Circa News: Investigation into Trump server found nothing
Sara Carter and John Solomon provide insight on 'Hannity'
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," March 9, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." In just a few moments, Laura Ingraham -- she'll join us. For weeks, we've been warning you about the deep state Obama holdover government bureaucrats who are hell-bent on destroying this president, President Trump. It's time for the Trump administration to begin to purge these saboteurs before it's too late. That's tonight's ‘Opening Monologue.’
Let's go back to 1861. President Abraham Lincoln -- he created, you know, a team of rivals, a so-called team of rivals, a cabinet of rivals, including adversaries that he ran against in the Republican primary. But while President Lincoln sought to unify his party through cabinet selections, he also executed an extensive government purge. He fired over 75 percent, nearly 1,200 people out of 1,500 bureaucrats that worked in the executive branch who President Lincoln feared could be disloyal.
It's time now for President Trump to follow Abraham Lincoln's example and a fire anyone and everyone who is actively working against him in government.
After all, even former president Bill Clinton -- he utilized this tactic back in 1993. He fired all 93 U.S. attorneys -- all of them. According to Conservative Review's Daniel Horowitz, sacking imposing government employees is best utilized at the start of an administration.
He writes, quote, ‘Clinton easily fired all 93 U.S. attorneys on day one. Nobody blinked an eye. Yet when Bush's attorney general fired eight U.S. attorneys well into his second term, well, that became a national scandal.’
It's very important for President Trump to act right now and not just avoid outrage from the left -- that's not what this is about -- because he's got to end the leaks that are plaguing this administration. Major leaks, like the ones you see right there on your screen, started just five days after President Trump was sworn into office.
The explosion of these leaks coincides with a New York Times report that says in his final weeks in office; President Obama revised executive order 12333 which allows the widespread sharing of this raw data collected by American intelligence agencies across 17 government agencies.
That is an additional 16 agencies and their employees who in the final two weeks when Obama was in office, who gained access to top-secret intelligence that they never had access to before.
We've been asking for weeks on this program, why did President Obama wait until the last minute to do this? And why didn't he apply this to himself for eight years?
Congressman Duncan Hunter -- he's expressing serious concern about what we see playing out, and take a look at what he said earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER, R-CALIF.: Overall, I think that they're dealing with seditious people within the Department of Justice, within the FBI, within the Department of Interior, within the CIA. There are just people that don't approve of the Trump presidency, and I think that they're trying to take him down from the inside. That sounds kind of conspiratorial, but I think that's what Trump's looking at right now.
I think you have people within the government, what you call the deep state, bureaucrats, Obama appointees that hate Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Congressman Steve King -- he tweeted the following. ‘Donald Trump needs to purge leftists from the executive branch before disloyal, illegal and treasonous acts sink us.’
It's important that the president begin to hear this and act now.
For months, deep state antagonists -- they've been working overtime to try and delegitimize Donald Trump's presidency. And we have seen how low they'll go by insinuating without any evidence that there's some sort of campaign collusion with Russia. There's no evidence! It's not true!
Just days ago, WikiLeaks published some very disturbing information about the CIA. According to Julian Assange, CIA operatives are able to access televisions of American citizens, smartphones, other devices, and actually recorded sound, images and even encrypted messages on your iPhone or your Android.
That's not all. WikiLeaks is also alleging that the CIA has the ability to utilize very sophisticated malware that can make it appear that cyber activity is being conducted by other nations, when, in fact, they -- meaning those within our government -- may be responsible. WikiLeaks in their press release specifically points out that they could be doing this in the case of this Russian narrative with no evidence.
By the way, did President Obama know about any of these sophisticated spy programs developed and used by the CIA? We can't confirm that any of this is actually being practiced, but we need to start asking serious questions if we want privacy in this country.
Back in January, you may remember I traveled to London. I interviewed Julian Assange. He told me his source repeatedly was not the Russians. You may remember this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: I've asked you before. I'll ask you again today. Did Russia give you this information or anybody associated with Russia?
