Gingrich: Will Mueller investigate Democrats and Ukraine?
Former House speaker weighs in on allegations of collusion on 'Hannity'
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 12, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And this is a "Fox News Alert," a special "Hannity" investigation into the rampant hypocrisy from the left, and of course, the destroy Trump media when it comes to the issue of election interference. Newt Gingrich, Kellyanne Conway, Gregg Jarrett, Geraldo Rivera will all be here with reaction tonight.
But first, this may surprise you. For once, I actually agree with the outrage coming from Democrats and the destroy Trump media. It's just pointed in the wrong direction. And that's tonight's "Opening Monologue."
All right, in the middle of yet another destroy Trump propaganda foaming at the mouth feeding frenzy, well, Donald Trump Jr., joined us in an exclusive interview last night to explain the facts behind his meeting back in June of 2016 with a Russian lawyer.
Now, I asked him question after question, frankly, until I couldn't think of any other questions. And Donald Trump Jr., to his credit, he answered everything single one of them.
Now, much to the dismay of Democrats and the leftist media, there was no smoking gun, there was no shocking revelation. What we ended up with is this: that Donald Trump, Jr. was approached about setting up a meeting with the offer of op research on Hillary Clinton. He took the meeting, about 20 minutes. But the Russian lawyer had nothing, and that was the end of it, and they never talked again. Plus, the lawyer says she does not work for the Russian government.
Well, now that we have that out of the way, I want to highlight the Democrats and the media's collective outrage over so-called election interference, collusion, fake news, and explain how they are completely wrong and completely misguided.
Now, let's start with the idea of a foreign government interfering in elections and how God-awful it is. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
RACHEL MADDOX, MSNBC, JULY 11: There is also now direct evidence, uncontested evidence of people in the Trump campaign at the highest levels conspiring with a foreign adversary to influence our election.
SEN. CHRIS COONS, D-DEL., JULY 12, CNN: Colluded with a foreign power, partnering with Russia to try and influence our presidential election certainly raises questions.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC, JULY 11: Are you concerned about Don Jr., and other members of the Trump campaign meeting with Russian lawyers claiming to be representatives of the Russian government, or claiming to be part of a bigger plan for the Russian government to influence the presidential election?
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HANNITY: Pay very close attention. If the left, if the media, if they are really so upset about all of that, then they should be morally outraged and hysterical about this very explosive report from Politico January 11, this year. Here's the headline. "Ukrainian Efforts to Sabotage Trump Backfire. Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton."
Now, in the article, Politico explains how a DNC operative actually paid and Ukrainian government officials, they worked to aid the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign to hurt Donald Trump during the 2016 election. Now, the report details how this Democratic operative, who used to work in the Clinton White House, led this effort, even met with Ukrainian diplomats at the Ukrainian embassy to talk about ways to expose former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and hurt the campaign.
Now, this operative went on to describe those Ukrainian officials as being, quote, "helpful" when it came to finding leads to dig up information, dirt on Donald Trump and his campaign. Then there's this stunning quote, collusion, "She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and the Clinton campaign." So this DNC operative, paid, was working with Ukraine, also sharing potentially damaging information with the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Then to top it all off, the DNC operative also said that she would give off-the-record information and guidance to, quote, "a lot of journalists" --- you know, those people that suck it all in -- who were trying to write stories about the Trump campaign and Paul Manafort.
But maybe that's why the media doesn't want you, the American people, to know about this story. Now, were they complicit in this foreign plot to damage the Trump campaign?
And here's another example that has been completely ignored. A congressional investigation found back in 2014 an Israeli political group used $300,000-plus taxpayer dollars from the Obama State Department in a grant to create a political apparatus. For what purpose? To try and defeat one of our closest allies, defeat the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his latest reelection.
