Dr. Ben Carson reacts to surging ahead of Trump in new poll
2016 GOP candidate discusses his outsider success on 'Hannity'
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," October 5, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." Tonight, the political outsider insurgent candidates continue to dominate in the latest 2016 polls, and Hillary Clinton is now losing in head-to-head matchups with some GOP candidates in very key states.
"Fox & Friends First" co-host Ainsley Earhardt at the "Hannity" big board tonight. A lot of big numbers, a lot of movement.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, CO-HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS FIRST": Just looking over these numbers, you're going to be shocked, Sean. Let me tell you and your viewers voters in two important states continue to throw their support behind Republican candidates who come from outside of Washington and have never held public office.
In Iowa, Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson continue to separate themselves from the rest of the field with 24 and 19 percent. Carly Fiorina is in third place with 8 percent, followed by Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and then Marco Rubio.
As for New Hampshire, Sean, things are a little tighter in that state. Trump still has the top spot with 21 percent, and then Carly Fiorina continues to gain momentum with 16 percent. Jeb Bush has 11 percent, followed by Marco Rubio and Ben Carson with 10 percent, and then Chris Christie has 7.
Now, Sean, another national poll, a new one, has some very good news for Dr. Ben Carson. It shows him leading Donald Trump 24 to 17 percent. It is a very good sign for Dr. Carson, but we're going to have to wait until all these other polls come out to see if the trend continues, of course.
Now, also tonight, Sean, Hillary Clinton's ongoing scandals -- they continue to drag her down in the polls, and it's starting to show in a potential head-to-head matchup with notable GOP candidates. This is where it gets interesting. In New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton would fall to Jeb Bush by 7 points if they were to square off in a general election.
And Sean, Carly Fiorina would top Clinton by 8 points if voters had to decide between those two candidates. And then in the all-important state of Iowa, Sean, Clinton would lose to Trump by 7 points, Bush by 10, and Fiorina would beat her by a whopping 14 points.
Finally tonight, Clinton unveiled her new plans for new gun control measures at an event in New Hampshire. And here is part of what she said earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's time for us to say, Wait a minute, we're better than that. Our country is better than this. And there are steps we can take...
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: ... that improve gun safety and further the prevention of violence by guns. And today, I am proposing what I consider to be common sense approaches.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EARHARDT: All right, Sean, there you have it. Back to you.
HANNITY: All right, Ainsley, thanks so much. Ainsley will be back with more numbers later in the program.
Joining me now with more, author of the brand-new book "A More Perfect Union: What the People Can do to Reclaim our Constitutional Liberties," the man himself, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Dr. Benjamin Carson.
How are you, Dr. Carson? Good to see you.
DR. BEN CARSON, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Always good to be with you.
HANNITY: We -- what -- look at these numbers! It's Trump, it's you, it's Fiorina. What is happening out in the electorate? What are you hearing when you meet people?
CARSON: First of all, I hear people saying to me constantly, Please don't let them change you. Be who you are. Don't back down. Believe in what you believe in. That's so important because people are used to double talk and they're used to politicians saying whatever is politically expedient and having their finger up in the air and seeing which way the wind is blowing.
Right now, they're looking for something that they can truly believe in. They're looking for people who have actually worked in the real world, have real world accomplishments, demonstrate that they know how to solve complex problems.
HANNITY: Yes.
CARSON: And I think that's resonating with...
HANNITY: You know, it's interesting. In most polls, it's Trump and then you. I can't think of two more diametrically opposed personalities, you being more shy and demure and soft-spoken, and then Donald Trump being brash and outspoken and confident. That's interesting to me.
But the one thing you have in common is you've never held political office. Fascinating!
CARSON: We've not held political office. But I think the thing that's important to the people is that we're not looking like people who are going to be corralled by the political establishment.
HANNITY: Understood. It's interesting. You wrote this book, and you spend a lot of time in the book talking about fidelity to our Constitution. And I don't care if the issue is same-sex marriage, the 2nd Amendment, executive orders, taxation, freedom of religion -- you are viewing every one of these important issues through the prism of the Constitution. Explain that.
CARSON: Well, you know, I talk about in the book -- or we should -- I said we talk about -- because my wife is the co-writer. My wife is an excellent writer. But the fact of the matter is, we talk about how it was formed and what the basis of it was and the kinds of people who were involved in writing it and the friction that occurred in the writing of it and how they were able to resolve these things.
These men were incredibly bright, and they were able to see into the future and think about all the things that were possibly going to happen and to write a Constitution, with the help of God, by the way -- a lot of people don't know that.
