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This is a rush transcript of “Hannity” on May 18, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: And welcome to HANNITY.
And we start with this FOX News alert. The all-important Republican Senate primary race in Pennsylvania still too close to call. You can see 97 percent of the vote in.
As it stands, Dr. Oz has about a 1,500-vote lead over Dave McCormick. Now, keep in mind that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, any race decided by 0.5 percent or less automatically triggers a recount. By the way in the history of Pennsylvania no recount has ever turned around the results of the earlier election.
We are well within that margin though tonight. Whoever comes out ahead will face off against a fringe far left socialist. His name, right there, John Fetterman.
By the way, we wish his health — is recovering from a serious stroke. We wish him the best. We’ll have a lot more my monologue coming up in just a minute.
First, joining us now with analysis on all the latest numbers, he’s with Insider Advantage, the pollster Matt Towery. Also, full disclosure somebody I’ve known for a long time from Georgia.
This — well, you and Robert Cahaly both told me this is a very, very close race. You’re both right. You called it. I give you a lot of credit. I’ve been crunching numbers all day. I’ve been talking to people all day. I’ve been checking county websites all day.
And I have my belief that worst case scenario, this comes out on Oz’s favor. Some people might disagree. What is your take?
MATT TOWERY, INSIDER ADVANTAGE: Well, I mean — you know, there are different opinions out there. My question is this, where are the votes? My experience — I’ve been involved before I started just doing polling for news, I was involved in a lot of campaigns — gubernatorial, Senate, presidential, you name it. I rarely ever saw a vote change that much after you started getting into this level and there were always rumors of giant amounts to be counted and they never materialized.
Let me give you some points here while I’m asking this question. For example, since late last night, we counted about another 25,000 votes. And you’ve seen McCormick’s lead — rather Oz’s lead come down. McCormick people ran a great campaign, I understand that and I give a lot of credit to it.
My question though is where is the other 25,000, if you’re — if you’re thinking these votes proportionate, where are they going to come from? And then I started looking into what I could find.
For example, military votes. Everybody said, oh, well there are all these military votes out there. In reality, you can find on publicly accessible websites how many web — how many military votes were requested. And in reality, there aren’t that many. I mean, it’s in a thousand, fifteen hundred — it’s low numbers. You can’t get —
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: That’s also Democrat and Republican.
TOWERY: Exactly.
HANNITY: In Philly, my understanding is there were only 127 military requests, that’s Democrat and Republican. Is that correct?
TOWERY: Yeah, that’s true and of everything I’m going to cover right here, you got to take into account that you’re splitting out Republican and Democrat numbers that are being all thrown together right now to make it look like their massive number of votes to be counted in the Republican race. So that’s not the case.
I’ll give you another example. In Allegheny, I made this note, there are locations right now that are still out now. Locations have precincts within them. And within those precincts, if you look at them they split out about half of them are Democratic. So you’re not talking about the massive number of votes that everyone thinks are going to come out of there, even if the votes are proportionate.
Another example, Lancaster. I know that was a big, big problem yesterday. I noted it very early. I think I texted you and said that’s a interesting thing going on there.
But right now, there are 4,800 votes that are left out there and the percentage of GOP versus Democrat takes that down to not that many GOP votes left. So when I look at the universe and I’ve gone down this road many a time, and I’ve been on the losing side where I thought, whoa, I’ve got all these votes to come in and they never materialized. I’ve been on the winning side where I thought all of these votes are going to overwhelm us and they never came in.
I’m not saying there aren’t more to count and I’m not saying that I could be wrong. But my experience and my intuition tells me from what I can see, there aren’t enough votes here to make this a reversal in who’s leading. It could take it down more, maybe even to 600, but I don’t think it can change the lead.
HANNITY: What about Allegheny County where there’s still outstanding votes? Dave McCormick’s hometown, he did pretty well there. My extrapolation is, is maybe at a maximum you get somewhere near 2,000 votes. If you look — if you doubled the percentage that Dave had in that particular county and anyone I think by five or six, even if you doubled the remaining votes and gave that advantage to Dave, it still is only a few hundred.
TOWERY: Yeah, that’s the problem. That gets to my point. First of all, we’re hearing up votes outstanding and people are mixing Democratic and Republicans. So you have to first winnow down to how many Republican votes are outstanding.
