Sebastian Gorka and Herman Cain on the 'fake news epidemic'
Fox News contributors speak out on 'Hannity' about examples of media malpractice.
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," January 5, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Welcome to the special edition of "Hannity."
The fake news epidemic and tonight for the hour, we're going to show you the worst of the worst examples from the mainstream media and their unprecedented assault against President Trump. Now, this includes the top fake news anchors, reporters, the biggest anti-Trump print media outlets and the most inexcusable example of the media spreading fake news to you the American people.
We'll also show you President Trump's most epic takedowns of the liberal mainstream media.
After announcing his campaign, the president had faced an onslaught of historically negative media coverage and on Monday, the president will continue to fight back against these attacks by unveiling what he's calling the most dishonest and corrupt media awards of the year.
Now, before we get to all of that it's important to show you just how abusively biased the anti-Trump media really is and it starts with the media saying Donald Trump would never win, would never become the president. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do it. Do it. Look at me. Do it. I will personally write a campaign check now, on behalf of this country, which does not want you to be president but which badly wants you to run.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This man has got some momentum and we better be ready for the fact that he may be leading the Republican ticket.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know you don't believe that, but I want to go on.
(LAUGHTER)
BILL MAHER, HBO HOST: Which Republican candidate has the best chance of winning the general election?
ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Of the declared ones? Right now, Donald Trump.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Trump to answer your call for political honesty, I just want to say: you're not going to be president, all right? It's been fun.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: President Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States! @RealDonaldTrump.
@RealDonaldTrump, at least I will go down as a president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And then on election night, after Trump stunning victory, it was like a funeral for the mainstream media. You may remember some of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America is crying tonight, I'm not sure how much of America but a very, very significant portion and I mean literally crying. This is a sadness. It is a mourning moment for those people, and it is a -- it is a moment filled with fear, filled with fear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our country is about to face some serious crises. And so, I mean, buckle up, your country needs you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a pretty extraordinary thing to say. If you have a son in the Marine Corps and that you don't trust the commander-in-chief, they're people in the military, defend the Constitution.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a white lash. This was a white lash against a changing country. It was a white lash against a black president in part.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And since the election, the media has done everything possible to try and damage President Trump by pushing, of course, the Trump Russia, Russia, Russia collusion narrative, despite no evidence whatsoever at this point.
Look at this non-stop shameful coverage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think this is a potentially more dangerous situation than Watergate, and we're at a very dangerous moment. And that's because we are looking at the possibility that the president of the United States and those around him during an election campaign colluded with a hostile foreign power to undermine the basis of our democracy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump is afraid. A political hurricane is out there at sea for him we'll call it hurricane Vladimir, if you will, the whole Russian thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is evidence of willingness to commit collusion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's outright treason. I mean, there is no question that what he is doing is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Specifically, Willie, I think what it means is that a federal judge found that people in Trump's organization were colluding with the Russians.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But first, we want to start with this week in Russia-gate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is as if there are no shoes on the Trump human centipede that are not about Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This cloud about collusion with Russia will hang over him no matter where he stand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It certainly feels like we're in the opening stages of a devastating political chapter in American history. Evidence is mounting for the president's meddling in the Russia probe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tom Friedman said the election hacking is at the caliber of a Pearl Harbor or a 9/11. Do you agree with that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I completely agree with that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump now sits at the threshold of impeachment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I personally think it's over. I don't think there's anything that can be done that can stop this at this point, cacophony, this gushing of lies, problems, questions, chaos that will stop this presidency in its tracks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You told The Washington Post last week that, quote, there's a smell of treason in the air when it comes to this investigation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people are afraid to use the T-word, treason, but in the end, that's what people are investigating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does look like collusion. It does look like he's listening to Putin more than he is American intelligence and, frankly, I've never seen that before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Pretty unbelievable.
Joining us now with reaction, former deputy assistant to the president, Fox News contributor, Sebastian Gorka, and Fox News contributor Herman Cain.
You know, Dr. Gorka, they never expected this. They couldn't -- they were shocked by it all. It was a funeral on November 8th, 2016. But the worst part is ever since there's been an effort to undo or to delegitimize this president and get him out of office any by any means necessary. So, it gets really serious.
