Sen. Paul asks if the Obama administration spied on him
On 'Hannity,' the lawmaker is formally requesting a probe into whether he was surveilled and then unmasked by the former administration
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 8, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to "Hannity" on what is a very busy breaking news night tonight. Sara Carter, John Solomon, Senator Rand Paul, Patrick J. Buchanan and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will all join us.
But first tonight, explosive new details in a massive political scandal that is becoming Watergate on steroids. And That is tonight's "Opening Monologue," that the mainstream media ignores.
Circa News, which has been at the forefront of uncovering the massive surveillance scandal is now reporting new information that Congress should immediately begin investigating. The reports currently show a political scandal unlike anything we have now seen in American history and should deeply concern each and every one of you, the American people because your 4th Amendment right to privacy is now being trampled upon.
And the big question we need an answer to this evening -- did the Obama administration under the guise of national security target the leader of an opposition party -- Trump and his associates, and his transition team during the course of an election and post-election?
Now, during a Senate subcommittee hearing earlier today, the former Obama director of national intelligence, James Clapper -- he admitted he personally was involved in the unmasking of American citizens. Wow! Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY, R-IOWA: Did either of you ever request the unmasking of Mr. Trump, his associates, or any member of Congress?
JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DNI DIRECTOR: Yes. In one case, I did that I can specifically recall, but I can't discuss it any further than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Just one? We'll find out. And now we're also learning that unmasking by the Obama administration could have extended to a number of members of Congress. Circa News is reporting that last month, Republican senator Rand Paul, who will join us in a few minutes, sent a letter to the White House formally requesting an investigation after an anonymous source told Senator Paul that he and other members of Congress were, in fact, surveilled and then unmasked by the Obama administration.
Circa also has previously reported that lawmakers and their staffers are so frequently caught up in U.S. government surveillance that top congressional leaders are notified about it by U.S. spy agencies as often as once a month! And last week, the office of the director of national intelligence made public new data that shows a dramatic -- a dramatic! -- increase in surveillance and unmasking activity interestingly all during 2016.
Now, look at this chart put together by our friends at Circa News. They obtained this information from the ODNI, now, Office of Director of National Intelligence. This chart shows an increase. Look at these numbers. 2016, the number of U.S. names searched in contents of actual intercepts. The second lines shows that searches of U.S. names in intercepted metadata from the NSA jumped nearly 30 percent in 2016 from the previous year. It has tripled from 2013!
And that's not all. The ODNI transparency report shows a huge jump in the number of unmasking requests that were granted by the NSA from 2015 to 2016, get this, from 654 to over 1,900! Now, these statistics raise alarming, very serious concerns and questions that need immediate answers.
For example, why was there such a dramatic increase in this type of activity, especially in the middle of an election year of an opposition party? And why, just weeks before he was out of office did President Obama sign that executive order, 12333 -- triple 3 -- that allowed the NSA to more easily share these intercepted communications -- in this case, with 16 other federal agencies?
Was it done so that associates of Donald Trump could be targeted by our intelligence community? Was this information shared across 17 agencies so that it could then be selectively leaked to cause as much political damage to the incoming president as possible?
Now, take a look at this headline from FoxNews.com. This is back in April. Reports and unmasking controversy were detailed, had info about everyday lives. Now, according to Congressman Peter King of New York, who was familiar with the documents that were compiled -- he said they apparently read like investigator files, which he described as similar to what you might see in a divorce case.
Now, the NSA is legally allowed to monitor foreign targets, but we have constitutional protections. U.S. citizens do. But in the event that in surveilling foreign targets, an American citizen is caught up in that type of surveillance, well, their identity is supposed to be protected. It's a process. It's called minimization, meaning they're not supposed to be exposed or unmasked.
Now, keeping in mind, you know, why were these detailed files being compiled on Trump associates and members of Congress? Now, we know that information about Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was, in fact, leaked to the press.
So this is now enough is enough. It is now time to put cheap partisan politics aside, protect our Constitution, get to the truth. And what we need to know is, what did President Obama, top administration officials Ben Rhodes, James Clapper, John Brennan, Valerie Jarett, Susan Rice know, and when did they know it? We need to know if a sitting administration targeted political opposition and a political opponent during a presidential election year.
Joining us from Circa News, John Solomon, Sara Carter. Sara, welcome back. We're glad to have you. All right a four -- wait, 600 percent increase, or what was it, from 2013 to now? What is the justification? Did we have that much of an increase in terrorist activity that FISA and our national security agencies need to up their game that much?
