This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 14, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." And President-elect Donald Trump is already working hard to fix the American economy, and that is tonight's "Opening Monologue."
All right, so President-elect Trump, he won't take the oath of office until January 20th, but that is not stopping him from trying to clean up the economic mess that President Obama, of course, is leaving behind.
Earlier today, the president-elect, he met with tech industry leaders to discuss job creation and innovation. And before today's roundtable discussion, well, the CEO of IBM, who attended the meeting, announced that her company is now going to create 25,000 new jobs right here in America and they will invest over a billion dollars over the next four years.
Now, President-elect Trump also promised you, the American people, that he's going focus on job growth, and that's what he's trying to do right now.
Now, last week, Trump announced that Japan's SoftBank -- they'll invest $50 billion into America's economy. That will create 50,000 new jobs. And remember, last month, Trump cut a deal with the manufacturer Carrier to save over 1,000 jobs that the company was planning to ship to Mexico.
All of this, no doubt, a positive, a great start. But the truth is this: The president-elect has a lot of work cut out for him. Now, President Obama's policies -- I've been telling you -- a complete and utter disaster. Here's where Donald Trump is starting.
The lowest labor participation rates since 1970s, 95 million of your fellow Americans out of the labor force, the worst recovery since the '40s, the lowest home ownership rate in America in 51 years, 13 million more Americans on food stamps in the last eight years, 43 million Americans living in poverty, 8 million more than eight years ago, one in five American families -- imagine this -- without one person in the labor force, one in six American men, 18 to 34 -- they're either in jail, incarcerated or living in Mommy and Daddy's basement because they don't have a job.
And by the time he leaves office, well, the president will have accumulated more debt than 43 other presidents before him combined.
Now, there are very clear reasons why President Obama failed. What did he do? He tried to use big government statism to create jobs, which has never worked.
Now, remember his failed stimulus plan? He was going to create, quote, "shovel-ready jobs," then he joked they weren't so shovel-ready? Those jobs never materialized, and it cost you, the American taxpayers, nearly a trillion dollars, over $800 billion.
Now, here's why it failed, and we need to learn these lessons. All those billions of dollars, they were filtered through that big, bloated government bureaucracy in Washington. And remember, then it went to their friends and companies like Solyndra. It was destined to fail from day one.
These results have been pathetic, and all we have to show for it is doubling the national debt and stealing from our kids.
Now, Obama's plan didn't work. So the question we've got to ask tonight before Donald Trump becomes president: What will work? How do we create success for what I call this election the forgotten man, the forgotten woman election?
Now, President-elect Trump's plans, it's a stark contrast to President Obama's. He's going to take the opposite approach. He will implement policies that historically have worked.
Now, here's the president-elect economic plan. He wants to create jobs America. How's he going to do it? Lower taxes, reform the tax code, seven brackets to three, a 15 percent corporate tax pate, a 10 percent repatriation rate for the trillions of dollars that multi-national corporations have parked abroad in banks. He's going to cut in a huge way government regulation. He wants to renegotiate trade deals, energy independence -- so important for national security and job creation -- repealing and replacing ObamaCare. That should add up like a tax cut for most Americans. And he has a goal of four percent GDP growth. Obama did not have one year of three percent GDP growth, the only president in history never to have one year of 3 percent GDP.
Now, if President-elect Trump, if he follows through on that agenda, it could create one of the biggest economic booms I argue the country has ever seen, and history I think proves. Now, it'll be very similar to what Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did. They understood that in order to have real economic growth, you need to unleash the potential of the free market, free market capitalism.
Go back to JFK. He set in motion a plan to cut the top marginal tax rate from 91 percent -- he dropped it to 77. And during his short time as president, 3.8 million jobs were created while seeing an average of 4.4 percent GDP growth.
Ronald Reagan, he took over for Jimmy Carter. Now, remember it was a bad economy then. He took the concept further. He shredded the top marginal rate, lowering it over the course of his presidency from 70 percent to 28 percent. As a result, Reagan in eight years created 20 million new jobs after the '82 recession ended. GDP growth averaged 3.5 percent, government revenues nearly doubled. They spiked by 65 percent. We saw at the end of his presidency the longest period of peacetime economic growth.
These lessons are so important. President-elect Trump has one major advantage over JFK and Ronald Reagan. We know that we can become energy independent. We have massive natural gas, shale oil reserves, and not only will tapping into those resources create millions of jobs here at home, but it will also create a whole new foreign policy dynamic in the Middle East. We won't be dependent on countries that hate our guts. And if we export some of those resources to Western Europe, well, they won't be dependent on Putin and Russia for their energy needs.
