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Published January 26, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," June 19, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." Authorities claim alleged South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof has confessed to killing nine people during a bible study on Wednesday night. Now, Roof appeared briefly via a video link in court today for a bond hearing, and the judge began the proceedings by offering a statement to the community. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDGE JAMES GOSNELL, CHARLESTON COUNTY CHIEF MAGISTRATE: We have victims, nine of them. But we also have victims on the other side. There are victims on this young man's side of the family. Nobody would have ever thrown them into the whirlwind of events that they have been thrown into. We must find it in our heart at some point in time not only to help those that are victims, but to also help his family, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: The judge then opened up the courtroom to representatives of the victims' families if they wanted to offer a statement. As you can imagine, it was extremely emotional. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We welcomed you Wednesday night in our bible study with open arms. You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts! And I'll never be the same. Tywanza Sanders was my son, but Tywanza was my hero. Tywanza was my hero. But as we say in bible study, we enjoyed you. But may God have mercy on you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) I will never comfort her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again! But I forgive you! And have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. It hurt a lot of people. But God forgive you, and I forgive you!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And earlier today, Dylann Roof's family offered a statement reading, in part, quote, "Words cannot express our shock, grief and disbelief as to what happened that night. We are devastated and saddened by what occurred. We offer our prayers, sympathy for all of those impacted by these events."
Joining us now with reaction, best-selling author, radio show host, psychology Dr. Gina Loudon, and Fox News contributor, pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress.
Let me start with this. To me, I mean, pretty powerful that people would say they forgive him. I don't know -- I'm a Christian, Pastor. I don't know if I would have that level of forgiveness. I know that's the teachings of Christ and him on a cross and he said that, Forgive them, they know not what they do. But it's harder in real life.
Here's the question we have. He goes into a bible study on a Wednesday night, even said that they were so nice to him, he almost didn't do it. But he knew he was going to kill these people. So we're talking about getting in the minds of an evil madman.
And now it raises questions because I wouldn't be surprised if an insanity defense of some kind is brought up. He walks in, sits there for an hour with the intention of killing them. Then he wipes them out one after another, lets one survivor go to tell the world in (ph) all of this.
Dr. Jeffress, are we dealing with evil? Are we dealing with a chemical imbalance? Is this a psychiatric issue? He had indicated both on Facebook and to his friends that he had this intention, he had these evil racist beliefs. What are we dealing with here if we're going to get to the bottom of this?
ROBERT JEFFRESS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR Look, over the last few days, people have been trying to attribute these heinous acts to everything from insufficient gun laws to FOX News. But the real issue here is evil, or what the bible calls sin that lurks in every human heart.
And you know, when Dylann says he was surprised at how kind these people were, it made me wonder, Sean, if he had ever been in a church before, if his parents had taken him to a church or if it was ever a part of his life.
You know, every parent's first responsibility is to teach his child that there is a God to whom he's accountable and that God has certain commands that we're obligated to obey. And unfortunately, here it looks like that wasn't a part of Dylann's life. And that is a real tragedy.
HANNITY: All right, Dr. Loudon, let me go to your part (ph). Now, we have all these past incidents where -- Columbine, Aurora, for example, Sandy Hook. Later on, we find out that these -- these kids are on psychotropic drugs. Some people make a connection. There was an arrest, we believe, for suboxone, which is an opiate substitute that in and of itself can be addictive and has properties that some people act out this way by using the drug.
Do you believe evil's a factor? Is this biochemical in nature? Is this somebody that we should have, you know, realized early on, based on his Facebook postings and rantings and ravings to family -- did they have an obligation to tell authorities? How do you see the mind of a madman here?
GINA LOUDON, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I see it very simply. Evil causes murder. And not only does evil cause murder, Sean, denial of evil causes murder. We have created such...
HANNITY: Wait. When you say evil...
LOUDON: ... a politically correct society...
HANNITY: ... are you talking about principalities of darkness...
LOUDON: I really am.
HANNITY: ... evil spirits, good and evil? Are you...
LOUDON: Yes, absolutely. I not only believe that, Sean, I believe it's the missing link because you have to remember how many sociopaths function every single day in society, in your business, in my business, in every realm of society. And they don't do this.
HANNITY: But isn't every murderer...
LOUDON: So what's the missing link? Because...
HANNITY: Isn't every murder...
