Updated

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," August 15, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: This is a Fox News alert. Welcome to 'Hannity.'

Tonight, President Trump -- he sets the record straight about the violence in Charlottesville. It was an epic beatdown of the liberal mainstream establishment media. They are now in full, complete, panic, meltdown mode.

And unlike President Obama, the president said today he'll actually wait for facts to come out instead of rushing to judgment when things like this happen. That is tonight's very important breaking news calm 'Opening Monologue.'

Once again, we have to give you news and information you will not get from the destroy Trump establishment media. Despite President Trump repeatedly, repeatedly condemning the horrific, inexcusable acts of violence, and of course, white supremacy again and again, all that took place in Charlottesville this weekend, Democrats, the destroy Trump media continue to viciously attack the commander-in-chief and falsely again accusing him of being racist and being bigoted.

And just like they accuse Republicans, right -- we've chronicled this how many years? Every two to four years, they do that during elections. Earlier today, the president fought back. He did it in a big way. He let the media have it during a press event at Trump Tower, where he once again condemned these white supremacist groups. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups, but not all of those people were neo- Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.

You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side. There was a group on this side -- you can call them the left, you've just called them the left -- that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that's the way it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: He also repeatedly called out the fake news media. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If the press were not fake and if it was honest, the press would have said what I said was very nice. But unlike you and unlike...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Excuse me. Unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.

That was a horrible, horrible day.

TRUMP: Wait a minute, I'm not finished. I'm not finished, fake news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: I'm not finished, fake news. The mainstream media once again hysterical, complete meltdown mode today because President Trump told some truths. Yes, there are a lot of truths here. White supremacist groups -- they are disgusting. They are despicable. All people of good will and conscience agree. But there was both sides causing violence. Want to believe it? Take a look. This is out-of-control violence. It is complete mayhem!

The people that provoked this -- yes, I'll agree, they were the white supremacists. They are the ones that are most responsible. And you know what? Let me say this about some of the protesters. They came out for all the right reasons. This brings out a morally justifiable anger in people, people that are that ignorant. But it does not give these alt-left protesters -- doesn't give people of good conscience even the right to attack them, punch them, hit them, et cetera.

We completely disagree with everything these white supremacist groups stand for, believe in. They're not conservatives. They're not Republicans. We don't know these people, a small percentage of the population. But under the First Amendment in this country, they have a right to say hateful, awful and even racist things, whether we like it or not.

The ACLU tonight, one of the biggest Trump-hating groups, even defended these white supremacists and their right to hold a rally. This group even put out a statement. They said, quote, 'The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy. It protects even vile, hateful and ignorant speech. And for this reason, the ACLU of Virginia defended the white supremacists right to march. But we will not be silent in the face of white supremacy. Those who stand silent, enable it including the president. And the ACLU also tweeted, 'Not sure' -- pay attention because they're repeating what the president said. 'Not sure who provoked first. Both sides were hitting each other at Justice Park before the police arrived.'

They also added the guy on the ground is a Unite the Right protester. Those in black and red are Antifa protesters. And where are the police, by the way? Is anyone asking that question tonight? Why didn't the Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic mayor of this city -- why did they not order the police to stop the violence sooner? And if the police were outgunned, like Terry McAuliffe said, why did he not request the National Guard be called in?

Then there's the fact the destroy Trump media -- they will never, ever be satisfied with how many times the president condemns racism, violence, white supremacy, bigotry, the likes of which we saw this weekend in Charlottesville. How many times does this president have to say it? Let's take a look at President Trump's original comments on this before the white supremacist madman plowed into people with his car.

Here's what the president tweeted soon after. Quote, 'We all must be united and condemn all that hate stands for. There's no place for this kind of violence in America. Let's come together as one.' And the president went on to say, 'We must remember this truth, no matter of our color, creed, religion or political party, we are all Americans first.'

Last night, if you remember on the program, I showed how many times over the years has the president condemned white supremacy, condemned the Klan, condemned David Duke. The media never points that out. And after the protest turned deadly, President Trump -- he immediately came out and immediately condemned what was going on. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides -- on many sides.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Strongest possible terms. And the ACLU says there were two sides here. All weekend long, the media in this country -- they were unhinged, pretending like they didn't know what the president was even talking about. They ran wild with a narrative that he didn't mention the groups by name, so somehow, that makes him sympathetic to these white supremacists.

