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Aug. 20, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
28:57
Trump Doctrine Explained - August 19th, Hour 1
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All right.
Thank you, Scott Shannon, and thanks to all of you for being with us.
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It's amazing how many people want to engage me and discuss the issue of America's role in the world.
And if you ask, my short answer is I support the Trump doctrine.
Military equipment is advancing so quickly as...
And it's going to be a revolution in the next five years.
Never mind the next ten years, but the next generation of weaponry is here and it's more sophisticated than ever.
I'm not wrong in my observation that future conflicts, future wars are not going to be fought traditionally on battlefields.
They're going to be fought with drones and advanced military equipment that we are not even thinking of today.
And also are the Golden Dome is going to be critical and vital to America's security at some point down the line.
I'm I'm pretty convinced of that.
Maybe maybe we'll all be long gone by the time it's necessary, but I think moving in that direction may end up being Trump's greatest legacy.
It ended up being one of Ronald Reagan's greatest legacies.
And you know, but if you want me to sum up what I believe, and it it's it's it's not a there's not a pure formula to really explain to you, except that I accept the Trump doctrine as what I think is the best course of action for America, especially in today's world.
And what is the Trump doctrine?
All right, you start with no forever wars.
The president has been consistent both in his first term and a second term, that that is a non starter for him.
I totally completely agree with him.
And then that however some have interpreted that wrongly so to mean isolationism.
And I don't believe that that is the right course of action either.
And it, you know, the president is not an isolationist, although I think there are people that would like to convince you that he is.
He's not an isolationist.
I mean, President Trump showed that in his first term.
The ISIS caliphate, remember, convert or die.
I don't know how many of you remember the images of people being beheaded on beaches by ISIS, you know, their their philosophy, their ideology, they want to convert the whole world or die in the process of and martyrdom and everything associated with that radicalism.
And that whole ISIS caliphate grew during the Obama years, just like Crimea was annexed during the Obama years.
So no forever wars, but that doesn't mean isolationism.
That doesn't mean that I think President Trump made the right call, defeating the ISIS caliphate.
He never got the credit that he really deserved for that, or taking out the world's worst terrorist, the person responsible for killing Americans in Iraq and elsewhere around the world, uh, responsible for orchestrating Iran and as being the number one state sponsor of terror, that would be General Solomani, which was an incredible military strike uh by President Trump and a successful one.
The same thing with Baghdadian associates, and the same thing with dropping the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan.
I think at each point, each decision, each inflection point, I think that Donald Trump made the right decision.
Uh I'm not exactly sure why there was any hesitation among some conservatives on the issue of taking out Iran's nuclear sites.
To me, it was a no-brainer.
You have the number one state sponsor of terror.
They chant death to America, they chant death to Israel.
We know that they have been building bigger and bigger, more powerful, more lethal, ballistic missile systems, and we know they've been in pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
And I think whenever it's A squared, B squared, C squared to me, and that is that if you have a sick twisted ideology of convert or die, and you're threatening to wipe Israel and America off the map, and he they specifically were threatening to hit once they had the ballistic capability of doing so, hitting the continental United States with those missiles.
Uh it was a clear and present danger that was that one could foresee down the road, and and we had to act, and we had to take out the Iranian nuclear sites, or else the world would be a far more dangerous place.
And so I think the president has has pretty much thread the needle perfectly, and then the larger question becomes well, what role should America play in the world?
I think you can make an argument that maybe, and and there was a very strong isolationist contingent during World War II, which kept America, America held back, did not want to get involved in Europe's conflict.
And meanwhile, you're watching the the rise of Adolf Hitler and his expansionism, and ultimately Pearl Harbor happens and Winston Churchill visits and wouldn't leave the White House of FDR, and lo and behold America's involved in a conflict in Europe and a conflict against in the Pacific against the uh Japanese.
My father fought in the Pacific for four years.
It wasn't the best four years of his life as I was young and curious and asking questions.
He never wanted to talk about it like ever, because he lost friends during that conflict.
