'Hannity' special: Terror in America

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How worried should Americans really be about terror?

Americans now view terrorism as the biggest threat facing the country; Panel of experts debates on 'Hannity'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," December 15, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to this special edition of "Hannity," Terror in America.

Tonight, Americans view terrorism as the biggest threat facing the country. According to a brand-new Gallup poll, 16 percent say that terrorism is their biggest concern. Now, that's up just 3 percent in early November and the highest that number has been for Gallup in a decade.

Now, in the wake of the deadly Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, it's clear that America's on edge. There are investigations into ISIS now in all 50 states. And just yesterday, we learned that authorities detained a Maryland man for allegedly trying to carry out an attack that was financed by the Islamic State.

Here now with reaction, Fox News military analyst Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cowan, author of "The Warrior Diplomat," former special forces commander Mike Waltz and former NYPD detective Bo Dietl. Good to see you all.

All right, Bill Cowan, you know, we have a problem. We have a president of the United States who's not willing to hit the oil wells.  He's not willing -- you know, we have a Department of Homeland Security chief that won't even look into the backgrounds of people's social media before he lets them into the country. We've got big problems here!

LT. COL. BILL COWAN (RET.), FOX MILITARY ANALYST: Big problems, Sean.  And not only that, we have a president who continues to marginalize and dismiss the hard work of our law enforcement officials, continues to ignore what intelligence officials have told him. He really, by all accounts, pays very little attention to the real problems that most Americans are worried about, and that you just said that's terrorism.

HANNITY: You know, I've got to say, you know, Officer Waltz, this is to me is inexplicable. We know that ISIS is the richest, best financed terror group with the largest land mass of any terror group in history.  The president has opportunities to cut off their financial resources by bombing the oil wells, and yet he refuses to do so!

That's like a dereliction of duty. That's 101 basic warfare! This president...

MICHAEL WALTZ, "WARRIOR DIPLOMAT" AUTHOR: Well...

HANNITY: Does the president not know this is a war?

WALTZ: No, he doesn't, frankly. He doesn't realize that they're at war with us, but we are not fully engaged in a war with them. For example, we're just now deploying our most elite special operations forces in an expeditionary targeting force now a year after ISIS took the town of Mosul.

If we had deployed them a year ago and started targeting their leadership night after night after night, they wouldn't have time or space to do things like plan the Paris attacks and also reach out to their operatives here in the United States.

And also Sean, let's not forget Edward Snowden here, who basically exposed our entire toolkit from our intelligence organization, and now we've shut down the metadata program that allows us to monitor these groups reaching into the United States.

HANNITY: Yes. You raise a lot of good points, but I think, probably, besides not bombing the oil wells, the idea that our Homeland Secretary, Bo, literally said he was worried about civil liberties backlashes and bad public relations, so this woman in San Bernardino -- they didn't look at her social media accounts, which showed that she had a desire to join ISIS and commit jihad!

BO DIETL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: You know, we do investigations. When we do background investigations, one of the tools that we use when you're hiring people is the social media. Once you put something on the social media, then it's public domain.

And damn it, if they would have looked on the social media of this woman, they would have saw she wanted jihad against America! Now we have the advent of these passports coming out of Syria, real passports, real Syrian passports! There you get Donald Trump. Everyone thinks he's crazy.  He's not crazy! What he's trying to say is we've got to stop immigration until we know who's coming in!

And we had this terrible thing that happened today, Sean, over here in California! That threat -- those kids are going home, 700,000 of those kids -- Mommy, what happened? That was a terror threat! Regardless of what happened...

HANNITY: And in New York.

DIETL: Whatever happened, this now lives in those kids' lives that they really caused terror! And it's caused from ISIS! Now, you got to understand something. What happened is when they shut the schools down, we should have protocols in effect where a person who heads up the school district should not be the one that does it. You have to have the FBI, the Joint Terrorist Task Force. This should be done from a security...

HANNITY: All right, let me...

DIETL: ... standpoint!

HANNITY: Colonel Cowan, Tashfeen Malik literally had a number of posts on Facebook pledging her support for Islamic jihad, saying she hoped to join the fight one day. This was in The LA Times. And you have homeland security secretary whose job is to keep us safe, and he didn't want to invade this woman's privacy.

Now, to me, this guy ought to be fired. To me, the country ought to be outraged. I don't see the outrage, the level of urgency that we ought to have because that's a huge intelligence failure! You know, if I hired Bo Dietl to do a background check on somebody I was going to hire, he'd look at their social media account. That's 101 to me. Why wouldn't they do that?