HANNITY: Isn't that fascinating through this discussion? If they had to fight over slavery at that time, the nation wouldn't have been formed. That's my reading of history.
CARSON: That's correct.
HANNITY: All right. So -- but they did put in place in their wisdom, which I think you're talking about here, the mechanism to right wrongs and correct injustices.
CARSON: Yes.
HANNITY: Over time.
CARSON: And they recognized that they were not perfect and that the document itself was not perfect and that it would have to adjust with time. There are a lot of things that we need to think about now. For instance, you know, when we wrote the Constitution, the average age of death was around 47.
HANNITY: Yes (INAUDIBLE) surgeons like you, you're keeping us around a little longer. I'm past my due date, then, that means!
CARSON: Right, which means lifetime appointments perhaps need to be reviewed again.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Interesting. Now, I want to ask you, because you've been on the campaign trail, when you say something like the comment you made about Muslims, the media explodes. And I had you on the program right after that, and I said, Do you mean you would want to know that they do not adhere to sharia or radicalization? And you said, That's what I meant.
Has that been a problem on the campaign trail, the media turning a small comment into a bigger issue?
CARSON: Well, it hasn't been a problem with the people. It's been a problem with the left-wing media, although I've asked several of them, So are you telling me that you would like to have a president who believed in sharia, who believed in Takia (ph), who believe in all of the various components?
HANNITY: The antithesis of the Constitution, which you write about.
CARSON: Right. And of course, they immediately divert to another topic at that point because they don't want to admit it.
HANNITY: Do you find it's all gotcha? I watched the last CNN debate. You stood on your feet for three hours. You said this about him, and he said that about you, go fight it out. And you didn't get substance out, but I felt that the whole debate was designed to make you guys fight.
CARSON: It was, and that's why I largely didn't participate because...
(LAUGHTER)
CARSON: ... I'm not going to let somebody sit there and pull my strings -- Sic 'em, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Let me ask you this question. You said something to me earlier today that really shocked me, that you were unhappy you never get asked a foreign policy question. Is that true, in both debates you weren't asked a -- I don't know for sure.
CARSON: Yes, they have a tendency not to ask me about foreign policy.
HANNITY: Well, I want to ask you...
CARSON: They ask me about economics. They assume that the only thing you know is maybe something about race and maybe something about medicine.
HANNITY: Yes. Well, let me ask you. You see what Vladimir Putin is doing and he's -- his influence -- he seems to be filling a vacuum...
CARSON: Right.
HANNITY: ... left by the United States. You see that his first attack in Syria was not against ISIS, but it was against American-backed rebels that want to depose Assad.
CARSON: Correct.
HANNITY: That seemed to be by design. That was almost a proxy attack on the United States, from my position. What are your thoughts, and how would you handle it?
CARSON: Well, my thoughts are that he really was very disappointed with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and he wants to rebuild an empire and he needs to extend his influence widely. And he is noticing that there is weakness, and therefore, like any bully, he's going to continue to push. And I believe that we need to stand up to him.
HANNITY: How? How would you specifically -- if you're president, what would you do?
CARSON: Well, first of all, I wouldn't listen to his generals saying, You guys can't fly here anymore.
HANNITY: Can you imagine that?
CARSON: I would say, Not only can we fly, but you need to go take a flying leap, you know? Not a problem.
HANNITY: In other words, you'd be willing to create a confrontation where...
CARSON: Absolutely.
HANNITY: ... you say, We were here first. We're -- you're not going to get...
CARSON: Absolutely.
HANNITY: ... get in the way.
CARSON: Absolutely.
HANNITY: And if he wants a showdown?
CARSON: And I would establish a no-fly zone along the Turkish border. And you know, I wouldn't respect any of the boundaries that they set. And I would also know that his relationships go way, way, way, way back, you know? 1968 at Patrice Lumumba University -- that's when Putin first got to know the Ali Khamenei, and also Mahmoud Abbas.
And all of these relationships are very, very complex. We have to stop him, wherever he is. We have to stop him in the Baltic basin, all around that entire -- not just the Baltic states, but the whole basin, all of...
HANNITY: Eastern Europe, Western Europe is dependent on their energy so...
CARSON: And we can stop them there because we have abundant energy.
HANNITY: We do, that we don't use.
All right, stay right there. We got to take a break. We'll come back. We'll have more with Dr. Carson coming up right after the break. We'll ask him why he thinks the outsider candidates are resonating so well with you, the voters. We're talk more foreign policy, economics.
