U.S. Power, Energy Politics, and Rep. Lance Gooden on the Global Fallout
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This is an iHeart podcast.
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Power to Sean Hannity Show, 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, we're following multiple stories today.
One is we're seeing the first defections of Iranian police, and we have video of it.
Is Iran now on the precipice of falling itself?
Iranian security forces did open fire on an anti-regime protest that was going on.
Inflation there, a whopping 42%.
Reports now that the Ayatollah Khamani has plans to flee to Moscow in Vladimir Putin's arms.
He has a Plan B in place.
Some protesters clashing with security forces in Tehran's Grand Bazaar.
And the government cannot handle what's going on at this point.
Things seem to rapidly be deteriorating out of control.
The Iranian government offered a whopping $7 monthly stipend to people, I guess, to somehow placate them.
I don't think that's going to be the case.
Then, of course, with the fall of Maduro and Maduro being captured by U.S. forces, what does that mean for Cuba's future?
I mean, there's a lot going on in a lot of different ways.
And, you know, the liberal left, they are championing, you know, Nicholas Maduro as evidence in Seattle this weekend.
Hands up, Venezuela!
Hands up!
Hands up, Venezuela!
Hands up!
President Mario!
Okay, and what's amazing about this, I'm going to play Schumer back to back.
Schumer condemning the president's actions, but in 2020, a very different Schumer saying Trump is not getting rid of Maduro.
Figure this out.
This is first, it is reckless.
It is dangerous.
Whenever our country has gotten involved in this kind of regime change and nationbuilding, American families pay the price in blood and treasure.
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.
He didn't bring an end to the Maduro regime, but that's then.
Now Trump gets rid of Maduro, and now he's upset.
We have the same thing, Mark Warner last year saying, well, the Biden administration did not put enough pressure on getting Nicholas Maduro out.
And then he's complaining.
President Trump got Maduro out.
Anyway, here to weigh in on this insanity, and it is insanity.
And again, we're now in the middle of a midterm, you know, the most pivotal, important midterm election, I think, in our lifetime, because all progress will stop.
And, you know, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment would follow if Democrats get control of the House and Senate.
Congressman Lance Gooden of Texas sits on the House Armed Services Committee, supports the president's agenda.
Congressman, great to have you back.
How are you?
Happy New Year.
Hey, same to you.
Happy New Year.
It's great to be here.
Let's get your take on all of this.
Well, the hypocrisy that you just mentioned is really mind-blowing.
I mean, I know Democrats are good at being hypocritical, but for the Biden administration to put a bounty out on Maduro and criticize Donald Trump many years ago for not doing anything with Maduro, and now that he's actually executed and delivered, they're outraged.
It makes no sense to me.
And I think this is one of these moments where Democrats would be wise to just keep their mouth shut.
Maybe they say they don't love the way it was handled at the most.
But I think John Federman is the only Democrat I've seen that's actually spoken the truth and admitted that this is actually great for the world.
And it is, in fact, America first.
Well, I mean, that's the point of it, isn't it?
I mean, at the end of the day, it's very consistent without any forever wars.
Now, there are going to be challenges.
We're not going in, you know, starry-eyed here, thinking that this transition is going to be easy.
It's not.
At the top of the next hour, I had her on TV last night.
Maria Corino Machado, who is the leader of the opposition in Venezuela, will join us.
There are challenges ahead, but in the interim, what's the best course?
Well, I think the best course is to lean on the guy who's so far delivered and not failed us, and that's Donald Trump.
I don't know that it will be challenging.
I mean, everyone's saying it's going to be challenging, but maybe this new vice president turned president down in Caracas is going to play ball.
She certainly changed her tune in the last two days.
She started off a pretty anti-Trump, and then some words were spoken, and she seemed to have an olive branch extended to the U.S.
So let's just see what happens.
If you'd have said a month, a week ago, if you'd have said a week ago that, hey, we're going to fly into Caracas and take President Maduro out, and he's going to be in a New York courtroom, people would have said that's nuts.
There's no way that's going to happen.
So maybe this won't be difficult.
If this new president that's been installed via Maduro's departure plays ball, then this may be easier than we thought.
Well, we can always hope.
