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Oct. 18, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
29:31
Trump Signals Hardline on Venezuela And Russia - October 17th, Hour 1
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What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi.
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Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
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All right, thank you, Scott Channel.
Thanks to all of you for being with us.
Write down our toll-free telephone number this Friday.
It's 800-941.
Sean, if you want to join us, President Trump just sending a very loud, unambiguous, very clear message to Maduro and Venezuela.
You don't want to F around with the United States.
And yes, he said it.
We have to bleep it out and we'll play it for you.
Why should this country allow the country of Venezuela and their drug cartels and their syndicates to be pouring in and filling this country with drugs that are poisoning and murdering our children?
Now, you can argue, well, you know, nobody's forcing people to do drugs.
Okay, fair point.
Understood.
But you know what?
The availability of it shouldn't exist.
And these people have been making a fortune off it.
And that's why these boats that have been transporting these drugs have been blown out of the water time and time again.
They did have one survivor in the last attack.
I don't know how that person survived.
But it is a clear, it is an unambiguous message.
They have been poisoning.
And I view that as an act of war against our country personally.
If you are flooding our country with drugs to kill our people, that to me is an act of war.
Now, Hennedy, you saying you want to go to war with Venezuela?
No, I'm not.
I am saying that there are consequences for actions.
And if they don't stop, if their own government doesn't stop, we're going to continue the use of military force and taking out these boats and transportation means that they've been using to protect the lives of our citizens.
That's America first.
That is not a forever war.
That is not an invasion.
That is a message.
Knock it off.
And Maduro better get the message sooner rather than later.
It has not been reported that Maduro offered everything in his country, all the natural resources.
He even recorded a message to you in English recently offering mediation.
What should we do?
He has to stop that.
He has offered everything.
He's offered everything.
You're right.
You know why?
Because he doesn't want to around with the United States.
Nobody should want to.
Now, a lot of other developments today.
If you recall yesterday, Vladimir Putin and President Trump had a conversation.
I thought it was rather amusing.
In the middle of the conversation, President Trump truths out that he's having a conversation right now with Vladimir Putin.
I'll let you know how it goes after.
And they have agreed to meet again.
And there's a lot of reasons for this.
And I interviewed the president after the first meeting in Alaska.
The Trump doctrine, you need to understand the president is going to bend over backwards in the name of peace.
He's going to try and give people, even evil actors on the world stage, every opportunity to pull back from their evil deeds and stop what they're doing and save their lives.
And frankly, military force and action are the last resort for President Trump.
And no, he's never gotten involved in a forever war.
And that is a big part of the Trump doctrine.
And I completely and wholeheartedly agree with that.
But forever wars does not mean isolationism, as evidenced by him taking out the ISIS Caliphate, which is a clear and present danger, not only to the entire world.
Let's be blunt.
That was allowed to grow under Obama and under Biden.
He just wiped them out.
He wiped out Soleimani, the world's worst terrorist.
He wiped out Baghdadi and Associate, like the second worst terrorist, dropped the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan.
And yeah, he made the decision.
He gave Iran 50 days and said, come up with a plan and a peace deal with Israel or else.
Day 51, Israel went in, took out their missile defense systems, their ballistic missile systems, took out their nuclear scientists.
I mean, the Israeli military and their intelligence capabilities are unbelievably impressive.
And right at the top in terms of worldwide, why?
Because it's a necessity for them.
They're fighting for their very survival every day.
That's why the rise in anti-Semitism, I always say, is based in utter, complete intellectual laziness and ignorance.
If you think that people would be able to fire hundreds of thousands of rockets into American towns and cities, what would you want your government to do?
Think about it.
Because that's life in Israel.
And I've been there a number of times.
They build a network of terror tunnels to kill Israeli citizens.
If that was happening to America, what would you want your country to do?
You know, if you lose, again, comparing population size, 10 million versus, what, 360 million Americans, whatever the number is.
Okay, the 1,500 murdered on October 7th is the equivalent of 40,000 dead Americans in a day.
What would you want America to do?
You know, these border towns that I've been to that had been hit with 10,000 rockets, one little town in 10 years, and kids can't play outside.
They play in, you know, underground bunker playgrounds.
What do you want people to do?
And I find that those on college campuses, in the halls of Congress, worldwide growing anti-Semitism, that's why I cannot stand Western Europe.
They are so pathetically weak.
They are so, you know, woke and DEI and just insane.
And they have literally like abandoned any sense of moral clarity.
You know, let's recognize the Palestinian state.
Let's not sympathize with the victims of terrorism.
Radical Islamists, you know, convert or die, understand it is an ideology.
We lived through it.
9-11-01.
We lost 2,977 Americans.
How did our country react to that?
And just, you know, use that as a comparison.