Then you have to see what the locations are within those counties. And like I said, specifically with regard to Allegheny, if you’ve got 38 locations or 37 locations precincts within them, but a good number of those are Democratic so I just don’t think the votes are there to reverse the lead in this. I’m not saying that it won’t continue to compress as this comes through. That’s entirely —
HANNITY: You’re saying that it looks to you based on looking at the different precincts, different districts, the different counties, that they’re running out of runway space in terms of available votes Republican that would likely go in their favor versus say Dr. Oz because there’s still outstanding votes in counties where he did very well.
TOWERY: Exactly and even if it’s proportionate, I just don’t think there are enough Republican votes left to be counted to reverse the lead in this race. It will be tight. I’m not saying that it won’t compress like I said, but I don’t see a way for this to reverse.
And when you get to recounts, I did recounts. I mean, I did two recounts with Newt Gingrich, working with him. And I’ve never seen a recount in which the candidate really the leading candidate really went backwards and in fact in most recounts that I’ve been involved with, the candidate who’s leading actually picks up ballots in an automatic recount, which I believe is what Pennsylvania has.
HANNITY: All right. Matt Towery, thank you for that analysis. We will know more probably in the next day or so.
All right, joining us now with more, current Pennsylvania GOP Senate front- runner.
Dr. Mehmet Oz is with us.
I certainly would want to be in your position, a very close race. We knew going in this would be a tight race.
But the most amazing observation I have about this, if you look at the three top leaders, and you look at the percentages of vote, all three ran as Donald Trump make America great again conservatives, all three of you.
Now, you happen to get the president’s endorsement, which obviously paid dividends for you. But what does that say about where the part — where the people in Pennsylvania are? I think it’s very telling.
MEHMET OZ (R), PENNSYLVANIA SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, the people are very supportive of President Trump. And the more Joe Biden’s in office, the more they remember those halcyon days of the Trump administration.
But if I can comment on this race, you know, we have covered all counties to ensure that the ballots are correctly counted. This election is ours. We have done well.
What I want to do today, though, is to talk about unifying our party, because those three front-runners — and there are other candidates as well — all worked their tails off. But we need to unite to take on Fetterman you mentioned earlier.
And I am praying that he makes a full recovery. As a heart doctor trained at the University of Pennsylvania, I am optimistic.
But this really comes down to what people in Pennsylvania want. People in Pennsylvania have a clear choice. Fetterman is to the left of Joe Biden. He’s not equal to Biden. He’s to the left. So, he supports spending. He supports restricting energy production, which in our commonwealth is a big issue. That drives inflation, number one driver of inflation.
I want to liberate energy producers to reduce inflation. Democrats want open borders. This is a real hot topic here. I want to shut down the cartel-run human trafficking operation at the border and also shut down the drugs they’re bringing in that makes them even more money.
Fetterman wants socialized medicine, like Bernie Sanders. We saw what happens when you have one-size-fits-all approaches. It didn’t work during COVID. It doesn’t work in general. I want private solutions customized to your needs.
I’m a doctor. I spent my life studying this. I will take these messages to every corner of the commonwealth. I pledge that, including places Republicans, Sean, don’t often go. I have gotten Pittsburgh and Philly to do free clinics. We have taken care of thousands of folks. So I understand the challenges of working with people who feel forgotten.
And I got to say — you know this about me, because the hardest part of this campaign in many ways was getting you to vet me — that —
(LAUGHTER)
OZ: — I have my core conservative values, but there’s a lot of love in my heart for folks on the other side of the aisle.
And we will pull this commonwealth together as I campaign into the fall.
HANNITY: I said it, and I meant that. I didn’t endorse you because we’re friends. And we are friends.
I wanted to know that you were America first. I wanted to know you would fight hard as a conservative, a make America great again conservative, a Trump conservative, a save America conservative at this point.
Again, you just look at this. You got fully 87 percent of the vote in the primary in Pennsylvania, Republicans, are all claiming the MAGA mantle. That is a profound number.
But Dr. Oz, we will watch it. We heard Matt’s analysis. We got yours. I did a lot of digging myself. I’m pretty confident in my numbers. But time will tell.
We really appreciate you being with us and coming on as often as you did. Thank you.
One more —
OZ: God bless you for having me on, Sean.
HANNITY: You are very welcome.
One more quick note about the Pennsylvania primary and I won’t belabor this point. Third place finisher Kathy Barnette is now attacking yours truly on Twitter. She’s putting out videos blaming me for her loss.
Kathy, my first instinct was to put up all of your incendiary tweets again and there’s a ton of them, but I really don’t need to defend myself. You’re the one that really needs to answer the questions about all of your comments and all of your tweets that are.
You can lash out at me all you want. You’re not the first person. But everything that we revealed is true.
