Sean Hannity: Cuomo needs to stop blaming everyone but himself

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Sean Hannity: Cuomo needs to stop blaming everyone but himself

'Hannity' host slams the scandal-plagued New York governor for his lack of accountability

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," March 5, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: All right. Welcome to "Hannity" this busy news breaking Friday night.

Tonight, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is refusing to resign or even admit to any misconduct whatsoever. Now this as we are now learning that top Cuomo aides purposely covered up and rewrote a nursing home report to hide from the New York legislature the true COVID-19 death toll number in nursing homes.

Plus, one of Cuomo's three sexual misconduct accusers has now come forward in a brand-new interview with very disturbing allegations.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS ANCHOR: How would you describe Governor Cuomo?

CHARLOTTE BENNETT, FORMER AIDE TO GOV. ANDREW CUOMO: He is a textbook abuser. He lets his temper and his anger rule the office, but he was very sweet to me for a year in the hopes that maybe one day when he came on to me, I would think we were friends, or that it was appropriate, or that it was okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, all of these allegations were communicated to a friend of the accuser in real time and the messages, they were saved. It's pretty damning.

Now, someone might want to tell the I-believer caucus in the Democratic Party that one of their own is now facing serious allegations. Maybe Andrew Cuomo can submit to a lie-detector test like he once demanded of Justice Kavanaugh. We have a full report tonight.

Also, tonight, a brand new book says Biden barely won by using the -- yep, "he is a crazy uncle, we need to hide in the basement" political strategy. Those authors of this book coming up tonight.

And we will review Biden's biggest blunders of the week. It's now become a -- well, TV show favorite.

But first, we turn once again tonight to the crisis that is on our southern border, even though the DHS secretary and Joe Biden deny it, it's getting really, really bad. We have tent cities. We have COVID outbreaks. We have overflowing detention centers. We have dangerous cartels getting more powerful now by the day.

But the Biden administration wants you to believe there is no crisis whatsoever.

However, breaking tonight, someone in the administration has now ordered a team of senior officials to the border to witness the crisis in person. And as we reported all week, emergency migrant shelters at the border are already operating at near full capacity as of Tuesday, and this includes Biden's tents, Biden's tarps, then, of course, the tiny cargo shipping containers that they have bars on the tiny windows. That's for kids, but don't worry, they won't let you inside to see it, but they promise us they put butterflies on the windows.

And according to a new report from "Axios" tonight, the CDC is now allowing child migrant shelters to expand beyond 100 percent capacity, abandoning the requirement to stay near 50 percent because of COVID.

Now, this as tens of thousands of migrants are expected at the border now just weeks away. The DHS itself believes a record 117,000 unaccompanied minors will be coming here alone and will be intercepted.

Now, the Biden administration is eyeing a site in the commonwealth of Virginia, just south of Richmond, at Fort Lee, as a brand new shelter for these unaccompanied minors as a part of their plan to spread out illegal immigrants, all across the continental U.S.

And meanwhile, just south of California, a tent city filled with migrants, has now grown to over people. Many of them are wearing Biden campaign gear holding up signs: Please Biden, Joe, let us in.

In less than 50 days in office, the border patrol has now totally been subordinated to illegal immigrants and deteriorated under Biden policies.

But is anybody really surprised Biden promised to hand out amnesty to illegal immigrants. He's doing so. He vowed to increase asylum visas. He vowed to stop and end all border wall construction. He's done that.

People got their pink slips. He has ordered border patrol to release illegal immigrants into American cities after they are processed, which by the way would be against the law. That would be aiding and abetting in what was a criminal activity but who cares he does everything by executive fiat.

Here's White House spokesperson Jen Psaki saying these policies are here to stay. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Go ahead.

REPORTER: Thank you, Jen.

Are there any discussions within the White House about reversing the policy of allowing all unaccompanied children into the United States?

PSAKI: No, not at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: As this becomes a bigger disaster, they may want to circle back on that. Open borders, catch and release, amnesty, all in the Biden sanctuary states of America, all in the middle of a pandemic. And you have the Biden administration bypassing laws of this land, abandoning the border patrol and opening the floodgates.

Now, we have dangerous cartels getting rich through human trafficking. We saw that last weekend in California. Drugs like, oh, you know percent of the heroin in this country, fentanyl, pouring across the border not helping our opioid crisis. And now, a massive humanitarian crisis is looming for all of us.