So now the president has clearly warned Hamas since the president had this meeting in Egypt with General El-Sisi and all the leaders of all these Arab nations and European nations around the world.
People came in.
And for the first time in what has been since really the 1948 U.N. partition plan, Arab nations are either not attacking Israel or if they weren't attacking or fighting Israel, they had wanted no part in the peace process.
A big part of that equation that nobody ever talks about is they all feared the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran as much as the Israelis did.
Now you're getting into a Shia versus Sunni battle in that conflict.
But I mean, and that's why it was the untold story in the first Trump administration beyond the Abraham Accords is the intelligence sharing that went on with the U.S. and Israel and Egypt and Jordan and the Saudis and the Emirates and all these other countries, which foundationally opened the door for where we are now, and that is, okay, Iran's nuclear sites are out.
The fear of Iranian hegemony is greatly reduced.
They are now a paper tiger.
And so it now frees up these countries because they don't have the same cult, death-like, you know, leadership that they do in Iran.
Now, I do make a distinction between the Iranian people.
I make a distinction between the Russian people.
And it is, you know, now a window of opportunity exists.
But since that day, they have been assassinating anybody perceived as not being 100% pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist, pro-war, pro-terrorist, you know, pro-attack Israel and pro-chanting death to Israel.
And so, you know, that's going to take Arab nations now stepping up, doing that which they had never done before for decades, and that's going to be part of the solution.
And I believe the best solution would be for them, you know, to all contribute to a police force defunding, demilitarizing Gaza and beginning the process, hopefully, of investing their money, not ours, in rebuilding that part of the Middle East for families that actually want to live in peace and raise their kids and not indoctrinate them into radicalism.
Now, as it relates to Russia, this phone call yesterday in a lead up to today's meeting at the White House that concluded just a short time ago with President Zelensky was pivotal.
Why all of a sudden now Putin had said, you know, after the Alaska meeting, he had only gotten more aggressive.
But so did the Ukrainians.
And, you know, reports that the United States intelligence had helped the Ukrainians, you know, with better pinpointing of the targeting.
And they've gone after the Ukrainians have by using drone technology, the lifeblood of Russia's economy, which is energy.
And they've been going after their refineries and successfully taking out many of them.
You know, to the point now we're reading that, you know, many, many portions of Russia have lines for people waiting to buy gasoline.
This is an energy-rich country.
Usually you wouldn't need that.
But they need to sell the energy to actually fund their war machine.
And so President Trump has gone at this now from two ways.
Unlike Biden, he's not paying for Ukraine's weapons.
He's selling it to NATO, and then NATO provides it to them.
And number one, and number two, the only thing the U.S., according to reports, I have no independent corroboration of this, but they've been providing intelligence so that the Ukrainians now can fight back and fight back in Russian territory and take out the funding for their war machine, which is always critical.
I mean, that is the asidine mentality of Western Europe.
NATO is designed purposely to fight and protect against likely Russia and Putin.
And meanwhile, they're making Putin rich and funding his war machine by buying his oil and purchasing his oil.
And simultaneously, the president has been involved with pressuring other countries not to buy Russian oil, more specifically India.
I'm sure those discussions, when the president meets on his Asian trip that is upcoming with President Xi of China, that that will be part of their discussions and that China will hopefully be buying more of their energy oil from Middle Eastern countries and the U.S. rather than from Russia.
You know, at that point, Putin has no choice.
There's one other factor, though.
And the president said it today.
And he's, you know, President Trump's always sending messages because in the lead up to this meeting with Zelensky today, the president talked about, well, it might be time to send Tomahawk precision missiles to Ukraine or to sell them to NATO to give to Ukraine.
That would be a game changer.
That would be the Ukraine then having the ability to strike deep with incredible precision inside of Russian territory.
And there's probably not much Vladimir Putin can do about it.
Remember, the Iranian missile defense systems that were in place, you know, were all Russian systems.
And the Israelis, they know how to knock them out.
So it's not like it's foolproof.
So it certainly got Vladimir's attention.
And now because of strength, and in each case, there is one underlying principle.
Yeah, no forever wars, peace, if at all possible.
If it's rejected, then military force, limited ways, send a message and get these guys to finally see the light of day.
And that's where the president is currently.
And so I don't think it's an accident when Putin read about Tomahawk missiles maybe going to NATO, going to Ukraine, that he decided to get in touch with President Trump.
And they had this meeting and our phone meeting, and that culminated in a decision that they were going to meet again.
I mean, you got to give the president is expending time, political energy, resources, you know, focus and energy on bringing peace to the world on top of, you know, Cambodia and Rwanda and Azerbaijan and Armenia and Iran and Israel.
And, you know, and the list goes on and on.
India, Pakistan, he's been trying to bring peace around the world.
I don't think any other president would be capable of it.
