Exclusive: Rob O'Neill responds to ISIS threats
Man who killed Usama bin Laden speaks out on 'Hannity'
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," October 6, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to "Hannity." Tonight, ISIS is targeting the Navy SEAL who killed Usama bin Laden. According to a new report, a British ISIS sympathizer published online the address of Rob O'Neill and now is calling for a jihadist to assassinate him.
Joining us now in a "Hannity" exclusive is the target of this attack, former Navy SEAL, Fox News contributor, the man who did kill bin Laden -- Rob O'Neill is back with us.
Rob, thank you. I'm sorry that you and your family have to go through this. I hope our government is putting in place measures to help you. What can you tell us about it?
ROB O'NEILL, FMR. NAVY SEAL, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Hey, Sean, thanks for having me. You are a great American. Yes, you know, this is something that came out recently, but I've been ready for this since we killed Usama bin Laden. My name was leaked shortly thereafter. It was leaked again. And I have stuff in place.
What this does, though, right now, is -- I think it should be a call for every service member and law enforcement first responders. They're actually all targets, you know? Just a lot of times when there's a bomb threat, there's not a bomb. But it's the ones you don't see. So everyone needs to be more vigilant.
And I know we have places -- people in the government, the FBI helping me out, trying to track him. and I know how to defend myself.
HANNITY: All right, I appreciate all of that. But you're confident, you have faith that the government's doing their part to protect you and help you and assist you. They're not leaving you on your own?
O'NEILL: I'm confident. I've talked to some federal FBI and local law enforcement different places and they are putting stuff in place to assist, yes.
HANNITY: As we look at the world situation, things are changing really rapidly. I mean, the latest development is Russia is literally targeting the rebels we have been arming to topple Assad. They say that they're targeting ISIS, but they're not. They're targeting the rebels that we have armed and we have supplied. What is your reaction to that?
O'NEILL: Yes, well, Russia's inserting themselves now because that part of the world needs leadership. Normally, it would be the United States. We should be leading. We're not. There's not a -- there's nothing going on there.
Russia just realizes because they want Assad to stay there -- he's a puppet for the Russians. They can use the ports there near Damascus and all that stuff. He realizes if he targets a lot of the moderate rebels or the so-called moderate rebels and wipes them out, then there will just be ISIS left against Assad, and that way, we have to -- we can't do anything other than want to fight ISIS too. But it seems like we're not going to fight ISIS for a little while. We need to get in there and do it, though.
HANNITY: Last question. When you hear cities like Ramadi and Fallujah and Tikrit and Mosul are toppled by ISIS -- I mean, blood, sweat, tears, hard work, financial sacrifice of your fellow soldiers.
O'NEILL: Yes.
HANNITY: And you see that we pulled out early and didn't finish the job, and all these men died and so many others were injured. What are your thoughts?
O'NEILL: Well, you know, I fought in Ramadi and I fought in Fallujah, and I know people that died there and I know how hard those battles were. And it's a shame that we just let them go because right now, as a nation, just due to a lot of political correctness, we're becoming a weak nation.
You know, I would ask every American to seriously look yourself in the mirror and say, Fix yourself. And we need to stand up as a country and we need to defend the planet. There's genocide going on over there, and we're really doing nothing about it.
HANNITY: All right, Rob O'Neill, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
O'NEILL: Thanks, Sean. I really appreciate it.
Also tonight, Hillary Clinton is going on the offensive against Republicans over the attack in Benghazi and the select committee.
Now, standing by at the "Hannity" big board tonight with an exclusive and more information is Ainsley Earhardt, the co-host of "Fox & Friends First" -- Ainsley.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, CO-HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS FIRST": Hi, Sean. Thank you. Hillary Clinton aggressively trying to change how you, the public, views her role in the Benghazi terrorist attacks, which left four Americans dead. The Democratic front-runner is seizing on comments made on "Hannity" last week by the House majority leader, Congressman Kevin McCarthy. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, R-CALIF., MAJORITY LEADER: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today?
Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EARHARDT: Well, Clinton and other Democrats wasted little time trying to score political points off that comment, even though Representative McCarthy has since clarified exactly what he meant. Yesterday, Clinton was on the "Today" show and unveiled her new talking points to try to change the political narrative here. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: 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!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Sean, the Clinton campaign is now doubling down and released an attack ad targeting Republicans and this investigation. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republicans finally admit it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republican Kevin McCarthy saying the committee investigating Benghazi and Clinton's e-mails was created to destroy her candidacy.
