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Sept. 2, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
29:39
Newsom's Future - September 1st, Hour 3
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I've been arguing that the left liberals, they they have never regained their footing after Donald Trump's beatdown of them in the 2024 election.
In large part, there's there's not been any introspection.
There's been no course correction.
You know, in my life, if things go wrong, I usually try to stop, stand back and say, okay, what did I do wrong?
What can I what can I do to improve my life?
How can I change?
How can I be a better person?
Uh that's not happened in terms of the Democratic Party.
It's very interesting to watch the evolution, for example, of Gavin Newsom.
Uh Gavin Newsom, you know, from day one when Donald Trump was elected.
He he made the decision.
He he wanted a legal fund so he could fight the Trump administration.
Then he seemed to moderate, and he became a podcaster.
And then he's interviewing conservatives, so they could we can now begin to have a dialogue as a country, interviewing the likes of Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk.
And then, of course, in the Charlie Kirk interview, you know, he got caught saying, I don't know where this word Latinx came from.
And he, you know, we found instance after instance where he was using the term Latinx.
And the same with gender-affirming care issues and men playing women's sports.
Um, but that's not Gavin's biggest problem.
And now he's now he's getting very aggressive.
Now he's talking about punching people in the face.
And I'm willing to take the hit rather than go after some probably overweight politician that doesn't know how to defend themselves in Texas because he doesn't like what they're doing legally in Texas with redistricting.
Meanwhile, every blue state has been gerrymandered to death.
Um, I'm offering to let him take a swing at me if he wants.
Just that just because I care about other people.
I know how to defend myself.
These guys probably don't know how to defend themselves.
So I'm letting Gavin, I'm offering to be let Gavin take the punch at me.
Listen.
The Republican Party's uh is it doesn't even reflect itself.
I mean, look at look at these Republicans cowering to this guy.
Look at your Republican governor used to claim to be a conservative.
What a farce.
Nothing conservative about this.
By definition, nothing conservative about this.
This is radical rigging of a midterm election.
Radical rigging of an election, destroying, vandalizing this democracy, the rule of law.
So I'm sorry.
I know some people's sensibilities.
I I respect and appreciate that, but right now, with all due respect, we're walking down a damn different path.
We're fighting fire with fire, and we're gonna punch these sons of in the mouth.
I'm sure this is all going over very, very well with moderates and independents.
And I'm sure when when he makes his run for the presidency, I'm sure America is gonna choose to become California, uh, even though it's the state with the the number one mass migration, the highest poverty rate in the nation, the highest gas taxes in the nation, the highest state income taxes in the nation, the most regulation in the nation, record homelessness in the uh nation.
Uh and the list goes on and on and on.
I'll get into more specificity as we go on in this half hour.
Uh but first we welcome back to the program, friend of the program, editor in chief of the new interactive video platform.
It's called Two Way, host of the next up podcast.
Uh he's on Meghan Kelly's uh network.
Uh our friend Mark Halpern is back with us.
How are you?
Good to good to have you back.
Sean, good to talk to you.
Now, I brought you on because I saw your comments that you opened up with a monologue on your show on why Gavin Newsom is misunderstood and what sets him apart for twenty twenty-eight.
You challenge people to be prepared to put aside their preconceived notions of who this man is and what he is about.
And you've talked about then former Senator Mark Pryor, uh, who joined you on the on the Democrat structural challenges, etc.
etc.
Um look, I don't doubt that he could be the nominee in twenty twenty eight at all.
I don't doubt that one bit.
And I think that he's made a political calculation that trying to be a moderate and trying to get along with conservatives and have a conversation and understand them is not something he's willing to have.
Well, look, I appreciate your uh listening to what I said in a nuanced way because a lot of people are misunderstanding.
I'm not saying Gavin Newsom's gonna be president.
I'm not a f I'm not a fan of Gavin Newsom.
That's not my job.
But this is a very weak field, and Sean, you know because you've spent time with him.
This guy has some talent.
