By ,
Published January 24, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 1, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." And we are just two months away from the Iowa caucuses, and 2016 Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz is now surging in the polls. Now, in the latest Quinnipiac Iowa poll, Donald Trump is in first place with 25 percent of the vote, Ted Cruz not far behind with 23 percent.
And in the very important state of New Hampshire, Cruz is now tied with Dr. Ben Carson for third at 10 percent, with Trump and Marco Rubio now taking the top two spots. And according to the latest FOX News national poll, Ted Cruz is now tied for third. He has 14 percent.
Now, the steady rise in the polls has made Senator Cruz a target for attacks from some of his Republican rivals. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doesn't Marco and Barack Obama share a similar biography?
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, R-N.J., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: As do Ted Cruz and others in this race who have no experience in governing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Ted Cruz's position and Rand Paul's position on collecting metadata made America less safe?
CHRISTIE: Yes. And I said it at...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So Ted Cruz has made America less safe.
CHRISTIE: Sure, he has. He went for the easy political vote at a time when, you know, it looked like it was kind of a popular thing to do. With all those dead Parisians, it doesn't look so popular anymore.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I stand strongly on behalf of the ability of this government to gather intelligence on our adversaries and our enemies, especially terrorists, but other nation- states. Those keep us safer. And there are Republicans, including Senator Cruz, that have voted to weaken those programs. It's just a part of the record. It's nothing personal.
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think Cruz is going to have to hit me because -- you know, he's a nice guy. He's been so -- everything I said, he supported, every single thing I said. And he's been so supportive. But at some point, he's going to have to hit me, right? It's going to be a sad day, but we will hit back, I promise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, here with reaction, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Texas senator Ted Cruz. Are you planning on getting in a fight with Trump? Is that a preview of coming attractions, pay-per-view? What's going to happen?
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, we are focused on what we've been doing from day one of this campaign, which is building a conservative army on the grass roots. And what's so encouraging -- listen, the reason why people are throwing rocks and we're taking shots from all directions is because the energy momentum we've got, Sean, is incredible.
You know, I just got back from a three-day barnstorming tour through Iowa. We went to 16 counties in three days, had standing room only crowds everywhere we went. And so it's understandable that other candidates are getting nervous about that and are wanting to launch attacks.
We're going to keep focused on my positive, optimistic conservative message. And people are tired of campaign conservatives. They want someone who's got a proven record. I think that's why conservatives are uniting behind our campaign.
HANNITY: All right, let's talk a little bit -- you even are now ahead of Hillary Clinton in some head-to-head matchups. That's happening. The media seems very focused on the battle that has emerged between you and Senator Rubio. You have gone after Senator Rubio on the issue of immigration. You talked about his foreign policy as him being a proponent of military adventurism, that you said he has benefited from Islamic militant groups. What did you mean by that?
CRUZ: Well, you know, if you look at Senator Rubio's record -- he's someone who I like personally. He's a friend of mine. He is a very, very charming and effective communicator.
But if you look at his policy record, there's a big difference between his record and mine. You started out asking about amnesty. That may be the simplest and clearest record. As you know, back in 2013 when President Obama and Chuck Schumer joined with establishment Republicans in passing -- in pushing a massive amnesty plan, Senator Rubio led that fight. He stood right there alongside with Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer. Indeed, it was the Rubio/Schumer amnesty plan.
And I made a very different decision. I stood alongside Jeff Sessions and Steve King and fought against amnesty and to secure the border. And we ended up defeating the Rubio/Schumer amnesty plan. Now, that's a real policy difference that I think Republican primary voters are quite interested in.
HANNITY: You know, one of the things that comes up -- especially when you get close to the caucuses, the primaries, things get more heated, naturally. I've watched too many of these cycles. Then Republicans talk about the 11th commandment. Tell us where that balance is.
CRUZ: Well, the balance -- as you know, throughout this campaign, I have declined to respond when other candidates have attacked me personally. They engage in the food fights. You know, first couple of debates, there were a lot of just nasty ad hominem insults. And I'm not interested in playing that game. If others insult me, I won't respond in kind.