SEBASTIAN GORKA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. I mean, not only did they not expect it, remember what The New York Times and The Huffington Post said, on the night of the election, Hillary has more than a 95 percent chance of winning.
Not only do they not expect it, they still can't believe it. For all the talk in this awful new book and across the media about mental competence in the White House, do you know who needs mental help, Sean? All the people you just showed in your montage.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: They do.
GORKA: They need mental health professionals to help them.
I just had a journalist asked me today based upon the Michael Wolff book, is it true that the president doesn't like anyone touching his toothbrush? Sean, that's journalism. Journalism.
North Korea has nuclear missiles. The president's defeated ISIS. China's on the march. I mean, and they want to talk about the president's toothbrush? This is a bad skit. It's insanity.
HANNITY: It is a form of insanity, I'm not disagreeing with you.
Herman Cain, you experienced all this firsthand. You can speak from experience --
HERMAN CAIN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
HANNITY: -- how bad this is, but it's still a lot worse for President Trump.
CAIN: It is, and that opening montage was fantastic. It shows that the joke's on the jokesters and the lies on the liberals. And it also indicates as Mr. Corker alluded to that TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, is an addiction because the results don't matter. They don't care about the results of 2017. It's all about Trump derangement syndrome.
And if I can borrow up a metaphor from Mike Huckabee, addicts that are drug addicts, some of them recover. But the media TDS addicts, they show no signs of recovery. They are in a hole and they keep digging, and they can't get out. That's what this illustrates and is sad for the country because we have dependence so long on the media to give us the truth. And now we know that they cannot, they are incapable of being able to do that.
HANNITY: You know, Dr. Gorka, as you look at, you know, then the year of really trying to get them out of office. That's what their goal has been.
GORKA: Yes.
HANNITY: But if at a lower level is to delegitimize and the words, the adjectives that are used on an hourly basis on cable TV and in supposedly, you know, hard news journalistic centers, ABC, CBS, NBC is the worst, and you know, Washington Post, New York Times, that they use to describe the president. Are they hurt in the office?
GORKA: They're hurting the whole country, Sean. This is the duly elected president of the most powerful nation in the world and they don't recognize that he is the president. They use the kinds of language we've never ever seen before, not with Nixon, not with Reagan. They are doing things that are utterly outrageous for a blogger to do on mainstream cable television.
But, Sean, can I tell you the good news?
HANNITY: Sure.
GORKA: The good news is very simple -- FOX, you, your colleagues are crushing it with viewers like 3 million, 4 million people a night. Anderson Cooper cracks open a bottle of champagne at 600,000 people watching. They are becoming irrelevant.
I'm an American citizen now, and I'm proud to be. And, you know, what defines us common sense. When you get out of the bubble, they couldn't care less about Michael Wolff. They couldn't care less about Don Lemon. They want to see their paycheck in February be bigger than it was in January. They want to see ISIS crushed.
So, the American people see through the lies and they tune in to your show, and that's great news.
HANNITY: What do you make Herman of the -- what I call, this is the year of the boomerang. In other words, now we know that the Clinton Foundation is and has been for months investigated which it should be. Now we know they've reopened an investigation into the email server scandal. Then we know that Comey and Peter Strzok literally rigged that investigation months before writing an exoneration letter before an investigation.
All of these things now and Trump-Russia collusion dying out, it seems that there's been a dramatic turn of events that the media never expected. Did they ever admit at some point they were wrong about Trump and Russia? Do they look at Hillary Clinton funding a dossier full of lies, Russian propaganda, lies and salacious material and say that could be collusion? Was it used for a FISA warrant?
I mean, to me, this is all flipped on them.
CAIN: They will never admit it. Now, remember the case on Hillary Clinton was closed during the Obama administration. It has now been reopened under the Trump administration and even though Jeff Sessions gets a lot of criticism, I happen to believe based upon all the reports and the information we know and based upon the outrage of Congress, I happen to believe based upon that alone, Hillary is going down.