He is he is he a hugely successful governor?
There's you could talk for three hours about why he's not.
The point is it's a weak field, and this guy contains multitudes.
He's a complicated person.
He has some positions that are liberal, some that are super liberal, but he's also got some ones that are more moderate in the context of the Democratic Party.
So when people want to say he's he's a disaster, he's so liberal, he's so failed, he can't possibly win the presidency.
I'm not talking about the general election.
Can he be the Democratic nominee in a weak field?
He can't.
My grandfather, my great great grandfather back in the old country, was like five foot ten in in eastern Europe.
He was the tallest man in the village, Sean, at 5'10, because the best of the people in the village were five'eight and below.
This guy is is uh is a major, major uh uh the political figure in his party, and if you look at the other people running, they don't have anything like his experience.
So all I'm telling people on the right is if you want to think about who the Democrats are gonna nominate, this is the guy to focus on today.
Now, ironically, I'm the only one I know who doesn't think he'll run in the end.
I think he'll approach the finished starting line and then and then bail out.
But right now he's in a class by himself because he's done he's done what he's done what Barack Obama did, Bill Clinton did, George Bush did, and uh and uh um Donald Trump did.
He's simultaneously doing some things on the base side and some things in the center.
And for people to say that new what is he doing on the center?
I'd take issue with that.
I mean, he tried for a brief period to be a little bit in the center.
I don't see any center policies of Gavin Newsom.
Okay, I'll tell you I'll tell you what they are.
And again, I'll say they're in the center in the context of the Democratic Party.
Are they are they in the center for the Republican you're talking about a radical left party now that's about to elect a Marxist in New York City as mayor?
But Sean, that's the state of the Democratic Party.
Someone who says what he says to Charlie Kirk, someone who uh espouses uh dealing with the homeless in a more aggressive way than the party.
Someone who will talk to Charlie Kirk.
These are in the context of the No, somebody who would have w tried to talk to Charlie Kirk.
It didn't work with his polling, and then shifted gears and like a chameleon politician, you know, decided to go this aggressive route talking about punching people in the mouth and fighting fire with fire when his state is one of the most gerrymandered in the country.
I agree, and that's what he's doing now.
And and look, the whole Democratic Party uh crying crocodile tears over Texas when they then have to re accept the Illinois and Massachusetts and Maryland and all these blue states have done it.
I I'm not again, I'm not here as a spokesman for Gavin Newsom.
I'm just telling you, he he in his and if you look at it.
By the way, we uh I we're totally getting that message.
You've given enough caveats.
I get it.
You're just giving political analysis, which is what you're great at.
I want your political analysis.
So what I'm telling you is to be the nominee in this day and age, you have to be an aircraft carrier.
You have to be able to hire great people, raise tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars.
You have to be able to go on toe-to-toe with Sean Hannity.
And right now, there's no other aircraft carrier in in this field, in this forming field.
So if if Republicans just want to denounce anyone who says Gavin Newsom is the front runner, feel free, but you're making a mistake because today you would be the nominee with all the variables out there, what states are going to vote first and who else is gonna run.
No one else.
These other people who are talking about Bashir, Shapiro, uh Wes Moore.
They are not in this guy's league in terms of what you look at to say who's an aircraft carrier, and that that's not to say he's been a great governor.
It's not to say he's not super liberal on some issues, but this is the Democratic nomination we're talking about.
All right, we continue.
Our friend Mark Halpern is with us, editor in chief, new interactive video platform two-way, host of the Next Up Podcast.
Okay, if we're only talking about the Democratic nomination, I can completely and totally and utterly agree with you.
And and but it's you know, often people in a primary, you know this from your many, many decades of following politics, they will they will run hard to the left or to the right, and then they'll move to the center in a general election.
Gavin's got a big problem.
He's got a Michael Dukakis problem, and that is, you know, do you want America to be Massachusetts?
Do you want America to be California?
And you know, I said this last night, and um I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna backtrack and just tell you I know Gavin.
I even texted him last night during my show.