Now, there's a difference between that and a substantive policy disagreement. I do think politics is and should be -- the bread and butter of it should be policy differences. And so it is perfectly appropriate to lay out, as I have over and over again, that on the issue of amnesty, a majority of the candidates on that debate stage have publicly supported amnesty, and that I am the only candidate on that debate stage who has never supported amnesty and who led the fight successfully to defeat amnesty when it was before the Congress.
HANNITY: The two big differences are -- that you're pointing out is on immigration. He's attacking you on the USA Freedom Act reforms. I want to give you a chance to respond.
CRUZ: Well, sure. You know, Marco -- a PAC that is supporting Marco has bought about $200,000 of attack ads in Iowa. And these attack ads are false, and Marco knows they're false. What -- he's trying to suggest somehow that I'm responsible for the terrorist attack in Paris. And it's silly. And it's the natural thing that a campaign does when they're nervous, when they see conservatives uniting behind our campaign.
Now, what I did is I joined with my good friend and strong conservative senator, Mike Lee. I joined with a ton of conservatives in the House in passing the USA Freedom Act. And what the USA Freedom Act did was two things. Number one, it ended the federal government's bulk collection of phone metadata. It ended the federal government having your cellphone information and my cellphone information.
And I think we've got to respect the Bill of Rights and the rights of law-abiding citizens. But number two, the USA Freedom Act strengthened the tools to go after actual terrorists, to target the bad guys, to get their cellphones, their e-mails. That's the way the Bill of Rights works.
And you know, Marco knows that, but at the end of the day, the position that he's advocating is he thinks we'd be safer if the federal government sees your phone records and mine. I don't think that's right.
And at the end of the day, the intelligence agencies told Congress the USA Freedom Act expanded their ability to target the bad guys. And yet, Marco's...
HANNITY: All right, let me ask you this...
CRUZ: The super-PAC supporting Marco doesn't want to acknowledge that.
HANNITY: You know, we see what happened in Paris, and the president actually said that those types of attacks only happen in America. Perhaps he forget what just happened and forgot Charlie Hebdo.
CRUZ: Yes.
HANNITY: But you know, during a joint press conference with President Hollande, he actually said, the president, that this climate change summit will be a rebuke to terrorists. He also said there's no tougher issue that he can think of than climate change. Let me play part of this.
CRUZ: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Next week, I will be joining President Hollande and world leaders in Paris for the global climate conference. What a powerful rebuke to the terrorists it will be when the world stands as one and shows that we will not be deterred from building a better future for our children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Don't you think radical Islam and mullahs in Iran getting nuclear weapons and the economy and $20 trillion in debt is a bigger problem than climate change, which keeps changing from global cooling and the ice age coming to the planet blowing up with heat, to now just a neutral climate change for everything that they don't like?
CRUZ: Well, Sean, of course, it is. And you know, that statement -- it's gotten to the point now where President Obama -- "Saturday Night Live" can't even make fun of him anymore because he says the most ridiculous things. This is a president who thinks the SUV in your driveway is a greater threat to this country than radical Islamic terrorists. In fact, he's not even willing to utter the words "radical Islamic terrorism."
And we need a president who will stand up and defeat ISIS, utterly destroy ISIS. And you know, there was another exchange that just occurred recently, where President Obama was telling Erdogan in Turkey, You need to secure your border with Syria. And Erdogan responded, Well, why don't you secure your southern border first before you try to lecture me?
And I go to say, maybe for once in the history of all time, I agree with Erdogan on that, that President Obama is allowing an enormous security vulnerability of this country by not securing the southern border. And that's why I've been leading a fight to secure the southern border.
And I'll tell you, Sean, if I am elected president, we will secure our borders. We will keep this country safe from terrorists. We will not be allowing in tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees. Our top priority...
HANNITY: Well, do you...
CRUZ: ... will be the safety and security of American citizens!
HANNITY: Did you hear Marine general Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying we have not contained ISIS? By the way, even Dianne Feinstein said it. The president said they were contained the day before -- hours before the Paris attacks.