And next is the media and the Democrats, you know, the ones that are so apoplectic over the idea of collusion. Why have they never reported any of these stories to you? Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
REP. MAXINE WATERS, D-CALIF., MAY 11, MSNBC: I told you that I thought there was a Kremlin plan and these were his allies. I had a resolution back in February that said it should be investigated for collusion.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF., MARCH 19, MSNBC: I would characterize it this way at the outset of the investigation. There is circumstantial evidence of collusion.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y., JULY 11: The claims of the administration for the last six months that collusion is not even on the table has been undone by the president's son's own words.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN, JULY 11: This is evidence of willingness to commit collusion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, NBC NEWS, MARCH 5: I think what it means is that a federal judge found that the people in Trump's organization were colluding with the Russians.
MADDOW, MARCH 16, "THE TONIGHT SHOW"/NBC: What would change the world is if, you know, Russia was interfering in the election and they weren't doing it on their own and he was in on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: What a bunch of phonies. What a bunch of hypocrites. Now, if they're so incensed about all that, then maybe they should looking to a real example of real Russian collusion.
And of course, I'm talking about the Uranium One deal, which the media never talks about. Here's how that went down. Now, during her tenure as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton approved the transfer of up to 20 percent of America's uranium, the foundational material for nuclear weapons. You know that thing? And anyway, that went to Vladimir Putin and the Russians!
And guess what? The people who benefited from that deal, well, they kicked back, they poured as much as $145 million into the Clinton Foundation! And at the same time, Bill Clinton, like he always does trying to enrich himself further, he doubled his speaking fees in Moscow.
Now, you don't have to connect the dots on this one because it's so obvious. That's pay-to-play. Actually, where I grew up, we call it bribery.
Now, the Clintons stuffed their pockets while putting America's national security in jeopardy. That's almost as dumb as the uranium deal.
And here's another example of misdirected outrage by the left -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the media, all freaking out over fake news! They are fake news! Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, MAY 31: Voters who are being targeted with all of this false information are genuinely trying to make up their minds.
They've got to help prevent fake news from creating a new reality that does influence how people, you know, think of themselves, see the world, the decisions that they make.
THEN-PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, NOV. 20, 2016: The general misinformation from all kinds of sources, both domestic, foreign, on social media, that make it very difficult for voters to figure out what's true and what's not.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT, NOV. 20, 2016: We are entering a terrible new age of information warfare. And it brings to mind that old adage, the first casualty of war is the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HANNITY: I said in 2008, journalism's dead. Nothing beats the media, the left in this country complaining about fake news, when pretty much every news organization has gotten it wrong when going after President Trump, and all of them had to issue corrections. And of course, they colluded back in the campaign and were exposed to basically working with the Clinton campaign. Remember that? Remember WikiLeaks?
Anyway, and CNN is out on front on most of this stuff. Now, here's the most overlooked aspect of this crusade by the left. When fake news suits their purpose and their goals, they support it, they spread it, they propagandize.
Now, check out this headline from The Washington Times. Quote, "Democrats intentionally used disinformation from Russia to attack Trump in campaign ads." Other writers, well-known, Roland (ph) Scarborough, well respected -- he's talking about the fake, the discredited. Remember Christopher Steele, the dossier on Donald Trump? And he points out that Steele's dossier and sources included -- and I'm quoting -- "a senior Russian foreign ministry figure," a top-level Russian intelligence officer, active inside the Kremlin, a senior Russian government official and a senior Kremlin official. So in other words, they were relying and they were spreading information directly sourced to the highest level of the Russian government.
Now, instead of stopping all this and the foreign effort to interfere in our elections, well, the dossier was passed around for months and months and months, eventually published by BuzzFeed, routinely cited by Democrats, who repeated the false claims from the document to attack President Trump. Remember, that was about the Ritz-Carlton and hookers, and I won't go any further. Not to mention, it ended up in the hands of Senator John McCain. He gave it to the FBI. That led to an investigation.
Then there's the group behind this phony dossier, Fusion GPS. As The New York Post has reported, it has several ties to the Democrats, including Clinton allies.
So the double standard here is stunning, it's spectacular. And as we have seen time and time again, Democrats are willing to put their party and politics before anything else, even if it means lying to you!