Prior to the election we attempted to reach out to you and your campaign for comment over and over and over again. You and your team refuse to get back to us to give us answers.
Now maybe you stand by your past comments, maybe you don’t. But you refuse to answer our questions. In fact, you only responded to me publicly on Twitter and then I tweeted you back and said I would invite you on for a debate the day before election day, with all the other candidates. I’m on 675 stations nationwide. You never got back to me. That unfortunately would be on you.
Look, I think Kathy Barnette is an enormously talented person, with an incredible life story but she will never get elected to statewide office in my opinion unless she is willing and able to answer questions about her past comments, conduct, rhetoric and tweets. I like Kathy Barnette, but without addressing those issues, she is unelectable in Pennsylvania in a general election. She lost in 2020 by 19 points.
And make no mistake, this is a must-win Senate race for Republicans, if in fact they have any hope of taking over the Senate. In fact, it’s critically important that the GOP regains majorities in both the House and the Senate in the fall. After two years of total Democratic control, this country is falling apart dangerously so.
Look at the stock market today. It tanked yet again. Inflation at a 42-year high, interest rates now going up through the roof. This is really crushing everyone in this country, especially the poor, the middle class, our fellow Americans on fixed incomes.
And now, top economists are calling stagflation, quote, unavoidable. The CEO of Wells Fargo saying there is no question bad days are ahead. Analysts Morgan Stanley, smart people, they’re blaming the Biden administration for their inflation. And even far-left “Vox” is blasting Joe’s out-of-control spending.
And it gets even worse. Today, yet once again, gas prices shooting to the moon and today another brand new record high price for a gallon of gasoline. In fact, every day for the past nine days, gas prices set one new record after another.
Now, this year, American families will have to fork over anywhere between $5,200 to $5,700 and going higher, thanks to Joe Biden’s inflation. Two thousand — by the way, if you drive a car, you’re going to pay $2,000 more on average just for gasoline this year over when Donald Trump was president.
And, of course, the administration likes to blame all of our problems on corporations and Vladimir Putin and something they’re calling Ultra MAGA. Oh, you mean when gas prices were cheap, the border was under control, where Operation Warp Speed actually worked and we didn’t run out of tests after two years, and every other disaster from Afghanistan to the war in Europe.
This week, Biden’s new press secretary didn’t seem to know who to blame or what to say. It was not a good start. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: How does raising taxes on corporations lower the cost of gas, the cost of a used car, the cost of food for everyday Americans?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: So, look, I think we encourage those who have done very well, right, especially those who care about climate change to support a fair attack tax code that doesn’t change — that doesn’t charge manufacturers, workers, cops, builders a higher percentage of their earnings, that the most fortunate people in our nation and not let this that stand in the way of reducing energy costs and fighting this existential problem if you think about that as an example, and to support basic collective bargaining rights as well, right? That’s also important.
But, look, it is — you know, by not if — without having a fair tax code which is what I’m talking about, then all — every like manufacturing workers, cops, you know, it’s not fair for them to have to pay higher taxes than the folks that — who are — who are — who are not paying taxes at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Forget that word salad you just heard. Take a look at your screen. Look at Quinnipiac. Two percent, that’s right, 2 percent of Americans now believe our economy is in excellent shape, and they know just who to blame, a whopping 63 percent blame Joe Biden, our ultra failure of a president.
Want to talk about ultra? He’s an ultra failure. By the way, his approval rate — look at that — is at 32 percent.
Over the past year and a half as Americans have suffered from a supply chain crisis, now a baby formula shortage, spiking inflation, spiking gas prices a stock market and a free fall the Biden administration — well, they were busy tackling the real crisis, disinformation. In fact, they spent a considerable amount of time and energy and effort to develop a brand new Ministry of Truth that we’ve been talking about to police all of your thoughts.
We do have great news tonight. The ministry of truth or disinformation governance board as it was coined is now on pause, and that far left lunatic tapped to lead this shady new venture has now resigned. And as it turns out, former disinformation czar Nina Jankowicz was one of the biggest perpetrators and purveyors of disinformation in the entire country. Now, she praised Russian disinformation dossier author Christopher Steele. She accused President Trump of being a Russian plant. She referred to the Hunter Biden laptop scandal as a debunked Trump campaign product.
And like many other prominent Democrats, Nina Jankowicz is a conspiracy theorist who wants all Americans to believe her twisted opinions and lies are facts.
Now, today when asked about the disinformation czar’s resignation — well, Biden’s press secretary was once again short on answers. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOOCY: So if it’s pausing because you think the board was mischaracterized, then the disinformation board is being shut down because of disinformation, is that what’s happening here?