MCCARTHY: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee. What are her numbers today?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans have spent millions attacking Hillary because she's fighting for everything they oppose, from affordable health care to equal pay. She'll never stop fighting for you, and the Republicans know it.
CLINTON: I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approved this message.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EARHARDT: Earlier today, Congressman McCarthy responded to that ad by releasing this strong statement, writing in part, quote, "The mission of the select committee on Benghazi is to find the truth, period. The serious questions Secretary Clinton faces are due entirely to her own decision to put classified information at risk and endanger our national security."
So Sean, it's pretty safe to say that this will not be the end of that back and forth over Benghazi. Back to you.
HANNITY: All right, Ainsley, thank you.
And joining us now with reaction, author of the book "The Rise of ISIS." He's also the chief counsel for the American Center of Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow. Also, pollster Frank Luntz.
The truth is, is that four Americans did die, Jay. And they requested -- the ambassador, Ambassador Stevens, requested security, and it was denied by the State Department on numerous occasions before the attack. The standdown order was given during the attack, and then a big manufactured lie was given after the attack.
So there was legitimate reason from the get-go, but even with that said, the Republican leadership resisted until when, May of 2014.
JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: Yes. So and what happens, of course, is, you know, bad news doesn't get better with time. And this was a horrific incident. The Congress -- and I think Trey Gowdy has done a very good job here. I don't blame him at all. But the lack of time -- whenever you've got a case -- and there's now a two-year gap or three-year gap between the incident when you're actually having hearings that actually count, things happen.
And of course, what happened here was the -- basically, the non- release of the e-mails, the missing e-mails, the difficulty of the committee getting the data. So this lack of time between the very beginning of when this inquiry should have started right when it happened, and now in 2015, nothing positive has developed there. And I think Trey Gowdy's going to do a good job of putting it back together.
But the fact of the matter is, you're right, the reluctance upon moving forward here had a -- I think does have a significant impact because, look, the public wears out. People want to get on with other things. It's a horrible incident. And people are saying, Well, we're not going to get to the bottom of it three years later. Maybe we're never going to get to the bottom of it.
So hopefully, we will. But you're right, the delay has not been helpful.
HANNITY: All right, Frank, now there's a coordinated attack, trying to capitalize on maybe inarticulate statements that Kevin McCarthy made on this program. I knew what he meant. But it wasn't taken that way. They're trying to run with this. They've got their talking points out. They're -- oh, it's -- this proves it's political. Nothing to do with anything else.
What do you think of the ad? Does that go anywhere? You're great at analyzing them.
FRANK LUNTZ, GOP POLLSTER: Well, I'm watching this. This is a 20- year pattern of the Clintons that you go and you try to destroy anyone who might challenge you. And I'm hoping that House Republicans are paying attention because Hillary Clinton does not want Kevin McCarthy to be speaker. He's got a better hold, he's got better leadership skills than any of the other people in that campaign. And he knows how to move Congress forward.
And the idea that he might be speaker -- I'm not surprised that Hillary Clinton came after him because she's afraid. She's afraid of the facts. She's afraid of the truth. And she's afraid of an effective Congress that could hold her accountable.
HANNITY: Isn't there a bigger issue here, and that is her first national ad -- and it really wasn't a national buy. She's only spending 100 grand, which is very small in terms of an ad buy.
LUNTZ: Yes.
HANNITY: The fact that she's on the defensive, the fact that she's playing, Oh, I'm the victim. I'm the -- she's always the victim, in every circumstance. There's always some vast intergalactic right-wing conspiracy that's out to get her.
So I don't think that's a very effective ad for any campaign. Add to that the e-mail server and the FBI looking into it -- that has nothing to do really with Republicans. Those are her mistakes.
LUNTZ: Well, it's very simple here. The public has the right to the truth. They have -- Congress has a responsibility to get at the truth, and Hillary Clinton has to tell the truth, and she hasn't up to now. And that's why you see her numbers -- I don't want to make this a political issue, but Sean, you've asked a political question.
The reason why she has fallen so much is because she doesn't tell the truth. And Majority Leader McCarthy has held her accountable, and that does have an impact both on what happens on Capitol Hill and what the American people see.
HANNITY: You know, Jay, we've got a lot of legal issues involving the e-mail server, I think the biggest problem she has.
SEKULOW: Yes.
HANNITY: We had Ed Klein on the show last night. He's reporting...
SEKULOW: Right. I saw.
HANNITY: ... that people close to Hillary are recommending that she get a criminal defense attorney. Do you think it's going to get that far?