Anyway, 800-941-Sean, our number this Friday, if you want to be a part of the front.
What's on your mind this Friday?
We'll get to some of your calls coming up here in a minute.
What I told people, I was making a podcast about Benghazi.
Nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith, political warfare, and, frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Navok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is where Linda's going to go apoplectic.
Now, I'm going to start with good news.
So you won't go apoplectic immediately.
The good news is Matt Towery, Robert Cahaley combined forces, and they polled Virginia and they polled New Jersey.
They have the gubernatorial race in the state of New Jersey, a one-point race.
These are not polling companies that I don't trust.
These are the pollsters that I trust.
They nailed 2016.
They nailed 2020.
They nailed 2024.
So many of these pollsters just suck, and I paid no attention to them.
But I pay attention.
I pay attention to Matt Towery, Robert Cahaley, Insider Advantage, and Trafalgar.
I pay attention to Rasmussen.
I pay attention to John McLaughlin.
I don't know.
Atlas does very well, but they only show up like out of nowhere.
Nobody knows who they are.
I have no idea who they are.
But anyway, so it's a one-point race in New Jersey.
What does that mean if you live in the state of New Jersey?
It means that you can get your taxes cut, get rid of the idiotic policies of Phil Murphy and not elect this fraud, Mikey Sherrill, who has now given multiple answers as to why she wasn't allowed to walk with her class at the Naval Academy.
First, I wasn't able, I didn't rat out my friends.
That's why.
And then she said, I told investigators everything I knew.
Well, it can't be both.
So she's lying.
And then she can't answer the question about $7 million.
You know, oh, I just, yeah, I made $7 million.
I have to look into that.
I have no idea how I made $7 million.
And, you know, then on, you know, all the other issues, telling the people of New Jersey, one of the highest tax states in the country, that she won't commit to not raising taxes.
I'm like, okay, be dumb because that's dumb.
But, you know, if you're sick and tired of it in New Jersey, you got a shot here.
This is not a slam dunk.
It's all going to come down to turnout.
All I'm doing is disseminating information.
I am giving you a realistic scenario that this is a winnable election.
That is my objective assessment.
Now, on to the Commonwealth of Virginia.
You have Winsom Sears and Winsome Sears, same pollsters, Matt Towery, Robert Cahaley.
That race is now within two points.
It was a period where Abigail Spanberger, and by the way, she's running into major issues.
Number one, because she can't answer a question, and she just ducks and dodge and weaves and just fumbles and stumbles.
And we get, you know, Kamala word salads out of her.
She's got major problems there.
She won't even condemn this AG candidate, Jay Jones, who, you know, of course, said if I had two bullets and I had three people, Pol Pot, Killingfields Cambodia, or Hitler, Holocaust, or the Speaker of the House in the House of Delegates, I'd use both bullets on him, then go after his family.
Okay, that's a little sick.
And as his opponent Mayaris said last night, and we had him on TV after the debate, I watched both debates last night.
And Linda, did you watch both of them?
Or I know you've got other stuff going on.
I watched a lot of the highlight reel from the stuff out of Virginia, but I watched Curtis and the other two.
All right, so I watched both of them.
And I can tell you that whoever, I don't know the name of the moderator.
I have no idea who it is in Virginia.
Guy was great.
Did a great job.
Tight ship.
You know, okay, you have two minutes to answer.
You need to give people two minutes to answer so they can finish a freaking thought.
It's unbelievable.
And then you get to, you know, this New York debate.
You got Andrew Cuomo.
You got Curtis Sleewa, who I'm supporting for Mayor, who's going to join us later.
And you got, you know, Zoron.
He didn't like it when Curtis mispronounced his name.
It's Zoron.
Zoron.
All right.
Okay.
Just calm down.
Not that Curtis didn't do it maliciously.
He even said, my apologies.
Anyway, so, and I'm going to play some of the highlights of this coming up in a minute.
And you have four moderators in this debate.
And this is kind of how it went.
It's like, Andrew Como, you have one minute.
Okay, you're time.
Andrew, the person's trying to finish this.
Then the next person jumps in.
Wait, he invoked my name.
I get to, okay, we'll get to that later.
But no, no, no.
That's the rule.
And wait, I want to respond now.
Then the third candidate wants to respond.
And they're arguing with them.
I mean, it was an unmitigated disaster.
It was a ridiculous timeframe for answering questions.
They didn't let the candidates have any discussion amongst themselves.
I hate that because it basically joint press conferences at that point.
It frustrated me also that I felt like they were really giving short shrift to Curtis Lewis, especially in the first hour of that debate when that was the only televised hour on NBC in New York.
I mean, what do you expect?
It's just so pathetic.
And, you know, while I'm giving people hope in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and by the way, it's a long shot.
