Hannity: Anonymous op-ed writer needs to come forward

close

Video

Hannity: Anonymous op-ed writer needs to come forward

America's safety is obviously not the goal of the anonymous letter writer.

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 6, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Hey, Tucker, by the way, thanks. You're not taking my time tonight. I got to go through this fast because the president is about to take my time.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST, TUCKER CARLSON SHOW: No. Yes, you do.

HANNITY: I know. All right, my friend. Good show.

And this is a Fox News alert. Huge "Make America Great" rally is about to start in the great state of Montana. President Trump expected to take the stage very soon. We'll bring you live coverage of a speech in a few minutes.

First, we have so much critical breaking news to cover. We start with our breaking news opening monologue.

(MUSIC)

HANNITY: A lot of news tonight, I do not want to get it in, our top story, something that Trump will likely confront tonight head-on at his rally. Yesterday, an anonymous figure claiming to be a senior official in the Trump administration authoring an op-ed in "The New York Times" bashing the president and his agenda, and telling lies.

In the deep state, unelected Washington bureaucrats, actually thinks he or she knows more than you. They know more about who should be president. Your vote to them means nothing. We are smelly, Walmart, irredeemable, deplorable us to them.

All the while this anonymous figure hides behind the liberal "New York Times", they are complicit in this. Now, "The Washington Post," get this, reporting that sleeper cells have awoken inside the executive branch of the United States of America.

Think about that -- a sleeper cell. A senior official who might have access to top-secret classified information, who might have the privileged insider knowledge about sources and methods, that's people's lives, now actively working within our government against your commander-in-chief.

The media won't say this, I will. This is extraordinarily dangerous to this great constitutional republic. The disgusting hate Trump media, they are complicit in this cowardly betrayal.

Moments ago, President Trump tweeted the following, are the investigative so-called journalist of "The New York Times," are they going to investigate themselves? Who is the anonymous letter writer?

Of course, this coward could be one of literally hundreds of senior level employees in the executive branch. We know that Trump's senior cabinet members and the close advisors are vehemently denying writing this op-ed tonight. We are calling whoever you are, come forward. You have purposely mischaracterized the president's conservative policies in your op-ed.

In other words, you are lying about his effective handling of the economy, North Korea, his top approach towards Russia. You obviously have your own agenda, your own political personal bias. You are in an unelected, unaccountable, anonymous official. The American people did not hire you to do this. You have access perhaps to intelligence, methods. You have knowledge of the president's plans to defend America? If so, are you going to try to undermine that?

It's the right thing to do. If you really care about the country as you so claimed to do as a super patriot, come forward.

This country's safety is obviously not the goal of whoever this mysterious figure is. Nor does the corrupt media in this country even care. What would happen if resistant sleeper cells had emerged in Obama's White House? Would the media be all in on that?

This is all political. Working in the shadows, undermining a sitting, duly elected president from within. These are the actions of a deep state super patriot who thinks they know better than you, we, us, we the people. These are actions of someone who thinks that Trump never deserved to be president. That we, we were all wrong.

These are the actions of someone who cares, what, about democracy and the sanctity of your vote? No. And what does the op-ed author mean, what does he mean when he writes this, until one way or another it's over, meaning the Trump presidency? Is that a threat to the president of the United States, one way or another? What does that mean? Because that can be interpreted as a threat to the president. I hope the secret service is looking.

Now, sooner or later, whoever you are, you'll be gone, and by gone I mean caught, exposed, fired, and probably held accountable for these horrible deeds, whatever you have done.

Now, we turn to another top story. This is huge news tonight. Breaking only minutes ago, "The Hill's" John reporting that Christopher Steele's phony Russian dossier was likely the basis for the ongoing witch hunt into Trump Russia so-called collusion after it was pushed by several high ranking deep state officials who all shared one thing in common -- a political hatred for Donald Trump.

This is what Solomon writes, quote: There is now growing confidence that the FBI's sudden pivot from Papadopoulos to Steele was driven by several officials, all with serious political baggage.

Now, we're talking about Andrew McCabe, Page, Strzok, and, of course, Bruce Ohr and Christopher Steele, all Trump haters. And according to Solomon, we're learning that Bruce Ohr was attempting to actually steer the FBI so-called Russia collusion investigation toward the phony Steele dossier, much earlier than we previously thought.

Now, several officials, all with serious political baggage, as he describes them, remember this is the dossier -- with this will all be traced back to Hillary. Many of the same figures protected her so she could stay in the race by exonerating her after she obviously committed felonies and crimes, and, of course, the DNC, Clinton, funded this phony Russian Steele dossier before the 2016 election. They funneled that money to a law firm, that money then goes to Fusion GPS, they hire a foreign national, a spy, Christopher Steele, and, by the way, the wife of a high-ranking, fourth highest ranking member of the DOJ, Nellie Ohr, you put it altogether, op research, unverified lies against Donald Trump.

Nobody verify this information, nobody. Even Steele himself said under oath, the contents were raw intelligence. He did not even stand by his own dossier. But it gets worst -- the dossier is leaked to the press. Why? To influence you the American people with Russian lies and worse than that. It spread throughout the highest levels of our federal government by Nellie Ohr's husband, Bruce Ohr -- again, the fourth highest ranking official of the DOJ.