Not only did he say they're not contained, but they're growing. So how could the president be so wrong and Dianne Feinstein and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs saying something totally different?
CRUZ: Because it's out-of-control political correctness. They don't acknowledge that the problem even exists. I mean, when the president stands up and says the Islamic state isn't Islamic -- look, that's just nutty. I mean, that's not even -- school children can figure that out.
They've declared their intention to create an Islamic caliphate and to forcibly convert or murder any infidels that don't adopt their radical Islamism.
HANNITY: Right.
CRUZ: And because the president won't acknowledge it -- as he put it, he doesn't believe in American leadership or America winning. He doesn't have time for that. I got to say, FDR and JFK and Ronald Reagan were spinning in their graves to hear a president say he doesn't believe in American leadership or America winning!
HANNITY: All right, we're going to take a break. We'll have more with Senator Ted Cruz right after the break.
Also tonight, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- he'll be here to weigh in on the latest shake-ups in the 2016 GOP field.
Also tonight, Jeb Bush compares Herman Cain's 2012 campaign to Donald Trump's current White House run. Well, Herman Cain will be here to respond. That and more on this busy news night tonight on "Hannity."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I agree with the president's point that we're not putting American combat troops back into Syria or Iraq. We are not going to do that. This...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Under no circumstances would you not (sic) do that?
CLINTON: Well -- at this point, I cannot conceive of any circumstances where I would agree to do that. We don't know yet how many special forces might be needed, how many trainers and surveillance and enablers might be needed.
But in terms of thousands of combat troops, like some on the Republican side are recommending, I think that should be a non-starter. And it should be a non-starter both because I don't think it's the smartest way to go after ISIS, I think it gives ISIS a new recruitment tool.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." And we continue with 2016 Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz. You just heard Hillary Clinton basically agree with Barack Obama, who said American leadership isn't just about U.S. ground troops fighting is. Can we defeat ISIS without ground troops, the way they're discussing?
CRUZ: Well, it is abundantly clear that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can't defeat ISIS because they have no intention of even trying. They won't even acknowledge the enemy. I mean, Hillary Clinton at the last Democratic debate went out of her way to refuse to say the words "radical Islamic terrorism."
What we need, Sean -- yes, we can defeat ISIS with a strong commander- in-chief. If I am elected president, I will make unequivocally clear to the world we will destroy ISIS. Now, how can we do so? We should do so, number one, with overwhelming air power.
You know, in the first Persian Gulf war, we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day, for 37 days, pulverized the Iraqi army. It then took 36 hours for our troops to mop up what was left of it.
Right now today, Obama is launching between 15 and 30 air attacks a day. It's a pinprick. It's a photo op for political.
And the second thing we ought to be doing is arming the Kurds. The Kurds are fighting ISIS. They are our allies. They are effective fighters. The Kurds are, in a very real sense, our boots on the ground.
And yet the Obama administration -- and Hillary Clinton is sadly in this mix. They refuse to arm the Kurds for political reasons because it would upset Baghdad. That doesn't make any sense!
HANNITY: Well, let me ask you about the establishment. There's been a lot written and talked about in this campaign about insurgent candidacies. Yours obviously now is on the rise. You have great numbers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and your numbers have gone up pretty dramatically nationally, and Donald Trump says you guys are going to be fighting pretty soon.
But more importantly, I hear that establishment talk, and there was a big donor meeting at a big fancy hotel in California. that if an insurgent candidate wins the primary, that they may fund and help Hillary Clinton. What is your reaction to that?
CRUZ: Well, look, it indicates what is wrong with Washington. People are fed up with what I call the Washington cartel. As you know, this summer, I wrote a book called "A Time for Truth," where I talk a great deal about the Washington cartel, the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and the special interests and grow and grow and grow government.
And those folks are very dismayed that a president might come in who is actually a conservative who will stop the corporate welfare. Listen, there's a reason, Sean, that the lobbyists are all supporting Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio. There's a reason the lobbyists are not supporting my campaign...
HANNITY: You know...
