Malkin: Koppel interview exposed the liberal media elitists
On 'Hannity,' conservative columnist says the controversy is a 'teachable moment' in liberal media history
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," March 27, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." A lot to get to tonight. Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Larry Elder, Geraldo Rivera, David Clarke and Ainsley Earhardt all join us.
But first, over the weekend, CBS veteran journalist Ted Koppel said I, yours truly, Sean Hannity, am bad for America. That's a pretty severe charge and one that deserves a full-throated response, and that's tonight's "Opening Monologue."
All right, this all started three weeks ago, when I agreed to do an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" and their special contributor, Ted Koppel. Now, the interview lasted well over 45 minutes, and we discussed in great detail why there's such a great divide in America in politics and in media. Now, in my honest opinion, the exchange was actually a very good substantive give and take and worthwhile for any audience to see. However, out of the 45-minute sitdown, well, here is all that "CBS Sunday Morning" decided to air. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "CBS SUNDAY MORNING"/CBS, MARCH 26)
HANNITY: Honestly, I think liberalism has to be defeated. Socialism must be defeated in a political sense. This is not a -- we don't want a revolution in this country.
TED KOPPEL, CBS NEWS: Well, what more do you want? You've got the White House, you've got the House...
HANNITY: We do now.
KOPPEL: ... you've got the Senate. OK.
HANNITY: And then we have angry snowflakes and then we've got a Democratic establishment. I say the press in this country is out to destroy this president.
We have to give some credit to the American people that they're somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show. You're not -- you're cynical. Look at you.
KOPPEL: I am cynical because, you know...
HANNITY: You think we're bad for America? You think I'm bad for America?
KOPPEL: Yes.
HANNITY: You do?
KOPPEL: In the long haul, I think you and all these opinion shows...
HANNITY: Really? That's sad, Ted.
KOPPEL: No, you know why?
HANNITY: That' sad.
KOPPEL: Because you're very good at what you do, and because you have -- you have attracted a significantly more...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: You are selling the American people short.
KOPPEL: Let me finish -- let me finish the sentence before you do.
HANNITY: I'm listening, with all due respect.
KOPPEL: You -- yes. You have -- you have people who are determined that ideology is more important than facts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Wow! He's kind of calling me a liar. And then he's saying, "Well, you and all these opinion shows" -- he's giving his opinion! Only 70 seconds, that's it, ended up airing.
Now, I guess people like Ted Koppel feel you, the American people, can't distinguish between opinion and news. That's kind of like Obama, remember? He said people clinging to their God, guns and religion, or Hillary Clinton who said ignorant, irredeemable deplorables.
Now, beyond this interview being a total waste of my time, it is a flagrant example of what I call edited fake news. Now, remember, CBS News is the former home of Dan Rather. Remember? He was forced to resign after reporting an inflammatory fake news story about President George W. Bush. Rather used fake documents to bolster his story.
Now, CBS News is also the former home of Sharyl Attkisson. Remember? She there was marginalized at CBS and stonewalled, and they wouldn't show a lot of her investigative journalism into President Obama and his administration. Is that agenda-driven?
And now they produce a package taking shots at me all while prominently displaying their dishonesty, their bias and total hypocrisy here for every viewer to see!
Now, Ted's interview with me wasn't about substance. It wasn't about getting my real opinion. Now, the story was written long before he walked into this studio here at Fox. I was just used as a prop to advance his narrative, which is why only one minute and 10 seconds out of the 45 to 50 minutes was actually used! In other words, it was one minute, and that's the one minute that fit into their narrative.
That is edited fake news. By the way, other networks -- they play the same game and they have for many years. And now it's time to expose this for what it really is. And I have the ability to fight back. Cheap shot attacks in the name of, quote, "journalism," all to advance their biased agenda.
Now, what Ted was really asking is this: Are our opinion shows bad for America? He thinks they are. Meanwhile, Ted was giving his opinion. He considers himself an impartial journalist, yet in what CBS News was airing, he's doing exactly what he said is bad for America!
Now, right here on this show, on "Hannity," I expressed my opinion because I am a talk show host, an advocacy journalist, if you will. Ted Koppel? He thinks he's down the middle, fair and balanced, a real journalist.