And then it was used as the very basis for FISA warrants against the Trump campaign associate, Carter Page. And, by the way, I'm told they withheld exculpatory evidence. That's the very basis for what is now Mueller's witch hunt. Ohr even briefed -- this is amazing, it starts with Hillary, the DNC, they pay for it, they get the money through -- funneled money to an op research group.

Then they hire Christopher Steele, and then, of course, it's being used to get FISA warrants, but it's also being funneled to Mueller's pit bull, as described by "The New York Times", Andrew Weissmann. The contents of the dossier, he's updated through Bruce Ohr, 70 contacts Ohr and Steele have together. Hillary to Steele to Russia, right into Rob Mueller's office, Russian lies.

You can't make this up. This is insane. A web of corruption and abuse of power surrounding a foreign actor, a phony Russian dossier in an effort to stop this man from becoming president, and then destroy him after he did.

We did tonight reach out to all of the deep state actors mentioned in Solomon's breaking report. So far, no response.

But tonight, we do have some positive elements to report. We have 12 Republican lawmakers now calling on President Trump to declassify the retracted parts of multiple FISA documents, oh, specifically pages 10 through 12, 17 to 34. That could be released as early as tomorrow or next week.

And lawmakers now believe this retracted information, along with 302s, the "Gang of Eight", can explain and might have exculpatory evidence on Carter Page and other information how the Steele dossier, how a fraud was committed on the court, and how an attempt to sabotage a sitting president. We'll have a lot more on this tonight.

Also, more positive FISA developments. One former official who signed off on a FISA request against Page, we now know is subject of a grand jury investigation. That's called progress. Finally.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe fired for lying and now, he may face serious legal issues. And my guess is, this grand jury we now have confirmed is convened will look at everyone who committed a fraud on the FISA court, who signed off on the unverified, uncorroborated, phony Russian, Clinton paid for dossier, and the lies by omission like not telling the court, even though they knew it, that Hillary paid for it all.

Andrew McCabe's attorney responding to us tonight, brushing it off as nothing more than, you know, the standard procedure, we all know better.

This is why elections matter. If elected, 61 days, Democrats, they will obstruct the president's efforts to drain the swamp. And just like they are trying in vain to obstruct the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh.

And today, New Jersey senator, likely presidential hopeful, Cory Booker, he headlined the Democrats' pathetic political grandstanding, threatening to break Senate rules, released confidential documents about Kavanaugh to the general public. Our own a Shannon Bream and others reporting, however, the documents -- they had previously been released. And not only that, Cory Booker was told they were released.

So, still he had to put on a show based on what he already knew was released for his adoring fans because he is running for president. I don't have time to run it now, but then he went on to call his actions today a Spartacus moment, even though he did zero, nothing courageous.

He broke no rules, he faced a no consequences, just a blatant play to his base so he can run for president in 2020. But in Booker's is mind, he rose to a level of a Roman gladiator risking it all for a cause, calling himself a hero for doing absolutely nothing. It's like a Colin Kaepernick going one and 11. And then after that, of course, saying oh, it's -- the NFL is unfair to me.

John Solomon, Gregg Jarrett, Sara Carter with us.

The president is walking on stage, let's talk first and we'll get to the president's speech.

Tell us about your reporting.

JOHN SOLOMON, THE HILL: So, in the summer, July 30th, the day before the FBI opens the investigation on the Trump campaign, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele meet at a restaurant. As soon as they get out and they compared their notes and what Steele says he has on Trump, he calls Andy McCabe. He meets with Andy McCabe a few days later, and by the 15th, he's meeting with Pete Strzok.

And that is why this investigation --

HANNITY: They're all together, the Trump haters.

SOLOMON: They're all together. And remember, all of them have, all of them have an issue with Trump or with Clinton, there's no doubt about it. And so, we thought that the Trump, the Steele dossier kind of blocked into normal channels. We now know that Ohr and Steele steered it in. And that's going to become a really -- something's been withheld from Congress longtime.

HANNITY: What about the fact, Sara, that they gave us information to Robert Mueller's office? That the Steele information. Remember, Steele writing Ohr and all of the messages back and forth. Oh, did you get it to your friend and that special counsel. Oh, we don't want to be exposed. Oh, I hope the firewalls hold.

SARA CARTER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I was just going to say that, hope of the firewalls hold, but they didn't hold, and they were panicking about that, Sean. I mean, look what happened with Andrew Weissmann.

We know for a fact that a Ohr was in communication with Weissmann. That he was basically passing information or trying to pass information to Robert Mueller's office.

I think this investigation, the scope of this investigation is going to get so much wider. And now that McCabe is under a grand jury investigation, imagine what they are going to find. I mean, we have spent years just trying to peel back the layers of this onion, and now, we finally discover all of these connections and all of these players.

But going back to John's story, it is so vitally important, this timeline - -

HANNITY: All right. Sara --

CARTER: -- because Nellie Ohr, you know, she was -- she was working early on for Fusion GPS.

HANNITY: Let's get a quick comment -- by the way, Gregg, Sara, John are with us for the hour. We're going to dip into the president's speech. Well, why don't we do that now as he takes to the podium, big -- obviously, a long ovation for the president.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATESS: Hello, Montana. This is going to be a lot of fun. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

There's no place like a Rosendale rally, forget Trump. Rosendale. But there is no place like a Trump rally, right? We have a good time. We have a good time.