President Trump once again -- he came out yesterday. He condemned what happened. He called out these groups by name. They don't pay attention to this part. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Hate groups, repugnant to everything we hold dear. But of course, that's not good enough for the media and the left wing in this country.

A quick sidebar. Where was the media what was it six weeks ago, a Bernie Sanders supporter, one of his supporters targeting Republicans at a baseball practice, leaving Congressman Steve Scalise, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, fighting for his life? The gunman had an assassination of Republicans list? Where was the media blaming the Democrats the same way they're now blaming Trump?

But back to the topic at hand. Once again, after condemning these groups, President Trump had to explain to the press exactly why he didn't immediately jump to conclusions, like, for example, President Obama did again and again when things happened. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Here's the thing. When I make a statement, I like to be correct.
I want the facts. This event just happened. In fact, a lot of the event didn't even happen yet as we were speaking. This event just happened.
Before I make a statement, I need the facts. So I don't want to rush into a statement, so making the statement when I made it was excellent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: President Trump -- really, when you think about it, he's right and we need to learn from the mistakes of Barack Obama. Nobody, especially the president of the United States, should ever rush to judgment and make a situation worse.

President Obama did it numerous times in these high-profile racial cases while he was president, and he rushed to conclusions before facts came out. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Cambridge police acted stupidly. There's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That's just a fact.

When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son.

And we have to close the justice gap, how justice is applied, but also how it is perceived, how it is experienced. That's what we saw in Ferguson this summer when Michael Brown was killed and the community was divided.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: President Obama rushed to judgment in four high-profile cases. He got the facts wrong in the end. And guess what? It led to false narratives being created, lies being spread, like Michael Brown, Hands up, don't shoot and that myth. I've covered these -- these issues in detail.

Then there's the issue of the leftists destroying public property, tearing down monuments, like we saw happening yesterday in Durham in North Carolina. You can disagree with these statements. You may not like these monuments. By the way, you can fight politically. You can shout people down and say anything you want to say. But is there not the rule of law that needs to be applied here?

In other words, you can go up so far with speech and say anything you want, but you can't punch. You can't beat -- you can't tackle. You can't fight with people just because you hate what they're saying even when what they say is disgusting. Interestingly, even the ACLU agrees with me and the president on that tonight.

The president also reacted to this issue. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of to them a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down -- excuse me! Are we going to take down -- are we going to take down statues to George Washington?

(CROSSTALK)

BANFIELD: How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? OK, good. Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner. Now, are we going to take his statue?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Joining us now, author of The New York Times best-seller -- we're now what, 10, 11 weeks on The New York Times list, 'Understanding Trump,' including number one, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

All right, I want to go over truth here because -- and as somebody that lived in Georgia and the South and Stone Mountain and what's happening to these monuments, I think you have a very, very unique perspective, and also the historical perspective you have. But I want to first go over the president repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly now for days has condemned white supremacism, David Duke, the Klan and all these groups.

And I watched the media today, and they go insane because he says, you know what? There was violence on both sides. Not all, but there was. And the media went insane because he said it. What's your reaction?

NEWT GINGRICH FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first of all, everybody who went insane is insane. The American Civil Liberties Union in their Twitter feed -- and I want to give DeSantis credit for tracking this down and getting it to me. The ACLU in their Twitter feed said both sides came for violence.

They said both -- they said -- the video you're looking at, you see people on the left who are being violent. You see people on the right who are being violent. The truth is, President Trump is telling the American people the truth, and the elite media hates it and the left hates it. And he's going right at the heart of the big lie on the left.

Most of the violence we've seen politically this year has been on the left.
They're not putting a $9,000 escape door into the chancellor of the University of California Berkeley's office to hide from right-wingers.
They're putting in there to hide from left-wing students. You know, the students at Middlebury College who blocked a conservative from speaking weren't on the right, they were on the left.

So let's be really clear here what we're faced with in this country. I think we should condemn neo-Nazis. They are an anti-Christian, totalitarian, anti-Semitic movement. We should be very tough on them. I think we should condemn racism. But frankly, I think we should condemn racism on both sides.

And I think you have a very strong case here that there are people who have been out there advocating shooting cops. Those weren't right-wingers. So let's be really clear. There's more than enough blame on both the right and the left to say, we’re tired of all of you, cut it out, or we're going to put you in jail.