Now, the only part of the president-elect's agenda that I worry about is the infrastructure plan. Now, he's talking about $1 trillion in spending. Everybody agrees we've got to fix our crumbling roads and bridges. That's obvious. But how are we going to pay for it? How can we plan? Do we pay as we go?
And the money, by the way, cannot be spent. Somehow, we got to get it out of the hands of congressmen and senators, 535 greedy bureaucrats in Washington that will misappropriate that money.
Now, finally, there has to be an outside commission, some entity someplace, somewhere, that oversees how this $1 trillion is spent. There needs to be accountability.
Joining us now with reaction, author of the best-selling book "Treason." He has a new e-book out about the election of Donald Trump. He gave a speech on Trumpism today at the Heritage Foundation, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. How are you? Good to see you in studio.
NEWT GINGRICH, R-FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: It's good to be with you. It's fun to be up here.
HANNITY: It's great to have you. Look, the reason I'm laying this out -- JFK worked. Reagan worked. And the reason I want you here is what -- you balanced the budget. Nobody thought it was possible at the time.
GINGRICH: Well, and we created tremendous economic growth, had the biggest capital gains tax cut in history, had the biggest improvement in children living in poverty in history because if you really get economy moving, it really helps across the board.
I'm very optimistic because I'm watching President-elect Trump assemble a cabinet that is amazing. These are all winners. These are all successful people. I think it may have the fewest lawyers of any cabinet in history.
HANNITY: And the most general.
GINGRICH: The most generals and the most successful business people. It goes back to sort of Eisenhower's cabinet in the '50s.
And the reason I like that is when this team arrives in Washington and they collide with the realities of Washington, this is going to be a meeting of winners. And you know, the team of rivals was the story about Lincoln. This is team of winners.
And you're right, I mean, you have a four-star general, Jim Mattis, going back to the Defense Department. You have a four-star general, John Kelly, going to head up Homeland Security. You have three-star general Flynn at National Security.
But you've also got really successful business people and you have the longest-serving governor in the history of Texas, who's going to take on the energy challenge you just outlined.
HANNITY: He picked the perfect person in Rick Perry.
GINGRICH: Rick is going to be just -- he's going to drive energy in America, and that's one of the ways we pay for infrastructure.
HANNITY: Well, the way The Washington Post describes it -- and you said -- you bash the idiots in the propaganda media. You know, she described the selections as a bunch of ignoramuses, billions and a few generals. Well, is there something wrong with becoming a successful billionaire like Bill Gates? Is there anything wrong with that?
GINGRICH: Well, but if you're on the left, there is. I mean, on the left, you want a cabinet of losers.
HANNITY: I guess.
GINGRICH: So you feel story for them. I mean, you know, the whole concept, for example, of having a Super Bowl where you have the winning team for the whole season...
HANNITY: Not everybody gets a trophy?
GINGRICH: ... as opposed to -- you know, if the left had their way, everybody'd get a ring.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Yes!
GINGRICH: Did you suit up? Did you care?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Right, did you care. (INAUDIBLE) to mail her crayons and coloring books and Play-Doh.
GINGRICH: I thought -- I can never remember her name because I've blocked it.
HANNITY: Jennifer Rubin, yes.
GINGRICH: Yes, Jennifer Rubin. I was actually was quoting to leave (INAUDIBLE) article on intellectual yet idiots, which is (INAUDIBLE) Google it. The audience can Google it, intellectual idiot. And his term of idiot fits her. Jennifer Rubin is the perfect example of what he's writing about, which is a person who can write well and sounds like they know something, but doesn't know anything.
HANNITY: I call them overeducated idiots.
GINGRICH: Yes.
HANNITY: They really are.
GINGRICH: I mean, think about the notion -- this woman sits at The Post...
HANNITY: By the way...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: National Review, Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard -- they have their share of them.
GINGRICH: They do. And it's because they sit around and they render judgment. I first learned about this from the guy from the guy who wrote "Black Hawk Down," who has written a book on the Philadelphia Eagles. But because he wasn't a sportswriter, they all accepted him and talked to him because they were intrigued with what he was writing. He said what he learned is, if you're a pro football player, you got some 50-year-old guy up there who can't run 20 yards and he's describing his judgment of your touchdown pass, it's just -- you just get angry at the whole idea of who does he think he is?
HANNITY: Yes!
