Thanks to all of you for being with us and happy new year to all.
Write down our toll-free telephone number if you want to be a part of this extravaganza.
It's 800-941.
Sean, if you want to join us, Linda, did you miss me at all?
Just be honest, don't lie.
I mean, the audience.
Of course.
The audience, the audience, I want to say thank you to the audience for missing me.
There's nothing in the news.
There's nothing happening.
London Times reporting Iran's supreme leader plans to flee to Russia if the anti-regime riots get any worse.
So, I mean, we're now at a moment of history where you could see the Iranian mullahs fleeing to Russia in days or weeks.
Cuba is on the precipice of falling.
Maduro was in court in New York today.
You know, it looks like Nicholas Maduro is not the only American enemy leader whose reign is about to come to an end.
And there's really only one person you can thank for all of this, and that would be Donald J. Trump as we now head into what I believe is the single most important midterm election in our lifetime.
And I'm going to say that a lot in the coming year.
And when I say it, some of you say, Hannity, you're repeating yourself.
I'm telling you ahead of time.
I will tell you and remind you daily at what is at stake here.
All of the progress that you are going to now see the impact of a year's worth of economic policies driven by Donald J. Trump now literally heading into your pocketbook and your wallet and your family.
You're going to see lower interest rates.
You're going to see the benefit of trillions of dollars in committed monies from manufacturing make its way, infuse its way into the bloodstream of our economy.
You're going to see energy prices drop probably to all-time lows, especially in light of what has just happened in Venezuela and what's going to happen in Iran, or could possibly happen in Iran, for the London Times to report that Iran's Ayatollah Khamani has a backup plan to flee the country with a close circle of 20 aides and family.
And of course, they'll pillage and take every penny that they possibly can out of the country.
But that plan B is very real, according to the London Times.
We'll get into that as the program unfolds today.
I mean, we have got Tim Walz making his announcement.
He's ended his reelection bid because of all of the corruption.
I love the New York Post headline from last week.
The walls, WALZ, close in.
And six days later, with the sheriff hot on his trail, Governor Walls has pulled the plug on his reelection bid.
And New York Post reporting that Governor Walls said Monday, he had zero sadness, zero regret in ending his re-election campaign before denouncing political actors.
I don't know who the citizen journalist is.
A lot of these people, you know, that get a microphone, they don't really do a lot of good work.
They just don't.
And a lot of them are, you know, just too busy, you know, looking for clicks and figuring it out, figuring out algorithms that they can monetize and spewing, you know, bizarre, strange conspiracy theories and virulent anti-Semitism and just division.
I would argue that those people that are anti-Semitic, that are spewing division at a time when the Democrats are cracking up right before our eyes, those people, if you look at their history of their support for the MAGA movement, it's not very consistent.
It seems to be, you know, a matter of convenience for a lot of them.
Watching them implode is actually something that's fairly fascinating to me in some ways, but we'll get to all that in the course of this day, this week, this month, this year.
We've got a lot to talk about.
Do we have to not start with how amazing, just like Operation Midnight Hammer was taking out Iran's nuclear sites?
Do we not have to pause and thank God for the greatest military on the face of God's green earth?
And you might think, well, this is, we've done this before.
There is no such thing as a risk-free military operation this sophisticated where they captured Maduro.
And, you know, I'm already listening to the naysayers out there and the, you know, predictable naysayers, most of them.
You're dealing with an illegitimate dictator.
He was not elected.
He stole the last two elections, just like his predecessor, Hugo Chavez before him, and indicted here in the United States six years ago.
And a narco-terrorist, it is not something that we've not seen in the history of this country before.
We've seen it with Noriega and Saddam and Grenada.
And where was the other one?
I think it was Columbia.
We've seen this movie before.
And, you know, it's really remarkable that the corrupt state-run legacy media mob and fake news CNN and MSTNC, they don't look happy about the successful military operation and developments and the end of the Maduro regime.
If you look at natural resources, just the sheer volume of resources that Venezuela has in terms of oil, now, it's not the best oil.
It's not the cleanest oil.
What does that mean?
It's considered dirtier oil.
That means that it needs far more refining than does, say, the oil that we're extracting here in the United States.
But you have Venezuelans dancing in the streets.
You have Venezuelans all over the country dancing in the streets.
You have Venezuelans, you know, in my free state of Florida.
