This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 19, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And this is a Fox News alert. Intelligent sources are convinced that the Mideast attack on the consulate in Libya was directly tied to Al Qaeda.
Now, Fox News is exclusively learning that Sufyan Ben Qumu is the man likely behind the attack and may have led the strike on the compound. Now, Cuomo, a Libyan was released from the U.S. prison at Gitmo in 2007 and transferred to Libyan custody under the condition that he would be kept in jail.
Well, he was not. Now, this image is a shot of his picture on the Guantanamo release file. And according to those files, he was also tied to the financiers behind 9/11.
Now, we expect to get more developments on this late breaking story throughout the hour. But I want to put this information into context for you.
Now, I have been saying every night on this show for a week, two former Navy SEALs, a U.S. ambassador and another American are dead and our government cannot get on the same page about what happened.
Now, they have ad nauseam spun the facts surrounding this deadly hit, claiming it was not organized, not calculated, even claiming they had no evidence that it was connected to the anniversary of 9/11. Now, the explanation offered over and over again was that an offensive movie trailer from YouTube, well, that was to blame.
Now, let's look back at the spin machine in the last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: What sparked the recent violence was the airing on the internet of a very hate full, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.
JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is in response not to United States policy, not to obviously the administration, not to the American people, it is in response to a video.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HANNITY: Now here we are, finally today, more than a week after the Benghazi strike. Now the director of the National Counterterrorism Center now says that this was, in fact, an orchestrated terror attack. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN, I-CONN.: Let me begin by asking you whether you would say that Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans died as a result of a terrorist attack?
MATTHEW OLSEN, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER: Certainly on that particular question I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, here's what you need to take away from what we just presented and the breaking news that we cited at the top of the show. All of this contradicts what the Obama administration has been telling you. This attack was, in fact, planned. It was coordinated and it was, in fact, connected to 9/11.
Now, it's time for the administration to tell you, the American people, the truth. I certainly know that the families of these four dead Americans, they deserve to know the truth, and as do each and every one of you.
Joining me now with reaction, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Mr. Mayor, welcome back.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: Sean, how are you?
HANNITY: You know, instead of maybe asking, attacking Mitt Romney endlessly when he saw the images of our embassy being breached, and our flag being burned and ripped down, and an Al Qaeda flag being put up. You said this ten seconds too early, two hours -- why are we asking the question why, on the anniversary of 9/11, did we not have beefed up security, especially in the light of the fact we've learned that the Libyans gave us three days warning that this could possibly happen?
GIULIANI: Well, I think this is an attempt by the administration, I think this whole weekend with Susan Rice and the people that were on television, this is an attempt to kind of spin your way out of it. I think the administration wanted us to all believe the narrative that that they had conquered Al Qaeda, that Al Qaeda was defeated, that the killing of bin Laden meant the end of Al Qaeda. Simple fact is, that isn't true. Al Qaeda is extremely dangerous. They were related terrorist groups that are even more dangerous possibly, and maybe they took their eye off the ball. And now there's going to be a certain amount of accountability for that, and boy, they don't want to be accountable for anything.
HANNITY: Well, I mean, wasn't that part of a whole spin, that had to do with this movie trailer? Well, that is a convenience excuse considering the movie trailer was released back in July. So, it's convenient excuse, it gets them off the hook. Now, they had to admit, because the evidence has been overwhelming and incontrovertible, granted our media in this country, they don't do their job. So, now there's some culpability here, and I think there's some fair questions in terms of why did they not beef up security, what did they know? Who know it and when did they know it? Is that a fair question?
GIULIANI: Absolutely significant questions that have to be answered because, you know, we have had 20 of these going on in the last couple of days. I mean, this is not confined to just one place. And over the weekend, Ambassador Rice said it was a spontaneous demonstration. I thought John McCain answered that pretty well, that people don't bring rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weapons to a spontaneous demonstration.
HANNITY: Yes.
