New York is back to a 'pre-Giuliani' state of crime

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New York is back to a 'pre-Giuliani' state of crime

New York, other Dem states set to lose a seat in US House of Representatives; Newt Gingrich reacts on 'Hannity'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," April 26, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: All right. Tucker, thank you.

And welcome to "Hannity".

Tonight, we're going to start with another, as Rush would call them, undeniable truth of life, Americans are fed up with being talked down to, having their values ridiculed, mocked, and being lectured to. Elites in Hollywood, famous professional athletes, other woke social justice warriors now constantly ramming their political beliefs into every single aspect of your life, with movies, sitcoms, pro sports.

The left's holier than thou ideology is now inescapable. America's favorite pastimes the NFL, NBA, MLB, all sports that when you think about it bring people of all races, all backgrounds, all religions, all political points of view, strangers high-fiving each other, celebrating, commiserating together based on the love and built around the love of a shared passion and that's loving the sport and the teams that they support or the individual professionals they like. It's their home team.

But now, even sports are being used as a divisive platform for far left talking points and Americans now are tuning out in droves, people from -- you know, when people go to an athletic event, don't you want to break from the normal, everyday stress of life, the rancor, the politics, the riots here and there, the riots everywhere? People want a break. And that brings people together.

Last season's NBA ratings were the lowest in history. The politically charged finals featuring a very woke LeBron James averaged only 7.5 million viewers. That is a 50 percent decline over the previous year. The final game of the series last year garnered only 5.6 million views, that's it. That's an all-time low.

For reference, remember, in Michael Jordan's last NBA finals, his appearance, yeah, they have 36 million Americans watching. So who's the greatest of all time, LeBron? I don't know. Numbers are pretty clear.

And, by the way, LeBron James vilifying the police, doxxing a cop who stopped a young, unarmed, innocent African-American woman from being stabbed likely to death in Ohio is definitely not helping viewership. In fact, one bar now in Ohio banned the NBA from their TVs until LeBron James is removed from the league.

On twitter, James thought this was hilarious, made fun of the bar. But now, the same LeBron James is now going viral for all the wrong reasons, take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) riot and disturbance. Will you have LeBron call my cell phone right away please? Thank you.

Excuse me, sir, excuse me. No, can you put the knife down please? No, no, sir, don't stab -- no stop stabbing -- hold on. Hold on, it's LeBron.

LeBron, hey, it's me again, I'm out here on at disturbance call and there's a guy trying to stab a guy with another knife? What do you think I should do? Why does that matter?

OK. Well, they are both black. So you don't care if a black person kills another black person but you do care for white cop kills a black person, even if he's doing to save the life of another black person? I mean, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but then, again, you are really good at basketball. So, I guess I'll take your word for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: It's funny, but it's sad. As you can see, Americans are fed up. They're sick and tired of the ignorant lectures from this country's pious celebrities, especially when cops have the most dangerous job putting their life on the line every day to protect, to serve their communities.

Remember the NFL also, their serious dip in ratings when backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to turn the game into one big political protest against the U.S. in 2016 after Kaepernick kneeled for the first time. Yeah, ratings dump a whopping 12 percent.

And get this, according to one Rasmussen poll, approximately 34 percent of Americans said they were less likely to watch an NFL game due to players taking a stand and protesting the national anthem.

And then there's the Academy Awards, 1998 not that long ago, more than 55 million people tuned in. 2014, they're still respectable, 43 million people tuned in. 2021, now that the awards have turned into one big far left protest were self obsessed celebrities berate the American people and tell them how to think, now the viewership is completely bottomed out.

Last night's numbers, historic lows, I mean, really bad, last night under 10 million viewers tuned in. That's 58 percent less than just last year. A whopping 77 percent less than 2014 and, of course, this really isn't a huge surprise.

According to a report in "The New York Times," one recent producer of the Oscars who spoke on condition of anonymity said minute-by-minute post show ratings analysis of last year's Oscars indicated vast numbers of people turning off their televisions when celebrities started to opine on politics.

