'Hannity' on Biden's mishandling of COVID, Chicago violence

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Gregg Jarrett: Fauci wants Americans to be ‘very afraid’

Fox News host says the administration never had a plan to handle COVID on ‘Hannity.’

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 27, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN DUFFY, FOX NEWS HOST: I am out of time. That's about it for us tonight. Don't forget a brand-new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today" featuring Dr. Deborah Davis is available to stream right now on FOX Nation by going to tuckercarlson.com

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS HOST: Sean, thanks very much. Breaking up just a little bit here, but good timing.

Welcome to the special edition of HANNITY. I'm Gregg Jarrett, in for Sean.

And tonight, we begin with a flashback of sorts. Fourteen months ago, then candidate Joe Biden proudly declared, quote, Donald Trump still doesn't have a plan to get this virus under control I do.

Well, now, more than a year later, Biden has finally revealed his plan to shut down the virus, telling state governors, quote, there is no federal solution. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, there is federal solution. This gets solved at the state level. I'm looking at Governor Sununu on the board here. He talks about that a lot. And it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: And other words, there was no plan and there never was a plan. In fact, three months ago, the White House ignored top public health experts and turned down a proposal to add -- get this -- more than 730 million at home COVID to the marketplace each month.

That according to a report in "Vanity Fair", and now in the middle of yet another surge, COVID tests are in short supply. Gee, I wonder why.

Needless to say, journalists in the mainstream media are in full on panic mode. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JON KARL, ABC NEWS HOST: COVID couldn't stop Christmas, but here we are again. Yet another holiday season overshadowed by the pandemic that just won't go away, this time with the fear things may actually be getting worse. Omicron is sweeping the country, becoming the dominant COVID strain in just a matter of days, smashing hopes for a return to normal anytime soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Oh, but Joe had a plan, but you know now, he doesn't?

Of course, many in the media are taking their cues from Dr. Anthony Fauci who wants you to be very, very afraid and now he's telling Americans stop having parties, don't have fun, cancel your New Year's Eve plans. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: What is your advice to people about larger settings for New Year's parties?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Kaitlan, I would stay away from that. I mean, I have been telling people consistently that if you're vaccinated and boosted and you have a family setting in the home with family and relatives. But when you're talking about a New Year's Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating. You do not know the status of the vaccination. I would recommend strongly, stay away from that this year. There will be other years to do that, but not this year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: In fact, you should hide in the closet or go to the cellar. Know what I mean?

And COVID spiking around the country especially in New York and Los Angeles, Dr. Fauci wants you to live in abject fear. One of the local columnist in Miami knows just who to blame for all this -- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Her latest op-ed is titled: Last lesson of 2021, omicron happens when we act selfishly like Governor DeSantis.

Here now with reaction to all of this, Florida Congresswoman Byron Donalds, along with Arizona attorney general and Senate candidate, Mark Brnovich.

Gentlemen, thanks for being with us.

Congressman, so Joe Biden says there's no federal solution. Does he not remember just a few months ago, he said he had the federal solution? It was his federal nationwide vaccine mandate, coupled with nationwide federal mask mandates. I mean, is this a guy who suffers from chronic amnesia because his brain is so adult or is he incompetent or maybe it's both?

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL): I'm not sure what Joe Biden suffers from, but it's clear that he's extremely incompetent and doesn't know what he's doing. This is the same person who said he had a plan, but there are actually no monoclonal antibody treatments anywhere in the hospitals in the Northeast. They're actually being rationed right now because this administration did not plan.

Millions of Americans are looking for tests or at-home tests, there aren't any because he did not plan. Time after time after time, Joe Biden has failed. Why are we surprised by this at this point, America?

We shouldn't be. Compare that to -- at the beginning of the pandemic, there were no respirators, Donald Trump made sure that they were there. There was no PPE, Donald Trump made sure they were there. We were having major supply chain issues, that was a concern. Donald Trump made sure that didn't become a problem for the American people at the beginning of the pandemic.

This has been a lesson for the American people to look at what's actually happening versus political talking points. And the only person that has had talking points has been Joe Biden. There is no plan. Unfortunately, we have to live with him.