COWAN: Failure of leadership, Sean. You just said it. That failure of leadership goes all the way to the top. Nobody's ever held accountable for failures of leadership in this administration. And until somebody puts the pressure on him, that is, the American public, they're going to continue to bumble along as they want to until we get a new president in there, sooner rather than later.

HANNITY: And -- and Michael, the president says that the weather, climate change, is a bigger national security threat than ISIS. And John Kerry said, Oh, we know who's coming into the country, for the most part.  I'm, like, For the most part? That's not exactly reassuring to me.

WALTZ: Well, the thing is, is our law enforcement organizations and our intelligence community have to be right, you know, 100 percent of the time and the terrorists only have to be right once.

And again, we've taken the tools that they need away from them. They can't -- you know, this -- this Elshin -- Elshinawy, this gentleman in Maryland, is -- was apparently demonstrating a level of sophistication in how he communicated, how he was covering his tracks, that the FBI has rarely seen before.

The terrorists are now able to communicate with secure means, and we're not giving our intelligence community the ability and the authorities through Congress to penetrate the areas that they need to both on the Internet, through cell phones, through e-mails and other things.

And the thing is, Sean, most Americans don't care if we look into someone who's communicating with Yemen or Syria or what have you five times a week and we get a court order to do so. We need to give those tools back immediately.

HANNITY: All right, let me -- you know, the president's still insisting that we bring in the Syrian refugee, even though the House Homeland Security chairman, Mike McCaul, has said that they know of a specific plan by ISIS to infiltrate that population.

Now, in Norway, where Syrian refugees are resettling, hundreds of these asylum seekers there have cell phone images of, quote -- this was in The Daily Mail -- executions, of severed heads, of photos, videos of brutal punishments, images of people holding up severed heads. And so those are the people Norway has taken in!

DIETL: I just get so angry with this president. I mean, we're at war. We're at war right now. It's not all Muslims, but certainly with these Islamic terrorists are coming over here. We have the America now, when you get an attorney general, all of a sudden, political correctness.  You can't say anything against a bad Muslim or a good Muslim or anything!  How about saying something bad against the possibility of someone causing an attack on this country and about Americans being killed, which is going to happen!

And like what I said before, and we talked about it, Sean, the southern border have Syrians coming across...

HANNITY: Wide open!

DIETL: ... with no passports! And all they have to do is say, I'm afraid to go back to my country. I got a problem with it! Look, my mother came from Italy. My father came from Germany. Your parents and your ancestry came from Ireland. We had to conform to the laws of what's there.  Everyone should have to conform to it! And when Trump says we should shut it down, with everyone, not just Muslims...

(CROSSTALK)

DIETL: ... everyone coming in!

HANNITY: And Colonel Cowan, he's listening to the national director of intelligence, James Clapper, and the FBI director and the special envoy to defeat ISIS. You know, all of these people have told us that we can't vet these people. But he's doing it anyway. It seems to me like if something happens, this president would have blood on his hands.

COWAN: Well, he would, Sean, but I don't think he cares. I think at this point, he's just trying to ride out the clock. Let me say quickly, if I can, going to this young guy in Maryland, who Michael pointed out had dome a very good job -- we need draconian laws in this country, Sean, such that anybody who communicates knowingly on any level with ISIS, whether it's somebody they believe here in the United States to be a member of ISIS, overseas with ISIS or al Qaeda or somebody else, 20 years minimum jail time, 20 years!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I like that.

COWAN: Low standards of evidence to prove it! Twenty years, no question about it. And that would shut down a lot of this stuff that's going on.

DIETL: We have to be -- Colonel, again, we have to be just like France is. We're at war right now! Oh, we only had 15 dead, 20 shot, but what if it was 150? Our president would still do the same damn thing!  Look what happened over in France. They then all of a sudden thought, Forget about search and seizure, they went in there. They took the doors off! We've got to do that in America!

If we have a terrorist out there, we have to find them before they kill Americans! And damn it, it's still coming to this country! I'm very passionate about this. I'm sorry. But this president...

HANNITY: Don't apologize!

DIETL: ... is digging us into a hole!

HANNITY: We don't get this right, Bo, Americans are going to die!

DIETL: Absolutely!

HANNITY: That's why it's imperative.

All right, thank you all for being with us.

Coming up, we have fresh fallout over the shocking secret policy that prevented government officials from checking social media posts that were made by the female San Bernardino terror suspect when she, in fact, was applying for a visa. Catherine Herridge is here with a full report.