And then later, the feud between Republican rivals Marco Rubio, Donald Trump is now heating up. We'll explain.
And is it time for Hillary Clinton to hire a criminal defense attorney? A new report suggests that that very advice is being given to the Democratic front-runner, as we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." And as we have seen now in recent weeks, the outsider candidates continue to surge in the polls, leaving many of the career politicians scratching their head. But what's behind this movement? Now, many believe it's their refusal to be politically correct. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Maybe they don't want a straight talker. Maybe they don't. No, maybe they don't. But I am so tired of this politically correct crap!
CARSON: I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.
I think American blacks over the course of this next year will begin to see that they've been manipulated very, very largely, and people telling them what they're supposed to think and what they're supposed to say.
CARLY FIORINA, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Not only are taxpayers having to fund this butchery, but Planned Parenthood doles out millions of dollars every single election cycle to Democrat candidates. This is a political slush fund!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And back with us for more is author of the brand-new book -- it's called "A More Perfect Union" -- 2016 Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.
By the way, I've already interviewed about the comments you made. I don't want to go down and ask you the same questions every time you're on the program. Is it about...
CARSON: But I know the answers now.
HANNITY: You what?
CARSON: I know the answers now.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Well, you gave me the answer already. So I mean, otherwise, we're just rehashing the last interview. Is it about political correctness? People want -- is it that the country is -- I look at the numbers, 95 million Americans out of the labor force, 50 million in poverty, 46 million on food stamps, doubling of the debt, $5,000 median income decrease since Obama's been president. Americans are suffering!
CARSON: They are, without question. And who's paying attention to them? Now, the progressives would have you believe that they're the ones who are looking out for them, but it's their progressive policies that have put the middle class and the poor in this condition because the poor and the middle class no longer have a mechanism for increasing their money.
HANNITY: You said -- when you said that there would be -- people would be manipulated, you're talking about some demographics in the Democratic Party. You mean the people that are told that Republicans want to put you all back in chains. They don't even want to count you in the Census. They want dirty air and water. And they want to throw your grandmother over the cliff, that we hear every election cycle. Is that the manipulation?
CARSON: And instead saying, But we will take care of you. We will give you housing subsidies and we will give you food stamps. You know, we have 10 times more people on food stamps than we did when the War on Poverty was started.
HANNITY: Amazing, right?
CARSON: Yes. And all of these kinds of things that actually aren't elevating people.
HANNITY: Then let me ask you, how would Ben Carson as president get those people back in the labor force, get them off of food stamps, get them out of poverty, get family median income up? How do you do it?
CARSON: Well, first of all, big jump start. There's over $2 trillion overseas in American money that's not being brought back because we have the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world -- six-month hiatus, allow that money to be repatriated without taxation. The only stipulation...
HANNITY: No taxes, like Donald Trump wants 10 percent, which was -- would be...
CARSON: Right. The only stipulation would be that 10 percent of it would have to be used for empowerment zones, enterprise zones in some of our cities or to create jobs for people who are unemployment and on welfare. And that gets business and industry back in the idea of what they used to do.
HANNITY: Would you lower the corporate tax rate, as part of that?
CARSON: Oh, yes. You would lower that to below the average so we begin to...
HANNITY: So we become the tax haven.
CARSON: ... suck up -- we suck...
HANNITY: We begin the tax haven.
CARSON: Absolutely. We become a place where people are advantaged by working here.
HANNITY: Yes. Do you think we're better off lowering taxes overall? I mean, I will tell you that I pay on average 60 cents on every dollar I make.
CARSON: Which is absolutely absurd.
HANNITY: It's highway robbery. And then when I die, they're going to take the gold out of my teeth and half of what I saved.
CARSON: Right. Well, you know, first of all, we do not need that. Nancy Pelosi said if you cut the budget by one penny, it will be a disaster. Not true at all.
We have 4.1 million federal employees. We have 645 federal agencies and sub-agencies. We have unfunded liabilities that's incredible. Our fiscal gap is $200 trillion-plus. And unless we begin to deal with that, we have completely destroyed the future of those coming behind us. And we can deal with it quite easily.
HANNITY: How do you take your experience of being one of the most gifted, by all accounts -- and I even have a friend of mine once that you interviewed him and he's a brain surgeon and a neurosurgeon. And how do you take that experience and transfer that to the most difficult job in the world?
CARSON: Well, for one thing, you recognize that there's no one person who knows everything. Solomon himself, the wisest man who ever lived, said...