JARRETT: He had a lot of talking points, Attorney General Brnovich. During the campaign, he said he had a plan, he had a solution. He said, quote, I'm going to shut down the virus. He said it over and over again.

When he was inaugurated, he said the same thing. I'm going to shut down the virus.

Isn't this the problem when politicians running for office make all kinds of wild promises they can't possibly fulfill, and then when they fail, Americans get angry and resentful about it and the politicians' ratings tank? Isn't that what happened here?

MARK BRNOVICH (R), ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Gregg, I think you encapsulated that very, very well. And the reason why so many people are sick and tired of politics or sick and tired of D.C. is because there's so much hypocrisy and inconsistency. And what breaks my heart as a first generation American is that there was a time in this country when the president said something, you believed that you knew it was the truth. But because people like Joe Biden and people in his administration have been inconsistent and talked out of both sides of their mouth, they've created more chaos when it comes to the pandemic and they've tried to exert unconstitutional powers, they don't have.

And so, this country has faced many crisis in the past, and we need to recognize, we need to understand that what's consistent about this country is the Constitution. The states created the federal government, the federal government didn't create the states. And what works in Manhattan, New York, may not work in Manhattan, Kansas, and isn't going to work in Manhattan Beach, California.

So, we need to recognize that system of federalism and recognize that in times of crisis, that is when we need our Constitution and the rule of law more than ever, because our Constitution cannot be masked, distanced (ph), and it should never be canceled, not even by President Joe Biden.

JARRETT: All right.

Congressman, sometimes I think Joe Biden believes that Americans are as stupid as he is. He said that if he'd known about the winter surge, why he would have made testing widespread readily available in advance. But he was warned in the springtime by health officials that there was going to be a surge, and they recommended millions of rapid tests. He was warned again in the fall. He was told that, you know, we need 330 million rapid tests. He rejected the proposal.

So, isn't he lying when he says nobody knew? Fauci knew, Walensky at the CDC knew, they're his science advisors. They told him.

DONALDS: Yes, of course, Joe Biden is lying. He's lying just like he said nobody told him about Afghanistan. It was a lie then, this is a lie now.

Anybody with sense knows that in the winter months, any type of flu strain, influenza, COVID, something that's aerosolized is going to spread in the winter months in the Northeast. This is not a shock. It's happened every winter, basically in the history of mankind.

The problem is that we're dealing with an inept president. This is the same person who's always failed. So like I said just a minute ago, why are we shocked at this point? The man doesn't know what he's doing. He is a failure.

What the American people need to do now is we need to prepare for ourselves. We cannot rely on this president. We should never rely on government because government is too slow, not responsive and unfortunately not bright enough.

We need to rely on ourselves. We need to make sure we plan ahead. We need to do what's necessary to take care of ourselves and our families.

Joe Biden is not here to help you, folks. He's going to let you down every single time.

JARRETT: You know, I remember, Attorney General, when Joe Biden the candidate scoffed at Donald Trump's prediction that in the springtime of this year, there would be vaccines readily available and distributed to Americans. Biden said, nonsense, that's not going to happen.

So then when it happened, Joe Biden took credit for the vaccines, as well as the distribution plan that Donald Trump had put in place. Biden largely went along with it, as well as saying -- Biden's saying that he had no plan to deal with the vaccine.

Isn't that his real failure here is he just never came up with a plan? He thought that the vaccines that Trump had devised would solve everything?

BRNOVICH: Yeah, Gregg, I think it's the one thing that's been consistent is the fact that everything the Biden administration has touched has worked out very poorly. And there's an old saying that failure to plan is planning to fail, and we've seen this not only with the vaccine roll out and the way they've handled the pandemic.

But this country has faced pandemics before, the Spanish flu, the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu, and now, the China flu. So this is something that we need to recognize has happened before and we depend on folks to -- leaders to make sure that they're planning appropriately.

But make no mistake about it, whether it's we can't afford gas, we can't afford, you know, meat, we can't afford groceries, you know, fuel costs are going through the roof, and the Biden administration is due to blame for all of this.