So last night, there was plenty of sanctimonious political rhetoric including a healthy dose of anti-police slander. Take a look. If

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today, the police will kill three people and tomorrow, the police will kill three people in the day after that, the police will kill three people because on average, the police in America every day kill three people, which amounts to about 1,000 people year. And those people happen to be disproportionately black people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And how many times have police officers save the lives? Does that ever get talked about? Or the fact that over 100 officers this year alone have been killed in a line of duty, many by gunshot?

Now, this is why American stop watching but to his credit, producer, actor Tyler Perry, he urged Americans not to hate the police, which cause the woke audience, all of a sudden, they're clapping, clapping -- they're not clapping anymore. Watch for yourself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLKP)

TYLER PERRY, ACTOR/PRODUCER: Just refuse hate. Don't hate anybody. I refuse to hate someone because they are Mexican or because they are black or white, or LGBTQ. I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian. I would hope that we would refuse hate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Powerful words.

This weekend in Chicago, while 24 were shot, three were killed in New York, 26 wounded in shootings over a seven-day stretch in New York, 50 people were shot, 46 separate incidents throughout the city, this is a 250 percent surge from the same week in 20 which is not particularly a good year, but police pulled back when they're defunded and/or dismantled, cities become plagued with violent crime.

And now, by the way, anyone want to be a police officer? I doubt it. This year, there was 75 percent increase in retirements and departures among New York Police Department police officers.

Are you shocked? Are you surprised? I'm not.

Police are vilified around every turn, including now during pro sports games, MMA, hock -- on the other end, MMA, UFC, boxing, hockey, probably the few apolitical sports left. This might be the reason why the UFC is gaining massively in popularity year after year after year, I mentioned I actually trained for a five days a week, I'm doing it for eight years, I'm a student, it's a hard tough workout.

And as many of you know, the UFC features very intense fights. If the couple this weekend, former UFC champion, Chris Weidman, he suffered a horrific leg injury. By the way, we are going to show you this.

Now, the video goes on 20 seconds, what we are about to show you is extremely graphic, counted 20 and you can come back after three, two, one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a slight plus-105 budding underdog for (INAUDIBLE)

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god. Oh, my god. His left leg --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Take a quick look at this again, three, two, one, from another angle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here it is, watch this. Oh, my god. Right below the knee, and immediately snapping out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Snap his leg.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a look at it here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to look, just tell me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That mirrored what happened with him and Anderson.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: I always say UFC, MMA, hockey, football, gladiator sports, only the toughest, bravest athletes partake in these sports, people I look up to when all of them. Weidman actually broken Anderson Silva's leg. That was in December of 2013 from we would show you but it's pretty much the same as what we have.

Make no mistake, this is an intense sport, like football, like hockey, like boxing, a gladiator sport, in my honest opinion, the toughest of all of them.

So naturally, it is not woke enough for the media mob. Recently, get this, "Vegas Review Journal" bashing the UFC president for holding a live event with fans and accusing them of putting people's lives at risk because of COVID concerns and an Instagram, well, UFC president Dana White responded, he wrote this. He said: Through this entire pandemic, we didn't lay off a single employee, we worked with governmental agencies in Nevada around the country and the world to put on every event safely and we chose to bring our biggest fight of the year with Conor McGregor back to town on July the 10th to help relaunch the city, yet this is how "The Vegas Review Journal" shows its support for a true local business, go bleep yourself "Las Vegas Review Journal".

Here with much more as the president of the UFC, Dana White.

Well, OK, that's why I love you because you don't hold back, you never hold back. You know, always, you know, hard-hitting.

All right. By the way, what a card this weekend, what a round of -- you had going on.

DANA WHITE, ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP PRESIDENT: Thank you.

HANNITY: You didn't let a single person off during this entire pandemic, you created fight out.

And tell everybody your thought process throughout.