SARA CARTER, CIRCA NEWS: No, not necessarily, Sean. I mean, if you just look at what the story that John put together and the data that he compiled, if you even go back to testimony last week that Director Comey gave, there are 2,000 terror investigations right now he said in the United States.
Here you have an enormous amount of data being collected on Americans, almost like a backdoor intercept into e-mails, metadata, as well as actual physical data of those conversations. And I think what John showed -- and John, you correct me if I'm wrong here, but was an over 300 percent increase since 2013 in the collection of data on Americans.
HANNITY: Wow! All right, so John, what you reported is beyond devastating. That is, from 2013 through 2016, the number of requests, NSA, jump, intercepted metadata jumped by -- it tripled. It tripled. So either the terrorist threat in this country has gone up that significantly, or in an election year, our NSA, our intelligence communities were gathering information on political opponents to use against them and trampling on our 4th Amendment constitutional rights. What is the more likely reason?
JOHN SOLOMON, CIRCA NEWS: You know, I think people are going to have to dig deeper before we know the truth of that. But I will tell you something -- you mentioned in your opening monologue about the number in 2015 of unmaskings. You said it was 654. That's what the Obama administration actually reported. It turns out it was underreported by a factor of more than three. In 2015, there were 2,200 unmaskings that the Obama administration misreported it, and it's only recently that the Trump administration corrected that number. So unmaskings were much higher in 2015 and 2016...
HANNITY: How much higher?
SOLOMON: ... than we originally knew.
HANNITY: John, this is an important question.
SOLOMON: Yes, factor of three.
HANNITY: So it went from what to what?
SOLOMON: Went from 600 -- 650 to 2,200 That's a pretty big -- large gap. Someone's not very good at math at the DNI.
HANNITY: So in other words, it's even worse than what you reported last week.
SOLOMON: Yes. Exactly. That's exactly right.
HANNITY: All right, Sara, let's go through this very closely. This is so important, and I think Americans need to know. So if the NSA -- and by the way, I have great respect for our intelligence community. They do an important job. They -- they -- their job is beyond risky. So their job is to make sure they're protecting our country. That would mean they have the right to supreme court, let's say, a Russian ambassador or an Iranian ambassador.
In the process of doing that, if an American is caught up in the conversation that they are surveilling, they have a process. It's called minimization. And they're supposed to minimize what they know about the American as long as that American is not involved in sabotage or some type of nefarious activities against America. They minimize that.
But they also have a process -- and Devon Nunes confirmed this -- that they wouldn't identify the name of the American, even if they knew who it was when they wrote up the report. Then they unmasked these people, even though they're innocent Americans that should never have been surveilled in the first place. And we have this dramatic increase in numbers!
What can this -- if it's political surveillance on an opponents, what would that mean in terms of scandal to this country?
CARTER: It would be one of the biggest scandals this country has ever seen if that's proven. And all you have to do is go back to 2011 when they loosened up these rules. John and I reported on this. And then we see an increase of this. We see, slowly but surely, increase of unmasking Americans and leaking of information.
But what we don't know, Sean, yet is why. And that's why this investigation needs to continue both for John and I, as well as for the Senate, and as well as for Congress to continue to ask these questions. Susan Rice needs to answer these questions. Director Clapper, former director Clapper needs to answer these questions, as well as Director Brennan. We need to know what they were looking at and why.
And if they were compiling dossiers on political opponents, that needs to be disclosed. That cannot be held under the shield of classified information.
HANNITY: Last question, and I've got to get to Rand Paul. John, I'll throw it to you. You said last week we may now know who these people are that were surveilled. I'll be joined in a second by Kentucky senator Rand Paul. Are we going to only see Trump supporters, Trump surrogates, Trump campaign, Trump transition, other Republicans in the House and Senate and not Democrats? That would be a pretty good indication it's political, wouldn't it.
SOLOMON: Yes, I think so. I think -- you know, there are going to be more names in Congress, no doubt. We're certain of that based on our reporting. You know, questions like the other presidential candidates. How about Marco Rubio? How about Bernie Sanders? We'd like to know the answer to those questions. We don't have those answers yet, but Senator Paul raises an important question that I think's going to carry on for several weeks.
HANNITY: All right, guys. We're going to continue to follow this story all week long. Sara, thank you. By the way, welcome back from vacation. John, good to see you.