Ted, you show in this clip you are not a journalist! You're very hypocritical here.
Now, have you ever said -- for example, you work for CBS, Dan Rather worked for CBS. Ted, did you ever say that George W. Bush, the attack by Dan Rather was bad for America? Did you ever say CBS, when they spiked Sharyl Attkisson's story, that that's bad for America? Did you ever wonder if the stories were spiked because the head of CBS News and that division, David Rhodes, happens to be the brother of Ben Rhodes, the high-ranking official for then President Obama? Is that a conflict of interest?
Now, I'm willing to look at my body of work and compare it with CBS News any day of the week. Did CBS News even one time ever ask President Obama about his relationship with an unrepentant terrorist, where he started his political career? Well, I did CBS's job. I did it for you, Ted.
Did you ever delve deep into what black liberation theology is and how it motivated President Obama, then candidate Obama, for over 20 years, the church Reverend Wright, the church of "G-d America," the church of "American chickens have come home to roost?"
Now, after eight years of Obama, did CBS ever show the numbers on the screen there about what a failure the Obama presidency was? Now, you know what? I put those up on the screen on a regular basis.
And by the way, Ted, I did mention this to you in the interview. All of these facts were given to you, but you edited it all out.
Did CBS ever put up all the laws that Hillary Clinton likely violated with her e-mail server scandal so she could avoid congressional oversight? Did CBS ever expose all the Benghazi lies of Hillary Clinton? We did on this program. Did CBS ever cover in great detail how members of the media colluded with the Clinton campaign in this election cycle? We did here. How much time did CBS devote to this phony Russian conspiracy story, even though after eight months, there isn't a shred of evidence?
Now, that's the difference, Ted, between me and you. I'm honest with my audience. I don't pretend that I'm fair and balanced and objective. You do. And if you really cared about truth in journalism, how can you work for a network that only tells one side of the story?
You know, how can I be bad for America when I'm offering the American people news and information nightly that your own network will not touch because they have an agenda?
Now, Ted, I happen to be very proud of the work I do both on radio and TV. I'm proud of the teams that we have built here that work really hard every day to bring this audience news and information that, well, frankly, the rest of the media ignores.
So I hope you enjoyed your press coverage this weekend and covering how bad I am for America while editing out 99 percent of what I said! But what you really did is prove my point, that I'm right. You exposed yourself as agenda-driven, opinionated, hypocritical, and you proved my point I've been saying since 2007-2008. Journalism is dead in America, and we have an information crisis in this country.
Now, Ted, if you and CBS and CBS News have the courage, release the entire unedited footage of the interview. Let America decide. Let America see the 99 percent that you didn't want to air.
Joining us now with reaction, "Michelle Malkin Investigates" on CRTV, Michelle Malkin. I'll tell you why they're not going to release the tape, Michelle, because -- so Ted asked the first question. I give the answer. And he -- None of that is going to air. That's what he says. I said, Well, why am I sitting here?
MICHELLE MALKIN, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: (INAUDIBLE) Ted Koppel imitation? It's good!
HANNITY: And then -- and then throughout the rest of the interview, I'm, like, provoking him. Ted, you -- Ted, you really need to include this part. You know, I'm, like, Are you going to cut this out, Ted? Are you going to cut this out? Ted, are you going to cut this out? Who does an interview and says, That's not airing? We're not going to air any of that. Well, then why am I here?
So that's why. They don't want people to see this fake -- what these networks do in edit rooms they've gotten away with for years. That's my point. I want to get yours.
MALKIN: Yes. And I have to raise a toast to you, big brother, for exposing these walking dead liberal media decrepit elitists! I think it was definitely worth your time to do this interview because although they played just one little sliver, look at what you've been able to expose. And I think that has them running scared.
I would love to see the Twitter hashtag "releasethehannitytape."
(LAUGHTER)
MALKIN: Put some more pressure on these people. And I know you've got a huge Twitter army out there, and I do, as well.