And I said, please don't stop doing what you're doing.
It's like it's manner from heaven for me to get this material from him every single day of him ranting like a lunatic.
And he's going for the hard left and he's passionate.
Uh if you meet him in real life, he's charming.
He is slick, he is nice.
He did have courage.
He did the debate.
No, first he did an interview with me one on one, and then he did the the debate that I had with him and Ron DeSantis.
Correct.
Um, he has since pulled back from me.
I tried to reach out to him, I said once he came out when Donald Trump was re-elected, and I said, instead of, you know, funding you know, a l a legal strategy against Donald Trump uh to Trump proof your state, I said, why don't you go sit down with him?
I'll arrange the meeting.
I actually offered to do that.
I don't mind making that part public.
And, you know, he just dismissed my suggestion, and that's fine too.
But I think it would have been a lot better off for him and the people of California.
With all that said, after the Pacific Palisades, you know, he you know, Donald Trump stepped up and he's helping, but they st they're still not giving permits to for people to build homes out there.
It's unbelievable.
Yeah.
Look, I think that's his problem.
I mean, his record is so bad.
When America becomes aware of it, I'm just telling you, there's no way this guy could get elected in my opinion as of today.
Sean, and you mean you mean win the presidency.
And again, I I I share your view and that skepticism, and that's in part why I don't think he'll run.
There are other reasons.
We had a guy on two-way last night, a dad, two young kids, uh, now lives in Oregon, left the Bay Area, uh had to said he couldn't afford to he couldn't afford to live there, couldn't deal with all the negative impacts that he largely attributes to Gavin Newsom.
If Gavin Newsom does run, and again, I don't think he will, they're gonna be people uh who run against him from the left who will find thousands of Californians who say Gavin Newsom failed us, and we're on the left.
And you and and you'll also find thousands, tens of thousands, millions maybe, on the right, if he's the nominee, who will be in the the Republican ad makers will will not know who to cast in the ads because they will have sympathetic real Californians, many of whom have left the state, who will say, if you w if if America thinks they're getting a a deal with Gavin Newsome and getting California, you're wrong.
I believe in the end, that'll be part of why he doesn't run.
But right now, the re the Democratic Party values one thing above all else.
Are you there round the clock punching Donald Trump in the face metaphorically?
And he's doing it.
That's what the party wants.
He's doing it now.
This is the Latest iteration.
This is the latest evolution of him and him and his social media team.
I think I think for him, knowing him, it's an authentic, and I find it embarrassing.
I'm kind of embarrassed for him.
Um I think he's looking stupid, but he can't run away from something he's very sensitive by if Trump calls him newscom, he hates it.
He's very sensitive if you point out his failures surrounding the Pacific uh Palisades wildfires and they had hydrants that had no water in them and an empty reservoir.
You know, he's very, very sensitive on issues about being the highest taxed uh state in the country, and they still have a massive budget deficit.
He's very sensitive about all the illegal immigrants that have committed crimes, although they don't keep statistics out there.
He's very sensitive, you know, about the highest poverty rate, homelessness rate, highest gas taxes, income taxes.
It's to to me that's why he won't run, I think, in the end.
I think you're right.
He's gonna r get right up to that line, and then uh probably not.
I can see the announcement at you know at the last minute.
Yeah, and and his family's a big consideration as well, and and the scrutiny he'd get.
This guy has gotten people always say, Oh, he's been governor of California, he's been scrutinized.
He has not.
There's tons of scrutiny that will come his way or anyone else who runs, and I don't think he wants to deal with that and have his family deal with that.
But what's in the reason I've been talking about this this so much this week is because you can learn a lot about where's the Democratic Party right now, and what does it mean to get to to compete with Donald Trump for attention.
You can't deny that he's succeeded by that metric.
Everybody's talking about him.
They're not talking about more, you know.
And and that's that is something.
You may say that he's an authentic in what how he's doing it.
You may say it's excessive or it's undignified, as our friend Dana Perino said.