But the Biden administration won't even admit that there is a problem, as President Trump put it in a new statement, quote: The spiraling tsunami at the border is overwhelming local communities. It is depleting budgets, crowding hospitals and taking jobs from legal American workers. When I left office, well, we had achieved the most secure border in our country's history. Under Biden, it will soon be worse much worse more dangerous more out of control than ever before.

President Trump is right and this week, our own Sara Carter, she has been documenting all of this firsthand. Last night after our show, she went out and obtained this exclusive footage of at least one group of illegal immigrants, yes, attempting to enter this country illegally, not abiding by our laws our borders and our sovereignty.

Here with a full report on what she saw last night, FOX News contributor Sara Carter.

By the way, great work this week on the border. Thank you.

All right. Our cameras go off 10:00 Eastern, you go out with Border Patrol. Tell us what you saw and we'll show it to our audience.

SARA CARTER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Right. Well, it was really incredible, Sean. We get out there and I'm thinking it's a dark night. You know, the weather's cool.

So, I'm expecting maybe possibly we'll see some groups coming across, and then within five minutes a large group came up the road. I mean, I could barely see them through the darkness we were standing there until they were almost right on top of us with young children, adults, once again this looked like to be what they call family units or people traveling with children.

And remember, Sean, we don't know all the time that these children belong to these adults. Many times, the Border Patrol has found children that actually have passed through the border three or four times before they realize, oh gosh, this child is being sold and he's being used to pose as part of a family unit so that way the family has more of an opportunity to stay in the United States.

Now, what we're hearing also is that these units are coming across all the various sectors. So, it wasn't only the section that I was at, but across the entire 2,000 -- roughly 2,000-mile border with Mexico, people are pouring across late at night. One of the most interesting facets is that there's runners.

So, people that aren't turning themselves into the Border Patrol, these are the smugglers, these are the bad guys, these are people that just want to get away. They don't want to be with Border Patrol and so we have helicopters flying overhead circling above us looking for the runners going through the fields. And right where I was at in the Rio Grande Valley sector, the border wall actually stopped. So, there's a big gap in the border wall and they go through that border wall.

And there's actually a bar on the other side and the owner of that bar says he finds migrants every morning inside the bar sleeping inside like his outside patio or in his restroom and he says it's so overwhelming that even border patrol can't handle it.

HANNITY: It's unbelievable and these kids we still -- you tried hard. We still haven't gotten inside those cargo containers with the bars on the tiny window would have -- we're told butterflies on the wall for kids. But yet, they're now allowing a hundred percent capacity of the centers where we are detaining people which means that there are -- is no social distancing and no COVID consideration at all. Meanwhile, we're getting lectured, every minute, every second of every day by Joe Biden about the need for social distancing and masks.

CARTER: Absolutely, Sean. And the people that are coming across I'm talking to them. I speak Spanish. A lot of them are telling me, look, this is Biden's policy, he wants us here, we have a hundred days to get here.

That's what the coyotes, the people that are trafficking them are telling them. That's what the drug cartels are doing. And also remember, I say this over and over again, the drug cartels need these people. What they do is they'll flood one section of the border with 500 or 700 children or families, and then they'll move their contraband through another area of the border because the border patrol's hands are tied behind their backs. They're assisting these young migrants, these unaccompanied minors once --

HANNITY: Yeah.

CARTER: -- they transfer into the United States.

It's a really heartbreaking and really dangerous situation for everyone.

HANNITY: Investigative reporter Sara Carter reporting all week for the border. We're way ahead of the curb. Thank you.

Now, the former acting director of America's Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE is now claiming the Biden administration, quote, well, systematically has destroyed the legal tools and programs that made our border secure. Here to explain, the man himself, former acting ICE director, FOX News contributor Tom Homan is with us.

Tom, we're watching this unfold. I couldn't imagine if you were giving young kids -- let's see, plastic tents and foil blankets and cargo containing ships with bars on the one window, what the reaction of the media and Democrats would be. But that's happening.

What are you hearing from the guys on the ground that know like Sara's been talking to?

TOM HOMAN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Look, I started my career in the border patrol. A lot of these men and women are calling me, a lot of ICE officers are calling me, look, the morale's in the toilet. They feel betrayed by their own president.

