Newt Gingrich analyzes Trump's 'remarkable' UN speech

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Newt Gingrich analyzes Trump's 'remarkable' UN speech

On 'Hannity,' the former House speaker says the president set the stage for a real debate worldwide

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 19, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to "Hannity." This is a Fox News Alert, and we are following two big major breaking news stories tonight. President Trump is vindicated, and the liberal mainstream media -- they have been caught in a major lie and even a bigger cover-up. According to an explosive new report, President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort was wiretapped by the FBI before and after the election.

Plus, President Trump restores American leadership on the world stage. He gives a powerful, profound speech to the U.N. The commander-in-chief earlier today stood up for American values, issued a very stern warning to North Korea. And he did put the Iranian regime on notice. He also promised to defeat radical Islamic terrorism. We have that and so much more in tonight's breaking news "Opening Monologue."

All right, President Trump has been proven right about wiretapping. And guess what? The all-knowing holier-than-thou destroy Trump propaganda media has been caught in a massive lie and a major cover-up.

Now, the mainstream media has been misleading all of you, the American people, for months and months about this story. So tonight, we will once again do their job and set the record straight so you have the facts.

Now, according to a new report, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was in fact wiretapped by the FBI under FISA court warrants before and after the 2016 election. Now, according to reporting, the FBI was monitoring Manafort over concerns that he was communicating with, quote, "Russian operatives." But what's even more disturbing is this: Manafort was under surveillance earlier this year when he was known to be communicating with President Trump.

Manafort earlier tonight put out a statement and is demanding an investigation into how this information was leaked to the press, and he's also calling for the Obama administration surveillance of a political opponent to be investigated also.

And also tonight, the DOJ did say earlier this month there was no evidence that President Trump was directly targeted for surveillance, but they didn't specify if the president was incidentally caught up in this Manafort wiretap.

So for all of you lazy, overpaid, ideological liberal mainstream media people out there, you have now been exposed for the frauds you are yet again. And as we've been saying, the biased press -- they're not interested in reporting the truth. In fact, they only care about smearing and delegitimizing President Trump, and this is more evidence.

And after President Trump tweeted back in March -- March 4 -- that he was wiretapped by President Obama or people in his administration, the destroy Trump media lost it. They were viciously mocking and attacking him. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN, SEPT. 5: The bottom line is and always has been there is no evidence that Donald Trump was wiretapped by Barack Obama. It was and continues to be a lie.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN, MARCH 4: Our conspiracy theory president is at it again. And whenever something like this happens, I wonder what are the president's sources of information? Where is he getting these ideas?

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, "GMA"/ABC, MARCH 6: That has been denied by President Obama, by the former director of national intelligence, and now we know as well by the FBI director. They are all saying it did not happen. So is the president is calling all three of those individuals liars?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, MSNBC, MARCH 13: I don't think they're taking seriously enough how devastating this is to the American system for one president to say, My predecessor wiretapped me.

JOHN MEACHAM, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, RANDOM HOUSE, ON MSNBC, MARCH 13: We have been living in, really through the Trump campaign and unto this hour, this alternative reality.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, MSNBC, MARCH 5: The way that -- that Donald Trump seems to think about what a president can do feels very Nixonian, that he has a much more inflated view of a president's powers for him to believe that a president could, even in theory, because the election is ongoing and tap her -- tap the opponent of his preferred candidate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump's mind is a little bit of a mystery to me, so...

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

HANNITY: The conspiracy theory media lies to you again! Now, this is not surprising considering the left-wing media -- it's like an echo chamber. They all find one topic to attack the president on, and they repeat and repeat and repeat the same talking points. This is beyond pathetic, predictable, and frankly, dangerous in a lot of ways.

Now, while the media was going after President Trump, on this program, well, we actually tried to find out the truth. Remember, this was March 4 when the president tweeted. On March 8 on this program, Circa News's Sara Carter, John Solomon -- they were reporting that Trump's communications could have, in fact, been caught up in this FISA warrant that was in effect in October. We were way ahead of the curve. Here's what Sara Carter told us back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SARA CARTER, CIRCA NEWS: Now, there was also a separate FISA. It was an overall FISA. I don't have as much information on that. That FISA, though, was a general FISA that covered the whole Russian hacking investigation.

CARTER, MARCH 8: What we don't know is who was connected to that FISA. What was that FISA looking at? And that is very highly classified. Nobody wants to talk about that particular FISA right now. There is a distinction between a FISA...