SEKULOW: I'm surprised she doesn't have one now because I think whoever is giving her that advice is absolutely correct. Look, you've got an FBI investigation that Jim Comey is taking seriously. He's the FBI director. There are very serious allegations of what has happened here.
We know what's happened. I mean, look at the information that we know. You can imagine what the FBI knows, a lot more than we know. But what we know is that an unsecured server with an organization that had no security clearance -- she also gave the e-mails and the thumb drive to her lawyer, who has no security clearance.
And when you put all of this together without even knowing what the FBI knows in much greater detail, Sean, I'm shocked that she does not have a criminal defense attorney because the reality is, there is a criminal investigation going on here. And who is the focus of it? Hillary Clinton. Why is she the focus of it? She set up the e-mail to be the separate server.
So at the end of the day, you can blame staff. You can say other people did something like it. But the truth is, there's not a history of anything like this done this way. And she did this. She's going to be held accountable.
Now, whether that becomes a criminal charge ultimately will rest with the attorney general of the United States.
HANNITY: All right, what about this...
SEKULOW: And then the Obama administration has to make a decision.
HANNITY: Go back to the e-mails...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: What about this development today that this Platte River employee company, the one that the server -- with the -- in the closet, et cetera...
SEKULOW: Yes.
HANNITY: ... the idea that they were contacted to maintain her secret e-mail server. They became concerned about being roped into a cover-up when they were asked to reduce the amount of data that they were holding after a congressional request for that data. And notes were sent out saying, Wait a minute, this may not be a good idea.
SEKULOW: Right. Because if I was Platte River's lawyer, I would tell them the same thing. Don't start erasing data. Don't start changing things. Don't start covering up because often, the cover-up is the crime. And in the situation where you -- that they find themselves in, whether they violate the law or not, is not so much whether they had the server. That wasn't their -- they had a client, they took the client's business.
But then if you're asked to do something while there's an ongoing criminal investigation or ongoing congressional oversight, and you start tampering with evidence, you end up looking at an obstruction of justice charge, and that becomes a whole different story.
So I can understand exactly why their lawyers at Platte River said, Hey, don't do that.
HANNITY: All right. Guys, good to see you.
SEKULOW: Don't start messing with the documents you're holding. We've got to find -- there's ongoing investigation. Subpoenas have probably been issued. You got to be careful. The lawyers gave them good advice.
HANNITY: All right, guys, good to see you both. Appreciate it.
Coming up, busy news night tonight on "Hannity." Could illegal immigrants actually help Hillary Clinton win the White House in 2016 if she is the Democratic nominee? According to a brand-new report, the answer is yes. We'll check in with Mark Steyn tonight. He's here to explain.
Then later, GOP presidential candidate Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey -- he reacts to the latest example of Russian aggression and the Republican shake-up of Capitol Hill. That and much more.
Also, Geraldo takes on Sheriff David Clarke straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So could illegal immigrants help put Hillary Clinton in the White House come 2016? Now, according to a story from Politico magazine, the answer is yes.
Now, here's what -- the new census is taken every 10 years. It says illegal immigrants are counted the same as citizens, and under our Electoral College system, more than 80 percent of electoral votes are distributed based on how many people live in each state.
So as you would guess, states that are blue or tend to vote Democratic benefit because they have the highest illegal immigrant populations, meaning they get extra electoral votes.
Here with reaction, author of the book "A Disgrace to the Profession," our friend Mark Steyn is back with us. Really? This is when it's now come down to?
MARK STEYN, "A DISGRACE TO THE PROFESSION" AUTHOR: Yes. It's amazing, Sean. I think most of us understand that the president isn't popularly elected. It's done on the basis of the Electoral College. But as you said, the Electoral College -- how many votes each state gets includes the number of illegal immigrants in each state.
So for example, a state like California, if you didn't count illegal immigrants, that state would have five fewer electoral votes. Now, my entire state of New Hampshire just has four votes. So in other words, the illegal immigrants in California outpunch the entire state of New Hampshire and every legitimate U.S. citizen living in New Hampshire.
In fact, if you take the five Electoral College votes that are basically allocated on the basis of the number of illegal immigrants in the state in California, and you add the one Electoral College vote in New York and one in Washington state, basically, the Electoral College votes that are accounted for by the number of illegal immigrants in each state outpunches the whole of northern New England, of Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire. They might as well not vote because their votes are canceled out by illegal immigrants.