This is a very teachable moment in liberal media history because you have this ancient gatekeeper, Ted Koppel, telling you, wagging your (sic) finger that you, Sean Hannity, are bad for America while he, Ted Koppel and all of his fourth estate colleagues are the ones who can only be entrusted with delivering the proper amount of news and opinion to America.
HANNITY: You know...
MALKIN: We're the ones who support diversity, true diversity in the media marketplace. These people are the enemies of diversity of thought. These people are the enemies of true transparency and a vibrant marketplace in the media. Shame on them!
HANNITY: You know, because they had a monopoly all these years. And by the way, this is not personal between Ted Koppel. I actually did it because...
MALKIN: Right.
HANNITY: I grew -- I loved when he was covering on "Nightline," "America Held Hostage" for 444 days. I don't think I missed an episode because I thought it was really imperative, important work. And then when those hostages were released, it was such a good moment for our country. So it's not personal.
The thing is, there's a level of sanctimony here that -- it reminds me of Obama clinging to Gods, guns, religion. It reminds me of irredeemable deplorables, that the American people are not smart enough to ascertain what is opinion and what is news.
I don't think most Americans doubt that I am a conservative. I think I make it clear on a nightly basis. Is there any shock there?
MALKIN: Of course not. The other thing, of course, that you've done, though, is expose the double standards because here you are asking them to release the full interview so that people can judge the totality of the interview and the substance of what you said.
These are the same media types who, if conservative investigative independent journalists use their tactics, use their techniques that they are supposedly time-honored and entrusted to be able to use in telling a story, for example, editing an interview, they hate it!. They're (INAUDIBLE) we want you, the conservative journalists, like James O'Keefe, for example -- they're always demanding that he release every last second of what he's done because he can't be trusted.
But they can? Come on! Look at the whole entire history of liberal media ideology being more important than facts, to borrow Ted Koppel phrase. You already mentioned Dan Rather and "Rather-gate" manufactured documents in pursuit of an ideological agenda, bringing George W. Bush down. The entire Trump campaign of liberal media...
HANNITY: I want to hear him say, Dan Rather is bad for America.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Do you think those words ever come flying out of his mouth? I doubt it. All right, thank you.
And up next tonight right here in "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REINCE PRIEBUS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We can't be chasing the perfect all the time. I mean, sometimes you have to take the good and put it in your pocket and take the win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus reacting to the Republican health care bill being pulled on Friday. Up next, we got reaction from Corey Lewandowski and Geraldo Rivera. Also tonight, Sheriff David Clarke, Larry Elder -- they weigh in on the Trump team being surveilled likely illegally.
Also, Ann Coulter and our delve into, you know, the dangers of spring break. That's back tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRIEBUS: We can't be chasing the perfect all the time. I mean, sometimes you have to take the good and put it in your pocket and take the win.
The president met with over 120 members of the House. There was more love shown to outside groups by this White House, whether it was Vice President Pence, Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price, Steve Bannon, myself, Mark Short (ph). I mean, the point is, the diverse group of people working the halls of Congress, including the leadership in Congress -- I think it's time for our folks to come together, and I also think it's time to potentially get a few moderate Democrats on board, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, that was White House chief of staff Reince Priebus yesterday reacting to the Republican health care bill that was pulled late last week. Over the weekend, the president tweeted, quote, "Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club for Growth and Heritage have saved Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare."
OK, joining us with reaction, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera.
Geraldo, first of all, I think this is going to get done. That's my strong belief here. The second thing is, I have a different take than the White House at this point. And that is that there's plenty of blame to go around. Nobody, not one person, Geraldo, saw that bill that was being scored in the CBO until they released it.
There was no consensus bill that everybody supported. You have different factions in the Republican and Democratic Party. You've got moderates, you got the Tuesday group, the Sunday group, the Wednesday group, the -- you know, the Study Group, the Freedom Caucus. These groups didn't see it beforehand! And then right after it's released, it started -- they started fighting each other on TV.
This should have been built behind the scenes. They had eight long years to do it, Geraldo! I blame the leadership on...
(CROSSTALK)
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: OK, I agree with that last point. They had eight years, damn it. They should have gotten this done.
HANNITY: Right.
RIVERA: But you are the most prominent conservative commentator in our country, Sean.
HANNITY: Oh, boy. Come on.