I think the key to this, and I know that the Energy Secretary is meeting with American oil companies, and they're talking about a year, year and a half timeframe.
I mean, they have the largest oil reserves in the world, but yet it's considered what we call dirty oil.
It needs a lot of refining, but we have the ability to do it.
But that could be a huge benefit for the people of Venezuela.
Ultimately, when we get that back up and online, meanwhile, American companies paid all the money to build out those facilities.
That's right.
And the American companies lost their investments many years ago, and no one is going to get rich off of this.
When folks say, hey, this is all about the oil, there's an aspect of the oil being a part of this, but the United States is not going to make a bunch of money off this.
What's important is that the supply that this will provide to the market will keep prices down in the long term and take away the advantage that places like Iran and Russia and the Middle East have had over the years.
And so this new supply, hopefully, will keep prices low, which is good for us with respect to our adversaries who have capitalized on this dirty, cheap oil.
China is no longer, hopefully, going to be getting cheap oil from Venezuela.
They're going to have to pay for it, and they're not going to be in charge.
It's going to be a big blow to Cuba, which is ultimately going to help the state of affairs in the Caribbean.
And I think that overall, we're going to see quite a bit of good come from this.
You'd think as a consequence of what happened in Venezuela and the fact that Cuba was getting most of their oil from Venezuela, and that oil now is going to be cut off?
Do you think as a natural consequence of this that Cuba falls?
I think it is a natural consequence because they're having electricity and clean water issues as we speak.
In the weeks prior to Maduro's removal, they were in dire straits.
And I think they're very bad off in Cuba.
I'm not even sure anything needs to be done.
It may fall on its own.
And what about Iran?
I mean, you see what's happening.
The image is coming out of there.
Police are putting down their weapons and standing in solidarity now with the people of Iran that are protesting.
Those crowds get bigger and bigger by the day.
We are reading that the Ayatollah Khamenei has now got a plan B to go to Moscow.
Wouldn't surprise me a bit.
And he's running out of friends.
Who's going to come and save the Iranians?
No one saved Maduro, and I don't see anyone coming to their rescue.
Sure, there may be a plane to Moscow for their supreme leader and the top dogs, but at the end of the day, don't forget you've also got Israel interested in what happens there.
And I think the cards are being read, and I think the people of Iran know that if there is a time to overthrow their government and have regime change, it has to be from within, and it has to be now.
I think this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Iranians, and I don't think they'll let it go to waste.
Let me go and switch gears on you a little bit here and go to Minnesota and this massive fraud that we know Governor Tim Walz was warned about.
Many whistleblowers had warned him, and we're talking about billions of dollars.
And now this fraud has been more institutionalized.
We're realizing other states are involved like Ohio and New York and California.
God only knows how many billions will be, you know, ultimately discovered that have been wasted and how much fraud has taken place.
Here's, let me play for you, Walls announcing he's not going to seek re-election and then going on a rant about Donald Trump and his allies and how they want to poison our people against each other.
That's what he says.
I don't want to mince words here.
Donald Trump and his allies in Washington and in St. Paul and online want to make our state a colder, meaner place.
They want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors.
And ultimately, they want to take away much of what makes Minnesota the best place in the country to raise a family.
They've already begun trying to withhold funds that were meant to help families afford child care.
And they have no intention of stopping there.
In September, I announced that I would seek a historic third term as Minnesota's governor.
And I have every confidence that if I gave it my all, we would win the race.
But as I reflect on this moment with my family and my team over the holidays, I came to the conclusion that I can't give a political campaign my all.
Every minute that I spend defending my own political interest would be a minute I can't spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who want to prey on our differences.
So I've decided to step out of this race and I'll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that's in front of me for the next year.
What's your reaction to Tim Waltz?
I think he's juvenile and a clown and I want to thank him for being the nominee with Kamala Harris because he certainly didn't do her a favor.
And I think, you know, from Mogadishu to Minnesota, the criminality and the crime and the fraud is just perhaps a little bit different in Minnesota.
Maybe the violence isn't there.
But the fact that they're defrauding U.S. taxpayers and people like Tim Waltz, maybe he didn't know about it.
He certainly turned a blind eye to everyone else that said we've got a problem.
They're too worried about offending a group of refugees that have, in my mind, run the whole state of Minnesota into the ground.