And more importantly, Gregg, remember, it's his enablers in Congress as a result of these policies, we'll see inflation go through the roof, and there can be no serious conversation about COVID and pandemic, unless we talk about the epidemic that Biden created on our southern border with. Fentanyl flooding into this country, methamphetamine flooding into this country, and think about this -- everyone watching this tonight, they're telling Americans that they're going to restrict our constitutional rights and you have to do X, Y and Z, you're going to have more testing or not testing. And yet we're allowing people that have entered this country illegally to fly all across the country at taxpayer expense without being vaccinated and being dropped off in cities in the dead of night without being tested.

That -- that to me undermines every single thing the Biden administration is doing and it points out the abject hypocrisy and irrationality of what they're trying to do when it comes to the pandemic.

JARRETT: All right. Congressman Donalds, Attorney General Brnovich, thanks so much for being with us.

Let's turn now to some breaking news. The CDC has just announced it's cutting the recommended isolation time for those infected with COVID-19 from days down to five days. This as the omicron variant is now being blamed for massive staffing shortages at businesses, hospitals and especially the airlines. Sadly, more than 800 flights reportedly canceled today after 1,500 were canceled on Sunday.

But Dr. Fauci believes masks on airplanes are effective and necessary and should be mandated indefinitely. Maybe forever.

And during one flight to Atlanta on Thursday, an unmasked woman bizarrely assaulted an 80-year-old man for not wearing a mask while he was eating. Watch this.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

JARRETT: This brings us to an important issue surrounding COVID-19, mental health, lockdowns, remote learning, isolation causing serious issues for millions of Americans, especially children.

Surgeon general is now warning of a mental health epidemic for kids. In the meantime, one top health expert from Brown University told FOX News that school closures shouldn't even be on the table.

This weekend on CBS, a rare moment of clarity and honesty. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS HOST: Well, I want to get to under-reported stories as well. Jan?

JAN CRAWFORD, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Oh, it's for me. I mean, my kids hear me rant about this every day, so I may as well tell you guys. It's the crushing impact that our COVID policies have had on young kids and children by far, you know, the least serious risk for serious illness. But -- I mean, even teenagers, you know, a healthy teenager has a one in a million chance of getting and dying from COVID, which is way lower than, you know, dying in a car wreck on a road trip. But they have suffered and sacrificed the most especially kids in underrepresented, at-risk communities.

And now we have the surgeon general saying there's a mental health crisis among our kids. The risk of suicide, suicide attempts among girls now up 51 percent this year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: Joining us now with reaction, FOX News medical contributor, Dr. Jeanette Nesheiwat, along with former attorney -- assistant secretary of the treasury, Monica Crowley.

Thank you both for being with us.

Doctor, let me start with you. I want to get your reaction to the latest information we're getting the latest news alert from the CDC. The recommendation that people who've tested positive only need to quarantine for five days if they're not showing any symptoms, then wear a mask for another five days. And if you've been boosted and you've been exposed, you don't need to isolate at all.

What do you think of that?

DR. JANETTE NESHEIWAT, FOX NEWS MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think it's a good idea because we need to get to the point, Gregg, where we live with this virus, where we adapt to the -- with this virus. We can't you know live our life surrounded and being ruled by coronavirus. Most people, they're usually infectious one to two days before they develop symptoms, and then about three days after they develop symptoms.

So we need to take this into consideration because people want to get back into the workforce and they don't want to be sitting at home for ten days. I've had a lot of patients who feel better after three or four days. I've also had lots of patients that had no symptoms. So I think it makes sense to shorten the quarantine period, especially if you test negative, you have no symptoms, you have no fever, and you're feeling good.

JARRETT: And, you know, Monica, we now know that omicron is not as lethal as other strains. The symptoms for most people seem to be mild. More than a majority are asymptomatic especially those who've been vaccinated and boosted.

And yet we're seeing these studies about the devastating impact, the deleterious effect on children. It's crushing them. You know, the anxiety, the depression and so forth. Isn't that really one of the underreported stories?

MONICA CROWLEY, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARTY OF THE TREASURY: Absolutely and I give CBS credit for covering it although some of us have been warning about this for well over a year. You know, this pandemic, Gregg, has caused a lot of collateral damage economically, politically culturally. But I think perhaps the most significant is the impact that it's having on children, teenagers and young people.

There's a lot of mental health issues that have come up over the last two years as we've dealt with this pandemic and they've really bared the brunt of a lot of the ramifications of school closures and isolation from their friends and their teachers and even in some cases their families.

