In Hour 3, Sean Hannity dives into the political theater surrounding calls by some Democrats to boycott the State of the Union address — and why that move may say more about them than the president. Citing commentary from Stephen A. Smith, Sean argues that elected officials have a responsibility to show up and represent their constituents, regardless of party differences. Joined by syndicated host Joe Pags, the conversation expands into media accountability, the legal debate surrounding the FACE Act, and broader questions about protest versus disruption. Sean also fields listener calls on everything from Iran policy to immigration enforcement — and yes, the now-infamous debate over Linda’s “big-boned” cat versus Sean’s soon-to-arrive border collie. It’s politics, culture, humor, and Friday energy all wrapped into one fast-moving hour. As tensions rise globally and in Washington, Sean makes clear: decorum matters, strength matters, and common sense still wins the day.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
News Roundup Information Overload Hour this Friday.
Our toll-free telephone number, you want to be a part of the program, is 800-941 Sean.
If you want to join us, let me play for you, and then we'll get a reaction from our buddy Joe Paggs, Stephen A. Smith slamming Democrats that are contemplating a dozen plus boycotting the state of the union.
By the way, nobody's going to miss their antics on the floor and their cane waving anyway.
But anyway, here's what Stephen A. said.
The president of the United States is going to give his State of the Union address, and the Democrats got other plans.
So some are talking about walking out in the middle of his speech.
Others are talking about boycotting it all together and essentially finding something else to do.
I'm here to tell you that neither is acceptable.
Neither should be acceptable.
As a representative or a senate or senator in the United States of America, guess what?
I have a constituency to answer to.
And I have people who need me, who I represent.
And whether I like it or not, this individual is in office until 2028.
And I got to find a way to do business with him in order to get something done.
What do they get to circumvent the need and the insistence of mere decorum?
All right, joining us now, my buddy Joe Paggs, the host of his own syndicated Joe Paggs show, is with us.
Mr. Pags, sir.
By the way, Joe Paggs writes me the other day, somebody takes a shot at me in some publication that I'd never even heard of.
And he's like, upset about it.
And I'm like, Joe, I don't care.
He's like, I'm like, I don't care.
I'm like, I don't care.
I am way over any period of my life that I care what anybody says about me.
I care about you, the people in this audience.
I care about my TV audience and now my podcast audience, my video podcast coming out.
Anyway, Mr. Pags, how are you, sir?
You know, I continue to learn from you, Sean.
We've been friends for like 25 years, but that conversation the other day set me straight and I appreciate you taking the time.
We are blessed to do what we do.
But part of the territory that comes with it is you're going to get people, you know, slinging, you know, bows and shot.
You know, they're firing at us at all times.
I mean, there's nothing that I can put on X that's not going to get brutally beaten up by these losers that live in their parents' house naked or in their underwear, these keyboard warriors that are anonymous, you know, taking their cheap shots.
And I don't care what they think.
They're not really their comments indicate in every way they don't know a thing about me or listen to my this radio show or watch my TV show.
I don't care about them, but I care about, you know, the people that do listen, and I do the show for them.
All right, let's go to Stephen A.
I think now pay close attention to this.
I'm very close to Stephen A.
I love Stephen A. Stephen A., man, we have some of the best conversations like the two of us have.
They're real.
We keep it real.
And Democrats have been going hard and deep in the paint attacking this man.
And they're making a huge mistake.
They have no idea.
Stephen A. can hurt all of them.
And he could do so.
In my mind's eye, and I have an upcoming interview with Stephen A.
I could see in the right circumstances, Stephen A. voting Republican.
He doesn't like Trump's style.
He doesn't disagree with many of his policies.
He doesn't like his style, which is a fair criticism.
If you don't like somebody that is going to tell it like it is and doesn't put a filter in there, all right, I get it.
He rubs some people the wrong way, but he's doing a great job.
You know, Stephen A. Smith and I actually have a little bit of a history.
I was up on his show called, quite frankly, back in the 2007, 2008 era.
And then we did a pilot on headline news.
We almost got a show where it was going to be, I was supposed to be on the right.
He was supposed to be on the left.
But we hit it off very well because Stephen A., as you know, is a conservative guy fiscally.
And I think you're right.