Then later tonight...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: So far, ISIL has lost about 40 percent of the populated areas it once controlled in Iraq, and it will lose more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: The president claims his plan to defeat ISIS is actually working. Really? According to a new poll, 60 percent of you, the American people, say he's failing to get that job done. That and more on this special edition of "Hannity," "Terror in America," as we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity," "Terror in America."

Now, yesterday, we told you about a policy that bans U.S. Immigration officials from looking at the social media accounts of people who are applying for U.S. visas. Joining us now with more, our chief intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge. Catherine, it's inexplicable to me.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sean, lawmakers are now considering legislation that would make it mandatory for Immigration agents to review a foreign applicant's social media activity, with the White House emphasizing today a new law isn't necessary because they say Homeland Security started three pilot programs last year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: They've acknowledged that part of that review is to consider ways to incorporate the use of social media vetting in their screening programs. I'm not sure why any specific legislation would be required to take a step like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HERRIDGE: Tashfeen Malik exchanged messages about martyrdom and jihad with her future American husband and conspirator, Syed Farook, even before entering the U.S. last year, as an internal debate with the Homeland Security Department. With ABC News first to report, it came to a head in the spring of 2014, when Immigration and Customs officials pressed Secretary Jeh Johnson's deputies to allow social media screening, though Homeland Security officials dispute the ABC account that there was no written rule against it.

That said, Malik did use privacy settings to block content, as well as fake names on line to hide her identity. But a review might have flagged other issues, giving agents more latitude to drill down into her personal accounts, according to the House Homeland Security chairman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE MCCAUL, R-TEXAS: What's happened is they put the privacy of a Pakistani national over the security of the American people. Seems to me that they have to come up into the 21st century to gather social media content when someone's applying for one of these visas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HERRIDGE: Secretary Johnson is rolling out this updated advisory system that reflects this high risk environment that we're in, where the threats are not specific, like San Bernardino and Paris. And we expect him to take hard questions about this controversial screening policy, Sean.

HANNITY: Unbelievable report. Catherine Herridge, thank you.

HERRIDGE: You're welcome.

HANNITY: Joining us now with more, Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson, former White House Security Council (sic) staff under President Bush and President Obama Gillian Turner.

Gillian, if you look at John Colm (ph), former acting undersecretary for DHS for intelligence and analysis, he said, and I quote, "During this period of time, Immigration officials were not allowed to use or review social media."

So I understand the White House is backtracking and they had a pilot program, but the reality is, is that had they looked at social media, they likely would have prevented this woman from coming into the country. Is that a fair statement?

GILLIAN TURNER, FORMER NSC STAFFER: Absolutely. This is an outrageously bad policy. It directly undercuts our national security interests here at home. The administration, in going through this review process, has revealed all the reasons that we could have told you a year ago, based on common sense, why speech on social media sites should not be protected under any privacy or civil liberties clauses whatsoever.

HANNITY: Yes. And Tucker, I mean, when you add this to the, Oh, we're not going to take away the financial support and foundation of ISIS, which is the oil, so -- because we don't want environmental damage, add to that Obama declared ISIS media headquarters, that's off limits. We can't have any, you know, collateral damage whatsoever, even though this is a war. One has to ask the question, do they have blood on their hands at this point?

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, they're not trying very hard, that's for sure. And keep in mind, at this very same moment that DHS is refusing to violate the so-called privacy rights of foreigners, the U.S. government is demanding the right to read my e-mail, my private e-mail in my Gmail account as an American citizen. So they have less respect for privacy than any administration I have seen of American citizens, but they're exquisitely sensitive to concerns of people who don't even live here and who hate us.

And this is part of a theme you see running through the administration for the last seven years, their unwillingness to make meaningful distinctions between the rights of those people who live here, the people whose country they're running, Americans, whose rights are protected under the Bill of Rights, and the rest of the world to whom those rights don't apply.

Our job -- the U.S. government's job is not to make certain that every citizen of Pakistan has his rights protected. That's not really relevant to the mission of the U.S. government. But they don't see it that way.  They're very concerned about the rights of people who don't live here.  It's bizarre!

HANNITY: You know, and it also raises the question, Gillian -- look, I can -- I can sympathize with the people that have been living in the Middle East under civil war and difficulties and kicked out of their home.  I think America can provide a very important role providing safety, a safe zone, food, water, medical supplies, shelter, all the things that they need.

But the president is insisting that they come to America, starting with 10,000. It didn't work out very well for Paris. I don't think it's working out well for the rest of Europe, but he's insisting. But yet we also know ISIS has a plan to infiltrate the refugee population.