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: Our source is not a state party. So the answer for our interactions is no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That's not all. Former British ambassador Craig Murray -- he told The Daily Mail that the 2016 Clinton campaign e-mail hack -- it actually come from within the Democratic Party and that the hacked information was given to him in a public park at a university right here on American property. Can you believe that? All on behalf of the Democratic Party, their own whistleblower.
My message tonight is simple. Every holdover from the Obama administration -- they need to go! And a thorough investigation of leakers needs to be conducted. And people have committed felonies, violated the Espionage Act, like in the case of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn -- they need to be prosecuted! And all of those who aren't actively working to fix the country need to be shown the door. It's hurting a lot of people.
Joining us now, editor-in-chief of Lifezette, Fox News contributor, nationally syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham is with us, and the author of "The Big Agenda," David Horowitz is back with us.
Laura, I'm looking at all this here. We've got all of these leaks happening, which all of a sudden, they just started happening when Donald Trump became president. So we politicize -- some in the intelligence community are politicized, not all, there are a lot of good people there, but some. And look at what Lincoln did. Look at what Clinton did. Is it time for the same type of actions by President Trump?
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: I have to say, I was scratching my head, Sean, when I learned -- and I know you were concerned about it, as well -- there were a number of Obama holdovers that remained behind after inauguration.
Part of it was the slow pace of the transition after they showed Chris Christie the door and brought a new team in. They were behind of the appointments. Some of it was Democrats slow walking the appointments. But they were behind on a lot of the appointments.
So remember what happened in the NSA, where two of Ben Rhodes's -- you know, obviously top aide to President Obama -- two of his aides stayed behind in key positions at the National Security Agency.
HANNITY: Yes, and they left a day apart.
INGRAHAM: Yes, one...
HANNITY: Right.
INGRAHAM: One was Rumana Ahmed, used to be head of the Muslim Students Association back in her college days, and another was Ned Price. Both of them were donors to the Clinton campaign, it was revealed later on.
So it made no sense that they were allowed to stay. That was a mistake by the Trump team. And I fear that there are other people that we're just now learning about who were political appointees, Sean, but who converted to career appointments, which is supposed to be reviewed by the personnel office and not sure it has been or hasn't been properly vetted.
The Republicans should be asking answers (sic) about this on Capitol Hill. How many people converted from political appointments to career appointments to be able to stay behind in the administration? And we know at least a few of them. Gina Farrisee is one at the VA, and I believe she stayed behind and she's still in the administration today as deputy chief of staff at the VA.
HANNITY: As shocking as the WikiLeaks reveals were, David Horowitz, one of the things that really stood out in my mind is not only the fact that they could spy on TV that we think is off, that there's no -- there's not the privacy we think we're getting or the encryption our iPhones or Androids that we think we're getting, but the fact that the CIA can use stolen malware and attribute cyber-attacks to other nations.
And I want to know what Obama knew about what the CIA was doing and whether or not maybe, as we're told by John Solomon and his partner, Sara Carter, yesterday, there is no evidence, even though there was a FISA warrant, of any Russian collusion.
Could that be an internal intelligence leak or an intelligence -- intelligence work that we need to be suspicious of?
DAVID HOROWITZ, "BIG AGENDA" AUTHOR: Well, first, Sean, I want to thank you. As you know, I've written several bestsellers. When "Big Agenda" made it to number five on the New York Times list, I said, Oh, now I'm going to be reviewed in The New York Times and The Washington Post and I'll be invited onto panels on CNN and NBC.
HANNITY: Yes, don't hold your breath.
HOROWITZ: Didn't happen. No, I -- and that's because we're in a -- really a civil war situation. The Democrats have adopted the slogan resist, resistance. That's what partisans did against the Nazis. That's not what an opposition party in a democracy does.
Was Trump Tower tapped? Of course it was! The NSA collects every communication. The question is, can the raw intelligence be opened and used? And to answer that, you have to say, Well, does Barack Obama or the Democratic Party -- do they respect our national security laws?
And the answer is obvious. No! Hillary Clinton violated the Espionage Act. She put on her private server for all our enemies to see top classified information. There wasn't one Democrat who said, This is a bridge too far, I can't support this woman, not one!
