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Nov. 8, 2025 - Sean Hannity Show
27:42
Best of Hannity: Eliminate Shutdowns Forever
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This is an iHeart podcast.
Hour to Sean Hannity's show, 800-941-Sean on number.
If you want to be a part of the program, the Schumer shutdown continues.
Spent his entire career speaking out against shutdowns, but now he's got to give in to his radical base.
And that means, and I think he thinks this is his path to cling on to power.
I don't even think that Hakeem Jeffries, in the end, is going to be able to.
They're both leaders in name only.
Let's be real about all this.
But I don't think they're going to be able to.
But Senate Republicans are trying everything they can do.
John Thune, the Senate majority leaders, now offer Democrats a standalone vote on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
They were supposed to be temporary put in place by the Biden administration in exchange for voting to open up the government.
We have gone into great specificity and detail in terms of what it is the Democrats want.
They want to fund pretty much everything.
In spite of what they say, they want $200 billion in monies that they can use for illegal immigrants, $200 billion.
They want pregnancy, emergency, Obamacare COVID subsidies.
They want $500 million restored for PBS and NPR.
They want $4 million for LGBTQ democracy grants in the Balkans.
$2 million for feminist democratic principles in Africa.
In total, they want $1.5 trillion in new spending to open the government for a mere seven weeks.
And then we go right back and start all over again.
Senate Democrats privately debating how to respond to Thune's plan to jam them on a vote funding the Department of Defense.
Do they really want to justify not voting to fund our military?
Scott Besant, Treasury Secretary, says the government shutdown is starting to cut into muscle and the economy, maybe losing billions every day.
It was funny last night watching AOC dodge the question.
This is now the new tactic.
You see this happening in the race for mayor in New York City, as much as Martha McCallum pushed moron, I'm sorry, a Zoron, moron, commie, Marxist Mamdani, to answer questions.
He wouldn't answer a single one.
He's like, what makes you qualified to be mayor?
Well, you mentioned Trump.
Let me look directly in the camera and address Donald Trump.
I mean, and this same phenomenon is happening in New Jersey.
Mikey Sherrill, how did you make $7 million?
I have no earthly idea.
None at all whatsoever.
Why didn't you get to walk with your class at the Naval Academy?
Well, here's four different excuses at four different times.
Same thing is happening in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Abigail Spanberger, you know, she can't answer questions.
She won't condemn Jay Jones, who called for the assassination of the Speaker of the House in the Commonwealth and harm to the Speaker's children and family.
Pretty unbelievable, but that's the state of where things are right now.
And President Trump has found a way to pay our troops.
Democrats claiming it's illegal, but meanwhile, they're not doing a thing to stop it because they really don't want to stop it because they know that this will, you know, they'll bear responsibility on it.
We're going to talk to Dusty Johnson in a minute of South Dakota because he's not taking any paycheck, like Ted Cruz said last night on Hannity during this government shutdown.
You know, in past shutdowns, these congressmen, they get paid.
They don't really care.
It is impacting people's lives.
I saw a clip of our buddy Stephen A. Smith, and there was an air traffic controller, and now he's out, you know, doing DoorDash deliveries just to make ends meet in the interim while he's not going to be getting paid.
And that really is who they all should be thinking about because all of them have the ability to get their paycheck.
Anyway, joining us, Dusty Johnson, South Dakota.
He's not only not taking a paycheck during this government shutdown, but he is also putting forth a bill to eliminate shutdowns act, which would trigger an automatic continuing resolution for 14 days in the event of a lapse of appropriations.
Congressman, great to have you.
How are you?
I'm doing fine.
Thanks for having me.
South Dakota is beautiful.
I got to be honest.
I used to go to my kids, played tournaments there, and I was there for four years in a row.
Loved it.
Beautiful place.
Oh, it was unbelievable.
July 4th, I was at Mount Rushmore with my old governor, good friend, and Secretary of Homeland Security, Christine Ohm, as we swore in 72 new Americans who did it the right way.
Sean, it was absolutely incredible.
You know, the thing is, I don't get impressed too much by going to places, and my kids wanted to see Mount Rushmore, and I wanted them to see it.