Secondly, it is clear that the liberals and the Democrats have only one strategy and it was used decades ago. If you keep telling a lie often enough, over and over and over, sooner or later, some people are going to believe it. The thing is most of the people that already believe in a lie are already believing a lie. They aren't going to convert new people who are conservative voices out there.
Even though we are outnumbered, Sean, I truly believe we are saving some of savable.
HANNITY: All right. Thank you both for being with us. We really appreciate it.
A lot more to get to on this busy news night. We're going to give you an opportunity to weigh in who do you think is more guilty, what network is most guilty of providing fake news, what anchor, what newspaper. Coming up as we continue the special edition of "Hannity," we will pick the worst of the worst in fake news media. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity."
All right. Since President Trump took office last January, there's been no shortage of negative nasty downright biased coverage from the mainstream media and their favorite anchors.
Tonight, we're going to show you some of the very worst offenders and we start with fake news Jake Tapper over at CNN fake news.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: It may be difficult for some of you at home to wrap your minds around a U.S. president who make statements like this about the use of nuclear weapons which would, of course, murder millions of people. None of this normal, none of this acceptable, none of this frankly stable behavior.
Your behavior is causing great concern among the majority of the American people.
Every single one of the president's wounds is self-inflicted, every single one of them. So I don't really understand the propensity for self-pity at a time like this.
If you are a hungry child in Appalachia or the inner city, if you are an unemployed worker in a hollow shell of a steel town, that's not a president who seemed rather focused on your particular needs and wants.
The people around President Trump who are enabling this nonsense, the ones who know better, you have to ask yourself this question -- are you really serving the president? Are you really serving the American people?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Yes, of course. He prefers presidents like Clinton and Obama. You know, they try to bribe murdering dictators. And, by the way Jake Tapper, is only one of the many Trump haters over at fake news CNN, including their so-called White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
Take a look at some of his worst moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What we're witnessing right now is just this erosion of our freedoms in terms of covering the president United States.
I think that there are moments when this president is just really sensitive to criticism and he lashes out in this fashion.
That is just a strange and unpresidential thing to do to be throwing rolls of paper towels at people.
The last three news conferences, Wolf, all of the questions to the American news media have been handled by conservative press. And I think, Wolf, there's no other way to describe it but the fix is in.
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHEN MILLER, TRUMP ADVISOR: Jim, I appreciate your speech.
ACOSTA: I think we saw the president's true colors today and I'm not sure they were red, white and blue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Wow. Not to be outdone by CNN, you have conspiracy TV MSNBC. They've also been broadcasting a non-stop Trump hate-fest over the past year. It's especially true of holy host Joy Reid who never mass her hostility towards the president.
Here's a few of her highlights, well, low lights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: It does seem that Donald Trump has the tools of authoritarianism down. He's got the dance of authoritarianism down to a science.
Donald Trump has been publicly vulgar and venal, his whole adult life.
Look, this is an administration that at the same time, they're jet-setting around the country on luxury planes is also plotting to cut their own taxes by billions and billions of dollars.
I don't think that he understands the human scale of misery. I don't think that he can connect with the sort of compassion that you normally have when you see a disaster like that.
You have the religious right that has built itself on this idea of sort of moral superiority.
They are foursquare behind a guy who thinks Second Corinthians is 2 Corinthians who's had three wives, five babies with three baby mamas. What is this about?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And, of course, we can't forget about cable news' most cringe-worthy couple, of course, liberal Joel and Mika, whose biased and deranged coverage of President Trump frankly is unmatched by anybody.
Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: You have somebody inside the White House that The New York Daily News says is mentally unfit, that people close to him say is mentally unfit, that people close to him during the campaign told me had early stages of dementia.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: You can say that's not OK.
SCARBOROUGH: But it is OK to say we -- what are we supposed to say this? After the first nuclear missile goes?
He looked like a thug. He looked like a goon. You look at the handshake at -- you look with -- look at -- look at this. Just what a thug. What an embarrassment.
Look, he's mauling him like an idiot. You can absolutely, there -- it's just -- what an embarrassment to the United States.
BRZEZINSKI: Optics matter. It is a terrible thing to question someone's patriotism, but you wonder what he cares about.
They see no talent. They see absolutely nothing behind the eyes that they can work with.