Look, I don't care if you like President Trump or don't like him, but you can't deny the fact that he gave us the most secure border in my lifetime and he's done more for border security than any president I've worked for, Sean, and I started with Ronald Reagan. I -- I respect them all, but no one did more to secure the border. It was unprecedented success.

And what did Joe Biden do? He came in and tore apart piece by piece. The U.S. Border Patrol is no longer in control of the border. As Sarah said, the criminal cartels are in control because Joe Biden gave him that control.

HANNITY: You call it a crisis in record time. Now, the DHS secretary and Joe Biden himself both this week denied there's a crisis. But yet, I would argue because of the real mounting pressures that are happening at the border, they'll go down and have a look-see for themselves, but we already know the answer to that question. But yet, they're lying to us, aren't they?

HOMAN: That's right. They're absolutely lying to us and they both know exactly what's going on. Joe Biden was vice president during the FY '15 surge. Ali Mayorkas was deputy secretary during that same surge.

We -- I met with him many times. We explained what's causing the surge and we explained how to stop it, and we stopped it. How do we do it? We built detention centers. We let ICE remove people. We enforced the law.

We had a system of consequence and deterrence. What are they doing now? They're not, I know you use the term detention centers earlier. No, they're welcoming centers. The emails that were leaked that I have says ISIS to get them in the facilities as soon as possible release them as soon as possible.

So detention's out the window. ICE has been gutted. They lost percent of their authority.

The law enforcement response has been zilch. It's all about sending out more enticing to bringing more people in. That's the lessons learned. They know how to fix it.

HANNITY: Last question: is Joe Biden's America the united sanctuary states of America? Ostensibly, is that the policy and amnesty for all?

HOMAN: Absolutely. This country is now the sanctuary city country. I mean, it used to be sanctuary cities here and there, the United States is now a sanctuary nation because of the administration that's being run by Joe Biden.

America comes last. Illegal immigration came first.

HANNITY: That's a powerful statement. Good luck to our guys on the border. I hope they stay safe. Thank you, sir.

All right. Joining us now with more is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has just formally requested to meet with the president and the Biden administration over this worsening crisis at the border.

Okay, you've heard from Tom Homan. We've been reporting and showing video all week, Congressman, and I got to tell you something, it's -- from what we're seeing and hearing and showing, it's the worst that's ever been.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): You're exactly correct, and this Biden administration cannot ignore what they ignited, a crisis at this border. Weak policies from a weak administration.

I've requested as the Republican leader to sit down with the president to talk about this crisis. They have to acknowledge of what they created. It is simply within two months, their actions creating a crisis on the border which only harms the health of all Americans.

They are moving these individuals in. They are encouraging. The DHS secretary has encouraged people to come. He says, we're not saying not to come, just don't come right now -- going against the actual law of America but moving them in in a world of COVID right now with no testing, putting them throughout this country when our schools can't even open up?

HANNITY: I mean, you're making a great point and you see that now they're allowing 100 percent capacity. That means it's impossible to have social distancing. We had 108 people now testing positive for COVID. Then they're now moving and allowing -- again, it's catch and release.

OK, you get to catch them. You process them. They get a court date. We know from history they're never going to show up on the court date.

OK. So basically then they'll be part of the amnesty of Joe Biden which he's now promising which is now serving as a magnet for people around the world to -- to go through the perilous journey, dangerous journey with young kids, to make it to the U.S., thinking that Joe has given them amnesty and citizenship.

MCCARTHY: Yeah, it doesn't matter the records that are being broken right now. Could you only imagine the number of people are going to be next month and the month after, the millions of people who will be down there?

Instead of being checked for asylum while you sit in another country even though you passed two other countries to get here, Joe Biden has now said, come on in, open the door. He stopped finishing the wall.

So, I've talked to many of my members, Yvette Herrell of New Mexico. She has a constituent right on the border that they stopped building the wall. Now, they have the fear of what the cartel is doing and others.

This makes it unsafe, not just for individuals that are being trafficked and in others that you get the reports about the children. But now, we've got drugs moving across, we've got COVID moving across. But we've got an administration not only welcoming it encouraging it, where you're reporting is even saying where they're having Biden signs and shirts. They're being told to come here illegally and enter this country.