LOUDON: ... because no psychologist can give an answer to why certain people snap. And this is perfect evidence. A pill's not going to fix it. A counseling session isn't going to fix it. We have got to recognize the difference and the acts of evil in our culture today.
HANNITY: And it seems fairly widespread.
JEFFRESS: I agree.
HANNITY: Dr. Jeffress, you know, this -- he had on his Facebook page -- you know, we can go back in the aftermath of this and see all the signs that were missed, but that happens almost every time. He has -- he's displaying the apartheid-era flag of South Africa. He has another flag of white-ruled Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe. We have a roommate saying that he was into segregation, he wanted to star start a civil war, which he even said to authorities, apparently. And he said he was going to do something like this.
Are we missing the signs and symptoms on social media and elsewhere?
JEFFRESS: We were missing the signs. And I saw a tragic headline in The Washington Post about his life that said, A life that went quietly off track. And look, I don't want to blame the parents. I'm sure they are experiencing tremendous heartache.
But every parent has the responsibility to cultivate his child's heart. If we leave our children's heart alone, they tend to become like a garden, overgrown with evil and with sin.
And yes, people missed the sign in Dylann's life. And look, I agree with our other guest. Evil is real. You know, Jesus called Satan a murderer. Jesus interacted with Satan. And if Satan and demons aren't real, then Jesus was a paranoid schizophrenic...
HANNITY: All right...
JEFFRESS: ... that needed to be institutionalized! And I believe in such a thing called mental illness that leads to some evil, but I believe in many more cases, it is evil that leads to mental illness.
HANNITY: So it's a matter of...
JEFFRESS: And I think that is the major...
LOUDON: Well put.
HANNITY: ... which comes first.
JEFFRESS: ... explanation for what's happening.
HANNITY: The chicken or the egg. Dr. Loudon, why in so many instances do we see that these psychotropic drugs have been used? And in this case, he had the suboxone connection, which indicates that there might have been opiate addiction of some kind. And that in and of itself is a drug that has negative side effects.
LOUDON: I'm not a psychiatrist, Sean, but I have spent 20 years studying psychology. And I can tell you that it is -- it is -- I would say, Sean, that really, the denial of evil in our culture has led to this more than any other factor.
If you just look at the statement from his friend, Mr. Taylor (ph), he said he knew that he was threatening all of these things. He had a plan, told people he was going to do this, Sean. But his friend's response? I don't judge people, so I didn't tell anyone. Sean...
HANNITY: Do we have to...
LOUDON: ... it is that political correctness that has caused this!
HANNITY: But do we have to look at these medications? Do we have to look how we're treating people that are...
LOUDON: Definitely.
HANNITY: ... showing signs that they're not coping properly in life? Are we overprescribing? Do we even know the real side effects of these drugs on certain individuals? Because that -- that -- the rate of incidence of these shooters and the drug use and the connection is undeniable! I don't know in this case, but I wouldn't be surprised. Do we have to look at that?
LOUDON: Sean...
JEFFRESS: I think we do...
(CROSSTALK)
LOUDON: Yes. Go ahead. I'm sorry, Dr. Jeffress.
HANNITY: Go ahead.
JEFFRESS: Oh, pardon me. I'm just simply...
LOUDON: Well, I was just going to say...
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFRESS: I think God gives medication that heals some illnesses. But I think when you, like our other guest said, deny the reality of evil, you want to use medicine to solve every problem, and it doesn't solve every problem.
LOUDON: And Sean, there's a great danger here, too. The diagnostics and statistics manual version 5 could literally render all of us, 50 percent of our society, labeled mentally ill.
So then what are the implications? Because people want to medicalize this. They want to say it's a sickness. The doctors want to make a buck. They want to psychologize this. The psychologists and the mental health professionals want to say they can solve it.
And they want to politicize this. Let's not forget that Soros has put a lot of money into the politicization of these instances, Sean, when in reality, we don't have the answers. And so since we don't have the answers, why can we not recognize as a culture that the separation of God from our society isn't working, and it needs to change?
JEFFRESS: That's right.
HANNITY: All right, guys, we got to leave it right there. We appreciate your time.
When we come back -- later on in the program, by the way, why is the president -- why did Hillary Clinton -- why is there a race to politicize tragedy? We're going to debate that later tonight.