HANNITY: Let me go to -- let me go to the John Solomon, Sara Carter piece, and let me tie it to WikiLeaks, Laura, if I can because they said, in fact, that FISA warrant in October, in the middle of a presidential election where you have a sitting president, there was surveillance going on. What he knew, what he didn't know, I don't know. But that would have had to have been approved by the attorney general at the time, Loretta Lynch.
When you put their revelation that nothing about the Russia collusion is true, nothing, that there was nothing found, but the fact that the server in the Trump organization was tapped by the government and another wiretap took place, that's kind of scary that -- and who knew what, when and where needs to be asked, not that Obama didn't order it, what did he know?
INGRAHAM: Right. Well, the tactics of a police state include targeting individuals, of course, for political purposes. So you don't base your investigations on real probable cause for any criminal violation. But it's based only on political disagreement.
And if we had partisans running these investigations, so-called investigations, and if Loretta Lynch OKed this in the middle of a presidential campaign, where no prior information came up that would indicate that the Russians were colluding with Paul Manafort or Carter Page or any of these other people, then you have ask yourself this question.
Why was to done? Why was it done in October? Why did they keep surveilling the Trump team, and can anyone really think for a moment that Loretta Lynch would OK this and not run it by President Obama? I mean, I guess you want to keep plausible deniability, but I think that -- that's -- that doesn't really pass the straight face test.
HANNITY: Yes. What's your thoughts on this? Last word, David.
HOROWITZ: Well, we have one of the most corrupt Justice Departments for the last eight years of collusion and all kinds of political attacks on Republicans. Who can trust Loretta Lynch? She's -- now she's advocating street demonstrations by radicals who openly want to overthrow this regime.
We're in a very dangerous situation, and I can't say how totally I endorse what you've been saying editorially, that they need to fire all of the Democrat appointees in these departments. 99 percent of the Justice Department, according to Newt Gingrich, gave money to the Democrats.
We know that Democrats are untrustworthy on national security. We know it through everything that happened in the last year.
HANNITY: People also need to be prosecuted. Felonies were committed, numerous felonies.
HOROWITZ: Exactly.
HANNITY: And we got to get to the bottom of it. All right, congrats on the book. Laura, always good to see you. Thank you both.
And coming up tonight -- you don't want to miss this next report, an explosive report, weeks before the election, two reporters, investigators have confirmed the FBI was, in fact, granted a warrant to investigate the server inside of Trump Tower, where his campaign was being run. Those journalists who broke that story join us next.
And then later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WISC., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: This is the closest we will ever get to repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan says it's now or never for Republicans to replace ObamaCare. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy -- he'll join us to tell us how do we possibly bridge the gap between the Freedom Caucus, some conservative senators and the bill that they currently have out there.
That's straight ahead.
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HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So according to an explosive report from Circa News, just weeks before the election, the FBI received a warrant to investigate a server connected to then candidate Donald Trump's businesses, but they found no wrongdoing, no connection to Russia. And around the same time, a FISA warrant was also granted to investigate potential Russian influence in the election.
The new information is raising very serious questions that President Obama and his former administration need to start answering to ensure that the American people -- that there was nothing going on by an opposition party in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Here now are the journalists that broke this story, from Circa News, Sara Carter and John Solomon. Sara, I'm going to start with you because John wouldn't show up yesterday.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: But this is really important. So there were two warrants granted. One was the FISA warrant. Explain that and the other warrant and explain that they found no evidence of any Russian collusion at all, and that's what your report says.
SARA CARTER, CIRCA NEWS: Yes, basically, what we discovered through our sources was that the investigation into Trump's server -- which, remember, is not inside Trump Tower but outside of Trump Tower but registered to Trump -- showed no evidence of any criminal activity that would warrant any kind of prosecution of anybody in the Trump team. So that was a very short-lived investigation.
Now, there was also a separate FISA. It was an overall FISA. I don't have as much information on that. That FISA, though, was a general FISA that covered the whole Russian hacking investigation.
Now, whether or not there were people connected to that FISA, we don't really know. But we know that that -- that the warrant to look into Trump's server found nothing criminal in that investigation.
