Gingrich: Speaker Ryan made a big mistake today
Former House speaker reacts on 'Hannity' to current speaker hesitating to support the presumptive Republican nominee
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 5, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." And tonight, Donald Trump campaigns for the first time now as the presumptive Republican nominee. He held a rally earlier tonight in West Virginia. Here are some of the highlights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I actually wish the primaries were not over. It's so fun this way. I want the primaries to keep going, but everybody's out. I'm the only one left. That's OK, right? Right?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Who is a miner in this group. Who is it? Stand up. You're all standing up anyway. I'll tell you what, folks. You're amazing people, and we're going to take care of a lot of years of horrible abuse, OK? We're going to take -- and you can count on it. You can count on it 100 percent.
You have, like, 15,000 people in here and you have thousands outside, and we're going to notify the people of West Virginia that I'm not coming because I don't have to come. I've won all your delegates. I don't even have to do anything. There's no way I won't go to West Virginia. We're going to have fun, OK? We're going to have fun, right?
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And here with reaction, author of The New York Times best-seller "Duplicity," former speaker of the House, FOX News contributor Newt Gingrich is with us. How are you, sir?
NEWT GINGRICH, R- FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I'm doing great. And I can't imagine any place in the country with a bigger gap in attitude than West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton has been heartless in her willingness to lay off workers, destroy towns and wipe out an entire industry on behalf of, you know, an ideological theory.
HANNITY: You know, I had the coal worker on who confronted her on last night. I mean, so cavalierly, Oh, I'm going to destroy the coal industry. I'm going to take away the jobs of the coal miners.
Before I get back to policy, I want to start -- we had -- it seems almost coordinated, both Bushes have declined to endorse Donald Trump, Mitt Romney saying that he will not go to the convention this year, and then we have Paul Ryan saying the following when asked if he would endorse Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now you have a presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, will you support him?
REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, to be perfectly candid with you, Jake, I'm just not ready to do that at this point. I'm not there right now, and I hope to, though, and I want to. But I think what is required is that we unify this party.
And I think the bulk of the burden on unifying the party will have to come from our presumptive nominee. I don't want to underplay what he accomplished. He needs to be congratulated for an enormous accomplishment, for winning now a plurality of delegates, and he's on his way to winning the majority of delegates.
But he also inherits (ph) something very special. It's very special to a lot of us. This is the party of Lincoln, of Reagan, of Jack Kemp. And we don't always nominate a Lincoln and a Reagan every four years, but we hope that our nominee aspires to be Lincoln and Reaganesque, that that person advances the principles of our party and appeals to a wide, vast majority of Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Then, of course, you have Bill Kristol. He's neverTrump. George Will is calling for Republicans to defeat Trump in all 50 states. And I'm going to give you a lot of time to respond to this. And was National Review online. "The party of Lincoln is in ruins. The minority of its primary voters have torched its founders' legacy by voting for a man who combines old school Democratic ideology, a bizarre form of hyper-violent isolationism, fringe conspiracy theories and serial lies with an enthusiastic flock of on-line racists to create perhaps the most toxic coalition since George Wallace."
Then to add insult to injury, "Multiple GOP leaders bulldozed the ashes by issuing nauseating calls for unity, foremost among them Reince Priebus," who will be on later. "Reince, you should resign rather than spending one more ounce of personal energy supporting a reprehensible man."
Well, I'm not ready to support Speaker Ryan anymore. I'm thinking maybe we need a new speaker. Thoughts.
GINGRICH: Well, first of all, that last section -- you know, the pseudo- intellectual right-wingers who have made a living in Washington, D.C., being brilliant while they alienated the entire American people, are showing you by their hysteria the degree to which they're being repudiated.
And they're just -- absolutely don't know what to do. I mean, the country has looked at their lack of achievement, their lack of effectiveness and has said no. And they're literally almost a state of psychological hysteria that is kind of mildly amazing.
In the case of the two Bushes and Romney -- you know, I was one of Romney's competitors in '12. What do you think Mitt would have said if I'd gotten up and said, I'm not going to support you? I supported George H.W. Bush, even though I was a Reagan supporter and a Kemp supporter. What do you think George H.W. Bush would have said if I'd gotten up and said, I'm not going to support you?