This presidency is rotten all the way to the core and right to the top. You got to stop putting Kellyanne on the air. It's politics porn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: They seem mentally unfit to host a cable show.
Here with reaction, author of the bestseller, "Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency", Fox News contributor David Bossie, conservative commentator Monica Crowley, and The Hill's Joe Concha.
Joe, you actually -- you have the great distinct honor, privilege and pleasure. You watch this daily. It's now become every minute -- tell me where I'm wrong here -- basically every minute of every day Trump, Trump, Trump. And they're all living in this bubble and trying to outdo each other. If one says, he's deranged, no, no, he's super, super deranged. You're wrong, I'm right.
JOE CONCHA, THE HILL: The numbers support you, Sean.
HANNITY: What's that?
CONCHA: The numbers support you. A Pew research just put out a study last month, and it's an end-of-year analysis.
And they found that President Trump received and I hope you're sitting down at home, 5 percent positive coverage, which is fascinating when you look at the five big indicators that Trump was voted in on. Economy doing well, jobs doing well, caliphate ISIS nearly decimated, immigration still has some work to do, health care didn't work out. When you look at all those grades, they can't possibly come to five percent.
Now, when you compare that to the previous president, he only received in Obama 20 percent negative. Coverage Trump five percent positive coverage, Obama 20 percent negative. The numbers simply don't match up.
And what I'd like to see, Sean, the economy gets little coverage. And I just don't want to see charts and I don't want to hear about the numbers, the numbers are fine. That's great.
I want see reporters get out of New York and Washington where they're doing all this pontificating and actually talk to people in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and I want to see if the economic effects are real because that's where he got voted in and that's why he got voted in and that's real journalism and we're not seeing it being done because it's lazy, and it doesn't fit the narrative.
HANNITY: You know, Monica -- it's kind of -- maybe I should be really happy because they all regurgitate each other. So, it leaves it wide open for me and now, we see that a lot of what we've talked about in the last year about the Clinton Foundation and about the email server now coming to true.
MONICA CROWLEY, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: You're way ahead of your time, Sean, because you were actually reporting facts and the truth.
Look, the elite mainstream media has always had a left-wing bias, we know that. But what's different this time in the Trump era is the level of intensity and activism we see on their part, and that is driven by a profound hatred for this president.
They hate his style. They hate the way he talks, the way he moves. They hate his wealth. They hate his politics and the most important thing that they despise, Sean, is the fact that Donald Trump is not one of them.
He represents an existential threat to them, to the ruling class, and that's why they are pulling out all the stops in order to try to destroy him, because if he's allowed to succeed, it's over for them.
What they seem incapable of grasping, Sean, or maybe they don't want to is that the constant pounding that we get from them on Donald Trump helps him. It helps him because he's getting it done on the economy. I just wrote a column today for The Hill about this laying out all of the economic numbers and how he is getting this job done on the economy, all of this criticism, this constant barrage helps him because it creates a rallying effect around this president who was actually delivering greater prosperity for the American people.
HANNITY: David Bossie, you know you wrote a book "Let Trump Be Trump", you were there, I was there, I never heard of a guy Papadopoulos, you would think that he was the most prominent man on the campaign if you watched these cable channels. I don't know if you knew him at all, but I did -- I did not know him and I think you guys saw me an awful lot on the campaign, probably more than you wanted.
And then you know Michael Wolff is writing a book, but he's saying, well, it may not be totally accurate and I can speak for myself things in the book he wrote about me are not true.
DAVID BOSSIE, "LET TRUMP BE TRUMP" AUTHOR: Yes.
HANNITY: And, you know --
BOSSIE: Sean, this is just outrageous. What Michael Wolff, this purveyor of National Enquirer on steroids, sensationalist book that -- you know, it's not even a book. It's just a tabloid. It is -- it is outrageous what he has gotten away with in being able to put this book together and put it out there for the American people.
And this mainstream, you know, mania. The media just all glomming on to the sensational side of this inaccurate book. We put our book up against this side by side and we see the inaccuracies and it is we did -- and Corey Lewandowski and I wrote this book and it was an insider's point of view.