HANNITY: I thought he built the temple himself, right?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Yes.
CARSON: In the multitude of counselors (ph) is safety. So I do recognize that.
But I also have a history of solving complex problems. And these are complex problems. I've thought about them. I've talked to a lot of people who also know a lot about it.
I have no doubt that if we utilize the incredible intellect that we have available to us in this country and we begin to focus on how we do things, rather than why we can't do them, we'll get them done. This is America.
HANNITY: Let me ask you one more foreign policy question. We talked about Vladimir Putin, a little bit about the Middle East. How do we deal with radical Islamic terrorism, ISIS, for example?
CARSON: Well, first of all, we need to recognize that they are an existential threat to us. They're not some little JV group over in the Middle East. And we have to be able to identify them, talk about them, recognize that they want to destroy us and our way of life. We need to use every mechanism available to us, covert and overt.
HANNITY: Defeat them over there before they come here?
CARSON: Absolutely. You have to.
HANNITY: Yes, take the war to them.
CARSON: Absolutely. And that's not a Democrat or Republican issue because I guarantee you if we don't take care of them over there, when they get here, they're not going to ask you if you're a Republican or a Democrat before they cut your head off.
We need to destroy them now with everything, and we have the ability to do it.
HANNITY: All right, Dr. Carson, by the way, brand-new book, got it right here. And it's called "A More Perfect Union" and you can find it in book stores, Amazon.com.
Good to see you, Dr. Carson.
CARSON: All right.
HANNITY: Thank you for being here.
CARSON: Thank you, Sean.
HANNITY: And coming up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And by the way, Rubio has the worst voting record in the United States Senate (INAUDIBLE)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Who knows what Donald -- what he's trying to do? Who cares?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, the feud between Donald Trump and Senator Marco Rubio rages on.
Then later tonight, it's getting really close to crunch time. Is Vice President Joe Biden ever going to jump into the 2016 race? We'll check in with Ainsley Earhardt back at the "Hannity" big board.
Plus, are new legal troubles on the horizon for Hillary Clinton? Sources tell Ed Klein that Clinton is being urged to hire a criminal defense attorney. Could she possibly go to jail? That and more as "Hannity" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right, welcome back to "Hannity." The feud between 2016 GOP presidential contenders Donald Trump and Marco Rubio continues to heat up. Now, Donald Trump's latest jab came in the form of a retweet that the GOP front-runner posted, which shows a photo of a young Rubio, and it reads in part, quote, "Never hire a boy to do a man's job. Marco seems like a nice boy, well-mannered, but bought and paid for." The retweet goes on to say that Rubio doesn't have the swagger to negotiate with Vladimir Putin or run the country and tells him to drink his milk and eat his cookies. That's just the
Well, Latest in a line of recent attacks between the two candidates. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: By the way, Rubio has the worst voting record in United States Senate (INAUDIBLE) Who has better hair, trump or Rubio? You tell me.
SUPPORTERS: Trump!
TRUMP: Trump.
Senator Rubio is a lightweight. We understand that. He wouldn't be able to do this. He wouldn't know a trade deal from any other deal.
Marco Rubio is a lightweight. I can't imagine that he goes anywhere.
RUBIO: He's a very insecure person. He doesn't like to be criticized. You know, the presidency's a tough job. You're going to be criticized, and you can't flip out every time somebody says something about you. He does.
I'm not interested in the back and forth to be a member or part of his freak show.
Who knows what Donald -- what he's trying to do. Who cares?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here now with reaction from The DailyCaller, Jamie Weinstein, and from the Trump Organization, Michael Cohen.
That's pretty harsh. Marco Rubio, smart, intelligent, was former speaker of the house in Florida -- why is this even going on this way?
MICHAEL COHEN, THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Well, first of all, Mr. Trump didn't start it. And we talk about this...
HANNITY: What did Marco do to start it?
COHEN: Marco Rubio made a comment about Mr. Trump, and it was obviously a negative comment because he needs...
HANNITY: What did he say?
COHEN: What -- what -- I don't remember what he said, but it was something that Donald Trump's not a serious candidate. He is a serious candidate.
And going into the whole issue of the polls -- the last seven polls that came out has Mr. Trump anywhere between 34 and 29, where they have Rubio at 12 to 5. This isn't a contest. This is like a white belt versus a black belt.
HANNITY: All right, so then if that's the case, why would he pay attention to somebody that he doesn't even view as competition?