Joining us now, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Senator, this is beyond chilling. What did you hear? And when you hear the numbers of John and Sara, what does that tell you?
SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY.: You know, it's sort of mind-boggling. We've been hearing rumors and anonymous sources have been telling us for a couple of months now that they believe that the Obama administration was spying on other presidential candidates other than Trump and that it may be politically motivated.
Now, I don't have the evidence. I haven't seen the evidence, but I've requested it. I've asked the White House to look into it, and I've asked both of the intelligence committees.
There are about eight members of Congress who know more about spying and they get all of the information that most of us are not privy to. I've asked those eight members. These are the gatekeepers. There's something called a Gates notification. If they looked at my personal information -- if they listened to my phone call, they're supposed to have a Gates notification and there's supposed to be someone who knows that this happened.
I've never been notified. And so my question is, are they supposed to tell me they're spying on me, or do I have to request it? But now that we've gotten these sources, I have made a formal written request to find out if the Obama administration did indeed spy on me.
HANNITY: Senator, we're going from 654 to over 2,200 in a year? That...
PAUL: It may be even worse than that. When we spy on foreigners, we gather up maybe as much as a million pieces of information on a million different Americans. Now, they've looked at 30,000. So what you're hearing about is the ones they looked at, but they have a million different phone calls, transactions, e-mails from Americans who've talked to people overseas.
The danger is, if they're willing to use this for political purposes, what if someone's making an international deal and buying a company and it's top secret? It would be devastating to your stock price to know you're negotiating a deal with a foreign country or a foreign company. What if someone decides to sell that to your competitors?
HANNITY: Well...
PAUL: We can't have intelligence agencies listening to anybody willy-nilly, without a warrant.
HANNITY: Senator, this is deep and profound. We're talking about trampling on 4th Amendment constitutional rights here, unreasonable search and seizure. There are laws and procedures in place here. One (ph), Brennan, Clapper, Rice, Rhodes, Jarrett, and maybe even the president knew about this. You're the lawmaker. Espionage Act. Tell me the laws that could have been broken here and how dangerous this is to a free and open society.
PAUL: The main protection we have in our country is you have an independent judiciary. The police have to call a judge to listen to your phone call or to come into your house. What's happening here is there is no warrant for the American, the American just being scooped up in any conversation with people overseas, and then they're searching the data bank.
What I would like to know, one of the questions I asked the White House is, Did anyone in the President Obama's administration query my name? Did they look in that database of a million Americans' phone calls and look me up specifically? Did they ask to unmask me? And they have these terms that sounds like, Oh, unmasking, how bad is that? It's the same as spying. They are able to look at your conversations, who you call, when you call, all of this data, this massive data bank, they're able to look into.
HANNITY: Wow.
PAUL: So yes, this is incredibly damaging to the separation of powers...
HANNITY: And laws broken!
PAUL: ... incredibly damage (ph) to all Americans' privacy.
HANNITY: Is -- wouldn't it mean that Brennan, Clapper, Rice, Jarrett, Rhodes and maybe the president could have broken laws if they did this for political purposes, sir? This is an important question.
PAUL: Absolutely. And see, you know, we've had trouble with Clapper before. Clapper was the one that came to the Senate...
HANNITY: And lied.
PAUL: ... and lied under oath about the fact that they were already doing this bulk collection of Americans' data. So they're not going to easily divulge this. The problem is there's a little bit of a bipartisan support for looking the other way. And so I'm having to push very hard to see if anyone is interested in the truth...
HANNITY: I am.
PAUL: ... because there's been a lot of people who want to sweep this under the rug.
HANNITY: Well, tell me who those Republicans are off air, and we'll be sure to bring them on, too. All right, Senator, serious issue. This is not a joke anymore. Thank you for your insight. We look forward to peeling away the layers of the onion on this story.
And when we come back tonight, the one and only Patrick J. Buchanan -- he'll join us in studio. I'll ask him about the state of the GOP, President Trump's agenda and much more.
Also tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: This is not a situation than any American president can ultimately tolerate. Something has to be done about that nuclear program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That was former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice talking about North Korea, Kim Jong-un. She'll join us later in the studio.
That and more on this busy breaking news night tonight here on "Hannity."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So Republicans scored a very huge win last week with the bill to begin the process of repealing, replacing ObamaCare in the House. Now that legislation heads on to the Senate and conference. So what can President Trump do to push this crucial piece of legislation now finally across finish line?
