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Oct. 8, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
28:56
Lindsey Graham: Trump’s Doctrine, Peace in the Middle East, and FBI Abuse - October 7th, Hour 2
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This is an iHeart podcast.
Big breaking news.
Former special counsel Jack Smith allegedly tracking the private communications and phone calls of nearly a dozen Republican senators as part of, quote, his investigation into the January 6, 2021 issue, a document reviewed by Fox News Digital.
This is all part of what we've been describing as Operation Arctic Frost, allegedly now tracking the phone calls of GOP senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson, Josh Hawley, Cynthia Loomis of Wyoming, Bill Haggerty, Tennessee, Dan Sullivan, Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.
And anyway, the document discovered by the FBI director Cash Patel.
Cash will be on Hannity tonight, as well as Senator Lindsey Graham who's going to join us here in a moment, is titled Cast Assistance.
And it refers to the FBI cellular analysis survey team.
It has the names of the FBI agents involved redacted at this point.
It marks the case ID as Arctic Frost, quote, election law matters, sensitive investigation matter cast.
And the document states the names of the lawmakers that an FBI special agent on Smith's team conducted preliminary poll analysis.
In other words, they knew who made a phone call to who, where they made the phone call from, and where the person that received that phone call was.
I mean, unbelievable.
I mean, you want to talk about weaponization?
Here's Lindsey Graham bringing up this issue.
Can you tell me why my phone records were sought by Jack Smith's agents?
Why did they ask to know who I called and what I was doing from January 4th to the 7th?
Can you tell me that?
And this is him asking the Attorney General Pam Bondi today.
How in the hell can two FBI agents interview a man who says the document you're using against a sitting president to suggest he may be a Russian agent or Carter Page that is now no longer reliable?
How does that not get to the court?
Can you tell me how that doesn't get to the court?
You can't, can you?
I can't, Senator.
Can you tell me why my phone records, when I'm the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, were sought by the Jack Smith agents?
Why did they ask to know who I called and what I was doing from January 4th to the 7th?
Can you tell me that?
No, Senator, and there were eight senators in total.
All right, joining us now is South Carolina Senator friend of the program, Lindsey Graham.
Senator, welcome.
Wow.
What fireworks today?
I thought the Attorney General was on fire today.
Oh, my God.
Yeah, she let him have it.
And, you know, there are over 100,000 illegal immigrants in Chicago.
Now, why does that matter to the rest of the country?
Anytime you have a sanctuary city like Chicago, where people come over 100,000, it entices others to come thinking if I can get to a place like Chicago, I'm home free.
So sanctuary cities are magnets for illegal immigration.
The gangs have consolidated there.
Crime is on the rise.
The murder rate is five times higher in Chicago than it is in New York.
Trump promised us when he ran for president that he would deal with the invasion that happened on Biden's watch.
And the only way you can deal with that is going to these sanctuary cities and start expelling illegal immigrants, and that's what he's doing.
And the National Guard is helping that endeavor, particularly protecting ICE agents against assault.
You know, I listened to J.B. Pritzker, and, you know, just a big windbag that he is.
And do you realize that since he's been governor of that state of Illinois, over 4,000 people in Chicago are dead, and untold thousands have been shot on any given weekend?
You could predict with pinpoint accuracy almost how many people will be shot, shot, and killed.
And now we have these protests in light of what happened, especially in Dallas, where ICE agents are being targeted.
You see what's happening in Portland over 100-plus nights straight of never-ending attacks against ICE facilities.
We had the incident this weekend where, you know, in Chicago, where, you know, 10 cars surrounded ICE agents.
They had to call Chicago police for assistance, and there's some questions about whether that was withheld or not.
I mean, what is going on here?
Well, I think you just put it in a context of what happened for four years under Biden.
The border was obliterated under Biden.
11 million people plus poured into our country legally, going to places like Chicago and other blue cities, and they left there to go other places.
President Trump ran on the idea: I will shut the border down, I will regain control.
He has checked that block and then some.
We went from having the most largest number of illegal immigrant crossings to the lowest in eight months.
Now, if you want to deal with illegal immigration and the invasion of 11 million, you have to start deporting people that came here.
So, this is not like he just woke up one day and say, I want to send ICE into all these cities and counties that are, you know, sanctuary cities and states.
He is trying to fulfill a promise that I will start mass deportation of people that came in here through mass invasion.
And he's doing that, and it is disruptive.
But I'd rather deal with it now.