Now, there's something wrong here when these folks, who the Republican Party has done a lot for -- let's be clear, the Bushes, the Romneys, Republican Party's been darn good to them, and they owe a little bit to the party and the people who make up that party beyond their own being above it all.
In the case of Paul Ryan, he made a big mistake today, and he needs to understand this. He is the speaker of the House. He has an obligation to unify the party. He has an obligation to reach out. Obviously, he and Donald Trump are going to have disagreements. Some of them they'll work out, some of them they won't. That's fine. Our Constitution provides that speakers and presidents can fight.
But I think he sends the wrong signal and a signal which I think endangers the House Republicans and sure endangers the Senate Republicans. I much prefer what Mitch McConnell did, what John McCain did. They both said, OK, game's over, we have a nominee, I'm for him. And I think Paul Ryan has some obligation institutionally to be responsive to the fact that the people of the party he belongs to have chosen a nominee.
And frankly, in the long history of American politics, Donald Trump is not outrageously outside the norm. This -- this kind of vitriol you get does not reflect accurately people who've been nominated for president over the last 200 years.
HANNITY: You know, I did a monologue at the start of last night's show, and the premise of it was simple, is that I said you have to go back to the beginning if you want to understand the insurgency year that we just had.
And I pointed out that it is weak Republicans, timid Republicans, feckless Republicans, visionless Republicans, Republicans that have broken every promise, that have allowed the entire radical Obama agenda to get passed, that never used the power of the purse, that never repealed aspects of "Obama care" that they could, that promised in 2014 they'd stop executive amnesty and never fulfilled that promise, that created this opening that people are fed up with them.
Every exit poll, Mr. Speaker, shows in every state so far, 60 percent of Republicans feel betrayed by D.C. Republicans. Now, this to me only reinforces why people feel the way they do.
GINGRICH: Well, I think there's a lot to what you're saying. And let me just point out -- I look at where we are today. Had Jeb Bush become the nominee, I'd have supported him.
HANNITY: Same here.
GINGRICH: If Lindsey Graham had become the nominee, I'd have supported him. I am a Republican loyalist who believes that there are two great parties in this country. There's a left-wing, socialist party of radical secular values basically owned by the trial lawyers and the labor unions and the Hollywood left, and there's a Republican Party.
And the challenge to the Republican Party is to pull together a coalition big enough to win the general election against Hillary Clinton.
And I think that it is a bit much for the people who are supposed to be leading the party and the people who in the past have been rewarded by the party to now go out and decide they're going to dictate to the voters of the Republican Party...
HANNITY: Isn't it worse than that?
GINGRICH: ... who they're allowed to nominate.
HANNITY: Aren't they now sabotaging the party? Aren't they trying to sabotage Trump's candidacy?
GINGRICH: Well, I would say in some cases, they're certainly not being very helpful. In other cases...
HANNITY: You're being gracious.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: ... more gracious than me.
GINGRICH: Look, I'm thinking of the Bushes and to some extent Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. In the case of the current -- you know, the pseudo- intellectual group who gathered together in various Georgetown bars to talk with each other with great intensity about how they could save the world -- none of them recognize they are the reason you have this rebellion under way.
It is precisely the failure of their policies and their programs that has led to the scale of public discontent that is now, I think, the number one characteristic of this year.
HANNITY: If we look at the agenda of -- I've interviewed Donald Trump enough. He's going to build a wall. He's going to end sanctuary cities. He said he will eliminate "Obama care," replace it with health savings accounts. He said he'll send education back to the states, eliminate Common Core. He said he will build up our nation's military. He doesn't want -- I don't think he's an isolationist. He said he would defeat ISIS, but he wouldn't give specific plans to telegraph what he's going to do. And he also said he would spend less money and try and balance the budget.
Is there anything there that I mentioned that's not conservative?
GINGRICH: No, but again, I mean, you and I are slightly different on this, Sean. I don't try to convince people that Donald Trump is a traditional conservative because he's not. He's a New York businessman.
HANNITY: Agree.
GINGRICH: He's anti-political correctness. He's anti-left.