HANNITY: Wasn't one FISA and one not?
CARTER: Exactly. One was the FISA. The server was not a FISA. It was a regular warrant. The FBI had a traditional investigation when they went into that server. And it was very short-lived. So they didn't spend a lot of time in the server. They went in there, they didn't find anything.
HANNITY: OK.
CARTER: And in fact, they said they didn't investigate any e-mails and they didn't listen to any phone calls, so...
HANNITY: Well, let me go -- I mean, granted, the president put out a statement that he didn't order and nobody in the White House ordered it.
That's irrelevant to me. The question is, did he know about it? And three weeks, a couple of weeks before a presidential election, you have a sitting president looking at the opposition party's server? No, I know from my own dealings with people in the campaign at the time, they had Trump e-mail addresses, Trump Organization e-mail addresses!
JOHN SOLOMON, CIRCA NEWS: Of course. Yes. In fact, many times, that's how I communicated with them.
HANNITY: Right. Exactly. So what can you add to this in terms of -- you know, is there any political opposition involvement, like the first name that would come to mind is Sid Vicious Blumenthal.
SOLOMON: Sure. Yes. So...
HANNITY: Could he be involved in this?
SOLOMON: Let's look at what was going on in October. Hillary Clinton got surprised by the announcement that the e-mail investigation on her own e- mail was restarting. And then all of a sudden, you start to see a lot of Democrats, Harry Reid, Slate magazine starting to raise questions.
HANNITY: Hillary, too, tweeting.
SOLOMON: Yes, that's right, tweeting back on October 30th and 31st. It appears that somewhere in October, whatever was going on in the intelligence community became a political talking point for the Democrats.
Now the question is, is it coincidental or did something actually happen where people passed on information that the intelligence committee had found? We don't know the answer.
HANNITY: Let me ask you about the executive order, 12333, two weeks before he goes. Now 16 other agencies can see all of this.
SOLOMON: Right.
HANNITY: Does that look like a trap that was being set by the former president for the new president to you?
SOLOMON: A good question, and certainly expanded so many people to the access of FISA warrants and NSA surveillance that had long been kept in a very small group of people. Whether it's a trap or whether it was an opportunity to get the rest of the Russia story out before President Obama left, or whether there was...
HANNITY: You're saying your investigation and all of your sources said the FBI, FISA warrant found no collusion at all. That means the media's been wrong for all these months about this Russian connection narrative!
SOLOMON: One of the most important things, if you watched all the TV shows, you would swear -- not yours, of course, but you'd swear that the whole FBI investigation has been about Trump and Russia. And we've been told time and time again...
HANNITY: Just the opposite.
SOLOMON: ... Trump was a very small part of it. Ancillary things came in. We checked it out. We move on if there's no criminality.
HANNITY: Yes because there was nothing, and they found nothing that would be criminal. All right...
SOLOMON: That's right.
HANNITY: Let me just ask this question of Sara. I should ask you most of the questions, Sara, because John didn't show up last night.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: But all these WikiLeaks...
CARTER: (INAUDIBLE) ask John, Sean.
HANNITY: ... revelations about all of the different techniques that the CIA was using to spy -- now, I guess the NSA -- I always thought that was their charter. Is the CIA now our big spy agency, and for example, stolen malware that they say you can attribute cyber-attacks to say, oh, a country like Russia -- in other words, they'll put Russia's fingerprints on it, but it could be happening within our own government?
CARTER: We just don't have the answers to that. And I've spoken to people about this. Some suggest, yes, that's a possibility. Others say no way, they would have never done it because if you think about that, that means they would have been hacking into the DNC.
So I just want to go back, though, Sean, because you talked about executive order 12333, which is what everybody calls it, 12333. And there's a lot of U.S. intelligence sources that are telling me, Look, it's time for President Trump to rescind that expansion that Obama gave.
HANNITY: Immediately! Immediately!
CARTER: Immediately. And I've contacted the White House. I'm waiting to hear back. I know there are people talking about it there. But I know there's a lot of concern that as long as this expansion stays, there's going to be more and more people being able to see this raw data, which means they'll be seeing the names of Americans, right?