They are cheering Donald Trump's decision to remove Maduro.
One of the consequences of this is we now are living in a moment where Cuba is on the brink as a result of the president's actions here.
And that's fascinating to watch when you get the operational details as they become more available.
And I've talked to a lot of people, very good sources.
This was a very, very well-thought-out, sophisticated military operation that was extraordinarily dangerous.
Apparently, we did have CIA sources inside the Venezuelan government, which is why we were able to map out and duplicate and actually make a model of Maduro's home as we had Delta Force troops and others invade, and they got to him from the moment they got to that palace or that home he was living in.
It took them less than three minutes to get to him.
That's it.
That's how quick it was and how amazing they are.
And all hats off to all of them for the great work that they've done here.
Now, I love the fact that the president is calling it the Donro doctrine.
We have had the Monroe Doctrine in effect for a long time, and that is that we are not going to allow foreign influence in our hemisphere, obviously for national security reasons.
And as you go back in time and you looked and you see exiled Venezuelans around the world celebrating the removal of Maduro, do you know nearly 10 million Venezuelans have had to flee the country as a result of all of this?
And do you know that Donald Trump offered this guy multiple off-ramps in keeping with the Trump doctrine, give them an opportunity for peace, give them an opportunity?
But it was obvious that Maduro was just arrogant and I guess felt that it was impenetrable, and it's not.
And, you know, a lot of people are now there.
Well, President Trump is taking over the country temporarily because why would we expend all this political effort and military effort and allow somebody to take over and just replace Maduro and keep in place the policies that have impoverished the people of Venezuela?
That would be pretty stupid.
That would mean that was a waste of time, energy, effort, and a risk to our military.
No, the president said until a permanent leader can be found, the U.S. government, yes, will run Venezuela until such time as we can do a safe, proper, judicious transition.
One of the people, obviously, that we've had on this program many times before, Maria Machado, she's actually going to be on TV with us tonight, would be one of the leading candidates.
But Maria Marchado, she was the one, if you recall, won the Nobel Peace Prize and said, I don't deserve this.
It really belongs to President Trump.
It will be interesting to see if she addresses that tonight when she's on with me.
And I want to see what happens.
But they've not had honest elections in Venezuela for a long time.
Now, for the short term here, the presumed successor, the vice president, Del C. Rodriguez, is a hardcore.
And there are rumors that she may be in Russia even now in exile herself.
But we don't know.
We do know that she is a radical socialist.
We do know she's a hardline socialist who kept Maduro in power for years.
And, you know, she's been trying to sound like she's lecturing Donald Trump and demanding the return of Maduro.
She also serves as the Minister of Finance and Oil, slamming this as an atrocity that violates international law.
None of which is true.
It is constitutional.
It is with plenty of precedence.
And we'll have Greg Jarrett address the legal aspect of all this.
But if you look at her, you know, she will either comply with what President Trump demands is going to happen there in the interim, or she will herself be out of power, and that'll happen very quickly.
It's not going to be a long, protracted negotiation with her.
The Department of Justice under Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, has vowed Maduro and his wife will face the full wrath of American justice.
As I said, he was in court earlier today.
We're hearing that the evidence against Maduro will be overwhelming, according to one federal prosecutor, Jonathan Fahey, telling Fox News that U.S. forces captured Maduro, flew him to New York City, and he faced the arraignment earlier today, and there will be a criminal trial.
My guess is it would be, I'd be hard-pressed to see a scenario in which he's not convicted, although there's so many lunatics in New York now run by Marxist Kami Mamdani.
I guess anything could possibly happen here.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr predicting the Venezuelan president Madori Maduro could face a sentence rivaling that of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.
And by the way, he was charged with multiple crimes by several countries, including a 40-year sentence for drug trafficking in the U.S., served 17 years of that sentence before being expedited to France, where he served a seven-year sentence for money laundering, finally extradited back to Panama for a 60-year sentence on murder and corruption charges, where he died in prison in 2017.
I would imagine that will be the fate.
He's not having stake in his palace right now.
As we speak, that's not going to happen.
Look, you have predictable reaction, and then there was some unpredictable reaction, which I'll get to.
And obviously, anybody that believes in liberty and freedom.
Now, a lot of people say, well, how is this not nation building, Hannity?
How is this not a forever war?
It's not going to be a forever war.