RIVERA: And you have to -- you have to -- no, you have to cop to the fact that this so-called Freedom Caucus -- they have a three-word slogan, Just say no. They were not going to go along with this president no matter what this bill contained.
They stabbed him in the back. He had a chance here where the -- where the...
HANNITY: Geraldo, let me say this...
RIVERA: ... the Republican -- the Republican speaker of the House and everybody in the Trump administration, the president of the United States, invested in a compromise that was going to save the federal deficit to the tune of a quarter of a trillion dollars over time. They were fighting for those who were cut off, you know, the "Obama care" 24 million, but still they were saving money. They had a reasonable compromise. The Freedom Caucus would not have...
HANNITY: All right, Geraldo...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Reince is right. No bill's going to be perfect. Nobody gets everything they want. But I -- I'll say this to you, and I'll bring Corey in here, as well. Had they built the consensus, Corey, before they rolled out the bill, they would have known the votes that they had.
And as hard as -- and by the way, the president gets all the credit. He did compromise. He tried to -- you know, he'd so something, but the freedom caucus and the moderates would leave. Then he'd do something for the moderates, the Freedom Caucus would leave.
This should have been handled by the speaker. This should have been handled by leadership. The president did way too much heavy lifting on this bill. He's the executive branch, they're the legislative branch, Corey.
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Sean, the House leadership failed to get this bill done, and they should have never had an official deadline to get this bill accomplished when it wasn't necessary to be done in the first 60 days.
And I understand the budget reconciliation process, but I also understand that they were -- you know, they were concerned what the Senate was going to do before they got the House bill done. What should have been done is, behind the scenes, as you've mentioned, you bring members in from the House Freedom Caucus, from the Tuesday group, the Republican Study Committee, the Heritage Foundation, all of the stakeholders who were going to look at this bill before it's released, compromise behind the scenes.
There's always going to be additional compromise needed, but if you can have a base framework behind the scenes before the bill is introduced to everybody, then that's the way to go. Look, you can take Marco Rubio for his word or not. When it came to the "gang of eight," he spent countless hours going around and talking about his legislation before it was ever introduced. Now, the bill was ultimately a failure, but he did the right thing by trying to get those groups on board first...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: This is going to get done, I am convinced. But Geraldo, all I'm saying is, you know, why did you set -- why did they set themselves up by keeping it hidden, not sharing it with any of the coalition, releasing it, creating a public civil war and a public fight when it should have been handled behind closed doors?
Those compromises could have been made, and I suggest, probably, this is the way it'll happen from here on in. Look, you cannot blame people if they have strong principles. Nobody wants this repeal and replace more than I do. I want the win for the president. He worked hard for this, and he'll get it. But I just think -- I -- I just -- you got to hand -- you got to have the leadership handle it better.
RIVERA: I absolutely disagree, Sean. I think that the Freedom Caucus would not have gone along with any -- would not have gone along with any compromise whatsoever that involved giving something for free to poor people. They are the Just say no...
HANNITY: That's ridiculous.
RIVERA: ... caucus.
HANNITY: They have to take care of...
RIVERA: When you see a Freedom Caucus -- like what? What has the Freedom Caucus done but said no? They voted 50 times to repeal -- or more...
HANNITY: It's meaningless if you don't pass it.
RIVERA: ... to repeal "Obama care." And then eight years later, where are they now? Now they have to say no to a Republican president.
HANNITY: I am convinced this could be...
RIVERA: Why do you think John Boehner quit?
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: ... Sean Hannity is saying this. Corey is right. Bring in all of these conservative think tanks, bring in the Senate because you have to deal with culture and the Byrd rule and reconciliation. Bring in all of the different factions, with the moderates and the Tuesday Group, the Study Group, the caucus. Everybody needs to get locked in a room and don't let them out until they fix it!
They owe it to the American people to fulfill that promise, and frankly, they owe it to the president to do their job.
All right, coming up, Sheriff David Clarke, Larry Elder -- they're up next to weigh in on the Trump campaign being surveilled.