So we've seen all kinds of mental health issues from depression, anxiety, isolation, suicidal ideation, suicides. We're seeing young people really feeling the effects of this and a lot of people are now talking about it now that the virus is weakened. We know how it behaves. We know how the vaccines and the therapeutics behave.

So we're almost in a safer space for people to start talking about this, but the problem is that the damage is largely already done.

JARRETT: Yeah. Let me get the doctor's point of view on this. I mean, after all, Doctor, we are -- you know, we're seeing kids with masks on in school all the time. They're eating their meals outdoors, separated in the cold.

Talk to us about the effect this has on kids. Before that, of course, virtual learning, they were all in isolation, no socialization.

What effect does that have on kids?

NESHEIWAT: Yeah, it -- first of all, completely unnecessary, masking outdoors while eating, completely unnecessary, and even the World Health Organization says a no to masking these young children. The profound mental emotional and psychological impact on our children doing this to them is astounding.

Like Monica said, increase in suicidal ideation increase in suicide among young girls we're seeing an increase in pediatric ER visits, also drugs, alcohol. It's really heartbreaking.

So, our focus and priority should be number one, keeping our kids in class and exhausting all resources to make sure that we do that, because they are our future, they are generations ahead of us. And we -- the decisions we make today will greatly impact them. As far as their learning, their education, their mental well-being, that should be our top priority.

JARRETT: You know, Monica, we all remember during the presidential campaign what Joe Biden said about Donald Trump. He said, quote, anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president. At the time, there were COVID deaths. But since Joe Biden took office, there have been more than deaths more people have died.

So by Joe Biden's own logic, he shouldn't be president, should he?

CROWLEY: Well, that's right and we should hold him to the standard that he laid out. What's interesting is we have had more deaths from COVID this year when we've had the number of vaccines on the market and people getting their vaccines and their boosters. So, look, I think we're in a completely different place now for the president today to claim that it's not a federal government response and it should go to the states when all of last year during the campaign, he was attacking President Trump for not having a plan.

Well, President Trump did have a plan. It was called Operation Warp Speed and it was one of the greatest achievements of any president in American history, maybe in world history. But Joe Biden comes in, claims he has a plan and clearly doesn't.

I mean everything from testing all the way down, he has been completely inept. So a statement today about well there's no good federal response to this it's basically an admission of his own incompetence. And by the way, if he really does believe that, well, there are some federal vaccine mandates about to go in from the Supreme Court if there's no federal response to this, then those vaccine mandates should be null and void.

JARRETT: You know, Doctor, I know I -- you don't want to get into politics and this really does have sort of a scientific angle to it.

But Joe Biden repeatedly blamed Donald Trump for COVID deaths. He said, quote, if the president had done his job, all the people would still be alive, which is utter nonsense.

Would you agree that Trump couldn't stop COVID deaths any more than Joe Biden can stop COVID deaths?

NESHEIWAT: Yeah, and you know what I could tell you, Gregg, I have taken care of thousands of COVID patients in the past two years. And talk about no federal solution. President Trump sent me ventilators, PPEs, the USS comfort ship, I had all the tools and resources to take care of all of my patients.

So to say there's no federal solution it really is disheartening to me. You know, this is the virus that has took us all by surprise. We didn't know at the beginning what it would what it would be like. How many people it would kill.

But like Monica said, Operation Warp Speed is one of the greatest blessings that we've had. It has saved thousands, not -- if not thousands, millions of lives globally. So we really need to look at the bigger picture. Not point fingers, not blame anybody but continue to use the therapeutics and the tools we have to ensure that we keep Americans safe.

JARRETT: Dr. Nesheiwat, Monica Crowley, thank you so much for being with us.

Coming up, apparently, Joe Biden is the last person in the world to know what "let's go, Brandon" means. And Democrats are now trying to end the legislative filibuster. We'll expose the rampant hypocrisy coming up next. This is a special edition of HANNITY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: Welcome back to HANNITY.

Joe Biden and the Democrats are ending the year in a state of dysfunction, disarray and all-out delusion, as the president continues to suffer from cratering popularity, slumping approval numbers.