HANNITY: All right, let me -- if you buy into the classic arguments that both parties -- we would have a wall built, but both parties equally, for different reasons, they don't want to build a wall. For example, Republicans are beholden to corporate interests. They want cheap labor. Therefore, they don't go forward with building the fence.
It would seem the Democrats are far more, you know, forward-thinking and long-term thinking by saying, No, we want a new electoral base, and the more immigrants that come into the country, become citizens, the odds are they're going to vote Democrat. So is that...
(CROSSTALK)
STEYN: ... this Electoral College thing indicates, they don't even need them to become citizens. They just need them to come across the border. And the Democrats are smarter than the Republicans on this. As you said, they Democrats want essentially to expand the dependency class, and therefore the bureaucracy that ministers to them. Whereas the Republicans, the kind of Chamber of Commerce Republicans, just want cheap labor.
Well, the problem is there isn't going to be a Republican Party if you don't get this issue under control because as we've seen, right now, illegal immigrants account for about 10 Electoral College votes. A couple of election cycles down the line, what's it going to be, 18, 20 Electoral College votes?
This is an issue -- this is an existential issue for the Republican Party.
HANNITY: I agree. All right, let me ask you...
STEYN: There aren't going to be -- when the entire United States takes on the demographics of California, there will never be another Republican president again. So there's absolutely no point in worrying about whether, oh, whether we should shave a couple of points off the capital gains tax rate, when on this core issue, you're basically surrendering turf all across the map every single day!
HANNITY: Do you -- handicap for us -- we're four months outside of the Iowa caucus. We have less than a minute. Handicap the odds of Trump and Carson and Carly and Ted and Marco and Jeb. Tell us who you think is where.
STEYN: Well, I think we're getting very late for any of the official politicians to snatch this thing out from under the Trump, Carson in Iowa and Trump and Fiorina. Carly Fiorina's in second place in New Hampshire.
HANNITY: Carson.
STEYN: And I think that gets back to the immigration issue, that the Republican base is sick of basically a two-party one-party state which is what America has. And the two-party one-party state operates very well if you're a liberal. It gives you "Obama care." It gives you all kinds of things. But if you're a conservative, it doesn't work so well. And I think that's why these non-politicians, one or other of them, is going to scoop it up in Iowa and New Hampshire.
HANNITY: All right, the one and only Mark Steyn. Mark, congratulations on the new book. Thanks for being with us.
And coming up -- as Vladimir Putin continues to test President Obama, how should the U.S. respond? We'll check in with 2016 Republican presidential candidate -- Governor Chris Christie is here tonight with reaction.
Also later, Shannon Bream is here to talk about the Supreme Court's new term. Plus, what does the highest court in the land think about the 2nd Amendment? She'll explain.
And in this disturbing video that you see right there, believe it or not, a man in California appears to be stalking a police officer. Cops say he was doing it for entertainment. Makes no sense to me. Geraldo Rivera, Sheriff David Clarke will debate that and more straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So Vladimir Putin continues to test the United States. Now, officials tell Fox News that Russia is sending ground troops into Syria, as well as rocket launchers and artillery pieces.
Earlier, I sat down with 2016 Republican presidential candidate New Jersey governor Chris Christie to talk to him about Putin's power play in Syria. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: Joining us now is the governor of the great state of New Jersey and 2016 presidential candidate Chris Christie. Governor, how are you? Good to see you.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, R-N.J., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Sean, good to see you.
HANNITY: Appreciate you being here. I'm trying to understand something. Let's imagine today you were president and Vladimir Putin goes through what he did with the Ukraine, Crimea. Then he goes into Syria, says he's going after ISIS, and his first bombing attack is on the U.S.- backed armed rebels that are trying to dethrone Assad, the dictator.
Now, to me, that's almost a proxy attack against us. What's your -- what's your read on it?
CHRISTIE: Listen, just when you think it can't get worse with this administration, it does.
So here's what you do. First off, when he went into Ukraine, what I would have done is put the missiles back in Poland and would have made troop movements in all the Baltic states, moved troops there and made sure he understood that we meant business in Eastern Europe.
Secondly, with Syria right now, we should be setting no-fly zones and protecting those people that we're training!
HANNITY: But the Russian general went into a U.S. military complex and said, Don't fly your airplanes!
CHRISTIE: all right, let me tell you...
HANNITY: They're lecturing us!
CHRISTIE: Listen, if I were president of the United States, that Russian general would not be telling our generals anything. And the fact is that this president has chosen, Sean, inaction over action. Every place around the world, he pulls America back, he retreats and he apologizes. And that's not who America is. That's not who the American people are, and they're tired of this president...