You know, at what point does the world does America have to see evil for what it is emerging and maybe root out the cancer before it metastasizes and becomes something that much larger and that much more difficult and that much more complicated to get rid of.
Now that now you you again, you're threading a needle.
You don't want America to be the world's policeman.
That's not the situation here with Ukraine and Russia.
It just isn't.
I mean, the president sees an opportunity to accomplish something that no other world leader can accomplish.
The president and and this is I this is where I said yesterday I I really blame Europe a lot for where we are with Russia, because none of these European leaders in in in forever, and by the way, the same with American leaders, the same with Obama, the same with Biden.
They annexed Crimea.
If you really want to go back, I mean, the big if you want to know why security was lost for Ukraine, go back to the point where Bill Clinton convinced the Ukrainians to give up their nuclear weapons after the disintegration of the former Soviet Union.
That that was their big mistake.
They wouldn't be at war with Russia, there wouldn't be talk about land swaps, there wouldn't be any talk about security guarantees because they had security guarantees and Russia signed on to them.
And in many ways, they were betrayed by all of their European allies, and and frankly, the United States under Bill Clinton, under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, uh did not live up to those those concerns.
So I mean I I kind of sympathize with the Ukrainians.
Their mistake was was giving up their strength.
The only thing I would say about the role of the United States that some of you may disagree with there it there are going to be moments where it's really us that can accomplish things and the rest of the world's not capable of accomplishing it.
Now, did we really lose anything when when President Trump got involved in the conflict and was able to bring about a f cease fire with Iran and Israel in twelve days?
No, I think the president showed number one, it was the best time to take out their nuclear sites because we already knew the Israelis had their air defense systems down.
It was a risky military effort by our military.
It showed their incredible precision and skill and expertise and power, and I think the world is a safer place because of it.
So I think that was the right decision.
But you know, but back to the fundamental question, what is America's role in the world?
And I go back, I have been quoting this week Barry Farber, one of the great pioneers Of Talk Radio, he used to always say there's never been a country in the history of mankind that has accumulated more power and abused it less than this country.
I add to that, not that I have any right to, but I do, there's never been a country in the history of mankind that has accumulated more power, abused it less, and used it to advance the good of mankind.
So if America's going to get involved in the conflict with Rwanda and the Congo or India and Pakistan, or Israel and Iran, or Azerbaijan and Armenia, or Ethiopia and Egypt,
or the Congo, or wherever, wherever these conflicts are taking place, and the president wants to expend some political effort, nothing more, and meet with Vladimir Putin, and because European leaders have been so pathetically impotent and weak that they don't even communicate with Putin.
Um, why wouldn't they communicate with Putin?
Why wouldn't Macron?
Why wouldn't the prime ministers of Great Britain and all these other European Union nations, why wouldn't they be reaching out to Putin and establishing diplomatic relationships with him?
Why wouldn't they be seeking solutions to problems?
What, you know, w I to me it's it's sort of like President Trump got criticized.
And by the way, there is a difference.
Depending who's president, I have a different ideology and philosophy.
Like I don't think Joe Biden is any match for Vladimir Putin.
I think the last person I'd ever want to put in front of Vladimir Putin would be the cognitively impaired Joe Biden or the ever so weak Barack Obama.
I think Obama was weak.
I don't think he was that well, he took out he took out Baden.
Okay.
Well, our military took out bin Laden.
I give him credit.
He made the call, he made the right call.
Biden, interestingly, was on the wrong side of that call.
But putting that aside, I I don't think that European leaders have done the right thing.
They've helped fund Putin's war machine by buying all of their energy, the lifeblood of their economies from him.
They've become but they've become dependent on him.
And I don't think that that silence has been particularly helpful.
I don't think, you know, uh not including him or looking to include him in business endeavors short of the cheap energy he's selling them has been particularly productive either.
I think Europe has made a mistake.
I think similarly, European leaders generally are weak and woke and politically correct.