I think he might quietly be voting for people like Trump.
But what he said was so exactly right, so prescient.
When these people get elected, they are representing 750,000 Americans.
It's your job to sit your ass down in that seat and listen to the State of the Union.
Afterwards, Abigail Stanberger will say something stupid in response, and that's fine.
But it's proper decorum to sit there, not because you're you and not because you're like President Trump, but because you are representing 750,000 actual Americans that sent you there.
And the fact that they wouldn't go is just so, it's not, it's not even an insult to Trump.
Like you said, he probably will be happy.
They're not going to yell and scream and act stupid and wave their canes.
This is an absolute insult to their district and everybody who sent them to Washington.
Well said.
Let's go over some of the other news of the week.
So Don Lemon is involved.
And I happen to know his attorney, Abby Lowell, is one of the best Washington attorneys out there.
There's not many of them.
And there are a few really, really good Washington attorneys.
And he happens to be one of them.
I know he represented Biden, but he also represented Jared Kushner and other high-profile people.
It's going to be an interesting question.
He was once on CNN, fake news, and he's claiming, and he will claim, and Abby Lowell will argue in probably the most impactful, powerful way possible, that he was acting as a journalist.
I think that the tapes raise questions about the accuracy of that as he's giving the people, the activists, coffee and donuts and reaffirming their cause while inside a church.
And I think the FACE Act is pretty clear in terms of its language that you don't have the right to disrupt a church service at a place of worship.
But putting that aside, here's how he's now responding to the criticism against him.
You say in the video, I'm here as a journalist.
I'm here covering this.
That's what I'm doing.
We play the video.
You say it, you know, not part of the group.
I'm a journalist.
I'm a journalist.
I'm here photographing.
Numerous context people not understand.
I don't know.
It's weird because they kept saying it.
Even when I told them that I'm not, and I think they were looking at me.
And because the bulk of the protesters were black, maybe they thought because I'm black then.
And I kept saying, I'm not a protester.
I'm here covering the protest.
I'm not with them.
And they were, you know, they just, for some reason, could not understand.
And I just had to keep telling them that.
I'm not part of the group.
I'm just here photographing.
And I would say chronicling or whatever it is.
And that's it, Jim.
So why they couldn't figure that out, I don't know.
I don't remember hearing him saying that, but I'm not doubting that he's telling the truth there.
It's an interesting question, but Pam Bondia had a good argument in return.
And she said, well, anybody can pick up their iPhone and start filming and say, well, I'm a citizen journalist.
So how does that, when you match that against the FACE Act and the statutory language, how does that match up?
Well, Sean, when you and I met, I was a television news anchor in Albany's Connected Detroit, New York, and I was also a talk show host up there as well.
I'm a journalist.
I'm a guy who did it for a living for a very long time, and I've won dozens of awards for excellence in journalism.
I can't walk into your house.
How did you win dozens of awards?
I don't win awards.
No one's ever given me a, well, no, I've gotten a couple of awards.
That's not true.
Well, I got them from the Associated Press, so you might not want these awards.
But I couldn't go to Sean Hannity's house, walk in, say, this is your private building.
This is your private home, but I'm a journalist.
All I have to do is say I'm a journalist.
How about if somebody calls me in the newsroom and says, hey, Pags, we're going to go rob the bank on the corner of Maine and First.
We're going to be there at noon, come and be a journalist and keep a journal of us robbing the bank.
Now, if I know that it's going to happen and I know that it's going to be a crime, then I go to the bank and I keep a journal of it.
Am I not part of that?
Cat's Food and Fat Issues00:10:54
Of course I am.
Saying I'm a journalist doesn't give you any special rights.
It's not like Superman flying.
Saying you're a journalist doesn't change the fact that you wanted the private property.
You were interrogating the pastor in the middle of the worship service and his First Amendment rights to go cover it, Sean, do not usurp the First Amendment rights of that pastor and those worshipers to freely worship.
The guy's all wet.
No, he has no case at all.
I think it might be a little more nuanced than that.
He might be more successful.
And I would argue that a good attorney and the jurisdiction it will be held in probably will be somewhat favorable to him, but we'll see over time.
All right, now I got to bring you into it.
This is sort of an intramural battle what we've been having on the show, and you're kind of family to the show, and you know Linda fairly well on the show.