(LAUGHTER)
GINGRICH: And that's what she was (INAUDIBLE) here's a person -- Jennifer Rubin -- and I am picking on her directly because she's a pseudo- conservative who masquerades...
HANNITY: You can add NRO. You could add Bill Kristol. You could add any of these guys.
HANNITY: But the idea that she would describe a cabinet which includes a world class pediatric neurosurgeon, it includes a remarkable successful secretary of the treasury, it includes a remarkably successful secretary of commerce. It includes, as I said, the longest-serving governor in the history of Texas -- I mean, Rick Perry in a good week...
HANNITY: Exxon CEO?
GINGRICH: ... accomplished more than she has in -- now has, I think, the head of the largest corporation in the world. But the thing about it from the left standpoint, he actually negotiated successfully. In the spirit of Clinton and Kerry, how can you have somebody who's successful?
HANNITY: All right, so you think -- just real quick and we got to break, and then I want you to describe Trumpism. You think -- are you confident that everything that I outlined in my "Opening Monologue" will happen? Will he get that done?
GINGRICH: I think he probably will, and I think the crisis will come 90 days from now when they realize, when it hits them that Washington is that hostile, that difficult, that entrenched and the swamp ain't going to go away easily. And at that moment, I'm hoping he brings that team of winners together and they collectively decide, You know what? We're going to win again, and then it'll start rolling.
HANNITY: And things will move. All right. We'll take a break. What is Trumpism? Newt Gingrich defines that when we come back..
Now, yesterday, he gave a speech to the Heritage Foundation on these principles. We'll get to that.
And later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My administration will be focused on three very important words, jobs, jobs, jobs.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Donald Trump -- he's promised you, the American people, he will create jobs, especially those of you in poverty on food stamps. Anthony Scaramucci, Austan Goolsbee -- they're on later tonight.
And my big announcement. I am the executive producer of a movie to come out early next year. Straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GINGRICH: Trumpism is a bold and profoundly different way of thinking that needs codification and development through action. The combination of inertia and the relentless hostility of the left will challenge the very survival of Trumpism. Trumpism I think is much more than just motion, much more than just being active. Trumpism is ultimately and at its heart an appeal to the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, former speaker of the House, that was him there, delivering a speech at the Heritage Foundation about a movement that he's now calling Trumpism. He joins us now for more.
All right, why don't I just ask you, what is Trumpism?
GINGRICH: Look, Trumpism is the set of values and attitudes and practices that Donald J. Trump has brought to American government and politics. You can get pieces of it by reading two of his books, "The Art of the Deal" and "The Art of the Comeback." You get pieces of it by looking at his campaign and by looking at his speeches.
I'm going to give you one example of how -- and I tell people this is a watershed moment, if we make it work. You know, we have a Trump rally on the stock market. Now you got to turn it into a Trump reality in the real economy. So one example which you and I were talking about earlier -- the Wollman skating rink, Central Park, doesn't produce ice, which is very embarrassing. I mean, a skating rink with no ice is really stupid.
HANNITY: And this went on for years!
GINGRICH: Six years.
HANNITY: Yes.
GINGRICH: Six years, the city of New York bureaucracy tries to fix the skating rink. Trump finally gets so irritated because can see it from his apartment that he publicly taunts Mayor Koch. Finally (INAUDIBLE) says, All right, smart guy. I'm going to give you the skating rink. You got $3 million and six months.
HANNITY: How much had they already wasted?
GINGRICH: The thing I -- they wasted $13 million over -- $13 million for six years. And the thing I love about it is in "The Art of the Deal," he says, Now that I was in charge, I realized I didn't know anything about fixing skating rinks!
(LAUGHTER)
GINGRICH: This is very Trumpian.
HANNITY: Yes.
GINGRICH: He said, So asked myself who knows about fixing skating rinks? And I thought, Canadians.
HANNITY: He's right!
(LAUGHTER)
GINGRICH: So I found the best Canadian skating rink company. Now, first of all, this is what leads him to Jim Mattis. This is what leads him to Rick Perry. I mean, he's going to look for the best to come in. It's a piece of what Trumpism is, as opposed to liberalism, which would look for the right token, surrogate, even if they were incompetent.
HANNITY: Or identity politics.
GINGRICH: So they come in. Six years, there, $13 million failure, two- and-a-half months, $3 million success. Now, here's my point.
HANNITY: Under budget, actually.