HANNITY: Guys, you've been doing great work. I would urge you to continue to stay on this because you have a lot of lazy counterparts out there that are way overpaid, and you are running circles around them. Great job. Thank you both.
SOLOMON: Thank you, Sean.
CARTER: Thank you.
HANNITY: And coming up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: This is the closest we will ever get to repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Speaker of the House Paul Ryan saying Republicans need to come together to pass the GOP "Obama care" replacement. Will they be able to do it? Are they going to get the Freedom Caucus and some of these senators on board? House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy will join us next to explain.
And later tonight...
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My administration has answered the pleas of the American people for immigration enforcement and border security.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: President Trump continues to move fast to keep his promises. According to the DHS, illegal border crossings -- they're down 40 percent during his first full month in office, Lou Dobbs weighs in on that and more straight ahead.
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(NEWSBREAK)
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REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WISC., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We as Republicans who fought the creation of this law and accurately predicted that it would not work ran for office in 2010, in 2012, in 2014 and in 2016 on a promise that we would -- if given the ability, we would repeal and replace this law. This is the closest we will ever get to repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, that was the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, earlier today stressing how important it is for Republicans to come together, repeal and replace Obamacare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: All right, that was speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, earlier today stressing how important it is for Republicans to come together, repeal and replace Obamacare. President Trump wrote earlier on Twitter today "Despite what you hear in the press, health care is coming along great. We're talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture." Joining us now with reaction, the House majority leader, Congressman Kevin McCarthy. Sir, how are you?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY, R, HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: I'm doing well. And you?
HANNITY: I'm good. Let me get to the first question, which is a process question, because even before the bill actually came out, you had to members of the Freedom Caucus, a lot of them, the study group, Senators Paul, Cruz, Lee, and Marco Rubio. And afterwards you had the Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Works, Heritage Action, all against it.
And I guess what surprised me about it is why didn't you get this consensus built to work on the bill that everyone agreed on before you released it, and now you're doing it all in the public eye and it seems confusing, and people are asking why didn't you guys work this out before?
MCCARTHY: We did work it out before. If you listen to the Freedom Caucus in the very beginning of January, they asked us to make sure that we will not repeal without replacing at the same time. If you look at the conservative bill that we have before you, much of that element was Tom Price's bill when it was inside the House. And you had numbers of Freedom Caucus cosponsor that.
The challenge is the process of how we have to do this. Because we don't have 60 votes, and that's what puts the fear in me is the challenge of the structure to go about doing. We have to do three different phases. One in reconciliation, repeal and replace. But because of the Senate rules, we can't do everything we want. Those things administratively the power gives to Tom Price. And then those bills that take 60 votes, we'll move those along at the same time and right afterwards. At the end we end up the exact same place. This is the most conservative bill. It repeals all the taxes.
HANNITY: So there's three phases to this. But the critics -- my tie is crooked -- and the critics, they're all saying the same thing, this doesn't fully repeal it. In other words what they're asking and have been asking to do is go back to the 2015 bill which was a full repeal. At the same time you follow-up immediately with a replacement bill. Why can't that be done?
MCCARTHY: This is the same bill that we put on President Obama's desk when we repealed it. But take for instance that process. If we repealed everything, we would still need 60 votes to pass something new. Then you're going to have to negotiate with all those Democrats. It would not be as conservative as this current bill to get 60 votes. Secondly, if you repealed it without replacing it, your premiums would double, the market would collapse, you wouldn't have the market built on the outside to take people up. And who would own that problem, Sean? It would be Donald Trump and all the Republicans currently in office.
HANNITY: Listen, this has to work. There's no option here. This is the first legislative agenda item that the president is now passing here. So at some point in the Freedom Caucus, those senators I mentioned, those groups, you're going to need them. Is it a communication problem that they don't the three step process, or is their criticisms valid that it's not a complete repeal, that there still some taxes from ObamaCare that exist, and not everything is free-market, that there is even a new entitlement, which is the main argument I hear they're making every hour of every day now on television.
MCCARTHY: Sean, we repeal every single tax in Obamacare that was put in during Obamacare.