HANNITY: It's inexplicable to me that he makes all the wrong decisions. Who would have ever thought the United States would give $150 billion to Iran, the right to spin centrifuges, a zero-outbreak time in 11 years, 24 days' notice of an inspection, the inspectors are not American. They even get to pick the inspectors in some instances.
And on top of that, they get a missile defense system with Russia, and they get more conventional weapons and build ICBMs!
CHRISTIE: Well, he doesn't think it's wrong. That's the extraordinary thing. He's convinced he's right.
HANNITY: Well, then, what's wrong with him not seeing that it's wrong?
CHRISTIE: Because this is the a guy who's convinced that he's the smartest guy in the room, and he's convinced that he can charm anybody into anything. Now he'll talk to the Iranians and bring them around.
These are murderous thugs. These are people who stone women in the streets. These are people hang homosexuals from cranes because of their sexual orientation. These are people who don't let women get educated!
HANNITY: Is the...
CHRISTIE: You can't talk to these people!
HANNITY: Is the net result is the next president is probably going to have to take out their nuclear facilities?
CHRISTIE: The next president better be prepared to, and I will be. I'll be prepared to do it. I will tell you this, Sean. Two things I'll say on the first day to the Iranians. The first is, You will never have a nuclear weapon. And if that means taking military action to stop it, we will.
And second, that the United States' official policy is for regime change in Iran. Regime change, that's our policy!
HANNITY: We had an opportunity in 2009 and all those people that took to the streets, all those students, all those young people, we stabbed them in the back!
CHRISTIE: We threw them under the bus.
HANNITY: Threw them under the bus.
CHRISTIE: We absolutely threw them under the bus, and it's outrageous, and -- but we need to have a president who's willing to say those things and be clear and do them.
HANNITY: So I don't think there's any other way except to take out the sites. And that means aligning with Israel. The Saudis would join us. The Egyptians would join us. The Jordanians would join us because they're now scared to death at the idea that...
CHRISTIE: The Emiratis also. All of them would join in that because they do not want to see a Persian empire across the Middle East, which is what Vladimir Putin and the mullahs in Iran are looking to build.
HANNITY: all right...
CHRISTIE: That's what they're looking to do.
HANNITY: Now back to Putin. The reason that it seems the world is impotent in dealing with him, especially Western Europe, is they're so dependent on the oil pipelines, the energy pipelines coming through the Ukraine.
CHRISTIE: Well, sure, but we can counter that if we had an aggressive American energy policy, like the one I proposed in this campaign.
HANNITY: In other words, we could fill that void.
CHRISTIE: Of course. We should lift the export ban. We should be exploring more aggressively in our country for oil and natural gas. And we should partner with Canada and Mexico to say the North American continent will supply to Western Europe what they need so they don't have to rely on Putin.
This guy's economy's in the tank and he's swinging above his weight. And the only American he can knock out in the ring is Barack Obama. Put me in the ring against Vladimir Putin, we'll do just fine!
HANNITY: Let me -- there's a very big difference between how I view Republican conservative governors and how I view Republicans in Washington. I'm disgusted. Sixty percent of Republicans feel betrayed by their own party. John Boehner is out. They're in the process of picking a new speaker. You got three people running. You got Jason Chaffetz, Kevin McCarthy and Dan Webster.
What advice would you give them? Because they seem so afraid to use the power of the purse, their constitutional authority, that they're timid and weak, and Obama knows it. And he's the worst negotiator in the world!
CHRISTIE: They should look at what we did across the country in the states, as you pointed out. Look at in New Jersey. I have a Democratic legislature, solidly Democratic legislature. I've vetoed more tax increases than any governor in American history, and every time they send me one, they say, it's popular. They poll it. You're going to get hurt.
I don't because the people don't want higher taxes in New Jersey. I've vetoed over 400 ridiculous bills. None of them have been overridden, even though they send (ph) many more popular. You stand up and tell people who you are. And that's what they should do in D.C. Sean, they should send tax reform to his desk now!
HANNITY: Why is there this unhealthy, unnatural fear that if they stand up and use the power of the purse to defund Planned Parenthood, to stop executive action on immigration, to defund "Obama care," that they -- the fear is they're going to get blamed for the shutdown.
CHRISTIE: Well, they get blamed because they don't know how to play this because they don't know that the American people want strong, aggressive leadership. They need to get behind a leader.
HANNITY: Do you -- is any of those three that you think is strong?