And also later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, ATTORNEY GENERAL: The American people are not happy with these results. They know that when cities and states refuse to help enforce immigration laws, our nation is less safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Finally, the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, calling out cities to enforce the immigration law -- in other words, sanctuary cities. Ann Coulter will join us tonight with reaction.
And well, still to come tonight, we went down to South Padre Island, Texas, more shocking behavior. Is this dangerous for your children, spring break? We'll check in with Ainsley Earhardt. She has reaction straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So yesterday, Congressman Trey Gowdy called out Democrats for criticizing the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Devin Nunes, for briefing President Trump about his findings related to the Obama administration's collecting intel on the Trump transition team -- in other words, surveillance. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. TREY GOWDY, R-S.C.: My understanding is Chairman Nunes briefed the commander-in-chief on matters unrelated to the Russia investigation. Do if that's a big deal in Washington, then we've sunk to a new low. So if the commander-in-chief cannot be briefed by the chairperson of the House Intel Committee on a matter that has nothing to do with the FBI investigation, then I don't know what they can talk about, John.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. So...
GOWDY: He's the commander-in-chief!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And that's not all. Today, the Democrats -- they were up in arms because it was revealed that Chairman Nunes met with his source on the White House grounds. But in a statement for a spokesman for Chairman Nunes -- they explained, quote, "Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source." Makes sense.
Joining us now with reaction, the author of the best-selling book, "Cop Under Fire," Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke and Salem nationally syndicated radio talk show host Larry Elder.
Larry, let me check in with your legal mind for a second. Can you think of any circumstances under which a president-elect or a candidate should ever be surveilled?
LARRY ELDER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I can't think of anyone. And I think that what we're finding out is that Donald Trump was not out to lunch when he tweeted that he might have been wiretapped, using the term very broadly.
I'd be a lot more impressed with some of these Democrats yelling and screaming about Devin Nunes if they were saying that Loretta Lynch should have recused herself when she met with Bill Clinton on the tarmac, something that she never did. I'd be a little more impressed if they were angry at Hillary for not turning over documents during the Benghazi hearing and for giving us a bunch of different stories and for deleting documents, destroying evidence after they were under subpoena.
I'd be a lot more impressed if the Democrats were upset with those kinds of things, but they're not. This is nothing more than politics. They're being hypocritical. They know that they are in trouble because Donald Trump is looking at least credible, and so therefore let's put the chairman on trial. That's what they do. That's what they're doing right now.
HANNITY: One of the things I think that bothered me the most is the chairman saying, sheriff, that this was widely disseminated. In other words, a lot of people saw this. That goes into the issue of privacy, even if it was legitimate surveillance. And I think that is a question that needs to be answered. Let's say it was legitimate surveillance and you pick up a president-elect or a candidate. That should never be widely disseminated, right?
SHERIFF DAVID CLARKE, MILWAUKEE COUNTY: Right. Look, this is unprecedented, especially for an incoming president. The fact that Nunes briefed President Trump on this, that's what he should have done. I think the mistake he made, though, was releasing this to the public. He wanted a few headlines, he wanted some face time with the media out of it. That part of it kind of backfired on it.
But I think the bigger issue here, as Larry indicated, is why the intelligence sources and intelligence agencies are surveilling the incoming president and his transition team. For what? And I think it's a shame that the intelligence agency directors there couldn't go to the president- elect and tell him what was going on. Maybe somebody should have leaked it to him without leaking any information or any names and just say, hey, there's something going on here that I think is illegal.
But this is -- as Larry indicated, this is the politics as usual that goes on in Washington, the partisan back-and-forth that the American people are tired of. We sent Donald Trump to Washington to drain the swamp and to get rid of this back-and-forth stuff with politics that does nothing for the American people and get down to the business of serving the American people on the issues facing this country.
HANNITY: I have a lot of questions here, Larry. Did they use under the guise of legitimate intelligence gathering, legitimate surveillance, was that a ruse to really surveil the president? And the next logical question after that is who knew what, where, and when? And did the president know at the time, then President Obama? Was any of that's shared with the Clinton campaign? Where are these leaks coming from?
The only felonies we know in this case were committed by leaking intelligence. That's a violation of the Espionage Act. So -- and James Comey wouldn't even acknowledge that there is an investigation into this although he did acknowledge the investigation into, quote, "Russia" even though there is no evidence that has been put forward whatsoever.