You got all these government employees in Northern Virginia, you know, 90-plus percent of them are Democrats, you know, that are part of the D.C. bureaucracy.
They've ruined the state of Virginia.
I mean, as great a candidate as Glenn Young was, I mean, he didn't win by a massive margin when he became governor.
And, you know, there were a lot of issues at the time.
Now, the same issues face Abigail Spanberger, you know, on this issue of men in women's locker rooms and men playing women's sports.
I mean, it's, you know, her unwillingness to condemn, you know, the AG candidate.
Now, in that very same poll, Miaris, the current Attorney General, Republican Attorney General, is leading by five.
And I hope that helps Winsome Sears.
I think Winsome Sears would be an outstanding governor for Virginia.
Outstanding governor.
And it's just, it's both of these are very hard states.
Then you go to New York, New York City.
And this is what Linda's going to hate.
And as much as I want Curtis to win, putting Curtis on radio, putting him today, we had him on TV after the debate last night.
I want CurtisNYC.com to win every day of the week.
However, I don't like our odds.
And I'm saying this, you know, I'm never going to be Pollyannish with my audience.
I just think New York City is so far gone and so many people have left that would otherwise never go for this insanity and this madness of Marxist Kami Mamdani that, you know, we find ourselves in this current position.
It's absolutely terrible.
And you hate when I say that.
You want to be optimistic.
You want, no, I think Curtis is going to win.
I want Curtis to win, but right now the odds are against him.
I don't like that the odds are against him.
I wish the odds were with him.
I wish the polling was better.
But when it's double digits, all these years I've been doing shows.
You know, I talked to candidates and the candidates, I asked them.
And he goes, no, no, no, no, Sean, don't believe the polls.
I'm like, it says you're down 13.
yeah no no no you should see my crowd size and i'm like roll my eyes the crowd size doesn't mean anything you want to comment or are you gonna no i mean listen i'm not first of all i'm never taking it you know mom donnie the biggest problem with mom donnie is he's doing something that's like straight out of the democrat playbook which is the following let's promise them everything and you know and the moon and he can't give them anything you know mark simone was here
on tuesday when you were at the charlie kirk medal of freedom event and he made a really good point and i looked into it and he said you know mom donnie keeps saying that he can give everybody free bus rides and last night the moderator asked him well how are you going to do that he said well i'm just going to raise taxes to nine billion dollars and you know this is how we're going to be able to afford free health care and free bus rides i'm like first of all you have absolutely no authority to do that the people that actually govern the
mta there's it's an entire board it's 23 seats four of them go to the mayor the rest of that goes to the governor and the state of new york so he has no authority on how the mta is run or giving free anything it can't raise taxes either i know but the problem is and this is my opinion huh people don't know that but but the moderators aren't calling them on it like the moderator i get it is just moderating
but there's got to be somebody there like there's got to be like a fact check like you can't say that because that's an utter lie and you have no authority to do that it's not within the purview of the office i think it's the job of the other candidate to do the fact but it can't be it can't be because then they're just going to think that the other no because they're going to think the candidate is talking trash that's the problem no well but you you have to let a debate breathe remember i started the debate with the santos and newsom and i said guys let's work
together right but you did you interjected and you had cards and you had boards and you had things where you're like okay we cannot have a legitimate discussion if we're starting from a place of bs you have to start from a flat level of okay here are the facts now we can go from here this guy is just lying and promising people thinks that he has zero authority over and cannot deliver one and people like oh that sounds good i can't stand that phony smile of his by the way oh please in new york
let's talk to peter peter what do you think
peter new york what's up peter how are you hey sean how are you good to talk to you yeah so my my big issue is are they polling republicans uh in the mayor's race because curtis got almost 30 percent of the vote against adams in 2021 right now he's got all this money coming in this time around a lot of more people know him how is he polling at 15 did these people leave new york city
let's put it this way you know and and the problem is the polling affects a lot of things it can't it affects the campaign money coming in it affects uh the way people vote people could be swinging a como because they say oh wow uh curtis can't win right um so that's my big question is are republicans actually being polled or is the polling rigged too what i fear is too many people like yours truly
have said enough is enough and they've left you know think you think of the men that built there's a great series on the history channel the men that built america jp morgan's one of them you know you think of that quintessentially new york you know where there's more employees for morgan jp morgan chase today in texas not on wall street i live in i live in florida in my free state
you Wall Street South is right here.
And if Momdani gets in, they're all going to pack up their offices.
They may keep a few people there, but they're going to base their headquarters now in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, and they're getting out.
That's what's going to happen.
I don't, now, for the sake of my friends that remain there, I don't want that for them.
I really don't.
You know, it would probably benefit my property value, but, you know, it's not about me.
I'd rather they have, they saved their city for crying alpha.
It used to be the greatest city in the world.
When I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
From Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries, this is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
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