HANNITY: And you were there.
BOSSIE: And we were there, and we look at just the excerpts because we just got the book today, but just in the excerpts, we find false information, facts and lies throughout the book.
So, people cannot take this book as the truth. And it is so dishonest and it's just -- it's a tragedy what this is doing to take us off the agenda of what this president has done for the American people over this last year.
HANNITY: So, Joe what do we expect this year? In my view, the media has never going to get better. They don't admit they're wrong. Hell's going to freeze over first.
BOSSIE: You know, Trump-Russia collusion starts like -- I'll give you an example. You know, 60 hours ago, they were all saying nuclear wars coming. Then as soon as Steve Bannon is believed to have attacked the president, let's change on in time don't worry about nuclear warfare for the moment, let's go back to this, let's go back to palace intrigue.
CONCHA: Yes, the Michael Wolff book is gossip that's treated as gospel. I'm not saying the entire book is gossip, but Michael Wolff to your point has admitted that he has actually taken parts out of it and drawn his own conclusions when he says that the president never met John Boehner and then I do a search that takes about 15 seconds that shows that the president has tweeted about Boehner 23 times and actually gulped about him last year.
When stories like that don't pan out, then what are we supposed to believe within this particular book? And it goes to a theme of 2017, basing stories on unnamed sources which in many cases is gossip, political operatives pushing a false narrative and the American people are getting it, Sean.
Let me cite one more poll from you from Politico. Forty-six percent of the American public, it's not Republicans, 46 percent of the American public believes that the media is fabricating stories about this administration, and the president knows that and that's why he's holding this fake news awards show on Monday because he knows that's an unpopular institution which is as old as the city itself, you attack when they're unpopular.
HANNITY: And that's why we put this tape of the show together tonight, Monica, because it's so important. As there's so much material, I could probably just run the tape and everyone will get the message.
CROWLEY: Yes, I mean -- look, Sean, they need to destroy this man because if he succeeds, it's over for them as I said. So, what they try to do is take any conservative or any Republican president and try to paint them as crazy, evil or stupid. In Trump's case, they're trying to paint him as all three in order to try to make him not worthy of this office and set the grounds for his removal. The fact that this man is still standing, given this brute constant barrage is in itself a miracle.
HANNITY: Yes.
David Bossie, we'll give you the last word. Does this continue all through his presidency? And I would argue that if the economy keeps growing and there's -- and he stays strong against radical Islam and protects the homeland, I don't think he'll have a hard time winning reelection.
BOSSIE: Well, I think the left is going to work incredibly hard every day against him. I think they're going to continue this false narrative that he is all of these things that Monica was just talking about.
And remember, they did these same things to Ronald Reagan. When Ronald Reagan became president, they said he takes naps, he doesn't understand, he doesn't know.
HANNITY: Not this bad, though.
BOSSIE: But, you know, they called him a cowboy. They called him crazy. But it was never this bad, because of the national news today is different. Twitter and Facebook and all of the social media just continues the narrative from the left and it's an unfair thing for this president. But he is head down doing the work that he got elected to do.
That is the most important thing. If you look at the economy, look at the decimation of ISIS, our national security, the hope, growth and opportunity that he has brought back to America. You see these companies giving these bonuses to their employees based on their tax bill. These are people who are going to get to tax cuts. Not only the one from the federal government but they are going to get a second check. That is what the mainstream media does not talk about.