There's no conflict going on right now.
There's nothing happening.
The only thing that is happening is this president is making sure that all these American companies, remember, they nationalized all of the oil industry in Venezuela.
When they did that, they stole all of the equipment from American companies that had built out, and I'll go through the details of this, their economy, their energy industry, and they did it with great skill and precision.
And that's why it should be one of the richest countries on earth.
And I'll never forget the scene when Jorge Ramos, and I've debated Jorge Ramos.
I actually like him a lot personally.
He's a nice guy.
And he went to Venezuela, a country that should be so rich.
They have the second largest oil reserves in the entire world.
Again, not the best oil, but oil that can be refined.
But it would take U.S. companies to do it and U.S. refineries to do it.
And I'm sure they can build them in Venezuela.
They can bring the oil here, and that will help make the people of Venezuela rich.
Also, those companies can recoup the money that was stolen from them when these oil industry was nationalized.
And I would imagine, knowing Donald Trump, that probably will be a financial windfall for this country as well.
But it was the right thing to do as this guy is pure evil.
And that's the thing.
I mean, I've heard commentary by some.
Well, things in Venezuela are just wonderful.
And there's no rape and there's no crime.
Okay, it's when you kill American citizens by being a part of a narco-terrorist organization that profits off the death of American citizens.
Why is that not a moral imperative to every human being to make sure that comes to a swift end?
Anyway, those people are barely worth discussing.
Look, there are some of you still suffering under the Biden-Harris economic disaster, although taxes are lower as of four days ago.
Well, five days ago.
And that means that you'll be paying less.
Interest rates now down a full point.
We have a new Fed share coming in May.
That means interest rates will go down further.
That means sales of pre-existing homes will go up.
That means new home construction, we're down some 6 million homes that are needed in this country.
They will be built.
And if you're a homeowner and maybe you're living paycheck to paycheck, or maybe you're putting bare necessities on credit cards with 21, 25% interest rates, but you still want to hang on to your home, you know, your low interest rate that you currently have, you don't have to give it up because our friends at American Financing have a solution without you giving up your low mortgage, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage that you got many years ago.
Anyway, they will give you a free no-obligation, no pressure consultation.
Just give them a call at American Financing, 866-615-9200.
866-615-9200.
You can also check them out on the web.
It's AmericanFinancing.net slash Hannity.
And yeah, prosperous times are on the way.
Thank God.
The one big, beautiful bill now in effect.
All right, 25.
Now, till the top of the hour, 800-941-Sean is our number.
And happy new year to all of you and your families.
I think it's going to be the most important midterm election in our lifetime.
We will lay out the case of what is at stake in the days, weeks, months ahead.
And I'm just urging all of you to make a resolution this new year to be ready for a battle and be prepared and prepare yourself that you are not going to let this country be set on the wrong path again.
Too many times we get too complacent.
And if people are complacent in this midterm, you know, you run the risk that all the progress in the last year, all the benefits that we're going to reap this year from the progress of last year, both around the world and domestically and economically.
And I have been predicting by the third quarter of this year, probably way before, but I want to give enough runway for the economy to make a full recovery.
All the pieces are in place.
Largest tax cut in history.
No tax on tips overtime Social Security.
Energy prices now at the lowest they've been in five years.
And they're probably going to get lower.
Interest rates now coming down.
That's going to spur economic activity, sale of pre-existing homes, new home construction, all of that.
Trillions of dollars in manufacturing monies that are now dedicated to the country.
We've never had all of this combined, and it's going to benefit every single American.
And just watch.
We got the first indication of this with the last GDP report, which came out just after I'd gone on vacation.
What was it?
4.3% GDP growth.
We've not seen that in forever.
Remember, we had Biden inflation, 9%.
It was insane.
Let me first deal with the oil issue.
And if you look at the countries with the largest oil reserves, by far, it's Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, Venezuela topping Saudi Arabia.
I mean, it is a massive amount of energy oil reserves that they have in this little country.
It should be one of the wealthiest countries on earth, but yet the people have suffered.
They've suffered needlessly and they had suffered greatly.
You know, with, you know, reserves, if you look at all the political and economic turmoil, according to the Energy Institute statistical review of World Energy, I mean, oil reserves, I mean, it is over twice what we have in the U.S.
And we have healthy oil reserves.
They have about four times, actually, about four times what we have.