HANNITY: Right.
GINGRICH: He's anti-bureaucracy and he's an American nationalist. That happens to be, in my mind, pretty useful for conservatives, and he will be enormously helpful in breaking up and defeating the left. That's why I'm a little puzzled by some of these folks who get quite so hysterical.
HANNITY: Let me ask the question a different way. Is there any one policy you can think of that conservatives would be -- I'm against that? He's pro-2nd Amendment. He's pro-life. He does make exceptions for rape and incest and the mother's life.
GINGRICH: Well, of course, again, it depends what you mean by conservatives. Look, there are pro-immigration conservatives who hate the idea of the wall.
HANNITY: Really?
GINGRICH: There are pro-intervention conservatives who'd like us to send another 100,000 troops to the Middle East. I mean, to be far, somebody like Lindsey Graham has an honest -- I disagree with him, but he has an honest belief that we need to be more interventionist, not less.
So I do think, in that sense, there are some legitimate arguments under way. But I have to confess I am so fed up with the foreign policy establishment in this country, the State Department as an institution, and the whole way we have mishandled this not just under Obama, but also under George W. Bush, that I think having somebody come in with a clean slate and rethink it is going to be very healthy.
HANNITY: Well, how many more wars can we fight and how many more American lives are we going to lose only to have a war politicized and the gains that these guys make given back to even a worse enemy?
GINGRICH: Well...
HANNITY: That's happened quite a bit.
GINGRICH: Look, you're in a situation -- can anybody seriously argue that we are better off in Libya now that we managed to get rid of Gadhafi...
HANNITY: No.
GINGRICH: ... which was one of Hillary's big goals? Can anyone seriously argue that we've been successful in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Somalia, in Afghanistan? I mean, you look at this disaster after 15 years, and having somebody of the guts to get up and say, Let's rethink this, is not a bad idea.
HANNITY: I agree. All right, we'll take a break. We have more with former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich right after the break.
And also coming up tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: If he wants to go back to the playbook of the 1990s, if he wants to follow in the footsteps of those who have tried to knock me down and take me out of the political arena, I'm more than happy to have him do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Hillary Clinton daring Donald Trump to bring up her scandal- filled past. Newt Gingrich is back to react.
And then later, we'll talk about Paul Ryan saying he's not ready to support Donald Trump as the party's nominee. Well, tonight, Trump is responding. We'll get reaction from Laura Ingraham and RNC chairman Reince Priebus. They'll be here later to explain exactly what is going on within the ranks of the Republican Party as "Hannity" continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." Hillary Clinton is calling out Donald Trump and daring him to talk about her very long history of scandals. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's made references to your marriage, to your husband.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you prepared?
CLINTON: Well, he's not the first one, Anderson. I just can't -- I can't say this often enough. If he wants to go back to the playbook of the 1990s, if he wants to follow in the footsteps of those who have tried to knock me down and take me out of the political arena, I'm more than happy to have him do that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're ready for that.
CLINTON: Oh, please. I mean, look, this -- this is -- this is to me a classic case of a blustering, bullying guy who -- who has knocked out of the way all of the Republicans because they were just dumbfounded. They didn't know how to deal with him and they couldn't take him on on the issues because they basically agreed with him, and they didn't know how to counterpunch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Back with reaction, former Speaker of the House, FOX News contributor Newt Gingrich. I'm not buying that phony laugh of hers. I have been told -- and Doug Schoen even said that they have spent $4 million already trying to figure out to how to take out Trump, and they didn't come up with an answer, apparently. I think they're more nervous than she's letting on.
GINGRICH: Well, I mean, with Hillary, how would you ever know?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Yes! Good point.
GINGRICH: You know, I mean...
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Good point!
GINGRICH: ... this is a person of such total unending (ph) dishonesty that I have no idea when she's telling the truth even if she's telling the truth.
You know, and she wants to say it's other people's problem. Nobody else made her take national security documents and put them on a private server. Nobody else made her take major donors to the Clinton Foundation and inappropriately use the State Department in order to help these people in what clearly has to be illegal behavior. Nobody else has made her give $250,000 secret speeches to big Wall Street firms and then refuse to tell the country what she said to these big Wall Street firms for that kind of money. This is all her behavior.