Long-time political adviser, best-selling author, former presidential candidate -- some say he was the original Trump -- Patrick J. Buchanan has some answers. See this new book? It's a must-read. It's called "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever," in stores now.
This is the book here. Patrick J., you're one of my favorite writers. Even when I disagree with you, I love to fight with you. Not really. I think I prefer to get along.
You were a populist long before Donald Trump.
PAT BUCHANAN, "NIXON'S WHITE HOUSE WARS" AUTHOR: Well, you know, back in the 1990s, Sean, you covered some of those campaigns, '92, '96 -- we ran against the trade deficits, to build a fence on the border, the Buchanan Fence, we called it at the time, and frankly, not to get involved in these wars, where no vital interests to this country were engaged. And the theme I had on a piece of glass was called America First, Buchanan '92, your (ph) brigades (ph). And this was...
HANNITY: Well, I was out with the pitchfork brigades at the time, I think they called them.
(LAUGHTER)
BUCHANAN: Marietta, Georgia.
HANNITY: Yes, I couldn't get in! It was packed!
BUCHANAN: I know the guy that kept you out, Sean.
(LAUGHTER)
BUCHANAN: But these were great campaigns, but we didn't succeed, but you could see the issues developing. And what Donald Trump did -- I give him tremendous credit. I think he was onto some of these issues back there, the trade issue in the '80s. But he seized upon them. He had the guts to drive them through against all those odds. And he had behind him the evidence of what we predicted was going to happen.
HANNITY: In many ways, history just repeats himself. What you went through...
BUCHANAN: Right.
HANNITY: ... Trump has gone through, even Nixon, as you write about in your new book.
Here's the problem with health care. I want to get your thoughts on this. This is what I've learned. There's 100-plus liberal Republican House members that never had any, any intention of repealing, replacing "Obama care."
With that said, the Freedom Caucus -- and they work with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. I know because I talk to these guys every day. They thread the needle. They got the waiver. We have Secretary Price has broad authority as a secretary, for example, to defund Planned Parenthood and some things that Trump promised.
BUCHANAN: Right.
HANNITY: There's no other option when you have that strong a resistant left wing within the Republican Party!
BUCHANAN: Well, look, if you got that kind of resistance, Sean, you're not going to get repeal and replace "Obama care."
HANNITY: So this is the best we can get.
BUCHANAN: Well, you got it in the House. You got to get something in the Senate. You got to take it to conference, and you got to get it through the House...
HANNITY: Right.
BUCHANAN: ... and through the Senate. And if the numbers are as you say they were, I don't think you got a chance. But let me tell you briefly...
HANNITY: No, but I mean -- look, they did the best they could and it certainly is the beginning of the end.
BUCHANAN: Well, they did the best -- look, let me say this, though. The House guys did the right thing and they're being hammered.
HANNITY: Right.
BUCHANAN: But they can go home and say, We said we're going to repeal and replace the thing...
HANNITY: Right.
BUCHANAN: ... and that's what we voted to do.
HANNITY: Right.
BUCHANAN: We can't help what the Senate did, and we certainly didn't want to accept this conference piece. So I think they're not that bad off politically in 2018 if nothing happens out of it. If they said, We tried and we failed, we voted to do it, we got it out of the House, the senators are the guys are going to have to answer. But Sean, (INAUDIBLE) two -- two-vote balance in that Senate. You got people -- you got Susan Collins on one side. You got Rand Paul, Mike Lee on the other...
HANNITY: Susan Collins doesn't want to defund Planned Parenthood!
BUCHANAN: Well, Susan Collins is willing to work with some of the Democrats and I don't think you -- if you get Democrats aboard in the Senate, you get it through the House.
HANNITY: Look, I've always loved your writing. And you know, you're talking about the -- the -- Nixon's White House wars and it divided America forever. Look at just in the last week, things that were said by Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher. Now, I don't support boycotts. I believe in freedom of speech. Vile, vicious hateful -- they've attacked the 10-year- old son of the president, the wife of the president, repeatedly now attacking the daughter of the president in vile ways. There's a divide now in America that may even be more distinct than what you're describing in this book.
BUCHANAN: There's an irreconcilable conflict in this country because of the great cultural wars in the '60s have been really finally decided, and we are basically two nations. But what is going on, these attacks on Trump -- I mean, Nixon had the worst press of any president in history until Trump. He's got the worst press. He also has got an establishment against him, a deep state against him. Got 4 percent of the vote in Washington, D.C., my hometown!