COHEN: Well, he doesn't view him as competition, but Donald Trump's a counterpuncher. If you come at him, he's going to set the table. And the table is, Come at me and I'm going to come back at you, and I'm going to hit you so hard that you're going to be gone from this race.
HANNITY: I'm going to hit you so hard that your mother's going to feel the vibrations. All right, Jamie, what's your reaction to all this?
JAMIE WEINSTEIN, DAILYCALLER: Well, look, Donald -- Donald Trump is endlessly entertaining, but I think he's attacking Rubio now because he sees Rubio as a real threat. You know, Michael's right, Rubio is not near where Donald Trump yet is in the polls, but he's rising.
And if you look at the last debate, there was no candidate on stage other than Rubio who had a mastery of issues the way Rubio did and could express it in a narrative that was inspiring. So I think Donald Trump sees that -- is a little bit intimidated by that, especially since Donald Trump himself hasn't really done the policy homework to go toe to toe with Marco Rubio in a policy debate.
COHEN: Yes, except there's only one problem. The problem is that whatever it is that Marco Rubio has done has failed the United States. We are in serious trouble. And if you want to talk about the only person that's on that entire stage that's a real deal maker, the king of all deals, is Donald Trump. He's the only one that's ever created a job.
Marco Rubio has never created a job. He's been on the government's pay since the day he finished school. He's in the pockets of big business, guys like Norman Brayman (ph) and others. And he can't balance his own budget. He's financially in trouble himself. And he's only been successful in getting out of trouble as a direct result of big sponsors.
HANNITY: Jamie?
WEINSTEIN: Well, look, these -- you know, the Trump organization has great opposition researchers. If I was working for Mr. Trump, these are the attack lines I probably would tell him to make because they do resonate to some degree.
But the reality is that if you look at the record of Donald Trump, what his positions are on a lot of issues, and Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio -- now, look, I'm no Rubio booster, but he has laid out a very conservative foreign policy compared to Donald Trump, where he wants to retreat from the world. He wants to retreat from the Ukraine region. He doesn't want America to put a fight up there. He doesn't want to fight Putin in Syria.
COHEN: You know what?
WEINSTEIN: He doesn't want...
COHEN: Let me stop you...
WEINSTEIN: He wants to abandon the South China Sea.
COHEN: Let me stop you right there because...
WEINSTEIN: Marco Rubio -- Marco Rubio -- Marco Rubio predicted...
COHEN: I got to stop you right there...
WEINSTEIN: ... predicted it, what we're seeing...
(CROSSTALK)
COHEN: ... absolutely inaccurate. First of all -- could you imagine -- can you imagine Marco Rubio sitting down with the likes of Vladimir Putin? It's like a -- it's taking candy from...
HANNITY: Marco did predict -- it was an interesting line when he called Putin a gangster and laid out exactly what he's engaged in now, going in to help Assad and Syria, et cetera, and has ambitions to exert his influence in the region because of America's vacuum created by Obama. He was dead right on that.
COHEN: He's not dead right about it, Sean.
WEINSTEIN: Yes, he is.
COHEN: First of all, the bottom line is if in foreign policy you want to be able to get what you need, you got to be the deal maker. You got to be Donald Trump.
HANNITY: Let me ask you this...
COHEN: Vladimir Putin will look at Marco Rubio the same way he looks at Obama. It's like a lambchop.
WEINSTEIN: Well, it seems the deal -- it seems the deal that Donald Trump...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: What's a lambchop?
(CROSSTALK)
COHEN: It's something that he's going to -- he has no respect for...
WEINSTEIN: Oh!
COHEN: ... and he's going to -- he's going to enjoy just eating our lunch, which is something that nobody will get...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Let's go back to Jamie. Jamie?
WEINSTEIN: Well, it seems like Donald Trump's already conceded in Syria before there's even any negotiation. He said he's very happy with Putin going in and putting combat troops in Syria and engaging in a Syrian civil war, which only allows the Russians to get a foothold in the Middle East, which has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for the last three or four decades...
HANNITY: All right...
WEINSTEIN: ... is to keep Russia out of the Middle East. So it seems like he's already capitulated, Donald Trump...
(CROSSTALK)
COHEN: Look at how well we've done with our Middle East policy over, as Josh (sic), said the last 30 years. Just -- what a -- what wonderful display of confidence by our politicians.
(CROSSTALK)
COHEN: Hold on one sec. Let me tell you the one issue. The issue is the American people are sick and tired of everything that's going on with Washington, and that's why Donald Trump is and will continue to be the top candidate.