How do you ascertain if somebody's here because they want freedom and relief, or if they want to bring terror to our shores?

TURNER: Well, this is where the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities come in in a very big way. And being in the middle of a war against ISIS and radical Islam as we are, we should be giving them every conceivable tool in the counterterrorism toolbox to help protect American interests.

And instead, at every turn, we see them undercut by policies from the administration, whether they cut (ph) end-to-end encryption, whether we slash their budgets, whether we deny them the crucial tool of collecting metadata through wiretaps, it's just really an inconceivable strain (ph).

HANNITY: So let me ask you this. You worked for both President Bush and President Obama. Did you see a difference in the handling of this?

TURNER: With President Bush, I think that it was much clearer from the get-go in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that the country was at war, and we were positioned in such a way that everybody understood national security interests were going to have to come first.

Here, with this administration, what I'm seeing so far is a refusal to acknowledge in the aftermath of Paris that we've had another game-changing terrorist attack, and once again, we're going to have to, as a society, as a nation, weigh the imperatives of privacy and civil liberties against national security, but make some really smart decisions about protecting us here at home.

HANNITY: And Tucker, in light of the fact that we know ISIS has the capacity now to print their own passports and their stated plan of infiltrating the refugee population, would it be a good idea to put a pause on this until they get it right?

CARLSON: Oh, you think? I mean, just to restate the obvious, which nobody does, the United States has no moral obligation to improve the living standards of anybody outside the United States. It would be, I guess, a virtuous thing to do. We've got a lot of church groups, a lot of NGOs in this country whose whole mission is to do that.

But the U.S. government has but one charge, and that's to take care of American citizens, to provide for their safety, to help facilitate their prosperity. That's it! There's no other reason to have a U.S. government, other than for the benefit of U.S. citizens.

HANNITY: All right...

CARLSON: And that seems to have somehow gotten lost, and you're mean if you say that, but it's true!

HANNITY: Thank you both. Very important. Appreciate it.

And coming up next tonight here on "Hannity"...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: So far, ISIL has lost about 40 percent of the populated areas it once controlled in Iraq, and it will lose more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, the president saying his plan to defeat ISIS is working. Really? According to a new poll, you, the American people, are not buying that.

And then later tonight...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a president that won't even mention the name of the problem.

SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a president who thinks the SUV in your driveway is a greater threat to this country than radical Islamic terrorism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: The 2016 candidates have been attacking the president's so- called ISIS strategy and laying out their own ideas to defeat the terror group. So which candidate has the best proposal?

Plus, President Obama continues to brush aside the fact that ISIS is trying to infiltrate the Syrian refugee population.

That and more on this special edition of "Hannity," "Terror in America," as we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: And welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity."

The president playing catch-up was at the Pentagon yesterday, attempting to reassure you, the American people, that, yes, his brilliant ISIS strategy is actually working. Really? Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: So far, ISIL has lost about 40 percent of the populated areas it once controlled in Iraq, and it will lose more. Our partners on the ground face a very tough fight ahead, and we're going to continue to back them up with the support that they need to ultimately clear ISIL from Iraq.

We continue to step up our air support and supplies to local forces, Syrian Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Turkmen, and they're having success.  Meanwhile, more people are seeing ISIL for the thugs and the thieves and the killers that they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, despite the commander-in-chief's attempt to ease your concerns, a brand-new poll shows that only 34 percent of the American people approve of the president's handling of ISIS.

Here with reaction, from The National Review, Jonah Goldberg, FOX News national security analyst K.T. McFarland.

Jonah, I just keep raising a simple question. How could one man be so wrong so often on such an important issue, the JV team, they're contained, they're not an existential threat. He said all of these things! How could he be so wrong?

JONAH GOLDBERG, NATIONAL REVIEW: Because he's committed to an ideological point of view. He's had this strategy going in that the problem with America under George W. Bush was that we paid too much attention to terror, that what we need to do is sort of turn a blind eye to it, ignore it, treat it like sort of background noise and street crime and one of those problems that comes up in life and sort of deflate the problem.

The down side of that is that the terrorists get a vote, too. And so the only times that Barack Obama ever does things like he did today is when his polling goes bad on the question of terrorism. And all of a sudden, he reacts...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: He's hitting (ph) a checklist. Oh, let me show people I'm tough.

GOLDBERG: Sure.

HANNITY: I'll say all the right things. But two weeks ago -- that's a good point, Jonah. Two weeks ago, KT, he was telling us that climate change and the weather was more important than this. You pointed out something to me. The timing of his announcements...