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Lot of help you gave him, Pat!
BUCHANAN: I think a Bolshevik could have (INAUDIBLE)
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Yes! (INAUDIBLE) you're right!
BUCHANAN: But this is really -- I tell you, I mean, what (ph) they successfully took down Richard Nixon, I think they're out to break and bring down Donald Trump.
HANNITY: A hundred percent!
BUCHANAN: All of them are. And frankly, I don't know how you -- you know, we all talk about bringing this country together.
HANNITY: Let me ask you...
BUCHANAN: I don't know how you do it.
HANNITY: How does Trump, more importantly, defend himself?
BUCHANAN: I think what Donald Trump ought to do is he should not allow himself to be dragged into every one of these minor quarrels. Keep your eyes on the prize. And do as Nixon did. Nixon came in with 43 percent, neither house...
HANNITY: Isn't he...
BUCHANAN: ... four years later, he won 49 states to 1.
HANNITY: The wall, deregulations, tax cuts bigger than Reagan in terms of real dollars -- OK, Neil Gorsuch...
BUCHANAN: Excellent.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: ... energy independence, good start on the core (ph). These are all conservative issues. Why are our brethren, our fellow conservative -- George Will -- he's lost his mind!
BUCHANAN: Well, it's a personal thing, I think, against Trump, with -- as an individual, et cetera, and who he is. But I'll tell you the -- there's a -- there are two parts to the Republican Party now. Trump brought in this new populist nationalist...
HANNITY: People that need jobs and...
BUCHANAN: ... "America first"...
HANNITY: Right.
BUCHANAN: And yes, and also, you know, different kinds of tax. Whereas the Republicans, they're more old-time Reaganite. But I thin, Sean, you got to get those two forces together. There aren't enough to get -- he ain't going to win 49 states...
HANNITY: Yes.
BUCHANAN: ... unlike Nixon did and Reagan did.
HANNITY: Well, he might -- if he brings jobs back...
BUCHANAN: 49 states?
HANNITY: No, not 49. He could win 40. I think if he brings the jobs back...
BUCHANAN: Well, Bush won -- Bush won 40. Bush -- Bush won with 40.
HANNITY: Right.
BUCHANAN: But you know, California, for example, they want to secede.
HANNITY: Bye!
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: See you later!
BUCHANAN: You want to sign -- sign the petition?
HANNITY: Go! Yes, I'll sign it.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Another great book. By the way, good picture of you and Nixon on the cover.
BUCHANAN: I was about 25 years old there.
HANNITY: Well, you look good. All right, thanks, Pat.
And up next on this busy news night, breaking news night tonight on "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICE: This is not a situation that any American president can ultimately tolerate. Something has to be done about that nuclear program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice sounding the alarm tonight about North Korean aggression. She'll join us in studio next.
Also later tonight, I mentioned to Pat, Bill Maher being criticized for a despicable, crude joke about Ivanka Trump. He sunk to an all-new low. We're get reaction from Geraldo, Monica Crowley as we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY WRIGHT, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Live from America's news headquarters, I'm Kelly Wright. Good evening. Here's what's happening.
President Trump continues his bid to reshape the lower federal courts. The White House announcing 10 judicial nominees saying they were chosen for their deep knowledge of the law and commitment to the constitution. Democratic leaders already voicing their opinions against the nominations. At the start of the president's term, there were 130 vacancies in the lower courts.
Tiffany Trump is headed to Washington D.C. The 23-year-old daughter of President Trump and ex-wife Marla Maples will continue her studies in the law school at Georgetown University.
And voting has begun in South Korea. The country holding its presidential election called early after a scandal brought down its former president. The election of the U.S. Pacific ally come at a time of rising tensions with North Korea.
And that's a look at news this hour. I'm Kelly Wright. Now back to "Hannity."
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So over the weekend North Korea's central news agency announced that Pyongyang has detained yet another American citizen. And it's not just North Korea that continues to test the U.S. A senior U.S. defense official telling Fox News that on Sunday, the rogue regime in Tehran test-fired a high-speed torpedo in the Straits of Hormuz.
Joining us now, the author of an incredible new book, I've been reading it, "Democracy, Stories from the Long Road to Freedom," former secretary of state and NSA director Condoleezza Rice. Madam Secretary, I am honored to always have you. I've always appreciated -- I'm reading your book and I am loving it. It's up on my website and in the bookstores.