WHITE: Yeah. I just -- listen, my -- this was always my thought process, there's always a way to figure things out. No is never the answer and you just have to be willing to work hard, spend the money and, you know, there's going to be some trial and error but we knew we could do it.

HANNITY: Yeah. All right. So, you don't let them off. Explain how Fight Island came around because I thought that was a genius idea and it kept the sport going and kept your employees employed. Tell us how you did that.

WHITE: Well, thanks. Well, let's start with Florida. First of all, here in the United States, we needed to be able to put on fights. We have our own arena here in Las Vegas but we couldn't use it. We couldn't use our own arena in our own home town. So we had to go to Florida.

And, you know, the mayor, Mayor Curry in Jacksonville opened the doors to us, and obviously, Governor DeSantis was incredible. You have to have government officials that you can work with. People that are -- and the Florida state athletic that were willing to work with us and figure out ways so that the show could go on.

Once we got that figured out, we're putting on shows here in America, you know, this is a global sport, running in international business. So we had to figure out how could we get people in from all over the world from all these different countries, these fighters and their camps.

And, you know, we started talking about islands and places where we could build a real bubble and I've got a great relationship with the royal family in Abu Dhabi for over 12 years, we started talking to them. And we literally built the best bubble on earth when we went to Fight Island in Abu Dhabi.

HANNITY: I want to talk about the growth of UFC over the years and you're a big part of its success from the get-go, but I want to talk about it through this idea. So you watch LeBron James, what he had said last week, and you look at the ratings of the finals in the NBA, 5.6 million viewers is a disaster. You know, just a few years ago, they had 50 million people watching the Oscars every year. Now, they're down below 10 million.

You look at what happened in Georgia with Major League Baseball when they had far more accessible voting laws than Joe Biden's state of Delaware -- I'm not trying to drag you into politics.

But Major League Baseball, Colin Kaepernick NFL, LeBron with the NBA, all of these -- you know, if you look around an athletic stadium, I don't care what this sport is, I see people of all backgrounds, all races, all coming together because they love and have to share a passion for that sport, right?

WHITE: Right. Well, one of the things that I really tried to do through this whole thing is stay out of politics. When people tune in to watch sports, they don't want to hear that crap. They don't want to hear what your opinions are or who you're voting for or what you're doing, they want to get away from everything in their life and they want to focus on, you know, two, three, four hours however long the sport is.

Throughout this pandemic, when you tuned on the UFC, we never talked about COVID. We never talked about politics, and obviously, there are certain fighters, you know, male and female who have their own religious beliefs, their own political beliefs, and whatever, we don't muzzle anybody either. So if somebody comes down to the press conference and they want to talk about this or that or whatever might be, it's their God-given right to do it. We don't muzzle anybody but we keep politics out of the sport.

If you want to listen to that stuff, turn on any other station, you got it. You'll hear all the COVID and political stuff you want to hear. When you tune into UFC, you are there to see fights.

HANNITY: Do you see the growth of the UFC and then you look at precipitous decline in a lot of other sports because of, you know, woke politics, cancel culture, and do you see direct correlation?

WHITE: I mean, it would be hard to say no, that they don't go hand-in- hand. I truly do believe that people are fed up -- I just put on an event, we're the first major sport to have an indoor live event at full capacity during this pandemic. Just Saturday night, we had 15,259 fans there.

If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask. If you didn't want to wear a mask, you didn't have to.

Everybody was there. The crowd was explosive all night. It was a great show. We broke the arena record.

And what that tells me, I sold out Jacksonville, going to Houston next, then Vegas, 50,000 feet sold out and under 5 minutes total for all three.

People are done. People are done. They are done being told of where they can go, what they can do. They're ready to get back out there and start enjoying their lives again.

HANNITY: Hey, Dana, everybody knows. Everybody's heard about the masks. Everybody's heard about social distancing. Everybody knows there are three vaccines out there and available if people -- and I'd advise you to consult with your doctor and do a lot of research on your own -- they know that the vaccines are available.