But, you know, for me, if I look, I feel like in my mind, if I look online that you really get the experience, you don't.
I mean, to see it up close like that and observe it, you realize it's majestic.
It's incredible.
But anyway, tell us about your Eliminate Shutdowns Act, which I think is common sense and would basically protect both sides in the end because they end up taking different positions each time.
I take the position that shutdowns don't really bother me too much.
Everyone ends up getting a vacation and back pay in the end, but it does create strain and pressure on government employees that is unnecessary and unwarranted and unfair.
Well, at some point, people are paying taxes and they should get what they pay for.
If you're a small business, you're waiting on an SBA loan so you can add a few more employees.
Like, I get it.
It's not the end of the world if you've got to wait an extra 20 days to get that loan processed.
But that's the kind of crap that we make fun of Europe for about how slow they are to process basic tasks.
And so I get it.
There's not one single catastrophic part of a shutdown, but there are a million stupid little paper cuts.
And you're right, my bill, along with Senator Ron Johnson, he's the Senate sponsor, would just say, we're not going to do this anymore.
This is dumb to let the minority party, the Democrats in this instance, take everything hostage.
As you probably know, Sean, we're one of only a couple of countries in the world that do it this way.
For our first 200 years, we just said, well, if you missed the deadline, the funding levels continue until you get a deal.
That's how most countries do it.
That's what my bill would do.
Well, I mean, it's basic, you know, common sense.
Honestly, it's just simple.
It would make everybody's life easier.
Politically, it'd be easier.
But in reality, both sides try to gain a political advantage in this.
However, it's usually the party responsible for the shutdown, in this case, the Democrats, that, you know, as we play all these audio tapes and videotapes on TV of them over the years being so adamantly against shutdowns and how dangerous they are and how horrible they are for people.
And then to watch them, you know, dig in even deeper, you know, with their Trump derangement syndrome.
You know, it's kind of remarkable to see the hypocrisy on display.
Well, and I'm glad you mentioned the performance art aspect of this because that is what is irritating me.
I mean, it is clear that Jon Thun, another great South Dakotan, is working hard to try to find some principled, conservative, but pragmatic approach forward.
I mean, he's calling their bluff.
They're saying we want more of a normal appropriations process.
Okay, big boys, big girls, great.
Let's put the defense bill up.
Okay, you don't want that.
We'll put up a three-bill package that includes ag funding.
Like, let's start to open back up this government.
They're saying no because they don't, it appears that they don't actually want the partial solution.
What they want is the political theater.
And when I was in D.C. last week, when I was seeing my Democratic colleagues, it was amazing how much more they were focused on messaging and making noise than actually trying to get to yes.
But this is now the state of the Democratic Party.
I mean, I've never seen a party collapse this dramatically as we've seen since President Trump's reelection.
Now, you know, in the lead up to this election, I think Democrats were all into woke and DEI and open borders and defund and dismantle and all this insanity.
There's been no introspection, self-reflection, and there's absolutely been zero.
I mean, zero, you know, course correction, which if anything, they've doubled down on stupid, and now they've got the leadership scared to death of the radicals that really do rule their party.
You are exactly right.
It has gotten worse.
You know, rather than taking some notes, and I'll just back up real quick.
I mean, securing the border was like a 90-10 issue.
Getting rid of the DEI nonsense was a 90-10 issue.
And rather than acknowledging that they had gotten out way over their speeds, over their skis, they did double down.
And so now you've got this Mondani guy you were talking about in New York who is legitimately a socialist.
You've got the guy who's running against Susan Collins in Maine who is legitimately a socialist.
I mean, they are putting all of their eggs in the far left basket.
Yeah.
Well, when you speak to these liberal colleagues of yours, if you even do, I don't know if they'll talk to you or not.
What are these conversations like?
Yeah, I have a lot of conversations with them, and I try to build relationships on the other side of the aisle.
I mean, to get any bill passed other than once a year, you get a reconciliation.
Everything else has got to have votes on both sides of the aisle to make it out of the Senate.
Maybe you like that, maybe you don't, but that's the math problem.
And we can periodically find some guys on the left who want to do the right thing.
I mean, when we passed out, you know, the short-term CR, there were Democrats that were supportive of that.