JEAN-PIERRE: Look, I mean, the board was put forth for a purpose, right, to make sure that we really did — really did address what was happening across the country when it came to disinformation. So —
(CROSSTALK)
JEAN-PIERRE: It’s just going — it’s going to pause. There’s been mischaracterizations from outside — outside forces. And so, now, what we’re going to do is going to we’re going to pause it, and we’re going to do an assessment.
But the work does — the work doesn’t stop. We’re still going to continue the work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: They’re going to work. So the — is it alive or is it gone?
Anyway, does anyone in the Biden administration have a straight answer for anything? Do they do they take any responsibility? Have they ever heard of the phrase the buck stops here?
Now, keep in mind, even on lucid days, President Biden is totally incompetent. His DHS secretary cares more about policing your thoughts than securing our border. His treasury secretary is a lunatic who told us inflation was transitory. His vice president, totally in over her head inept, and she never really seems to know what she’s talking about. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES: That is especially true when it comes to the climate crisis, which is why we will work together and continue to work together to address these issues, to tackle these challenges and to work together as we continue to work operating from the new norms, rules and agreements that we will convene to work together on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: We’ll all work together. That’s the plan.
The Biden administration is a disaster on every single level and November frankly can’t come soon enough.
Here with reaction, Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, along with Outkick founder Clay Travis.
Congressman Jordan, take a bow, sir. You helped get rid of the Ministry of Truth. Thank you for doing that.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Thank you.
HANNITY: Bad idea but we’ll work together on it as Kamala says.
JORDAN: Well, Sean, here’s what I wonder. Would the disinformation governance board have fact check the Democrat witness today who came in front of our committee and said men can get pregnant and have an abortion, I mean, we’ll never know, Sean. I’m almost saddened by this because I wish they would have maybe waited a day before they disbanded this board so we could see exactly what Nina Jankowicz would have said to that ridiculous statement made in the judiciary committee today by the Democrat witness.
So thank you for the work you’ve done in helping get rid of this governance board. And, of course, the work clay has done on his radio station — his radio show as well.
HANNITY: Yeah.
And, Clay, I think what we’re really getting down to and my former colleague — I always like Carl Cameron — actually thinks we ought to be putting people maybe in jail for disinformation. I’m like, I don’t know what happened to Carl. He’s not the guy that I knew when he worked here, but it’s getting crazy.
But I really believe the target of this is always going to be conservatives. Liberals are never called out, three years lying, conspiracy theories about Trump-Russia collusion that never happened, never mind what happened to Nicholas Sandmann, never mind all the other cases that they were wrong in, from Richard Jewell to Cambridge police to Ferguson to Baltimore and Freddie Gray, Duke lacrosse, UVA — they get it all wrong all the time and they’re never held accountable and they never retract their remarks, apologize and make a correction ever.
CLAY TRAVIS, OUTKICK FOUNDER: You’re right, Sean. And I want to thank the congressman. I saw that clip and my jaw dropped. And I know there’s a lot of people who work in media that watch your show, Sean, and I think we have to start asking all Democrats, can men get pregnant and can they have abortions? Because I thought that was a pretty settled fact.
And we got Democrats under oath in front of the congressman here saying that men can in fact get pregnant and have abortion. Does Joe Biden think that?
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I’m going to let you pick up your thought.
TRAVIS: Does this minister of truth?
HANNITY: Let me just play it because I don’t think people have seen this enough.
TRAVIS: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you say a woman is?
AIMEE ARRAMBIDE, ABORTION RIGHTS ADVOCATE: I believe that everyone can identify for themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay. Do you believe then that men can become pregnant and have abortions?
ARRAMBIDE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: There you go, Clay. I’m learning something new every day.
TRAVIS: I mean, if people had not seen this, it is so unbelievable what is going on that think about this for a minute, Sean, and also, Jim, I mean, we’ve got Jeff Bezos who runs “The Washington Post” now feuding with Joe Biden because of how incompetent they are on economic policy. Earlier this afternoon, Elon Musk came out and said I’m leaving behind the Democrat Party because they are totally losing their minds.
And I think we’re starting to stack some wins, Sean, and Congressman. Think about this, CNN plus collapses, the ministry of truth didn’t even last as long as CNN plus did, you’ve got Elon Musk buying Twitter. And if you look at the data on some of these primaries, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Republican voters are coming out and they are energized and they are excited.