And Saudi Arabia now far behind them.
And that's why the Saudis are an oil-rich nation, but they have the world's largest oil reserves.
We built, meaning the United States of America built up their oil industry.
We bought it.
We paid for it.
We built it.
And they prospered when America was partnering with Venezuela.
The people of Venezuela partnered, but we built up their entire oil industry.
U.S. oil companies spent untold billions of dollars building up their oil industry.
And then they nationalized it and stole it.
And then by doing so, they were stealing from oil companies in this country.
Now, this is going to be rectified.
It's going to take some time to rectify it.
And it's going to be American companies that are investing billions more.
And that's why the president said, yes, they will, until there is a transition, I would imagine elections is what's going to take place and a new leadership.
They'll be, I'm sure they'll be very friendly with the United States.
But if you go back, American oil companies have been operating in Venezuela since the 1920s.
It wasn't until 1976, Jimmy Carter, Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez, nationalized the oil industry, taking control of American and other foreign oil assets in the country.
And American companies, once this got nationalized, they had invested all of this money and they lost all of this money.
The State Department cable at the time from the American ambassador to Venezuela said that nationalization is going to come in any case and that it was the official position of the U.S. government at the time that it was against becoming involved in negotiations of that kind that the government is conducting with oil companies.
Remember, Hugo Chavez, 2007, took another bite at the apple and nationalized all remaining foreign oil assets in the nation, which resulted in ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, all leaving completely.
ExxonMobil and Standard Oil predecessor Standard Oil from New Jersey, Exxon and Mobile.
They operated throughout all of these years, and it helped make Venezuela one of the richest countries on earth.
And they can be again, and probably in a very short period of time, which is the upside.
Now, Chevron, Gulf Oil is one of the original companies operating in Venezuela.
They acquired it.
Chevron acquired that in 1984, and they received a billion-dollar payout, which is nothing compared to the amount that they had put into it.
So, you know, that's the history of that part, that aspect of it.
I want to deal a little bit with the legal aspect.
You're listening to these idiots on television and online and social media.
You know, the more and more I read social media, the less inclined I am to pay attention to pretty much anybody.
Although there was one real good citizen journalist who did a great job of going to the, quote, daycare centers that were getting billions of dollars in the Somalia community in Minnesota and did a great job exposing it.
We'll hit that later in the program when we check in with James Comer.
But, you know, and we'll talk to Greg Jarrett in the next hour about the legal aspect of all of this.
Remember, it was Joe Biden that offered $25 million reward for Maduro's arrest.
I don't know if that means that Donald Trump and the U.S. military are going to get a $25 million reward, but that was Joe Biden's policy.
And anyway, in almost in unison, you hear the Democrats, this is illegal, unjustified, and unconstitutional.
And all these protesters in Mamdani's New York demanding that Maduro be set free and sent back to Venezuela.
What, to make the people suffer more and to let him produce more drugs and send them into the United States and what was an organized narco-terrorist crime organization?
Oh, that's a good idea.
That's brilliant.
But they have, you know, long been poisoning our citizens.
You know, roughly 200 to 250 metric tons of cocaine shipped out of Latin America annually.
And with it, you know, fentanyl-laced cocaine is killing Americans every single day.
We can't even count how many people have died of these drug overdoses.
And it's part of the Maduro regime, which is why under Biden's watch, he was indicted.
But the president, under Article 2, Section 2 of our Constitution, vests with him inherent powers to unilaterally order armed forces into military action.
His command authority is supreme.
As Greg Jarrett pointed out in his column, he'll join us later.
He may conduct campaigns and deploy operations by his own judgment.
And short of a formal declaration of war, the president does not need prior authorization from Congress to act.
And those people that are saying so don't know what the hell that they're saying.
They just make it up as they go along and they apply it selectively.
You know, the U.S. has captured criminal suspects in foreign countries, including Muammar Gaddafi, Libya, but it sought the consent of local authorities.
And the administration describes Maduro as an illegitimate indicted leader.
In 1989, the U.S. arrested General Manuel Noriega, the leader of Panama, in similar circumstances.
Noriega had been indicted on drug-related charges, if this sounds familiar.
And Washington said it was acting to protect U.S. citizens after Panamanian forces had killed a U.S. soldier.
The U.S., you know, we can't even count how many Americans have died because of the importation by this organized crime narcoterrorist syndicate into this country.