Not a lot, but a few.
And so when I talk to these folks, they understand they're holding a bad hand of cards.
They are shutting down the government on the basis of a big policy demand.
As you noted, Sean, that never really works.
But they feel like if they don't fight, the base is going to abandon them.
We know that, too.
Quick break, right back more with Dusty Johnson, South Dakota and the other side.
Can we eliminate shutdowns forever?
We'll get to your calls as well coming up.
800-941-Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Also, Greg Jarrett analyzes what are potentially real legal troubles for deep state operatives as we continue.
All right, we continue now.
South Dakota Congressman Dusty Johnson is with us.
He has proposed the Eliminate Shutdowns Act in Washington so we don't have to live through this madness anymore.
Let me play for you, if I can, the, I think, basically leader and name only.
And there was an actual polling of the Democratic caucus.
There's not widespread support for Hakeem Jeffries remaining the leader of the Democratic caucus, but he does this bizarre shutdown poem, and I want to get your reaction to it.
House Republicans shut the government down.
Then they ran out of town.
And for the last three weeks, they're nowhere to be found.
What more can I say?
You deserve better.
Okay, the only problem is the House already passed it, and the Senate had another vote yesterday, so I don't know what the hell he's talking about.
Yeah, that is a huge disconnect.
And I just, I don't, I mean, I feel like a thousand times I have explained to people that on a bipartisan basis, we passed out of the House a bill to keep the government open.
And that same package, which Democrats have voted for 13 times in the recent past, is having a hard time getting out of the Senate.
And so it is, but Republicans, everybody except Rand, is voting for this thing.
So I know that Hakeem Jeffries, through his turn of phrase and his poetry, is trying to retcon reality.
But Republicans have voted repeatedly to open up the government.
Democrats have not.
And I would just say this, Sean.
The only question before us right now, because I know we've got some big things to negotiate, I mean, listen, let's talk about COVID-era health care subsidies.
COVID's in the rearview mirror.
I don't think we need to be giving people with 700 or 800% of the poverty level subsidies for health insurance.
But the Democrats want to have that discussion, so we can.
We should have those debates when the government is open.
Demanding, as Schumer has, that we have those debates only while the government is shut down is stupid.
It's beyond stupid.
It's going to get interesting to watch.
If you even looked, it was panic.
I played it earlier and on TV last night.
I mean, even CNN is saying that, especially with some of the redistricting going on in this Supreme Court case on gerrymandering that they're taking up that is race-based, they have the potential to maybe lose 19 more seats, which would be great for the country, in my view.
But Republicans, you know, be wary because you have to defy conventional political gravity and win in an off-term election year.
And I will tell you, this is the most important tipping point midterm that we'll be facing next year, a year from now in our lifetime.
We appreciate you, Congressman Dusty Johnson, South Dakota.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate you.
Thank you.
All right, let's get to our busy telephones, 800-941-Sean.
That's our number.
You want to be a part of the program?
We'll start my free state of Florida.
I don't know if you saw last night, Pat is with us.
James Upmeyer, who is the AG of Florida, he's doing a great job.
And he announced on my show last night he's suing California in Washington.
And he's going right to the Supreme Court when two states sue each other.
You know, that's where the case is filed.
And he says they are violating the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986.
In 2017, for example, California passed what's called the California Values Act that prohibits California law enforcement agencies from inquiring an individual's immigration status.
Now, how does that impact Florida?
It impacted Florida because both Washington State and California gave commercial driver's licenses to this guy that couldn't read English and couldn't read road signs.
We find out later that made that ridiculous U-turn and three innocent people were killed.
And once they gave him a test, he couldn't identify road signs.
Insane.
Anyway, Pat, glad you called.
Glad you're with us.
It's an honor to be speaking with you on the phone.
You were the catalyst.
You're a great American, and you're the catalyst to the reason I'm looking at my voter registration card right now in this Republican Party of Florida.
I was raised Democratic, Democratic family, but I've never, I haven't been paying attention for 43 years.
But my eyes are wide open.
That's because within the last year, I started, I listened to your show, and you bring it every day.
So thank you for doing that.
You often make reference to, I listen to you and watch your show as much as I can.