But first...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Hold me to account. Judge me by as harsh a standard as you wish. Many already have. That's fair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Disgraced NBC news host Brian Williams -- he breaks his silence. Coming up next, Tucker Carlson, Kirsten Powers, Charles Gasparino -- they're all here with reaction. And much more from South Carolina straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Brian Williams has been banished to MSNBC. Now, this comes months after the disgraced NBC News anchor was discovered to have greatly exaggerated and misreported multiple stories on and off his nightly newscast.
Now, after an extended period out of the public eye, Brian Williams finally came out of hiding. He broke his silence as he spoke to Matt Lauer about his demotion. That was earlier today. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: I was reading these newspaper stories, not liking the person I was reading about, wanting -- I would have given anything to get to the end of the story and have it be someone else. But it was about me.
It had to have been ego that made me think I had to be sharper, funnier, quicker than anybody else.
This was clearly ego-driven, the desire to better my role in a story I was already in.
All I can tell people is hold me to account, judge me by as harsh a standard as you wish. Many already have. That's fair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Joining me now with reaction, Fox News contributor, editor- in-chief of the DailyCaller Tucker Carlson, the author of "The Silencing," which is "How the Left Is Killing Free Speech" and Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers, and from the Fox Business Network, Charles Gasparino.
I found this painful to watch.
CHARLES GASPARINO, FOX NEWS BUSINESS: Very painful. Listen, I think he did about as good as you could do in a situation like that. I think he probably did a little too much pop psychology. It might even have helped himself if he said, Listen, I lied, I screwed up, I'm moving on, and just ended it right there. But he didn't.
HANNITY: But you know what? I think the reason he didn't say it -- this was my take on it -- is I don't think when he was saying it, he thought he was lying. He said, I told those stories so many times...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: ... the right way.
GASPARINO: Look, I was thinking about that, but from a business standpoint, it's hard to put someone on air who admits they lied. That's another point. And I think what NBC did was a brilliant business move. You kind of beach (ph) him. You know, we were talking about this before. He doesn't quite say he's a liar. So he doesn't admit to his lies, so has some credibility and you get something out of him...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: He'll never be back in that chair again, will he.
GASPARINO: No, but -- no, never. But at least they're getting something out of him, and they pay him $10 million a year -- a haircut on that, obviously.
HANNITY: Maybe -- yes. What do you think, Tucker?
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I'm for forgiveness. And I think it's an upgrade. I mean, I think he's going to have a lot more fun in cable news, where there's actually news, than he was on "Nightly News," which it's just, you know, adult diaper ad after adult diaper ad. I mean, I think he'll find it liberating.
And by the way, I'd be really worried if I were one of the professional left-wing blowhards on MSNBC. That formula's not working. It's about to change. I think they're going to fire a bunch of those guys. Brian Williams is probably liberal, I guess, but by NBC standards, he's you. I mean, he's the least liberal person there.
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: And by MSNBC's standards, this is a total -- a total change!
HANNITY: You know what? That's the worst thing you could have said to him. You just ruined -- you ruined any chance at a comeback here by saying that.
CARLSON: But I don't think he's an unreasonable person. That's what I'm saying. I don't think he is, actually.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Yes. Exactly. You know, Kirsten, I'm probably going to surprise you in what I say. I've kind of had enough of this. Take your foot off the guy's neck. He said he's sorry. He's apologized. He wants a second chance. I believe in forgiveness. I think he's been through a lot of pain. Enough already.
What do you say?
KIRSTEN POWERS, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I agree with you, completely. And it doesn't really surprise me that you would say that. I think we're probably all in agreement here. He has -- look, he has been punished. He's been demoted. I -- you know, Tucker thinks it's an upgrade. I think it is actually a demotion, at least in his eyes. And -- but he should be given a second chance and...
HANNITY: It's a demotion as much as there's,like, five people watching and they're all liberal and they all live in...
GASPARINO: Well, he does have a chance to make it up. I mean, he has a chance to prove what he was. Listen, I know Brian. I used to work at CNBC, so I knew him, was on the show with him. He's a decent guy, and he's...
HANNITY: Everybody said that. He's a funny guy, a big story teller.
GASPARINO: A decent newsman. And he does have a chance to...
HANNITY: All right, but let's go...
GASPARINO: ... bring his career back.
HANNITY: Maybe analyze this a little bit. And I think we can all agree we can mention people. I've always said that I don't think fame is healthy. I think it's unnatural for people. It's an ego-driven business for a lot of people.
But here's him talking about the helicopter being shot down on Letterman, and then he talks about New Orleans when -- in an interview with Michael Eisner. Let's examine maybe why he did all of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in.