Now, Americans, if we're going to live free, we've got to live up to that motto. It can't just be words, you know? I wrote a book, "Live Free or Die," right?

So, Americans now are informed and they are voting by buying out 50,000 seats in 5 minutes.

By the way, I want to pay for my tickets, but if you know anybody selling, I may have to buy them on StubHub.

WHITE: I've got you. Whatever you need, I've got you.

HANNITY: I'm not taking anything for free, I promise.

But seriously, everybody knows, Dana, they know. And they showed up in droves. I think it speaks volumes. I'll give you the last word.

WHITE: Yeah, I agree. Listen, I told you the three states that I'm going to next. We're sold out in all three events. And as things to start, the next state that opens is looking like Arizona might work and whoever comes after that, I'm coming to your town. I'm going to your arena and we're going to sell out.

HANNITY: Well, I wish it make -- that means New York where I need to get out of, I'd probably see in 15 years.

But anyway, congratulations on a great event. Our prayers to Weidman and his family. We want him -- hopefully he can recover from this and make a return to the octagon, to the cage, and looking forward to watching.

Dana White, thank you.

WHITE: He got up and walked today. He's doing better, thank you.

HANNITY: Did he really? He got up and walked today?

WHITE: Yeah, he walked today.

HANNITY: Wow.

WHITE: You know, they're saying he'll be in a much better shape in the next couple of weeks. It's one of those horrible injuries to watch. As human being, we can't wrap the brain around their shin breaking. But it's broken bone, he's going to make a great recovery and he'll be fine.

HANNITY: All right. Great news, our best to him and our best to you as well. Thank you.

Here with more reaction, radio talk show host Dana Loesch, FOX News contributor, Leo 2.0 Terrell.

You better watch out, Leo 2.0. If you ever go back to Leo 1.0, you know, I've been training for eight years and I think you're in trouble, I might have to drag into the octagon.

LEO TERRELL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I got Dana to protect me. Dana's right here.

HANNITY: I bet you do. I bet you, he would protect you in a heartbeat.

DANA LOESCH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: That you have to specify which Dana. Is it Dana A or is it Dana B?

TERRELL: You. I've got Dana Loesch right here, her, her.

HANNITY: Well, let me tell you --

LOESCH: I've got you, Leo. I got your six, I got you.

TERRELL: Thank you.

HANNITY: But don't mess with that, Dana, because she's a marksman. You know, that works too, Leo.

(LAUGHTER)

TERRELL: Yeah, definitely.

We will start with Dana -- Dana Loesch, do you see the connection that I was talking about with Dana White with attendance, with ratings, lack of fan support, but then look at the UFC, record numbers?

LOESCH: Yeah. No, I completely agree with you and I'm really geek out that I was on after Dana White because we're -- I mean, this is a UFC household. We're huge MMA fans on this household, and we were pulling for Rose, by the way.

But I completely agree with you. Can there be one place that we all as Americans can go to and find some common ground and just drink a beer and watch -- whether it's a fight or whether it's a game, whatever it is, is there one place that we can go to because right now, the only place where that happens is UFC and mixed martial arts, the only place where you don't have to be aggravated by somebody else's political viewpoints.

Everybody -- everybody, Sean, is so desperate to tell everybody else what their political viewpoint is. Some of us don't care and some of us just want to have a beer and enjoy the game. That's all we want to do. We don't want to be lectured to. We don't want to be preached at.

We just -- the only thing that should matter is who you are rooting for. That's the only division that should occur. So I really wish -- I think that's hwy people get -- you know, conservatives particularly get a little bit irate over some of this stuff because they are taking away all of our common ground spaces.

HANNITY: You know, I mean, this -- Leo, I've been to sporting events. The last time the Yankees won the World Series, I took, it was on my son's birthday, and I took them to the game, that was his birthday present and I bought the tickets on StubHub, for those of you who are wondering, I always pay. I don't want anything for free.

But the point is, you are high-fiving the strangers. You're literally like, you know, standing, clapping, cheering together, everybody is having a great time. Nobody, you have a shared love and passion at that moment and it brings people together.