For example, the president is underwater in both the Real Clear Politics average and in the FiveThirtyEight polling data. His support is also waning among independents and on key issues, including COVID, the border and the economy. And one of the few people polling worse than Joe Biden -- well, it's his own vice president. A whopping 54 percent disapprove of Kamala Harris's job performance amid her never-ending stream of bewildering, sometimes cackling moments.

But rather than admit their failures, the Biden team is now doubling down on delusion. For example, failed chief of staff Ron Klain is being mocked tonight after tweeting out an article saying that 2021, quote, wasn't all that bad. Really?

And, of course, their allies in the media are continuing to pay attention to everything but the issues that matter most to Americans. Just take a look at the attacks directed at an Oregon father after he engaged in this harmless prank on Biden earlier this week. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas, as well.

JILL BIDEN, U.S. FIRST LADY: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Merry Christmas and let's go, Brandon.

JOE BIDEN: Let's go, Brandon. I agree.

JILL BIDEN: Yeah.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: I agree, let's go Brandon.

Well, now, the father, 35-year-old Jared Schmeck says he's been receiving threatening phone calls amid the hysterical outrage but the same media who spewed vulgarities repeatedly about and at Donald Trump for four long years are now enraged over a simple joke.

Here for reaction, Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, along with FOX News contributor Charlie Hurt.

Good to see you guys.

So, Charlie, I wrote this down because it's kind of a long list, and I'll run through it really quickly. But this is Joe Biden's first year. Record inflation, soaring gas prices, spiraling crime, border crisis, supply shortages, pandemic surge, Afghanistan debacle and, of course, his embarrassing failure to pass his $5 trillion socialist entitlement lollapalooza.

I think by any intelligence standard, that's an unmitigated disaster. Is it any wonder that his ratings are in the toilet?

CHARLIE HURT, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: No, it's really not. And I would say that this has been the worst first year of any president -- certainly, if you go back a hundred years in this country, nobody has a record quite as dismal as this one is.

And what's really remarkable about this of course is that Joe Biden came into office with an enormous amount of goodwill. He'd been around for years. He was a known quantity. It's kind of hard to imagine a guy that's been around that long, anything dramatic happening in his poll, with his -- with his poll numbers.

But he has managed to screw so many things up so badly and, of course, don't forget this, Gregg. This is at a time when he his party controls every lever of power in Washington. There is no excuse. I mean the silver lining to -- for Republicans at the beginning of this year when they lost the Senate was that whatever happened after that was 100 percent Joe Biden's fault and Democrats fault, and this is the situation.

And, really, the only good news for Joe Biden is that he picked the right vice president because she's even more unpopular than him which protects him I think from the 25th Amendment and probably a few other things.

JARRETT: Yeah, can you imagine if she was actually popular? Which was always unlikely, since nobody voted for her in the primaries.

Austin -- Biden said, of course, oh gee, I don't follow my poll numbers, yakety-yak, and I don't blame him. And in fact, Austan, I will even grant you that some of these problems are conditional. But for most of them, wouldn't you agree that that he did this to himself, that he earned these poor approval ratings?

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER OBAMA ADVISOR: Well, I would characterize and I said it when Obama was in office and when President Trump was there and I will say it again to President Biden's people, the sad fact of the American system is that the first year you're in office is the most fun you're ever going to have as president. You always go down. It's a one-way ticket down in popularity. He's actually above -- President Biden is actually above where President Trump was at this same point which was in the high 30s.

JARRETT: Right.

GOOLSBEE: He's a little below where Obama was but again all of them saw major drops in their popularity in their first two years and the incumbent president almost always has a very tough first midterm election, and thus far it looks like they're on path.

Now, I think you're being uncharitable when you make a list of things that went wrong, not to include a bunch of things that really went in his favor, like they passed a trillion dollar infrastructure bill, they passed a rescue plan --

JARRETT: With help of Republicans, by the way.

(CROSSTALK)

GOOLSBEE: -- back down to 4.2 percent, lower than it was when he took office and they created a record number of jobs in the year.

So, there are definitely some positives to go along with the negatives.

JARRETT: You know, Charlie, the polling data shows that Joe Biden is losing and this is important among independents and he's losing Hispanic voters. He's about even now in a hypothetical match-up with Trump, which is saying something when Democrats start losing Hispanic voters.