DAVID LETTERMAN, COMEDIAN: No kidding!
WILLIAMS: RPG and AK-47.
So we got hit. We sat down. Everyone was OK. Our captain took a Purple Heart injury to his ear in the cockpit. But we were alone.
When you look out of your hotel room window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Ace, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country...
I accidentally ingested some of the flood water. I became very sick with dysentery. Our hotel was overrun with gangs. I was rescued in the stairwell of a five-star hotel in New Orleans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: You know, Tucker, I'm trying to analyze this, and none of what he said there is true. And it's provably false in every case.
CARLSON: Yes, it is.
HANNITY: So as you analyze this, is it just that his ego got the best of him, the same failing that every human being has?
CARLSON: Yes, but magnified. I mean, it really is like watching the Marion Barry sting tape. I mean, it's just -- it's watching a man unclothed in a bad way. It's sad. I actually don't want to watch it again because it makes me feel sad for him. This is his ugliest moment and it was caught on tape.
TV is bad for your soul, as you know, because it forces you to relentlessly think about yourself. The focus is on you. Any time the focus is on you or one (ph), you know, it's just not good for you. And unless you have a really strong family and a lot of people to ground you, you wind up becoming a horrifying, pompous jerk...
GASPARINO: Right. And there is...
CARLSON: ... as you know.
GASPARINO: And there is a tightrope you walk in TV, right? It's a business. It's entertainment, too. You have to be entertaining, but it is news. And I think if he was to be real honest, he was trying to say, I was trying to -- I was -- he would say, I was trying to be entertaining in doing that. I lied. And that's what he was doing. And that's the sort of -- that's the tightrope that we all walk.
HANNITY: But I guess that's the ego part, Kirsten, right, is that he wanted to make...
POWERS: Yes.
HANNITY: ... himself bigger than he was.
POWERS: Well, that's exactly it. But I think maybe the reason he wanted to do that is he doesn't have as much reporting experience as some of his previous...
GASPARINO: That's probably true.
POWERS: ... his predecessor. And I think that, you know, we have associated -- you know, our evening anchors have been previously been people who had been out in war zones and been reporters, and he didn't have as much reporting.
(CROSSTALK)
POWERS: Maybe he felt -- yes, but maybe he felt insecure about it. But the one thing -- one criticism I will make is I do think that he should be doing interviews outside of NBC. You know, I don't think you go and get...
HANNITY: I agree. I think he should come on this show and do it right here.
POWERS: ... interviewed by your employer -- yes, no, but really. I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
POWERS: If you want to have credibility, you're going to have to go outside of, you know, talking to the people who pay your paycheck.
GASPARINO: I don't think Matt Lauer threw him softballs. I mean, I think he asked him the right questions...
HANNITY: I did. I thought it was a fair interview...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: All right, guys, thank you all.
Coming up, we'll have more on this Brian Williams fallout. Would you forgive him? We'll ask you that question coming up later.
Also check in with Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. He'll weigh in.
And then also later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I've had to make statements like this too many times. Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, the president -- he's blaming guns, liberals politicizing this, the race to politicize the senseless South Carolina church shooting tragedy. Let's see, talk radio, FOX News, guns, Donald Trump -- they're always blaming somebody. We'll get into that debate and discussion as we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: I said things that were wrong. Looking back with such clarity now, it is so clear to me I said things that were wrong. I told stories that were wrong. It wasn't from a place where I was trying to use my job and title to mislead. I got it wrong. I own this, and I own up to this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: That was Brian Williams on the "Today" show this morning. So should he be forgiven?
Joining me now is a man who knows quite a bit about war reporting. He is the host of "War Stories," Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.
Colonel, I actually remember a moment during the Iraq war where word got back to my studio -- I'll never forget this moment as long as I live -- that your helicopter may have been hit. Then word got back that it wasn't yours, that it might have been a friend of ours, Griff Jenkins's, helicopter that may have been hit. And I remember just sitting there in stunned silence because he's a friend of both of ours.
I listened to him -- I thought that interview was painful. You've been in war zones. I don't know why there's this compulsion for people to build themselves up and put them in stories. His helicopter was not hit by an RPG or an AK-47. But you have been in these situations more than anybody I know. What do you say?
OLIVER NORTH, HOST, "WAR STORIES": Well, I think it's nice Brian Williams has a job at MSNBC. As you know, I used to work there myself.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Yes.