KT MCFARLAND, FOX NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.

HANNITY: ... about being contained, not being an existential threat, are pretty interesting.

MCFARLAND: It's actually kind of scary because the president says, Look, ISIS, JV, within a couple of months, ISIS had defeated the Iraqi army, captured Mosul (INAUDIBLE)

HANNITY: Mosul, Ramadi, Fallujah, Tikrit.

MCFARLAND: And now it's a country the size of Great Britain. It has taxes. It has schools. It has the largest army in the region and it's well trained with American equipment. Then the president says, Well, OK, but it's a problem in the Middle East. It's contained in the Middle East.  It doesn't threaten us in the West. Within two weeks, you have the Paris attacks.

HANNITY: He said contained just hours before the Paris attacks.

MCFARLAND: Hours before those! But even the other attacks. And then he says, OK, but it's not a threat to America. And then you have San Bernardino.

I'm really concerned. When he went to the Oval Office and said, Look, I got this, guys, don't be worried, you know, if history is any example, we should expect another attack.

HANNITY: What does it say, Jonah -- and I keep bringing this up because it takes my breath away...

MCFARLAND: Yes.

HANNITY: ... that our Department of Homeland Security chief doesn't want to impose his will or -- or -- or wants to protect the privacy of would-be terrorists, people that have no constitutional rights, and he doesn't want to look at their publicly posted social media, nor does he want to bomb the oil fields, the financial infrastructure of ISIS.

Now, to me, it's inexplicable. There's no explanation for that. That is a clear and present danger, dereliction of duty, use whatever term you want, but that's their policy. How do we respond to that?

GOLDBERG: Well, by getting a new president, for starters. But you know...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: ... supporting Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

GOLDBERG: He was bought (ph) into an ideological notion about how to sort of talk about terrorism. You know, these guys from the beginning wanted to have a conversation about, you know -- look how they responded to the terror attacks in San Bernardino, to talk about gun control, which is essentially like -- you know, closing the gun show loophole, if it exists at all, is sort of like responding to a bear attack by saying, We've got to change the batteries in our fire -- in our smoke detector.

HANNITY: Yes. And by the way, and maybe if we would have looked at Tashfeen Malik's Facebook page, we wouldn't need to be talking about gun control. People may be alive today. That's the serious side of this.

GOLDBERG: But they like to monitor Americans' social media, but they just don't have any desire to monitor, you know, would-be jihadists' social media!

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: ... very strange thing.

HANNITY: This is -- it's strange. People are dying. This is worse than a bad novel.

MCFARLAND: Political correctness is going to get people killed because the -- we need Americans to see something, say something, point it out to your law enforcement officials, because the threat is getting bigger every day...

HANNITY: Do you agree with Trump, until they get this straightened out, a temporary moratorium?

MCFARLAND: I would say nobody gets any visas! Shut the building down...

HANNITY: Until we get it up to date.

MCFARLAND: ... and take two months and vet the whole place! Get an outside management consultant, go top to bottom (INAUDIBLE) the system, do we have as many people as we need, do we have the right people. And then open it up...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Jonah, do you agree with that? It makes sense to me...

(CROSSTALK)

GOLDBERG: Oh, I completely agree an overhaul of the visa system and the immigration system and all the rest. I don't think phrasing it as a ban on Muslims was at all helpful or the right way to go about it. But look, you don't have to agree or disagree with Donald Trump to agree that the current state is a mess and the way this administration is running things is a mess and needs to be fixed.

HANNITY: All right, guys, appreciate you both being here.

MCFARLAND: Thank you.

HANNITY: And coming up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:  Bluster and bigotry are not credentials for becoming commander-in-chief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right, Hillary Clinton goes on the attack against Republicans for actually wanting to get tough with ISIS, but her own plan - - it sounds a lot like Obama's failed strategy. That's coming up next.

And also later tonight...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: In the Syrian seeking refuge today, we should see the Jewish refugee of World War II.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Wow! The president made that comparison, then downplayed the very real threat that ISIS is trying to infiltrate the Syrian refugees that are coming to America.

That and more on this special edition of "Hannity," "Terror in America," continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KELLY WRIGHT, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: This is a Fox News alert. I'm Kelly Wright. Good evening.

The FBI now says the e-mail threat sent to school officials in Los Angeles and New York are not credible. The e-mails promising jihadi-style attacks with guns and bombs prompted the L.A. school district to close all of its schools while New York decided to keep its students in class. L.A. school officials now say they will hold classes tomorrow with increased police patrols.

