Rhetoric and Retaliation examines how inflammatory language—like comparing Trump supporters to Nazis—may fuel violence, such as the Mar-a-Lago shooting, amid 12M+ unvetted illegal immigrants under Biden, including 5,400 sexual crime arrests. Mark Morgan warns of cartel retaliation in Mexico after U.S. intel helped kill El Mencho, with $40B profits from smuggling and fentanyl, while anti-Semitism surges globally post-October 7th, 2023. Callers critique Newsom’s divisive remarks and urge conservatives to leverage Supreme Court rulings (Roberts’ tax ambiguity, Kavanaugh’s tariff dissent) to counter progressive policies, suggesting rhetoric and legal strategy could reshape security and economic debates. [Automatically generated summary]
Hour two Sean Hannity Show toll free on numbers 800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, there's a lot happening in the news, not the least of which is, I mean, it's always tragic.
I never want to hear about anybody that lost their life.
Scott Besson actually said something that I think we should pay attention to about the shooting.
He was on with Maria Burr Turomo.
And this is the shooting that took place at Mar-a-Lago.
And an armed man breached the security perimeter.
And the report is very straightforward, very accurate, consistent.
Apparently, there was one still picture that was released.
And it's just sad in so many different ways that anybody is going to be delusional and sick enough.
And this is why we talk a lot about personal safety and security on this program and why you need a personal safety, security strategy for you and your family, your employees, et cetera.
But the sheriff, who's a good guy, happened to know him, Sheriff Rick Bradshaw, described the encounter at 1.30 this morning.
The security detail detected that an individual had made his way into the inner perimeter of Mar-a-Lago.
He said a deputy and two Secret Service agents on the detail went to that area to investigate.
They confronted a white male that was carrying a gas can and a shotgun.
He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position.
At that point in time, the deputy two Secret Service agents fired their weapons, neutralized the threat, and he was deceased at the site.
FBI special agent Brett Skiles has said the Bureau, which is leading the investigation, you know, they also want to get any other nearby footage of this guy entering the facility, et cetera, et cetera.
But it's a tragedy.
And then, you know, then we're reading things like, well, tech show that the gunman who was shot at Mar-a-Lago was obsessed by the Epstein issue.
And the only thing I could say about all of this is, and I have been saying it now for some time, this rhetoric has got to stop.
The Treasury Secretary Scott Besson talking to Maria Burr Turomo, they are normalizing this violence.
It's got to stop.
And he called for a new ad, this new ad from this Illinois lieutenant governor in particular, the ad featuring several people saying F-Trump, F-Trump, F-Trump, and declaring, you know, she's not scared of a wannabe dictator.
I'm running for Senate to stand up to Donald Trump.
And she also said she plans on holding Trump accountable for the crimes he's committed, blah, blah, blah.
This is why this midterm matters so much.
So much.
There's so much at stake.
This is a group of people that is now committed to shutting down the Department of Homeland Security.
I mean, which is insane.
And by doing so, they're shutting down the Coast Guard.
By doing so, they would be defunding the Secret Service.
By doing so, they're defunding FEMA.
By doing so, they basically would want and go back to and return to wide open borders.
And we know the disaster when you have open borders like we did under Biden, in spite of them lying, saying the border was closed and the border was secure.
It was a big lie.
And the entire Democratic Party, for the most part, maybe with a few exceptions here or there, not many, were complicit in this big lie.
It was a big lie.
And we know known terrorists and murderers and rapists and child molesters, other violent criminals and cartel members and gang members entered this country.
Over 12 plus million unvetted Harris Biden mayorkas illegals.
And we're dealing with the aftermath.
And just last year alone, in 2025, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE agents were able to apprehend 21 people convicted or charged with murder of American citizens, illegals murdered, convicted of murder or charged with murder of American citizens.
You know, the same thing.
5,400 people last year alone were arrested.
They're either convicted or charged with raping or other sexual crimes against American citizens, all illegal immigrants.
And at what point do you say enough is enough?