Then you put these wedge issues in, it does nothing to bring people together at all.

TERRELL: I agree with you 100 percent and focusing on LeBron. LeBron James with his outrageous theological opinions, he is staying the NBA. When you think of LeBron James, you don't think about a basketball player, you think about a guy who made an idiotic statement who put a bounty -- a bounty on a police officer. And so, now, LeBron James has tainted his basketball career.

Let me also mention this, while you have in North Carolina, the Al Sharpton, Ben Crump trying to make a buck, they arrested that guy in Chicago who shot that 7-year-old girl. You don't see LeBron James talking about that, you don't see the NBA or WNBA talking about black on black crime because it doesn't fit their narrative.

But LeBron James and these basketball players have stained their careers because they do not know what they're talking about when it comes to issues about the police. Their narrative is, only white cops kill black people and that is a lie, see Chicago.

HANNITY: Yeah, last word, Dana Loesch.

LOESCH: I completely agree and to echo what Leo was just saying, with all the denigration of what they're doing, there are way more good cops than incidence of bad policing and now, you are seeing all these demoralized departments and they can even -- you got people retiring faster than they can recruit and fill these spaces. So, people are going to be in a world of hurt if they realize that the people who are serving the community is wearing the badge, wearing the blue. If those people think that maybe it's not worth doing anymore because all we are going to do is be smeared and attacked for serving the public like we are asked to do.

HANNITY: Leo 2.0 Terrell, how lucky are you? You've got Dana Loesch and Dana White. They both have your back, your good. Unreal.

LOESCH: I like this one more. I like her more.

HANNITY: All right. Thank you both.

Coming up, the left continues to call anyone who opposes their agenda racist. Senator John Kennedy weighs in next to discuss why that is so dangerous especially when it comes to policing, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: As we explained in our open monologue on Friday, the left continues to claim that any opposition to their extreme, radical, socialist policies are one thing and one thing only, and that is completely totally utterly racist. That would be D.C. statehoods, securing the border, eliminating the legislative filibuster, funding, defunding the police.

I don't remember Joe Biden or anyone else actually claiming the filibuster was a relic of Jim Crow when they were filibustering Republican legislations like 300 times, like Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill. But Joe Biden and the Democrats, they continue to rush to judgment, demonize the police and put our most vulnerable communities at risk by ignoring key facts when it comes to these officer-involved shootings and their recklessness in making cities less safe.

Here with reaction to talk specifically about what happened in the Ma'Khia Bryant incident in Columbus, Ohio, Republican senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy.

So, we have -- you know, there are a ton of these viral videos that are out there, Senator.

You know, cops saying, guys, please stop stabbing each other, hang on, what should I do in this case, what's the proper way to handle it?

If it wasn't for the heroism of that officer, the girl who was dressed in pink, the young woman that was pinned to the car and the girl floated up with that knife about to plunge it and thrust it into her body would have been stabbed and likely would have been killed. And then you saw what LeBron James did to the cop.

Thoughts?

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Cops have about 60 million encounters with Americans every year. When someone is hurt -- before we assume, there's this thing called asking. There's this thing called an investigation.

The wokeristas don't want to just jump to conclusions, they want to cannonball into them. They need to get the facts.

Let me state a few propositions that I think reflect common sense and with respect to which most Americans other than the wokeristas agree.

Number one, most cops, many of whom happened to be black, do not get up every day and go to work hoping for the opportunity to hurt a person of color.

Number two, cops are necessary. If you support defunding the police, you have tested positive for stupid.

Number three, it is immeasurably foolish to resist arrest. It is going to end badly, even if no one is hurt. You can't win, the government has the bomb, it's very dangerous, don't resist arrest.

And number four, and this is just me personally, if you are a cop and when you see someone about to stab me, I would personally appreciate it if you would stop them. Shoot them if you have to, I don't care who they are. I don't consider that police misconduct, I consider that saving my life.