ELDER: That's right. I think it was Reince Priebus who said there's greater evidence of media collusion to get Hillary elected than Trump collusion with Russia to get Trump elective. And there's a whole lot we do not know. These investigations are just now getting started. And so I would urge all people to relax, look at the evidence that will come in, and find out -- James Clapper, the national intelligence director under Obama, says so far there's no evidence whatsoever of any kind of collusion with Donald Trump and with Russia. And that ultimately is what I think is going to happen. We're not going to find any evidence of collusion.
HANNITY: Sheriff, if you were doing an investigation, don't you keep that circle tight in terms of evidence that you are gathering? Isn't that the type of thing you would never let out, and if it was left out you would be able to very quickly determine who did it?
CLARKE: The secrecy of these investigations is paramount. I get briefed on these things all the time, Sean. But you're not going to find Barack Obama's fingerprints on this, but he is all over this. He is not stupid enough to have ordered or directed or would have be involved in any of the conversation -- might not be able to prove this, but he knew what was going on. I tell you what. I put myself in this position. If something like this was going on in Milwaukee County, in my agency, some high level investigation, and somebody didn't tell me about it, I would not be real happy about it. So it's one of those things that will never be able to work this thing back towards the former president, but he is all over this thing.
HANNITY: I agree with that analysis. And you never know. Maybe somebody will talk. All right, guys, thank you both.
Up next, tonight, right here on "Hannity."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The American people are not happy with these results. They know that when cities and states refuse to help enforce immigration laws our nation is less safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, speaking about the need for sanctuary cities to abide by federal laws. Ann Coulter weighs in. That's coming up next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was in jail because I got in a beach brawl and I got too damn drunk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And later, a "Hannity" investigation as we went down to South Padre Island in Texas to expose what's really going on with your kids at spring break. "Fox & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt will join us with a full report about the dangers your kids are facing. That is straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So earlier today during the White House press briefing, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed sanctuary cities and the harm they have caused the country. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SESSIONS: The Department of Justice has a duty to enforce our nation's laws in including our immigration laws. Those laws require us to promptly remove aliens when they are convicted or detained of certain crimes. Unfortunately some states and cities have adopted policies designed to frustrate this enforcement of immigration laws. This includes refusing to detain known felons on federal detainer request, or otherwise failing to comply with these laws.
The American people are not happy with these results. They know that when cities and states refuse to help enforce immigration laws, our nation is less safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here with reaction, the author of the bestseller "In Trump We Trust, E Pluribus Awesome!" Ann Coulter. Why do I bet you don't care about the health care repeal and replace issue? You want immigration vetting of refugees -- those are your top issues and you think that should be the number one priority now.
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST: Well, I did care about ObamaCare-lite, and I think it is a complete disaster. I have a very simple plan to fix it which I will be launching in my column on Wednesday, so simple even a Republican congressman could understand. It's very easy to fix. I don't really hold Trump responsible for that. I do want Trump and these Republicans in Congress to enforce the Trump agenda. Instead we are getting an awful lot of the standard GOP corporatist agenda.
For example, this claim that they are going to go to tax cuts next, and particularly the corporate tax rate. As you know, I would like taxes cut. As you know, I am very pro-life. I'm about at the point that I want taxes to go up and Planned Parenthood funded if this is all the Republicans are giving us. As I recall under Bush, we had massive tax cuts. Corporations, you know, they were happy. And yet what did they turn around and do? They hired guest workers. They've didn't hire Americans. They insisted on hiring illegal aliens.
So I'm not sure this argument that cutting the taxes on corporations will lead to all these jobs. It leads to jobs as limiting the supply of labor by deporting illegal aliens, by building a wall. You want an infrastructure project? It reduces the number of welfare cases. It helps you with Medicaid and Medicare. Doing what Trump set on immigration makes everything else we have to do so much easier.