HANNITY: It's so corrupt. There's so dishonest. There is so much lying going on to the American people. All right good insight all three of you and Happy New Year to you all, when we come back, the media has been caught red-handed spreading fake news on major stories. We'll show you these major mistakes on this special edition of "Hannity" continues
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HANNITY: Welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity," 2017 was a pretty rough year for the mainstream media in their rush to attack President Trump, many fake news mistakes were made. Perhaps the worst example is from ABC news. last year, Brian Ross, he was suspended for ABC for four weeks without pay for this false report claiming that during the campaign, candidate Trump told Lieutenant General Michael Flynn to reach out to Russia, take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is prepared to testify against President Trump and members of Trump family and others in the White House. He is prepared to testify that President Trump as a candidate directed him to make contact with the Russians which contradicts all that he has said at this point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Of course he was completely wrong and hours later he had to issue a correction, watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A clarification tonight on something one of Flynn's confidante told us that we reported earlier today, he said the president asked Flynn to contact Russia during the campaign, he is now clarifying that, saying according to Flynn, candidate Trump asking during the campaign to find ways to repair relations with Russia and other hots spots and then after the election the president-Elect told him to contact Russia on issues including working together to fight ISIS.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now there's a huge difference between candidates Trump and president-Elect Trump, asking General Flynn to contact soon to be Russian counterparts, but ABC news isn't the only outlet caught reporting false stories, fake news, CNN the Clinton news network had several high-profile fake news stories like this report from early last month, take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: CNN has exclusive new details about the message sent in the final stretch of the 2015 campaign, offering access to hacked WikiLeaks documents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This email on September 4th of 2016 was sent to Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump organization.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The timeline is important because it September 4th that was a month after the DNC was hacked and after their own emails became leaked and it was a month before Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails were leaked by WikiLeaks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And of course that story proved to be completely false as well. Don't forget back in June three CNN employees resigned over a story about a top Trump ally and a Russian investment bank, they had to retract that in December. One of the dishonest Washington Post reporters David Weigel, he posted a picture from President Trump's rally showing a small crowd, the sarcastic caption reads packed to the rafters and it was taken before everyone had come in. He had to apologize and then deleted the tweet. If spreading fake news wasn't the only major problem for the media in 2017, they also had some ridiculous examples of "so-called reporting." Let us watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president gets two scoops and everyone else on the table gets one, no word if there was sprinkles.
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At the dessert course he gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate cream pie instead of the singles scoop for everyone else.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be like somebody scooping on their pants and keep looking at them and that is modern art, don't you understand? I am making a statement against Russian aggression.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put it back in the bed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does that have to do with anything?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is in the front window. It's better when you see it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the president putting it in the wrong place.
MOOS: If you think you had an ear full of Donald Trump, check out what's in the ear of a beagle in Britain named chief. Brace yourself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right joining us now former secret service agent Dan Bongino, Fox news contributor, former Congressman Jason Chaffetz, radio talk show host, Fox news contributor Tammy Bruce, Dan, I look at all of this, it's beyond superfluous on some level, but then it's outright evil on another level. When you start trying to delegitimize a duly elected president thrown out of office.
DAN BONGINO, FORMER SECRET AGENT SERVICE: You know it's comically ironic about this? We're supposed to take the media, elite advice on economics, on education policy and health care, and they can't even get a journalism right. You had one job, just get the facts right. Really perverse incentive for the media to get Trump out of office. You saw this thing about a new expose, George Papadopoulos started the whole investigation into the dossier and everything.
The same outlets that reported this reported last summer that Carter Page did it. Did they not find it strange? The classic example was the print outlets reporting on Trump being wiretapped and then Trump tweets he is wiretapped in the very same outlets write stories that he is crazy for saying he was wiretapped. Good job, you guys are great.
HANNITY: Congressman Chaffetz, there's another side of this we've now seen in the last 24 hours. The Clinton foundation has been investigated, now being investigated for months. And Hillary Clinton's email server and that investigation is now ongoing. There's big stories out here that they are not reporting on that could have severe consequences and I will argue this may be bigger than Watergate by a long shot when it's all done, thoughts.
JASON CHAFFETZ, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: It was June of 2015 when I sent the very first letter to the Obama administration highlighted the problems with uranium one, a seven page letter, highlighting all the details. I followed up in October. Do you think there's one person in the mainstream media who cover that story? None. Absolutely none. One of the things it would most outrageous to me was one TIME magazine put Donald Trump Jr. on the cover saying caught red-handed. It was totally misleading.
The same time this mainstream media tries to highlight the Obama administration as being a scandal free. Everything from fast and furious to the IRS to the Hillary Clinton email scandal, to lowest learner, do you think any of them put them on the cover of TIME magazine? No. These were real scandals, look at Benghazi, people were killed and they didn't get on the cover of TIME magazine. They put Donald Trump Jr. on there.