And in the case of Donald Trump Jr., he came on this program last night. He answered every tough question about the meeting. Well, isn't it now time for Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, the media, all these people, the Ukraine, those associated with the Ukraine, those in the DNC, to do the same?
Now, here's why. We know the Democrats colluded with Ukraine. It's incontrovertible. We know that a DNC operative met with Ukrainian diplomats and shared information with the DNC and the Clinton campaign. We know that members of the Ukrainian government worked to undermine the Trump campaign, which eventually led to the removal of Paul Manafort when he was the campaign manager. That's all been proven.
The questions we need answers to now -- what else took place? And in other words, how far do these people go? And what did Hillary Clinton know and when did she know it and was she directly involved? Now, this double standard, this hypocrisy is despicable, especially when you consider how the media in this country and the Democrats in this country for now almost 11 months have been freaking out nonstop, never-ending black helicopter tinfoil hat conspiracy theories that have been proven to be based on nothing, all while ignoring mountains of evidence in numerous cases that show real election interference and real Russian collusion and Ukrainian collusion!
Joining us now, author of the number one New York Times bestseller, "Understanding Trump," former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Mr. Speaker, good to see you.
NEWT GINGRICH, R-FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: It's good to be with you. Listen, before we go on to other things, I want to tell you, Callista and I watched last night with fascination. We thought that Don, Jr., did a great job. And I happened to be with his dad this afternoon in the Oval Office. And as we chatted, he's very proud of Don, thought it was a great -- really great interview and watched it carefully.
So I think it was a really, really important show and one that gave somebody chance without any editing -- I mean, the country is looking right there. You and he are talking straight on. And they get a way to measure his sincerity, his honesty and his openness, including the fact, as he himself said, if he had to do it over again, knowing what he now knows, he probably wouldn't handle it the same way.
HANNITY: And it was -- it was...
GINGRICH: So I just want to congratulate you. I thought it was a very, very important show.
HANNITY: I think it was -- it was 20 minutes of his life. He gave all the circumstances. In retrospect, he would have done it different.
This is very -- let's take the Ukrainian situation as one example. OK, so you have a DNC paid operative sharing the information with the DNC and the Clinton campaign, meeting in the Ukrainian embassy. They're disseminating false information on then candidate Donald Trump. That sounds like collusion with a foreign government. And I guarantee you, anybody that watches CNN or NBC doesn't know this story!
GINGRICH: Here's a way to think of the current elite media. They rush past the bank robbery to grab one of us for jaywalking. I mean, that's how bad it is. As far as they're concerned, there are no problems on the left, there's no scandal on the left, there's no collusion on the left. But boy, you got to watch out for those Republicans. I mean, they might have had in June if last year a 20-minute meeting.
It's absurd! I've said several times now that this is actually much more like the famous play, "The Crucible," which is about the witchcraft trials in Salem. I mean, you have is a news media elite which wakes up every morning saying, I know Trump did something terrible, I wonder what it was. And then they spend the whole day looking for an excuse to write a bombshell shocking story.
I mean, I listened to some reporters this afternoon who were -- Sarah was - - Sanders was doing the briefing. And the one guy said, Look, now that we know that it's a hard fact that there was a meeting and that it involved collusion -- and this reporter is building an entire case that is totally false. And then he springs from that false case to an even more outrageous question.
And that's what we're up against. And I predict that for the eight years of the Trump presidency, we will be in this fight on some topic, in Russia now, something else later that'll never go away.
HANNITY: Maybe you're right, but I would like every American that knows about the lies and the conspiracy theories -- there's no evidence of collusion, zero, after thousands of hours. How many articles written? But there is evidence of collusion with the Ukrainian government and the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
And by the way, and when you get to the dossier issue, I've got to be honest, I mean, it gets even worse when they're using Russian sources. Your reaction to that? Or how about Obama trying to defeat Bibi?
GINGRICH: Well, you know, let's just take the Ukrainian collusion with the Democrats because that's such a clear and vivid effort to defeat Trump. It would be really interesting to build a petition drive to demand that the House and the Senate and that Bob Mueller investigate the Democrats for what we have as clear evidence of paid full-time collusion. I mean, you know, here you have a DNC person who I assume had their expenses paid by the DNC, had a salary paid by the DNC, going to Kiev in order to collaborate and gather information.