The gang members being arrested, the crime, the criminals being sent back and put in jail will make Chicago safer.
But President Trump is doing what he promised to do to deal with the invasion created by Biden.
And people in Chicago should be welcoming the help, not fighting it.
You know, a lot of people don't know that you are one of President Trump's closest friends.
And I know that you have a lovely relationship and he gives you a hard time sometimes, but you are somebody that plays golf with him regularly.
You're best friends with them.
I'm not sure if people know how close you are.
And I feel, and I want to kind of dovetail into not only the success that he's had with the border and the success that he's having with deportations and the lies that we were told in the last four years, but what he's done with the economy, but more importantly, the political capital that he's expended worldwide for the cause of peace.
Now, a lot of amazing developments, especially as it relates to the Middle East, have happened here.
Things that I'll be very frank, Senator, I wasn't sure I'd ever see in my lifetime.
And I feel like many people that even support President Trump don't understand the Trump doctrine.
I never thought in my lifetime that, you know, all these decades, Arab nations have rejected any and all efforts to involve themselves in the conflict in the Middle East because they've never wanted to absorb or be a part of or have an indoctrinated population of Palestinians out of Gaza come into their countries because they're brainwashed and indoctrinated from the time they're little with cartoons and their earliest years in school.
And Donald Trump's been able to get these Arab countries on board now.
And they want peace in the region once and for all.
Hamas is a terrorist organization.
They have in their charter the call for the destruction of Israel.
Okay, we know that part.
But the fact that Arab nations have got on board, I'm sure it was a big pill, the 20-point plan for Prime Minister Netanyahu to swallow to release all of these people that are really sworn enemies of Israel.
But he's willing to do it in the name of peace to get Bibi on board and basically give Hamas one last chance.
Either you will be decimated, to use his term, and obliterated to use his term, or you're going to go along with this deal.
And it looks like the odds are we're probably on the verge of the hostages being released, both dead and alive.
There's about 20 we expect to be alive, and that there might be a path to peace for the first time in how many years?
Thousands of years.
Yeah, I mean, I hope people absorb what you just said.
Let's break it down a bit as to President Trump and myself.
Yeah, I was one of 16 or 17 people run in 2016.
If you don't remember me running, that's not your fault.
It didn't last that long.
I'm probably the only guy who got a t-shirt out of it.
But after he won, he called me over after the election when he got in office in 2017.
And he said, I'd like you to help me.
And I said, I'd be glad to.
And he was surprised it would be that quick.
I said, listen, Mr. President, you won, I lost.
I have my say.
Nobody listened.
You're the president.
I want you to be successful.
And we had lunch.
Then he said, Do you play golf?
I said, Yeah.
And we played a lot of golf, and I've got to know him very well.
The first thing that happened is.
By the way, behind your back, you didn't know he makes fun of your golf game.
Yeah, well, he has got a lot to work with.
Same here.
Don't worry.
I can barely play.
It's there for the taking.
All you got to do is do it.
But anyway, the bottom line is he's earned my respect.
He inherited a mess.
When America is strong and reliable, the world is safer.
When we pulled out of Afghanistan, we lost reliability in the eyes of the world.
And it made us look weak.
So Putin invades Ukraine and on and on and on.
So he comes into office with an absolute nightmare on his end.
11 million people invade our country, gang members, drug dealers, you name it.
And he's been trying to dig out of that mess ever since.
So that's 2024 election.
But go back to 2016.
What I saw was a guy that could do things that nobody else could do.
You mentioned something that just sort of goes over people's head.
Ever since I've been involved in this business, this has been a while now, you could never get the Arabs to want to own the Palestinian file.
They would complain about them behind their backs, behind their backs, and do very little to help them in public.
President Trump told the Arab world, you need to take ownership of your own backyard.
I want to work with you.
But for the first time ever, the Arab world is embracing a solution for the Palestinians that not only will give them a brighter future, but will lead to safety and security for Israel.
Israel can't change Palestine.
I can't change Palestine.
Only the Arabs who speak the language and understand the culture.
This is his biggest accomplishment by far, in my view, is to take the Arab world that's been indifferent, to make them have ownership of the future of Palestine, consistent with security for Israel.
Now, why is BB deferring to him on things that he probably wouldn't do for anybody else?
He trusts Trump to always have Israel's back.
He bombed Iran nuclear facilities and joint operations with Israel.
He recognized Israel of Jerusalem as capital of the Jewish state, which it is.