(APPLAUSE)

And in the election, we won this state by a lot. That was not close. But I am thrilled to be back in Big Sky Country with so many of my great friends and true American patriots. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you. From the Rocky Mountains to the Great Plains, the people of Montana love our country, love our country so much. They honor our values, and you always respect our great American flag. You see what's happening.

(APPLAUSE)

This is an incredible time for our nation. We have the best economy in history. The stock market is at record highs. Unemployment is at historic lows. And more Americans are working today than ever, ever, ever before.

(APPLAUSE)

That's a great stat, isn't it? Think of it. More Americans today. And it grows every week. Every week, it gets higher, higher. But more Americans are working today than have ever worked before in our country. A great stat. That's a big stat.

(APPLAUSE)

Our coal miners are back to work.

(APPLAUSE)

And we are fighting every day for our great ranchers and loggers and farmers, and we're winning that fight and we're winning it quickly.

We're rebuilding our military, crushing the terrorists, and taking care of our veterans.

(APPLAUSE)

America is winning again, and America is being respected again. As you all saw this week, the Senate is now considering a truly exceptional nominee for the United States Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

(APPLAUSE)

And he's doing really well. But do you believe the anger and the meanness on the other side?

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

Sick. It's sick! The whole country is now seeing his amazing intellect and his brilliant legal mind. Judge Kavanaugh deserves overwhelming bipartisan support. And I think he's going to be one of our truly great Supreme Court justices.

(APPLAUSE)

So tonight we're joined by truly terrific Republican leaders from the great state of Montana, including a friend of mine, an incredible senator, somebody that works so hard, and I can tell you -- I don't want to embarrass him -- but I'm going to tell you, he loves you, Senator Steve Daines. Where is Steve?

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you, Steve. Great job. Steve is a worker and he does an incredible job.

You also have a great attorney general, who I've gotten to know over the years, Tim Fox, doing a fantastic job. Thank you, Tim. Thanks, Tim.

Your secretary of state, Corey Stapleton. Corey? Thanks, Corey. State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and he's just -- I mean, this is a fantastic person, Elsie Arntzen. Elsie, thank you. Thank you, Elsie. Great job. Been fantastic. You are really -- she has done some job. I've heard all about you, your reputation. Thank you very much.

And your outstanding Montana GOP Chairwoman Debra Lamb.

(APPLAUSE)

So, Debra, how are we doing now compared to Election Day almost three years ago? Could you believe it? How are we doing? Better? Even better? Good. That's what we're doing in most states. And the states that we won, we're doing better. Thank you. Thanks. Great job. Great job, Debra.

I'm also thrilled to be joined by Montana's terrific member of Congress, a true champion for Montana, and I'll tell you what, this man has fought in more ways than one for your state. He has fought for your state.

(APPLAUSE)

Greg Gianforte. He is a fighter and a winner. He's a winner. Great.

(APPLAUSE)

He loves your state. Thank you very much, Greg. Great job.

Everybody has to get out and vote for Greg and vote for people that are going to vote for us, because without that, you're going to lose a lot of the things that we've won over the last two years. You're going to lose them, and you're going to lose them fast. Can't let that happen.

But I'm here for a very specific reason. Please welcome the person that we have such respect for, he's now leading in the polls.

(APPLAUSE)

But I don't want to say that. I want to say he's just a little bit, like, one or two points behind. Is that OK, Matt, for me to say that? But he is somebody who is going to be a phenomenal United States senator from Montana, Matt Rosendale. Matt, come on up.

(APPLAUSE)

Matt? Where is Matt? Come on up, Matt. Come on up, Matt.

ROSENDALE: Welcome back to Montana, Mr. President.

HANNITY: All right. As we get a break with the president speaking, we go back to John Solomon, Sara Carter, Gregg Jarrett.

Gregg, you've been also following John's breaking news today on top of Sara's news, and on top of -- it seems like the unredacted materials that everyone is requesting, FISA warrants, 302s, and other issues that could be exculpatory, even people like Papadopoulos and Page, this could all be coming out tomorrow or within days.

Talk about John's report and the unreductions, or the president literally freeing this information that Congress has been seeking forever.

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Congress deserves this information. They are legally entitled to it. It's under subpoena and the Department of Justice and the FBI have been obstructing justice and obstructing Congress. And the president can put a stop to it with a wave of his pen, four different sets of documents.

And I'm told they will not only be exculpatory of the president himself, but they will be explosive in the level that the FBI and Department of Justice engaged in, that they use false intelligence knowingly to target and frame Donald Trump -- to launch this dilating investigation of him, and to spy on the Trump campaign through a FISA wiretap warrant.

So, the American people deserve to get to the bottom of this and the only way is -- sunshine is the best disinfectant.

HANNITY: Let me go back to John Solomon.

JARRETT: Let Americans read these documents.

HANNITY: John, you're breaking news report, this is a profound piece. And, you know, I could pull it out here, you go to the headline of your piece.

Ohr's efforts to secretly reshape the Trump probe started in early 2016. Now, we know that Ohr and Steele are close.

SOLOMON: Right.

HANNITY: Steele is funneling information as I was pointing out to Sara to Andrew Weissmann.

SOLOMON: Yes.