GINGRICH: This is, by the way -- Under budget and three months ahead of schedule. Here's why we have to abolish the Congressional Budget Office. If you went to the Congressional Budget Office and said, We want you to score fixing the Wollman skating rink, there is no possibility they would score it at a Trumpian level.
HANNITY: It's a good point.
GINGRICH: You'd say what's it going to take to build a wall? My question is, the bureaucracy or Donald J. Trump? What's it going to take to get man back on the moon? The bureaucracy or Donald J. Trump? Because what Trumpism is, is the cutting through the baloney, eliminating red tape, being frugal and practical.
HANNITY: How -- then you can answer the question I raised in my monologue. You got a trillion-dollar infrastructure project. You and I both know if you run that through Washington, D.C., you lose 50 cents on the dollar.
GINGRICH: (INAUDIBLE) like the stimulus. But there are two parts of this, OK? Don't think of a trillion-dollar bill. Think of a trillion-dollar effect.
HANNITY: Help me out.
GINGRICH: OK. We set up a public-private partnership and a whole bunch of folks run in and say, I'm going to put up half the money. Federal amount just fell to half of it. We say to the Canadians, let's do some cross- border deals together. They put up half the money. We say, Let's cut through the red tape. And I researched this for years. If you go out and you talk to Governor Levin (ph) and what he did -- - Leavitt, rather, in Utah for the winter Olympics, you go and you talk to Pete Wilson, what he did after the Northridge earthquake, you talk to Schwarzenegger, what he did after the gasoline truck blew up on the Oakland bridge, you talk to Mitch Daniel, when he did when he leased the interstate, got the cash and built bridges across the Ohio outside of federal regs, and you talk to John Kasich, who also found some extra money and Kasich did the same thing -- five governors, all of whom get stuff at 40 percent of the cost ahead of schedule.
And now you take those rules -- I just did a thing today with Philip Henry (ph), who is -- (INAUDIBLE) who's probably the best thinker on regulatory reform in the country. If we took federal state and local regs, put them into one office and did them concurrently, you'd probably save two thirds of the time it currently takes it build something.
HANNITY: Look, this is going to be your role. You do have a role in this administration. That's what you're going to...
GINGRICH: I have a role as a citizen in the country.
HANNITY: That's what I mean.
GINGRICH: But it's in the country. I mean, it's 4,177 Republican state legislators, 33 governors...
HANNITY: But you have a -- but you will be that special adviser that...
GINGRICH: Yes, I hope so.
HANNITY: ... that, hopefully, brings those ideas in.
GINGRICH: I hope so. That's why I come on your show. The most efficient method of advice in the country is to be on your show.
HANNITY: OK, I'll take that as a compliment.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Mr. Speaker, good to see you.
GINGRICH: Good to see you.
HANNITY: Thank you. It's great to have you. By the way, your new book is on Amazon.com and my Web site, Hannity.com.
GINGRICH: It is called "Electing Trump."
HANNITY: "Electing Trump."
All right, when we come back, busy night, this is next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My administration will be focused on three very important words, jobs, jobs, jobs.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: President-elect Donald Trump vowing -- (INAUDIBLE) Merry Christmas -- vowing he'll get Americans back to work. We'll get reaction to Trump's meeting with the tech leaders earlier today. Anthony Scaramucci, Austan Goolsbee.
And also later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to work on taxes. We're going to work on ObamaCare. We're going to work on things, and he's going to lead the way. So thank you. Oh, we're going to work on the wall, Paul!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, during his thank you to a rally in Wisconsin, the president-elect said he was looking forward to working with the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, to fulfill campaign promises. Ryan kind of got booed a little bit.
Anyway, later we'll speak with Trump's senior adviser for policy, Steve Miller.
Stay with us.
And we'll tell about the movie I'm the executive producer, a real movie, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My administration will be focused on three very important words, jobs, jobs, jobs.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Whether it's building cars, producing steel or curing disease, we want the next generation of innovation and production to happen right here in America and right here in Wisconsin, right?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, that was President-elect Donald Trump at last night's thank you rally that was in Wisconsin promising to focus on and help save American jobs. So are business leaders willing to invest more in their companies and their workers because of Donald Trump's victory?
Joining us now with reaction, Trump transition team executive committee member Anthony Scaramucci. Former Obama economic adviser and failure Austan Goolsbee is here. I'm kidding, Austan. You left early, but the -- so I just did a comparison at the start of the show today, what Kennedy did, what Reagan did both worked. What Obama did was the opposite. It didn't work.