HANNITY: All right. So, not one House Republican went along with this $1.9 trillion -- a bill that had only 9 percent of money allocated for emergency COVID relief. So it was one big lie. This was not about what they said it is.

All right. Then, they're going to spend $2 trillion on the New Green Deal. You did your job. You even got one Democrat to join you, but we lost that vote.

Now, the Senate, because it's reconciliation, it will pass in the Senate. But H.R.1 should be stopped in the Senate which would be a disaster for all future elections. Are you confident the Senate can stop that?

MCCARTHY: I believe -- I talked to Leader McConnell just last night. But you're right, the only bipartisan vote in the House on this Nancy Pelosi payoff bill, the bipartisan vote was no. And now, they turn right around wanting to change our election system.

You know, they name the bill H.R.1, the most important bill by the majority party, the Democrats, and what does it do? It's not about COVID. It's not about putting people back to work or back to school or back to health. It's about taking taxpayer money and paying for their campaign.

So, if AOC got $200, someone contributed to her, the taxpayer would have to give her $1,200. And then what they want to do is create a speech czar to tell us what we can say, expand this cancel culture. And then they want to change the Federal Election Commission, that it wouldn't be an equal number of Republicans and Democrats. They want it weighted towards the Democrats.

This is -- they want to continue to keep themselves in power which even any illegal way they possibly can. That's why every viewer that watches this has got to join with us. Go to takethehouse.com. We've got to stop H.R.1, because you know what's happening in the weeks to come, they're coming after our guns next, they're going to tell us what we can say and what we can't. I mean, it's just perpetuating every fear that we had if this socialist Democratic Party was able to gain the Senate and the White House.

And they're proving it. Their socialist policies and agenda is wrong for this nation. And in a short two months, what is the price of gasoline?

Iran is now sending missiles into Iraq. China feels free to go in and push around our friends and neighbors based upon who's in the administration, and we still got 10 million people out of work, and they're sending more illegals into our country.

HANNITY: We need the Senate to hold the line on H.R.1. Your House did its job.

MCCARTHY: Yes, we did.

HANNITY: You got 100 percent, even Liz Cheney, there you go. All right, maybe not as much divisiveness as everyone claimed.

Thank you, Congressman, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

When we come back, one of Governor Andrew Cuomo's accusers just gave an interview detailing her harassment allegations. We'll play you the tape and she had text messages in real time, corroborating what had just happened.

Plus, a new report detailing how this administration tried to cover up, that is Cuomo's -- the nursing home COVID scandal. That's straight ahead on this busy breaking news Friday night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY: Now more explosive developments tonight surrounding Andrew Cuomo's nursing home death cover-up, and it's worse than we ever thought. Major new details just ahead.

But first, one of Andrew Cuomo's sexual harassment accusers sat down with CBS and laid out serious allegations against Governor Cuomo. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'DONNELL: So, you think all this national attention may have emboldened him?

BENNETT: Absolutely. I think he felt like he was untouchable in a lot of ways, so he goes you were raped, you were raped. You were raped and abused and assaulted. He asked if I had trouble enjoying being with someone because of my trauma.

O'DONNELL: What were you thinking as he's asking you these questions?

BENNETT: I thought he's trying to sleep with me. The governor is trying to sleep with me, and I'm deeply uncomfortable and I have to get out of this room as soon as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Where the calls for accountability from major establishment Democrats, in other words, the I-believer caucus, are they going to hold Andrew Cuomo to the same standards they held Justice Kavanaugh too? Or is it going to continue to be mostly crickets from those who are -- well, usually some of the loudest voices?

We've yet to hear from Kamala Harris and she led the I-believer caucus in the U.S. Senate against Kavanaugh. Now, of course, the growing harassment allegations are both one of the scandals now swirling around the New York governor as a new investigation from "The Wall Street Journal" and "The New York Times' finds that top Cuomo advisors influenced state health officials and pressured them to remove data from a report. It was actually in June but it was a July public report, purposefully hiding and covering up the relevant life-saving information.

In other words, rather than change the late March executive order -- well, they looked at the deaths that they found and instead of rectifying what was an obvious fix, they decided to cover it up purposefully, hide it, then they lashed out at nursing homes, and lashed out at anybody.