HANNITY: So, Hillary Clinton's Russian paid for lies make it all the way to Mueller's special counsel office. But more importantly, Bruce Ohr is the conduit. Seventy plus contacts with Steele, meetings, text, written messages.

SOLOMON: And who does he bring to the meeting? The meeting that they're going to talk about where it launches him toward the FBI, he brings his wife. The conflict of interest is sitting at the table.

HANNITY: And Lisa Page.

SOLOMON: And Lisa Page comes --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: And Peter Strzok, and Andrew McCabe.

SOLOMON: Yes.

HANNITY: And they are all Trump haters.

SOLOMON: And Weissmann.

HANNITY: OK. So, now, the question is this. Is this the insurance policy? Exposed?

SOLOMON: I think it is. And here's what I -- here's the theory that I have been hearing from people who really know about this. They started the investigation of Papadopoulos. They got some exculpatory information that Papadopoulos wasn't what they thought it was. They should have shut it down.

Steele walks in the door and allows them to keep it open without getting in trouble. That's going to be what we learn I think when these documents get unsealed. And I think everything Gregg and Sara have reported the last two years, they're all going to be corroborated by those documents.

HANNITY: I know that -- I, too, by the way.

SOLOMON: Yes, of course.

HANNITY: We've been went out on little bit of a limb with all of you, so it's a team right here.

SOLOMON: Right.

HANNITY: But let me go to Sara.

The other big news that the news doesn't focus on at all because they're not news, they're fake news -- the grand jury -- we now know a grand jury is convened and that witnesses are appearing before the grand jury. This is about McCabe, but I believe it's also going to be about Sally Gates, Jim Comey, and Ron Rosenstein, because they all signed the phony FISA warrant. The Russian lies with grand omissions that they never verified, Sara.

CARTER: This is Rosenstein's FISA. And I say this over and over again because he signed the fourth FISA warrant, the fourth part of that warrant was that the renewal, the last renewal, on Carter Page.

Sean, he had all of the information of the previous FISAs at his beck and call. And he can't make up any excuses, he put his signature on that. He can't say, well, I let somebody else read it.

No, it was your job. This is about a presidential campaign. This is an investigation into the president of the United States, Ron Rosenstein, it is your job to ensure that that FISA was solid, that that FISA abided by the law. And now what we know --

HANNITY: Wait a minute, if the grand jury is convened and witnesses are being heard and he signed the last FISA when we had all the information for sure, then was the bulk of information in the phony Steele, Clinton paid for dossier, I'm not Rosenstein, I'm scared to death tonight.

CARTER: Oh, I would be scared to death, too. And what we have to look at is, you know, with John's story, I think this is so important, and we've got to go to the big picture, Sean, because if you step back, the FBI is investigating Trump because apparently, they believe that there was some kind of collusion with the Russians. But the FBI had no problem putting Russian lies into a FISA warrant to spy on American citizen.

So, back to the collusion -- the collusion does not appear to be anywhere near President Trump. It appears to be directly with the higher officials at the FBI.

HANNITY: Real quick, John, what does that mean for Rod, James, Andrew and Sally?

SOLOMON: Here's a great question. Bruce Ohr worked directly under Rod Rosenstein when he signed that fourth warrant. But Bruce Ohr says, I know it was hearsay. How could Ron Rosenstein --

HANNITY: Inadmissible.

SOLOMON: Yes, inadmissible and hearsay. Uncorroborated. Ron Rosenstein, should he have the ability to sign FISAs going forward, that's a great question he should ask the Justice Department.

HANNITY: Is it possible he doesn't? We don't know.

SOLOMON: We have to ask that question. That's a question I've had pending for a couple of days at the Justice Department.

HANNITY: All right. Back to President Trump and we'll continue with John, Sara and Gregg straight ahead.

TRUMP: And, by the way, you obstruct these justices, you're going to lose your Second Amendment. You're going to lose your right to those guns. You're going to lose your Second Amendment. So, be careful. Be careful. Be careful.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

And don't forget, Tester is going to vote with the Waters and the Pelosi. Can you imagine? Maxine Waters is your new leader in the party.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

Can you believe it? Maxine Waters. She's sure something. But he's going to vote for Schumer. They're going to do whatever they say. They -- I will say this. I will say this. The one thing, their policies are horrible. They're for open borders, meaning let all the crime come in. They're against so many things that you want.

You know, I've been saying and I've been saying it strongly, they're going to take away -- they're going to hurt your Social Security so badly, and they're killing you on Medicare. Just remember that. I'm going to protect your Social Security. We're going to take care of your Social Security. Matt Rosendale is going to make sure we're not touching your Social Security and your Medicare is only going one way. That's stronger. They're going to end up taking it away from you, and you won't even know what happened.

And on top of that, you're going to pay more taxes. It's crazy. Jon Tester will never drain the swamp, because he happens to live in the swamp and he loves the swamp.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

Jon Tester -- I feel a little guilty, because, you know, he did run the most beautiful commercial. I heard yesterday it started, and he's like my best friend, President Trump this, President Trump that. It's amazing when you win a state by a lot of points how even Democrats can like you. Isn't that crazy?

But the problem is, he's never going to vote for me. He's not going to vote. But he's taken more cash from lobbyists than almost anyone in the entire Senate. He's controlled by his donors.