So Anthony, if he does what he plans on doing -- corporate tax rate 15 percent, 10 percent repatriation rate, seven brackets to three, energy independence, repeal "Obama care" -- does that get -- how many jobs are we talking about? What kind of growth?
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, TRUMP TRANSITION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: And a rollback in regulations.
HANNITY: Oh, the -- well, that's energy independence, big component.
SCARAMUCCI: That's a big component of it. And so you could triple the Obama jobs numbers. But more important than that, you've already seen it reflected in the stock market, Sean. And so you've already got the move (ph).
Today, we had a tech summit up there. And what were they talking about? They were talking about infrastructure spending not only in technology and to help on cybersecurity but also how are we going to block ISIS from using the internet as an instrument? All of that stuff is going to lead to economic growth, as well. And here have you one of the most practical...
HANNITY: I'm nervous about a trillion-dollar boondoggle infrastructure spending. I would like to see, number one, how are we going to pay for it...
SCARAMUCCI: No, but wait for the plan because as an example, you could have the repatriation treaty. You could have the money come back into the United States and be the backstop collateral for the bonds, so it never hits the balance sheet of the United States. And now the bond...
HANNITY: So it gets paid for it by itself?
SCARAMUCCI: Exactly.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: And what about taking it out of the hands of 535 greedy, ambitious congressmen and senators?
SCARAMUCCI: Well, if we do it that way, it's not requisitioned from the congress. We're just -- we're just bringing it back into the United States.
HANNITY: That's interesting.
SCARAMUCCI: You could put an infrastructure czar or even create a special person to do these projects, and now you've got a shovel-ready position. You don't have to go through the...
(CROSSTALK)
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FMR. OBAMA ECONOMIC ADVISER: He said shovel-ready, Sean!
(CROSSTALK)
SCARAMUCCI: That's something you've never heard of, Austan!
(CROSSTALK)
GOOLSBEE: He's not going to be happy right now.
SCARAMUCCI: I wanted to give you an early Christmas gift, Austan.
HANNITY: Even you, Austan -- as liberal as you are, we have -- energy is the life blood of our economy. We have more energy than we could ever possibly use in 200 years when you include shale oil and natural gas and clean coal. And yet we still import a million barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia a day!
So my question is, Obama supported the bureaucracy, the regulation to prevent energy independence. Why would you be against that? Won't that create millions of high-paying jobs?
GINGRICH: Look, first of all, I'm Mr. Right Down the Middle.
HANNITY: Won't that help the economy if we move towards energy independence? Yes or no?
GINGRICH: It could help the economy, yes, if done right and if done in a way that protects our drinking water. And we've talked about this before. There are a lot of great opportunities.
HANNITY: Well, I want dirty air and dirty water, right, because I'm a conservative?
GINGRICH: No, you've said that many times. But look, the thing with oil, with shale, when the price is low, people do not develop the resources. So the main thing that's happening with the low utilization has been that the price of oil has been extremely low, which has kept gas prices down.
HANNITY: Because the Saudis and OPEC and that cartel have tried to push American fracking companies out of business. True or false, Anthony?
SCARAMUCCI: I think there's some truth to that, yes. And I think Austan would have to agree -- we may only agree on that one thing tonight, but I do think there's some truth (INAUDIBLE)
HANNITY: All right, true or false...
(CROSSTALK)
GINGRICH: Anthony and I are old friends. We agree on many things.
HANNITY: I can't believe it because Anthony's really smart.
SCARAMUCCI: We agree on a lot of stuff, particularly on the infrastructure stuff. His partner, Robert Wolf (ph), has a pretty good plan for infrastructure. It could be a bipartisan thing provided that we take it right to the people and get a return on capital and run it, Sean, the way would you run a business.
HANNITY: Wasn't it a mistake for Obama to allow Congress to put their hand in the till and they agreed? I'll support your project, you support mine, whether it was good for their --
SCARAMUCCI: Austan is going to disagree but you didn't really see the impact in the GDP so we both agree that that was the case.
HANNITY: What does it mean when set first president, Austan, that used -- you were part of the economic advisory council -- first president in the history of the country, he accumulated more debt than 43 other people, but that never reached three percent GDP in a year. First president ever.
GOOLSBEE: What does it mean? It means we had very low inflation and low population growth is what it means.
HANNITY: So poor Barack Obama, 43 other presidents have a better track record than him and it's not his fault?
GOOLSBEE: They do not have a better track record. Since 2010 --
HANNITY: They had better GDP.
GOOLSBEE: We have added 15 million jobs. Do you think Donald Trump will beat that number?