And then, of course, when all others were lashed out at enough then of course blame Donald Trump who was building the hospitals that remained empty that could have taken these nursing home patients.

Now, this covered up report showed that the COVID nursing home deaths in the state exceeded numbers previously released by the administration in what is just the latest evidence of what is a massive cover-up scandal surrounding Andrew Cuomo and many of his cronies in his administration in Albany. It could have been fixed in June. I guess he was too busy writing his book and preparing for his Emmy and attacking Donald Trump.

This goes beyond just hiding data. This now involves Cuomo aides actively changing official information and an official health report to cover Cuomo politically.

So, let's be clear: we're now looking at overwhelming evidence of potential criminality. This appears to have been done to avoid not just scrutiny from the public but to obstruct a possible federal investigation because as the journal also reported, the Department of Justice had begun seeking data from New York and other states in last August.

And remember, the same time Cuomo hiding the nursing home data -- yep, he was writing his book about leadership and releasing his book on coronavirus response. And it received such praise from the media mob. The time for transparency, the time for accountability was long ago and it's now time for the governor to be held accountable stop deflecting stop distracting stop blaming everyone but himself.

Here with reaction, FOX News contributors Joe Concha, Lisa Boothe, along with Robin Hepworth, whose mother-in-law died of coronavirus while in the nursing home.

Robin, I can't even begin to understand completely the pain not only of losing a loved one but then realizing what has now happened here and now learning that it's all been covered up, it's got to make it worse for you, but I'll let you speak for yourself.

ROBIN HEPWORTH, MOTHER-IN-LAW DIED FROM COVID IN NEW YORK NURSING HOME: Thank you.

HANNITY: That says it right there.

HEPWORTH: It's really -- it's really disgusting what's going on. It really is sad what's going on. It shows what's going on about Cuomo's true character, that he's being held for sexual scandal as well, but that should not take precedence to what's the fifteen thousand people that were lost in the nursing homes. I mean, they are -- they were important too.

We care -- I care. My family cares. Fifteen thousand people cared.

HANNITY: Yeah. And when did she pass away.

HEPWORTH: She passed away April 2nd, 2020.

HANNITY: Wow, it's so sad and I'm very sorry for your losses and I know our audiences as well.

Lisa, you hear this, you react to this, you saw the interview with the woman making these allegations backed up by apparently real-time text messaging saved with a friend right after it happened.

LISA BOOTHE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, Robin, I'm so, so sorry for your loss.

And, Sean, of course, to your point, there's already more here than there was ever against Brett Kavanaugh. There was never any corroborating evidence, corroborating witnesses and the allegations that Democrats made against Brett Kavanaugh. But it didn't matter to them, because it was politically useful to use those baseless allegations against him as a battering ram to try to knock him off and to prevent him from being on the Supreme Court.

But Andrew Cuomo was in trouble and the reason why he is in trouble is because he's no longer politically useful to the left. He was useful during the election to be used as a cudgel against Donald Trump, to try to hold him up as a leader on COVID and the response. But now, he's no longer politically useful because think of how long Democrats and the mainstream media have been covering up for Cuomo. "The Daily Caller" reported that the Cuomo's administration stopped reporting nursing home deaths back in May.

I mean, this is something that everyone knew. We have known this since back in May, yet they didn't do anything --

HANNITY: Right.

BOOTHE: -- with it, because they needed Cuomo. Now they don't. We've already seen the knives from progressives in the state sharpening after what they have said has been years of bullying from the governor. So now they're sharpening the knives looking to take him out and possibly put a progressive in the seat, in the governor's mansion.

You know, Joe, Lisa touched on something I think that's very profound here. What is unusual here is that this effort against Cuomo is being led by people that work for him, Democrats. It's being led by Democrats in Albany, the liberal "New York Times" which makes me think that there had there had to be some built up resentment and finally the straw that broke the camel's back and people have just kind of had it with how they've been treated for all these years.

Is that a good theory or no?

JOE CONCHA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Decent theory, sure, or maybe there's just overwhelming evidence from so many different angles at this point in terms of the nursing homes, in terms of the harassment, Sean, no question. But I think we have a follow the money angle here as well. $783,000 was paid to Andrew Cuomo by Harper Collins in a book advancement deal. Now, why is that significant?