You often make reference to Trump and say, you can't believe how hard he works and how he does it.
I don't believe, I don't know how you do it, sir, but because you bring it every day is the reason I am now paying attention and my eyes are wide open.
And the reason I had to change to the Republican Party, and I'm proud to be a Republican.
I believe in my government for the first time in my life.
I believe I want to do for my party.
So I had a question for you.
What can I do?
Because you changed my life in a way.
And I think you're a great American.
I look forward to the day you get the presidential medal of honor.
I appreciate what you do.
There's way more deserving people than me, but that's very kind of you.
First time I'm going to tip my hat to you because there are people, you know, there's perceptions about hosts sometimes that are never rooted in reality.
A lot of people that will criticize me, like I don't read comments about me ever because unless I really want to feel depressed, because the comments online, these keyboard warriors and naked in their mother's basement or in their underwear in their mother's basement, anonymously, you know, they'll say anything about anybody.
They seem to hate everybody in the world themselves.
But, you know, I don't do the show for them.
I'm doing the show for people like you.
But you had an open mind and something in you, things that you heard resonated with you and common sense, and maybe you'd never heard it before.
I mean, Charlie Kirk would go into these hostile environments on college campuses and he'd talk about God and he'd talk about, yeah, don't be a part of hookup culture and don't be the kid that goes to rat parties, get drunk and gets drunk and is thrown up in the bushes or doing drugs.
And oh, by the way, best thing I did in my life is I got to church and I got to know Jesus and it changed my life.
What a horrible message, but a message that unfortunately kids aren't even hearing.
But to answer your question directly about what you can and should do, first of all, you're doing it.
Number one, you're engaged.
And I say this, and this is an early, I was not going to, I'm not going to start this till January.
But if all you do next year is commit to voting in the midterm elections, the way knowing that this is a tipping point midterm, I'll take that.
That's a big deal.
That matters.
I'm not going to minimize it.
Then if you want to take your involvement further, you know, I will give you all of the issues that are relevant that will impact this country.
And I will probably repeat them a lot.
And people say, Hannity, you repeat yourself.
I'm just preparing you because I want all of you by the time we get to November of next year, when I start in January, about what will define this election.
And I can tell you what a lot of it's going to be.
You either want open borders or you want secure borders.
You either want law and order and safety and security or you're part of defund, dismantle, no bail, reimagine the police.
You either want the largest tax cuts in history or the largest tax increase in history.
You want energy dominance or, you know, it's the cost of democracy is, as Kamala said, about paying higher energy prices.
You don't want to pay for, you don't want taxpayer-funded sex change operations for illegals and for convicts.
You don't want taxpayer-funded college tuition.
You don't want all these benefits for people that don't respect our orders, our laws, and our sovereignty.
And then maybe you want to get involved in a campaign.
Maybe you want to donate.
Maybe you want to make phone calls for these campaigns.
There's all sorts of ways you can get involved, and you can call your local Republican Party.
Do that.
I'm fully engaged, Mr. Hannity, and you were the catalyst for that.
I would do anything for my country at this point.
And that is a result of you bringing it every day.
I will make phone calls.
I'm inspired.
I'm passionate about it now.
My president talks to me.
He talks to me all the time.
I've never seen that in my life.
I think it's going to go down as Washington, Lincoln, and Trump one day when we look back at it.
And you're a great American.
Like I said, Mr. Hannity, I am honored to be on the phone speaking with you, but you changed my life in this sense in a good way.
I was blind.
I wasn't paying attention.
I wasn't doing my civic duty.
I just went along and I didn't watch the news.
You opened my eyes and now my eyes are wide open.
And I'm going to help in any way I can.
Well, listen, I give all credit to you.
You had an open mind, and you made your, you know, your heart is guiding you in this direction.
Obviously, it's, I'm, you know what?
Once your eyes are open, you can't close them.
It's sort of like once you see how abusively biased and corrupt the news media is, how complicit they were in spreading lies and peddling conspiracy theories, you can't not see media bias anymore.
I mean, they don't see it.
That's why they're dead.
There's a certain fundamental truth in broadcasting.
Having done this for decades now, I can tell you.