But I think there's a bigger thing here. I'm not actually a fan of making this a narrow Hillary versus Donald campaign. Take what she said about West Virginia, which is as chilling an example of the left-wing radicals as you're going to get. And then you showed it last night, of course, and I watched you.
You know, that moment where she is chortling at, I'm going to make sure that these miners are unemployed, I'm going to make sure these companies get closed -- what kind of a person who wants to lead America is happy that they are destroying an American industry, is happy that they are destroying towns, they're destroying families? And yet she was clearly happy because she met her ideological needs.
I think you look at, for example, the Veterans Administration, where the federal employee, the government unions have been protecting criminals. They have been protecting people who lie. They've been protecting people who allowed veterans to die. And you think Hillary Clinton, who is owned by the unions, is going to coming in here and be in favor of reforming the VA?
So Trump's going to be a able to draw a gap this big between his willingness to protect veterans and her willingness to protect corrupt union members.
HANNITY: Let me -- let me play this because I think -- I can't play it enough, actually, of what she actually said about the coal mining industry and coal miners, and then when she was confronted by the guy we interviewed last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.
Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you make comments like, We're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs -- these are the kind of people that you're affecting. This is my family. And while my hope is in God, that's my future. I just want to know how you can say you're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs, and then come in here and tell us how you're going to be our friend because those people out there don't see you as a friend.
CLINTON: I know that, Beau (ph). And you know, I'm -- I don't know how to explain it other than what I said was totally out of context from what I meant because I have been talking about helping coal country for a very long time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: It wasn't out of context! She's against fracking. She's against drilling. She's against coal. And that poor guy is going to lose his job, and she was bragging about it! And Mr. Copley (ph) was on the show last night.
GINGRICH: The Bill and Hillary Clinton technique is to lie and stall and be stubborn. So you watched it perfectly last night. You saw the enthusiasm with which she told her liberal crowd, We're going to put these people out of work, and then you saw the soft voice and the desire to be understood because after all, it was out of context.
She just doesn't tell the truth, and I think this is going to ultimately be her greatest difficulty. Donald Trump sometimes says really dumb things, and Donald Trump sometimes makes me shake my head, but you always have the sense that you're seeing the real Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton, I never know if I'm seeing the real Hillary Clinton because I have no idea which of the 75 versions is really her.
HANNITY: That says a lot.
GINGRICH: You showed that last night as perfectly as you could.
HANNITY: Yes. Let me ask -- I put up a poll -- it's up there now on Hannity.com about who Donald Trump should pick for VP. Your name was included. And would you like to guess what place you came in?
GINGRICH: I think -- let's see, how many people did you have in the poll?
HANNITY: Well, there were thousands. I don't know the final -- I don't know the number...
GINGRICH: No, no, no. I mean, how many names?
HANNITY: We had a lot, maybe 12, 13.
GINGRICH: OK. So I think I came in...
HANNITY: First.
GINGRICH: ... 11th from the bottom.
HANNITY: No, you came in first place!
GINGRICH: Well, first would be 11th from the bottom, if you had 12.
HANNITY: I wasn't thinking about it that way. All right. There you go. What does that -- does that mean anything to you? If you were asked to serve, would you come back to government?
GINGRICH: Look, first of all, it means you're a very dear friend. We have done this show together so many times. You were a mere child when we started doing this show.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: And 1990 was the first time I interviewed you in a Holiday Inn in Decatur, Alabama!
GINGRICH: Right. OK. So there are lots of good friends across the country. They saw a chance to make me feel good. And oh, by the way, I should say replug (ph). Callista was chosen by Newsmax as one of the 50 most influential Republican women in the country. I'm very proud of what Callista's achieved.
HANNITY: But back to this for a second. There were two great moments of conservatism in my lifetime, Ronald Reagan's presidency -- the first vote I made was in 1980 -- and the Gingrich revolution which revolutionized -- you balanced a budget that nobody thought could be balanced, you brought welfare reform, the era of big government ended. Why not -- why not do it again?