HANNITY: You have coined the term which I find interesting, wokeristas.

Now, I gave statistics in the opening monologue talking about police and talking about the number of shootings. There were 24 people shot in Chicago this weekend in New York City, 50 people shot in 46 separate incidents. By the way, three died in Chicago, and a surge of 250 percent, seven-day period of item, 50 people shot in New York City.

Senator, can you name any of the people shot this weekend? Have you heard anybody report on the names of anybody shot in New York City or Chicago this weekend? Because I haven't. I've looked them up, but I don't think anyone else -- we will likely never know any of their names, why?

KENNEDY: No, no, and it breaks my heart, but New York I think has just edged out Chicago as the world's outdoor shooting range. What -- it's terrible, Sean. It's horrible.

But our post-journalism -- in our post-journalism world, many members of the media have a narrative and they only want to cherry pick and pick instances which show cops at their worst. I've said it before, if you hate cops just because they are cops, then feel free to call the criminal, called a meth head the next time you get in trouble.

I mean, I just do not accept nor do I think most Americans except that most cops are bad people, are racist. They don't get up every day and go into work hoping they can hurt somebody. Most of them get up every day and go to work and hope they can themselves come back home alive.

HANNITY: You know, I have two questions for LeBron James. First question is simple, and that is LeBron, if it was your daughter that was pinned against the car with the girl loaded with the knife about to be thrust into your daughter, what would you want the cops to do there?

And the second question I have is related to the last question I asked you which is, LeBron, do you know the names of everybody that was shot this weekend? And why is there a priority only on the much smaller subset of killings and shootings that take place in society and that being the full focus whenever the police are involved?

And, by the way, many big cities now have majority minority police forces.

KENNEDY: Well, Sean, I think everyone agrees that police misconduct should be punished and police --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I agree with that. I agree.

KENNEDY: Police misconduct exists. But look at the numbers, let me say it again, every year, cops have encounters with 60 million Americans, 10 million of them are arrested, In 2 million cases, cops either have to use force or threaten to use force.

Now, if our friends in the media will cover every one of those cases and be fair about it, but they are -- they are cherry-picking. I don't know what the investigations in North Carolina and Ohio will show, but before we can involve any conclusions and assume its racism, we ought to have an investigation and understand it's not representative of every case.

HANNITY: Every life matters. That would be every life that was lost this weekend. Every life, people deserve safety and security and there shouldn't be dozens, and dozens and dozens of people shot every weekend, Senator.

We do know how to fix it. Rudy Giuliani did it, you may not like his politics, but he showed us the way. Thank you for being with us.

When we come back, fantastic news for the future of the Republican Party, really good news. Newt Gingrich weighs in.

And later, you're not going to believe the interview between Jim Acosta, fake news Acosta, and Maxine Waters at fake news CNN. We've got the tape, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now, tonight, the numbers don't lie. Blue states are deteriorating, red states are rising, the new census data is in, and Texas gained two House seats, Florida gained one House seat, New York, California, they lost a seat. And in the case of California, it's the first time they've lost at sea since their statehood 170 years ago. Great job, Gavin Newsom, take a bow.

What does it all mean it? It means Americans are voting with their feet and with their dollars and they are saying bye-bye, American pie to the liberal socialist failures under the likes of Cuomo and Murphy and Whitmer and Newsom and Wolf and others.

Florida, Texas, they have lower taxes, less regulation. They're full open. They never adopted those draconian measures on COVID. They're reporting fewer COVID cases than Democratic led Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, et cetera.

And you know what else? Texas and Florida actually care about safety and security of every American and every community in their state. They're not interested in the Democratic dismantling and defunding of the police. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Defund the police, abolish prison? Nancy Pelosi and Democrats in Congress have lost their minds. And now, they're calling for violence. Call Congressman Kind and tell him to stand up do Democrats' attacks on law enforcement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: I'm Sean Hannity and I had nothing to do with that ad and I approve it anyway.