CRUZ: ... because they understand in Washington -- yes, go ahead.
HANNITY: Well, listen, Ronald Reagan was viewed as an outsider. He wasn't particularly loved by the establishment, and nor was Newt Gingrich, who's going to join us in a minute.
Let me ask this question. We had this tragedy, Planned Parenthood, shooting -- you weighed in on it in a couple of ways.
CRUZ: Yes.
HANNITY: Negative and hateful speech allowed this to happen, was the headline in The New York Daily News. I want you to react to that.
CRUZ: Well, with regard to the shooting at Planned Parenthood, what happened there was a horrific crime. I mean, it was a deranged killer who murdered three people, murdered a police officer, murdered two innocent civilians, injured others. And our prayers should be with their families. And it is a terrible crime.
And I have to say, it was really sad to see the media falling all over themselves to try to politicize this, to try to use this as an avenue to attack conservatives. And it really shows the media bias of the mainstream media, where they're so excited to paint anyone who believes in the right to life as somehow being a murderer.
Listen, I am unapologetically pro-life. That means protecting the right of every human being from conception to natural death as a gift from God. That means I'm against murderers like this individual murderer, and that's something the media has a very hard time understanding.
HANNITY: All right, Senator, good to see you, as always. And we look forward to having you on often. Thank you. Appreciate it.
CRUZ: Thank you.
HANNITY: When we come back, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- he's here. He'll weigh in on the 2016 GOP field.
Then later, Jeb Bush taking heat for comparing Herman Cain's 2012 run to Donald Trump's White House bid. Herman Cain is here to respond.
All of that and much more tonight as "Hannity" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So we're just two months away from the Iowa caucuses. Joining us now to weigh in on the GOP field, author of the brand-new book, "Duplicity." He's the former speaker of the House. He's a FOX news contributor. Always good to have him, Newt Gingrich. Sir, how are you?
NEWT GINGRICH, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: I'm doing great. And it's an amazing process.
HANNITY: It's an amazing -- you know, one of the things I try to remind people, it's an unpredictable one. Some people are going to trip and fall. Some will get back up. Some will stumble and never get back up, right? I mean, so we don't know...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: ... what's going to happen. But it appears there are three front-runners now, and that would be Trump, Cruz and Rubio. You agree?
GINGRICH: I think that's right, although I'd like to wait a little longer to see how Dr. Carson shakes out. I thought his going to Jordan, I thought, was a very smart step in sort of reasserting that he's capable of learning and that he's capable of doing national security.
So I would say maybe there are four of them, with Carson having lost some ground in the last couple of week. And of course, Trump is just remaining the front-runner in a way that's amazing.
HANNITY: What do you...
GINGRICH: And I think everybody's got to recognize they've got get past Trump if they're going to become the nominee.
HANNITY: Yes. It's interesting -- and you're a great historian and I respect your knowledge of history. Look, 1994 was a revolutionary year, when you came into power, the first time Republicans had power in 40 years. Reagan, people forget, he was hated by establishment Republicans. They hated him. But yet he won the presidency and he won it by a landslide.
My question to you is, do you think that this is that type of year where an insurgent not only could do well in the polls but go all the way?
GINGRICH: Oh, I clearly think they could go all the way. I think the level of dissatisfaction in the country, the sense of corruption, things like you were just seeing today coming out more and more in Chicago, where under Rahm Emanuel, the police apparently hid all the photos of a young man being shot 16 times -- for a year, they had these movies.
People look around and they think the whole system's crazy. They look at the college campuses, where people run around making nutty arguments and engaging in a kind of language pattern that's crazy, and they think, What is happening to America?
And they want somebody, frankly, who can kick in the door. And that's Trump's greatest advantage and it's Cruz's greatest advantage. They're the two guys who are the most likely to have the force of will to kick in the door.
Marco's great advantage, Rubio, is that he's very likable. He's very smart. And Carson has this unique ability to communicate sincerity and is a total outsider. So what you're seeing voters say is, If you're a traditional normal insider, I know you won't fix things.