HANNITY: All right, guys, thank you both for being with us. Appreciate it. And thank you, Jamie.
Coming up -- when will Joe Biden make his decision? Is he going to run or not for president? Ainsley Earhardt is here with a full report.
Plus, is it time that Hillary Clinton hire a criminal defense attorney? Is there a chance she might go to jail in light of the FBI investigation? Well, Ed Klein says that she is being given that advice even as we speak. We'll check in with him and Sharyl Attkisson straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So could Hillary Clinton's numerous scandals and continuing drop in the polls leave the door open for a well-known Democrat now to jump into the race? "Fox & Friends First" co-host Ainsley Earhardt at the "Hannity" big board. What have we got today?
EARHARDT: Hey, Sean. Yes, it's getting really exciting. The big question surrounding Joe Biden is, will he enter the 2016 race? We have been following this story very closely. And according to CBS News the vice president's decision could come as early as this week. According to the report Biden is still weighing all of his options now, but two sources say that he is leaning toward declaring his candidacy.
Sean, recent polls show that it could be a very good decision for Joe Biden. According to the latest NBC/"Wall Street Journal"/Marist Iowa poll, Biden is behind Clinton by just 11 points and isn't that far behind Bernie Sanders. The same poll has the VP competitive in New Hampshire. And Sean, you have to imagine that Biden would get a boost if he does in fact decide to run. It's amazing that he's already getting these numbers and he hasn't even put himself in the race yet.
HANNITY: All right, pretty amazing numbers. It's getting more interesting by the day. Thank you, Ainsley.
Also tonight Hillary Clinton is now claiming that the Benghazi select committee was all a setup to make her look bad. Now instead of investigating her role in the attack that killed four Americans, well, here's what Clinton told the "Today" show earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Look at the situation they chose to exploit, to go after me for political reasons. This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans. I would have never done that. And if I were president and there were Republicans or Democrats who were thinking about that, I would have done everything to shut it down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, in that same interview Clinton also dodged and evaded questions about her personal server. But tonight a new report says that a trusted Clinton confidante is now advising Hillary to hire a criminal defense attorney in case she is indicted for failing to secure classified government documents and for lying under oath.
Here now to talk about the story is the author of this brand-new book "Unlikable, The Problem with Hillary Clinton," Ed Klein, and also with us is the anchor of Sinclair's "Full Measure," Sharyl Attkisson is back with us. All right, explain this, if her confidante and her friends are saying get a lawyer, and we know the FBI is investigating, her problem really isn't Republicans even though she's trying to make it that.
ED KLEIN, AUTHOR, "UNLIKEABLE": Absolutely. This is a guy who has been with the Clintons for 30 years and has been advising them all this time. He said to me he's tearing his hair out because he cannot get Hillary to understand that she is in deep trouble. He says, paraphrasing John Dean, this is a cancer on her candidacy.
HANNITY: Wouldn't it be ironic considering her position on the Watergate committee so many years ago?
KLEIN: I know. What he wants her to do is get some big league criminal defense attorney, maybe a Republican, he said, who is -- you know, who has a great reputation in Washington, and find out what the FBI and the attorney general's really up to so he can prepare, if necessary, to defend her and hopefully avoid her getting indicted.
HANNITY: Sharyl, by the way, congratulations on your new show. Everyone in Washington, Sharyl, as you know, they look at Comey as a straight shooter at the FBI. We learned last week that the FBI likely recovered the 33,000 deleted e-mail or at least some portion of them. If it's not about yoga, a wedding, a funeral, or conversations with Bill, but about the Clinton Foundation, about Benghazi, she may as well, that may be the smoking gun that could get her indicted. Do you think this confidante that Ed is talking about is giving her good advice?
SHARYL ATTKISSON, "FULL MEASURE" ANCHOR: It's hard to say until we know what's in the e-mails. But only perhaps she knows. I do know that people who are close to her, some of her them don't even know what could be in the e-mails and are hedging their bets when they discuss it privately. I think her big concern is she knows through, my information says, internal polling that she's done that the public does see the Benghazi question as a legitimate issue. These are Democrats and Republican voters do see this as a legitimate question to ask, and that's why she has to be so defensive on this point.
BAIER: All right, she's defensive, but remember, two weeks ago "The New York Times" was saying that they developed a new strategy, that they were going to show a more likable Hillary, a funnier Hillary, a warmer Hillary, and she shows great indignation and outrage today. Will the real Hillary please stand up at some point?