HANNITY: Tammy, what's your take on this, where does this go?
TAMMY BRUCE, RADIO SHOW HOST: Let's not forget about Brian Ross. Right after that report to the stock market went down 350 points. There are real-world repercussions when they lie or mislead. This is why I kind of like the Michael Wolff book. It's nothing new, it's what newspapers and so-called journalists have been doing at The New York Times, The Washington Post on page ten when he says some of this is not really true, but I'm good to let the reader decide and determine what it is that they like.
HANNITY: By the way, what a standard that is.
BRUCE: That is my point. That is exactly what the American media has been doing. Now at least Michael Wolff has been admitted to, this is what the president has been dealing with for a year and a half. We have to give him all the credit. Finally we are now saying it's not just the difference in opinions, it's about real misleading of Americans to where we don't even trust who we should be able to trust, get information we should believe in in. The CDC is having a meeting on the briefing on how Americans can survive a nuclear war. I would like to see the media cover that, but at this point the standard is we are not going to do with the truth is but if it confirms our bias, we are going to put it out there and let you decide whether you like it or not. That is what it has devolved into. Right now the president is the one we can trust at this stage.
HANNITY: Dan, I showed last night Ronald Reagan, evil empire. The media thought he was going to start a nuclear war. George W. Bush, axis of evil. They thought he was going to start Armageddon. If you don't try and bribe murdering dictators and appease them with billions of tax dollars like Clinton and Obama, anything you say that might sound a little tough to a two bit rocket man dictator, you know, offends them, not the guy that is threatening to hit the button that is on his desk, it's the president there offended that, you better not to do it, we'll hit you back much harder.
BONGINO: Who gives a hoot what they think anymore? The foreign policy intelligentsia on the North Korean issue, Palestinian issue, and Russia issue has been telling us for years what to do, diplomacy, by them off, money, these various solutions they put out there in their 35 page white papers and you know what, they were wrong on every piece of it. No one even saw the Iranian protest coming. I have zero problem whatsoever with Trump using twitter to kick this guy in the teeth the short fat guy over in North Korea. Maybe finally he is waking up to the fact that our foreign policy may be unpredictable. Maybe it's the predictability that in fact has been hurting us for decades now.
HANNITY: Congressman?
CHAFFETZ: Yes, Absolutely. Look at what's going on domestically. Today in The New York Times, one of the headlines was 25,000 points on the stock market but when does the Party going to be over? Can't even give him the credit when something really good like the economy is going so well.
BRUCE: And if I can just add, the president has inherited such a disaster. It is remarkable what he has been able to accomplish despite the media trying to create this alternate reality, and the establishment pushing it through. His wherewithal, his ability to see through that and defend this nation and this process is remarkable. For everyone who voted for him and we move through this year, every single day including this Michael Wolff book, and the media is doing, it reminds us about why we voted for Donald Trump and why he is the right one for this office right now.
HANNITY: So well said. All right. Good to see you all, happy new year. When we come back on this special edition of "Hannity." some of the president's most epic takedowns of the fake news media. And you get to weigh in, on the fake news media, will tell you how, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: We are back on the special edition of Hannity. President Trump has had some epic takedowns of the media this year, you may remember when he re-tweeted this mock a video of him, body slamming CNN, they had a fit, but it was funny. Watch.
And the president also had no problem putting CNN grand standard Jim Acosta in his place, this is pretty epic, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because you are attacking us, can you give us the question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President-Elect, because you were attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance to ask a question?
TRUMP: Quiet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you give us a question?
TRUMP: Don't be rude. I'm not going to give you a question, you are fake news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right. The president's never missed an opportunity to slam the fake news media at any of his rallies. Let's remind you at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When the media lies to people, I will never, ever let them get away with it. I will do whatever I can that they don't get away with it. Media outlets like CNN and MSNBC are fake news. Fake news. I am here this evening to cut through the fake news filter and to speak straight to the American people. Fake news. These are sick people. You know the thing I don't understand? You would think they would want to make our country great again. I honestly believe they don't. If you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Joining us now former Arizona Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth, chairman of the American conservative union, Matt Schlapp. J.D. you've dealt with this in the course of your career. I mean the reality is there's a lot of fake news. There is no discerning objective news media like they claim that they are. This is an opinion program, I'm an advocacy journalist, we make no pretense on this program, and I have an opinion.