HANNITY: Yes.
GINGRICH: And therefore, even if you're a good guy, you're not on my list of possible candidates.
HANNITY: The president has said now two things at this global summit, the global warming, global cooling, whatever, climate change summit. And he said, one, he can't think of a tougher problem for the world to deal with than climate change. And then he actually said the climate change meeting was a rebuke against ISIS.
Now, from my perspective, radical Islamic mullahs in Iran getting nuclear weapons and threatening to wipe Israel off the map, radical Islamic terrorism, the economy as bad as it is, the debt as bad as it is, the number of people in poverty and on food stamps is bad as it is -- to me, those are far more severe problems.
How can he be so out of touch so often on so many important issues?
GINGRICH: Well, let me add the United Nations report this afternoon that some 400 civilians were killed in Iraq in the last month alone. So when the president looks around the planet, he doesn't see the human casualties. He doesn't see the executions and beheadings. He doesn't see the spread of ISIS.
But here's the challenge we have. And you sort of came the closest of anybody in 2008 to understanding this. This president's delusional. He's not ideological. It's not just that he's left wing. He lives in a fantasy world.
His description yesterday that, you know, global warming is going to submerge entire countries, force us to abandon cities, leave farm fields that are no longer usable -- and this list went on and on. It was like Al Gore at his most irrational. But this is the president of the United States, and the danger is he may believe all that stuff.
HANNITY: That's (INAUDIBLE) danger (INAUDIBLE)
GINGRICH: None of it, by the way -- none of it's the truth. And even if you really believe in global warming, none of what he asserted is true at any point in the next hundred years.
HANNITY: All right, and by the way, has he not studied the history of the Dutch and those that have been able to build and maybe the Chinese that are building entire islands now? We have advanced our technology, and they are capable of building dikes to prevent the water from accomplishing the very thing he's predicting.
GINGRICH: Look, they're not part of his religion. His religion is global warming is terrible, global warming is a disaster, global warming is horrible, and if you don't believe those things, you're not part of his religion. And it's literally a religious-like commitment to a fantasy world.
HANNITY: You know, if you look at Mike Morell's comments, he actually admitted something I think is actually chilling, that they didn't bomb the oil wells that's providing ISIS all the money -- they're now the richest terrorist group in history, with more land mass because he pulled out of Iraq too early. And we didn't hit the oil wells because they didn't want environmental damage.
Now, imagine if Harry Truman thought that way. Probably World War II would be continuing on at this moment.
GINGRICH: Well, look, I was told -- I don't know if -- I think this is true, although I find it hard to believe, that at one point, we leafleted a group of trucks that were oil tankers to tell the guys in the trucks to get out of the trucks before we destroyed the trucks.
HANNITY: That's ISIS.
GINGRICH: Now, the guys who were in the trucks -- yes, the guys who were in the trucks belong to ISIS. They're not non-combatants. They are people[ who are part of the ISIS military.
HANNITY: Yes.
GINGRICH: You have to look at that kind of stuff. And my point is, do not try to understand Barack Obama on any rational ground because, in fact, he lives in a world in his head which has no relationship to what you and I and the entire audience watching us thinks is reality.
HANNITY: All right, the Irish pessimistic side of me always says, Hillary can still win. Forty-even percent of the country's likely to vote for her. And it depends what states they're voting for her in, in terms of determining the next president.
Do you think -- in spite of her being a weakened candidate, do you think she's a formidable candidate?
GINGRICH: She's a very formidable candidate because most of her supporters have already decided that even if they think she's a liar, they're going to vote for her. Even if they think that the e-mails were a threat to national security, they're going to vote for her. Even if they think the Clinton Foundation is riddled with corruption, they're going to vote for her. And they're basically like people chanting, Don't tell us anything negative. We're going to vote for her anyway.
I think that's sobering, and it's as much sobering about America as it is about Hillary Clinton.
HANNITY: All right, Mr. Speaker, always good to see you. Thank you, sir.
GINGRICH: Good to see you.