I'd like to know why the chairmen of the House and Senate committees aren't investigating that example of a clear and open collusion. And I'd like to know whether or not Bob Mueller -- I mean, he announced the other night he's certainly going to look into a 20-minute meeting that Don, Jr., had. Well, is Bob Mueller willing to say he's -- willing -- he's prepared to look into the collusion with the Ukrainians on behalf of the Democrats, or is he only running a one-sided partisan anti-Trump investigation?
HANNITY: All right, we got to take a break. We're going to have more with former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich after the break.
Also tonight, we'll check in with the counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway. She'll react to my interview with Donald Trump, Jr.
And then later tonight, liberal Joe Scarborough announcing he's leaving the GOP. Wow.
Also, wait until you see the most embarrassing musical moment perhaps in late-night television history. That's straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So Donald Trump Jr., last night on this program spoke about how the biased mainstream media will stop at nothing to take down the president and his family. Now, here are some of the vicious attacks aimed at Don Jr., just in the last couple of days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was admitting that he had met with this Russian lawyer for the purpose of receiving information against Hillary Clinton. I thought, My God, this kid was dropped on his head as a child. Could he possibly be admitting this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How stupid of Don, Jr. -- I mean, I guess it runs in the family -- to go on Twitter when he is clearly in legal jeopardy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This can't be dismissed as people out to get Donald J. Trump, Jr., or fake news. This is evidence of willingness to commit collusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: As we continue with former speaker of the House, author of the number one New York Times best-seller, "Understanding Trump" -- by the way, six weeks now on the New York Times list. Congratulations.
Again, willingness to commit collusion when real collusion occurred! I go to the Russian dossier issue because a lot of the information came from Russia and Christopher Steele, the former intelligence agent in Great Britain -- he actually paid for this information that turned out to be so erroneous and so false. And some Republicans apparently were involved in the beginning, but the Democrats, Fusion GPS got involved in this.
So when you have those real examples and they make these real criticisms, politicians and the media -- how do they not see, or do they, their utter hypocrisy, see a case with real evidence, real collusion, real meetings that really occurred, disseminated to the DNC and Hillary, and not do anything or say anything or -- not a word about it! That's breathtaking to me!
GINGRICH: Well...
(CROSSTALK)
GINGRICH: ... why I reached...
HANNITY: Why am I -- why do I...
GINGRICH: I don't know. Look, I -- I...
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Go ahead.
GINGRICH: Sean, I think -- I think this -- I think this is such an extraordinary moment in American history. That's why I reached back to Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," which is a play about the Salem witchcraft trials. I mean, I -- I -- the level of mass behavior that is psychological that we're seeing both with the Democrats and with news media is astonishing!
And let me say up front, by the way, I think a serious, in-depth congressional investigation...
HANNITY: Well, where are these Republicans?
GINGRICH: ... of all foreign efforts to influence the U.S. would be good. I'm absolutely mystified why the Republicans are so timid, so lacking in just, frankly, common sense...
HANNITY: Courage?
GINGRICH: I mean, I can't explain either the House or Senate committees. No, I don't think it's courage. I think it's sleepwalking. I think they have allowed the media to define for them what they are supposed to be doing, as opposed to what you just pointed out, which is let's talk about foreign collusion.
How about the fact that you have this article that says very clearly -- and I think this is a test every American could give their congressman and their senator. You have an article that says very clearly that the Democratic National Committee had a paid operative in Ukraine trying to dig up dirt with the help of the Ukrainian government.
Shouldn't that be investigated? And again, I would say about Bob Mueller's operation, somebody ought to ask him, If you think a one-time 20-minute meeting that was mostly about adoption is worth investigating, are you going to investigate somebody who travels all the way to Kiev...
HANNITY: Well, maybe...
GINGRICH: ... to dig up dirt with the help of a foreign government?