You might recall the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was extradited to the U.S. in 2022, later convicted, drug-related charges, sentenced to 45 years in prison.
There was a good article in the Wall Street Journal that said the Noriega precedent for Maduro's capture and prosecution, trying a dictator has already been tried and courts rejected all of his legal defenses.
The only thing different is this time it's Donald Trump.
And the president said lawmakers can't.
How do you notify Chuck Schumer?
How do you notify members, Democratic members of Congress that hate Trump that you're about to engage in military action?
You don't think that's going to leak?
And you don't think that that is going to endanger American troops in such a delicate military operation?
You know, I love Chuck Schumer.
Let's go back to Chuck Schumer in 2020.
This is what he said.
He brags about all these things he wants to do or is doing, but his actions belie his words.
Maybe the best metaphor was his claim to bring democracy to Venezuela.
There was a big policy there.
It flopped.
If the policy was working, Juan Guaido wouldn't be in the balcony here.
He'd be in Venezuela.
He'd be sitting in the president's palace or at least waging a fight to win.
He's here.
And the president brags about his Venezuela policy?
Give us a break.
He hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime.
The Maduro regime is more powerful today and more entrenched today than it was when the president began.
And now he's condemning Trump.
I'll give you another example.
And again, that didn't age well.
That was Schumer in 2020.
I have a tweet from 2020 from Joe Biden, and this didn't age well.
He said, Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro.
As president, I will stand with the Venezuelan people for democracy.
Well, if you look at the timeline of Joe Biden, his comments and actions as it relates to Venezuela while he was president, you know, he tells U.S. senators the U.S. will recognize somebody else as the legitimate president.
He said he won't negotiate with Maduro.
Wink and Tony Blinken speaks with the opposition leader and discusses a return to democracy.
What happened in the four years?
Nothing.
Biden administration warned Venezuela not to accept weapons shipments from Iran.
What happened?
Weapon shipments from Iran came in.
It's like Obama and Biden, both of them, you know, said, oh, if we give you lots of money, the Iranian mullahs, and we drop, you know, cargo planes full of cash and other currency, will you please not make nuclear weapons?
A lot of good that did.
Biden failed to take any meaningful action the entire four years and then challenged Trump.
Oh, Trump would never do anything.
They did nothing.
If anything, they not only failed to take any meaningful action, in 2022, U.S. officials traveled to Venezuela for a welfare visit focusing on the imprisonment of several oil executives and nothing happens.
It's, I mean, just a colossal failure.
And then we have, you know, we have tape of Joe Biden going back, delivering a message from the Democratic Party calling on President Bush to stop the flow of drugs into the country.
What happened to that party?
Pretty amazing.
You know, we're going to run a country.
Donald Trump said that we're going to run this until such time as we can do a safe, proper, judicious transition.
That's it.
There's no forever war here.
It is in keeping with the Trump doctrine.
And it's in America's best interest.
It's in our hemisphere, and it's a direct threat to, you know, pretty much everyone in the country.
Now, predictably, you have the likes of AOC and others.
You know, if Donald Trump wouldn't have pardoned one of the largest narco-terrorists, blah, blah, blah.
Nico, you know, this is about oil ranking.
Democrats says Trump's actions created more chaos and instability.
Well, the Venezuelan people and Venezuelans around the world don't seem to feel that way.
And, you know, watching Schumer and Jeffries demand a meeting is a joke.
But there are some House Democrats that actually took the other side of this.
And actually, some surprising names that you'll recognize.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz was one of them.
Numerous House Democrats praised Trump's capture of Maduro.
Venezuelans deserved the promise of democracy.
I nearly fell off my chair when I read from Adam Kinzinger, Donald Trump made the right call.
But then, of course, adds a warning.
Well, what's the warning?
Oh, okay.
You broke it.
You own it.
Well, I think Donald Trump owning that oil is a good thing.
Then you have other Democrats want to impeach Trump for arresting the narco-terrorists.
New York State Democrats citing, Oh, release the narco-terrorists now.
Kamala Harris, same thing.
And by the way, when President George H.W. Bush moved to depose Manuel Noriega, instantly received bipartisan support.
That's how corrupted this Democratic Party has become.
Now run by Mamdani AOC, Jasmine Crockett, and Grandpa Bernie.