CHRISTIE: Listen, I think they all have their strengths, right? I mean, I don't know Webster as well. Chaffetz and McCarthy both have their strengths.
But that's not the point. The leader can only be as strong as that person can martial the forces behind them. We're going to keep splintering, we're not going to get together.
HANNITY: Yes, maybe a bigger -- bigger-picture way to look at this -- there seems to be -- and I would say I'm more on the conservative Tea Party end of things -- that an establishment wing of the Republican Party and a more conservative wing of the Republican Party, and the conservatives like me feel these guys make promises, we elect them and they don't fulfill their promises.
CHRISTIE: Let's face it, Sean. No one's fulfilled their promises down there. No matter who you sent down there -- we sent a Republican house down there. They didn't get it down. Now a Republican Senate, it doesn't matter which one of them you're talking about. In the Republican Senate none of them have gotten it done. And so what you need is a strong leader in the White House to drag them to it. That's what I would do as president.
Let's remember this, 400 vetoes as governor of New Jersey, the most vetoes of tax increases of any governor in American history of any state, not one veto overridden in six years. Not one. That means not only --
HANNITY: Why do people vote the Democrats in the legislature, why do they do that?
CHRISTIE: Because they have a great sense of humor.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming up, the Supreme Court is back in session. Shannon Bream is here to preview what cases we need to keep an eye out for.
Plus, take a look at this video. It was posted online. It shows a man watching a police officer from his vehicle, and then reveals a gun in the guy's hand. Allegedly this was made for, quote, "entertainment"? Geraldo Rivera, and Sheriff David Clarke, they'll weigh in and much more straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So the Supreme Court began its new term yesterday and some major hot button issues are expected to come before the justices this session. Standing by in Washington with the details is our own Shannon Bream. Shannon?
SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Sean, the term has just kicked off, and there are some blockbuster cases ahead. From affirmative action to the death penalty, the justices are not shying away from controversy. We're also waiting to see if they take up some hot cases bubbling up in the lower courts, including a challenge to the president's executive action on immigration, and also that case with the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order of nuns fighting back against the ObamaCare mandate which requires most employers to facilitate cost-free access to contraceptives for their employees.
Now, as we await word on those cases, there's a renewed focus based on current events about what the Supreme Court has already said on the issue of gun rights. Over the last several years the court has issued two key rulings on the Second Amendment. The first was a 5-4 decision in 2008 and focused on the tough gun laws right here in Washington. In an opinion offered by Justice Scalia, the court said this, quote, "There seems to us no doubt on the basis of both text and history the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms." The court went on to strike down D.C.'s ban on handguns in the home and the requirement that any lawful gun in the home basically had to be completely inoperable, finding those provisions defeated the whole purpose of having a gun for self- defense.
In a follow-up case a couple of years later the court ruled on restrictive gun measures in Chicago, ultimately finding that the Second Amendment does apply to states when they or their localities attempt to restrict gun rights as well. But not everyone is in agreement. Just days ago Hillary Clinton reportedly said, quote, "The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment." Sean?
HANNITY: All right, Shannon, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
And joining us now with reaction, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, FOX News senior correspondent Geraldo Rivera. I am shocked. You are an attorney. You have studied the law. You passed the bar.
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: -- to uphold the constitution of the United States.
HANNITY: You write this. "The mass murder at this community college again reveals we are a gun-sick nation. All the Second Amendment BS aside, the gun lobby controls the country and allows armed maniacal lunatics roam free and kill." That is not true, Geraldo, what you're saying. It is a false statement.
RIVERA: What aspect of it is false, Sean?
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: We have a gun for every man, woman, and child in this country, 90 million gun owners in this country.
HANNITY: You care about women, right?
RIVERA: Yes.
HANNITY: Let's say a woman has a soon to be ex-husband or an ex- boyfriend who says I'm coming to your house later tonight and I'm going to kill you and I'm going to kill the kids. Should that woman in a society where we have a Second Amendment that you called BS, should that woman have the right to go to a gun store and protect her little children and protect herself in case the lunatic husband or ex-boyfriend comes over?
RIVERA: Absolutely, yes, she should, but the husband should not. Anyone who has a protective order because of domestic violence should be barred from having a weapon. Mental illness should be a bar. Drug abuse should be a bar. Criminal record should be a bar.
HANNITY: You're not following me. She gets threatened at 5:00 in the afternoon. She doesn't have time to get to court.
RIVERA: Under the Geraldo gun control law, every home can have a gun. What you do in the four walls of your house is your business. When I, the state, gets involved is when you go outside. If you want to protect your home, protect your home.