HANNITY: Let me ask about the president saying -- you know, he spoke out on Saturday. I read his tweets again. He spoke out on Monday. He spoke out today. He said it again and again and again, specifically naming them. And he said that he waited until he had facts.

And I compared it to what Obama did. Obama rushed to judgment, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, Missouri, the Cambridge police, Freddie Gray, Baltimore -- was wrong on all counts because he didn't wait for evidence, testimony, facts to come in. Was it right for the president to condemn the hatred, what we saw on Saturday, wait for the facts and do what he did on Monday and today?

GINGRICH: Look, I have to confess Callista and I saw live on Saturday his statement. We both thought it was pretty clear and direct. And remember, this is a man who as a candidate repudiated David Duke, as a candidate...

HANNITY: I played it…

GINGRICH: ... repudiated the Ku Klux Klan.

HANNITY: Again and again!

GINGRICH: Yes. And by the way, this is a man who in his inaugural address says to the entire country, we all bleed the same color. You cannot be a patriotic American and be a racist. I mean, he's very clear. And -- so I think he's starting out Saturday thinking, I'm going to add to what I've already been saying.

And I suspect he was shocked at the level of hostility, including among some Republicans, that you had to be very specific. So he comes back, and he's very specific. I mean, how can you be more specific than this?
But then he makes the mistake of telling the truth about violence on the left. And so all of a sudden, the elite media has to go crazy again.

I just think it's time to draw a line in the sand and say everybody in this country who wants to lead a big lie, watch the elite media, watch the left-wing Democrats because they represent a big lie. It's worse than fake news. It is a big lie.

HANNITY: Let me -- you know, we've both lived in Georgia. And we now have instances and we have other cities, now Baltimore and all these other cities -- you saw it in Durham, North Carolina, yesterday, and it's like ripping down statues of our founders and our framers. The president talked today about, OK, yes, George Washington was a slave owner. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner.

Are we now heading towards a point -- and he said it's up to the states to decide -- where we are now going to watch history being removed from city after city after city. Is that where we're headed, for example, in Stone Mountain, Georgia? I know you've been to Stone Mountain. There is a carving on Stone Mountain. And you have the president of the Confederacy up there, Jefferson Davis and others. And is that going to be sandblasted next week?

GINGRICH: I actually asked that question in an email a while ago to a friend of mine. Look, let's be clear. I think it's perfectly reasonable for an African-American looking at somebody who fought to protect slavery to be deeply offended. Now, there's a huge difference between Washington and Jefferson and Jackson, who may have been slave owners, but they, in fact, were all moving towards a world that had less slavery, not a world that had more slavery.

But there's no question people were fighting to protect slavery, to protect slave trading. And let me also say for the audience -- I was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I grew up in an integrated United States Army. I moved to Georgia as a junior in high school. So those people are going to say, well, he's a Georgian, so he's going to (INAUDIBLE). I'm saying them as a historian.

I think if a city wants to take a statue out of the center of the city and put it in a museum that makes some sense. I don't think we want to be like the Taliban, who were destroying Buddhist temples. I don't -- or Buddhist statues. I don't think we want to be like ISIS, which was destroying historic monuments.

And you have a great deal of people on the left who if they could destroy our entire memory of America, they would wipe it out and we'd have no knowledge of what it meant to be an American. And we need to draw some lines in the sand.

HANNITY: Stay right there. We'll have more with Speaker Gingrich right after the break. Also, Laura Ingraham tonight. She'll weigh on the president and -- firing back earlier today and all the issues ahead, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: (INAUDIBLE) America. Do you think things have gotten worse or better since you took office?

TRUMP: I think they've gotten better or the same. Look, they've been frayed for a long time. And you can ask President Obama about that because he'd make speeches about it. But I believe that the fact that I brought in -- it will be soon -- millions of jobs -- you see where companies are moving back into our country. I think that's going to have a tremendous positive impact on race relations. And I'll tell you, we're spending a lot of money on the inner cities -- we're going to fix -- we're fixing the inner cities. We're doing far more than anybody's done with respect to the inner cities. It's a priority for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: That was the president earlier today addressing this week's violence in Charlottesville and the overall state of race relations in the U.S. We continue more with former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

Mr. Speaker, I watched the media that is just so openly hostile to him that it doesn't seem to matter anymore what he's going to say or do. And you have made this point many times on this program. But there's a pretty profound point there. If you look at the Obama years -- I've given the statistics many times, 50 million Americans in poverty, 50 million on food stamps, 13 million more on food stamps after Obama, 8 million more in poverty after Obama, lowest labor participation rate.