What does all of this pretend for the midterms?

HURT: I think what it tells us -- first of all, I think that the midterms are going to be a disaster for Joe Biden and the Democrats, but I think it also tells us that Joe Biden has managed to do something that all of the money and all the campaigns that that Republicans can think up can't do the good for them that Joe Biden has done for them. Why? Because Joe Biden has gotten these voters to sort of clear through all of the nonsense and focus on the issues.

And on the issues, Joe Biden is wrong about all of them. And, you know, it bears repeating again and again, the reason Donald Trump got elected in 2016 wasn't because he was a nice guy. He got elected because he had the right issues and he alone had identified those issues the Democrats and Republicans had ignored for a long time -- the chief among them being illegal immigration.

And, of course, Joe Biden took a situation with illegal immigration and made it infinitely worse the things that Donald Trump fixed about that he re-broke and re-broke at a level far more disastrous than anything we've ever seen before. And so -- so I think these midterms are going to be a however bad Democrats think it's going to be, I think it's going to be even worse. Austan, as I mentioned uh the only one with worse approval ratings is Kamala Harris, is she a drag on his administration?

GOOLSBEE: Look, I don't think that the -- most people evaluate the president based on the president's own actions and merits.

(CROSSTALK)

JARRETT: Except she's in charge of the border which is a big deal. She's in charge of the border, Austin. I mean, she didn't go to the border.

(CROSSTALK)

GOOLSBEE: She had an embarrassing flop at the border.

JARRETT: Oh, please. She went near the border but not at the border, let's be clear.

GOOLSBEE: As I say, I don't think that had that has much bearing on people's evaluation of President Biden. And as I say also, it's tough for me to see how you explain why Donald Trump's popularity was even lower than Joe Biden's is right now at this same point in his presidency. This is the American way of presidents. We chew them up and then once they're out of office, we've raised them back up again.

JARRETT: Yeah, Charlie, last quick question. Ron Klain, he's chief of staff to Joe Biden, you know? He retweets his opinion piece and says, you know, 2021 wasn't that bad. I mean, why lord -- is this a guy who is just not in touch? And does that represent a White House that's out of touch?

HURT: Yeah, I think -- I think it does. And that's not exactly the re- election slogan you want to run with. It wasn't as bad as you thought it was. But I think it's really important to just address one thing that you said, Austan, you know, of course, you're right. Joe Biden did get the infrastructure plan done, but Donald Trump tried to get that done for four years.

And, of course, not only did he face opposition in -- you know, among the among Democrats in Congress, but even Republicans didn't go along with it to help him in that regard, which I think is a testament to how much Donald Trump stood up to the establishment in Washington.

And, of course, the other thing is he had billions and billions of dollars worth of false negative conspiracy theory, advertising in the media run against him. That's how you get Donald Trump's low polling numbers. Yeah, you know, I got to wrap it up.

But Charlie Hurt, you've now come up brilliantly with Biden's new campaign slogan should he run again. I wasn't that bad, was I? That's -- that's his campaign slogan.

Got to love that. Austan Goolsbee, Charlie Hurt, thanks so much.

Now with their agenda stalled on Capitol Hill, Democrats are becoming even more desperate for a political win, and are willing to do whatever it takes to grab power, spend trillions of dollars and try to turn their far left fantasies into reality. And Joe Biden, he's going along for the ride now saying he's open to an exception, just a tiny itsy bitsy little exception to the filibuster rule to pass the Democrats' federal election takeover bill.

Well, the vice president is taking it a step further, claiming that the United States will be off the map as a, quote, role model if that voting bill doesn't pass.

But when Republicans were in power, ho, ho, Democrats were singing a very different tune. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS HOST: What about that nuclear option doing away with the filibuster?

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Well, I can tell you that would be the end of the Senate as it was originally devised and created going back to our Founding Fathers.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): I said let's not do the Supreme Court. We should have 60 votes, which we still do because we should get bipartisan support..

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): The point is we still left the votes in place right for the Supreme Court and Mitch McConnell changed that. I would prefer to bring it back.