HANNITY: Well, maybe the Clinton and Obama donors he hired or maybe Hillary Clinton's attorney that he hired to work in his special counsel office, maybe they'll do it. So I'm not -- I don't have that much confidence in Mueller. You know, but there's -- it's even worse than that when we come to real issues, real...
GINGRICH: Oh, but let's be -- let's be -- wait a second. Hold on. Hold on. Let's be optimists, Sean. Let's see if Mueller could hire one Republican.
HANNITY: Oh!
GINGRICH: I mean, this would be a great test. Can he hire one Republican who is for Trump? That would be an exciting moment of moving towards bipartisanship. It'd be about 15 to 1, but still, one would be a start.
HANNITY: All right, Newt Gingrich, "Understanding Trump," six weeks in a row, New York Times, number one at one point. Good to see you, Mr. Speaker. Congratulations on that success. That's awesome.
When we come back, we have a busy night tonight right here on "Hannity."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently. Again, this is before the Russia mania. This is before they were building it up in the press.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Donald Trump, Jr., telling me last night, in retrospect, he might have things a little differently. Up next, the counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway -- she'll join us with reaction.
And also later tonight, FOX News anchor, attorney Gregg Jarrett says it is, quote, "utterly preposterous" for the Democrats to say Donald Trump, Jr., committed a crime. He'll join us, along with Geraldo Rivera.
And I got a message for liberal Joe as he announced he's leaving the Republican Party. I'm going to address his little departure later.
And then, of course, the final minute of the show goes to Terrence Williams tonight -- straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently. Again, this is before the Russia mania, this is before they were building it up in the press. For me this was opposition research. If they had something, maybe concrete evidence to all the stories I had been hearing about but were probably underreported for years, not just during the campaign. So I think I wanted to hear it out. But really it went nowhere. And it was apparent that that wasn't what the meeting was actually about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That was more of my exclusive interview last night with Donald Trump, Jr. Earlier tonight I spoke with the counsel to the president Kellyanne Conway.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: All right, Kellyanne, welcome back, good to see you.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Hi, Sean.
HANNITY: I know you watched the interview. What was your overall take? I actually thought what was more important is we've got the Russian dossier - - I'm sorry, we have the former intelligence agent, his dossier, some of the information coming from Russia. And then of course you've got the Ukrainian issue, real collusion with the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Then of course you have got Obama trying to oust and actively working to oust Prime Minister Netanyahu, one of our closest allies in Israel. So if collusion matters, how come we haven't heard about Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine as much as we should?
CONWAY: That's about the different candidates, the one who lost and who the media wanted to win back and predicted would win. They neither expected nor wanted this election result. And the president is right when he points that out, that so much of this goes back to the election results and the fact that people are trying to BleachBit it and make it go away.
Let's review a couple things. You just mentioned the actual coordination and collusion between Ukrainian embassy officials and DNC officials. They actually used that information to try to hurt people on the Trump campaign. That's number one. Number two, Bill Clinton got a half-million dollars in speaking fees from a Russian bank and was personally thanked by Putin for that.
Number three, Hillary Clinton allowed 20 percent of our uranium reserves to go to a Russian firm whose investors gave money to the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton campaign chairman's brother lobbied against sanctions on Russia and failed to disclose it. So you're talking about actual evidence, not conjecture.
My other impression of your interview is that -- how refreshing to have someone take responsibility, be transparent and earnest, admit that maybe he would have done things differently. I think many people in last year's election should say that they would have done things differently. How about the people saying on election day Hillary Clinton had a 92 percent chance of winning Michigan. It turns out she had a zero percent chance. So many things could be done differently.
The bottom line is, what came out of this 20 minute, brief meeting? Nothing helpful, nothing meaningful, nothing consequential. If that weren't true, there would have been immediate follow-up. No follow-up whatsoever.
HANNITY: But Alexandra Chalupa, the woman that was being paid by the DNC - - I will go to the Politico article, the early part of this year she shared her findings with officials from the DNC and the Clinton campaign. She went to the Ukrainian embassy, and they were disseminating false information on Donald Trump. As a matter of fact they even take credit for helping to push out a Paul Manafort at that particular point in the campaign. So there's real collusion.