But it is it is achieving what two things that Democrats want.
They want.
They want he's placating a very, very small and dwindling base, and he is not he's not expanding the base that he would need if he wanted to be a real uh if he wanted to be a contender.
Uh he's not doing that.
Um we do appreciate your insight.
Thank you, Mark Halpern.
Uh we appreciate you as always.
Uh and I think you're right.
I think he is he's the front runner for the nomination.
Uh 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
When we come back, more of the best of the Sean Hannity show.
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It has been a huge breaking news week for our friend John Solomon, editor in chief, founder and chief investigative reporter, just the news.com.
Uh John broke the big story about James Comey last night.
He's broken other stories this week.
We woke up to the news uh that in fact FBI agents have rated former National Security Advisor John Bolton's home.
Um I have sources.
I know what this is really all about, but uh we'll see what John sources have to say first and then see if our see if uh our sources match.
Uh Mr. Solomon, you've had quite a week, and we're gonna do a little summary of the week.
You've had a great investigative week.
I know how I know how hard you work.
We've worked for years together.
There's nobody that digs in deeper.
There's nobody that has deeper contacts than you, and uh, I congratulate you on your hard work.
And in many ways, it's a culmination of all the work and all the reporting that you did for the years that we did Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, and everything in between.
I mean, so I'm very proud of you, proud to be your friend, and thank you for all your hard work, and you've been proven right.
We've been proven right on this show, and we never get credit.
I don't think I'm getting a bullet surprise, uh, although you definitely deserve one.
Yeah, no, I don't want to put it surprise.
I just love doing this, and I love telling the truth, and you you and I have been able to do so many amazing things together.
And you know, this morning we wake up to another sign of what law and order may look like in uh the Trump era, which is something that comes from a court, not from a political playbook in Hillary Clinton's basement or Barack Obama's basement.
A uh court gave the FBI permission and ordered it to search the home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Yeah, he's a critic of Donald Trump.
He's a critic of um Cash Patel.
He tried to, I think, oppose Cash Patel's nomination for FBI director.
But at the end of the day, they go to a court, they raise some concerns about classified information releases and maybe perhaps misuse of the classified information.
They get a chance to um uh uh review his home, get the evidence out of the home, and then see where it leads.
Um this is an investigation that got stymied under Joe Biden today.
Uh it is back in motion, and it shows that no matter how powerful you are, no matter how uh many friends you have in Washington, how much distinguished work you did.
He was a U.N. ambassador.
By the way, are there such things as friends in Washington, seriously?
Because if you want a friend in DC, you should get a dog.
I offered to get the President Trump a dog, he laughed at me.
Dog's a much better choice.
There's no doubt about it.
But you know, yeah, but he's been in the establishment a long time.
Uh four administrations he served in.
But at the end of the day, the law appears to be blind on this, and we'll see how they treat him, what they learned from the raid, what they get in the search warrant, and then see if there's anything that comes of it.
But uh that happened today, and I I think there's a you know, people things are returning to normal.
It's like common sense settling over the city.
This is the way the Justice Department used to work before it got hijacked at the end of the Obama administration.
Courts approve things, things happen.
There's not a lot of politics involved.
There isn't uh a lot of uh, you know, uh political fanfare being stirred up.
Burrell went and did his job, they're not going to talk about it, and they go on.
And I think that's the way the court system used to run before it got weaponized and politicized by the by the Democrats and their friends in government.
Uh so that that that's what happened today, and I think it's a reminder that maybe under Donald Trump things are getting back to normal.
Namau, I've had sources tell me that this is more directly involved to intelligence that he had ax access to and that it might have to do with foreign adversaries.
Uh have you heard anything similar?
Yeah, there's always that concern.
That's why there's a national security component to classified information.
You want to make sure that somebody either in neither intentionally or unwittingly uh provided information that could give comfort or aid or uh strategic advantage to a foreign enemy.
I think we ought to wait and see.
Let's see what comes of this information.
Let's see what waiting comes of the thing.