Because when that deal was being negotiated at the same time, according to those reports that we referred to today in "The Times' and "The Journal" that is when aids were covering up the nursing home numbers.

So think about this -- why would you want to cover up those nursing home numbers, because you probably don't get a lucrative book deal if it's revealed that you are by far the worst governor in terms of handling COVID, particularly as it pertains to nursing homes.

And then you see that CBS interview last night with Charlotte Bennett, right? These aren't 40-year-old allegations, to your point that's something that happened back in high school at a party that no one could corroborate. These are recent.

HANNITY: Yeah.

CONCHA: These are people that work for the governor and in the court of public opinion to Lisa's point. He is losing big time. Will he resign though? Serial narcissists don't do that. It's not in their DNA. The only way he goes, Sean, is by impeachment.

Robin, I'm so sorry for your loss by the way. I lost my mom nine years ago. So I'm sorry, I meant to offer my condolences there.

HEPWORTH: I appreciate it.

HANNITY: We all feel that way.

Robin, I'll give you the -- I'll give you the last word tonight. What would you like to see happen here?

HEPWORTH: I would like to see Cuomo impeached. He has to go. Fifteen thousand lives should not be lost and he should not get away with this. This is murder. I'm sorry. This is not -- this is not right.

HANNITY: I'm sorry for your loss. Obviously, it's -- you know, no words can express.

HEPWORTH: Thank you.

HANNITY: Thank you for being with us.

Thank you, Lisa Boothe, Joe Concha.

Coming up, it's been a disastrous start to the Biden presidency as he continues to prove he's not up to the job. We're going to show the highlights. Brand new book, this is a fascinating book I've been reading. It's called "Lucky", how Joe Biden barely won the president. Some interesting questions I have for the author, authors, next, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now, tonight, more eyebrow raising moments from the chronicles of no-show Joe Biden and Vice President Harris. Yes, she held yet another one- on-one phone call with a foreign leader without Biden, with the most recent one being Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. And don't forget, Harris also participated in the first bilateral meeting between Canada and the U.S. That's something that Biden reportedly wasn't afforded when he was vice president to Barack Obama.

So, I've asked the question, who is running the show? Now, who are the decision makers because quite frankly, based on what we see, we're -- I stand by my statement, Joe Biden compared to 2012, compared to 2016, he looks weak and frail and like he's struggling cognitively.

Now, these are legitimate questions. They asked him about Reagan. They asked him about John McCain.

Here's a sample of Biden's best or worst moments from recent weeks, including an awkward remark about Indian Americans. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The idea that over 500, I think it's -- I have a card -- I carry a card with me every day with the total number of folks who have been affected.

It's incredible talent. Now am I supposed to speak or is Swati going to say something. I was told I was going to hear from Swati. And it's amazing. Indian of dissent, Americans are taking over the country. You, my vice president, my speechwriter, when I -- I tell you what.

The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything's fine. Take off your mask.

And I'm happy to take questions if that's what I'm supposed to do, Nance, whatever you want me to do.

(BARS AND TONE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Imagine if Donald Trump was saying and doing things like that -- like that.

Now tonight, we're also learning more about what went on behind the scenes during the Biden campaign. A brand-new book is out. I've been reading it. It's pretty interesting.

It's called "Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency", revealing new details about the Biden's campaign, quote, dumb uncle in the basement strategy for winning the White House and how Biden's apparent luck persisted throughout the 2020 race.

Here now to explain more, are the authors of this new book, destined to be a bestseller, in my opinion, Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen.

All right. I don't think either one of you, I'm going to guess, probably agree with some of my opinions. That's fine.

Amie, let me start with you. What I found interesting is I -- I used to call it hiding in the basement bunker, and you're describing it, but do you think it was rooted in -- well, you say -- you actually said in the book that he was hiding from his worst enemy in this campaign, which would have been himself. And the COVID pandemic provided him a reasonable explanation as to why he wasn't going out. Explain it though in your words.

AMIE PARNES, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT AT THE HILL: Yeah, I mean, folks -- there were folks, Sean, that said you know this was the best thing. We quote Anita Dunn, the senior adviser to Joe Biden at the time who said that COVID was the best thing that ever happened to him.