HANNITY: Sheriff, help me out. Do criminals obey the law? If Geraldo under the Geraldo I hate the Second Amendment gun laws, allows people to have a gun in their hours, are criminals going to take that gun outside of the house?
SHERIFF DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY: Sure, Sean. Look, this isn't about gun control. This isn't about common sense anything. This is about gun confiscation. That's what the left's attempt is at doing this.
And as a black man, I'm especially sensitive to the Second Amendment because it was the Second Amendment that really following up on the 13th that freed the slaves. The slaves were not freed until the 14th amendment meant that the Second Amendment applied to us. Abolitionist Frederick Douglas and Ida B. Wells were stalwarts in black people being able to arm themselves to defend against mob lynching and other sorts of -- types of violence following slavery. So I am not going to cede any of that right back to the federal government.
RIVERA: I agree with you, sheriff. I disagree with your --
CLARKE: We as black people understand. We know government tyranny. We've seen it.
RIVERA: The Tennessee, for instance, the Tennessee law, the case that supported the Second Amendment specifically said the gun rights belong to the free white citizens of Tennessee. I think that your -- and Dred Scott also mentioned the Second Amendment in keeping with the return of that slave as property, as chattel back to the owner south the Mason-Dixon line. The constitutional interpretation of the Second Amendment has been grotesquely liberal in many, many ways.
HANNITY: I disagree. Every one of our framers, all of them said the right of the people, the individual citizens, militia defined as the whole group of the citizenry of the people of this country. Here's my problem --
RIVERA: That was the 18th century.
HANNITY: Here's my problem with your argument. You say it's OK to have a gun in your house, do whatever you want. And you're assuming that people who are mental patients will abide by the Geraldo rule.
RIVERA: How can we not have universal background checks?
HANNITY: We do have universal background checks.
RIVERA: Why shouldn't it be as hard to get a gun as it is to get a driver's license to drive a car?
HANNITY: Why should a woman have to wait 24 hours or 72 hours to get a gun when her life was threatened and her children's lives were threatened that day?
RIVERA: Because you need some kind of assessment.
HANNITY: Our government assessment --
RIVERA: -- victim in the home and the maniacal husband coming for her, that's --
HANNITY: That's a realistic, real life scenario.
RIVERA: Call the cops, I got news for you.
HANNITY: And the cops will come, take all the information, and they're going to leave --
(CROSSTALK)
CLARKE: Geraldo, with all due respect, put the liberal talking points away and let's have a conversation here.
RIVERA: I am not a liberal.
HANNITY: I beg to differ.
CLARKE: There's nothing universal. The last time the left used the word "universal" with us it was called universal health care. Remember, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. And they said more people would be covered under universal health care and costs would be lowered. Both of those turned out not to be true.
This universal background check is nothing more than a stair step, a slippery slope toward gun registration and ultimately their goal is gun confiscation. Geraldo, you of all people, like I said, with all due respect, a lot of respect for you --
RIVERA: And I for you, sheriff.
CLARKE: -- inside your house, your First Amendment rights come outside the house. Your fourth amendment rights to unreasonable searches and seizure prohibits that by the government come out -- extend outside your house. Your Fifth Amendment rights extend outside your house, right to counsel. What make you think that the Second Amendment should only apply to people inside their homes? People are a --
RIVERA: because when everyone has a gun.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: This kid had 13 weapons, the kid at Umpqua Community College, 13 weapons including --
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: If you're one of these psychos, why do you have a right to a gun?
CLARKE: Because the constitution says so. That's why people have the right to have a gun.
HANNITY: All right, I got to take a break here. But you're an attorney. Do you want to take back the Second Amendment BS line of yours? You ought to have far more fidelity to the constitution than that, Geraldo. Take it back. You know better.
RIVERA: I love you, Sean. You are my brother.
HANNITY: "Second Amendment BS," seriously?
RIVERA: The Second Amendment if carefully construed is as supportable as the rest of the constitution --
HANNITY: -- the right of the people --
RIVERA: But it is recklessly, liberally applied now so that the maniac has the same right to have a gun.
CLARKE: -- little appetite for any tighter gun control in this country.
HANNITY: We'll take a break. We'll have more with Sheriff Clarke and Geraldo after the break.