HANNITY: And it's not under another name?
MCCARTHY: No.
HANNITY: Why are the Freedom Caucus guys saying that? Why is Senator Rand Paul saying that?
MCCARTHY: What Rand Paul would like to do is repeal it and then go into and try to find 60 votes for it. You and I both know how difficult it is to find 60 votes.
HANNITY: You're right on reconciliation. I totally understand there's a legislative complication. Good point, better to have 51 votes only needed than 60. So explain the three step process, and without the Freedom Caucus and those senators this bill doesn't get passed. What are you going to do in terms of getting everybody together and making this work? And I'd be open to coming down and doing a full on town hall with all sides. Would you participate?
MCCARTHY: I'll participate anyway, because this is the most conservative bill you're going to find. This is Obamacare gone. It repeals all the taxes. That's what we just did last night in Ways and Means committee.
HANNITY: Here's my question, if you'll come, I'll come down next week. And we can tape an hour for TV. And I'll bring you, I'll invite the senators I mentioned, and I'll invite another couple Freedom Caucus guys, and maybe we can hash it out there, and maybe we'll bring in Reince Priebus and see whatever differences exist, if it can't get worked out. Would you be willing to do that?
MCCARTHY: I'd be glad. We're talking every day in the process. Listen, ObamaCare did three essential items. They put control of health care into federal government. They were the exchanges, and then they were the expansion of Medicaid. What does this bill do? It frees up and gives all those rights to the states, which we believe is very conservative.
Secondly, we repealed all the taxes, very conservative. Thirdly what we did, too, the exchanges have now collapsed, so we have to take, one, a tax credit. Sean, when you let people keep more of their own money and make their own decisions in healthcare, that's the most conservative approach.
HANNITY: That's not a new entitlement?
MCCARTHY: How is letting people keep more of their own money and making their own decisions an entitlement?
HANNITY: Just asking.
MCCARTHY: That's a conservative view. In 2007, that's what Heritage said. It is the best form of going forward is a tax credit.
HANNITY: All right, we're going to -- basically, listen, I'm taking a lot of incoming from people. A lot of people are angry and frustrated, and the votes aren't there. And this has to succeed. But more importantly than succeed, it has to be done right, because as soon as it's replaced, you own it. And it's got to be something that lowers costs, offers more care, more free-market competition, health care savings, cooperatives, which all need to be a part of it. I think those are the points we all agree on.
MCCARTHY: Sean, that's exactly what you're talking about in this bill. And if all you did was repeal, everything else would collapse, and then we would own that.
HANNITY: Congressman, I'll look forward to seeing you next week. We'll work it out as soon as possible.
MCCARTHY: All right, take care.
HANNITY: Appreciate it. Up next right here tonight on the HANNITY.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My administration has answered the pleas of the American people for immigration enforcement and border security.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: President Trump keeping his promise. According to the department of homeland security illegal border crossings have dropped by 40 percent during the president's first full month in office. Lou Dobbs join us with reaction. And also later tonight.
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VAN JONES, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: For millions of people and people I love and I work with and I know and I care about, Trump is the scariest villain of all time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: CNN's Mr. White-lash himself, the alt-left propaganda destroy Trump media completely losing it. We're going to play their latest attacks against the president, get reaction from Mercedes Schlapp and Joe Concha.
That's straight ahead.
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TRUMP: at the same time, my administration has answered the pleas of the American people for immigration enforcement and border security. We must restore integrity and the rule of law at our borders. For that reason, we will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That was the president during his address to a joint session of Congress last month. He was vowing again to secure America's borders. Now the president is keeping that promise. Yesterday Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, General Kelly released a new report which revealed border crossings have dropped by 40 percent during Trump's first full month in office. The report notes that this decline is significant because, quote, "border patrol historically sees a 10 to 20 increase in apprehensions of illegal immigrants from January to February." Instead this year we saw a drop of 31,578 to 18,762 persons, and that is a 40 percent decline.
Here with reaction, he's been on this border issue even longer than me, Fox Business anchor -- you're like the number one show on your network, our sister network, Fox Business. Congratulations.