HANNITY: Understood.

CARTER: ... and then a wiretapping. But they did tap. I mean, they were looking.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

HANNITY: So the truth was staring all these so-called journalists in the face the entire time. They never followed up on that story. Remember, Sara Carter, John Solomon -- they did all the legwork for them. Of course they didn't. It doesn't fit their narrative, their ideological agenda. They'd just rather repeat each other's lies and conspiracy theories than report the facts and explain what's really going on, something you deserve.

And after breaking this story, well, some of the anchors over at the fake news network CNN -- even now, they finally are having to start to admit that President Trump was right the entire time. After March 4 this happened. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN: Hold on a second (INAUDIBLE) because I do think it sounds like the president was right. If Paul Manafort has a residence in Trump Tower and Paul Manafort was being surveilled and wiretapped, Trump Tower was wiretapped.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No it was not. I'm sorry.

CAMEROTA: How do you know?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, I don't know, but I know that what we know so far does not indicate that Trump Tower -- my lines, as he put it, where -- unless you were saying that he owns every single thing in Trump Tower...

CAMEROTA: Yes, that is what he's saying.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN : The president came out about this, right? We all remember those tweets on March 4th. Let me just read them again for anyone who's forgotten. "Terrible, just found out that Obama had my, quote, wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism." He continued, "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process? This is Nixon Watergate. Bad," open parentheses, "or sick guy." He was derided for this. But Mark, is he somehow vindicated tonight?

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

HANNITY: So when will other members of the establishment destroy Trump media -- when are they going to come forward and admit they had it wrong?

Now, there's a very important fact in this story that cannot be ignored. And that is Obama's former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. He denied on "Meet the Press" back in March that there was ever any wiretappings of President Trump or his campaign. And he also said there was no evidence of a FISA court warrant. Listen to what he says. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS, "MEET THE PRESS"/NBC, MARCH 5)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate or against his campaign.

CHUCK TODD, MODERATOR: There is no FISA court order.

CLAPPER: Not to my knowledge.

MODERATOR: Of anything at Trump Tower?

CLAPPER: No.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

HANNITY: Wrong and shocking. Now, Clapper needs to be hauled in front of Congress and he needs to be ordered to testify under oath about everything that he knows and how he went on television and said something that's not true. Because guess what? He doesn't appear to be telling the truth yet again in the clip we just showed you. It's inexcusable.

I hope tonight, the attorney general of the United States Jeff Sessions is watching. The American people deserve to know the truth. The mainstream establishment media is no longer in the truth-telling business.

All right, also tonight, President Trump -- he stepped on the world stage earlier today at the U.N. and wasted very little time in confronting the many dangers America and the world is now facing, evil in our time. President Trump -- he took direct aim at North Korea for its continued aggression and he issued a direct warning to dictator Kim Jong Un and his rogue regime. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The United States has great strength and patience. But if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.

It is time for North Korea to realize that the denuclearization is its only acceptable future.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

HANNITY: And what a difference a president makes. Now, President Trump didn't not stop with North Korea. He also focused on radical Islamic mullahs in Tehran and the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal. Look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

TRUMP: We cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program.

The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don't think you've heard the last of it, believe me.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

HANNITY: Now, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and we've not heard the last of it.

Now, this is what leading on the world stage actually looks like. President Trump refused to appease and capitulate to countries like Iran and the hate America crowd in North Korea, countries that want to see Israel wiped off the map. In fact, President Trump is receiving very high praise for his very bold and direct address. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said it was the most bold, courageous speech he's ever heard at the United Nations.

Now, President Trump also outlined his plan to defeat radical Islamic terrorism and called on other countries to ramp up their efforts in that fight -- modern-day evil. And I've got to say it's beyond refreshing and encouraging to have a president who's not afraid to call out radical Islamic terrorism by name. Remember, only a couple years ago, President Obama did the exact opposite at the U.N. and actually said that Islam is the religion of peace. Well, for some, yes. But for many, no.

And finally, during the major speech, President Trump defended American sovereignty by declaring he, as president, will always put America first.

Now, later in the program, we will have Ambassador John Bolton, and in an exclusive interview tonight, the president of Egypt. Now, he's been extremely courageous in battling and identifying radical Islamic terrorists.