And coming up, a disturbing video out of California that proves the war on cops is real. A man videotapes a police officer while literally sitting in his car and then reveals the gun in his hand. The LAPD says that the man was allegedly doing this for, quote, "entertainment purposes"? You've got to be kidding, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." A disturbing new video has appeared on social media that illustrates just how out of hand this war on cops has gotten in America. As you can see here the video shows a man from inside his vehicle filming an LAPD squad car. You can see the officers exit their vehicle, then the camera moves down to show the man holding a gun.
Earlier today we contacted the LAPD asking about the video, and what their investigators revealed will shock you. They explained, quote, "The film was made by members of an early 1990s rap group no longer in fashion. The film was made and posted on social media to ignite a comeback by the rap group." They went on to explain that robbery, homicide divisions detectives have determined that the video in question was made for entertainment purposes only and was not a credible threat to police officers." I'm not buying that. It's pretty disturbing. When pulling a gun on police officers is, quote, "entertainment," that is not entertaining.
RIVERA: It is totally sick. It is absolutely perverse. I deplore it. The people that did it are reckless and irresponsible. There is enough tension between the minority communities and cops. In the green room today, my neighbor here in New York told me about a billboard he saw out in Jersey coming in. It says "Blue lives matter." I think that that's a movement we should get behind, "Blue lives matter."
HANNITY: I never understand O'Malley apologizing when he said white lives matter, black lives matter, all lives --
RIVERA: He's a wimp.
HANNITY: A total wimp. He's on your side of the aisle.
RIVERA: Not mine.
HANNITY: Sheriff, real quickly, when you see videos like this and then we have these officers that have been attacked, where is the president? Where is the guy that speaks out on gun violence when it takes place in Portland? Where does he speak out in defense of police officers, of law enforcement?
CLARKE: He doesn't. He's out protecting the criminal. Look, I was angered by this video. And officers who would see that thing would be disturbed as well because we know we're vulnerable when we're out there. You take Deputy Goforth who was ambushed and Officers Liu and Ramos NYPD were ambushed just sitting in the squad. This is subhuman behavior. The rap culture is subhuman, the way they treat women.
HANNITY: Why would the LAPD excuse this the way they did.
CLARKE: That shocked me. It really did, and it should be disturbing, like I said, to every law enforcement officer in America that this kind of stuff would be put up to encourage weak-minded people how easy it is to ambush a law enforcement officer. We already know that. We live with that threat every day and we don't need that kind of stuff encouraged.
HANNITY: By the way, you can come to my house, Geraldo. I have a whole collection of guns. I'll show you.
RIVERA: I'm not afraid when you have a gun. You are a responsible citizen.
HANNITY: I have been trained since I'm 11.
RIVERA: That is exactly my point. That' why I'm in the NRA, not only to annoy you, because I believe in the concept of training. People should be trained. They should be vetting. We should know the people are.
HANNITY: The NRA trains more people than any other group in America.
RIVERA: The NRA spreads a lot of propaganda for gun manufacturers.
CLARKE: Geraldo, that is OK for you, but I don't want you making that decision for me or any other gun owner in American.
RIVERA: Sheriff, do you want a nut job in Milwaukee walking around with an AR-15.
HANNITY: It's illegal. Mentally ill people are now not allowed to have guns.
CLARKE: I want law abiding people to be able to walk around like that.
HANNITY: When we come back, we ask Sean next. And we need your help with tonight's "Question of the Day," straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And time for tonight's "Question of the Day." So does Hillary owe you, the American people, an apology about lying about what happened in Benghazi? That is the least of it. I think she probably needs a criminal attorney. Anyway, go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.
By the way, now it's time for our "Ask Sean" segment. Here's tonight's question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, Sean. My question for you is, when are we going to start talking seriously about the financial crisis happening in this country? One of these candidates is going to inherit a 20 plus trillion dollar debt. I'd love to know exactly how they plan on reducing spending and to get us out of this hole so we don't become another Greece.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: By the way, that is a great question. I have asked every presidential candidate on the GOP site, Hillary for some reason doesn't come on the show. I ask them that very question. How do you get out of $20 trillion in debt? Barack Obama will literally accumulate more debt than every other president before him combined. Add to that $120 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Add to that Social Security and Medicare going bankrupt. Add to that 50 million Americans in poverty, 95 million Americans out of the labor force, 46 million Americans on food stamps. We have a lot of financial problems.
If we grow the economy, let companies bring back the money that they have not been able to bring back by taking away the punitive tax measures, energy independence, all of these things, the lowest corporate tax rate, we can literally jump start economic growth like we've never seen. That will go a long way to help solving that problem. I'll continue to ask them. Great question.
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. We're very upset if you're not here. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
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