NORTH: (INAUDIBLE) FOX...
HANNITY: Those were the dark days...
NORTH: ... in 2001.
HANNITY: Those were the dark days of your life!
(LAUGHTER)
NORTH: Well, I'm glad he's got a chance to rehabilitate himself. I have a different perspective because my job, as you know, Sean, has been to keep company with real heroes, soldiers, sailors airmen, Marines, Guardsmen.
I even did a "War Stories" about -- a documentary that we did about real heroes who are or were journalists. Get this -- Ernie Pyle, World War II, Joe Calloway (ph) from Vietnam, Rupert Murdoch's dad in World War I, at Gallipoli.
So you don't have to be a person who wears a flak jacket and a helmet to be a hero. The classical definition of a hero is a person that puts him or herself at risk for the benefit of others. Brian Williams didn't do that. My heroes don't wear Spandex suits or capes. They wear dogtags and combat boots and flight suits and flak jackets, and they go to work in harm's way...
HANNITY: OK...
NORTH: ... every single day.
HANNITY: So he -- he...
NORTH: So I've I seen a lot of that in this war.
HANNITY: I agree. Your heroes are my heroes, and I've met many of them on the road with you, and you were really appreciated. How many times have you been to Iraq and Afghanistan? I can't count anymore.
NORTH: Fifty-seven embeds.
HANNITY: All right, 57 times. But he -- I watched him -- I think what was so painful is I think he recognizes -- I almost got the impression he didn't mean for this to happen. He was embellishing, yes. Was he telling the truth? No. Was it a conscious effort to build himself up? I didn't get that sense for some reason. And I got the sense that things just got out of hand for him.
So what do you say to him? You're a guy that's -- that really does put his life on the line for others, and has his whole life.
NORTH: Here's the difference. Instead of inserting himself in an event that didn't happen, all he had to do was to report accurately on what was going on, OK? So here's -- one of the journalists that I was with happens to be the only journalist in this war to be decorated for heroism in this war. We've got some footage of it.
Chris Jackson (ph) was our cameraman for FOX News "War Stories" in Afghanistan in 2008. In fact, some days of your life -- you don't forget the day you were almost killed. August 3rd, 2008, Chris Jackson was my cameraman in Afghanistan. He was blown up by an IED right in front of us, blown out of the Humvee, wounded in action, burned, shrapnel wounds, and somehow managed to get himself back up the hill after he put himself out in flames, forced open the front door of that Humvee. A wall of fire comes out. He pulls Sergeant Courtney Rout (ph) out of the vehicle, rolls him in the dirt to put out the fire.
Chris Jackson is the only journalist in this entire war...
HANNITY: All right...
NORTH: ... over 8,000 of us, to be decorated by the government...
HANNITY: Last...
NORTH: ... of the United States with a medal for saving lives.
HANNITY: So you're OK with him in getting a second chance. That's your bottom line?
NORTH: Look it, you know what?
HANNITY: Real quick.
NORTH: You've had second chances. I've had second chances. He's not a hero. I know real heroes. They're not full of ego. Chris Jackson, who is a real hero, is one of the humblest men I know.
HANNITY: All right, Colonel, thank you. Appreciate it.
NORTH: Love you, brother.
HANNITY: Safe (ph) home.
And joining us now with more reaction, radio talk show host Leslie Marshall, and from the Tea Party News Network, Scottie Hughes. Scottie, where are you on this?
SCOTTIE HUGHES, TEA PARTY NEWS NETWORK: Listen, I'm not -- I'm not really anywhere because conservatives always never trusted Brian Williams. So now that he's moved over to MSNBC, we kind of think he's where he should have been all along, and at least now, he can truly be hisself.
HANNITY: Ouch!
HUGHES: But I do want to take a -- yes.
HANNITY: Ouch!
HUGHES: Sorry about it.
(CROSSTALK)
HUGHES: We're in an age right now where people are trying to be others. And you got an NAACP leader who's white saying she was back. You've got the Jenner issue. Now at least, you know, he's able to be true.
Here is my issue with this. We would not know about this unless it would have been caught. Unless he wasn't caught in his lies and brought out, he would still be continuing.
HANNITY: I got all that.
HUGHES: And I think that's the issue.
HANNITY: But I sensed in him real sorrow. He seemed to understand the magnitude and accepted the responsibility, Leslie Marshall. And for me, I believe in second chances and forgiveness. And I would like this story in that sense to be over.