HANNITY: And coming up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERMAN CAIN (R), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have a lot of people in the media and the establishment that are trying to bring down Trump with lies and BS, and it's not going to work!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Herman Cain, the 999 candidate -- he's back on the campaign trail, but this time, he's stumping for Donald Trump, now, this after Jeb Bush criticizes the former presidential candidate. Herman is here.
And then later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to keep up with all these predictions. Is it decades?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to cut the consumption of fossil fuels by over half in the next 20 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The clock is ticking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Al Gore and the left, they've been predicting a climate doomsday scenario for years, but a new documentary exposes this global warming hoax as we continue, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush recently brought up Herman Cain's 2012 presidential bid. Bush predicted that Trump would follow in Cain's footsteps and not win the nomination. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look at the past. Herman Cain was winning right now. Hillary Clinton was up 25 points this time eight years ago against an unknown guy whose name now is President Barack Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: On his website, Herman Cain fired back at Governor Bush saying, quote, "At least I was once winning." And last night the former presidential hopeful was back on the campaign trail, but this time it was for Republican frontrunner and fellow political outsider Donald Trump. Joining us now, the man himself, Mr. nine-nine-nine, former presidential candidate, fellow radio host, Herman Cain.
CAIN: Hello, Sean.
HANNITY: Nine-nine-nine, nobody will ever forget.
CAIN: It's still fine.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: It's good to see you. Herman and I are good friends.
CAIN: Thank you. Yes.
HANNITY: Let's talk about this. You were an insurgent candidate. I felt that you were unfairly targeted by the media and I felt that contributed to your quick decline in the polls.
CAIN: Right.
HANNITY: Donald Trump seems to defy conventional political gravity. What's the difference now?
CAIN: I think the difference is people are realizing that there are some people in the media who will do these attacks and try to create a media frenzy. But two of the reasons that Donald Trump has been immune to this is, number one, he can't be influenced by other people's money. And, number two, he is a leader and a fighter. That's why people keep turning out in big numbers at these rallies. That's what's going on with Donald Trump.
HANNITY: The Republican establishment, though, has kind of telegraphed that if one of these outsiders gets the nomination, they may even send their money to Hillary Clinton. Do you think they'd actually do that? Do you think Trump, he is doing well in the polls, Cruz is now doing well in the polls, he was with us tonight.
CAIN: Right.
HANNITY: Do you think they can go all the way this time. Do you think the base is angry enough?
CAIN: I believe that the base is angry enough. If it's Donald Trump, if it's Marco Rubio, if it's Ted Cruz, even Ben Carson, even though his numbers are starting to fall a little bit, and I still include in there as an outside chance Mike Huckabee and Carly Fiorina. When the establishment says that they may go and contribute that money to Hillary if Trump gets the nomination, that's like a kid who says, if we can't play it my way, I'm going to play somewhere else.
HANNITY: I'm going to take my toys and go home.
CAIN: Exactly. It would mean death to the Republican Party if they're that selfish rather than back whoever gets the nomination. Because here's the thing, Sean, whoever gets the nomination, it will be because Main Street USA spoke and not the establishment. They don't run this country like they think they do. Main Street USA is rising up.
HANNITY: Why Trump for you?
CAIN: Trump is one of my pick six. Three months ago, I indicated publicly on my website, HermanCain.com, that Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Mike Huckabee were six of the people that I picked because of the strength of what I thought their leadership qualities would be as well as the strength of their ideas. Now, since then, four of my six are still in the running.
Some people want to say that I'm endorsing someone. I am not endorsing anyone. I know that a lot of unpredictable things can happen in a presidential campaign. I have been there. And so as a result, I looked at those six as the six that I could personally be happy with if they got the nomination to help them become president.
HANNITY: I had a pick five, and I'm kind of now down to a pick three at least for now. But you're right things can change. That's why you have got to leave options open.
CAIN: Right.
HANNITY: Herman, nobody will ever forget nine-nine-nine. Good to see you, my friend.
CAIN: Thanks a lot, Sean. Pleasure to be with you.