LOU DOBBS, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Thank you very much.
HANNITY: You and I agree on this for many, many years. You got in trouble once and I called you and said keep it up, keep getting in trouble.
(LAUGHTER)
DOBBS: Just that one time,
HANNITY: Yes. I don't remember what it was about.
I don't understand of those that don't understand the need for America to vet people coming in here and to have a border wall with a door. What's so bad about that?
DOBBS: There's nothing bad about that. But we have what has become a fifth column at least intellectually in this country that has said the United States doesn't have the right to have borders and ports that it secures. We don't have the right who decide who becomes an American any longer.
HANNITY: You’re racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, whatever phobic.
DOBBS: But somehow despite all of that we're the most heterogeneous, diverse society on the planet. And we're then called nativists. I'm sorry, if we're nativists and we're the most diverse society on earth, that makes us pretty good people.
HANNITY: I actually haven't been down to the border as often as I did. I reported a lot from down there. I remember being in San Diego.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: On the other side, what we would describe both of those as a dump, kids playing in it. You can see across this part of the fence. And if I was on that side, I'd say, I want to go over there. I don't blame people for wanting opportunity. I think America, though, needs to say, OK, you want to come here? Number one, you can't take American jobs. Number two, you have to be able to sustain yourself. Number three, when we have room, we'll take as many as possible as long as you want to abide by our laws and sovereignty.
DOBBS: And what could be more straightforward? I put forward a syllogism15 years ago on this issue of immigration reform. And the idea that you can somehow just have immigration reform without border security is madness. And the syllogism I put together is this. If you wish to reform our immigration laws, then I think it's necessary that we control immigration. And the only way to control immigration is to control our borders and our ports. Now, if anyone can defeat that syllogism, I will listen to whatever plan they've got and support them forward.
HANNITY: Good to see you, Lou.
DOBBS: Good to see you, Sean. Thank you.
HANNITY: And up next tonight right here on HANNITY.
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VAN JONES: For millions of people, and people I love and I work with and I know and I care about, Trump is the scariest villain of all time.
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HANNITY: Really? Mr. White-lash over at CNN? The alt-left propaganda to destroy Donald Trump media, they continue to smear, slander, besmirch the commander-in-chief. We'll show you the latest examples. We'll get reaction from Mercedes Schlapp, Joe concha. That's next.
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HANNITY: And welcome back to HANNITY. So the alt-left propaganda, destroy Trump media continues to stoop to new lows. Here's Mr. Thrill-up-his-leg, MSNBC's Chris Matthews.
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CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: This isn't like covering politics anymore. It's more like a doing guard duty in a jungle. There are strange noises in the night these days, but dawn brings the real danger when they large animals come out to feed.
Donald Trump likes to get up early and it roar. Since getting up Saturday morning, he's roared about to President Obama wiretapping him during the campaign. Well, Trump is president of the United States. I have a hard time actually calling him President Trump right now because when he gets up at dawn and start tweeting, that doesn't seem like an official statement from a president.
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HANNITY: And then we have Mr. White-lash himself, Van Jones. Now, following the president's joint address to Congress last week, Van Jones, he got away from his usual talking points and actually praised Trump by calling a presidential. Last night Van Jones started his program by acknowledging that some people are not happy with his positive remarks about the president.
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VAN JONES: I do understand why so many people were shocked and disappointed because for millions of people, and people I love and I work with and I know and I care about, Trump is the scariest villain of all time. You've got people living in fear. And they don't want to hear Luke Skywalker talking about Darth Vader does have nice things to say. They're not trying to hear that.
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HANNITY: Here with reaction, Fox News contributor Mercedes Schlapp and from "The Hill" Joe Concha is with us, media reporter. I don't even know what -- how does somebody say white-lash, then presidential, then villain of all time. What is going on at these networks in your opinion?
JOE CONCHA, "THE HILL": How does Van Jones even have a national platform?
HANNITY: Ding, ding, ding.
CONCHA: He used to be a pundit, and that's fine. But now he is actually a host of specials in primetime on CNN. Let's remember who Van Jones was.