And I think that, you know, for example, I'd never thought I'd see a day where what is it, Great Britain is somewhat 75, 80 Sharia courts.
What what about assimilation as uh one Australian prime minister famously said, if you're gonna come to Australia, become an Australian and adopt our mores, our values.
And I'm we're not talking about religious freedom that's separate and apart, but uh that they certainly shouldn't, you shouldn't have two justice systems.
Anyway, so just to kind of circle back to where I started here, you know, the Trump doctrine is pretty clear.
No forever wars.
However, that doesn't mean isolationism, and for America to use its standing and its strength to advance peace around the world, uh, so that it is a better business environment and a safer place in the world with less conflict and less death and less dying, I think is uh a pretty sound foreign policy.
Why there are some people that are purposely misinterpreting Donald Trump's doctrine, I have no idea why.
Uh and if you dare to challenge what they're saying.
I'll give you an example.
You know, President Trump, you know, gave Gaza and Hamas uh every opportunity, just like he gave Iran, every opportunity to choose peace.
And then on the 51st day, Israel attacked.
And then once Israel, you know, took out a lot of their missile defense systems and and air defense systems and their missile batteries.
Then in came America to take out their nuclear sites because President Trump stated as part of his doctrine that they can't have nuclear weapons, not with their sick ideology and the direct threats they're making against the U.S. and against Israel.
And now President Trump said, you know, after a period of time, they still haven't released these hostages.
October 7th was in 2023, and he backed Israel's expansion of the war in Gaza, saying the remaining hostages can be freed only if Hamas is completely eradicated.
We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed, he wrote on Truth Social.
That doesn't sound like an isolationist to me.
And by the way, I think he's right.
Hamas has part of their charter, the destruction of Israel.
Israel is an ally.
I think that we do need worldwide alliances, and they're the only democracy in the region.
And I think that the Abraham Accords as a result of President Trump's strength can be expanded.
And I hope that that's one of the outcomes in the end.
You look at the president's approval rating.
It's fifty-four percent.
Now, if you look at the state-run legacy media mob and their polls, they would have you convinced that Donald Trump is not doing well.
Because I've been following their polls, and I don't report them because I don't trust them because they haven't polled President Trump accurately for 10 years.
There are a few companies that have.
Rasmussen has been very accurate.
For example, Trafalgar, and that would be Robert Cahaley, been very accurate.
John McLaughlin, been very accurate.
Our friend Matt Towery, very accurate.
And many of them, by the way, are joining forces to get America accurate polling numbers because a lot of the polls are just sheer garbage, and a lot of them are political.
And it's amazing that they get away with it, but they do.
Anyway, so Matt Towery, Insider Advantage, went out, did a poll of Donald Trump, his approval rating, post the summit with Vladimir Putin.
And anyway, it was conducted over the weekend.
And if you look at the results, they're pretty astounding.
54% approval rating after meeting with Putin, 44% disapproval rating, and if you look at, they found that he now has an advantage among every age group other than the most senior of voters.
Improved his numbers among African Americans to 24%, Hispanic voters to 47%.
White voters are at a near record high of 64%.
Half of independents, 50% are approving of Trump, while the vast majority of Republicans, 92% approve of what he's doing, and even 17.9% of Democrats said the same.
Well, why is it happening?
Because people are watching a president in action every second, every minute, every hour of every day.
They're paying attention.
Compared to the last four years of Joe Biden, I mean, he's accomplishing more in a week than Biden did in four years.
We're seeing more of him in a week than we see we saw Biden in four years.
And anyway, it's, you know, we'll see what happens.
There's no guarantees.
I'm not sure if I, you know, people said, well, when do you agree with, disagree with President Trump?
I'm not sure if I wouldn't have Trump ride this out with both of them to the end if it's going to go that way.
I know what his thinking is because he told me.
And that is, at some point, they've got to be alone and they've got to get along together if a deal is going to be lasting.
And so the next step, apparently, is going to be a bilateral meeting with Zelensky and Putin.
I worry that meeting is where this whole thing could blow up.