HANNITY: We appreciate it. And coming up next tonight here on HANNITY.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: While the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways especially with ISIS, our president is worried about global warming. What a ridiculous situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Donald Trump, he calls out President Obama for being worried about the environment when he should be focusing on defeating radical Islamists. That's next.
Also tonight --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's hard to keep up with all these predictions. It is decades?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to cut the consumption of fossil fuels by over half in the next 20 years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Years?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The clock is ticking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: A new documentary is debunking global warming myths. The film's producer is here along with our own Geraldo Rivera. That's straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: While the world is in turmoil and falling apart in so many different ways, especially with ISIS, our president is worried about global warming. What a ridiculous situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, that was Donald Trump calling out President Obama. It seems our commander in chief is more worried about the weather than he is about defeating radical Islamists. And that's not all. Is the Paris climate conference just a big waste of time and money? A new documentary called "Climate Hustle" takes aim at many of the global warming alarmists and debunks much of their so-called science. Here's a clip from the film.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The message went from global warming causes less snow to global warming causes more snow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boston as of this point is in number two snowiest winter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this all part of climate change?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More snow, less snow, forest fires increase, forest fires decrease, malaria increase, malaria decrease, more fog, less fog, winters warmer, winters colder. So no matter what the outcome, they can claim they predicted it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: The film even goes after Learjet liberal Al Gore. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's a wonderful teaching tool because it shows how we don't do science.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for Gore in 2000, yes. I think that if he ran again, depending on who he ran against, I might vote for him. He's a smart man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But after viewing Gore's film, he had this reaction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was appalled. I was appalled because he either deliberately misrepresented the point he was making or didn't understand it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here with reaction, Fox News senior correspondent Geraldo Rivera, he is in Paris for the conference, and the publisher of "Climate Depot" and producer of "Climate Hustle" Marc Morano is with us. Good to see you wall. Marc, do you know the footprint, you have 50,000 people going for two weeks. The carbon footprint is 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide that they're going to churn out here, which, by the way, amounts to less than one percent of what New York City emits in a year. Is it worth the price?
MARC MORANO, PRODUCER, "CLIMATE HUSTLE": They do this every year. It's like a floating party the size of a country that uses more energy than many African nations combined. And they do this every year. This year's a particularly large one. And the goal of these conferences has nothing to do with science. They ceased talking about science decades ago. They actually say even if we're wrong on science, we're doing the right thing by policy.
HANNITY: First it was the coming ice age. Then it was the earth is going to burn up and global warming. And now they have climate change. As you pointed out, if it snows, if it doesn't snow, if it rains, if it doesn't rain, hurricane, no hurricane, tsunami, no tsunami, volcanic action or none, it's always climate change no matter what is it.
MORANO: In our film we go back to 1970s. We have Walter Cronkite, ABC News, Leonard Nimoy warning of the coming ice age. And we actually say before fossil fuels caused global warming, fossil fuels caused global cooling. And there was actually the theory that fossil fuel burning was going to block out the sun and cool the earth. But now they say that never happened just like they're trying to erase the global warming pause. The levers of control of the global warming movement are crafting a narrative and they're actually erasing the past on many important things.
HANNITY: Geraldo, the president actually said he can think of no tougher problem than the issue of climate change. Now, I think of radical Islamic mullahs in Iran building weapons of mass destruction, threatening to blow Israel off the map is a bigger problem. ISIS, Al Qaeda, radical Islam is a bigger problem. The economy is a bigger problem. But he thinks this is the biggest. What's going on from your perspective there?
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: You know, Sean, I think that Donald Trump, the clip you played at the beginning of this segment, really nailed it. It is difficult to wrap your arms around a problem like climate change, and I'm certainly no expert and I don't want to get involved in a debate over whether it exists or not, if the earth is getting hotter or cooler.
I know that this was, in the president's words, the biggest gathering of world leaders in the planet's history. But what was wrong with it is that here in Paris, of all places, the blood has barely been cleaned off the sidewalks from 139 people who were killed, hundreds are injured, some still in hospital, families have been disrupted. And to talk about a long term problem, whatever the scientific merits, I don't get engaged in that. To talk about decades and generations and centuries from now when you have an urgent problem that the French president called an existential threat to civilization that is why the conference was if anything as lame as you can possibly get.