He recognized the goal line to be part of Israel, which secures their nation, unlike any declaration anybody's made in a long time on that part of Israel.
So he's earned the respect of BB.
BB trusts Trump, and he's willing to do things that he wouldn't do for any other president.
This is a winning combination.
Israel being willing to compromise in a smart way.
The Arabs taking ownership of the Palestinian file to give a solution that's never existed before.
If this happens, it will be because of Donald Trump.
Everybody says, I like Trump's policies.
He's just too much for me.
Let me tell you, it's his personality and the stronghorse nature of who he is that has attracted the Arab world to him.
When he took on the Iranians, Gil Soleimani and bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities, every Arab said, I've got a real friend I've never had before.
Nobody in Israel doubts Trump's commitment to the state of Israel.
If we pull this off, where the hostages are released and Hamas one day lays down their arms and they are no longer part of Palestinian life.
By the way, that's got to be a key component.
They can't have arms.
They cannot have these weapons, and Israel can't be under a constant threat of rockets being fired.
I've been to one city's throat, a border city, 10,000 rockets in 10 years, Senator.
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
But if we get the hostages out, Israel pulls back.
You can't pull back much further until there's a commitment to disarm Hezbollah, I mean, excuse me, about Hamas, they'll come back.
And we've got to deal with Hezbollah and Lebanon, and I've talked to Trump about that.
But the long story short, what's going on in the Mideast is a direct result of the larger-than-life personality of President Trump talking to people in a common sense way, setting aside traditional norms and trying to get outcomes that make America stronger.
What makes America stronger?
When the Israeli-Arab conflict is to an end, if Saudi Arabia recognizes Israel, we're safer.
That ends the Arab-Israeli conflict.
That makes the Mideast a better place to do business.
If we find a solution to the Palestinian problem Israel can live with, then that's a home run.
So President Trump has got people who do things that nobody else has been able to do.
Well, do you like him?
Do you like his tone?
You like his word?
What he's done is historic, and he should get the Nobel Peace Prize about three times ago.
I don't know how this ends, but we're closer than we've ever been, and it's due to the Trump personality and the Trump doctrine.
I will help you, but you've got to help yourself.
I'm telling you, these are transformational, consequential times.
If you have a few more moments, I'd like to hold you over.
Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, I just, I want to go back to the fact that you were spied on by our own government and the way this happened and how this can't happen again and how the FBI and the DOJ can no longer be weaponized, and we must restore both the FBI to its former greatness and our intelligence communities to its former greatness.
Senator Lindsey Graham is with us.
Toll free our numbers 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, we continue now with South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham.
I want to get to Ukraine in a second.
Now that we've talked about the Middle East, let me ask you one last question on the Middle East.
What do you put the odds at that this is going to get done?
50-50 or better, which is pretty good odds in the Mideast.
And again, they wouldn't be at the table if Trump hadn't pushed everybody.
He's pushing the Arabs.
All I can say is the best chance I've seen in the last two years.
Today's the anniversary of the October 7th attack.
It was designed to stop Saudi Arabia from recognizing Israel, which is Iran's worst nightmare.
Hamas was an instrument of Iran.
And so let's just pray.
Hope it works.
I hope it's better than 50-50.
I think the word obliterate probably got Hamas's attention.
Oh, it did.
Oh, I'm sure it did.
What do you make of the rise of virulent anti-Semitism?
We hear it in the halls of Congress where you are.
We hear it on college campuses.
It's growing worldwide.
I mean, I couldn't believe European leaders siding with the wrong side in this conflict.
We hear it in the punditry class.
I'm not sure what part of the murder of the equivalent based on their population size versus ours, the equivalent of murdering 40,000 Americans in a day, people don't understand.
But murder, kidnapping, torture, rape, beheadings.
I'm not sure what part of that people don't understand.
Well, I can just say this.
When our country was viciously attacked on December the 7th, 1941, by Japan, we joined forces with allies, Britain and others, to fight Germany and Japan.
We felt like it was a war we couldn't afford to lose, and we sent millions of Americans off to foreign battlefields to protect America.
Over half a million died, and we wound up dropping two atomic bombs on Japan to end the war to prevent an invasion of Japan that could have lost a million American lives.
Did anybody suggest that was disproportional to the task at hand?
No.
So the Vatican, you know, God bless the Pope.
But the Secretary of State for the Vatican, the head diplomat, said the slaughter needs to end in Gaza, that Israel is slaughtering people.