LESLIE MARSHALL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I believe in second chances. I also believe in being held accountable for our actions. And he is a journalist, and I...
HANNITY: He's been held accountable. He lost his seat.
MARSHALL: I was taught when you're a journalist, you report the facts. It's different as a talk show host where you can opine.
HANNITY: OK, he admits he screwed up. So now what are you going to do? Is he going to ruin his career? He can never pursue his profession again?
MARSHALL: I don't think his career is ruined. He's not sitting on the beach with no paycheck. He's making millions of dollars.
HANNITY: OK, but he's not sitting in the anchor chair, and this has been public. He's paid a very heavy price.
MARSHALL: But as for now, Sean, that's part of the consequences and ramifications of what happens when you make a decision to do this. And whether he was --
HANNITY: I don't know if -- I don't get the sense.
(CROSSTALK)
MARSHALL: A lie is a lie.
HANNITY: I got the impression that there was almost cognizant disconnect with this, that he didn't realize it. Scottie, last word.
SCOTTIE HUGHES, TPNN.COM: But here's the thing. He lied over and over again. It wasn't just one lie.
HANNITY: I know.
HUGHES: He could have actually said, you know what, guys -- if he really felt bad for his lie he would have confessed at some point. He was forced to confess. And I really thing this hurts all of our industry, Sean.
HANNITY: All right, guys, good to see you, appreciate it. And coming up next tonight here on "Hannity" --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Wow. It's pretty pathetic that Hillary Clinton blamed me for the horrendous attack that took place in South Carolina.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, Hillary Clinton, she blames Donald Trump and his rhetoric for what happened in South Carolina in that church shooting. She's not the only one on the left that is politicizing this tragedy. The president is blaming guns, others blaming Fox News, and some even blaming talk radio. We'll examine that race to politicizing this event straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So less than 24 hours after the terrible tragedy in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton wasted no time playing politics and tried to place the blame for this mass shooting on a 2016 GOP presidential candidate. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The people who do this kind of dastardly horrible act are a very small percentage. But, unfortunately, the public discourse is sometimes hotter and more negative than it should be which can, in my opinion, trigger people who are less than stable.
Like, for example, a recent entry into the Republican presidential campaign said some very inflammatory things about Mexicans. You know, everybody should stand up and say that's not acceptable. You don't talk like that on talk radio. You don't talk like that on, you know, the kind of political campaigns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: She said some pretty shocking things in her life. Now, the presidential candidate she was referring to was Donald Trump. And as you can imagine, he's not happy about it. Here is his response from earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Wow, it's pretty pathetic that Hillary Clinton just blamed me for the horrendous attack that took place in South Carolina. This is why politicians are just no good. Our country's in trouble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And that's not all. President Obama, he doubled down on his comments on Charleston and gun control and said this earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: These tragedies have become far too commonplace. We have to move public opinion. We have to feel a sense of urgency. You don't see murder on this kind of scale with this kind of frequency in any other advanced nation on earth. What's different is not every country is awash with easily accessible guns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, we're going to blame guns, a flag, talk radio, and then of course a state rep blames FOX News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD RUTHERFORD, SOUTH CAROLINA STATE REPRESENTATIVE: He hears that because he watches things like FOX News where they talk about things they call news but they're really not. They use that coded language. They use hate speech. They talk about the president as if they're not the president. They talk about church goers as if they're not really church goers. And that's what this young man acted on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here now with reaction from the Black Sphere Kevin Jackson and criminal defense attorney Eric Guster is with us. Can you give any coded language or hate speech that you've ever heard on the FOX News Channel?
ERIC GUSTER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Fox is kind of out there on some things.
HANNITY: I'm asking you a specific question.
GUSTER: But what Todd Rutherford said, I don't think he was accurate. I don't think he should have said that.
HANNITY: You can't give me one specific -- we're on 24 hours a day and have been on 24 hours a day since October of 1996. I was there that day. So if you can't tell me one example of coded language or hate speech, that says a lot, doesn't it?
GUSTER: It does say a lot. Todd Rutherford was emotional. He was hurt. You have an act of domestic terrorism in your city where nine people were murdered, of course you're going to lash out. And I totally understand.