One of the saddest things I've seen is when Jon Tester and what he did to a great, great man, Admiral Ronnie Jackson.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

Admiral Jackson was subjected to horrible lies and smears. Now, I'm, you know, a victim of that, too, but I'm sort of getting used to it.

(LAUGHTER)

At least it's my job. You know, I was going to say I'm a politician. I never thought I was going to say I'm a politician. Can you believe -- I guess I'm a politician, you know?

(APPLAUSE)

I guess I'm a politician. Think of it. I didn't want to say that. One of the few times I've said it. Yeah, I'm a politician.

But, you know, I've only run once, and that was for president, and I won. How did that happen? Right? Wasn't that nice? I run once and I won.

(APPLAUSE)

A lot of people have spent their lives trying to be president. We know them all. Some we respect, and some we don't respect too much.

But Ronnie Jackson, he's a doctor, he's an admiral. He's actually the doctor that gave me my physical. And he said that I'm in great shape.

(APPLAUSE)

And the Democrats and liberals, and deep state, they were very upset to hear that. So they got tougher and tougher, and they lied more, and they write more books now. I never saw -- I have books that are stacked up this high. Actually, the ones that are really good are number one, two, and three on the bestsellers list, right? The ones -- the really good ones by Justice, you know -- I call her Justice, but she's judge, but she's Justice to me -- Jeanine, we love her. Judge Jeanine. By Gregg Jarrett. How about Bongino? He's got a very successful book. How about Bongino?

So many. And they're all doing great. And that's what makes me happy. But the media doesn't talk about those books. No, they talk about the bad ones, of which there are plenty. They're lies, but they're plenty.

But Admiral Jackson, his reputation was attacked. And all of those horrible things that were said about him turned out to be lies and they turned out to be false. Remember? People don't want to say that.

In the last election, Washington Democrats put Jon Tester in charge of electing extreme liberals. I mean, I'm talking about serious liberals, many of whom you're watching attacking Judge Kavanaugh and looking like fools, frankly. Looking like fools.

(APPLAUSE)

And one of them will most likely be a candidate to run against your favorite of all time president, me. Me.

(APPLAUSE)

But when I see the anger in their eyes, when I see the anger of what they say, to an intellect far greater than theirs, not even a contest, but I see the anger and the hatred, what's -- what are they doing? What are they doing? They're losing by doing it. They're losing by doing it.

I just want to finish off, though. What Tester did to Admiral Jackson should never, ever be allowed. Ronnie Jackson is a great man. Ronnie Jackson has led a great and beautiful life. And to have lies told about him, I would never repeat what they are. See, in my case, they repeat them. I say don't repeat them, they're terrible. They say, no, we're going to deny them.

Do we love Sean Hannity, by the way? Right?

(APPLAUSE)

I love him. But here's the only thing. He puts up all these losers that say horrible things. I've got to talk to him. One after another. Donald Trump, he's lost it up here. And it's pretty tough. I stand up here giving speeches for an hour-and-a-half, many times without notes. And then they say he's lost it. And yet we have 25,000 people showing up to speeches.

(APPLAUSE)

And by the way, look at all the fake news back there.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

Donald Trump. They go Donald trump. You know, it's really funny. Donald Trump's lost it.

So I beat 17 great Republicans, I beat senators, I beat governors, a couple of people, great people, like Ben Carson. I beat a lot of great people. Ben Carson was tough. But I beat 17 great people. And I respectfully say, I beat the Bush dynasty. OK?

(APPLAUSE)

That felt good. Pretty recently. OK. Now I have the privilege of going against crooked Hillary Clinton.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

So I beat -- I beat crooked Hillary.

(APPLAUSE)

I beat crooked Hillary. And the Electoral College is hard. It's, frankly, if we didn't know better, and maybe we're starting to find things out that we didn't know, it's hard and harder to win than popular vote. Popular vote, you go to three, four states, and boom, boom, boom, you win the -- it's like the hundred yard dash versus running the mile. You practice differently.

She forgot that. She forgot to go to a couple of very important states. Gee, I don't think I'm going to go to Michigan too much. I don't think I'm going to go, she said, to Wisconsin. I do hear her husband said, you know, you better go to Michigan, you better start going to Wisconsin. Well, fortunately, she didn't listen to that.

But -- but think of it. So I beat the Republicans, governors, senators. I beat the Bush dynasty. Respectfully. I beat Hillary, who stole it from Bernie. Bernie should have won, but that's OK. They stole it. Superdelegates. How do you like superdelegates? But she's got superdelegates that were handed to her.

Bernie should be angry. Why isn't he angry? Crazy Bernie. He is so crazy. But, you know what, I saw him the other day on television. And he's ranting and raving. He's sitting behind a microphone, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, blah, blah, blah," the hair's flying, he's going crazy. He's going crazy.

And I said to my wife, "Honey, look at that guy. You got to hand it to him." No, you've got to hand it to him. He doesn't quit. He doesn't give up. I just don't understand why he allowed that to happen, and he goes back into being an independent. But now he's coming back in, and I guess he's going to run. He's going to run.

But think of it. So you beat two dynasties, you beat all these politicians. Charles Krauthammer, when I announced that I was going to run...