The response needs to be proportionate.
So to the Cardinal, what is a proportionate response?
When your country is attacked, 1,200 of your citizens are slaughtered, babies are burned alive, women are raped in front of their family, people have had their heads cut off, and they promise to do it over and over again.
That's just one threat.
Hezbollah has the same goal.
Iran chants death to Israel every day, and they mean it.
What is their appropriate response?
I'm sorry there have been so many people killed in Gaza, particularly children.
Why?
Because Hamas uses them as human shields.
Anti-Semitism.
It's always there.
And you know what it pops up when Israel is strong?
There's something about a strong Jewish state that drives the world crazy.
How dare the Jews stand up and fight?
How dare them be so strong?
That's what I think this is.
It's always there.
But it pops up in an ugly way when Israel is strong and fights back.
You know, the days of killing Jews without consequence are over, and the Jewish state survives and thrives simply because it's determined to do so.
The day that we pull our support for Israel is the day we will be in disfavor with God.
I believe that.
But more equally important, it's the day that we'll lose a great ally with common values.
I can't think of one group that wants to destroy Israel that doesn't want to destroy us.
So I'm on Israel's side without apology.
You see, the president did everything he could do to entice Vladimir Putin to stop the killing and the murdering and the attacking and the invasion of Ukraine.
I'll be honest, Senator, when this conflict first started, I thought it would be over very quickly.
I just thought that Russia would roll over Ukraine.
Now, I didn't like how it evolved into a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia, and I blame Joe Biden for that part.
I also blame Biden for putting handcuffs on the Ukrainians in terms of restrictions about how they can fight a conflict.
And he wouldn't even let them have MiGs that were being offered by Poland in the very beginning.
He wouldn't let them use certain bombs.
But now the handcuffs are off.
Now President Trump has basically said, okay, you don't want peace.
He's now going after the lifeblood of their entire economy, which is energy.
And now the Ukrainians have been striking, and it's not gotten a lot of press, but they've hit dozens of refineries in Russia.
My understanding is there actually are shortages of gasoline inside of Russia, which means that that's how they fund their war machine.
I mean, Western Europe was buying all this energy from Russia, funding, you know, the war against Ukraine.
It's insane.
And now the president put a 50% tariff on India, and he's negotiating hard with China.
Stop buying Russian oil.
And that, I think, will bring Vladimir Putin and Russia to its knees, and they're going to say, nyet, and they're going to give up, and they're going to eventually come to the table and really talk about a real peace deal.
Am I wrong?
No, I think you're dead, right?
And so what did we say early on?
The world is in a better place when America is strong and reliable.
Now, can anybody fault President Trump for not trying to end this war through diplomacy?
He invited Putin to Alaska.
I could care less if he goes on vacation with Putin as long as we end the war in an honorably and just way.
He's reached out in the Mideast, unlike any president I've ever known, and is beginning to pay dividends.
So what did he do?
After he realized that Putin's going to keep attacking, he upped the cost to the attacks.
He's allowing Ukraine to use weapons they've never had before in an unlimited fashion.
Biden restricted the airplanes and the tanks, long-range artillery, because he didn't want to be provocative.
Biden prevented me from having pre-invasion sanctions, telling Putin, if you go into Ukraine, here's what happens on day one.
They didn't want to be provocative.
Trump has taken a different route.
He's reached a hand to peace out, but he's also told Putin, if you keep this war going, it's going to cost you more.
I'm going to go after your customers who buy your oil, like India and China.
I'm also going to empower Ukraine to hit you harder than they've ever been able to hit you before.
And the goal is to get him to the table to end this war.
President Trump has made a decision to help Ukraine by selling weapons, not giving weapons, to Europe for the benefit of Ukraine.
He's taken the gloves off in terms of how they can use these weapons.
There are gas lines in Moscow right now because Ukraine is taking into the oil and gas infrastructure of Russia.
And this is due to a change in policy by President Trump.
I do believe that Putin will come to the table if we keep the pressure up.
It seems to me even our fellow conservatives don't have a grasp of what the Trump doctrine is.
They are interpreting the president's commitment to no forever wars as never using military force.
And his track record proves just the opposite.
This is the same Donald Trump that beat the ISIS Caliphate, the same Donald Trump that took out Soleimani on a tarmac, the same Donald Trump that beat Baghdadi and associates and dropped the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan.