GIULIANI: This was clearly planned, it was clearly planned in advance. It was -- and they hate to say these words, this administration -- this was an Islamic extremist terrorist attack. Just the same way they acted with Major Hassan, they couldn't figure out that was a terrorist attack, an Islamic extremists terrorist attack. When Major Hasan yelled out Allahu Akbar while he was slaughtering people.
HANNITY: Yes. All right. So, you got that case and it's overseas contingency operations, man-caused disasters. You know, there are pictures available of the ambassador. His body is dragged through the streets, very reminiscent of Mogadishu. We find out he was sodomized, brutally, viciously murdered and it seems, correct me if I'm wrong, that the president has put politics above telling the American people the truth because he wants to keep his helicopter, he wants to keep his beautiful plane, and he wants to keep that nice house that we paid for.
GIULIANI: Well, so far there's been only false and almost irresponsible spinning out of the White House. I mean, some of the most ridiculous statement, it was a spontaneous demonstration, it was caused solely by the video. I mean, you would have to be stupid to believe this kind of stuff. And I think maybe they think the American people are stupid.
I mean, watching it on Sunday was really sad. And I think that the reality is that the president of the United States from the very beginning has really not faced up to Islamic extremist terrorism in the way that he should. Sure, they got bin Laden, sure they have done a couple other things, but every time we have one of these terrorist incidents, he's looking for a euphemism to kind of move away from it.
HANNITY: What do you make of the way the media attacked, you know, this became the narrative, Mitt Romney came out early. Well, Mitt Romney saw the images of our flag being burned, an Al Qaeda flag being hung up and death to America. So, I think every American should speak out when they see those images. What do you think of that attack, and then you go, you fast forward to this week and we got a new narrative. And it's all about a tape that we now discovered that oops, there's not -- we don't have the whole tape. We were told it was the full tape, the full -- now we find out that's not true either. And I wonder what -- words were taken out that they maybe conveniently lost?
GIULIANI: I mean, here's the end result, Sean, right? A week later it turns out that Governor Romney was right. We shouldn't have apologized. In fact, we apologized for 16 hours and then the administration did exactly what Mitt Romney said. They withdrew the apology. So, Mitt Romney turned out to be right about that. We should not have apologized. Instead we should have used it, as the president likes to say, as a teaching moment. We should have taught the world what our first amendment means. And in fact it's very dangerous to apologize for it.
That means we are subjected to Americans being killed, Americans being harassed no matter what stupid, crazy thing somebody in America says.
HANNITY: Yes.
GIULIANI: I mean, the reality is we have free speech in this country. We didn't say it, you didn't say it, the government didn't say it. What we should have said was, the government has no responsibility for this.
HANNITY: Yes.
GIULIANI: It shouldn't be held against Americans. So, I think Mitt Romney made the right point.
It also turns out in retrospect that the administration is completely wrong about what happened. This was not a spontaneous demonstration. In fact, it's embarrassing that they still have that narrative out there. And I think the ambassador of the United Nation should apologize for that very, very ignorant remark.
HANNITY: Now should the third highest -- there's a promotion now for a lawyer who came to prominence defending a convicted terrorist. He's now number three at the Justice Department. Does that concern you?
GIULIANI: I don't know -- I can't tell you exactly why there's this sort of euphemistic attitude about Islamic extremist terrorism. You can't say war on terror. You can say war on women, but you can't say war on terror. And simple fact is, it doesn't matter whether president thinks there's a war on terror, they are at war with us as they have demonstrated over the last week.
HANNITY: Pretty pathetic. And I think the American people need answers. They've been lied to repeatedly.
GIULIANI: Well, I hope so. And the media is doing a really, really good job about obfuscating this and kind of trying to make Governor Romney the issue.
HANNITY: The media sold out. They have just totally gone in the tank for Obama and probably get worse before -- well, I don't think it will ever get better. Probably getting worse.
All right. Mr. Mayor, good to see you. Thank you.
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