We now have a million new jobs, and what I hear the president saying is we fix the economy, we create an opportunity in society, if we build in job creation and create wealth and a prosperity in society, it goes a long way.
If every American has their shot at the American dream, does that help race relations in America?

GINGRICH: Well, look, I think you ought to draw a distinction. I think that for the average African-American, a better job, a safer neighborhood, a better school, greater opportunity to have a better future -- I think that does help and think it helps bring us together as a people.

On the other hand, there's an entire bloc of people now who want to use racism and left-wing ideology to deliberately, consciously split us. Many of these are in the elite media. They're doing it quite deliberately. And we have to have the guts to take them head on.

And we have to point out that, you know, it was not President Trump's policies that led 4,000 people to get shot in Chicago last year. It wasn't President Trump's policies that have made Baltimore a nightmare in terms of people getting killed.

What you've had is a decay in this country under left-wing policies that has led to dramatic depth of poverty, dramatic collapse of the law in some inner cities and a sense of helplessness.

I think Trump is the first real opportunity to begin to turn all of that around, starting by going after these renegade cities that refuse to get illegal criminals out of the city and refuse to cooperate with the federal government.

HANNITY: Let me -- you know, I'm not finished, fake news, and the president calling out the media repeatedly today. When he said it, I just openly laughed out loud because they are so hostile towards him. And they -- you know, all the times that he said everything that he said about white supremacy and the people responsible for hatred this weekend, it has no impact on them. They actually were trying to make the case after he made the comments on fake news, Oh, he just repudiated everything that he's been saying all weekend. And I'm, like, No, he didn't.

GINGRICH: Right. Look, I -- you made a point earlier that I really almost wanted to get into in the first segment, and that is what you -- the reason Obama was consistently wrong when he would get into these kind of problems is he took the view of the elite media, which is just wrong. The reason Trump is going to turn out to be right -- and as I said, it's the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, which has said he's right -- they didn't say he is right but they said it is correct to say that the violence in Charlottesville was on both sides.

Now, Trump, because he doesn't rely on The New York Times and The Washington Post, CBS News -- Trump is actually looking at reality. He's getting real reports from the Department of Justice. And he's also using his head. I mean, he's using common sense.

And I think it's important to recognize that the elite media is in a frenzy to undermine him and if possible drive him from office in what really is a news media coup against the people of the United States who have elected him president. He's supposed to get four years in office even if CNN doesn't like it or MSNB (sic) doesn't like it. But they're going to do everything they can to isolate him, drive him down and try to destroy him.

HANNITY: All right, Mr. Speaker, thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it.

When we come back, today President Trump called the driver who plowed his car into a group of people, killing one woman -- called him a murderer.
Laura Ingraham next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family, and this country. And that is, you can call it terrorism. You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict, that's what I call it. Because there is a question, is it murder.
Is it terrorism? At then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer. And what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: That was the president earlier today talking about the driver of the car that rammed into a group of protesters this past weekend in Charlottesville, killing one woman, injuring several others. Joining us now with reaction, editor in chief of Lifezette, Fox News contributor, Laura Ingraham. Let's respond to everything that the president said today. Let's get your overall impression.

LAURA INGRAHAM, EDITOR IN CHIEF, LIFEZETTE.COM: It was an interesting day to come out. He clearly was torched by the media's coverage and reaction to his first statement and then his follow-up statement. From his performance today, it's clear that he believes he really can't ever get credit from the media. They are never going to say good job on that. I'm glad you said that. They're not going to say that to him. And I think he's genuinely really frustrated by that, Sean. And so I think it spilled over in some of the back and forth with reporters. For a lot of us it was very entertaining.

HANNITY: I'm not finished, fake news.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I'm not done yet.