John Bolton had a lot of clients, you know.
He's a foreign policy advisor.
He has a business.
One of the places they uh searched this morning was his business office.
But I think one of the just like the justice system is getting back to being normal, I think the way we in the media should treat things, which is let's give everybody the benefit of the doubt.
Let's see what the search warrant returns.
The next thing we'll learn is somewhere in the next few weeks, uh, the FBI will report to the court.
Here's the search warrant returns, and here is the affidavit of why we searched the court.
When we get that information, we'll have a little bit better sense of the scope.
But I do think any time you're talking about a classified information league, the first concern is did this intentionally or unintentionally given assistance to one of our enemies, one of our foreign powers, and I think that is at the root of this case as well.
Let me give you a little background on uh my relationship with John Bolton, because there was a time we got along and and I did have respect for him.
And it was during very early on in when Donald Trump won the election in 2016.
I remember where I was when he called me.
We had a very long and at times a little bit heated conversation, and he was asking me if I would, you know, put in a good word with him with a president.
I'm like, well, that's not what I do.
I said I've known President Trump for 30 years.
I know he's looking for good people, but I said, John, I've known you a long time.
Your foreign policy does not match up, is not in sync with Donald Trump's.
And it really for me was that simple.
And he assured me over and over and over again.
Oh, no, no, I'm I'm I'm I've evolved and I'm I'm I'm want to serve the president's foreign policy.
No, it seemed like very early on he had a very different agenda.
He was not he do he did not live up to the promise that he was making me when he was begging me to to speak out on his behalf.
Yeah, listen, there's a moment, and um there's a gentleman that worked for John Bolton for a long time, uh very well respected former CI analyst.
He became the chief of staff to the National Security Council and Trump won uh uh Fred Flights.
And Fred Flights wrote a really powerful article on Fox News around the time that um John Bolton put his book out.
And the book is the first time that we had some questions about whether he had improperly released classified information or was going to release uh improperly classified information.
And um Fred Flights wrote a really thoughtful article, which is listen, John Bolton's had a lot of distinguished things in his career, made a lot of friends, worked at the U.N., served multiple presidents, but this book is not a book to help the American people understand uh national policy or foreign policy.
It's a a vengeance book, a revenge book, and that is beneath John Bolton.
He really encouraged John Bolton not to publish the book, which was, you know, for John Bolton, probably a shock.
This guy had always worked with him and they had a great relationship, but something happened at the end of the first um the uh Trump administration with John Bolton.
Obviously, he didn't see eye to eye with the president, the president fired him.
The president's foreign policy has proven to be very successful.
Many European leaders just admit it Monday in the White House.
But I think John Bolton went in a different direction.
And for the first time, a guy who seemed to be very buttoned up and really just about the policy and just about humbly serving the uh uh president became a guy who thought he could challenge a president, and at the end of the day, I think he bet wrong.
I think the American people made a better bet than he did.
And the question now is in that drive, in that effort to become suddenly an opposition to a president he had served, did he do something that compromised national security?
And we'll see what the FBI finds.
You know what's fascinating about it is, you know, there was a time he did not evolve with the advancement of military technology.
I mean, look at, for example, the impact drones are having in the conflict in the Middle East and the conflict in Europe.
Uh I've been arguing for some time the next generation of weaponry will enable wars to be fought in air-conditioned offices, not on a battlefield like like had been done historically, and and there just seemed to be people that want to cling to this old version of warfare.
And Donald Trump's not one of them.
He's talking about a golden dome that would keep this country safe.
It may, if he's successful at building it, I mean, he might that might end up being his greatest legacy.
The media made fun of strategic defense of Ronald Reagan when he proposed it, they called it Star Wars.
They mocked it, and they generated all this animation on TV, and you know, now it plays out in real time in the Middle East in Israel, and it's saving lives, you know, almost on a daily basis.
Um I don't think he he really grew.
I don't think Liz Cheney or the Chaneys grew, and they they just they have come they just have this hatred of Trump.