J.D. HAYWORTH, FORMER CONGRESSMAN: Were commentators and that is fine, the problem is, you have a situation where you got guys, for example in the earlier segment you have a real of Jake Tapper. You know his first job in politics? It was pressed secretary for Democratic congresswoman Marjorie (inaudible) -- here's what it is today. Everyone and everyone on the networks including Fox the resume should show up, what jobs have they had before, what have they done that had brought them in the situation, but you're right, it's been around for years?
The largest in-kind donation to the Democratic Party comes annually for the Washington press corps. They are inherently leftist and you just have to deal with it. Here's the big difference. Donald Trump doesn't take it as a victim, he fights back. We would have folks and for the NRCC, so many people in America would say to us as members of congress, when are you going to take on the press? We would say we've got to get our work done, we can't get bogged down fighting them every day, the genius of this president is it would become polarized, he is not afraid to call them out.
HANNITY: that is probably the one thing that I think Matt, the media expects or even the anti-Trump crowd, that they think they can somehow pressure Donald Trump into changing and becoming the president and acting the way the president should act. The one thing that I think that distinguish him and makes him so successful is bypassing the media, tweeting out his opinions, tweeting people and fighting back. I think the people that support him find it extraordinarily refreshing.
MATT SCHLAPP, CHAIRMAN OF CPAC: I've been debating several prominent never Trump's all week in response to this book. The Trump agenda is conservative, it's fulfilling promises, but it's also a stylistic change. J.D. is right, you are right Sean, what Republicans tend to do is cower. If they would say we can't really go for everything that we promised during the campaign, because it's unpopular or it's radioactive. Will only go for 40 or 50 percent than they do a negotiation they get about 20 or 25 percent. They come back to all of us and stayed with got 25 percent of what we want, we say it's no good, no, we are losing our country to socialism and part of it is because the media is relentlessly attacking these conservative values. And what the president has done he has shown ever body that the right way to handle this is not to cower, the right way is pushing for all of your objectives all of them all the time, all day long, get everything you can and don't take the lies and distortions. Go right back at them. It is refreshing and it makes everybody else be stronger and to stand their ground.
HANNITY: It is great because it's like Alka-Seltzer and water. They bubble and the fizz and go on TV and find the worst adjective they can to describe anybody. I think they just exposed themselves to a point they can't recover.
HAYWORTH: the problem has been there for years and I can remember, I think it was 1980, Fred Barnes of all people wrote a column showed up in Reader's Digest saying the press has got it wrong. They are not supposed to take on the role of the loyal opposition, they are journalist, and they are there to chronicle what's happened. These people are advocates and they are partisan advocates and thin-skinned at that. They can beat the heck out of you, a lot of guys could cower. Some of guys could stand up and get even more invective. Donald Trump is a man of the times. His genius is bringing together social media and television and going directly to the American people. Not saving enough for a speech in Des Moines and not playing the victim but saying take your shot. I'll hold up a mirror to you and we'll see who is really distorting what's going on.
HANNITY: that is really well said, last word Matt.
SCHLAPP: You know the thing is that what Donald Trump understands this after eight years of Obama the country was on its knees, our economy was weaken, we are not respected overseas. This type of approach to be president, is really what the country needs and I think it's hard for those people to be wedded to the old ways to give up the old ways, but the fact is the country needed this.
HANNITY: Agreed. Thank you both. When we come back, we're going to give you an opportunity to weigh in on who's the worst of the worst in fake news, as this special edition of "Hannity" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity," this special edition of "Hannity." Unfortunately that is all the time we have left this evening. Make sure you go to Hannity.com and vote for who you think is the worst fake news offender. And don't forget, if you have something to say to me, you can sound of, get it off your chest in the Hannity hotline 8772258587. Let me have it. As always, thank you for being with us. We will never be destroyed Trump-media, we are fair, where balance. Have a great weekend. We will see back here on Monday. Laura Ingraham takes over, right now.
END
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