BIDEN: Mark my words: history will judge this Republican majority harshly, harshly, if it makes this catastrophic move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: In case you didn't notice, that actually was Joe Biden, that last clip in 2005 telling Republicans that ending the filibuster would have devastating consequences for the country. Hey, what's changed, Joe? Clue us in.

In the meantime, far left progressives want Joe Biden to bypass the separation of powers entirely and simply take executive action to deliver on the failed $5 trillion Build Back Better socialist spending spree, $5 trillion, executive order. All you have to do is sign your pen, Joe.

For example, the chair of the progressive caucus says that she will soon release a plan to open a path for Biden to act all on his lonely.

Here now for reaction, Harvard law professor and author of the case for vaccine mandates, Alan Dershowitz, along with executive director of the Heritage Action, Jessica Anderson.

Good to see you both.

So, professor, you know, states as you know, historically -- at least for the last 80 years, have controlled their own election rules. Now, Democrats want to take it all away and federalize it according to their preferences.

Isn't that a power grab?

ALAN DERSHOWIZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR EMERITUS: Well, I wish that it were a principle decision on the part of the Democrats but the decision is basically designed to help them at the polls. Voting reform helps the Democrats.

The Republicans are just as hypocritical. They're opposed to some of these reforms, not on principle. But because it will hurt them at the polls.

But whichever way you come out on voting rights reform the idea of the ends justifying the means the idea of making short-term benefits out of long- term problems like ending the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, giving executive power to a president over matters that are legislative are long- term problems designed to simply help the Democrats in the short term. The Republicans did the same thing when they didn't allow the nomination of Merrick Garland to go through and then allow the nomination of Justice Barrett to go through. So there's enough hypocrisy on both sides.

JARRETT: Right.

DERSHOWITZ: But the American public benefits when both sides act on principle, not partisanship.

JARRETT: You know, hypocrisy is endemic in Washington. That's the only consistency, and professor, you're right about that.

Jessica, Biden calls suspending the filibuster just a tiny exception literally he said that. "The Wall Street Journal" reacted by writing the following, quote, that's like an engineer saying he merely wants to remove a section of the Hoover Dam, which I thought was a great comparison. The whole point of a filibuster is to engage in discussion, engaging compromise, engage in a consensus.

And if you don't do that, if you throw at the filibuster when you end up is with legislature and -- legislation -- can you hear me?

You end up with legislative whiplash and the pendulum will swing back and forth depending on when the majority changes. Isn't that the real problem of getting rid of the filibuster?

Jessica -- I guess we've lost your audio.

Professor, what do you think? Legislative whiplash is what you get?

DERSHOWITZ: I agree. It's the same thing with, again, court packing. Court packing might help out on Roe versus Wade, ending the filibuster, may help on voting rights, but as soon as another party gets into power, you're going to see a go the other way.

And I think when you've had tried and true institutions, even if they're not necessarily the most democratic institutions in the world, the Senate was not created to be a democratic institution, it was created to be a check on democracy.

But while I have the floor, can I make one point, I hope you don't mind if I do this. The world is mourning Bishop Tutu who just died the other day. Can I remind the world that although he did some good things, a lot of good things it with apartheid, the man was a rampant anti-Semite and bigot. The man minimized the Holocaust. The man compared Israel to Nazi Germany.

When we are tearing down statues, Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, let's not build statues to a deeply, deeply flawed man like Bishop Tutu. Let's make sure history remembers both of the goods he did and the awful, awful bads that he did as well.

JARRETT: Jessica, getting back to the subject matter. I mean, do you -- do you see a pattern here that Democrats don't like the current composition of the Supreme Court, so they want to change the composition of it. They don't like the composition of the United States Senate, so now they want to add states that would surely give Democrats greater control in the United States Senate.

You know, it's like the kid who's losing the ball game and says, I'm taking my glove and my ball and my bat and I'm going home. That's a dangerous pattern, isn't it?

JESSICA ANDERSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HERITAGE ACTION: It's incredibly dangerous pattern, and what it shows is that the left's New Year's resolution is absolute power. It's more power for the sake of power. They can't sell their agenda to the American people, so they're changing the rules. They're entirely rigging the game to advance their agenda. That's what this carve-out for the filibuster is about. It's what Jayapal's efforts to have an executive order to push build back broke further is about.