But with that said, I agree with you.
You know, people are innocent until proven guilty.
Let's see if my sources turn out to be right.
I hear it has to do with national security secrets.
He wrote the book, he didn't get permission.
All right.
Now let's move on to your uh one of the other big stories of the week, and you've had a lot of them, and that's James Comey.
Thanks.
Yeah, listen, this is important.
Uh uh when these documents were released a couple of weeks ago, we got a couple good scoops out of them.
One of them was the Adam Schiff story, that Adam Schiff's own staffer went to the FBI and said he authorized the leak of classified information.
I think that's illegal, unethical, and treasonous.
That's the exact words that the Democrat staffer told the FBI, but of course Adam Schiff got a pass.
There was a large block of these documents that had a big black mark of them.
They were redacted, they were kept from scenes.
I believe they contained information that was not classified, nor was it covered by grand jury secrecy.
And so I appealed to uh Attorney General Pam Bondy and her team and and um and she agreed, and she uh uh alongside of Cas Patel, they unredacted that information yesterday.
They sent it back to Congress.
I got a copy of it.
And what you see in that is that it Comey's own chief lawyer, his chief counsel, when he was FBI director, told the FBI that he, James Comey, uh, James Baker, the lawyer, and the witness who's admitting to this, and the chief of staff for James Comey, James Rubicke, all at the FBI, the top three guys in the FBI worked together to illegally um uh leak classified information to the New York Times.
The first time in October 2016, right on the eve of the election where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were neck and neck, and then there were some concerns that that happened again afterwards.
Uh that is a rare moment when an insider in the inner circle of a person, a leaker admits that this happened, and uh uh it's rare that it got kept from us the first time that Cash Patel got these documents of the American public.
The Justice Department had made that redaction, they admit it was a mistake, they unredacted it.
We now know that the United States government had very strong evidence to s believe that James Comey had uh authorized the leak of classified information, information that would harm national security, because it was released.
And the once again, just like the Hillary Clinton Foundation investigators, just like the IRS agents who tried to go after Hunter Biden for the tax crimes, just like the agents who wanted to go after Hillary Clinton's um uh classified email server issues, uh the FBI, the Justice Department shut down this investigation and said, you're not gonna die anyone.
We've decided not to indict anyone.
In fact, there's a moment where they have a chance to get some emails that would be corroborating and really understand just how far the leaking may have been and just who was involved in it.
And um the U.S. Attorney's Office, uh, you don't need to go yet.
We're not gonna go get those.
So once again, an example of the dual system of justice, the lack of curiosity that seemed to occur whenever someone who was a Democrat or a friend of the Democrat in government was accused of wrongdoing.
They got protected and very different in the way than Donald Trump got treated uh treated and his followers got treated in that same system.
Uh, this is a story that's gonna be now people say is it's just a history lesson, Tom why should I care?
The answer is there is a ten-year statute covering this potential type of disclosure of national intelligence information.
And Pam Bondi was very clear in my story saying uh that uh people who were entrusted.
Um first of all, she said that James Comey, based on that what's in these documents, clearly engaged in abhorrent conduct along with his top leaders.
But he she this is what she added.
I think this is a warning sign to Comey.
If I'm Comey's lawyers, I'm a little more nervous today.
Quote, this is directly from Pam Bondy.
There must be accountability for those who were entrusted with safeguarding our nation's secrets and failed to do so.
And I think that's a sign that with these grand juries coming up, the grand conspiracy case, the strike force that's been that uh James Comey may be looked at, and that this evidence may still be relevant to criminal charges going forward.
All right, quick break, right back more with John Solomon, editor-in-chief, founder and chief investigative reporter, Justin News.com on the other side.
Uh also coming up later on the program, our friend Mark Howpern will join us.
And how do you protect yourself and your family?
Uh, because if you're waiting for police, it's gonna be too late.
We'll talk about that.
We'll get to your calls this Friday, 800-941 Sean as we continue.
Keeping the truth alive.
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