ATTKISSON: I think we know from experience that when she displays a persona it sometimes means that people like Media Matters or her other advisers have indicated through polling or whatever means that they use, they've indicated to her that this would be a good thing for her to do, that maybe that will help her among her potential voters.
HANNITY: Yes.
ATTKISSON: The issue of Biden coming in, I've talked to, again, top, well-placed Democrats who say that the only thing they think Biden has is offering more of the same, which is not, as Democrats said, a very good selling point, that a continuation of the Obama administration would not be very popular. But at the same time you have Hillary wrestling with these questions and Bernie Sanders who some of the Democrat establishment do not want in there. So they're grappling with issues as is the Republican side.
HANNITY: So we know in recent polls that 60 percent of Americans find her dishonest and untrustworthy, and they believe she's lying, particularly about the email server and Benghazi. She tried to explain why voters don't like or trust her this morning, and here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I believe by the end of this campaign people will know that I can fight for them and they can count on me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's surprising to hear you say that, because you've been in politics for 20 years. So it's not like people don't know you. To just get real about it, are you having a problem connecting?
CLINTON: Well, I don't know. You can ask me that, and, obviously, it's not the nicest question to hear because I feel like I have a long record of working on the issues that I believe are important to people, and I'm going to continue to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And 60 percent of Americans think she's a liar.
KLEIN: That's right.
HANNITY: Untrustworthy, dishonest. Can you win with those?
KLEIN: I don't think so. I don't think so. You know, I looked at a number of titles for my new book. I was thinking of "Shameless" as the title of the book, but then I realized that all politicians in Washington are shameless.
HANNITY: That's probably true, a lot of them, anyway.
KLEIN: But the truth of the matter is she's not likable. And I cannot think of a recent president who got elected who was not likable.
HANNITY: I got to believe, Sharyl, that that's really a key component. Will Americans vote for somebody they think is a liar, dishonest, and is not likable? How do you overcome that perception? This is six out of 10 voters, Democrats and Republicans.
ATTKISSON: I'm not a political analyst, but I'll just tell you anecdotally, I think the answer is yes, they will vote for somebody like that. I've had acquaintances who have told me they have said not nice things about what they think about Mrs. Clinton's honesty, and then in the same breath say, but I want to vote for her because I've been told by acquaintances, she's a woman, or I want to vote for her because I could never see myself voting for a Republican. So I do think, yes, some people are very ideologically entrenched or have other reasons.
HANNITY: But she doesn't have the broad appeal of, say, her husband, a new Democrat, or the warmth of her husband or the speech giving capabilities of Barack Obama. So she's going to lose a portion of those people certainly.
ATTKISSON: I even think some of those people, people aren't really talking much about this, are actually interested in Donald Trump. Again, I've had friends who normally vote Democrat including women Democrats and African-Americans tell me that they're crossing over to vote for Trump this year. So I think anything's possible. It's really hard to say.
HANNITY: All bets off. All right, Sharyl, thank you. Ed, congrats on the new book.
KLEIN: Thank you.
HANNITY: Appreciate it. And coming up next tonight right here on HANNITY.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If you had a couple of the teachers or somebody with guns in that room you would have been a hell of a lot better off.
CARSON: Gun control only works for normal, law-abiding citizens. It doesn't work for crazies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Republican presidential candidates weigh in on the gun control debate. We'll check in with Bo Dietl and Eric Guster. They're here to debate that and more as we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Some Democrats were quick to politicize the shooting and the tragedy in Oregon late last week, making the debate about gun control front and center on the campaign trail. Here's where the 2016 presidential candidates stand on the issue. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What we end up doing lots of times is we create rules on the 99.999 percent of human activity that had nothing to do with the tragedy.
TRUMP: It was a gun-free zone. I will tell you, if you had a couple of the teachers or somebody with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They try to use these tragedies as an excuse to come after the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens. It's unconstitutional. It's cynical, and it's wrong.
CARSON: You're not going to handle it with more gun control because gun control only works for normal, law-abiding citizens. It doesn't work for crazies.
MIKE HUCKABEE, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have not so much a gun problem. We have a gun problem with sin and evil. This is an evil thing when people kill another person and it happens way too often.
FIORINA: Before we start calling for more laws, I think we ought to consider why we don't enforce the laws we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here now with reaction, trial attorney Eric Guster and former NYPD detective Bo Dietl. Eric, the thing that stands out to me, all these politicians that want gun control, they usually have their own security guards. And you know what those security guards have? Guns. So the only people who are going to be left defenseless are average American citizens that should have the right to keep and to bear arms and it should not be infringed upon. Why do they politicize these things so quickly like Obama did?