Anyway, it gets even worse for Democrats. A new McLaughlin poll is finding overwhelming support of voter ID among likely voters and even among those who say they approve of Biden.

Here with reaction, FOX News contributor, former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

I mean, the numbers speak for themselves, right, Mr. Speaker? I mean, you've been through a number of census over the years?

NEWT GINGRICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Let's start with the fact that Kevin McCarthy needs five seats to become speaker. David Wasserman in the Cook Report analyzes data during the day and came back and said there's a very real chance that just out of reapportionment, that the Republicans will pick up eight seats which would be enough to knock out Nancy Pelosi and make Kevin McCarthy the speaker.

But there are deeper things going on as you point out, the blue states are just hemorrhaging people. They're shoving them away and what's crazy is in the middle of all of this, the answer of the liberals is to raise taxes.

So everybody who is productive, who has resources, who pays taxes beginning to leave and instead of trying to figure out how to keep them, they're actually going to accelerate the transition out of the blue states to the states that are run overwhelmingly by Republicans.

I mean, you've never seen a clear contrast between the high tax big bureaucracy unionized machine system and all of these states run by Democratic governors in a free enterprise small business entrepreneurship, low tax system as we are seeing in almost all Republican states and the result is exactly what human nature tells you what would be. People leave the pain, they go to the pleasure and the migration is just going to continue.

HANNITY: OK. So now the question is, do blue states get smart? Because in New York, they are now proposing the largest tax increases in the history of any state in terms of income taxes and bureaucracy on top of what New York City is adding to the state which would bring down the federal income tax level under Biden to 40 percent, 15 percent New York state and city, that's 55 cents out of every dollar, then the highest property taxes in the country.

Okay, what -- how dumb am I if I do stay here? I would argue I'm pretty dumb.

(LAUGHTER)

GINGRICH: Sean, I don't want to be on your show saying you're --

HANNITY: I'm about to write a letter saying bye-bye New York.

GINGRICH: Because of my great affection to you, I don't want to contradict you so if you want to say you're really dumb for staying, I certainly don't want to disagree with that.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Thanks a lot. You're like my older brother. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

GINGRICH: But here's what's fascinating. You've got -- in New York and in California, the two biggest Democratic states. You have Newsom in real trouble, they qualified the recall today, and I happen to know that he is right on the cusp of losing and has been steadily losing ground for the last couple of months.

In New York, with somebody like Lee Zeldin running, you're going to have a lower tax, small business-oriented, job-creating, pro police candidate and this may be the best chance Republicans have the pick up the governorship of New York since Governor Pataki won back in 1994.

So very interesting changes under way, was just told today for example the number two issue now in the New York mayor's crime and it's rising steadily. Back in a pre-Rudy Giuliani disastrous area of crime and if that sinks in, the combination of crime being anti-police, being pro-criminal, being for huge bureaucracies and raising taxes has to come together in a way that is a very powerful

HANNITY: Do you think -- do you think Lee Zeldin or Rob Astorino could win in New York and a Ric Grenell or Caitlyn Jenner could win in California? I don't -- I don't know if I see it.

GINGRICH: Well, I certainly think that in New York, you have a real opportunity now because you have such a clear case of the system breaking down particularly in New York City.

I think in California, the arts are pretty memorable. If Gavin Newsom is under 50 percent, he's gone, he's not in the runoff. And at that point, there will be a new governor, the odds are pretty good it would be a Republican.

HANNITY: All right. Mr. Speaker, thank you for being with us.

When we come back, Maxine Waters softball interview with fake news Acosta on fake news CNN. We'll show the highlights. Kayleigh McEnany, Congressman Byron Donalds all join us with reaction, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now, after Project Veritas exposed CNN as a completely corrupt, partisan, left-wing propaganda outlet for all things socialist, chief fake news correspondent Jimmy Acosta, he continues to find new ways and creative ways to destroy any and all credibility if he had in the left, tossing softball after softball at Maxine Waters in his weekend interview.