And it is because they are fighting against insanity. There are two parties right now. The insane party which is the Democrats and the sane party which is the Republicans.
HANNITY: Eighty-seven percent Jim Jordan of the vote — the top three vote-getters, they all claim to be MAGA candidates in Pennsylvania. I mea, amazing.
Then you add, look at Trump’s record depending on whether you think his comments were an endorsement of Madison Cawthorn, he’s either 81-3, or 81- 2, meaning 81 victories.
And what Elon Musk said is: In the past, I voted Democrat because they were mostly the kindness party, he wrote. But they have become a party of division and hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now watch the dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.
JORDAN: Yeah.
HANNITY: He’s right about all points.
JORDAN: No, exactly. But look, the Trump endorsement is the most powerful political endorsement in American history without a doubt. We understand that. The country has common sense as Clay pointed out. Republican Party is the party of common sense and regular people. Democrat Party is the party of craziness.
There’s a reason 7 out 10 of our fellow citizens think the country’s on the wrong track. In my time in politics, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen wrong track numbers that bad, and that’s because America has common sense and they understand that Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee had to approve that witness. They went out and got that witness to come testify.
That shows you how out of touch they are with reality and with the American people and why I think as you said as Clay said, it’s going to be a good night for Republicans on November 8th, and that means a good night for the country.
HANNITY: And Joe has a whopping 32 percent approval rating.
All right. Thank you both. Clay, thank you. Congressman, thank you.
When we come back, speaking about Elon Musk, he says Democrats have pushed him to the Republican Party for the first time in his life. We’ll play the tape.
And another day, another blunder for Biden. We’ll show you. We’ll check in with Mike Huckabee, Ari Fleischer. That’s next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Elon Musk, he continues to take on the failed Democratic establishment and the far left voices across big tech, saying in a new podcast that Biden is not in charge, but his teleprompter operator is the real president. Very funny I think.
Anyway, and Musk also added that he will now be voting Republican. Take a look at why.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLP)
ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter, you know? It’s like — it’s like the path to power is the path to the teleprompter, you know? Like what — what — because that then he just reads the teleprompter. So, you know, I do feel like if somebody would accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it’s going to be like “Anchorman”. It’s going to be like ASDF 123, you know, type of thing.
I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats historically, overwhelmingly. Like I’m not sure — I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear. Now, this election, I would.
It’s like the government can’t just — you know, have issued checks far in excess of revenue without there being inflation. If the federal government writes checks, they don’t — they never bounce. So that is effectively creation of more — of more dollars.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And as I mentioned in the last segment, Musk followed up today, tweeting quote: In the past, I voted Democrat — Democrat because they were mostly the kindness party, but they have become the party of division and hate. So I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now watch the dirty tricks campaign against me unfold.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s historic failures — well, they’re going from bad to worse. Look at inflation, 40-year high, gas prices setting a record nine days in a row, including a new record today. The stock market again tanking today.
And Americans will — if you have a 401k, it’s suffering big time, all while Joe Biden continues to have moments like this that he sure should be proud of. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And today, I’ll be traveling — on Thursday, excuse me, I’ll be traveling the Republic of Korea and Japan to affirm the importance of our Indo-Pacific alliances. Folks — and to celebrate the indispensable partnerships that are strengthening by the deep family ties and heritage and the values reflected in the AAN — NH — PI — aye, aye, aye — community here in the United States.
As they say in Claymont, Delaware, all youse guys.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right. Here now is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, along with the author of — and you want to get a first edition copy “Suppression, Deception, Snobbery and Bias”, FOX News contributor Ari Fleischer.
I love the title. Well done, Ari.
Governor, I’ll start with you. I look at Elon Musk — he fascinates me. He seems iconoclastic. He’s a modern-day innovator. If you’ve not watched the series, “The Men that Built America”, the Rockefellers Carnegie Mellons, the JPMorgan’s, it’s worth watching.
I kind of view him as that modern-day innovator and visionary, and I’m sure he doesn’t agree with all my politics. But — but the guy is fascinating to me. Your thoughts?
MIKE HUCKABEE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I totally agree, and it’s not because he’s saying he’s going to vote Republican. Quite frankly what I really enjoy about Elon Musk is his candor. He seems to be recklessly honest about what he really thinks and that’s so refreshing because so many people are hiding behind what they think people want them to say.
And I’m convinced there are a lot of people who call themselves Democrats. They don’t honestly believe that men can get pregnant or have abortions. They really know that’s nonsense. But the —
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Governor, wait a minute, are you a medical doctor? Governor, are you sure of that? Are you a medical doctor?