ERIC GUSTER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I was so disappointed that this so politicized, especially with this guy, who shot these people and killed these people. He would have passed any background check on earth. So we have been careful to not overreact --
HANNITY: So the guy you voted for twice, his very proposals wouldn't have done a darn thing to stop Oregon, is that what you're saying? I'm saying it another way. So why don't you say it? His proposals won't have stopped a thing.
BO DIETL, FORMER NYPD DETECTIVE: Say it, Eric.
GUSTER: I refuse to say that.
HANNITY: Speak the true. Truth is power.
GUSTER: I'm not going to say that, especially on your show.
HANNITY: Come on.
GUSTER: This is not a gun control issue. It should not have been. And I was very disappointed that it was made into this political football. I'm very disappointed.
DIETL: First of all, Sean, I know our good friend and this great attorney, Eric, has a carry permit.
(LAUGHTER)
DIETL: So he believes in the right to bear arms.
HANNITY: So you're busting him on that.
DIETL: I'm busting him on national TV, but I love Eric, I love his thoughts. When it's right, it's right. When it's wrong, it's wrong.
HANNITY: But he supports some of these politicians that would take away our rights.
DIETL: But the problem here is that we had something occur. Did you watch over the weekend? Did you see Rahm Emanuel jump in there? And I'm disgusted with this. I'm disgusted with all these people getting shot. They're not getting shot with NRA guns. They're getting shot with illegal guns. You want to jump ugly. Let's jump ugly with illegal guns on the streets of these supposedly safe cities. Maybe if there were more people with carry permits in Chicago they'd be less killings.
HANNITY: How about we put former detectives like yourself in schools, you hire jobs, the kids are safe in the classroom, and these people know that they're going to be challenged if they go on one of these campuses.
DIETL: WE all know one thing. If there is someone who was armed there, a security person, if he would have done his job properly, former military or law enforcement, the shot count would have been down. They would have reacted to it and people's lives would have been saved. Let's say this crazy could have gotten gasoline. He could have killed people other ways.
HANNITY: Fertilizer. There's a million ways.
DIETL: So to use a gun and gun control at this basis is very irresponsible.
HANNITY: Checkmate, Eric, admit that voting for Obama twice was a mistake. Say it.
GUSTER: No. I'm a winner, Obama is a winner, and I voted for him twice.
DIETL: And people with licensed guns are winners, also, Eric.
HANNITY: All right, coming up next, our "Ask Sean," segment. Plus, we need your help. Our question of the day, a very important one, is straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." It's time for tonight's Question of the Day. So do you think that Joe Biden can beat Hillary Clinton? I actually do. Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think. Now it's time for our "Ask Sean" segment. You've been sending in your questions via Facebook and Twitter that you like to ask me. By the way, if you send one in you can become a big TV star. Here's tonight's question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Sean, my name is Bill Peterman (ph). I'm a CPA and a financial adviser in Springfield, Illinois. The question I have for the next election is how is the next president going to be able to take care of all the entitlements and the level of debt that America has now without raising taxes on the middle class?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: As a CPA, Bill, great question, you know there's only two ways to increase money that you have for the government. Number one, you have to spend less. I like the penny plan. Eliminate baseline budgeting, in other words built in increases the government projects every year. You keep the budget at the same level, and then you cut one penny out of every dollar every year for six years and you actually bring the budget in balance.
Now, with that said, you also have to grow the economy, bring in more revenues. The single best thing we can do in my opinion, make America a corporate tax haven. Lower the corporate rates. That will bring money from overseas, a lot of that repatriated money to come back in.
And thirdly, energy is the answer. We make America energy independent. It's going to bring a lot of revenue into the government, create a lot of jobs. People that are now benefitting from welfare or food stamps, they'll now have good jobs. They'll be taxpayers. It will have a huge ripple effect on the economy. Anyway, good question, thank you.
Now, if you have a question for me, go to Twitter, use the #askSean, and even better, send that video, we'll put you on TV like Bill.
But before we go, a quick programming note, make sure to tune in tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. eastern to the Fox News Channel. Donald Trump will sit down with Bret Baier at 6:00 p.m., tomorrow night, right here on Fox.
That is all the time we have left this evening. We hope you'll set your DVR so you never miss an episode. We take attendance and it hurts our feelings a lot when you're not here.
Thanks for being with us. See you back here.
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