At what point do you say that the dehumanization and the incitement and the language and the fascist and the Nazi and the Hitler comparisons, Gestapo comparisons have to stop?
And at what point, you know, when the media covers things, you know, whatever you think of the Jeffrey Epstein case, there are a couple of exculpatory things for Donald Trump.
And the left has wanted this to be about Donald Trump, and it keeps bouncing back on them in ways that they never anticipated, including the pictures of Bill Clinton in hot tubs and swimming pools and on airplanes of Jeffrey Epstein, including Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer after his conviction in Florida, you know, for this with trafficking or whatever it was with young ladies, that they're still soliciting campaign donations.
Nobody's asking them any questions about it.
Donald Trump threw this guy out on his ass in Palm Beach at Mar-a-Lago at his club.
Donald Trump praised the FBI.
Thank you for what you're doing.
This guy has, he needed to be caught, cooperated with, and even spoke to law enforcement about Epstein to tell the truth about this guy.
That part never gets brought up by the radical left.
Now, if somebody has incriminating information on you and you own a club and you're going to kick them out and humiliate them and embarrass them the way Trump did some, what, 25 years ago, and it's a big deal in Palm Beach if you get kicked out of a club for bad behavior, then you would think that this information would have been released by a very vindictive, very angry Jeffrey Epstein.
But there's never been anything to release or anything to say.
So it makes you wonder.
Anyway, here to talk about this and talk about other national security issues like what happened in Mexico this weekend.
Mark Morgan is with us, former FBI, former acting commissioner of CBP.
Let's talk about what's happening here.
Do you tie the rhetoric?
For example, there's an 8,000 percent increase in threats in the last year against ICE agents.
Do you tie that to the rhetoric?
Do you tie incidents like what happened at Mar-a-Lago to the rhetoric of the radical left?
Do you tie the fact that there has been an 800% increase in ramming attempts against law enforcement?
Do you tie that to what's happened with the rhetoric that's been ratcheted up?
Do you tie other acts of violence, which has gone up significantly against law enforcement and ICE agents in particular?
Do you tie it to the rhetoric of the Democratic Party, which is consistently attacking these agents?
Look, Sean, I think just from a common sense perspective, it's a rhetorical question.
I know you mean it that way.
I mean, the answer is clear, and the answer is yes.
Especially when you take an individual like this, this latest assassination attempt of President Trump.
I mean, clearly, and most time when we see shooters like this, active shooters, there's going to be some sort of mental health issue to varying degrees, right?
And so when you've got a population like that, and then you throw on this rhetoric, you take this, what I call unhealthy ideation, and it just exasperates everything.
And then for those who don't have a mental illness, what you do is you're fostering this belief that they have this moral high ground and that somehow then they move from that moral high ground that justifies action.
Because why, Sean?
Because they're being told that this is about our very essence of life, our democracies in danger.
And all this stuff that is absolutely beyond the pale.
And of course, it's leading to a lot of what we're seeing right now.
But I got to tell you, you know, you mentioned the sheriff.
I think he did a very good job in his first kind of press conference on this.
It was fairly timely after the event.
I think he was coming across it very generally, transparent.
And he was very, very specific in the way that he was talking to make sure that what he was talking about was accurate.
I mean, it really was kind of a, I think, a master class in Crisis 101.
But I think in the days to follow, we're going to hear a little bit more about this young man.
And I think we're going to hear something about some degree of mental illness, that unhealthy ideation, that because in part the radicalization, we heard that he was really drawn to the Epstein issue.
Are mentally ill people of a apt to susceptibility when people in authority keep telling them that maybe objects that they don't tend to like are Nazis and fascists and Gestapo.
So that's exactly right.
That's exactly my point.
But even now, some people are going to misinterpret, oh, so he's talking about all these people that are going out there and attacking, you know, ICE agents are mentally ill.
No, I'm not saying that, but to your point, it's spot on, is that there is a class of people here that are very susceptible, like you said, especially coming from people of power.
But guess what?
You don't even have to have a mental illness to be susceptible to that, right?