A plane mishap injuring eight people at Nashville International Airport today. A spokeswoman from Southwest Airlines says flight 31 from Houston rolled into grass and got stuck while taxiing to the gate. Of those injured no one suffered life-threatening injuries. It's not clear yet what caused the plane to veer off the runway. The FAA is still investigating.

I'm Kelly Wright. That's a look at news at this hour. Now back to "Hannity." For all your headlines, logon to FoxNews.com.

HANNITY: Welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity," Terror in America." Now, in recent weeks the 2016 Republican presidential candidates have taken a strong stance against the president's lackluster strategy to defeat ISIS, and they have been outspoken in their criticism. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our country has a problem.  People are in fear. They're waiting for the next attack. We have a president that won't even mention the name of the problem. He will not utter the words. It's ridiculous.

CRUZ, (: This is a president who thinks the SUV in your driveway is a greater threat to this country than radical Islamic terrorism. In fact, he's not able to utter the words "radical Islamic terrorism."

BEN CARSON, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's no such thing as political correctness when you're fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you and everything that you have anything to do with.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Isis is a growing, significant, and very serious threat. They are not contained. They are growing ever more present in multiple places. They now have a very substantial presence not just in Iraq and in Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And that's not all. Hillary Clinton continues to take a much different approach when it comes to defeating ISIS. Here's what she said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: One, defeat ISIS in the Middle East by smashing its stronghold, hitting its fighters, leaders, and infrastructure from the air, and intensifying support for local forces who can pursue them on the ground. Second, defeat them around the world by dismantling the global network of terror that supplies radical jihadists with money, arms, propaganda, and fighters. And third, defeat them here at home by foiling plots, disrupting radicalization, and hardening our defenses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And earlier today Hillary Clinton tried to push for gun control by referring to the San Bernardino terrorists as shooters. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: On December 2nd, two shooters killed 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California. Sadly in America in 2015, turning on the news and hearing about a mass shooting is not unusual. But San Bernardino felt different. Maybe it was the timing, coming so soon after the Paris attacks. Maybe it was how random it seemed. The phrase "active shooter" should not be one we have to teach our children. But it is.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with reaction, Fox News contributors Tammy Bruce and Doug Schoen. There's such a reluctance, Tammy. She said it occasionally, a little more than Obama, but shooters. They're not shooters. They're terrorists. Why is there this reluctance?

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: She's like a robot. She's the Roomba of the presidential field. She could actually do something only Hillary could do in dealing with this. She could actually drop out of the race, admit that her policies are the problem, say that Benghazi should be looked at as an example of what not to do. So she has in her hands an ability to make a difference. What they can't do is admit the truth because in doing that it highlights their failure for seven years. So that's her issue. And the reticence here is they don't want to have to face an international dynamic. That explains their entire resistance to immigration, the refugee --

HANNITY: That's a good point. She was there for all the overseas contingency operations, man-caused disasters, workplace violence.

BRUCE: It's standard in this administration.

DOUG SCHOEN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: And Sean, we've got a general election coming. She's got the win a primary. She's got to get through Iowa and New Hampshire.

HANNITY: Bernie Sanders is really going to give her a hard time.

SCHOEN: Up 10 New Hampshire, minus nine in Iowa.

HANNITY: That 70-year-old curmudgeon is really on her tail.

SCHOEN: He is in those two states. She doesn't want to alienate the left. And, Tammy, I will make a prediction that in the general election you'll hear more about terror, you might even hear radical Islamist jihad.

HANNITY: So Hillary is hiding her real tough views now because she wants to appeal to the leftists in her party.

SCHOEN: Yes, I am saying that.

HANNITY: So you're saying she's a phony.

SCHOEN: I'm saying she's a smart politician.

HANNITY: So what's the real Hillary?

SCHOEN: I'm saying she's a real politician who is very smart and will say what she needs to do to get elected, and so far she is doing pretty good.

HANNITY: No wonder 65 percent of Americans think she's dishonest and a liar.

BRUCE: Yes. Look, Republicans do well when national security and terrorism is the issue, foreign policy. The Democrats do not. And what you just heard, what you played is the reason why all Americans don't trust Democrats, including Democrats. It wasn't just Republicans going after Obama and his policy. It was Feinstein. It was Democrat leadership. They also know they have failed. So we should welcome Hillary's talking about terrorism because she's going to have to answer for things like the e-mail server, her policies in the first four years that have brought us to this point.