Linda's, my view, and this is my opinion, is not the best pet owner.
And Linda has a cat that she had to send away to, well, Trump calls it the fat shot, so I guess it's okay.
It's like a fat farm for cats.
Did you ever hear of a fat farm for cats?
Her cat was five times the size of an average cat.
You know why?
Why?
Because she overfed the cat.
She never stopped feeding the cat.
And she thinks she defines food and, you know, letting the cat get fat as somehow being loving and kind.
And she doesn't love.
Joe is Italian.
Joe knows that food is love.
Am I wrong?
Food is love.
Joe knows I'm right.
But I don't want the cat to be enormous and grotesquely fat.
So the cat is the cat.
The cat was okay.
No, the cat is not big-boned.
You're making this up.
There's never been a lot of people.
Have you never met any one of those?
She's the only cat that I've ever seen five times the size of a normal cat.
That's just a fact.
First of all, you don't even like cats.
You don't know anything about cats.
No, I don't.
I'm not a big cat.
I'm a dog.
You've seen so many cats.
You don't know.
All right, there's part two to this, though.
So I'm getting a border collie.
Now, over the course of my life, I did have one shelter dog who I love, my first dog, and I've always wanted a dog, and that was Snowball.
And I had two Bernese mountain dogs, Duffy and Gracie.
And then I had one white golden Marley, and I love my dogs.
Love, love, love my dogs.
And now I'm getting a border collie.
I mean, the most beautiful coloring you'd ever see in a border collie.
And but before I bring that animal into my house, I am sending it for extensive, exhaustive training.
So it's going to be a well-trained, well-behaved dog.
Linda doesn't like A, the fact that I'm not adopting a shelter dog, and B, the fact that I'm training the dog, which means that animals in her house are free to run the, you know, rule the roost and run rampant.
I don't allow that in my house.
So Linda has an enormously grotesquely fat cat, but she's guilting you for going and getting a dog where you want to get it.
Linda.
Joe, I thought you were my body.
What is going on?
Thank you, Joe.
Keep going.
You go, Joe.
You're off the Christmas card list.
Don't you think that she, by overfeeding an animal, you're abusing the animal and you're lending the odds of a premature death of that animal.
And by definition, that is not the definition of loving an animal.
Just because you talk over me doesn't make you right.
Just so I am right.
No, you're not.
Can we get like a round number here?
She's not that fat.
She's like 20 pounds.
In cat world, that's a big cat, but she's a big cat.
That's a big cat.
We put a picture of the cat, the cat at its heaviest on the website and let people vote whether or not you have mistreated that animal by overfeeding it.
I mistreated that animal.
She rolls.
She plays.
She has a great life.
She jumps.
She's a little bit more than a hundred.
Then why did you have to send the cat away?
You had to get rid of the cat to save the cat's life.
I did not get rid of her to save the cat's life.
Then why did you dump the cat at a fat farm?
Ew, I didn't dump her.
That cat went with someone who was going through a hard time.
And so they went there for a little while.
You created it into a mantra that I sent it away because it was too fat.
It wasn't too fat.
It was a support animal for a little while.
Okay.
This is totally fake news.
You sent it away because it needed more exercise and a more disciplined life that you were not capable as an animal owner to provide.
So it needed intervention.
At this time, I lived in an apartment in New York City and I had five cats.
So I was fostering.
Gosh, I was fostering.
See, Joe, my heart is big, and I love animals.
So one of the things that I'm going to do is that.
Okay, then why is there a problem with me getting a border collie and training?
Did you hear the words coming out of my mouth?
Like, are you going to get away from that?
Yeah, I mean, but you never get to the point.
You never get to know.
Oh, my God.
How could I with you?
Why did you have to send that cat away?
Why did you allow that cat to grow five times the size of a regular cat?
Answer.
Because that cat was getting hurt by another cat.
So I sent it with someone who needed some support, some love.
They were going through a tough time.
That's all.
You've never brought this excuse to the forefront until.
Well, you're bringing in the calvary here, so I figure I might as well give you the whole thing now.
I mean, it's a whole segment.
So now you get the whole story.
Lucky you.
Listen, I was not going to.
Yo, if I like border collie, I was going to say something.