HUCKABEE: I’m playing one on — I’m playing one on television tonight. I’m playing that role and I’m at least coming to the conclusion that men don’t have babies and they can’t have abortions.
You don’t have to be a doctor. All you got to be is just a human being and live a little bit of life and you know that there are two genders. This nonsense about you can just be whatever you want to be — I thought that when I was five years old and would get a yardstick and trash can lid and play Sir Lancelot.
But I outgrew it and I certainly didn’t take it into my political life and somehow believe that that’s how we ought to live our lives and run the country.
HANNITY: You know, I’m really looking forward to your book and, Ari, we’ve had a couple of conversations about it. And when Elon brands the Democrats the party of division and hate, it’s really accurate and I’ve played all of these tapes. I played them repeatedly. I won’t do it now.
But all the evidence is there for people to see and you cover a lot of this in the book, as especially as it relates to the media.
ARI FLEISCHER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, what’s really happening — Elon Musk is onto it — is the Democratic Party is no longer the liberal, ACLU, principled, free speech, clash ideologically with your opponent’s party. It has really become a suppressive party that believes that the other side is not entitled to its opinion and if you espouse it, you should be shut down, just like on a college campus.
And then you can have these ridiculous woke views, just like we heard about men are being — are pregnant. I mean, I just don’t know where to go with any of this.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Ari, are you playing doctor? Are you a doctor?
FLEISCHER: I’m playing author. I’m playing author.
HANNITY: Okay, fair enough.
FLEISCHER: The book will be out in July.
But the most profound thing he said, Sean, is that I’ve never voted Republican before but I will this November. I can’t help but wonder how many fellow Americans are in the same boat. I just think there’s so many people, Hispanic Americans, African-Americans who say, I’ve traditionally been a Democrat, but I can’t put up with this any longer. And that’s what Elon musk has got his finger on.
HANNITY: It’s the failure. It’s the needless suffering of Americans. You know, we have more gas, more oil available to us, our own oil. We don’t need to get it from Venezuela or Iran or OPEC. We can get some from Canada, pretty cheap, but we have our own resources. And all of this is preventable and all of it’s very fixable if we have the right leadership. And that’s the sad part to me.
But anyway, Ari, congrats on the book. Governor, always good to see you. Thank you.
All right, straight ahead tonight, major developments — you’re going to love this — in the Durham probe, as Michael Sussmann’s trial began this week. Oh, and wait until you hear about the jury makeup and the jury poll that is raising eyebrows. The fix may actually already be in — be in.
Mark Meadows and Devin Nunes, they’re next, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. Now, tonight, the Michael Sussmann trial kicked off in D.C. this week, where the Democratic lawyer is accused of lying to the FBI about his work for the Clinton campaign when he went to the FBI in the run- up to the 2016 election to push the anti-Trump Alfa Bank lie and conspiracy theory. Now, Durham’s team is laying out evidence that Sussmann’s meetings with the FBI were all part of an October surprise against then candidate Donald Trump.
In other words, everything this show told you and we spent three years on it was true from day one. And today, Clinton lawyer Marc Elias testified, actually admitted that he was in fact responsible for hiring Fusion GPS for its smear operation. And get this — our very own Jonathan Turley points out, Elias reportedly testified he would not have approved going to the FBI with the bogus Alfa Bank claim.
But the story doesn’t add up because Clinton operatives, they had no problem pushing the fake steel dossier to the FBI, which was then used to get the FISA application warrants through without the FISA application, no warrant. And that was to get at Carter Page in backdoor all things Trump world.
We’re also learning that during jury selection earlier this week, the judge allowed Hillary Clinton and AOC donors into the jury pool, raising even more questions about the jury’s impartiality. This would be a grave miscarriage of justice, potentially tainted jury with built-in biases, die hard Clinton and AOC supporters or even Trump supporters for that matter. No, they wouldn’t have any business being on the jury in this case.
Here with reaction, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, along with former chairman of the House Intel Committee, by the way, now, the CEO of Truth Social, that’s Donald Trump’s social media platform. By the way, as of today, Truth Social available on desktop. That means I guess any — it would work on my phone, any computer, anything with Wi-Fi?
DEVIN NUNES, CEO OF TRUTH SOCIAL: That’s right, Sean. That’s right. And you are crushing it. You’re crushing it on Truth Social. Congratulations.
HANNITY: Yeah, well, my days on Twitter are probably very short-lived at this point.