You actually said this weekend we cannot tolerate what North Korea is doing building ICBM capability now that they have nukes. Japan, China, Seoul, South Korea, if we take out or try and attempt anything militarily, millions potentially could be in jeopardy.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, "DEMOCRACY" AUTHOR: It is a very bad situation and it's a dangerous situation because North Korea has made a lot of progress in the last several years on bomb design and on potentially marrying that to long- range missiles that could reach the United States eventually. And I don't know if the president is being told three, five years, but at some place soon.
Now, you have to put together a packet of measures to try to stop it. And the first thing is to try to get the Chinese to change their calculations. Sean, the Chinese have always feared the collapse of the regime in North Korea because they worry about refugee flows, long border, instability. So they've been unwilling to do anything really tough with the regime to change the regime's behavior.
They are really the only trading partner of consequence for the North Koreans. They are really the only ones that give the North Koreans military equipment. So you have to now say to the Chinese, all right, time to really get tough because it's not a choice between a nuclear North Korea and the collapse of the regime. It is the choice between you do something about the regime or we will.
HANNITY: Here's what I want to ask. I think one of the underreported stories about President Trump so far is the great relationship he is building with the Saudis, obviously with Israel, rebuilding that relationship which broke down, I would argue, in the Obama years, but the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and there's an opportunity. I think, and we'll get to that in a minute. But he was only supposed to meet with the president of China for a half hour. Those meetings went nearly five hours on two occasions. The Chinese president goes back, puts 175,000 troops on the borders, sends a shipment of coal from North Korea home, imports American coal instead, and says he's willing to renegotiate trade.
RICE: Right. I think the president prepared very well for Mar-a-Lago. I know that he did. He spent a lot of times thinking about how he was going to approach the Chinese president. He got a chance to speak with him, as I understand it, in small sessions rather than large, for a long period of time.
And I think they impressed upon the Chinese the importance of this moment. They impressed upon the Chinese that they really do have to do something about the North Koreans. And they did it through the old-fashioned way, which was negotiation and discussion. But also they've been really trying to reestablish American credibility on these issues. And credibility is not divisible. So when you are not credible about Syria, you are not credible about North Korea. When you are credible about Syria by having made that strike --
HANNITY: He made it and he had to tell that the Chinese president before dessert that 59 Tomahawks were fired.
RICE: I might not have done exactly that, but good for them because it got the Chinese attention. When you say the United States means what it says and will do what it says it's going to do, it matters.
HANNITY: Is there a military option? In other words, if we can't tolerate ICBMs married to nuclear weapons because that could hit the continental United States, is there a military option that doesn't risk hundreds of thousands, if not more, lives?
RICE: There isn't a military option that any president really actually wants to exercise for exactly the reason you say, and that is why we are actually putting theater defenses in to try to defend the South Koreans.
HANNITY: Missile defense.
RICE: Missile defense. We're putting defenses in to try to protect the Japanese.
But you have to have the option on the table. And I'm sure the president is asking the military, what can I do?
HANNITY: When we come back at, you have a good relationship with Donald Trump. I want to delve into that a little bit and obviously the issue of Tehran, some other important issues in your book that your raise. We'll have more with former secretary of state, Madam Condoleezza Rice, after the break.
And then later tonight, "Real Time" host Bill Maher sinks to a new low, making another crude, tasteless joke about Ivanka Trump. We will tell you what he said.
Plus, a new study examines how late night hosts are now treating President Trump compared to his predecessor. The results, eye-opening. Geraldo Rivera, Monica Crowley will all weigh in on this breaking news night on HANNITY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: As we continue with the author of "Democracy, Stories from the Long Road to Freedom," former secretary of state, former national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. I've known you a long time. I watched this election and I watched postelection, you have been very friendly with the president and you have met with him and reached out to him. You've had nice things to say about him where other Republicans have not.
RICE: He is the president of the United States. And every American should respect the decision of our democracy. The presidency is bigger than any one person. And I will do whatever I can to help the occupant of that office.
HANNITY: Am I wrong in saying you like him on a personal level?
RICE: I did like him. We had a chance to spend some time together about five weeks ago or so. I found him engaged. He was asking very important questions, getting ready, as a matter of fact, for his meeting with the Chinese. And he also, and I respect this, he saw something in the American public, in the American population that others didn't see. A friend of mine called it the "Do you hear me now" election? People who really didn't feel that they had been represented by our institutions, we have to respect that.