HANNITY: There was an interesting exchange with Josh Earnest this week with a reporter, and the reporter said, OK, you're pushing your gun ban. Hillary talked about time to bring back the assault weapons ban and eliminate high capacity magazines. So the reporter said to Josh Earnest, was there any one terror attack you could point to where that would have been effective? There's no answer. So they're giving us feel good solutions. That's not the answer. You got to have a wartime president on a wartime footing.

SCHOEN: And Hillary will be a wartime president once she's the nominee. She'll talk about gun control and being more aggressive.

HANNITY: Who should we believe, the phony Hillary in the primary or the phony Hillary in the general election?

SCHOEN: You know the answer. I'm telling you I've worked for her. I know how this game goes.

HANNITY: So it's a game to her. Terrorism is a game?

SCHOEN: A political game to get elected as it is for everybody.

HANNITY: That's what people are sick of.

BRUCE: The American people are going to reject that. I think she should do whatever she feels the need to do, and this is going to be up to the Republican nominee to push back on that. And tonight we're going to see who is going to be the best person to do that. But she will not win, no Democrat will win, if the issue remains foreign policy and terrorism, and unfortunately it will, of course, for the next year.

SCHOEN: Hillary is in a pretty good position, Sean, so I like where she's standing.

HANNITY: You I'm not going to disagree.

SCHOEN: You know that.

HANNITY: She starts out with 47 percent of Americans voting for her.

SCHOEN: Right.

HANNITY: That's scary. That means 47 percent of our country buys her BS.

SCHOEN: Right.

BRUCE: If the issue was the economy. With terrorism and the kind of slaughters we've seen, I think even that number will change.

SCHOEN: The economy's pretty rotten.

HANNITY: Coming up -- yes, thank you, Obama. Coming up next on HANNITY --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: In the Syrian seeking refuge today we should see the Jewish refugee of World War II.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: The president still refuses to address the fact that ISIS is trying to infiltrate the Syrian refugee population. That and more on this special edition of "HANNITY, Terror here in America."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity," Terror in America. Now with the threat of radical Islam looming large across the globe, the White House is tackling what it sees as a serious threat, anti- Muslim sentiment here in the U.S. And earlier today the president spoke at the naturalization ceremony focusing on America's immigrant past. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We are born of immigrants. That is who we are. For more than two centuries it's remained at the core of our national character. It's our oldest tradition. It's who we are. It's part of what make us exceptional.

The first refugees were the pilgrims themselves fleeing religious persecution, crossing the stormy Atlantic to reach a new world where they might live and pray freely.

In the Syrian seeking refuge today, we should see the Jewish refugee of World War II.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with reaction, Fox News contributors Jedediah Bila and Deroy Murdock, and from the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy Zuhdi Jasser. All right, look at the numbers. If you look at the FBI, it's ironic that Loretta Lynch talks about hate crimes against Muslims when the number is too high. They represent only 11 percent. The largest percentage of hate crime religious attacks in America are against Jewish- Americans at 62.4 percent according to the FBI.

DEROY MURDOCK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: We have a much bigger problem of anti-Semitic hate crimes than anti-Muslim hate crimes in this country.

HANNITY: Why don't we ever hear about it?

MURDOCK: I don't know. I think a lot of people just overlook that, unfortunately.

And there was the comment Obama made about Jewish refugees escaping the Nazis. I don't think the SS and the Gestapo had people trying to blend in with the Jewish refugees and try to say get in America and create sabotage and mayhem and kill people, versus now where you literally have ISIS saying, sneaking among with the refugees and get into America. And now we find out they have passport printing machines that can print up legitimate passports, perhaps with fake names, but they're just as legitimate as the passports put out by the proper government of Syria.

HANNITY: It seems like they're giving a special category, overprotection, overly politically correct. You know what, if you're concerned about religious hate crimes, why doesn't the president talk about the 62.4 crimes that are against Jewish-Americans?

JEDEDIAH BILA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Or anything that happens against Christians you never hear about either. And this wouldn't be so bad if the president was willing to talk about radical Islamic extremism and call it what it is. The problem is you have him refusing to acknowledge that there is a religious ideology behind that terrorism. That's a fact.

And at the same time he's talking about sensitivity to Muslim communities. So what is your story, Mr. President? What's your priority?  This is a guy who has refused to acknowledge the fact that we are at war.  We are at war right now, and there is a religious ideology, an extremist religious ideology behind those people that are aiming to kill us. And until he's willing to recognize that, the rest of the country isn't going to pay attention to him on anything he has to say on this issue.

HANNITY: And Tashfeen Malik, Dr. Jasser, here is a woman that posted on social media, but they didn't look at social media. They didn't want to invade this woman's privacy. Why can't we just acknowledge a simple truth?  You take on radical Islamists and you're Muslim.