(APPLAUSE)

... he said, why would he run? This is the -- well, he didn't know me, so I'm not insulted. He said, this is the finest field of Republicans ever assembled. I actually did -- I looked at my wife, I said, you know, that's his business. He just said these are the finest ever assembled. Why am I doing this? And then I said, ah, that's OK, I'll do it anyway. Let's see what happens. Let's see what happens.

So I beat all these senators, all these governors, all these brilliant political minds. Then I beat the other side. And then I listened. Is he competent? I think I'm pretty competent, right? Don't you think so?

(APPLAUSE)

Is he competent? And their ratings are down the tubes. You know why? Because people get it. They really get it. But it is funny to hear that you have all these victories -- and, you know what, more important than those victories, we're winning in the United States now. We're winning on trade. We're winning with our military. We're knocking the hell out of the terrorists. We're winning now in the United States.

You look at what's going on. We have new deals being made. We have a deal we just made with Mexico. That's a fair deal. It's not that horrendous deal that was made years ago that should have been changed years ago.

We're negotiating with Canada. We'll see what happens. We're in a little bit of a skirmish, but doing really well with China. You see what's going on. Really well.

(APPLAUSE)

I have great respect for President Xi of China. But honestly, we have to be treated fairly. Last year, we had a trade deficit of anywhere from $375 billion -- with a B dollars -- to, I say, $504 billion. Either one is not acceptable.

So we're doing that. And it's working out very well. I just came on stage, and I was told that Kim Jong Un said some terrific things about me. He said I have faith in President Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

Think of this. You don't hear that from them. And just moments ago, they put on -- they put on that he said very strongly that we want to denuclearize North Korea during President Trump's tenure. That's a nice -- he just said it. Just said it.

(APPLAUSE)

But in the meantime, even if he didn't, even if he didn't, we got our hostages back. There's been no more missile testing. There's been no more rockets flying over Japan. There's been no more nuclear testing. And we have a good feeling. He likes me, I like him. Who knows what's going to happen?

But I can tell you what, the day before I took office -- and even, I must say, because as you know, the rhetoric was fairly tough -- it's interesting. With him, I had very tough rhetoric. And the fake news was saying it's too tough, he's going to get us into the war. It's terrible, he's being too tough. It's horrible. What does he know about this? He knows nothing.

I watched all of these guys who have been losing for 30 years explaining why my method of negotiation wasn't working. Right?

(APPLAUSE)

And I'll tell you what, I respect him, and he respects me. And I think something is going to happen. Take your time. I say, we -- take your time. Sanctions are on. But think of it. We got back our hostages. I didn't pay $1.8 billion. We got back our hostages. Paid nothing. We paid nothing.

(APPLAUSE)

But it's funny, you know, because other than NATO, because I got them to pay billions and billions of dollars more, because we're paying for NATO. We're paying this massive percentage of cost. We're protecting Europe. But I got them to pay billions of dollars more, and the fake news said he wasn't respectful to the leaders of other countries. And they're right, in a way, because I said, listen, folks, I'm sorry, you're going to have to pay up. You got to pay up. You're delinquent. You know, in real estate, we say you're delinquent.

And somebody asked me, it's really amazing they never covered this, because if they do, they would have said this is terrible. One of the leaders in front of the other 28 nations, one of the leaders -- who I get along with - - they respect us now, because they couldn't believe -- for years, NATO spending was going like this. By the way, this is spending to protect them against Russia. You know, they keep talking about Russia. We're protecting -- I got them to pay billions of dollars more. OK?

But they said, sir, could we ask you one question? It's always nice when a president or a prime minister calls me sir. That means he has a certain respect. He said, if you don't walk away from these meetings with us paying what we're supposed to be paying or much more, will you leave us? I said yes, I will. And they all said...

(APPLAUSE)

And they all said we'll pay. We'll pay. Now, the mainstream media doesn't want me to say that. They want me to say no, no, sir, we'll never leave you. But then there's no reason for them to pay, right? Why would they pay?

Supposing they asked me the same question. Sir -- and we're talking about billions -- and last year, Secretary Stoltenberg, Secretary General, head of NATO, he goes -- he's like my biggest fan. And I like him, too. But he goes around saying, last year -- that was when I just did a -- because, you know, I was only in office for about 14 seconds, so I couldn't -- you know, I didn't want to use too much bravado. You know much they paid extra? Forty-four billion dollars. That was last year.

This year, it's much higher, because now I feel comfortable. I asked him in a more firm manner. And they're paying, and they should pay. But they were saying that I didn't treat them well. If I would've done what they said, or if I would have done what these consultants and these people that I watch on television, we used to do this stuff, they all failed. They failed miserably.

So we have our own way. It's a great way. But it's really interesting, because when I was dealing with North Korea, and they were saying, "He's too tough, he's too tough." One of my best meetings ever was with Vladimir Putin. And they said, "He was too nice. He was too nice." They wanted me to have a boxing match on this stage.

We had a great meeting. We talked about Ukraine. We talked about Syria. We talked about the protection of Israel. We talked about so many great things. But they came back, and they said, "It was terrible." I said, what was terrible? We had a great meeting.

And, you know, when I came off stage, they all said that was a great meeting. Thank you, that was a great news -- then I got onto the plane and they said, sir, I don't think they liked it. I said they liked it, they're just fake. They're fake news. We had a great meeting. It was a great meeting.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

And, you know, the funny thing? If I was tough, if I were to say you're never going to do this again, there will be no more of this and no more of that, and stood him in the face and then started boxing, you know what would've happened? They would have said, he's too tough, that was a disgrace to our nation.