I mean, how long have we been hearing that if you are for the conservative movement, if you do support President Trump and some of the things he's trying to do, that we're a basket of deplorables, that we're, you know, again, that democracy is going to come to an end?
We hear all this evil stuff.
So people start to become radicalized and from radicalization to action because they're being told we have to act.
The world's coming to an end.
Democracy's coming to an end.
The rhetoric just has to stop.
We have to take a deep breath, take a step back.
But I don't see that happening, Sean.
Every single time we see something like this, it just seems to get worse.
We maybe have a day where we take a break, but less than 24-hour cycle, we're back to the same stuff.
Let me ask you, Caroline Levitt, White House Press Secretary, put out a post that the U.S. provided intelligence support to the Mexican government to assist in this operation against this next generation drug lord,
narco-terrorist called El Mencho, who was a top target for the Mexican government and the United States government, one of the top traffickers of fentanyl into the U.S. President Trump rightfully designated this next generation cartel as a foreign terrorist organization.
I'm glad America played a role in this.
However, it's not playing out very well or particularly well in Mexico.
And I know people there.
We know 25 Mexican National Guard troops have been killed in cartel violence in the wake of this operation that took down this drug cartel kingpin.
Yeah, look, Sean, we've seen this happen play out several times.
You can look at the past decades.
The latest one was 2019, so when after El Chapo's son, right?
We saw the same thing.
We saw the cartels bow up and show their might and their willingness to use violence.
And the Mexican government backed down within a few hours and turned the sun back over.
So what I'm hoping we're seeing, like you said, there is no doubt in my mind that the United States is heavily involved in this because the Mexico, a long time ago, not only lost the political will, but they lost their capability and capacity to actually by themselves defeat their cartels.
There's no way I think they would have done this without U.S. assistance.
And I'll go a step further.
And I'll bet you that I'm going to be proven right on this, is that it was also a promise by the United States to Mexico that we've got your back.
Because you're seeing now what happened in 2019 pales comparison to really the countrywide violence that the cartel now is inflicting because of what the Mexican government did on them.
But if I can, real quick, here's a mistake we make, though.
The cartels are one of the most, I mean, their business acumen rivals most Fortunate 500 companies.
And their ability to mobilize massive violent show of force rivals some nations' militaries.
But what we do in this country, we often only think about drugs and cartels, right?
We often refer to them as the Mexican drug cartels.
That's not true.
I mean, a huge portion of their business is human smuggling.
During the Biden administration, the 10 million people that enter a country illegally, plus another couple million gotaways, known and unknown, the cartels reaped, I'm being conservatively, that's about $40 billion just on human smuggling.
$40 billion.
That's more than some countries' GDPs.
That's almost the entire budget of the United States Marine Corps.
Think about that.
And they're taking that money, the $40 billion on human smuggling alone, put it back into their organization to expand other operations like drugs and synthetic drugs coming in this country.
That's why we have to talk about, when we talk about the cartels, it's not just drugs, it's also human smuggling.
And that's why what President's doing on that front is absolutely essential to our safety and national security.
Where do you think this ends in Mexico?
Because I think that the Mexican government watched what happened with Maduro, and I think they got scared.
It's the only reason they acted.
Look, I 100% agree.
And on top of that, again, I think they've got that commitment.
We've never seen this, Sean.
Look, the military's dabbled in it, but not until this administration have we seen the robust military support.
Look, A.G. Barr, he said it best, you know, this is a couple years ago.
And he said, look, the only way that we're going to defeat the cartel is if the United States military gets involved.
And that's to support not tanks on the ground, not booths on the ground, but this is really kinetic, precision surgical operations, assisting the Mexican government, just like we did Planned Columbia.
I hope that's what we're seeing the beginning of, because I don't think without it, I don't think the Mexican government would have done that, especially what happened in 2019.
And I think we're going to see shortly here.
We're going to see shortly.
We're going to see if the Mexican government backs down or not.
If they don't back down, we know the United States of America and the military is absolutely supporting, and that's exactly what needs to be done.