Go ahead, Joe.
What were you saying?
Go ahead, Joe.
Every single time, and I'm not taking sides.
I'm just hearing what you're both saying.
Every single time Sean says, why is the cat so fat?
You say something else.
Is there a reason why the cat's so fat or is it not really that fat?
It's the way God made her.
No, it's the way you fed her.
No, she's big bones.
She digests the food differently.
I don't know.
Some people eat a Snickers bar.
They never gain a pound.
Some people just snicker a little bit.
Let me get to the border collie issue.
Joe, you have a problem that I like one breed of dog and that I train a dog.
Is there anything wrong with that?
Absolutely not.
I've got two dogs, Fluffy and Gunner.
There's a German Shepherd and some golden doodle is what they are.
And God, God bless you.
Choose whatever kind of dog you want.
Why is that a problem?
Ask Linda.
I feel that there are many, many animals that are euthanized every single day for no other reason than they don't have room for them for the simple fact of being alive.
So why shop when you can adopt?
It exists.
If Sean doesn't get the border collie, somebody's going to.
They should come.
Oh, no question.
He's saving that dog's life.
I'm saving that dog's life.
And that dog is going to live the best life.
My dogs love their daddy.
Did you look for a border collie in the shelter first, or did you just go right to the breeder?
No, I went right to the breeder.
Wow.
She's dog shaming you.
That's crazy.
I am.
I'm absolutely shameless.
I make no apologies for this, Joe.
We'll give you the last word.
Listen, we love our animals.
I hope the cat is going to be okay.
I hope the cat's supporting somebody.
I think that we should probably take this segment, send it to Don Lemon, and see what he would do with it journalistically.
That's a great question.
All right, 800, Joe Pags.
Thank you, my friend.
800-941, Sean is on number.
All right, let's get to our busy phones this Friday.
Karen in Boston.
What's up, Karen?
How are you?
Glad you called.
Happy Friday.
Oh, hi, Sean.
Let me preface this by saying that I like you very much.
I don't think you are very nice to Linda about her cat.
I had three cats, a brother and a sister.
Natalie was seven pounds.
She was tiny.
Ten pounds.
And my sonny, big boy, was 15 pounds.
All ate the same exact sonny.
He was very picky.
Sometimes he wouldn't eat, but he was big.
I think that's just in his genetic makeup.
I don't think Linda's overfeeding her.
She's probably just a big cat.
Let me ask you a question.
Now, when you, how many cats did you have total?
Three cats?
Three, yeah.
Okay.
Now, when you fed the cats, did you feed them all at the same time?
Yep.
Did the cats usually gobble all the food down or eat some of it and eat more later?
It depends.
Okay, sometimes they'd leave some food.
How do you know when you aren't looking that the cat that we'll use Linda's term is that was big boned didn't eat the other cat's food and double the portion?
Because I would pick it up.
You don't know, though, do you?
Aaron, you don't know for sure, do you?
Yes, do Sean.
Okay, let me put it this way.
So you were, if you're not watching them and there's food, you know, there's three bowls of food, and the cat that's overweight is eating, you don't know if it's eating the other cat's food that they leave behind, hoping that it will still be there later, but then it's gone.
And you don't know which cat ate that food.
I don't, I don't, look, I just believe if you want to be thin, and by the way, I know friends that have taken, for example, Ozempic and Wagovi and I don't know, what do you call it, Manjaro, and all this stuff.
I know people that have lost 100 pounds on this stuff.
And maybe they'll come up with a shot for, you know, for cats.
I don't know.
Maybe one day they will.
And I hope they do because I like animals.
But one of the best things you can do for your health is lose weight.
I'm not recommending people do anything, but you should manage the intake of your food and exercise, common sense.
And I think managing your weight is one very healthy thing to do.
I agree.
But just be nice to Linda.
She's lovely.
All right, but I'm telling you, I know Linda.
Linda.
Did you hear that?
I want to make sure you heard her.
I'm lovely.
All right.
Yeah.
How lucky you are to work.
Okay, just because you get one defender.
I'm sorry.
You're admitting that food is, what did you say?
You know, it's an Italian thing.
It's an Italian joke.
An Italian joke.
What is it?
Food is love.
Okay.