The truth is, with these people, you can't win, but we're winning. I'm president. You're president. We're winning.

(APPLAUSE)

So everybody knows Jon Tester's game. He says one thing in Montana, but does the exact opposite in Washington. That's what happens. He will come home and tell you about your Second Amendment, then he'll vote for something where you knock the hell out of it.

Jon Tester talks like he's from Montana, but he votes like he's Nancy Pelosi. That's what he does. He's a Nancy...

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

No, look at his -- look at his voting. It's the same voting as Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and the legendary Maxine. Jon Tester voted no on tax cuts. And he voted for the Obamacare disaster, which we almost repealed and replaced, but we'll get it done. And remember this. Remember this. We got rid of the most unpopular element of Obamacare, right? The individual mandate.

(APPLAUSE)

We got rid of the individual mandate. That was the most unpopular single - - that is where you have the right to pay a fortune for the privilege of not having to pay a fortune for bad health care. Right? It's incredible.

But we got rid of it. We'll get rid of all of it. And, you know, one thing I have to say, also, Obamacare was going up 115 percent, 125 percent, 80 percent, 60 percent, 53 percent, all different places. It was going up massively. You know, we want to repeal and replace it, and if we get enough Republicans, we will, and we'll have a much better health care -- we've already come up with some of them, association care, et cetera.

(APPLAUSE)

But -- but to do it, and we will do it, we had it, we had it done, we had it done. But remember, Tester voted no. He voted no on Kate's Law. Kate's Law. What could be better than Kate's Law?

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

He voted no on enhanced vetting for refugees. Let's not vet them. Let's just let them pour right into Montana. And you see what's going on.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

And Jon Tester voted in favor of deadly sanctuary cities. Tell me that.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

So that's not a person from Montana. I have a lot of friends in Montana. I don't get -- I mean, I don't get it. How did he get elected? How did he get elected? Jon Tester voted for very liberal Obama judges 99 percent of the time. And yet he would make it impossible for an incredible, distinguished admiral, doctor not to get in. Figure that one.

And yet super liberal judges, many of whom are mocked and scorned, and Jon Tester voted against our incredible Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. How do you do that?

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

How do you do that? First in his class at Harvard. First in his class at Oxford. And he decides, I think I'll vote no. And by the way, Justice Gorsuch is great and he's doing a fantastic job. And Justin Kavanaugh will do the same job.

(APPLAUSE)

It's embarrassing to watch those people make fools of themselves as they scream and shout at this great gentleman. This election, you aren't just voting for a candidate. You're voting for which party controls Congress, very important thing. Very important thing.

I don't even bring it up, because I view it as something that, you know, they like to use the impeach word. Impeach Trump. Maxine Waters, "We will impeach him." But he didn't do anything wrong. It doesn't matter, we will impeach him. We will impeach. But I say, how do you impeach somebody that's doing a great job that hasn't done anything wrong? Our economy is good. How do you do it? How do you do it? How do you do it? We will impeach him. But he's doing a great job. Doesn't matter. Remember that line. He's doing a great job. That doesn't matter, we'll impeach him.

It is a hell of a place in Washington. You know, I was thinking, if that happened, every time a Republican or a Democrat opposite got elected president, so let's say a Democrat gets elected someday -- hopefully it's a long time.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

But let's say a Democrat gets elected. And let's say we have a Republican House. We will impeach that Democrat, right? And then a Republican. We won by a lot. We won by a hell of a margin. That's a lot of -- that's a lot. That Electoral College, we won by a lot.

OK, so we're in there. We've got the best employment numbers in our history. We've got the best economy in our history. You look at the numbers in every category, it's great. We're doing a great job. We're putting on phenomenal judges. And you take that, and you do, then what? You're going to have -- you'll have a country that's going to turn into a third world country.

Because if the opposite party becomes president, every time before it even starts, before you've even found out whether or not he or she is going to do a great job, they'll say, "We want to impeach him," and you'll impeach him. It's so ridiculous.

But we'll worry about that if it ever happens. But if it does happen, it's your fault, because you didn't go out to vote. OK? You didn't go out to vote. You didn't go out to vote. That's the only way it could happen. I'll be the only president in history -- they'll say what a job he's done. By the way, we're impeaching him.

Today's Democrat Party is held hostage by haters, absolute haters, left- wing haters, angry mobs, deep state radicals, and their fake news allies. Those people are the best. They're the best allies.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

I mean, you look at the Washington Post or the New York Times, I can never get a good story. I mean, you look at this horrible thing that took place today, it's really -- is it subversion? Is it treason? It's a horrible thing.

Even -- you know the good thing about that? Even liberals that hate me say that's terrible what they did. And it is really terrible.

You know, when I won the election, the New York Times, all their subscribers were leaving, and when I'm ultimately no longer president, and hopefully about six-and-a-half years from now...

(APPLAUSE)

... the New York Times will go out of business. All of them will be out of business. CNN will be out of business. They're almost out of business now, if you look at their ratings (inaudible) out of business.