We have to defeat the cartels.
If we're going to be safe, if our national security is going to be where it should be in this country, the cartels have to be wiped off the face of the planet.
Full stop.
Can't say it any better.
Mark Morgan, thank you for your time.
Defeating the Cartels00:02:15
We always appreciate you.
800-941-Sean is on number.
You want to be a part of the program.
All right.
Obviously, all eyes on the Middle East, Iran, Israel, what's going to happen?
The Iranians are saber-rattling, have been for a couple of weeks now.
And it looks like if the president wants to take military action, he's in every position to do so.
And Israel is back in the news, and they will probably bear the brunt of the attacks from the Iranians because they're the more local target, death to Israel, death to America.
But anyway, with so many opinions, emotions surrounding it, you know, it's hard to know where to start, but, you know, anti-Semitism, sadly, is worse than it's ever been.
You see it on college campuses, the halls of Congress.
You know, you see it in, you know, hear it on air.
It's everywhere.
It's growing worldwide.
And at a time when Jewish communities are experiencing more hostility, more threats, more violence than ever, we as Christians, if you're Christian, you have a powerful opportunity to respond with God's love and stand by Israel.
And we do so proudly on this program.
We honor the root of our faith.
We believe this country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and it's more than a belief.
And by partnering with the IFCJ, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, you know, now we are pushing back against the darkness, the ignorance, the hatred.
And you can join us and bless Israel and stand with them in their time of need.
Please go to the IFCJ website, ifcj.org, one word today, IFCJ.org, and they could use your help.
They're on the ground.
They're providing tons of support for so many people that have been suffering ever since October 7th, 2023.
I want to go back to, Linda, you enjoying this Gavin Newsom fight we've been having all day?
Oh, he is special.
Does that mean I actually found somebody that you hate more than me, so you're going to take my side?
I like that.
Him and his hair gel can just, I mean, shove it where the sun don't shine.
Gavin Newsom's Critics00:10:58
What a terrible human.
So anyway, he was, he's at this town hall.
I guess he's being interviewed.
I mean, and this is part of a post that I put up here.
This guy is unbelievable.
I mean, does he ever work?
I mean, I'm serious.
Does this guy ever work?
It is amazing.
This man is now a full-time world traveler.
He's in Davos.
He's in Munich.
He's a full-time ex-poster.
I mean, spending his morning, you know, and late night, I guess, and morning, you know, fighting me on X, which I'm perfectly happy doing.
You know, full-time Trump stalker.
Trump's on his mind 24-7.
Full-time podcaster.
Now he's got some stupid book that he's trying to sell.
No show governor.
And if he really gave an Adam shiff about the people of California, I think he'd be making sure that fire hydrants out in California and reservoirs had water for predictable wildfires and predictable Santa Ana winds.
And they practiced the science of forestry, considering liberals love to quote the science, especially him during COVID.
And that's right.
He was in the French laundry and his kids were having in-person learning because they didn't go to public schools like the rest of the kids in California.
And maybe he'd be thinking about, you know, fixing those problems, lowering taxes, resolving the homeless mess that he swore back in 2008.
He had a plan to fix it.
And they have the worst when it comes to education.
K through 12, like close to 40 in the country.
It's like one of the worst in the country.
You know, in spite of taking in more revenues than any other state in the country, they'd fix the broken education system.
They're billions in debt because of all the money and programs that they give and reward illegal immigrants.
And of course, there are those people that commit crimes.
They don't keep statistics out in California, crimes committed by illegals against American citizens.
Why do you think that is?
Because they don't want you to know, in my view, they'd stop rewarding and protecting illegal immigrants with sanctuary, state, and city protections.
It's bankrupting the state.
Some of these people are committing violent crimes against citizens of this country in the state of California.
And as I told him, spare me your phony lectures about his impoverished life, you know, because he also had another life.
All right, granted, his parents got divorced, and maybe his mother did struggle.
I have no reason to doubt that.