So you overloved your cat and now your cat is five times its normal size.
I love all four loves.
I'm just saying.
If you really love your cat, you're not going to let your cat grow five times larger than what its healthy weight should be.
Real love would manage its food intake.
I do manage the food intake.
In fact, just like you just heard, I do the same thing.
The food flag up onto, oh my God, the food comes up onto a shelf.
So they get breakfast and they get dinner.
And that's it.
All right.
Karen, appreciate it.
You have a great weekend in Boston.
I think you're expecting snow on Monday.
Hang in there.
Sandy in my free state of Florida.
Sandy, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Oh, I am so glad I called.
Command and Control00:02:49
I am so impressed with your intelligence to know what breed a dog you should have.
We've had borders and Aussies.
They're so lovable, intelligent, adaptive to any yard size or acreage.
It just shows, again, how intelligent you are and how impressive you are.
I have this whole plan because I've been watching video after video after video on YouTube about border collies.
They're the smartest dog out there by a long shot.
Like usually it would take a regular, any other breed of dog, you know, 40 or 50 times that you have to repeat a command before it learns something new.
In the case of the border collie, in some cases, they can learn it with one command, but generally three, four, five, and that dog has that command down perfectly.
Their athletic ability is second to none.
Their intelligence is off the charts.
They've been designated the smartest dog out there.
And I'm going to be setting up, you know, obstacle courses.
I'm going to teach this dog how to catch a frisbee.
I'm going to teach this.
We're going to play fetch.
We're going to go for long walks.
I'm going to let this dog have fun, but it's going to be disciplined.
Car rides, too.
My car rides, I'm going to let it ride in the car, and I'll lower the window so it can put its head outside.
The training process.
So I have professional trainers.
Right now, the dog is in Canada.
These are guys that train military dogs, and they're training my border colleagues.
I mean, you should see the picture.
The picture is here's this beautiful puppy, you know, and these massive German shepherd killer dogs, because they're going to be learned how to be attack dogs and drug-sniffing dogs and dogs like that.
And this dog is going to be learned, given obedience training at the highest level.
And thanks to Lawrence Jones, who works at Fox.
He hooked me up.
Are you going to visit or do FaceTime so you can have a thing on the dog?
Already way ahead of you.
Yep, we're way ahead of you.
Okay.
How old will the dog be when you get it?
Full-time?
Probably four months, maybe five.
Oh, I'd go for four, no more.
Well, and then the beauty is then the trainer will spend time with me and the dog transferring command authority to me because you have to be an alpha male with a dog.
Dogs are baby wolves, ostensibly.
So they have to have one person they look to as their leader, and that will be me.
Got him from a breeder so that that dog can have a life too.
Long Time Listener, First Time Caller00:06:37
Let me tell you something.
This dog is going to be, it's a she, and she's going to be treated like a queen.
This dog will be the happiest dog in the world.
I love my dogs.
We, Australian Shepherds and Border Collies, went to a horse showing, and that was our dog.
And our last one was 11.
I've never been around their dog so much like a human in my life.
Never had, he knew his border.
He never left, didn't have a collar.
You teach him something.
If he wanted the window down the car, he rolls it down.
They're just amazing.
Amazing.
Isn't that amazing?
I love that.
All right.
Thank you for affirming my very wise decision.
I appreciate it in spite of all of the unrelenting attacks I've taken from, you know, Miss Shelter Dog over here.
I appreciate it.
Back to our phones.
Pat in New York.
Hey, Pat, how you doing?
What's going on?
Pat, you might be getting snow Monday, I see.
Yeah, well, we're getting snow today, too, so that's all right.
I'm up in the Albany area, so it's kind of.
Albany is brutal.
You have brutal winters up there, upstate New York.
Brutal.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
What's going on?
Long time listener, first time caller.
I just want to say thank you for what you do.
I consider you a patriot.
One of the best talk show hosts I've ever seen.
You're very kind.
Thank you.
I do have one thing, though, that I want to say about yesterday's show.
And you got going on about women aging gracefully.
And, you know, they go out to get mannies and petties.
They dye their hair to get massages.
And then you made the comment that if there's any man that goes out there and gets a pedicure, he needs to surrender his man card.
Remember saying that?