Tim Waltz was a National Party nominee on the Democratic ticket.
He should be cruising to reelection in his home liberal state of Minnesota.
And the fact that he can't even keep his governorship after a presidential, vice presidential run, I think is a testament to how bad things really are.
Well, it seems that that's going to open up a possibility.
I mean, is it really a possibility that Wall's lieutenant governor, progressive Senate hopeful, you know, left-wing radical, could now lose that race for the U.S. Senate?
Do you see that as a possibility?
I think sure, sure it could.
I think that could happen.
I think he could be toast.
I think that he's going to House Oversight Committee in the coming weeks, and the American people are going to see just how terrible he has been at oversight of his state's finances and the stewardship of the taxpayer dollar.
And I think the American people aren't going to reward him with a trip to Washington as a United States Senator.
Now, let me ask you this.
Nick Shirley is the citizen journalist who went to all of these daycare centers in Minnesota that were getting all these millions and millions of dollars and discovered that there were no kids there and there was no daycare being taking place.
Dr. Oz has said on this program that the, quote, registered autism rate in the Somali community in Minnesota was as high as 80%, which is mathematically impossible.
And now this guy apparently has become a target of potential political violence on the left because he exposed this fraud for what it is.
I give him a lot of credit for doing it.
He went on Riley Gaines' podcast and talked about this, and I think he did the country a great service.
I totally agree.
I think he deserves the medal, and I hope he keeps it up.
I suspect there's more fraud than just what he discovered in Minnesota.
And I really do applaud him and the fact that this wasn't on our radar in Washington until a few weeks ago.
I mean, we knew we had a refugee and immigration problem years ago, but I don't think anyone knew how bad things were in Minnesota of all places until the last week.
And my constituents are furious about it.
And Americans across our nation want something done.
They want justice and they want people to be held to account and people to be either shipped out of the country for good or put in prison or both.
How do you view the midterms this year?
I mean, obviously we're waiting on a very, very critical Supreme Court decision, but where do you see the midterm so far as we start out the year?
Well, President Trump spoke to our Republican caucus just this morning about it, and he said only twice in the last 90 years has the party in power won the House in the midterms, and he plans to be a third time to charm trendbreaker with respect to that.
I think we have a great chance.
I think that policy is on our side.
The policy of keeping the border secure, the policy of being opposed to transgenderism and all the political correctness that helped get Donald Trump elected.
These are things that Americans hated.
And when it comes to policy, we have the advantage.
Democrats may be able to kick and scream and make a lot of noise, but at the end of the day, policy is on our side.
It's not an 80-20 issue with respect to this transgender crazy culture that the left is pushing.
It's a 99-1 issue.
99% of Americans don't want men playing in women's sports.
They don't want them changing in their daughter's dressing room at school.
That is not a liberal or conservative idea.
That's every American on the streets believes that.
And I think that policy will win the day come November, and the Americans will reward Donald Trump with a re-elected Republican majority.
We could only hope Congressman Lance Gooden of Texas of the House Armed Services Committee.
We appreciate your time, sir.
Thank you, thank you.
It's going to take everybody to get involved and to vote.
All right, let's get to our busy, busy telephones.
Don in Iowa.
Don, hi, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Hi, Sean.
Thank you for taking my call.
I'm not actually in Iowa right now.
I'm a truck driver running through the Rockies.
I'm also a Marine Corps veteran with signal intelligence.
And I wanted to call to congratulate not just President Trump for this great deed that they pulled off this weekend, but Pete Hakeseth and Marco Rubio and everybody else that was involved because they exposed Chinese defense systems, Russian defense systems.
They made it look, they've got Beijing shaking right now.
I promise you.
Well, I don't think there's any doubt about that at all whatsoever.
You know, there's a lot of spectacular things that we really haven't spoken about here.
Maduro's Chinese and Russian-built air defense systems, they crumbled.
They were completely immobile.
They were completely rendered useless by the U.S. military crumbling under American superior warfighting technology.
That's kind of an untold story.
Maybe we shouldn't put a lot of emphasis on it because you don't want them to improve it.
China is now linked.
There was a story, justthenews.com, John Solomon.
China is now linked to U.S. protests against Trump decision to remove Maduro.