But I'm always thinking long term here. How does today advance the Trump agenda, whether it's infrastructure, which is the ostensible reason for that press conference, or tax reform or anything else? I'm not sure today advanced that interest, but it also did give Americans who are kind of tired of the hate and the extremism on both sides, I think it gave them a little bit of a breather to some extent in saying he's at least saying now that everybody seems to be out of control. Calm it down. Let's move forward, call this what it is, this was murder, terrorism, whatever you want to call it, but it's unacceptable in today's society.

I think he was unequivocal. I think he could have been that specific and that unequivocal as he was yesterday on Saturday, it probably would have been better for him and better for the long term of this country. But there are some people out there, they're never going to be satisfied with what he says. No matter what he says in response to any crisis, they are going to ridicule him or satirize him or say he's dumb or he doesn't really care, or he's in egomaniac, or pick your poison. He's not trying to satisfy them at this point.

HANNITY: They are actually saying what their narrative was all weekend.
Oh, the president must be racist. Oh, the president doesn't condemn white supremacists. I've now played the history of everything he said from the weekend about this incident, about white supremacy, about David Duke, et cetera, et cetera. He said at all.

There is a simple truth here, that there were people on the other side that did take to violence over this weekend. Were they the instigators? No. I blame the white supremacists. They showed up. There are some people who maybe have not white supremacist views who believe in heritage and history, et cetera, and who have other motivations on history at hand, yes, I believe that is true, too. Were there good people who wanted with righteous indignation go after white supremacists? Yes, they're good people, they're standing up against what is morally reprehensible. But as you watch this video and you see this fighting, there is violence there on both sides.

INGRAHAM: There's an interesting piece in 'The Daily Caller' that was just published I think this afternoon. One of the people who was at that event, from I guess the Unite the Right side, I don't even know what this group is, and just went through very specifically how the police failed to lead to crowd dispersed. In other words, that group, the rightwing group, or white supremacist group, I guess they weren't all white supremacist but some of the more, a lot of them were trying to get out of there. But they were all shuttled into this one area of the park where the Antifa crowd was waiting for them with rocks and bats and all the other things that they were throwing, and then it got more out of hand.

So I'm not taking anything away from the fact that the white supremacist who showed up, they showed up looking for trouble. I think a lot of them did. And they were the instigators here. But even the police chief yesterday said --

HANNITY: We're learning things, too. That's another issue, and where was Terry McAuliffe and the National Guard? And how much did they know ahead of time? And why didn't they respond? What did you think about the president's comments when he starts talking about, OK, it's up to states and local municipalities what they want to do in terms of dealing with history, he goes, where does it end? He brought up Washington, slaveholder. He brought up Jefferson, slaveholder. Where does it end, Laura?

INGRAHAM: Where is the litmus test? Where is it written? I understand that there is this newfound outrage and level of offense that it has reached this fever pitch about these statues. I think a lot of people have driven by these statues probably for decades and never thought twice about them, but now they've become a political symbol.

And if it's a symbol that represents the racist past or any vestige of a racist past of the south, then they're going to be able then that has to go, too. I don't know how far they want to take it. I said this morning, maybe they will take it to certain books that they think are offensive, or certain speakers on college campuses who are offensive. It's a symbol and people can do what they want with symbols. They can vote to get rid of all of them. And then I think we have to ask the question, what next? How are we going to heal as a nation, condemn that which is evil, and then come together as a country?

HANNITY: Laura Ingraham, good to see you. Thanks for being with us, as always.

When we come back, Democrats continue to attack the president over his response to Charlottesville. And the president fired back hard today. We've got more of his take down. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JONATHAN SERRIE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening. I'm Jonathan Serrie live in Homewood, Alabama. Throughout this state, election night watch parties continue. This one behind me going on for one of the candidates, Luther Strange. In tonight's special election, a total of nine Republicans and seven Democrats are vying for the Senate seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The Associated Press now projects former U.S. attorney Doug Jones winning the Democratic primary outright, surpassing that 50 percent threshold needed to win outright. But the AP predicts the Republicans are heading to a September runoff between former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a favorite among religious conservatives, and Luther Strange who was appointed to fill the vacant Senate seat back in February and enjoys the support of President Trump and establishment conservatives.

Live in Alabama, Jonathan Serrie, Fox News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct, not make a quick statement. The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement. But you don't make statements that direct unless you know the fact. It takes a little while to get the facts. You still don't know the facts. And it's a very, very important process to me. And it's a very important statement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: That was the president earlier today explaining his original statement about the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday.