HANNITY: Lash out, but, Kevin, it's the race to politicize these things. And, you know, it's almost like a sickness that, oh, wait, tragedy happens, oh, let's see how we can advance our narrative on the gun debate in this country. Meanwhile we know in this particular case that this guy Dylann Roof did not obey the gun laws, that he had no right to a weapon based on his felony arrest. And he didn't obey the laws that exist currently.
KEVIN JACKSON, THE BLACK SPHERE: It had nothing to do with any of the things that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or Todd Rutherford said. And the fact of the matter is, what it has to do with is kids like this kid that shot, Dylann, whatever his name is -- are based on liberals creating them.
What they do is they tell these kids -- and, by the way, these millennials are supposed to be the least racist people in the history of mankind. And you create these kids because Todd Rutherford is told by people like Saida Grundy that you're a bad kid, young white man. They emasculate them. They tell them you're nothing. And when they get to college and start looking at their opportunities in life --
GUSTER: So you're saying liberal did this? You're joking right?
JACKSON: If you're born white you get white privilege and so on and so forth. It's liberalism that creates them.
GUSTER: Oh, my god. I can't believe you're saying this.
JACKSON: They look for scapegoats. They look for gun control. They say it's immigration, they say it's Donald Trump, they say it's anything but what is actually happening.
GUSTER: So Kevin is actually saying that what this kid did, he's blaming it on the liberals?
JACKSON: Yes.
HANNITY: I didn't hear that. I think you're talking about --
GUSTER: He just said "Yes."
HANNITY: Kevin, you're talking about underlying causes of trouble in society.
JACKSON: That is exactly right.
HANNITY: Explain it in detail, because Eric is all outraged here.
GUSTER: I'm not outraged. I'm shocked that he said it. Don't call me outraged. I'll show you outraged.
JACKSON: You don't need to be shocked. The fact of the matter is -- I mentioned Saida Grundy. One of the things that she talked about is how young white men need to check themselves. As I said, this country has proven time and time again that these young kids grow up together, they play together, they do sports together, they go to college.
GUSTER: This boy was simply evil, Kevin.
JACKSON: OK.
GUSTER: This was evil personified. He was a racist, evil terrorist who went and murdered some people. Why don't we call it what it is.
JACKSON: So let me ask you this --
GUSTER: Why can't you just say that instead of saying liberals cause this problem? I wish he would be quiet and let me talk. Why don't you admit that this man, this young guy is an evil terrorist --
HANNITY: OK, wait a minute. Based on what you're saying -- so then it's a felony. But when you're under a felony charge, he had no legal right to have that gun.
GUSTER: I agree with that.
HANNITY: As a drug offender, he had no legal right to have the gun. Also, it's illegal without permission to have a gun in a church. So three examples of laws that he did not obey. Here's my problem. The first lady lashing out, saying words caused this person. No words didn't cause this person. The president blaming guns, an inanimate object doesn't cause people to commit evil. He could have driven a car into the group of people as they walked out of that church.
GUSTER: You know what? This is --
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: The president was wrong to politicize it.
(CROSSTALK)
GUSTER: Kevin, be quiet for a second.
JACKSON: No, you be quiet. You've been talking the entire time.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Hillary was wrong to blame Trump.
GUSTER: I do believe she was wrong to blame Trump.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: By the way, it's wrong to blame talk radio and it's wrong to blame the FOX News Channel. But there's this compulsion, Kevin, that we see almost after every incident going back to Tim McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton blaming talk radio. No, talk radio wasn't responsible for what Tim McVeigh did.
JACKSON: No. It's exactly what I said a second ago, Sean. And he's not going to answer this because liberals never want to own up to what they do. It's a very simple question. We are supposedly living in a time when millennials have everything to be proud of -- the fact of the matter. This really isn't a question. It's more of the state of how things are. The millennials are the least racist, and yet this kid is yelling racial epithets. He's a product of the school system. He's a product of the media. He's a product of all of the things that liberals claim to.
HANNITY: Guys, thank you both for being with us, appreciate it.
JACKSON: And coming up.
HANNITY: And coming up, find out what the Navy SEALs uncovered during the Usama bin Laden raid. Experts say this could totally discredit the world's most famous jihadist in the jihadi word. What does that all mean? We'll explain, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So after killing Usama bin Laden at his compound back in 2011, Navy SEALs discovered a trove of documents, files, and computer hard drives that gave valuable insight into Al Qaeda operations and into the mind of the terror group's leader. Just over 100 of those documents were made public in back march. But the CIA recently announced that it will not release something very shocking that the Navy SEALs reportedly seized. That's bin Laden's massive stash of pornography.