If you're not honest and truthful with your audience and you're just lying, you're going to lose trust with people.
And we have a pretty good track record of getting our stuff right because we work hard at it.
It's not a brag.
It's more my responsibility and just doing my job.
Pat, love you, man.
Appreciate it.
Stay in touch with us.
We'd love to have you back.
Quick break, right back.
More of your calls coming up, 800-941-Sean is our number if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, back to our busy phones.
It's toll-free, 800-941-Sean, if you want to join us.
Maria is in Delaware next on the Sean Hannity show.
Hey, Maria, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, I'm glad I got through.
My goodness, you are, you're popular.
I'm glad you got through too.
You sound like the nicest person in Joe Biden's Delaware.
Oh, listen, I'm telling you, it's rough.
We're trying to move out.
We want to move to Missouri because I have family there, and it's more red than Delaware.
So anyway, we'll get to that.
You know what?
I know a lot of people are afraid to move.
If I can address this with you, I've never been afraid to move.
I've lived in six different states.
I grew up in New York, Long Island, lived in Rhode Island five years, California five years, Alabama, two years, Georgia, four years.
Went back to New York when I started at Fox.
Now I'm completing my second full year in Florida.
And it's the best decision and the best experience I've had in my life.
I love moving.
I love, I'm not, except I'm done now.
I don't want to move anymore.
I'm finished.
Well, and see, that's the thing.
My husband and I are up there in age, and Have just some other things that going on in our lives.
And it's not that I'm scared to move.
I do want to move.
I have good reasons I want to move.
But again, when you're our age, it's kind of like, oh.
But I know if it's the Lord's will, we will move.
Let me ask you this.
Do you live in a house or a condo or a townhouse?
What do you live in?
An apartment?
And we have acreage.
But the problem is, if you know Delaware, it's a lot of swamp land.
So we have swamp around our house.
Now, our house itself sits up above the swamp, but I have two.
It sounds like mosquito hell to me.
Oh, it is.
When we first moved here, they said, oh, the mosquito is the state bird.
I'm like, I believe it.
Mosquitoes and I don't, I don't know what it is.
They like my blood.
Here's the benefit.
I think probably it's either worst case scenario, I think property values will be comparable if you move to Missouri because I'm just obsessed with real estate.
The second thing I would say to you is you might even make more money on selling your Delaware house and get a comparable house and then put some money in your pocket, which would be pretty cool.
And with interest rates, you know, we expect a new Fed chair in May.
It probably is like the perfect timing.
Yep.
Yep.
And we realize that.
So, yeah.
The reason why I called, I was listening to you interview, excuse me, Eric Trump yesterday, and I was like, wow.
I knew the family had been through a lot, but he explained so much more what they've been through.
And I'm sure he couldn't even cover everything.
In an hour and a half, he barely touched the surface.
His book, Under Siege, My Family's Fight to Save Our Nation.
Yep.
And I'm like, well, now I know why the Lord laid it on my heart to be praying for President Trump and his whole family because I knew they were under siege.
But I, like I said, I didn't realize it was that bad.
And I'm like, oh, thank you, Lord, for protecting the whole family.
Because listening to you, I knew that President Trump, he is a family man and a man of faith.
And I'm like, well, thank God for his faith.
And I know if anything happened to even just one person in his family, it would hurt him bad.
So I'm like, well, Lord.
He loves his family.
And they're all that, by the way, they're all great.
I know them all.
They're all great kids.
Baron, Tiffany, Ivanka, Jr., Eric, all great kids.
And their kids are great too.
I've met them all.
You know, I'm not going to go into it, but I will say this.
And Linda, you can corroborate this.
You know, I didn't talk a lot about it, but they were after me in a lot of ways too.
And nothing compared to what they went through.
Nothing.
I don't even have a right to mention it, to be very honest.
Winda, true or false.
It's true.
Yeah.
They went after you, too.
Yeah.
It sucks.
They suck.
They weaponize the government.
They're sick people.
They suck.
Maria, the good news is the American people saw through it.
The Democrats overreached.
And they're doing it again now.
And they'll get the same result.
What's the definition of insanity?
God bless you, Maria.
God bless your move with you and your family.
We only wish you the best.
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