HANNITY: Listen, you don't want immigrants competing for jobs especially when you have 95 million Americans out of the labor force, but you can't deny if you bringing trillions of repatriated money at a low rate that's going to incentivize them spend money, the build factories, manufacturing centers. And the same with corporate taxes -- you lower it to 15 percent. You go from the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world to the lowest. Businesses are going to want to do business here. That only helps us too, right?
COULTER: Maybe. I'm not very inclined to worry about corporate America right now. That's all anybody has worried about. The whole point of Trump was to care about the working class.
HANNITY: Worry about the jobs they create.
COULTER: And as I say -- well, yes, all those jobs they created under Bush? No, they didn't. They brought in guest workers. They demanded an amnesty.
HANNITY: We've got to secure the border simultaneously, I agree with you. We are not disagreeing.
COULTER: Not simultaneously, number one. And I would also say that having seen that we are going to be living under -- in fact we are going to live under fascism under Trump, it's the fascism of our federal district court judges, immigration is obviously the federal responsibility. But some district court judges don't understand that. And as long as they are going to be deciding all of our immigration policy for us, I think the first law Congress ought the pass is just take Trump's immigration policy paper and pass every provision into law.
As I've said before Trump was very clever about this. Almost everything he has promised on immigration already is the law. It is 100 percent within the prerogative of the president --
HANNITY: Why does he have to go back and do it again? Why would you advise him to --
COULTER: Because everything he wants to do is his responsibility as the president. For example, to build the wall. He's commander-in-chief. It's not just the law. It's the constitution that gives the president the authority to protect our borders. But apparently some federal district judges need more than the constitution. They will ignore the constitution. Why not have Congress, for one thing, just for supplemental support on all of Trump's immigration policies, pass all of his immigration policies into law, and also force the Democrats and some of those weak-kneed Republicans to vote against it.
I keep hearing what Reince Priebus said this weekend, that the new White House plan is to appeal to Democrats, and reach out to Democrats. And look, Trump is a charming person. I'm sure he will be lovely to them, but I think instead of trying to get Democrat votes by giving into them, by pushing socialist ideas, the way you get Democrats to vote for your bills is by writing bills that they can't vote against because they have to stand for reelection, as you will see with my Obamacare fix this Wednesday.
HANNITY: Ann Coulter, thank you. They want to destroy Trump. They don't want to support him, the Democrats. All right, thank you for being with us.
And up next tonight, right here on "Hannity" --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't remember the last three days because I've been so -- up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That time again. Spring break is here, and we went to South Padre Island, Texas, to see what your kids are doing on spring break. Things haven't changed. You won't believe what we saw. Ainsley Earhardt joins us with a full report, that's straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." All right, it's that time of year again. Thousands of young adults, they head to tropical destinations all across the U.S. for a little fun in the sun. But what are your kids really up to when they jet off to spring break that you usually end up paying for?
Back in 2015 Ainsley Earhardt went down to Panama City Beach, Florida, to investigate the dangers of spring break, and what we found was beyond shocking. But after our reporting aired two years ago, the local government passed a series of ordinances to curtail the risky behavior, including banning all alcohol on the beach in the month of March.
This year we sent a producer to another spring break hot spot, this time in South Padre Island in Texas. You've got to be warned here, what you are about to see is beyond graphic, probably not appropriate for your kids. Three, two, one -- go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do not remember the last three days because I've been so -- up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What time did you all start drinking today?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One hour ago. But like seven shots in seven minutes, so we're good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, God. I saw some guy do drugs off some girl. It was pretty crazy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That with you on me.
(LAUGHTER)
CROWD: Spring break!
(CHEERS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is called "slapping the bag."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is so weird down here. You never know what you are going to get into.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Spring break, 2017, baby!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have seen so much, dude.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mom and dad, I love you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What time did I start drinking today? Like 11:00.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Drink beer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I honestly have no idea. I really do not know.
CROWD: Spring break, 2017!
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here with reaction, "Fox & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt. You've been down there a number of years for us doing this, and you saw a lot of bad things. It's obviously happening still, but not in Panama City Beach.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, "FOX & FRIENDS" CO-HOST: Not as much in Panama City Beach. I talked to the new sheriff. There's a new sheriff in town. His name is Tommy Ford. Frank McKeithen has been there for years. He retired and then Tommy Ford. He was elected in the fall and took over in January. So I just got off the phone with him. The numbers are not back for this year's spring break because it is still going on. They look at the numbers through the entire month of March. But they have changed the rules. The big one is no alcohol on the beach.