HANNITY: I called it the forgotten man, forgotten woman election. And 95 million Americans out of the labor force, 50 million in poverty, 50 million in food stamps. That, to me, in this country is unforgivable.
RICE: It is unforgiveable. And people with no prospects and an education system that's failing our poorest kids, job skills that are not matching up with the jobs that are available. He saw that and I respect him.
HANNITY: I want to ask you -- the book is phenomenal. I started reading it. I wish I had time to finish it before you got here. I wrote a book, not this long, in 2004, "Deliver Us from Evil." In the last entry 100 million human souls were slaughtered, isms -- Communism, fascism, Nazism, Imperial Japan, the killing fields of Cambodia, 100 million. You are a great historian. This could happen again. When you look at the stories from the long road to freedom and you look at it through the prism of, say, the mullahs in Iran wanting nuclear weapons with a pledge to annihilate Israel and hatred towards America, it could happen again.
RICE: We have always been surprised in how evil can express in regimes that do unspeakable things to its people. When we found the killing fields, everybody was surprised. When we found Saddam Hussein's mass graves, everybody was surprised. When we knew what the gulag actually did in Stalin's Russia, we were surprised. And so our goal has to be to always say never again but before it happens. And to my mind, that means we have an obligation to speak for people who can't speak for themselves.
HANNITY: Last question. Do you agree we me that whatever it takes, and I believe this strongly with all my heart, the world cannot allow radical Islamists, mullahs in Iran, to get weapons of mass destruction, and if we don't stop that -- my mother used to say, we'll rue the day. We will rue that day.
RICE: We will rue the day, and we have to stop Islamic extremism. We have to stop its ideology as well as --
HANNITY: It's evil in our time.
RICE: It's evil in our times. And we have to call it by name.
HANNITY: Why couldn't Obama do that? Why couldn't President Obama do that?
RICE: It's long struggle for all of us, but I think the first and foremost is to reestablish that the United States is back in the game --
HANNITY: You believe that? It's different time now?
RICE: It is a different time. Without the United States and American power and American interest in it, I'm going to tell you the world is a very ugly and dark place.
HANNITY: So you're going to be the commissioner of the NFL?
RICE: I am going to let Roger Goodell keep that job. I told him it's a much tougher job.
HANNITY: You want to deal with deflate-gate? That was the biggest --
RICE: I'm much happier as a professor.
HANNITY: Madam Secretary, always an honor. Thank you so much.
Pleasure to be with you, Sean, thank you.
HANNITY: Thank you for stop by. You're always welcome.
When we come back, Bill Maher making more crude jokes about President Trump's daughter. It's despicable, it's vile, it's disgusting. And also we'll show you a study that compares late-night jokes about President Trump versus, say, President Obama. The results are not surprising. We'll explain and get reaction from Geraldo and Monica Crowley, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So over the weekend HBO host Bill Maher made another vile, crude, despicable so-called joke about President Trump and Ivanka Trump that many are calling beyond malign and offensive and tasteless. Watch this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME": A lot of us thought Ivanka is going to be our saving grace. When he is about to -- nuke Finland or something, she is going to walk into the bedroom and, daddy, daddy. Don't do it, daddy.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Did anyone on late-night television do that when Barack Obama was president to his daughters or wife? It is so beyond the line. And Maher is only the latest example of a liberal host crossing the line, attacking the family and the president himself.
These late night attacks like you just saw about President Obama, all too common. There's a brand-new study from George Mason University. In his first 100 days in office, President Trump was the target of 1,060 jokes from late-night comics. Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton, didn't even face that many jokes, never mind how vile they are, after an entire year in office.
Here with reaction, Fox News correspondent at large Geraldo Rivera, conservative commentator Monica Crowley. Think for a second. I think actually think, one of the things I've always said about President Obama, his kids seem pretty cool. They seem like great kids. The only thing Michelle came under fire for really on this program was "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country."
Would that ever happen to Barack Obama or his kids, and if it did, wouldn't it be the most despicable thing? Why does this double standard exist for this president, his daughter, and a 10-year-old son and wife?
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It seems to me, first of all, that Bill Maher has carved out a unique place. He is so way out there on the left and has consistently been that he gets cut a lot of slack. Even so, when you involve the children of the president of the United States, shame on you. And to do it in such a low down and dirty way, I absolutely believe he has crossed the line. I absolutely believe that we have to have some limit --
HANNITY: If I did it during Obama being president, I'm gone. My career is over, correct?