But he also had a father that apparently was close to the Getty family, one of the wealthiest families at the time in the country.
And they included him in a lot of extravagant trips.
And I doubt most Americans went on a safari abroad the way he did and other perks that he had in his life.
Anyway, here's what he said.
Now, in this context, because people have been going after him hard.
They're all over X today.
He's telling the Atlanta mayor, Andre Dickens, during a Sunday night event promoting his forthcoming book, Young Man in a Hurry.
And this is what he said.
I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to impress you.
I'm just trying to impress upon you, I'm like you.
I'm no better than you.
You know, I'm a 960 SAT guy.
And, you know, and I'm not trying to offend anyone, you know, trying to act all there if you got 940.
But literally a 960 SAT guy.
I cannot, you've never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech.
It's maybe the wrong business to be in.
So he thinks that, what, a 960 SAT score makes him more like African Americans?
Is that what he's implying?
Is he being interviewed by an African-American?
And I just wrote, let that sink in.
Let people decide.
Remember when Biden said this about poor kids?
We have this notion that somehow if you're poor, you cannot do it.
Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.
Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids.
I really mean it, but think how we think about it.
Oh, think how we think about it, right?
Right, Linda?
It's pretty unbelievable.
The third thing is, and I don't know how you feel about this.
Well, I can surmise, but he's coming back and saying, well, the crowd wasn't black.
It was mostly white.
I'm like, why do the people in the crowd have anything to do with the ridiculous things you're saying?
I don't care if the room was empty and you were just doing an interview.
What you said was god-awful.
It has nothing to do with the people in the crowd, whether it was mostly.
I agree with you.
I think it was god-awful.
Who cares?
That has nothing to do with it.
So then he doesn't like that I highlight this, and then he attacks me about the video that the president put out that also had, you know, that one-second video of former President Obama and his wife.
And then I wrote him back.
I said, you didn't give an Adam shiff about Joe Biden.
You were Joe Biden's public spokesperson, knowing Biden partnered with the former Klansman, Robert KKK Bird, that tried to prevent the integration of public schools.
Spare me your effing fake phone feigned outrage.
He was cursing at me a lot in this thing.
Now, it got interesting.
I don't know if you noticed this.
Twitchy actually did an analysis of this because so many people were following this and it was trending so long today.
And the headline is: he knows he's toast.
Gavin Newsom flips out on Sean Hannity and curse-filled post about his racist gaff.
Not my problem.
That's the way other people are chronicling it.
But Gavin doesn't like the truth being told to him.
You know, just doesn't care.
And so, you know, spare me his outrage.
But when he started cursing at me, then all of a sudden a bunch of people started engaging.
You know, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Tim Scott says Sean Hannity is absolutely right.
Gavin Newsom suffers from the bigotry of low expectations.
And I'm tired of Democrats, including the likes of Kathy Hochul and Joe Biden, stereotyping black people.
That's Tim Scott.
And apparently, Nikki Minaj went hard at Gavin after he said this.
His way of bonding with black people is to tell them how stupid he is and that he can't read.
That means my first read on him was correct.
He's been handed so many things and put in high positions he's never earned or deserved.
And you know, want to know the craziest part of this footage?
It will haunt him forever.
He literally is slowing his speech down.
And it just exposes Democrats.
Now, this is the party that often loves to, you see, it, I say, every two years and every four years, every election cycle, you're going to get the race card played.
Republicans are racist.
They're sexist.
They're misogynist.
They're homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.
You know, they want dirty air and water, and they want to kill grandma and grandpa.
All right, let's get to our busy phones.
800-941-Sean is on number if you want to be a part of the program.
Walter is in Massachusetts.
Walter, hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Thank you for taking the call, Mr. Hannity.
I just want to start by saying my wife and I are big fans, and we watch you almost every night.
But the feeling that we have is if the Democrats are that inconsiderate that they're going to boycott President Trump's State of the Union, why don't they fill the empty seats or even just their seats with angel families or pictures of the people that have been killed by these illegals in the last eight years?
I don't think it's a bad idea at all, but you know what?