Now, I would prefer a trilateral meeting where President Trump can moderate, if you will, if things get a little bit tense.
And I think they're both capable of going there.
I didn't finish the thought in the last segment, but I was trying to point out what did President Trump in his first term give Kim Jong-un?
And I went to both of those meetings.
What did he give him?
Nothing.
He gave him his time.
What was the result of Donald Trump, you know, meeting with Little Rocket Man on two occasions, I think three total, when he went to the DMZ?
what did we give up?
Nothing.
The president gave his time.
Little Rocket Man stopped firing his rockets.
He handed over the remains of Americans from the Korean war.
And the relationship it thawed and North Korea was not the big threat that it once was.
And so was it worth it?
Yeah, it was worth it.
Is it worth President Trump's time to meet with Putin in Alaska and then meet with European leaders?
You know three days later.
Yeah, I think it's worth it.
What's the downside?
We're not giving up anything.
And I do think that there's a plan B. And I think plan B is is pretty transparent.
And he said that the consequences to Vladimir Putin, if Putin blows up this deal, are gonna be devastating.
We already know what the consequences are.
He put a 50% tariff on India if they continue to import Russian oil.
Uh we know that he made a deal with the European Union that they're gonna purchase nearly a trillion dollars of energy from us and not fund Putin's war machine, and Donald Trump's going straight at Putin's economy, which is already struggling.
On top of that, he's gonna provide Ukraine weapons, and on top of that, he got NATO to commit to more than double what they were paying in in terms of security for the continent of Europe.
So I think it's it's it's all good stuff.
It's fun to watch.
This is America's, you know, America at its best when it uses its power for the advancement of of good causes.
The cause of peace, I can't think of a better cause.
It was kind of interesting.
I don't know if you noticed the Italian prime minister, Georgia Maloney rolling her eyes as the German chancellor was trying to lecture Trump about the need for a Ukraine war ceasefire.
The President rightly pointed out in every every conflict that I mentioned that he got involved in, they never had a ceasefire step first.
I mean, I guess it would be okay on paper, but that was not his stated goal when he went in to get the ceasefire.
His stated goal was to get a second meeting, and he got that part, and that was supposed to be the trilateral meeting.
I would prefer that order.
That's my own thought.
I don't think Putin and Zelensky, I think they can't stand each other, and there's nothing but hatred and resentment and animosity.
And I think if Trump was there, I think they'd be both be better behaved.
And I think the odds would go up exponentially that a final deal can be reached.
Uh Trump did vow there will be no U.S. troops defending Ukraine's border as part of any security arrangement.
That is in keeping with the Trump doctrine as I was trying to explain it to you.
One thing I want all of you in this audience to pay attention to, I always tell you in my audience to please never depend on government for anything in your life.
And and if you're a young person, I would say don't count on Social Security being there for you when you get older because it's headed towards insolvency.
I mean, we don't know.
We've got three and a half years of Trump left, and I can't tell you who's going to be the next president.
Although I do like the idea, and we'll get into some detail on this on Hannity tonight.
The president, and and we'll get into more later in the program today, but I do like the fact that the president, both in my interview in Alaska and in this pool spray yesterday brought up the issue of paper ballots, and that would include integrity in American elections.
The idea that that we don't have that both Democrats and Republicans have questioned election results.
Neither side is innocent here.
Hillary Clinton questioned it, Stacey Abrams was questioned it.
Many, many Democrats said, Oh, Donald Trump didn't win.
It just it happens.
You want more integrity in the system, switch to paper ballots, switch to same day voting with the exception of the military and and people that are sick or elderly and can't make it to the polls, they should have the right to vote.
But you need paper ballots, you need voter ID, you need signature verification, chain of custody, and cameras watching any mail in ballots from the military or sick people as it comes in, they stay in a room and they get counted on election day.
And then I would have updated voter roles every single election season, partisan observers watching the voting all day, the vote counting all night, and then they can count up the votes, paper ballots, and then I think people on both sides would have more faith in the system, but don't have trust in government.