HANNITY: Yes, actually, I do. But why do you split off the years?
GOOLSBEE: Because by were in a massive recession in 2009.
HANNITY: The Obama years were 2008 to 2016.
GOOLSBEE: No. Listen, you desperately want to put that stinking mess after financial crisis that happened before he ever got there, you want it put that on his ledger. And you know you can't do that.
HANNITY: Oh, OK so start when things were a little bit better, we'll only count good years and just so let's just say --
SCARAMUCCI: What about the last two years? Ask Austan about the last two years.
HANNITY: You ask him.
GOOLSBEE: Almost 5 million jobs.
SCARAMUCCI: The first president in history that hasn't had a three percent GDP print in any quarter of his presidency. So forgot about 2008 to 2011. What about the last five years?
HANNITY: Here is the problem. You factor in jobs and give out these phony numbers, Austan, that mislead --
GOOLSBEE: That's not a phony number.
HANNITY: You don't add the number of people that are out of the labor force that are looking for work that can't find work in the long-term. Why do you forget them?
GOOLSBEE: I don't add that. I have said that's the weakest part of the labor force. That has improved in the last two years.
HANNITY: Austan, merry Christmas and you owe me dinner.
GOOLSBEE: I do owe you dinner.
HANNITY: And by the way, I am going to order the most expensive thing on the menu. It is going to be delicious.
GOOLSBEE: It's going to be a baked potato. That's all the money we have left.
HANNITY: I want to come and take pictures.
SCARAMUCCI: I want to come and take pictures. I won't even need to eat. I just want to take pictures.
HANNITY: All right, coming up next tonight here on HANNITY.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He is like a fine wine. Every day goes by I get to appreciate his genius more and more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: President-elect Trump praising Speaker Paul Ryan last night, vowing to work with him to make America great again. So how can they fulfill Trump's campaign promises? We'll speak with Trump's senior adviser for policy Steve Miller, that's coming up next.
Later, my big project, my movie executive producing debut, Kevin and Sam Sorbo and here to talk about our new faith-based film that we are working on. It's called "Let There Be Light," and it's coming up next on HANNITY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Speaker Paul Ryan, I've really come --
(BOOS)
TRUMP: Oh, no, I've come to appreciate him. Speaker Paul Ryan, where is the speaker? Where is he? He has been -- I tell you, he has been terrific. And honestly, he's like a fine wine.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Every day goes by I get to appreciate his genius more and more. If he ever goes against me, I'm not going to say that, OK?
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: He's a great guy and we have some amazing things in store. And we're going to work on taxes. We're going to work on Obamacare. We're going to work on things and he is going to lead the way. So thank you. Oh, we're going to work on the wall, Paul.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, that was president-elect Trump last night in Wisconsin praising the speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who got a few boos there, explaining how they will put America first. Joining us now is the assistant to the president-elect, senior adviser to president-elect for policy, which is a really important position, also you were speechwriter throughout most of the campaign, Steve Miller, right?
STEPHEN MILLER, SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP FOR POLICY: Yes I was the speechwriter and I did policy for the president-elect.
HANNITY: And how many days that you were on the road that you barely get the speech on the prompter?
MILLER: Mr. Trump is probably the most hand-on speaker that you'll ever work with. The man who has written, I guess, a dozen bestselling books. So it's an amazing process to work with him because he cares so much about what every single word says.
HANNITY: And which I know is difficult at times. Anyway, congratulations on your position.
I don't have a lot of advice for the president-elect, nor does he really need my advice or my help, but what I care about is the country. I do believe this is the forgotten man, forgotten women election, which he talked a lot about. And what is important I think, and one of the reasons people are so upset with Washington, is these guys make promises and don't keep them. So to me, if you're going to be the head of policy, I want it ask specifically, are we getting originalists on the court?
MILLER: Yes, so that's one of the first things that is going to happen. We are going through the cabinet process right now, but next is the Supreme Court. He has a list of 20 judges.
HANNITY: He is down to four he already told me.
MILLER: Yes, and we got it down to just a few. And the names are names that people are going to love who believe the constitution should be interpreted as it was intended.
HANNITY: If the Democrats try and filibuster, which has never happened on Supreme Court, they've always allowed an up and down vote, would Mitch McConnell, would you subject he use the nuclear option that Harry Reid used?
MILLER: We don't think that will happen and so we don't even want to talk about that right now. We just want to focus on getting him confirmed, or her.