You're going to get the same exact non-response from Democrats you got last year when Lincoln Riley and Jocelyn Nungari's family were invited.
You're going to get the same exact reaction.
I promise you.
I would put those pictures somewhere so that when they span the crowd or even the president, these people that have lost loved ones will be remembered.
And the only other thing I want to say to you, it seems to me that this country was dead for four years.
And since President Trump took over, everybody woke up and now they hate authority across the country.
It's like anybody that has any kind of authority, they protest and they hate it.
So we just don't understand why there's so much hatred.
And I really appreciate you taking our call.
And I hope something can change in the next three years.
The progress will only continue if you and everybody else in this audience, not just you, but you and everyone else makes a commitment that you're going to vote this midterm election year and you're not going to allow the great progress we're making to stop.
Because if Democrats get elected, they're going to be the party that will stop all progress, the party of never-ending investigation and impeachment.
And it will be like a full, it'll be not only a government shutdown, the country will shut down.
Progress will end.
It'd be a disaster.
Anyway, Walter, appreciate you, man.
All right, quick break.
Right back.
We'll continue.
More of your phone calls coming up, 800-941-Sean as we continue this Monday straight ahead.
Final hour roundup is next.
You do not want to miss it.
And stay tuned for the final hour free-for-all on the Sean Hannity Show.
Chris Connecticut's Points00:03:24
All right, back to our busy phones, 800-941-SEAN, if you want to be a part of the program.
Chris in Connecticut.
Hey, Chris, how are you?
Glad you called.
Hey, Sean, thanks for taking my call.
I've been listening for 25 years, and it's the first time I've ever called.
I wanted to go back to the tariffs for a minute and that conservatives just don't exploit language in the legal sense that I think we really ought to.
You look at this tariff decision and what John Roberts said, I think he seriously blurred the line between indirect and direct taxes, potentially setting the stage for litigation that could even potentially update, or excuse me, upend not only the progressive tax system, but all the fees that are charged, which are now, in my opinion, completely in question because those are no different than a tariff.
It's a cost to consumers.
It's indirect.
And now all of a sudden it's defined as a tax.
If a tax is defined as a tariff and they're the same thing, then Article 1, Section 8 says it has to be uniform.
So you've got that type of thing.
And then on top of that, again, legal language is everything.
Democrats are great at exploiting this stuff.
You look at Article 4, Section 4.
You can't have anything but a Republican form of government.
Well, how is Mamdani not being challenged on this particular thing?
Exactly that language in the Constitution.
These are things that the conservatives are just so bad at doing, and Democrats always wind up exploiting.
You've got to get these things in the legislation, and you have to attack all these potential points.
Even if it fails, you get the idea out there and you get these people to litigate, to try to change back to the originalist, textualist way of the Constitution.
Indirect taxes versus direct taxes have been ruled on.
That's nowhere in the Constitution.
I hadn't really thought of that aspect of it, but I will tell you this, and it's what I said on Friday.
I'll just reiterate it.
And others now picked up on it.
The Washington Journal had a good piece.
The headline was, Havana Dissent gives Trump a tariff workaround to all but undo the Supreme Court ruling.
And I go back to what he said in his dissent that the statutes, and he specifically named them, the Trade Expansion Act, the 62, Section 232, the Trade Act of 74, Sections 122, 201, and 301, the Tariff Act of 1930, Section 338.
In essence, the court today concludes the president checked the wrong statutory box rather than another statute to impose these tariffs.
And what actually is interesting about this, and Scott Besson made this point as well, is that the Supreme Court is actually giving the president a stronger hand because otherwise the president's actions when he ruled under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, that would have expired when his term expired.
Under the use of what Kavanaugh is suggesting, it doesn't expire.
So in essence, it is stronger.
It's going to be what I said.
It's not going to be the issue that Democrats, liberals, the left want it to be.
And that's my prediction.
And I think you bring up some good points too, though.
Definitely worth thinking about.
Appreciate the call, my friend, Chris in Connecticut.