All right, Mark, let me — let me — let me begin with you. Okay, so we have a Democratic donor, we got somebody admits they hate Trump, then we got somebody donating to Clinton and AOC, how is that going to be a fair jury?
MARK MEADOWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Yeah, I think probably the biggest thing, Sean, is when you look at a jury pool, you’re going to want to make sure that you don’t get donors to any political party. I mean, whether it’s Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton and the reports I read earlier today were very troubling because as you look at that, you want someone regardless of how they might have voted to be an impartial juror.
And here’s what we do know — is the allegations against this particular attorney I believe are the tip of the iceberg. You know, you’ve got Devin Nunes on tonight, you had Jim Jordan and others that were really at the tip of the spear. You did cover this for three years.
And here’s what we also know — you know, it shouldn’t just stop with the allegations and justice for attorneys if indeed Mr. Sussmann is guilty. We also know that Bruce and Nellie Ohr met with different individuals and that connection between Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele, the fake dossier, and others very high up at DOJ and FBI, it’s very troubling how could all of this be going on and somehow they missed the memo that they were working for the Clinton campaign? It’s just beyond belief.
HANNITY: You know, I look at this, Devin, and the prosecution laying out the case that Clinton’s lawyer used the FBI to create this October surprise against Trump. They started with witnesses, Marc Elias and FBI general counsel Baker based on reporting, what is your take on where they are in the trial, because that’s pretty much what we all figured out and the rest of the world ignored at the time.
NUNES: Look, I think what you’re seeing here is Durham is bringing a very slim part of the overall conspiracy. He had to bring it to Washington, D.C. with, you know, for lack of a better term, it’s like the magical kingdom, Disneyland. You know, if you look at it, the judge is related — you know, the judge is a lawyer is — his wife is the lawyer for one of the people that are involved in this, you’ve got the jurors contaminated.
And I believe this — if it was — if this case was not brought in D.C. and I’m sure Durham had to bring the case to D.C., there’s no way that Sussmann would not have pled guilty. Sussmann’s best case right now is that he can get one or two jurors to hold this up, to let him off scot-free. If not, none of their story adds up.
So the good thing that we are learning from this is that for the first time, Durham is actually able to bring direct evidence that Mark and Jim Jordan, some of us, we didn’t have some of this direct evidence. We only had circumstantial evidence.
But for example, I think one of the things that came out today that’s plainest day, testimony, you know, in Washington, D.C. there, you have — we now know journalists who were meeting directly with the Democrats, taking this horrible story and willing to go and put it out there just to destroy Republicans, destroy President Trump before the election.
I think — so there’s a lot coming out in this and I would say, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the magical kingdom. I’m sure they’re grooming people there now to make sure that they get off.
But here’s going to be the problem: Danchenko trial starts here in a couple months. It’s going to be in Virginia, probably a far different jury when they get to Virginia.
HANNITY: Yeah, I mean, it’s so corrupt. You know, it’s funny, I’m honest with my audience where I stand, Mark Meadows. I’m a member of the press, I do news, I do investigative reporting.
I do opinion. I state that up front I am a conservative. We do social issues. I’m like a whole newspaper.
But these people claim to be journalists. They’re not. They’re talk show hosts like me, aren’t they?
MEADOWS: Well, listen, it’s not just talk show host. They have an agenda and we know that Chairman Nunes did a good job at — of getting to the bottom of it. You were willing to cover it.
But here’s the interesting thing is, it was journalists that were out there spreading a lot of this false information that they knew was false.
HANNITY: False and unverifiable. I mean, think about that, and no apology, no correction, no we’re going to get better. By the way, Truth Social now on desktop. Congratulations, Devin, tonight. And —
NUNES: Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot.
HANNITY: All right. Coming up, BLM’s financial records show a pattern of hypocrisy and real corruption. We’ll break it all down, Leo 2.0 Terrell, Larry Elder. They’re next, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Now, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors is now admitting that she was shocked at the tens of millions of dollars that flooded into the group following the death of George Floyd, calling it, quote, white guilt money. Take a look.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
PATRISSE CULLORS, BLM CO-FOUNDER: Yes, it was a major shock. It was also a lot of like, oh, wait, this — I did not see that coming. You know contrary to what, you know, has been reported, much of the funding that came in was from individual donors. And that was a lot of white guilt money.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HANNITY: And that’s not all because we are now learning more about the shady financial practices behind the scenes as the BLM group now paid nearly $4 million to the board’s secretary, Cullors’ brother, and even the father of her child. And that’s all in addition to using donor funds to get that lavish $6 million mansion in L.A., in addition to the $1.2 million the group spent to lobby Congress on anti-Trump witch-hunts like impeachment and far-left fantasies like abolishing the DEA.