GINGRICH: Well, look, I'm always interested in serving my country. My dad spent 27 years in the infantry. That goes very deep in our family.
But I think Donald Trump has to look at a lot of different people. He has got some great people to choose from. He's got to decide what's right for his team, what's right for his presidency. And obviously, I want to be helpful as much as I can, but I think this is his call and his choice despite the effort of some of my closest friends to make sure he was aware that...
HANNITY: I didn't even vote yet. I didn't even vote on my own Web site. What do you -- I don't think that's -- I don't -- I don't know if you have that many friends, to be honest with you!
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: There were thousands and thousands of votes for you. Mr. Speaker, thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.
GINGRICH: Good to be with you.
HANNITY: And Coming up, more on Speaker of the House Paul Ryan saying he's not ready to support Donald Trump. Laura Ingraham, Reince Priebus will weigh in straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And Welcome back to "Hannity." So earlier today, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said he's not ready to support presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. He's not the only Republican taking this stance.
Here with reaction, the editor-in-chief of Lifezette, Fox News contributor, nationally syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham.
You got the Bushes. You got and Mitt Romney saying he's not going. We just heard from Newt Gingrich. He made a good point. The Republican Party has done a lot for these people. What are the positions specifically that they're against? Maybe they'll argue, Oh, he doesn't have the perfect tone of I guess the candidate of their choice, but he also beat all these others. So what do you make of that, and what's your reaction?
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I think they're at war with the voters of the Republican Party.
HANNITY: Wow.
INGRAHAM: Trump was said to have peaked -- remember our friend Karl Rove said he peaked at 38 percent in February. George will (INAUDIBLE) they're all our friends. George Will said, you know, we could have seen peak Trump in March. They said he was going to drop out after the Iowa caucuses when he lost. They said he didn't have the temperament. They said all these statements were going to turn the people off.
But the people have rejected the globalization agenda. They have rejected open borders. They think the city that I'm sitting in right now is corrupt to the gills, and they want it changed.
and I understand people are hurt. I understand it was raw and rough and there were times when Trump overstepped it. I get all that, and it's difficult. It's not easy to lose. But now for election after election on a national level, Republicans have not rallied to the globalization agenda. They -- I mean, I guess Lindsey Graham and McCain and Romney and Ryan and McConnell -- they represent some big donors and maybe some elites in Washington and the commentariat, but they don't represent the majority of the Republican Party.
So they can either change their views a little bit, at least moderate them a little bit on these key issues, Sean, and get on board with Trump and try to make his approach even better or more persuasive, or they can go off and form some new party or try to throw the election to Hillary and work with her.
I guess they can do that, but I don't think there's a very big future in any party that's for open borders, global trade deals that don't work and a bunch of wars in the Middle East that fail. I just think there's no agenda -- there's no support for that at all.
HANNITY: You know, I think it's really profound, what you said. They are going to war with voters, but not just a small amount of voters, a record number of voters that came out in these primaries. You know...
INGRAHAM: Twenty-seven primaries, Sean!
HANNITY: Yes, I know.
INGRAHAM:
HANNITY: He won 27 primaries!
HANNITY: And Ted Cruz...
INGRAHAM: He won more votes than Mitt Romney!
HANNITY: Already, and you still have a lot of states yet to go.
INGRAHAM: Yes!
HANNITY: And you -- the numbers are amazing, and what the people are saying is, What you're doing is failing and we're angry that you supported that agenda of Obama and never stood up to it because you care more about your own power.
Here's where I think, though, it's going to go. I think it's deeper than that, inasmuch as yes, it's a war. I think this war goes as far as people -- high-ranking Republicans sabotaging Donald Trump's efforts! Am I wrong?
INGRAHAM: Oh, yes. I mean -- I think -- I think they are either going to sabotage his efforts...
HANNITY: Or collude.
INGRAHAM: ... or -- or they're trying to almost extort him to change his mind.
HANNITY: It's not going to happen.
INGRAHAM: Well, the two key issues -- or they'll say, Look, we want to choose the vice president. He's got to be run by us. They tried to do that to Reagan, remember, to get Reagan to take Ford. Reagan kind of compromised and took H. W. Bush. But the party wanted Reagan and take Ford and they wanted to put in their own foreign policy, have Ford run the foreign policy. Reagan said no, I'm not doing that. So Trump can't do that. Trump cannot do that.