Earlier I sat down with the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, and from "The Weekly Standard," Stephen Hayes. Here's what they said.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: Why wouldn't they release that, Zuhdi? And what would the reaction be, if any, in the Muslim world and radical Muslim world?
DR. ZUHDI JASSER, AMERICAN ISLAMIC FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY: Well, you know, for me to figure out what they're doing is trying to rationalize why they even wanted to give him an Islamic burial. Remember, they did that. So I think what they're trying to say is that somehow they don't want blowback, either that somehow his image has been tarnished so it will create more radical terror acts.
HANNITY: So you're saying they're afraid? You're saying that the government, that Obama is afraid to release it just like afraid to release the pictures of bin Laden?
JASSER: It's either that, or the stuff is just so perverse, so severely sick and deviant that it includes child pornography and other things. But even that, we're seeing beheadings, we're seeing other videos that haven't been filtered. So, you know, at least release some of it.
HANNITY: Would radical Islamists view this negatively if he was, say, watching western pornography?
JASSER: Well, radical Islamists, they can do whatever they want to women. They objectify them. Really I think the blowback would be minimal because we see Awlaki was doing prostitution. There were many others that ultimately they just push it aside. The 9/11 bombers went to a strip club and the other thing, and they thought they would go to heaven, the 72 virgins, and it wouldn't matter.
HANNITY: That's a good point. That's a really good point.
JASSER: So I don't that is actually going to be a factor.
HANNITY: Stephen, I like to get as much information from the government as possible. I'm not really sure if I can figure out their rationale here. Why do you -- but the thing that concerns me the most is what Dr. Jasser is saying is that maybe the Obama administration is afraid that all of this might incite people that hate us already. That is the mindset that scares me the most.
STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: It's not at all an implausible suggestion. We've seen that from the Obama administration before. And I guess I agree with Dr. Jasser on the potential impact of releasing this. I think it would likely be minimal. In addition to the points that you both made, the fact remains it would come from the U.S. government. So I think radical jihadists would not be likely to believe it was real or true anyway.
But the bigger point is the one that you made at the very beginning, Sean, and that we've seen only 100 documents. The Navy SEALs went in there, and the sensitive site exploitation team that gathered documents had more than a million documents in their position when they got on that helicopter and flew back. It was a very good job of exploiting those documents initially. And then the documents sat untouched for as long as a year according to the former director of the DIA, Mike Flynn.
We now know that there are very interesting and important things in those documents that tell us about Al Qaeda, tell us about the relationships they had with Pakistani intelligence services, the regime in Iran, that have direct bearing on the debates that we are having today about policy. People should be able to see that, and, at the very least, members of Congress should be able to see that. But members of Congress, including members of the intelligence committee, are not yet being allowed to see these documents. That's an outrage.
HANNITY: What is your reaction to that? I still want to see pictures of him shot dead because I take a very different take. The administration is fearful that it might incite, quote, "radical Islamists." They already hate us. They are already trying to kill us anyway. I want a message sent -- this is going to be you. You attack America, we are going to hunt you down no matter how long it takes and we're going to kill you and put a bullet in your head and a bullet in the rest of your body whenever we have to shoot you. I like that message being sent.
JASSER: Absolutely. And if we want to get moderate Muslims to act and begin to be enraged about ISIS and their slavery against women, all of the things they're doing to grow Islamo-patriotism, we have to release this information.
What the Obama administration wants to do is sanitize this, push it aside like it's just a crime problem. There is nothing to see. Move along. We got bin Laden. The war is done. So bottom line is that they're trying to prevent the reaction that would actually allow moderate Muslims to take back many of these things that we're talking about and be more enraged that our Islam is being hijacked by a bunch of misogynist barbarians, sick deviants, and also secrets that would realize that this is all interconnected the way Steven just talked about in a way that shows that we have a big war on our hands.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: So did NBC make the right decision with Brian Williams? We need your help. Tonight's "Question of the Day," straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time for tonight's "Question of the Day." Should Brian Williams, should he be forgiven? Should he have gotten back his anchor chair? Do you think NBC made the right decision? We want to hear from you. Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter, let us know what you think.
That's all the time we have left this evening. We hope you'll set your DVR for 10:00 p.m. eastern so you never miss an episode because we then miss you. As always, thank you for being with us. We hope have you a great weekend.
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