And a lot of people inside the campaign were worried. They were -- they were honest with us after the fact and even during and said, you know, we're scared that he's going to make a mistake. That he is going to be gaff prone. And that was a discussion that they were having privately.

And so, you know, they -- they would go -- I think they would he would go in and remain at home and use the health advantage and, of course, that benefited him. But I think this was also something that they admitted behind the scenes was helpful to him.

HANNITY: All right. And, Jonathan, look, I'd hardly say you're a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Is that a fair statement? And I --

JONATHAN ALLEN, SENIOR NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER FOR NBC NEWS: I'm not part of any conspiracy.

HANNITY: Neither am I.

Here's the question -- Anita Dunn's controversial statement is pretty revealing to me, but I think it's deeper than that. And I -- last night, on this program showed tape of Joe Biden from 2016, 2012, and today. And I will tell you that there are people in the media that disagree with me that have privately told me every time he speaks, they're like on pins and needles. Democrats have similarly off the record told me the same thing, that they see that he is struggling cognitively and seems weak and frail, and other people -- other sources of mind tell me the same thing.

Is that part of what you're explaining to people in this book?

ALLEN: You know, Sean, I'm not a doctor. So, I'm not going to diagnose --

HANNITY: Neither am I.

I'm asking for your observations though, Biden 2012, Biden 2016, Biden today, do you see a difference?

ALLEN: To your point, and I'll put this in terms -- I'm a Washington Nationals fan, but out of deference to being on your program, I'll put these in New York Yankees terms. You know, he doesn't have a Garrett Cole fastball anymore. He's a little more like Tommy John after uh after the Tommy John surgery.

And so, what you see is a guy who's setting a vision for his campaign and for his administration, but I think also somebody who -- you know, is also you know delegating a lot of the work.

HANNITY: And that would be Ron Klain and Kamala Harris.

Amie, same question, do you see it? And here's my bigger question, is it likely that the campaign knew pretty darn well that he didn't have the strength and stamina and mental alertness to campaign traditionally, and that -- well, they were a little less than honest with the American people about what they really knew? Is that a fair question or no?

PARNES: Well, I think the problem was, there was a lack of excitement about him, and that's why you saw a lot of Democrats --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Yeah, but I'm asking a deeper -- I mean, I'm asking a deeper question than that. Is it likely they see what I am describing and use that to cover that up?

PARNES: I -- we have no evidence in this book to actually talk about that, but what we do have, Sean, is -- you know, there were he tried to get endorsements from people. He tried to get financial backing. Even the former president, former President Barack Obama was scared to I think support him and -- and we have evidence of that in the book that he had a meeting with Biden's aides, invited them to his office and wanted to find out more about the campaign because he didn't want him to embarrass himself, and he didn't want the Obama legacy to go down in flames.

And so, we have evidence of that. And, you know, it's interesting because he went from Stacey Abrams which we report in the book to Al Sharpton, to all these other people to get their endorsements very early on, and it was problematic for him. And then during the campaign, you saw that there were people going behind Michael Bloomberg quickly because they were worried. Hillary Clinton as we report in the book was -- she wanted to enter the race. She was having second thought -- another additional thought of entering the race twice, as late as 2019, because they all saw that this campaign wasn't going as planned.

HANNITY: I'm going to make a prediction. I'm going to predict your book is going to be do very well and to be fair, it's not particularly complementary of Donald Trump either, but I think you are on to a bigger story here that I think you might be on the cutting edge of really bringing to the -- opening up to the country because I think there's a there's a bigger story to be told here. Time will see if I'm right but that's my prediction, but the book was a fascinating read. I have enjoyed - I haven't finished it but I'm enjoying reading it. Thank you both.

ALLEN: Thank you, Sean.

HANNITY: All right. Coming up, more evidence of Biden's rapid decline. We'll discuss, Jason Chaffetz, Stephen Miller, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. As I have been saying, I am not a doctor. I'm not going to play one on TV or radio. No medical diagnosis whatsoever. But is there something Democrats know about Joe Biden, something his campaign knew about that they weren't telling and aren't telling we, the American people.

We played you clips from Biden four years ago, eight years ago, compared them to today, and yeah I think the author of the book "Lucky" was right. Jonathan was right saying, yeah, he lost his fastball like after Tommy John's surgery and if he ever had a slow pitch, I would argue he lost that. You decide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (October 11, 2012): He sent me two letters saying, by the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin? We sent millions of dollars.