CONWAY: There's real damage too. That's my whole point, where the damage is here. You were specifying damages. If we were in a court of law, I don't think all these allegations would even muster a motion to dismiss, a motion for summary judgment. But certainly I would ask you the question, what witnesses are you going to call? Where is your evidence, and what are your damages?
What you described with the Ukrainian embassy officials and the DNC, this Alexandra person, there was damage. They tried to hurt people and they did hurt people on the Trump campaign. So I'm glad you are raising that. No less than a New York Times reporter today tweeted about it, almost exactly what you are saying. Sarah Sangers mentioned it in her White House press briefing today. And this is important information. The biggest response I have heard from the media about that is, oh, but a different person won. You won, she lost. That does not erase the fact that people may have broken the law and that they colluded with foreign governments to try to damage people in the Trump campaign which by extension would damage Mr. Trump, at the time.
HANNITY: It's also very interesting, and this was what I was trying to point out earlier in the program today, my opening monologue. Rowan Scarborough, a very well renowned reporter, Washington Times, and he writes this piece today, Christopher Steele, he's the former British intel guy, he's the one that paid for a lot of the information that he got -- this is where the hooker Ritz story comes in, proven false, all of these things. But he actually says in his piece that Mr. Steele was paid by the Democratic funded opposition research group Fusion GPS with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. So if they are getting information from Russia in that particular case, or you could even add to that the Uranium One deal, she signs off, over $100 million kicked back to the Clinton Foundation. There's something so fundamentally wrong here in terms of fundamental fairness and the media. And at some point it seems like there's got to be more pushback and that these stories have got to also penetrate the consciousness of the American people.
CONWAY: The pushback is coming from the American people. Have you seen the approval rating of the media lately?
HANNITY: Yes, that's true. You're right.
CONWAY: And the ratings on shows and networks -- not yours, Sean. By the way, congratulations on your incredible ratings. I think people are looking for an alternative because in addition to there being sort of a myopic, lemming-like ants on a sugar cube mentality on this story by many in the media, there's just this culture of sameness. Everybody sounds the same.
Do you realize that the president of the United States sat with the president of Russia less than a week ago for two hours and 15 minutes and yet we're talking about this and not that? Do you realize that you've got people in the media now between their lower third chyrons and what comes out of their mouth, they talk more about Russia than America? And thank you for talking about America so often.
Do you realize that we basically will come out of this 20 minute brief meeting, same amount of information that comes out of some of these panels where six people are nodding their head at each other discussing the same thing, which is to say zero usable information.
So I just want to review in case you run out of time. This is how we see it so far. This is to help all the people at home. What is the conclusion? Collusion, no. We don't have that yet. I see illusion and delusion.
(LAUGHTER)
CONWAY: So just so we're clear everyone, four word, conclusion, collusion? No. Illusion, delusion, yes. I just we would have some fun with words, so Sesame's Grover word of the day perhaps, Sean, because you are absolutely right. To date they basically set out this Venus flytrap and though one day we will catch something eight months later. And yet we really appreciate the fact that, we being the American people, I have to say, appreciate the fact that Don Jr. released those emails, appeared on your show for all to see. Compare that to the hiding and the furtiveness that we saw all during the last campaign by the other side.
HANNITY: I'm going to buy you a whiteboard. You're going to get a whiteboard. All right, Kellyanne Conway from the White House tonight, thank you for being with us.
And coming up, as Democrats and the media continue to slam Donald Trump Jr. unfairly for meeting with a Russian lawyer last year, FOX News anchor, attorney Gregg Jarrett says he did not commit any crime. We'll talk about this double standard. Also Geraldo Rivera joins us.
And later tonight, devastating news. Liberal Joe announces he's leaving the Republican Party. So if a tree falls in a forest, does anybody know? I have got a mini monologue for liberal Joe tonight you don't want to miss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So in the wake of Donald Trump Jr. releasing emails about his 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, some Democrats, members of the leftwing media are saying he broke the law, committed treason. But in a new op-ed, lawyer, FOX News anchor Gregg Jarrett said that is so far from the case. He joins us along with attorney, FOX News contributor at large Geraldo Rivera. You called it preposterous.
GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS ANCHOR AND ATTORNEY: It is preposterous. You have to be at war with the Russians in order for treason to kick in, so war against the United States and aiding and comforting the enemy. We are not at war. It's so stupid for Senator Tim Kaine and others to say it. It's just not.
They also say it's collusion. There is no collusion statute except in antitrust. There is one statute that says you can't conspire to obstruct a government function which would be an election. But that requires deceit and dishonesty, and taking information from a Russian lawyer isn't deceit and dishonesty. And finally, I listened this morning to this Democratic congressman saying it's a clear violation of campaign election laws. OK, which one? There isn't any.
HANNITY: They're talking about the FEC campaign act. That's not criminal.
JARRETT: First of all, it's a civil penalty, but second of all, it doesn't apply here because you generally have to donate money. And it specifically says that providing personal services is not a donation and foreign nationals can provide personal services. They do it all the time.
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: On the issue of treason, nothing exposes the utter hatred, the loathing that the left has with Donald Trump and the use of this word, treason. This charged word, this conjuring up of someone knifing his nation in the back is what treason is. Treason is Benedict Arnold. Treason is selling your G.I.'s down the tube for money or for some other power. It reveals the shamelessness of their rooting for the 45th president to fail in office.
I agree with Gregg's analysis. There is absolutely nothing illegal and what Donald Trump, Jr., did in taking this meeting. Collusion is not a crime. What is a crime is to hack. If the person got the information, they are guilty of a crime.
HANNITY: But he had no idea about what they were offering.
RIVERA: Even if they had given him the information or had released the information, look at all the people that used the information that WikiLeaks had or somebody had and gave to WikiLeaks.
HANNITY: I used it.
RIVERA: The New York Times, Sean Hannity, The Washington Post, everybody uses the info. That's not the crime. The crime is to hack. Or, and this is the greatest peril for Donald Trump, Jr. He must tell the truth about every contact he has had. And I am sure, as he told you, he is embarrassed by this whole thing. This is the last distraction his father needed. I'm sure he wishes he could do this over again. But this absolutely must be total truth when you're speaking to a federal agent.
HANNITY: What about Ukraine? Because there was information passed on. There was a meeting that took place in the Ukrainian embassy. It was passed on to the DNC. This really happened. The country doesn't know about that story. And it's far worse.
JARRETT: The media deliberately ignores it. There's no equivalency. There's no outrage because the media is in the bag for Hillary Clinton and Democrats. And it's pretty obvious. Their unabashed scorn and visceral hatred for this president shows every time they choose a story and tell a story. And also they largely ignore the Uranium One deal, which you pointed out in your opening monologue. Talk about a criminal quid pro quo. There's a plethora of evidence that she and Bill Clinton violated the law by using her office as secretary of state to her benefit in exchange for money. That is a crime, and not a word has been uttered in the media.
HANNITY: Geraldo, I think it's time that if this is where the Democrats want to go, Hillary on the email server, Hillary on Uranium One, Comey on the Espionage Act, the Records Act, Loretta Lynch, I think the deep state - - I say, OK, bring it all on. Everybody that committed a crime, let's go after them all.
RIVERA: Here's the problem with that approach.
HANNITY: You are just about to yell at me. Go ahead.
RIVERA: The problem is the president of the United States now has to deal with this feeding frenzy that exists, whether it's fair or unfair. This is a railroad, runaway locomotive that he has to deal with. Everything that he has ever said, anything that anyone associated with him during the campaign, during the transition, it will be gone over by his enemies with a fine tooth comb. To ask the public, or to ask the government to talk about Ukraine, to talk about uranium, they are not going to do it. This is like Watergate in the sense that everybody now is engaged. There are the president's defenders and they are numerically fewer than his attackers now. You have to stand like a rock and you have to defend it as it comes. That's what I set about Don Jr. --
HANNITY: The double standard is nauseating.