But they'll be out of business. But the New York Times, you remember, it's very famous. Nobody's ever seen it before, maybe never done before. They apologized for their bad coverage of me. They apologized to their subscribers, because after I won, everybody said, what the hell happened? What happened? We're reading this piece of garbage and the guy that they kill every day, he won.

So they wrote -- does anybody remember -- there was a very big story -- they wrote an apology to their subscribers to stop the flow of people leaving and giving up their subscription to the New York Times. And it was quite amazing to watch. And, you know, honestly, for two weeks, they really covered me well.

And then it began. And then it got worse and worse and worse. And now we've reached an all-time level. The level of hatred is quite creepy (ph), but that's OK.

On the way over here, I saw a liberal pundit. He was filled with anger. And he was attacking me and our great administration. We have great people. I'll tell you, the White House is really working good. They had - - my wife put out a tweet today. Did you see that she put -- she used to do this (ph). She put out a tweet.

(APPLAUSE)

They had me stomping around screaming with anger up in my area of the White House where I live with my wife and son, Barron. They had me screaming, shouting like a lunatic. And I had a television. I said, what are they saying? I had six people in my office. I was in the Oval Office. We're having a talk on trade. Actually, it happened to be trade with Canada. They were telling me what's happening.

And they said, sir, you're not up there screaming and ranting and raving. You're here talking. That's how dishonest it's become.

But I asked a young, bright staffer of mine, why are they so filled with this much hatred? Why? Our country is thriving. Jobs are booming. Prosperity is strong. And the future has never looked brighter for the USA. And the young aide looked at me and he said, Mr. President, these liberal pundits, the haters, but they're so angry because you've upset their entire way of life. It's true.

(APPLAUSE)

But I said, but -- but let's get this straight. So the country is really doing well. And he looked at me and he said something that maybe is true. I find it hard to believe. He said, sir, they just don't care. It's really pretty sad, right?

You know, when you look at what's happening, with all of it, including our military rebuilding, we're rebuilding, and everything that we're building is being made right here, the best missiles in the world, the best planes in the world, the best ships in the world.

(APPLAUSE)

It's all being made right here in the United States. The so-called resistance is angry because their horrible ideas have been rejected by the American people, and it's driving them crazy. Crazy. They're the ones, honestly, that have been driven crazy.

The latest act of resistance is the op-ed published in the failing New York Times by an anonymous -- really an anonymous, gutless coward. You just look. He was -- nobody knows who the hell he is, or she, although they put he, but probably that's a little disguise. That means it's she.

But for the sake of our national security, the New York Times should publish his name at once. I think their reporters should go and investigate who it is. That would actually be a good scoop.

(APPLAUSE)

That would be a good scoop. Unelected deep state operatives who defy the voters to push their own secret agendas are truly a threat to democracy itself. And I was so heartened when I looked -- I think it's backfired. Seriously. People that don't exactly dig us and they don't exactly like me, they're fighting for us. It's an incredible -- it's actually a beautiful thing. We picked up a lot of support, because at some point this whole thing is going to be exposed. And it's really bad, and it's really dangerous, and it's really sad for the media and the mainstream media. It really is sad.

When I told you about the good news coming out of Korea today, they will hardly even report it. If this were President Obama, that would be the biggest story in the history of our country. But it's going to be sooner or later -- it will be exposed. The policies of our political opponents have brought about only failure, destruction, and humiliation to our country. Look at what happened. Look at where we were, and look at where we are.

(APPLAUSE)

And we have tremendous potential upward -- and other countries, by the way, are not doing well at all. And had I not won, we would have been in negative -- we wouldn't be at 4.2%. We would have been in negative numbers. We were going down. We were low, and we were headed down.

We freed up this country with the regulations and the tax cuts. We freed up our country, and it's great to watch.

(APPLAUSE)

But if you don't elect Matt, I will tell you, they can change it very quickly. They said -- Nancy Pelosi said yesterday she wants to raise your taxes.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

I mean, OK, tell me, is raising your taxes like supposed to be a popular thing to do? Because what's going on, they have been driven so far left, I don't know why they don't talk about red waves. I mean, historically, the person that's president, when you have the party having the president, they don't do well in midterms, but nobody's ever had, ever, an economy like we have. Nobody's ever had this economy. So hopefully you're going to remember it.

(APPLAUSE)

They robbed our middle class while spending trillions of dollars on adventures overseas. And we're pulling way back, but we still -- we're so respected now. You can pull back a little bit, but we're so respected. They're not playing games with us anymore, folks. They're not playing games.

I don't -- I don't want to tempt them too much by telling you things that don't happen anymore to us, because there's no reason for me to tell you, but when you see some of the things that happened four years ago and six years ago and eight years ago, you take a look at what happened and you take a look at what happens now, where we took that horrible Iran deal and we terminated it, and you look at what's going on.

(APPLAUSE)

We're respected again as a nation. We're respected again as a nation. But these people enriched themselves while shipping our jobs to other countries. And they oversaw the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. It's true. This is the greatest treasure.

NAFTA was such a bad deal. Some people said, oh, please, would you extend NAFTA? I said we have to renegotiate it. It's such a bad deal. And when I was campaigning, I said we'll either terminate it or renegotiate it. I don't care. But so far, it looks like it could happen where we'll renegotiate it.

But these disastrous policies were on the ballot box in 2016, and they lost, and they lost big. That's why we're here.

Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 2018 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2018 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.