And I think the biggest military feat of all is taken out Iran's military facilities, which I don't think any other person on earth would have had the courage to do.
And thank God he did it because they were too close to getting nuclear weapons.
We had talked about that for years.
Trump 2028.
Now, you asked me what happened here between me and that's going to be the headline of the whole interview.
Trump 2028-32, as long as he can hang in there.
Why?
Because this man, through sheer force of personality, being smart and clever, has used force in a way to foster peace.
Don't you think the Arabs are willing to help us with Palestine because we took Iran on?
I believe that.
Don't you think it's willing to accommodate some compromise because they trust Trump unlike any other president?
Don't you think Putin now is understanding he probably overplayed his hand with Trump?
Don't you think China is reevaluating what they're going to do with America on his watch?
I can tell you they are.
Being strong makes us safer.
venezuela the days of sending drugs through the caribbean and speed boats or if you're in the caribbean you better have a trump flag on your boat because you're in a world of hurt by the way the cartels are going to put trump flags out there thinking that they can well i got a way to tell a true one from a fake one
But the bottom line here is this display of force and strength to protect America from poisoning by fentanyl, to increase the cost of Putin's aggression, to stand firmly with Israel, but ask them to compromise where they can, to tell the Arabs you'll have no better friend than Trump, but you've got to up your game in your own backyard, is leading to historic opportunity.
That's why I'm such an admirer of his outcomes and his work product.
I've become close to the president personally.
We have a lot of fun together, and we do disagree on occasion, but he knows I have his best interests at heart.
I fought for Kavanaugh because I thought it was a great pick.
And we'll talk in a minute here before we leave, I hope, of this effort to destroy Trump and everything, including his family, in 2016 and 2024.
What he went through at home, I hope no one ever goes through at home again in terms of having his government turned against him.
And now find out about me.
But as to foreign policy, it's a breath of fresh air.
He's a combination of Ronald Reagan and P.T. Barnum.
He has some juice.
He has some swagger that I've never seen before.
And it's to the benefit of the American people.
So, Mr. President, you're a man of peace, but you should not be trifled with.
There are a lot of people that would like to tell you how strong President Trump is, but they're dead.
Quick break, right back more with Senator Lindsey Graham, South Carolina on the other side, 800-941-SHAWN, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
The Sean Hannity Show is up next.
Hang on for Sean's Conservative Solutions.
All right, we continue now.
It's South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
We only have about two minutes left.
Let's get to the issue of weaponization, what they've done to him, and how Jack Smith tracking private communications, including yours, nearly a dozen Republican senators, and how this ends.
Okay, well, let's go through a timeline real quick.
I'll try to make this quick.
President Trump announces he's running for president November the 15th, 2022, that he's going to run in 2024.
Three days later, Garland appoints Jack Smith as special counsel.
In March of 2023, he's indicted in Manhattan, where they take misdemeanors and combine them in a fashion to create a charge to make it a felony that no person's ever been charged with in the history of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, just to get Trump.
He was charged with 34 felonies, and these are business records, misdemeanors that they rigged the system to go after him to create a felony condition in March of 2023.
In June of 2023, he's indicted on 37 charges related to handling classified information.
Apparently, taking a hammered hard drive and using bleach bit to wash away emails doesn't make the cut, and that's what Hillary Clinton did with classified information.
In August, he's indicted on four counts of trying to overturn the 2020 election in D.C. in August of 2023.
In August of 2023, he's in charge with a RICO violation in Georgia.
Now, September 27th, 2023, they look at my phone records and my phone calls about what happened in 2020.
I am in the fight with Trump.
I was the first senator to endorse him.
So the investigation in 2022 and 2023 about what happened in 2020 wasn't about bringing justice to bear based on what happened in 2020.
It was to beat him so he couldn't get elected in 2024.
And Jack Smith tried to release in October of 2024 his memo accusing Trump of all these crimes to make it public.
There's a doctrine in the Justice Department: you don't bring charges close to an election.
In October and September of 2024, Jack Smith was trying to fill up the newspapers with bad press for Trump, and this was an effort to beat him in 2024.
The investigation in 22 and 23 wasn't designed to right wrongs in 2020.
It was to undercut him in 2024.
Unbelievable.
That is the grand conspiracy that I keep talking about.
I know we took a lot more of your time than we planned, Senator.
You also are going to be on Hannity tonight.
We have a really good show tonight.
Looking forward to seeing you and talking to you then.
Thanks, Pal.
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