You know, some of my best national security contacts and intel contacts have been very, very clear with me.
And this is why I warn people about what you read on social media, the voices that you listen to.
You know, people have to be very selective because what they are telling me is a lot of racism, anti-Semitism, you know, propaganda, pro-Chinese propaganda, pro-Russian propaganda.
A lot of this is all coming and originating from enemy countries of the United States.
In other words, some of our top geopolitical foes are trying to influence, especially young people, on social media with bot accounts that are designed to indoctrinate them.
And then you get a few dumb people that have platforms that believe this garbage and echo this nonsense.
And that's why I'm urging people to be very selective in who you choose to listen to.
Look, if somebody's a racist, white nationalist, maybe not somebody you want to associate with.
If somebody is a virulent anti-Semite, yeah, maybe you don't want to listen to what they have to say.
If somebody claims that they love Adolf Hitler, not exactly my cup of tea, and I doubt anybody in this audience's cup of tea.
Now, they get propped up by a corrupt media establishment, legacy media establishment in this country, and then they try to portray them as loyal voices in the MA movement.
And if you look into their history, you find, at best, they're fair-weathered friends of Donald Trump.
Johnny come lately to conservatism and the MAGA movement and just people that are looking for clicks and algorithms and money.
That's what I see.
Well, I couldn't have said that any better because Americans need to wake up and learn who is asking them to protest against their own country.
Because what President Trump does is in the best interest of this country, every single thing he does.
You point that out beautifully every day.
I want to thank you.
I also want to thank all the military that served in this operation.
The sailors, the airmen, the Marines, the soldiers, Delta Force, they were all exceptional, and they showed what professionalism can look like if done properly and legally, you know, with good purpose.
It's amazing.
Listen, all of these military operations are full of danger.
But President Trump knew the danger.
Operation Midnight Hammer, this operation in Venezuela.
They're all dangerous, but our military is the best on God's green earth.
We have a lot of work to do to turn the economy around.
86% of the people living in poverty, but I think we'll get there.
Anyway, Don, God bless you.
Be safe on the road.
SemperFy, my friend.
Appreciate your call and what you do for a living.
Thank you.
All right, back to our busy phones.
Let us say hi to Charlie.
He's in Alabama.
Charlie, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Hi, Sean.
I'm glad I called too about this fraud up in Minnesota.
I know they're looking at the politicians, but they need to go even deeper to look at who gave them the idea.
What permitting office overlooked the gross negligence of the buildings?
What local inspectors kept signing off on the thing every year?
And, you know, then the local politicians that get involved.
And then, you know, all the way up the ladder.
So it's not just Tim Walz, but it's everyone under him.
The thing that stands out that's most glaring to me in this is that Tim Walz, there were a number of whistleblowers that were telling him that this money, that there was institutionalized fraud.
And it's very clear to me, and I believe over time will be proven in great specificity and detail, how he was warned.
He did nothing.
And I think that the only conclusion I can come to at this point, we'll get more information.
Maybe it'll change.
I doubt it, is that he did not want to alienate a large voting block as he was preparing to run for reelection, which he's not planning to do anymore.
By the way, this is now growing way beyond Minnesota.
President Trump announced this morning that the Justice Department now launched an investigation into the possible welfare fraud and this type of fraud being widespread in California.
There's similarly an investigation into Ohio, an investigation into New York.
I think this is going to spread wide, and the amount of hundreds of billions of dollars will be staggering and it's frightening.
Anyway, I appreciate you being with us.
Thank you, my friend.
Jonathan, Arkansas, next Sean Hannity Show.
How are you?
I am wonderful, and it is an honor to speak to you.
I've called so many times.
It's my first time ever getting through, and it means so much to me.
It's like the honor of a lifetime.
I was in your great state of Florida for the holidays, and, you know, I was wanting to get my mother a burner.
My stepdad said no.
I think he feared that she might use it on him.
So I got her the double bubble blanket instead.
I'm going to get my wife.
The double bubble.
Why would your dad be against her having a burner?
It's non-lethal.
It could save her life one day.
I mean, it's great technology.
It's safe.
I mean, I carry one every day along with, I have a six sour P365 I carry.
Well, that's what I tried to tell him.