HANNITY: So I want to just be clear. So on the economy which we have been spending a lot of time on tonight, it's going to go from seven brakes to the three, 15 percent corporate tax rate, 10 percent repatriation rate for multinational corporations bringing money back. Is that your policy?
MILLER: Yes. So our tax plan right now is seven to three and it has those rates you mentioned. But in the course of negotiation with the House and Senate, the most important thing --
HANNITY: Ryan wants 20 --
MILLER: Right. That's true. The most important thing is we get a massively competitive business tax rate to bring in companies from overseas, and we believe that rate is 15. We have massive tax relief for middle class, and very, very, importantly that we repatriate those profits overseas. We think we can get hundreds of billions of dollars get it right back into America, and we can use that to build infrastructure.
HANNITY: Can you target that money to Detroit, Cleveland, Philly --
MILLER: Yes.
HANNITY: Milwaukee.
MILLER: What we think we can do Sean is we can say we're going to bring back -- let's say it's $300 billion. Bring back $300 billion and we can earmark it and direct it towards infrastructure projects.
HANNITY: And specifically, in other words those people that have been hurt the most, the rustbelt, that got Trump elected.
MILLER: Exactly.
HANNITY: Can that money be targeted to those projects first?
MILLER: And the course of an infrastructure bill you probably have to have it for different geographic regions. You can't just do it for one particular region. But for places that are hurt, that are economically depressed, they absolutely are going to places we are going to be directing --
HANNITY: You know what I'm worried about? It's 535 greedy, moneygrubbing politicians, senators and congressmen that are all going to want their piece of the pie and we're going to waste 50 cents on every dollar. Can that money be earmarked as Anthony Scaramucci was saying and get it outside of the budget and away from them?
MILLER: I think the way you do it is you identify projects of great national interest, projects that help people, that will last a long time, that will stand the test of time, and that will help our country.
HANNITY: Real quick, the wall gets built?
MILLER: The wall gets built. And I'm going to step back a second and just say this. For the middle class workers of this country, Sean, we are going to secure the border, protect their jobs, fix our trade deals, lower taxes, restore the rule of law, and get rid of the illegal Obama executive orders.
HANNITY: We vet refugee, we get rid of Obamacare, health savings accounts replace it?
MILLER: Yes.
HANNITY: And what's next, education will go back to the states?
MILLER: Right. We're going to push for school choice. And we have a great education secretary who is going to do that. We're going to work with Ben Carson at HUD to help urban renewal.
HANNITY: Energy independence, how important is that to the economic growth situation?
MILLER: It is huge, Sean. Think about this. We get three wonderful gifts to our economy -- regulatory reform, repatriation of overseas profits, and energy revolution.
HANNITY: Last question, how many hours will Trump spend on day one repealing executive orders?
MILLER: There's going to be a stack of illegal and unconstitutional executives actions, or just executive action from Obama that hurt the economy, that hurt workers, and they're going to be gone.
HANNITY: How many, 2,000?
MILLER: It is a long list, Sean. But the most important thing is that when we do this America will be safer, it will be more prosperous, and those workers in those rustbelt states are going to begin to see jobs come back to their community.
HANNITY: You don't need to go through a Senate hearing, do you?
MILLER: I don't.
HANNITY: Thank God. All right, good to see you. Congratulations.
MILLER: Thank you.
HANNITY: Coming up, Hollywood actor Kevin and Sam Sorbo, I am an executive producer of a movie that will be out next Thanksgiving. But we're going to give you a little preview tonight. The movie is called "Let There Be Light." We will tell you more about it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So "Hercules" actor Kevin Sorbo and his wife, Sam, well, they are teaming up for a brand-new faith-based movie. It's called "Let There Be Light" which includes a special guest appearance and executive producing by me. I'm the executive producer of this film. It is my first foray into film. And here's a sneak peek. It won't come out until next Thanksgiving but we want to give you a sneak peek.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LET THERE BE LIGHT")
KEVIN SORBO: We just want to give everyone the opportunity to speak to somebody about the love of Christ. They can make their own decisions, and unlike ISIS, this is not a convert-or-die proposition.
HANNITY: Here's my question, do you have a media partner? Is there anybody out there Christmas Eve that's going to show this band of light going around the entire globe? Is anybody covering this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, so far, no one's covering it. Not even a little bit.
HANNITY: Well, that's going to change right now. I can do it on my network. We're in every country. And on every Christmas Eve we can do a three-hour special to show this band of light as it makes its way throughout the globe through the different time zones.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here with reaction, Kevin and Sam Sorbo. We had to only run a clip that doesn't give the story away. You are a horrible person in this movie. Just so everybody knows.
