nice woman.
And they had never planned to well, first of all, there's no franchises in In N Out Burger.
Um, I think it's one of the best burgers I've ever had.
That burger, crown burger.
There's a couple that I really really love.
And I'm like, I I literally begged her to please come to Florida.
And I was I was turned down flat.
She just said, no, but we weren't planning on going to Tennessee.
Well when she gave the reason why I thought it was interesting.
Here's what she said uh in the podcast with Allie Beth Stuckey.
We're building an office in front in Franklin, so I'm actually moving out there.
And how do you feel about that?
You you're like a California girl through, right?
Yeah, I I mean I really loved living in Nort Northern California, and I'm so thankful that I grew up up there.
Like you said, there's a lot of great things about California, but um raising a family is not easy here.
I mean, it she basically is coming to the same conclusion.
They're gonna build headquarters in in Nashville, uh, which is where Franklin is, and uh she's moving to a great part of the country.
I have a lot of friends that live in Tennessee, a lot of them, and it's a great state.
I think I it's it may actually be slightly edge out Florida in terms of lowest taxes.
They're really a good state, good people, and it's got cool areas.
It's got like Nashville and Music Row.
I mean, if you like music like I do, it's it's a pretty awesome place.
You have to if you haven't been there, it's fun.
That's where we were actually on a no, it was in Vegas.
It was John Rich's bar when Linda weirdly started dancing by herself.
It was very strange.
Such a weird and ridiculous rumor.
You consistently mistled that story.
It's not a rumor.
You would were you or were you not dancing by yourself?
I wasn't a crowd of people dancing.
Who are you dancing with?
A ghost.
Did you hear yourself?
Was I dancing by myself?
First of all, you're always dancing by yourself unless you're slow dancing, first of all.
Second of all, I don't need to wait for you.
It's not like you were freestyling with somebody on the other side.
There were all these people out on the dance floor dancing with a few.
Yeah, we rolled it.
You're out there dancing by yourself.
You were dancing by yourself.
Listen, it's not my fault that people on our team don't know how to shake it.
I do.
I went into the street.
I don't know how to shake it.
That's right.
I saw you.
You and that wall were doing very well together.
You held it up nice.
I like my wall.
I like watching other people look stupid.
I did not look stupid.
I look good.
I went out on the dance floor.
It was amazing.
There's nothing natural about dancing.
And no guy, I don't care what you're doing.
Nothing natural.
Nothing.
No guy likes the dance.
You are a mystery to me.
How could you not be able to do that?
No mystery neutral.
There's no idea.
You don't just stand there.
You never hear a song and just like, you know, tap your phone or like really.
No.
Really?
Not one song.
No guy, not no guy likes to.
So who was the guy on stage?
Every guy I let's put it this way.
There are guys that actually do like the dance that are really good at it and they work hard at it.
Is there a side of the city?
That's not my thing.
Let's put it this way.
Okay.
You're full of crap.
You were on stage with Charlie Daniels and you were singing and dancing and running across the stage.
And there's video.
I was not.
Oh!
The devil went down the troll because he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind, he was way behind, so he was willing to make a deal.
When he came across this young man, so I don't know if they were playing it hot, a little devil jumped up on the hit face on the shit.
Boy, let me tell you what, I guess you didn't know, but I'm a film player too.
And if you can't make it hit fair, I'll make a bit with you.
And you play pretty much film boy give the devil's new.
I'll be the pedal of gold against your soul, because I think I'm better than you.
I sing.
I'll take your event.
You're gonna regret because I'm the best there's ever been.
All right, are we done?
And I did it many times on stage with a great in addition, and yes, he's amazing, and we love him missing.
I did not dance when I did it.
I ran across the stage and was throwing around football.
No, I wasn't shaking.
Yeah.
No.
I invite the audience to shake and no bacon with Mr. Hannity on stage with Mr. Charlie.
Oh, put it up on Hannity.com and vote is Sean dancing or running.com.
Well, there's no and the poll question is going to be Is Sean dancing when he sings the devil went down to Georgia, or is he running?
That's not a fair question because you're doing that.
Now if you lose if you lose, do you have to go on dancing with the stars?
Yes, you do.
That's it.
Okay, well, let me tell first of all, they would never have me, number one.
I'd have higher odds of running for dog catcher.
And as I said, I couldn't run for dog catcher.
That's the whole point of going on dancing with the stars.
You go on and then you learn how to actually dance, like you know, like professional.
That's nice.
Get to move your feet.
You know what?
I have no desire to be a dancer.
You do crav my god.
That takes a lot of coordination.
Pravaga is not dancing.
It's breaking, punching, killing, the you know, uh destroying somebody in in 20 to 30 seconds, and it's all over.
The dance is over.
Well, anyways, I invite our audience to go to Hannity.com.
I'm putting this poll up right now, and I look forward to you all voting with me.
Thank you very much.
No, no, no, no.
Don't vote with Linda, because it's not true.
Yes, vote with Linda.
Linda, what's Linda l no Linda's nothing?
See how you're stuttering?
That means you're full of crap.
You're welcome.
It's going great.
You're doing good.
It's really good.
Nine Eastern on the Fox News channel, New Kingrich, Ted Cruz, Mark Wayne Mullen, uh, Christy Gnome, and Clay Travis.
Set you D VR, nine Eastern tonight.
Hannity on Fox.
We'll see you tonight, back here tomorrow.
Thank you for making this show possible.
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