RIVERA: But the double standard is the reality in which we exist.
HANNITY: Good to see you both. Great work on that. And by the way, where do people get your columns?
JARRETT: FOXnews.com, go to the opinion section.
HANNITY: You ought to write a column.
RIVERA: I do mine in 140 characters now.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: When we come back, liberal Joe Scarborough, he says he is done with the Republican Party. So sad. And the most cringe-worthy musical appearance I've ever seen in my life. We have got a mini monologue.
And conservative Twitter social media sensation Terrence Williams, he gets the last word tonight again on HANNITY.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So former Republican Congressman turned morning show host because we kind of killed him at night turned want to be rock star, liberal Joe Scarborough made a so-called huge announcement last night. He told his comrade over at CBS, Steve Colbert, he's leaving the Republican Party. Oh, Joe, liberal Joe, say it ain't so.
That is the subject of tonight's very important mini monologue.
If you watch this show on a regular basis, you know that I am not a Republican. I am a registered conservative. However, my values, my views, and my viewpoints, they align more with the GOP, certainly more than the socialist Democratic Party. But Liberal Joe Scarborough is much, much different. A former Republican congressman from Florida's panhandle, moved to the northeast. He wanted to make it big. And now it's very clear, he wants to be loved and worshiped and idolized and adored and supported by all his liberal, arrogant, elitist friends in New York City, those people that are filling his head with visions of glory.
Now, knowing Joe Scarborough, he thinks that he really could one day be the president of the United States. Yes, he believes it. But calling President Trump a schmuck, a goon, a thug, and mentally unfit, it wasn't enough to please all his liberal friends and colleagues and of course his blushing bride to be, Mika. So now he's leaving the Republican Party. Bye-bye. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: What exactly is the Republican Party willing to do? How far are they willing to go? How much of this country and our values are they willing to sell out?
STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW"/CBS: But aren't you a Republican?
SCARBOROUGH: I am a Republican, but I'm not going to be a Republican anymore. I'm going to become an independent.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Liberal Joe, you made Steve Colbert's liberal audience so, so proud. What is the Republican Party ever going to do without Joe? Fortunately as the GOP loses one of its own, it looks like a Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, they're going to be gaining a legend. Did anyone else notice, by the way, the hair last night? Wow. I guess Mika is telling him it looks really cool.
OK, after dropping the new album and a cringe-worthy music video for his opening single, "Mystified," it looks like Joe Scarborough thinks he's the next Johnny Rotten. Honestly, Mika, do you like that hair? Wow. Does he think he's a rock star? It's really embarrassing. And by the way, speaking of cringe-worthy embarrassment, you've got to look at liberal Joe performing on Colbert last night. This was a hard-hitting, deeply profound song called "Monkey House." "Monkey House" on "The Late Show." This is liberal Joe, wannabe rock star. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: I guess it could be the theme song for MSNBC considering it's like a monkey house over there with all their conspiracy theories, considering how lacking in truth they all are. Joe, I never thought I'd say this -- watching that performance, don't quit your day job. It's cringe-inducing. By the way, FOX still doesn't want you, but if some reason you get fired over at NBC, you've been sucking up to Jeff Zucker and kissing his ass, maybe he'll hire you.
And up next tonight on HANNITY --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TERRENCE WILLIAMS, COMEDIAN: Breaking news everybody, the "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough announced he is leaving the Republican Party because Donald J. Trump be hurting his feelings.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: He's back, he gets the last word. Twitter social media sensation Terrence Williams, a brand-new video out tonight. He gets the last word. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time again for social media Twitter sensation, our friend Terrence Williams, he gets the last word tonight and all week. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TERRENCE WILLIAMS, COMEDIAN: Breaking news everybody, the "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough announced he is leaving the Republican Party because Donald J. Trump be hurting his feelings.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: Bye, Joe. We don't want you anyway.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Terrence gets the last word.
That's all the time we have left this evening, and thanks for being with us. Remember, this show, always fair, always balanced. See you back here tomorrow night.
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