Yeah, I said if a guy gets a manner pedty, I just can never get, I would never get to that point in my life ever.
I can't do it.
Well, I'll tell you a little more about myself.
I'm 20 years Marine, retired.
I got three purple stars.
Thank you, sir.
I've got three purple hearts and two bronze stars.
And I've got my man card.
And I get a man.
And you get them once a month.
Yes, sir.
A pedicure ain't going to take my card.
Well, I can't take your man card away.
I mean, that's too impressive.
I just can't.
I mean, you earned it.
You got it.
If that's your thing, then that is just, we just have differences.
I just don't like strangers touching me.
Now, maybe that sounds odd.
I don't know.
The idea of putting my feet in a swimming pool and, you know, some lady or, I guess, guy, I don't know if they, I don't know if they're a male, you know, manicurers and pedicure guys.
I'm sure there probably are.
I just don't want a stranger touching my feet and my hands and painting them.
I'm not into it.
I don't get painted.
Not even.
You don't.
And I've had men, salon technicians, take care of my feet as well.
Listen, no one can take away your man card with that background and record.
You served your country.
You have all those purple hearts.
God bless you.
We appreciate your service, my friend.
God bless you.
Thank you.
And then the other point that I wanted to make, conversation yesterday, was about Iran and what's going on in Iran and the inevitability of what looks like there's going to be an armed conflict.
I pray to God that that doesn't happen.
And I just pray that Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and all the other powers out there do everything they can to keep our young men and women out of harm's way.
Then they've done that.
Don't want to see any more.
I totally agree with you.
If there was a path to negotiation, I don't see it.
I don't trust them.
Their actions over the many decades speaks for itself.
And what they're doing by slaughtering innocent people and the threat that they pose to the region and the world and their never-ending threats to the U.S., probably they have sealed their own fate.
And I say, if there is military action, our love, thoughts, prayers go with our military men and women.
They're the best in the world.
Thank God.
100%.
Thank you.
All right, Pat.
You have a good weekend, man.
Appreciate it.
Robert, Ohio, next Sean Hannity Show.
What's going on, Robert?
How are you?
Hey, I heard you talking with Linda about your border collie you were getting.
And I just wanted to call you and tell you that I have a border collie.
We've had her probably about seven years now.
And we do all kind of dog sports with her, and they definitely need a job.
So what is your dog's job?
What kind of job do you give that dog?
They want to work.
They want to please their owners.
Yeah, we own like a mini farm, and my wife uses her to herd the horses in at night when she brings men.
And then we play this dog with her.
We practice Frisbee all the time with her.
And we've been training her on dock diving, and she's got a good citizenship title.
We do barn with her where they put rats in the tube and you go hunt, you know, hunt the rats.
Wow.
I love that.
I mean, the videos I'm watching of this breed are just off the charts.
Oh, yeah.
Now, do you want to weigh in on Linda attacking me for getting a dog and training the dog?
I think I'm doing the right thing.
It's interesting how you frame that question to him since that is so biased.
You are talking to liberals far too often.
Okay.
Are you not attacking the fact that I didn't get a shelter dog and that I'm training them?
I said, did you adopt or try to adopt before you shopped?
No.
You're getting the dang dog from Canada.
There's no dog in America that needs a home.
No, actually, it's an American dog that's being trained in Canada.
Oh, pardon me.
By top former military guys.
Okay.
This is what they do.
Why would that frustrate you so much?
Why are you?
I believe in adopting before shopping, and I'm sure there is a border collie trapped in a cage on its way to a euthanasia moment.
And we could.
Oh, why don't you go adopt it then?
Why don't you go do it?
I do.
I foster.
I do only adopt.
I've never bought a dog in my life.
Okay.
So you like free dogs?
Yeah, I like free dogs.
Kind of liberal of you.
You want everything for free.
Full-Time Iran Watch00:00:49
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
Just so you know, we are officially now after this weekend on full-time Iran watch.
Do I think a deal with the Iranian mullahs is possible?
I do not.
In spite of them probably offering everything in the world, there is no deal that you can ever trust that they'll ever keep.
They always break their word.
Number one state sponsor of terror.
Anyway, we'll have all the latest, the best coverage available on your radio dial, all coming up on the Monday edition of the Sean Hannity Show.