Here with reaction, senior fellow at Freedom Works and host of 'The C.L. Bryant Show', syndicated on Red State talk radio, Reverend C.L. Bryant, FOX News contributor Deroy Murdock. You watched the presser today. The president blamed both sides for the violence. Similarly we got that from one of the local chapters of the ACLU. They went on to say not sure who provoked first. Both sides were hitting each other. It seems like the media can't handle what is obviously a truth.

DEROY MURDOCK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think that's the case. They want to blame everything on one side. There is violence on both sides. If I remember the timeline correctly, the time the first statement was made it was not exactly clear who drove the car into the crowd. I think a lot of people assumed the neo-Nazi did. It turned out that's the case. But I think when the statement was made that wasn't entirely clear yet.

And again, I said this last night. There's a names involved all this, James Alex Fields Jr. We don't hear that name at all. This is not part of the discussion. And he is the person that police arrested for driving that car into this crowd of protesters, killing one person and injuring 19 others. And his name is not part of the debate, not part of the discussion. I don't see any anger directed against the person who gunned the engine and slammed into these people. It's all directed against President Trump as if he were the person behind the wheel of the car.

HANNITY: How many times, Reverend, I know you come from the ministry. I know we believe in forgiveness, we've all sinned, fallen short. And you come from a much better place in life than I am, and I mean that with all due deference to the fact that you're a reverend. How many times of the president has to say he condemns white supremacists, that he condemns David Duke, that he condemns neo-Nazis. He said it. We played a montage of him saying it again and again. We played what he said on Saturday, we played what he said yesterday, and he said again today. And the media is like, oh, he's taking back his statements. I don't see it.

REV. C.L. BRYANT, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: The president, Sean, is showing incredible courage and incredible grace under fire. The identity politics that the left is trying to play here is fed with the flames of emotionalism centered around race. And that is the only way that they have been able to capture and keep a voting bloc for over 60 years.

I was born and Confederate Memorial Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. And Sean, I am a living, breathing testament that monuments and symbols and those types of things do not hinder the American dream for anyone who wants to achieve it. And this president in my estimation is about restoring the American dream, which does, by the way, restore America to greatness.

HANNITY: That was the message. The racial issues of this country, the ladder of success, the opportunity, I know you talk a lot about this over the years, both of you. What about the president saying, OK, local municipalities decide what monuments they want or don't want. But where does it end? Washington, Slaveholder. Jefferson?

MURDOCK: Why call it Washington, D.C.? Why don't we rename the capital of the United States? He was a slave owner. Ulysses S. Grant, most people don't know, he owned a slave. Let's blow up Grant's tomb. Let's get rid of that. Let's say we took all of the Confederate statues away and we melted them down into steel ingots. What does that do for job creation in black communities? How does it make any black school any better? How does that improve health care for black Americans across the country? So again, we've focused on a very interesting and exciting issue, not on the important things we need.

HANNITY: The media doesn't take it that way. It seems like there's nothing he can do that is ever going to satisfy them. And the breathlessness, hysterical, louder coverage, coverage, coverage.

MURDOCK: On Saturday he denounced the KKK and the neo-Nazis, they would say what about David Duke? If he denounced David Duke, they would say but what about Richard Spencer? If he denounced Spencer they'd say how come he didn't denounce --

HANNITY: You've been a conservative how many years?

MURDOCK: Me? Since about ninth grade.

HANNITY: I'm a Reagan conservative. I don't know those people. Do you?

MURDOCK: I've been attending conservative meetings since I was probably in high school. I don't know who the alt-right are. I go to CPAC, I go to meetings here in New York and across the country. I don't see these alt- right people. There may be a small handful of them somewhere, but that is not anywhere near the majority. It's a tiny, tiny, tiny piece of the right. I don't accept them as conservatives.

HANNITY: All right, guys, good to see you both. Thank you.

And when we come back, wow, huge news. Clinton email scandal, what happened on the tarmac. Bill Clinton, Loretta Lynch, news tonight, a huge development. Jay Sekulow, Gregg Jarrett weigh in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY. So on this program we've been calling for a special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton and numerous scandals.
And now the Washington times is reporting, quote, 'Clinton email case far from closure as the FBI hands over more classified documents to State.'
And tonight, the American Center for Law and Justice is reporting that the FBI is reopening its FOIA request into the Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting, and much more.