Here with reaction, Larry Elder, Leo 2.0 Terrell.
Larry, your take?
LARRY ELDER, HOST OF THE LARRY ELDER SHOW FOR EPOCH TIMES: You know, Sean, whoever said that compound interest is the greatest force of the universe has never encountered white guilt. Not only is BLM increasingly being exposed as a scam, you pointed out all the money going to family members, also to her mother, it is also premised upon a lie. And the lie is that the police are engaging in systemic racism.
And don’t go by me. There’s a guy that used to work for Thomson Reuters — emphasized used to work for him — he’s a data scientist. I interviewed him. The interviews on YouTube, and he did a study.
He initially supported BLM. He’s a progressive and found out because of this lie causing the police to pull back, causing morale to go down, so the police are undermanned. There are hundreds of so-called excess deaths in cities where these high-profile shootings took place. He compared the same size of city, same demographic of the city and came out with hundreds of people, mostly Black people, who otherwise would be alive if the police were doing their job. But they’re not doing it for fear they’re going to be accused of systemic racism.
So, BLM is also — it’s not just a scam, not just a lie, it’s a scam and a lie, Sean and Leo, that is getting people killed. Mostly the very black people that black lives matter purports to care about.
HANNITY: And, you know, Leo, we forget, but the group Black Lives Matter, they’re the ones that chanted “what do we want, dead cops, when do we want them, now”, “pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon”. I’m never going to forget that part.
LEO TERRELL, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I’ll tell you, Sean. Let’s be very clear. The only black lives that matter, Patrisse Cullors, her baby daddy, her — and her brother. Those are the only lies they care about.
This is not a non-profit organization. This is a political action committee that was going after President Trump. I mean, think about this: there needs to be a congressional investigation, all that money, all that property has to be seized. But what happened was that they have basically used Black people to advantage themselves.
Thank God, never — Larry and I never been a member of Black Lives Matter, and never will. But the problem here is the exploitation. And what they said what she said about white guilt, let me be as clear as possible, they shook down corporations. They scared them. They intimidated them, because they were trying to play the race car, all for the benefit of Patrisse Cullors.
One final point, she was the only board member of the board, never had a board meeting. It’s a sham organization.
Republicans, when you take the Congress in November, you have to investigate. I know of a good civil rights attorney, Leo Terrell, who can lead the investigation.
HANNITY: I’m all for that.
You know, I look at Joe Biden going to Buffalo early in the week, Larry, and then we look at the numbers every weekend and the shooting in California where you are this week in that Church and I look at every weekend in Chicago, nobody ever talks about it. Nobody talks about violence in other big cities like your city, Los Angeles, or New York.
It’s so obvious why because they get — they don’t get any political benefit. So if they really cared about the lives, they would be out there every day and they’d fix the problem, wouldn’t they?
ELDER: Well, it advances their narrative of systemic racism against Black people by the cops. Look at a city like Baltimore where Freddie Gray died in a police van. You’re talking about a city where the mayor is Black, number one.
And number two, people heading up the police department in Baltimore, Black city council, all Democrat, majority Black. The state attorney who blocked charges against six of the officers, Black, three of the six officers Black, the judge before whom two of the officers tried their case is Black, the U.S. attorney general at the time, Loretta Lynch, is Black, oh and by the way so is the president of the United States.
And we’re talking about systemic racism when a bunch of Black people are running the system. It’s a joke. And again, it’s a joke that is getting people killed.
HANNITY: It’s not a joke. It’s sad. Those are every life matters.
By the way, Leo, we have unfinished business with Larry. Where’s the Larry 1.0 hat? You were supposed to get him one. Where is it? Larry 1.0.
TERRELL: In a mail, coming in the mail.
HANNITY: Larry never changed. You changed.
TERRELL: I got the Hannity hat. I got the Larry Elder hat.
HANNITY: We’re going to have it. Next time you’re here, we’re going to have it, right?
TERRELL: Yes, yes.
HANNITY: All right. Just checking.
ELDER: Leo, I applied for Black Lives Matter, they rejected my application.
HANNITY: More HANNITY right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have left this evening. As always, thank you for being with us. You make this show possible. Thank you for that.
Please set your DVR so you never miss an episode. Always stay with foxnews.com, hannity.com for the latest news and information all you need.
In the meantime, let not your hearts be troubled. Laura is up next. “THE INGRAHAM ANGLE.” Thank you for being with us. Have a great night.
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