HANNITY: By the way, we are hated for doing that.
EARHARDT: Hated, hated by the kids, but he said loved by the community. He said his officers would walk out on the beach and families come up to them and say thank you so much for cleaning up the beach. We are bringing our families back. He said that's generating the economy again. So they're really pleased with that. It's not perfect. They had a really bad day yesterday. He says there were two shootings yesterday. One person is in critical condition and three robberies. But they have banned balcony climbing. Remember when we were down there, there were people were jumping from balcony to balcony and then falling off because they were drunk and then dying.
HANNITY: Every one of these kids is wasted. They're hammered.
EARHARDT: They are there to get wasted. That is their goal, to get blacked out drunk. They increased the penalties for open containers. No alcohol on the beach in the month of March, no parking lot drinking, and you can't buy any alcohol between the hours of 2:00 and 7:00 a.m.
HANNITY: I think one of the great revelations that you made, and I think this is important for parents if they are paying to send their kids here, is you've got people, they're called the 100-mile group, coming in with homemade drugs, molly, ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana, obviously. You do not know who these people are. They're here to prey on these kids.
EARHARDT: They're much older than college kids. So they come there to prey on the college kids. They bring their drugs. They sell it to the kids. They robbed them of their backpacks and their belongings on the beach. No one even notices their belongings are gone until they wake up the next day because the kids are so drunk.
HANNITY: So thank you for this report. By the way, you interviewed Eric and Lara Trump. They're having their first baby, and it's a boy.
EARHARDT: They are. It's a little boy. We asked them the name of the baby. You'll have to wait for "FOX AND FRIENDS" in the morning to learn that.
HANNITY: You got the name.
EARHARDT: We've got the name they are thinking of.
HANNITY: And when did they tell the president?
EARHARDT: This is a great story. So they found out on Eric's birthday which was the beginning of January. They told his family Inauguration Day. They were at the White House. It was the very first night that the family moved in and took over. They were sitting at the ding room table, and that's when they shared the news. And Eric stood up and told them. They said their family was so chaotic, they all talked. They liked to -- it shut everyone down and they all just went crazy.
HANNITY: They're a great couple. You also asked them about Ted Koppel and me?
EARHARDT: I did. I did.
HANNITY: It's going to air tomorrow?
EARHARDT: It's going to air tomorrow, yes.
HANNITY: I know you are not going to give me any clips. I got it.
EARHARDT: I'll give you this. He was very complementary of you.
HANNITY: OK, that is fair. I will be up at 6:00.
EARHARDT: She doesn't even look pregnant. She's in her second trimester and she doesn't even look pregnant. And baby is due around her mom's birthday.
HANNITY: Awesome.
EARHARDT: It's very special. They have had a great year.
HANNITY: Thanks, Ainsley. We will see you back here tomorrow with more news on spring break.
When we come back, an important "Question of the Day." And yes, we will play some of those mean, hateful voicemails you left for me on the "Hannity" hotline. That is straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Time for our "Question of the Day." So do you think CBS should post the full 50-plus minutes of my interview with Ted Koppel online? They only ran 70 seconds. Good grief. Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.
All right, time again to play some of your mean messages for me you left on the "Hannity" hotline. Hit me with your best shot. Let's hear what you say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sean, don't listen to these crazy people that are telling you to use that axle grease in your hair. Your hair looks great. Just don't listen to those morons.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are terrific and I appreciate your commentary, but you rustle the papers, the pages that you're holding when you're talking to your guests. And if you could please stop doing that because it interrupts the flow of the conversation hearing the papers rattling. Thank you. Bye.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Really? My hair, ruffling papers. All right, I will make amends. I am open to constructive criticism. No more of that.
Anyway, have something you want to say to me? It could be mean as you want, nice as you want, doesn't matter. Call the number on your screen, 877-225-8587.
But that's all the time we have left this evening. As always, thank you for being with us. We'll see you back here tomorrow night.
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