(November 7, 2019): Play the radio. Make sure the television -- excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night. The phone -- make sure the kids hear words.

(October 11, 2012): Now they got a new plan. Trust me, it's not going to cost you anymore. Folks follow your instincts on this one.

(May 4, 2020): We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women created by -- oh, you know the -- you know the thing.

(July 27, 2016): They put one foot in front of the other. They keep going. That's the unbreakable spirit of the people of America. That's who we are.

(Friday): And Representatives -- Shirley Jackson Lee, Al Green, Silvia Garcia, Lizzie Pinnelli, excuse me, Pinnell, and -- what am I doing here? I'm going to lose track here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: What am I doing here and, by the way, it's not Shirley, it's Sheila Jackson Lee.

Been in office well over a whopping 40 days has not held the press conference, although Press Secretary Jen Psaki said today that we can expect one maybe by the end of the month, no date for the State of the Union.

Here with reaction, former White House adviser Stephen Miller, an author of -- they never let a crisis go to waste, FOX News contributor, Jason Chaffetz.

Stephen, you write a lot of speeches. I watch Donald Trump. I'll even say this -- I watch Bernie Sanders. They are full of passion and energy and engaged, and there is -- there's no question that they are strong, they are forceful, they're mentally alert. They're on their game.

It's not about age. It's about aging I guess and some differences. Your take?

STEPHEN MIILLER, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it's customary at this point in the presidency to issue your first address to a joint session of Congress. So the question has to be asked, why is it that we're in March and Joe Biden hasn't done that yet?

I think one of the reasons is actually deceptively simple. If you look at Joe Biden's campaign speeches, he often read from a giant jumbotron, not the normal teleprompters that most politicians would use the two small panes of glass to your left and your right. He would read off of a giant screen in front of him like a movie theater like the opening scroll on "Star Wars", giant words coming down.

I actually think logistically, they're trying to figure out, how can we get a giant jumbotron into the well of Congress so that Joe Biden can give the speech? I secondly think it's a stamina issue. If you look at his convention speech, it was one of the shortest in history.

I think they're seriously concerned about whether Joe Biden could actually deliver a conventional hour-long State of the Union without losing all of his energy about 20 minutes into it.

HANNITY: I don't know. You know, look, Jason, the hardest job for Donald Trump beyond what Stephen did and he worked -- he did a great job all the four years that he was there was being the teleprompter operator because he never stays on teleprompter. Stephen could attest to that. It's actually the hardest job for people working on my show and I have the best teleprompter operator in the country, but I don't exactly usually stay on script either. I'm constantly ad libbing, I've been in radio 33 years.

So I don't see Joe has that strength or ability. Thoughts?

JASON CHAFFETZ, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first, Donald Trump should have won awards for his openness, transparency and accessibility. You could hear directly what he was thinking all the time. They have been hiding Joe Biden for a long period of time.

Joe Biden of old was notorious for talking on and on and on. When I was in Congress, I went to the White House and sat right next to him in a meeting where he talked for an hour and a half straight. But I don't think he can string, you know, 12 sentences together and have the energy to actually take questions and go to the next topic. And that should scare a lot of people because we don't know who the puppeteers are.

We know that Ron Klain is the chief of staff is exceptionally powerful but so are behind the scenes people like Susan Rice and Brian Deese and some of these other people doing things with Kamala Harris that we never see and get exposed to and I think the media needs to do its job and the Biden administration needs to come clean on who's really running that place.

HANNITY: They did it to -- they asked the question of Reagan, Stephen Miller. They asked the question to McCain, and it seems like and they were originally criticizing me for daring to ask the question of Joe Biden. I think if that's fair for Reagan and McCain, it's fair for Joe.

Will more people start to raise the question do you think?

MILLER: It's the most important question in America right now, Sean. I mean, Congressman Chaffetz just reeled off a few names and there's many more. Who's running this country?

HANNITY: All right. Stephen Miller, Jason Chaffetz, thank you both.

More "Hannity" right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. That's all the time we have left this evening. Please set your DVR, never miss an episode. We'll always be independent. We're not the media mob.

Let not your heart be troubled. Laura Ingraham up next. Have a great weekend.

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