(LAUGHTER)
KEVIN SORBO: Thank you.
HANNITY: You're horrible.
KEVIN SORBO: That is a compliment. I did my acting well, then.
HANNITY: You really did. And you helped write the movie.
So let me tell everybody this story, because I don't know how it broke today. It was on "The Drudge Report." I am happy it broke. And then I did an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter." I said to you, if you ever get a project that you'd think I'd be interested in, something that is contemporary, something that would touch people, call me. You come to New York, the two of you, and Dan Gordon. You tell the story. I was sold like that.
SAM SORBO, "LET THERE BE LIGHT": So I came up with the idea about three weeks before, and I called Dan Gordon and I said, hey, I've got an idea for a movie, would you consider writing a movie with me? And he said no because he's a big time movie writer.
KEVIN SORBO: He was the head writer on "Highway to Heaven" with Michael Landon. He wrote "The Hurricane." Very good writer.
HANNITY: I heard it was a great movie.
SAM SORBO: He said let's have lunch. Then over lunch I told him the idea. He said I'm in. Let's do this. And two weeks later he gets a call from you, and I say to him "That's my movie!"
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: It was funny. It didn't take me long to do this. There are many twists and turns. What I've always said, I do radio and TV, but music and movies, nobody cries watching my TV shows, except liberals. Some of them cry.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Because they're upset. They were upset on election night.
KEVIN SORBO: The truth is murder to them.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: But I had eight tough years here, too. Cut me some slack. But there is something about -- I showed the first cut of the movie to a number of people. Every one of them laughed, every one of them cried. This movie takes you through twists and turns on an emotional rollercoaster. I don't know if you designed it that way.
SAM SORBO: Yes. That's the idea of filmmaking is to change the world. Look, politics is downstream from the culture.
HANNITY: Right.
SAM SORBO: The culture then creates the politics. Politicians are just in a play that's written by the audience. And so if you want to affect the culture, you need to get into entertainment, basically.
KEVIN SORBO: Certainly it was done on purpose.
HANNITY: How are you so good at being so horrible?
KEVIN SORBO: I have three older brothers.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Is that what it was?
KEVIN SORBO: My older brothers just tormented me. I take it out on my little brother.
HANNITY: My reason for involvement, though, is I want to go to a movie and have it move me, inspire me. I like seeing reaction of people because it moves them. You kill me in this movie, and I'm not going to tell why. You don't really kill me. People think Hannity is going to die. I'll see it.
KEVIN SORBO: That will bring in more viewers.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Exactly. Hannity gets killed. But there is such a flow to this thing, because you start out as a hardcore, evil, mean atheist making fun of a guy in a debate about Christianity and crushing him with the crowd clapping and cheering. You're this big glitterati, paparazzi, basically like a Hollywood liberal.
KEVIN SORBO: What I love that your reaction to this, your friends reactions, you saw a very rough cut. This movie will not be completely done until probably February. And for you to react already this way is amazing, because, like I said, once you see all the bells and whistles are put in.
HANNITY: And by the way, I'm not in a lot of scenes. I'm in two.
KEVIN SORBO: And we got a great sound track. Dionne Warwick.
SAM SORBO: She sings the theme song.
HANNITY: This won't come in until about Thanksgiving next year?
KEVIN SORBO: Yes.
SAM SORBO: It's a Christmas movie. We need Christmas movies. We're having Christmas movies like "Bad Santa." There is a place for that. But I think America, I think we're seeing a trend in America. We want something that is a little bit more wholesome, meaningful.
HANNITY: Meaningful. And that's what I think you're --
KEVIN SORBO: You contacted me after you saw "God's Not Dead," And I really appreciate you approaching me because I was flattered by that. We came here.
HANNITY: It was an honor to do this. Your kids are in the movie and they were great, too. We'll have you back when we get near release time.
KEVIN SORBO: Perfect.
HANNITY: All right, guys, good to see you.
SAM SORBO: Thank you.
KEVIN SORBO: Thank you.
HANNITY: When we come back, we need your help. A very important "Question of the Day" is straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So earlier in the program we explained how president-elect Trump plans to get the economy back on track. But we want to hear what you think would work. So tonight's "Question of the Day" is what suggestions do you have to get Americans out of poverty, off of food stamps, back in the workplace? Just go over to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.
That is all the time we have left this evening. As always thank you for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow night.
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