I said, worst comes to worst, you're out of commission for about 45 minutes, but you just have to know my family.
But, you know, I don't know.
When it comes to all this fraud stuff, though, especially Minnesota, because that's where the light is right now.
I don't know if Tim Walz is a criminal.
That remains to be seen.
I think maybe he's just Elmer Fudd and not too bright up there.
No, I'm not giving him that benefit of the doubt.
No way.
Honestly, he was straight out warned, according to whistleblowers, that this was going on, and he made a decision not to do anything about it.
That's what I believe happened, and I believe over time will be proven.
We'll see if I'm right.
And, you know, if there's foul play there, then, you know, he needs to spend time in prison, you know, and that's another issue is none of these people are being held accountable.
These people need to be held accountable.
And the government needs to stop doling out money like it's nothing.
It's our taxpayer dollars.
It needs to be handled like a single mom on a strict budget.
And there needs to be accountability and there needs to be auditors involved.
You know, I do think it's widespread because, you know, cash for clunkers, the moonshot for cancer, you know, COVID, you know, I mean, there's so much money that's wasted every day.
I've worked in and out of hospitals all the time.
I see fraud, waste, and abuse all the time.
And until they start cracking down on this and holding states responsible and taking that money away when it's when it's used irresponsibly, it's going to continue.
We have to get control of waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, and stop abusing the people, taxpayers, hardworking taxpayers in this country.
Well said.
Jonathan, appreciate it.
Gold star, great call.
All right, quick break right back to our phone calls.
800-941-Sean is our number.
Up next, our final roundup and information overload.
All right, let's get back to our busy phones.
800-941-Sean, David in Utah.
David, you're on the Sean Hannity show.
Hey, what a great honor it is to be on your show, Sean.
And I think just at the risk of being patronizing, shouldn't I be saying happy late birthday?
Okay, I don't celebrate birthdays anymore, so thank you, though.
I appreciate the thought, but I just don't celebrate it.
Well, listen, I really appreciate being on your show.
I just want to say real quickly that President Trump and our incredible world-class, the best in the world on this planet military did an excellent job, and they had every constitutional legal right to carry out the order by our chief executive officer, the president of the United States.
I mean, anyone that doesn't understand that, they haven't read the Constitution.
Well, I'm going to tell you something.
It is, you know, look, for those people, I actually read comments.
I don't know who made these comments.
It was so idiotic.
Well, this was done so that they can have gay rights in Venezuela.
I'm like, okay, no intelligent person would believe that.
But the idea that, and he is everything that we know him to be.
200 Americans die a day from drug overdoses.
This is a narco-terrorist regime profiting off the death of Americans.
Not a difficult call.
They robbed American companies of billions and billions of dollars.
And it's in our hemisphere and in our best national interest.
And they were being influenced by the Chinese and the Russians and the Iranians.
Case closed.
Anyway, let's get back to our busy phones.
Virginia Laurie next.
Hi, Virginia.
Hi, Lori from Virginia.
How are you?
I'm good.
Thank you.
What's going on?
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you.
So I'm excited to be on your show.
And I have been really worked up about listening to the senators complaining that they weren't part, they weren't in the loop to discuss the plans for going in and getting Maduro.
And I just want to give them the reason in a very simple way that they will understand.
And I think most people know the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
And Trump didn't want to be the one that authored the sequel to it, if you give a rat a shred of intel.
It is, we lose operational control and we put our troops at risk.
There's a reason you have a chain of command.
There's a reason we have a commander-in-chief.
These are Article II powers.
They're not in dispute.
The president was well within his constitutional authority to do it.
He doesn't need the approval of Chuck Schumer to take military action like this.
And if he ever had to tell them, it would probably put soldiers' lives in jeopardy.
And you just can't have that.
You have one commander-in-chief.
Kamala Harris lost.
Donald Trump won.
And, you know, when, for example, Obama even killed an Americans, guess what?
I didn't hear a lot of criticism from Democrats when he didn't inform Congress.
And every other president has acted in the same way.
So there's just rank hypocrisy all across the board.
Got a roll.
Appreciate your good call, Lori.
God bless you.
Happy New Year.
Maria Carino Machado, leader of Venezuela's Democratic opposition.