HANNITY: For example, the analysis of the people in Indiana, Indiana, they had a record voting year. They knew darn well what was at stake when they went out to vote in record numbers for Donald Trump on Tuesday.
INGRAHAM: And think about this, Sean. We had Paul Ryan came out and gave his speech about tone, how negative the tone was, clearly, implicitly, he didn't mention Trump, but it certainly sounded like that. Romney came out and just gave all this fuel that's now being used in Hillary's commercials. McConnell sat on the sidelines. The Bushs got run over. They lost their home state, both Rubio and Bush. He beat these people, and their response to that is not to change their mind on any issues but to say, well, you've got to unify the party now.
HANNITY: I have to go on to another topic, although this I could talk about all night.
INGRAHAM: Right.
HANNITY: There's something really creepy that happened. Chris Matthews, Mr. Thrill-up-his-leg himself, so he doesn't know he has a hot mike, and he's on the set with Brian Williams on whatever station they're on. And you got to listen to what he says about Melania Trump. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the party will trust Trump to make that decision.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the party will have a role in it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just heard from the likely nominee. We will go to a break here. The discussion continues right after this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: "See that walk, that runway walk."
INGRAHAM: The hot mike has been a problem sometimes for yours truly, Sean so I'm not going to pile on that. It's, look, she's a beautiful woman.
HANNITY: That's a little creepy, though, isn't it? Come on.
INGRAHAM: I guess. Look, Sean, if I'm Melania and someone's saying that's a runway walk, I'm happy about that, OK. I think there's no problem with that whatsoever. Matthews is Matthews. I'm not going to pile on for that.
HANNITY: All right, Laura Ingraham.
INGRAHAM: I'm being so nice.
HANNITY: You're being so nice. What happened?
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: Matthews is just --
HANNITY: When did you get caught with a hot mike?
INGRAHAM: Technical problems, Sean. I'm a human being. I'm a human being.
HANNITY: Listen, let not your heart be troubled. I think it's happened to all of us at some point.
INGRAHAM: Anyway, great to see you. Take care.
HANNITY: And coming up, more reaction as the speaker of the House Paul Ryan is saying he's not ready to support Donald Trump as the party's nominee. Donald Trump is responding. We'll tell you what he's saying.
And RNC Chairman Reince Priebus will be here to explain what is going on inside the ranks of the Republican Party.
And later, an infamous hacker Guccifer, says he broke into Hillary Clinton's private e-mail sever and claims it was easy to do. Judge Jeanine Pirro is here with reaction as we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So earlier tonight Speaker Paul Ryan announced he wasn't yet ready to support Donald Trump. Trump, as we said released a state in response saying, quote, "I'm not ready to support Speaker Ryan's agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is in the best interests of the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it's about time for politicians to put them first."
Here with reaction, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. I was very disappointed, I really was, in Paul Ryan about what he said. Did you talk to him about it?
REINCE PRIEBUS, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: I talked to him this afternoon after he made his comments, and what -- and I talked to Donald Trump too. And they're both committed to sitting down and actually talking this out. And actually they're likely to be meeting next week.
HANNITY: Seriously, for Paul Ryan's part. To me it seems selfish. I really am disappointed. I like George Bush 43 a lot. The party has done a lot for them. The party has done a lot for others. Mitt Romney, everyone went to war for him in 2012. I'm getting a little ticked off that it seems --
PRIEBUS: I know you are. But here's what I would say. I think that, number one, I don't think anyone expected this whole thing to come to an end on Tuesday. And I think it's going to take some time for some people to come to grips and to get to know Donald Trump and to get on board.
HANNITY: This has been going on for a year.
PRIEBUS: Paul has always said he's going to support the nominee. What's that?
HANNITY: This has been going on a year. What do they need to know?