In the Obama administration, he was only there for a couple of months and had to resign because he called Republicans a-holes and it was discovered that he signed a 9/11 truther petition. He said he did it mistakenly.
But now what do we do here in media. We give guys like Van Jones these huge platforms to express their views. I don't he think he should be anywhere near that.
HANNITY: Do you have any doubts that CNN and NBC and most of these networks, The New York Times, have made a decision they're going all in, and if it means telling lies about Russia, you heard of John Solomon earlier tonight on this program, Sara Carter earlier in this program. They're reporting says they investigated that there was a FISA warrant and another warrant. No evidence whatsoever to back up -- all the lies we've been hearing on TV for months.
CONCHA: Sean, follow the money in these situations. The New York Times
and the Washington Post and MSNBC and CNN, their numbers are better because they positioned themselves as opposition, just like Steve Bannon said. They're networks that are engaging in what they think their audience wants to hear, they're supplying red meat.
Now, here's the thing, positive news about Donald Trump has been completely and totally suppressed by the bias of omission. Media tenor, their international, they're not biased in any capacity, they analyze. "CBS Evening News," NBC Nightly News, January 20th until February 20th, out of
100 stories on those two networks on the evening broadcasts, and these are big because it's eight to 10 million people watching each of them, 97 of them out of 100 were negative. So even last night, the ADP numbers showed that hiring is at a six-year high, 300,000 jobs. It was not reported.
That is a prime example.
HANNITY: That's a great example. Mercedes?
MERCEDES SCHLAPP, "WASHINGTON TIMES": Sean, the mainstream media, the liberal media, they've become, they've transformed into the Democratic Party 2.0. I mean, let's be real. Here you have the act that their focus is so primarily on negative coverage on Trump. The American people are getting tired of it. You have a poll that just came out that said 59 percent in an IPD poll basically said that they are weary of the persistence negative coverage of Donald Trump.
Now, what are the liberal media doing? They are focused on placating their base. They are focused on making sure that they built this narrative that President Trump is a villain. And they're missing the point that President Trump actually in these past 40-something days has spent more time reaching across the aisle, working with traditional Democratic coalition groups like African-Americans, like the unions. He is meeting with moderate Democrats.
Those stories are being missed. And that is where I think the liberal media, they're just focusing so much on trying to be that opposition party and not necessarily just reporting the news.
HANNITY: All right, yes or no, and we got a break. Is journalism dead, am I right?
CONCHA: Journalism as we once knew it, dead.
HANNITY: Absolutely.
SCHLAPP: I think the traditional hierarchy of journalism is dead. I do think that it is incredibly troubling when you have these networks basically saying that they are trying to provide a fair approach but they're not when it's so much about the negative coverage on Donald Trump.
HANNITY: Thank you both. Coming up, we need your help, a very important "Question of the Day," and apparently a very mean message on the HANNITY hotline for me, I've been told. That's next.
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HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY. Time for our "Question of the Day." Should President Trump follow my suggestion, clean house and fire every Obama deep state holdover? Yes, but we want your opinion, Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter.
All right, hit me with your best shot. Some people are mean, they make fun of my hair, my tie, and say I'm fat. I don't care. HANNITY hotline, you can say anything. Here's tonight's reaction.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sean, you worked overtime helping the president get elected. Now it's time for you to work overtime and lose a few pounds in the gym.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hannity, 10:00 p.m. has new meaning to me, with concise, conservative views, and Newt and Gorka, too. I dig that whacky Hannity, don't you? Well, Hannity, it's a fine mess Obama has gotten us into. It's time to get the wagons in a circle, pilgrim.
All kidding aside, I dig what you do, Mr. Hannity. Keep on keeping on, my friend.
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HANNITY: New rule. No heavy drinking before calling the HANNITY Hotline.
And by the way, I just lost 13 pounds. What are you talking about? I'm in the best shape of my life. I do martial arts four days a week. Anyway, have something you want to say, nice or mean, we don't care. Call the number on your screen, 877-225-8587.
That's all the time that we have left this evening. Hope you'll set your DVR. Don't miss an episode. We need you. See you back here, the battle continues tomorrow night.
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