DR. ZUHDI JASSER, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: The thing is, Sean, is we're not having a strategic conversation. My family escaped Syria. There are many that are trying to get out now as they dodge two evils of the Assad chemical weapons and bombs and the ISIS radicalization.  But the bottom line is we have to pause all immigration, all refugee settlement until we vet for jihadists, for Islamists. Every Muslim will tell you who is on the side of freedom that America has been sitting this out because we're not having a strategic conversation. You can't embrace reform-minded Muslims like our Muslim reform movement unless America starts to say, you know what, Muslims that believe in liberty are on our side.  Muslims that believe in jihad and Islamism are on the other side. Both extremes of this conversation are leaving a vacuum that is not strategic as far as how we embrace a doctrine of who is with us and who is against us.

HANNITY: This is "Terror in America," the name of this special. All right, so should we take in people or should we have a moratorium until the system is fixed, knowing about the passports your mentioned, know that ISIS is going to infiltrate the Syrian refugee population?

MURDOCK: I think we have to be very, very cautious. If you have some young orphans or something like that or you have some 80-year-old woman or something like that, that is another thing.

HANNITY: When the president talks about women and orphans, hat was a woman I saw in San Bernardino.

MURDOCK: She wasn't 80 year old. I'm talking about old people or something like this. But we have to be extremely cautious. We heard, oh, these Syrians are properly vetted, don't worry about it. And we learn that they're not even looking at people's Facebook posts where they celebrate jihad.

HANNITY: As a matter of policy. It's not an oversight. They decided not to do that.

MURDOCK: Yes, it's a specific decision not to do that.

BILA: We have military officials coming out and saying that this vetting process doesn't work, that a lot of times these documents don't exist, that you're having people coming over that you're not going to be able to check. This is what I'm talking about when I say this president doesn't realize the severity of the issue. I don't think anyone is safe.  I don't think you can look at a woman. I don't think you can look at anyone and say they're necessarily going to be safe because you don't know what ideology they espouse. You don't where they come from, what they stand for at all. And if you don't have those documents, they cannot be allowed in.

HANNITY: Here's the question, though. If you grow up in a country where as a man, Saudi Arabia, if you were my wife, I would tell what to wear. I would tell whether you could go to school or work. You can't drive a car and you can't be seen in public without a male relative. Do you bring that culture with you or do you want to assimilate? Dr. Jasser, that's the question.

JASSER: It is. And the way to filter that is to filter for Islamists. If we conflate Islamists, which are a huge movement, with all Muslims, we are going to surrender the very alliance of those we want with --

HANNITY: But Sharia is contrary to our constitutional republic.

JASSER: Absolutely. But it's a large movement of those who believe in the Sharia state, but it's not a majority of Muslims. You're going to alienate --

HANNITY: How do we know if you come to America and you grew up under Sharia that you want to acclimate to our values and assimilate?

JASSER: That is why our Muslim reform movement has a two-page declaration. Just like we vetted for communist party theory, socialist theory, and we were in cold war, we should now vet for Islamist theory.

And one other thing Sean that is really important. It's not just Muslims. There are those that are non-Muslims that part of the social fascist movements, the Arab fascists, and Ba'athists that are on the side of Russian intelligence. They're not the only threat.

HANNITY: Well said. Go ahead.

MURDOCK: Obama is going to be going to Hawaii on vacation. Rather than fly over San Bernardino I think he should land there, meet with the victims, thank the cops for what they did. If he doesn't do that, I think he'll be completely devoid of whatever little moral character he has.

HANNITY: You mean you want to take away his golf time?

(LAUGHTER)

MURDOCK: Take away some golf time and spend time with the people who were killed and the relatives and people who were wounded.

HANNITY: This policy, I would argue, it is so outrageous. We could have stopped that woman.

BILA: Yes. But he's not going to be that guy. Everyone keeps waiting for this president to somehow be the guy that's going to care about these issues. None that have is happening until he's out of there.

HANNITY: All right, guys, thank you all. Coming up, more "Hannity" right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: That's all the time we have left. Quick programming note, be sure to tune in 1:00 a.m. eastern right here on the Fox News Channel, 10:00 pacific. We will be back with post-debate analysis of the Republican showdown in Vegas. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Dr. Ben Carson will join us from the spin room along with a lot of other Republican candidates. It's coming up in a couple of hours.

Thanks for being with us. See you back here 1:00 eastern, 10:00 pacific.

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