PRIEBUS: Well, look, I think for some people an endorsement is a full embrace, and for some people it takes a little bit of time to get to a full embrace. And so he's not one of these members of Congress that might not have to deal with this issue for yet a week or two, but he's got cameras in his face. And what he's saying is, look, I want to get there. I think I will get there. But I want to talk to Donald Trump and I want to work with him and I want to figure out what --
HANNITY: You know what it shows? It shows tepid support at best. McConnell's statement was hardly an endorsement. You know what, it's really frustrating to me, because I will --
PRIEBUS: Disagree --
HANNITY: I would argue that Republican weakness, and it showed up in every exit poll, that Republican rank and file feel betrayed, 60 plus percent of them, by the weakness of D.C. Republicans. Isn't Donald Trump's success --
PRIEBUS: If I can snap my fingers, Sean, and make everything instantly unified, I would.
HANNITY: I'm not mad at you.
PRIEBUS: I know you're not mad at me. But, look, I believe this is going to get to the right place, and I think next week is going to be the start of that. Both Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are meeting next week to talk about these things. I think it's going to work out.
But in some cases people are not going to be instantly on board. And I know that can be frustrating for some people, but I think everyone has to have a little bit -- allow a little bit of the steam to get out and get everybody to settle down, and I think this is going to come together.
HANNITY: What do you make of "National Review"? We put up the comments earlier today, "this is an unmitigated disaster." What do you think of other conservatives that said Glenn Beck and Erick Erickson to maim a few, they're not going to vote for the nominee. What is your reaction to that?
PRIEBUS: Look, I think you ask me in a couple of months and we'll see what that say when the decision has to be made as far as who is going to on be the Supreme Court and when Donald Trump puts out his potential nominees for the court. People are going to have a choice to make. Do we want to destroy America for generations with liberal justices that Hillary Clinton is going to provide? Who is going to sign a budget that Paul Ryan writes with the members of the House? It's not going to be Hillary Clinton.
So, look, we have some serious choices to make, and I understand it takes time. This was a very contentious primary. I think it's going to take a little bit of time, but I think for the most part this is going to come together. Maybe not 100 percent, but I think we're going to get very close to that, and I think people will fall in line.
HANNITY: You go a lot of people at National Review, and The Weekly Standard. We put a challenge out to you. It says "The party of Lincoln is in ruins. A minority of its primary voters have torched its founders' legacy by voting for a man who combines old fashioned Democratic ideology, a bizarre form of hyper-violent isolationism, and fringe conspiracy theories and serial with the enthusiastic flock of online racists to create perhaps the most toxic electoral coalition since George Wallace. And to add insult to injury, multiple GOP leaders bulldozed the ashes by issuing nauseating calls for unity, foremost among them Reince Priebus. Reince, you should resign rather than spending another ounce of personal energy supporting a reprehensible man." National Review online.
PRIEBUS: First of all, what am I going to do, call for disunity? I'm the chairman of the party. Of course I'm going to call for unity. That's a stupid, idiotic statement put out by people that would rather divide than unite. Unfortunately division is profit and unity is a looser. And so it's difficult to --
HANNITY: Did they support John McCain? Did they support every establishment candidate?
PRIEBUS: Well, look, the point is that you have a choice to make, and I think the choice is very stark. But I do understand it's going to take time. As the chairman of the party of course I'm going to call for unity. And as chairman of the party I need to support the eventual nominee of our party. That's what parties do. This was -- voters and delegates make these decisions.
HANNITY: Last question. I bet you're glad you didn't have a contested convention in the end. Did you talk to Ted Cruz, Senator Cruz?
PRIEBUS: I left him a message. I talked to his campaign chairman and I'm going to give him another call tomorrow. But we'll talk. And we have talked a lot, by the way, so it's nothing strange, but I think he's going to take a couple of days off. Good relationship. I agree. I think an open convention, while I know a lot of people were excited about it and it's a lot of fun to talk about, I think it comes with a tremendous cost and unforeseen results. And I think that clarity is something that is need in our party. And like I said, this is going to take time, but I think we will heal and we'll come together and we'll beat Hillary Clinton.
HANNITY: Is there any part of Trump's agenda that you think is not conservative?
PRIEBUS: Look, I think we'll work that out. I think that there's some things that he'll work on and I think there's some things that we'll work on, and certainly the platform of our party will be written in Cleveland, and I think you're going to get another very conservative platform out of our party.