And I'm just going to add one thing to this.
There's an article today in Axios that artificial intelligence could replace a trillion dollars a year in wages.
Now, first of all, good thing Donald Trump has $15 trillion and committed investment money in manufacturing for automobiles, semiconductor chips, pharmaceuticals, rare earths, etc.
So there's going to be millions of millions of high-paying career jobs on, you know, coming in the future.
But even with automotive, you got you got robotics and the same with a lot of other manufacturing.
But fully adopting AI might end up saving corporate America $920 billion annually, according to a new Morgan Stanley study.
That's a lot of potential jobs that are lost.
So if you're thinking about or advising your children on the issue of what careers to pick up, remember we had Mike Rowe on this program.
The next generation of millionaires, they're going to be people that are tradespeople.
They're making a ton of money.
And I I highly recommend it.
By the way, young adults say friendship is getting too expensive, according to a news survey.
That was pretty funny.
Mm-hmm.
Getting very expensive to be friends with you.
Very expensive.
J.B. Pritzker is never going to be president signed a bill granting taxpayer-funded financial benefits to illegals.
You know, this is where Pam Bondi is now going to go after all these sanctuary cities, sanctuary states, because he explain to me how that's not aiding and abetting in law breaking.
Trump Homeland Security Department has moved to block billions of dollars in Chinese goods that were produced using forced labor, products like steel, copper, lithium, uh, and other products from China designed, designated high priority for inspection will come under the microscope of customs and border protection.
I mean, it is sad to think in this day and age that you know this type of thing actually is going on in the world.
You know, using forced labor in some cases, child forced labor.
The Trump administration has confirmed they have revoked 6,000 student visas, 6,000.
Goodbye.
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
We showed you last night on TV.
You have this illegal alien truck driver, came into the sanctuary state of California, got a commercial driver's license, was rejected by the first Trump administration in terms of a work visa, and then anyway, ended up getting the work permit after being turned away by Trump by the Biden administration.
The result?
This guy killed three people making a rogue U-turn right here in the free state of Florida on a highway, and he was handed work papers under the Biden administration after they were denied during President Trump's first term, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
This is why these, you know, I have said, as far as I'm concerned, that Biden, Harris, Mayorcus, all these Democrats that lied about the border being closed and secure.
They, you know, they all have blood on their hands.
All of them.
They're aiding and abetting in this entire process.
By the way, Justice Department now probing allegations.
DC officials doctored the crime statistics to make the city seem safer.
Now that, you know, we discovered, oh, yeah.
Well, we have 41 homicides per 100,000.
By far the highest homicide rate per 100,000 of any capital of any other country in the world.
The next closest is only 16 per 100,000 people.
And since Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to fight crime in our nation's capital, oh, look at this.
Robberies down 46%.
Carjacking's down a whopping 83%.
Car theft down 21%.
Violent crime down 22%.
Uh oh, I would say that it's working.
I'd say that DC is a safer place.
President mentioned it this morning with my name in it.
Did you see that, Linda?
Pretty funny.
I sure did.
Um, I'm finding it very entertaining.
It's like there's a there's a new Gavin Newsome emerging every day.
And he thinks he's being clever.
He's trying to be Trump.
Remember, they spent millions and millions of dollars how to communicate with with young men.
And remember, they we've got to act, quote, act more Trumpian.
And we've got to curse more.
And we've got to learn to speak to, you know, guys better.
Hey, Joe, want to get a bruski?
Wanna go grab a bruski?
What'd you think of the big game last night?
I mean, you have to pay you have to pay millions, tens of millions of dollars to learn that.
How about you just be real and authentic?
Gavin Newsom's changing his identity every day.
I'm going to be a podcaster that talks to conservatives.
Now I'm going to curse like Donald Trump.
Now I'm going to tweet like Donald Trump.
My advice to Gavin Newsom, just be Gavin Newsom.
Problem is being Gavin Newsom means he has to run on his record.
That's a problem.
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