It's not about taking the policies of the American people, which, by the way, when he ran on these things, the majority of Americans didn't support them. Biden doesn't actually have a mandate to do any of this. His mandate is simply to provide calmness and stability in America.

It's not this big government socialist agenda that we're seeing being pushed through with HR-1 or S-1, or what we saw with the build back broke. There's no mandate or support for this from the American people. The left knows it, and that's why they want to rig the rules to advance their agenda at every which way they can. It's a pattern and the American people won't not stand for this.

JARRETT: All right. Jessica, I'm glad we got you in there. I'm glad we got the audio solved. Jessica Anderson, Alan Dershowitz, thank you both very much.

Coming up next, violence continues to soar around the country. We're going to show you a shocking video of a slashing in New York City. Plus, another horrific weekend of violence in Chicago. Pastor Corey Brooks will join us live from his rooftop in the Windy City.

Don't go away, stick around for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: Welcome back to the special edition of HANNITY. I'm Gregg Jarrett.

America's largest cities all seem to have some things in common these days -- Democrats mayors, soaring COVID number, shocking increases in violent crime.

Take the city of Philadelphia, for example, which is having its deadliest year ever with nearly 550 homicides and counting.

Or New York, where a Bronx man was caught on camera slashing a woman in front of her own apartment during a dispute.

And, of course, Chicago where 22 people were shot, including two that were killed over the Christmas weekend.

Tonight, on a cool rooftop in the Windy City, Pastor Corey Brooks is continuing his 100th day vigil to raise money for the construction of a new community center to help combat violent crime in his neighborhood.

Pastor Corey brooks joins us now.

Welcome, Pastor. Thanks so much for being with us.

You know, so the same liberal Democratic mayors who championed defund the police, you know, saw their cities turned into a veritable war zone. And then suddenly, they had an epiphany, and now they want to refund policing. And where you are in Chicago, Lori Lightfoot wants more police in the form of federal law enforcement.

Shouldn't we have seen this coming?

PASTOR COREY BROOKS, PROJECTHOOD.ORG: Yeah, we are dealing with a lot of rampant in the hearts of people, and it's across our nation, especially in some of the larger cities where experiencing murder rates and shooting rates going up.

And it's unfortunate that we need to call in the feds, we need to call in more government and that's an unfortunate thing. But we definitely need to have the help here in Chicago. If we don't get the help, we're going to see these numbers rise on a consistent basis. It's the reason why were doing everything we can and trying to transfer the lives of young people so we don't end up with this over and over again.

JARRETT: And what you are doing is so admirable. I've been reading a lot about you. You set up your church on the South Side, in a troubled neighborhood. Some 20 years ago, people back then said, hey, this is a lost cause and forget about it. You wouldn't listen to them to your great credit, and you persisted.

You've been able to reduce crime and transform lives in your neighborhood. How did you do it?

BROOKS: Well, we did it one life at a time. We have a great violence prevention team. We have 12 employees, full time employees, that just work on violence prevention in our neighborhood. All from different part of the gangs in the area and we have them work together.

They used to be enemies of one another, now we have them working together to make sure there's no retaliation, and to make sure we work on crimes, but also making sure that we give them opportunities. One of the things that we rely on our community, we have a lot of young black men who don't have opportunities that they need and we need to give those opportunities so they have an alternative to change their lives around.

It's a very difficult job, but it's a job we are up to the task of doing and it's just that we're proving that we can do it and it's working.

JARRETT: Well, Pastor Corey Brooks, the best of luck to you.

BROOKS: Thank you.

JARRETT: We appreciate your efforts and I know the people on the South Side of Chicago really appreciate your 100-day vigil.

Good luck, I hope you raise lots of money for that community center. Pastor brooks, thanks.

BROOKS: Thank you so very much. Thank you.

JARRETT: And we'll have more HANNITY after the break. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JARRETT: And welcome back to the special edition of HANNITY.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have left for tonight. Be sure to check out my website, thegreggjarrett.com.

Thanks, as always, for tuning in. I wish you a healthy and happy New Year.

Jason Chaffetz is in for Laura Ingraham and he joins us and just a couple of seconds.

Jason, are you ready for this?

END

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