RIVERA: Probably. But I also lived through impeachment. Bill Clinton got a lot of oral sex jokes and all the rest of it in the Oval Office, but he we never saw Chelsea Clinton being dragged into that mess.
HANNITY: Thank God.
RIVERA: And thank God. There have to be some rules, there has to be some limitations.
HANNITY: I will not support these boycotts, Monica, the fire Colbert, #fireColbert. He's despicable, too. By the way, his career was hanging by a thread until Donald Trump got elected and his 50 writers now have a job because they say the most mean things. They can say what they want. If you don't like it, change the channel or watch something else or turn your TV off.
MONICA CROWLEY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think there's a really important point about this whole discussion, which is a lot of these guys have great comedic skills. But what is happening now is they all want to be heroes of the resistance. So they are constantly pushing this envelope.
And what most of us I don't think understand about what they are all doing, because they are all on the left and clearly so, but they are using Alinsky tactics. Remember Alinsky's Rules for Radicals number 13, which is pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it in order to humiliate the target. Alinsky went on to say go after people, not institutions. People hurt faster than institutions.
So what all these comedians are doing are taking Alinsky tactics, leveling it against Republicans but in particular President Trump and his family as a way to humiliate him and to discredit his presidency.
HANNITY: I agree with everything you're saying. Here is the danger for conservatives, Geraldo, because we all know this is fact. There are paid activists on the left that monitor every hour of Fox News, every hour of talk radio, because they want to use, find something that's controversial, use it to boycott and silence voices. I can't support that. I believe Colbert can say what he wants. Maher can say what he wants. Do you agree with me these dangers exist of conservatives trying to get these guys fired or boycotted?
RIVERA: I think we are the firmest believers in the Bill of Rights. By we, the three of us. We have very different ideologies but we believe in the Bill of Rights, we believe in the freedom of speech. We believe in the democracy of the remote that you can just not watch somebody.
But I just want to say one thing following up to what you both say and I agree with that assessment. Ridicule is the most potent weapon against your political opponent. If you can reduce your opponent to a caricature, to a cartoon, then you feed into all of the negative traits that Donald Trump may or may not have -- by ridiculing him, you make him smaller. And that is I think the tactic. Now, it's tried and true, they've done it before, but I have never seen so intense.
With Donald Trump, for all of our policy differences, at 6:00 on Election Day, on the 8th of November, I said he is my president. And I'm going to do the best I can do to back him because I want history to regard him as a successful president.
CROWLEY: The other thing, too, and I agree with you. But the other thing, too, is all of these comedians get applauded for somehow having the guts to say what nobody else will say about President Trump or about --
HANNITY: Wouldn't it have been gutsier to go after Obama?
CROWLEY: But it's the exact opposite, because if they were true and they were really gutsy, to your point, Sean, they would be applying this kind of comedy equally. They would have gone after Obama. They would be going after Nancy Pelosi.
HANNITY: Hands-off. Obama had a hands-off policy.
CROWLEY: That actually shows weakness, not strength on their part. But if I were President Trump I would ignore them. I would get my economic agenda through, deliver a booming economy, forget it.
HANNITY: I've got to roll.
RIVERA: They need diversity in the audience as well as on stage.
HANNITY: Look, this will last for a while. There is an ebb and flow is this crazy business. Guys, good to see you both.
When we come back, a very important "Question of the Day" and apparently some critical hate mail that you left on the HANNITY hotline. How could that happen? Straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time for the "Question of the Day." Do you think these late night so called comedians, have been vicious and vile to the president? Forget about being fair. It's obvious. Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.
Now time to play some of the messages, some mean, on the Hannity hotline. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My Hannity, love your show. But let your guests talk. You have your guests on for a limited amount of time, but a lot of times your interrupt them. Let them talk, please. Thank you, have a great day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hannity, you're my favorite Irishman. Please don't ever change. You're doing a wonderful job and we love you, and they'll never shut you down because your fans won't let them. Be good. Take care. And we love you, again. Bye-bye.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: I try so hard to let everybody talk. Geraldo says I'm good at it. Anyway, have something to say, nice, mean, call the number on your screen. It's real simple. It is 877-225-8587.
That's all the time we have left this evening. As always, thank you for being with us. See you back here tomorrow night.
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