Here with reaction, one of the president's attorneys, chief counsel, American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow, FOX News anchor, attorney Gregg Jarrett. You were lied to on the FBI originally on your FOIA request. They said no such documents exist. There in fact was a back-and- forth between the FBI and the Justice Department, what, 481 pages. They actually put talking points together, and they're not supposed to be political. And they never sent you the talking points, they just put a black page up. Where are we now?

JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: So let me tell you what's happened. So we put in the request, and it says on the lettered the meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former president Bill Clinton. And the FBI came back with an initial letter saying there are no documents that we have pursuant to your request, those documents don't exist.

We then did the same request to the Department of Justice. They didn't respond at all. So we went to federal court. We got a court order demanding release of the documents, and lo and behold we get those documents two weeks ago, in it are documents between the FBI and the Department of Justice and vice versa. And of course the FBI was saying we had no such documents.

So we obviously raised it right here on your broadcast. We raised it with the lawyers at the various departments, including the Department of Justice. And a really unprecedented -- and by the way, in those email exchanges, one of the email exchanges actually involved not just somebody in the FBI but the chief of staff to James Comey receiving, quote, 'information on talking points' on how to handle the Clinton Lynch meeting that took place in Arizona. But Sean, we put a lot of pressure on the FBI to do what's right since we got the documentation.

HANNITY: But you were lied to, and you don't have the talking points that the DOJ and FBI should never -- what are you holding up? I can't see it.

SEKULOW: I'm holding here a letter from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that says they have reopened the FOIA request and are now going through the documents to give us the documents that are relevant to our inquiry.

And as it relates to the so-called talking points, this was in crisis management mode for the Department of Justice with Loretta Lynch the entire time. And by the way, James Comey made a big deal about that when he came out about Hillary Clinton in July of last year saying, when he testified earlier this year. He said it was that interchange at the tarmac that got me so concerned. His chief of staff knew about it within hours after it happened. So that's number one.

He didn't bother, by the way, to go back over to the Department of Justice and say this may be a violation of existing law and statutes. He didn't bother to do that. So I just want to be on the record on that.

But number two, and this is important, Sean, the FBI has now reopened it.
But you're right, they redacted not one-page email, a three-page email with the talking points.

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS ANCHOR AND ATTORNEY: And the redaction, by the way, they claimed a particular privilege. I looked it up, the deliberations privilege. It doesn't apply to this case. Talking points don't constitute a deliberative movement. And so the privilege that they're citing on the redaction is absurd. It's also absurd that there were never, as James Comey said, any documents. He signed a letter saying under penalty of perjury there are no documents relating to the tarmac meeting. Now we know there are hundreds of them.

So there are three possibilities here. Either Comey lied, or he didn't understand the request.

HANNITY: His general counsel and chief of staff got the request. It's kind of hard for me to believe that he didn't know.

JARRETT: Either they lost the documents and they've suddenly been found, or they lied when they said there were no documents, or they didn't understand the request. The request, by the way, is standard boilerplate that every lawyer is familiar with, hand over all documents pertaining to the tarmac meeting, that's everything.

SEKULOW: But there's something. There's something else here, Sean, really quick. And that is the letter from the FBI denying that there was any information relevant to us was signed by the same section chief for the record information dissemination unit, the same one that signed almost a year ago exactly when they said there was nothing, signed by the same guy who came back and now has said, whoops, we're going to go back and check, because obviously they know we got those documents.

HANNITY: On a scale of one to 10, how big is this, Jay?

SEKULOW: I think this is very significant, I would give it a 10, and I'll tell you why. There is something, just think about what took place in the tarmac. That is not the way equal justice -- that's been the theme of this. That is not the way equal justice under the law is supposed to work.

HANNITY: That's been my point forever, and I agree with you. Guys, good to see you both. We'll stay on all these issues. There's a lot of news every night.

When we come back, an important 'Question of the Day' straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY. Time for our 'Question of the Day.' How do you think the president did today as he went into -- my favorite line was, 'I'm not finished, fake news.' Just go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.

Remember, this show is the fairness and balance to the establishment, anti- Trump, destroy-Trump media. That's all the time we have left. Thanks for being with us as always. We will see you back here, God willing, tomorrow night.

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