HANNITY: Marc, let me go to you. The president talked about fish swimming in the streets of Miami. Didn't that happen because of the new moons, the lunar cycle in September? I haven't seen that on a regular basis, predicting submerged countries, abandoned cities, fields that will no longer grow. Is any of that true?
MORANO: It was like an apocalyptic doom preacher. This was a religious, revival trying to scare people with no basis in science. And by the way, the idea that somehow ISIS was created by manmade global warming because --
HANNITY: I heard him on my radio show say that today, that ISIS was created by climate change.
MORANO: They say drought in Syria. In 1933 the government of Syria banned a yoyo because they thought yoyos caused drought. And now they want to ban coal plants and SUVs because -- by the way, droughts, extreme weather, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, we detail this in the film -- not only are they not increasing. On many metrics they're declining. So if when CO2 was lower in the atmosphere we had less storminess. So the idea that cutting CO2 is going to improve our climate or have anything to do with national security is laughable.
HANNITY: Geraldo, last question for you. When you watch the press conference today, I just see a president that has lost touch with what is important, with what his top priority should be, and that has bought into iffy science at best. And it's sort of like Al Gore. I've got Al Gore getting off his private jet. We'll show the video as you talk here. That's a gulf stream two or three, one of the biggest burning carbon polluters in the sky, and only him and his wife are on the plane. We've got exclusive video. So I think there's great hypocrisy here. What are your thoughts?
RIVERA: You know, Sean, I think that the president missed a real opportunity. He admitted -- the press rather, missed the opportunity, the media gathered at the press conference today, at the conference, missed the opportunity to ask the president who had just had spoken with the Turkish president Erdogan about the border with Turkey with Syria. The president of the United States says that there is a 90 kilo meter gap where Turkey is allowing ISIS fuel to be entered into the country and resold. Why didn't the president ask the Turkish president about that? Why is the president now bombing oil facilities and oil trucks? Why didn't he do it a year ago?
HANNITY: It won't take away ISIS' financial well, if you will, because they didn't want environmental damage. I was shocked at Morell saying that, our former CIA director.
RIVERA: That to me, I think that they did not bomb those facilities up until now because they did not want to make Turkey angry. Everybody in this part of the world knows that from northern Syria and northwest Iraq that oil is going into Turkey. We saw it 10 years ago when we filmed that documentary "1000 Miles of Bad Road." The president has to focus on the urgent crisis. It may be that there will be climate change and the world is always changing and all the rest of that, but this is an open wound that is bleeding that has to be a Band-Aid.
HANNITY: All right, I have got to run. Good luck with the film. Geraldo, safe home when you're coming home, my friend. Thanks for being with us.
When we come back, you get to ask the questions. Our "Ask Sean" segment is next, and our very important question of the day is straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Time for our "Question of the Day." So as of now we're just two months away from the Iowa caucuses. If that was being held today, that election, who do you want to win? Just go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity, let us know what you think.
Now you've been sending in questions all day. Time for our "Ask Sean" segment. Here is the question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Sean. With so many candidates in the GOP field, isn't it time for the low pollers to start clearing out so we can all see what's really going on?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: I would argue that's basically a good idea. Get some of the guys that are not going to win, may it's time for them to clear the field. The debates would be a little more interesting. Focus on those people that have a much better chance to win.
But here is another idea. What about if people like Bobby Jindal who dropped out or Scott Walker who dropped out, can you imagine if the person that wins the nomination were to bring all these people together, announce the cabinet before the election in November of 2016? That could be a very powerful force that could alter electoral politics for many years to come. Just an idea.
Anyway, thanks for sending in the question. That is all the time we have left. Thanks for being with us as always, and we will see you back here tomorrow night.
Content and Programming Copyright 2015 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/cruz-focuses-on-positive-conservative-message-gingrich-says-political-insurgents-can-go-all-the-way