Just compare his line of questioning to Waters to how he treated Kayleigh McEnany and others in the White House briefing room during the Trump years, take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROSSTALK)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN REPORTER: -- hope for the world for people to say --

STEPHEN MILLER, TRUMP ADVISER: Jim, do you believe. Jim --

ACOSTA: Why was it important for you to use that word confrontational at the time?

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): Black community is afraid of the police, and these young boys who are getting stopped, they think they may have a better chance of running than sticking with the police because what happened with Daunte in Minneapolis, get killed by mistake.

ACOSTA: You know, the president has described members of the press is fake news during the course of this administration when you share fake videos like that, doesn't that make you fake news?

You say you are nonviolent while also referencing that there are right-wing members of Congress who subscribed to the views of QAnon and the Proud Boys, do you believe those congressional Republicans are nonviolent?

WATERS: Well, no, because what is very interesting is I am threatened to be killed very often.

ACOSTA: Is it (INAUDIBLE) for you to accuse other of disinformation when you spread it every day?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here with reaction, "Outnumbered" co-host and former White House secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. Florida Congressman Byron Donalds is with us.

Kayleigh, I will let you react in your own words.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, FOX NEWS ANALYST: I'm not surprised that the disparity in the line of questioning from Jim Acosta, a partisan activist who posed as a White House correspondent, it's remarkable to sit there and watch him lob softballs at Maxine Waters.

I have a few questions that he could have asked her, namely you were seen hugging Louis Farrakhan, a known anti-Semite and a racist person who has had horrific things who, by the way, one of his supporters in the nation of Islam actually killed a Capitol police officer named Billy Evans, and Louis Farrakhan went on to praise this man essentially and say that he was a brother and they lost a disciple.

What do you say to your friend Louis Farrakhan? That would be one of the line just like why did you justify the L.A. riots where 53 died?

There would be quite a few questions an honest journalist could ask, but unfortunately, Jim Acosta is not that.

HANNITY: I like your question a lot better.

Congressman?

MCENANY: Thank you.

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL): Listen, it's very clear, Kayleigh is right. Jim Acosta is a liberal who happens to also be a repeater, repeater, Sean, not a reporter because a reporter, true journalist would have had hard questions for Maxine Waters but he didn't want to do that.

His whole job at CNN right now is to preserve the lie, and it's to preserve the lie that the Democrats and the liberal media and liberal establishment only cares about the good people of the United States and they have not a bad bone in their body.

But let's be very clear about this -- what Maxine Waters said was destructive. If there was any Republican who said anything even remotely what Maxine Waters said prior to January 6th, they would've tried to get us out of the Capitol as quickly as they possibly could.

But what does Maxine Waters get? She gets an easy interview on CNN by Jim Acosta, the leading liberal repeater.

HANNITY: Congressman, does this continue or do you think people now are hip to this?

DONALDS: Unfortunately, when it comes the liberal left, they're going to continue doing this because they cannot allow any breaks in the dam. But I think people are getting hip to this, the American people definitely are seeing it for what it is. What she said was outrageous on the fact the media continues to cover for her and for Joe Biden and for Kamala Harris, through all their foolishness as they've been running the country for 100 years, people are tired of it.

HANNITY: Final word, 20 seconds, Kayleigh.

MCENANY: Yeah, I would just say, look, yes, Maxine Waters may be more direct in calling for confrontation but Joe Biden also came out and said he was praying for a guilty verdict, both were wrong to weigh in on the criminal justice system before there's an outcome.

HANNITY: Thank you both.

When we come back, going to show you that video again from UFC this weekend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. As we showed earlier, gruesome injuries suffered by a fighter Chris Weidman at the UFC this weekend. Viewer discretion advised.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a slight plus-105 budding underdog for (INAUDIBLE)

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god. Oh, my god. His left leg --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: I'm glad he's going to be okay, according to Dana White.

Let not your heart be troubled. Laura, I am dying to get your take on the wokeness Oscars.

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