HANNITY: All right, Reince Priebus, chairman of the RNC, thank you.
When we come back, an infamous hacker tells FOX News that he was able to breach Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server. Judge Jeanine Pirro is here next to respond straight ahead.
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HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY. So the Clinton campaign should be very worried tonight. An infamous hacker who goes by the name Guccifer has told FOX News that he broke into Hillary's private email server and says it was easy to do. Here with reaction, the host of "Justice," Judge Jeanine Pirro. Hi, Judge, how are you? Good to see you.
JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO, "JUSTICE WITH JUDGE JEANINE" HOST: Hi. You know what I love about the quote, before we get to the first question. It's this guy. You know what he says, quote, "It was like an open orchid on the Internet." And the ability to hack into our secretary of state's e-mails was so easy that 10 other people were in there hacking.
HANNITY: He was extradited from Romania to the United States. He says it's simple, and he said he's going to cooperate with official, but with the FBI investigation is coming to a close.
PIRRO: What this says is when the United States government and the Romanian government agree that someone who is imprisoned in Romania is going to be extradited to the U.S. to give us evidence, that tells me that the FBI, and I said this a month ago on my show, the FBI is coming close to an end with this investigation. And so Hillary's campaign comes out and says this guy is just a hacker and he's a liar, and they say something like he's unfathomable he would have gained access to her e-mails. Really? This is a home room server in Chappaqua.
HANNITY: It was a mom and pop shop server in a bathroom closet.
PIRRO: Yes, in a bathroom closet. And the other piece is the fact that this is a guy who is more likely than not to hack because it's very credible. This is what he does for a living. So when they say it's not credible. Are you kidding? Who is a better hacker than a hacker?
HANNITY: I don't think there is any doubt about -- how many crimes. I don't think there's any doubt he did it, and I would suspect China did it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Iranians did it. We read the Germans did it, probably the Israelis did it, right? So let's be honest here.
So she denied that she ever sent or received classified information. But that is not even the biggest problem for her. Just putting it on the server is a problem, isn't it?
PIRRO: That is right. And here's the thing. She can deny all she wants. The truth is that she had classified, top secret, SAP information. And if you're going to tell me that this woman who was our secretary of state with our public records never had one classified document, one top secret, then she wasn't doing her job. We ought to get our money back.
HANNITY: Is there going to be a criminal referral?
PIRRO: Absolutely.
HANNITY: You're 100 percent?
PIRRO: I haven't spoken to Jim Comey who I respect and admire. But I believe it.
HANNITY: If that's the case, will she get indicted?
PIRRO: That is the next question. The hurdle is getting Loretta Lynch to give Jim Comey, who is a phenomenal prosecutor, access to a grand jury. If a grand jury hears it, she gets indicted.
HANNITY: Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing said there already likely is one.
PIRRO: Nobody knows whether or not there's a grand jury right now, and it doesn't mean a darn thing one way or the other.
HANNITY: Do you think she should go to jail over this?
PIRRO: I think anyone who put the security of Americans at risk where we have an ambassador and three other Americans who died waiting for help, when she is e-mailing Sydney Blumenthal and it was Guccifer who put trust to the lie when she said "I never discussed Benghazi," then you're darn right she should get jail.
HANNITY: Tell us how you really feel.
PIRRO: I always do.
HANNITY: Coming up, we need your help, a very important "Question of the Day" straight ahead.
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HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time for our "Question of the Day." Are you angry prominent Republicans are actively sabotaging Donald Trump now that he is the presumptive nominee? We want to hear from you. Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter. By the way, don't forget, you can still vote on our poll at Hannity.com about who you would like to see as vice president.
Quick programming note. Be sure to tune in tomorrow night, 10:00 p.m. eastern, that's the Trump presumptive nominee. We're going to examine his position on the issues. A lot of people say he's not been specific. That is not true. That will air tomorrow night, 10:00 eastern.
But that's all the time we have left this evening. Don't forget to set your DVR so you never miss an episode. We take attendance. Our feelings are hurt if you're not here. We'll see you back here tomorrow night.
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