But first, joining us now, the author of The New York Times number one best seller, "Understanding Trump," former Speaker of the House, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich. By the way, Newt has an on-line course called Defending America. Mr. Speaker, good to see you again.

NEWT GINGRICH, R-FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Good to see you. And I must say I thought that the historic speech that President Trump made at the United Nations today was really about defending America, but it was also about defending the right of every country to be a sovereign nation. It's a -- truly, a remarkable speech. It's the Fourth great speech of his presidency. And I think it sets the stage for a real debate worldwide about globalism versus sovereign nations who work together, but they work together as independent countries, not as some kind of a globalist internationalism.

HANNITY: You know, Democrats ripping this as bombastic and dangerous. And I'm looking at the words of the speech and he says -- OK, he reiterated his commitment to America first. Our government's first duty to his people, to our citizens, to serve their needs, ensure their safety, preserve their rights, to defend their values. And as president, I'll always put America first.

And he takes on North Korea that's firing missiles over Japan almost on a weekly basis. And he takes on radical Islam and radical Islamic mullahs in Iran and saying they can't get nukes. Why am I having a hard time understanding the criticism here?

GINGRICH: Well, because I think your world view and mine, and I'm with you on this, is so radically different from the appeasement-oriented left. You have to remember that from the standpoint of the left, this is a dangerous speech at every level. It's a speech which says that America matters. And remember, when he says he's going to put America first, he went on to say - - and he expects other leaders to put their countries first. He's not saying America first over everybody else. But he's saying if you have a national leader, you know, if the Britain or the leader of Germany or the leader of China -- if they're not putting their own country first, they're not doing their duty to their people. Now, out of that, you've got to negotiate. You've got to come together. But I thought it was a very compelling speech.

HANNITY: "Mad Dog" Mattis, General Mattis said that the U.S. may have a secret weapon to neutralize North Korea. When he was pressed -- why are you laughing? When he was pressed further, he said, Well -- he talked about, I don't want to get into it when he was talking about kinetic options. What -- in your opinion, is that a clue as to what might be the option they're talking about?

GINGRICH: First of all, he has been going around very methodically talking to our missile command, inspecting our ICBMs, talking to the Strategic Command, laying out what we could do. I don't know any secrets and I deliberately have avoided clearance because I do so much television, but let me tell you from general -- open sources. Boeing has developed a hypersonic missile that literally knocks out all of the communications, all of the computers as it passes over a headquarters, for example. We have a variety of cyber weapons that we normally don't talk about and we never use because we don't want other people to know we have them.

I think that if -- there's a terrific scene in "Gladiator" where Russell Crowe says, When you see the signal, unleash hell. I have a hunch that Mattis...

HANNITY: In the beginning of the movie...

GINGRICH: ... is very methodically orchestrating the -- right. OK. I think Mattis is very methodically organizing an ability to -- if he has to. He doesn't want to. He's not a guy who believes in taking giant risks, but if he has to, I think he is prepared to take enormous steps to disarm North Korea and to do so in ways that most people have no idea we're capable of.

HANNITY: Oh, that would be -- I've been saying there's no good options. That, to me, would be a really good option.

GINGRICH: Well, imagine you woke up as Kim Jong-un and your telephone didn't work. And by the way, your radio didn't work. And you weren't in contact with your generals and your generals weren't in contact with each other. And you all of a sudden actually...

HANNITY: And your rockets didn't work.

GINGRICH: ... couldn't launch anything because everything had suddenly been stopped. Now, whether or not we could do 100 percent, I'm not sure. I have a hunch we could do a lot, and I think that we have had very smart people work this problem for very many years, and it's one of the reasons I was proud that we had a huge bipartisan majority pass the armed services bill in the Senate this week because it's a signal that now we're coming together as Americans, not Democrats or Republicans. And we're saying to the world...

HANNITY: All right, last question...

GINGRICH: ... we're going to do what we have to do to defend ourselves.

HANNITY: Big time. Let me go back to March 4th of this year, when the president pointed out and tweeted out that he was being wiretapped. Well, we now found out that, in fact, the president was right. And we did -- as I said in my opening monologue, we talked about this on March 8th. And Sara Carter and John Solomon broke the story, FISA warrants, other warrants, and we know what happened. But there's the bigger, broader issue here of the unprecedented amount of surveillance of a political opposition candidate, unmasking of people, in the case of General Flynn, leaking intelligence. And then you have people like Samantha Power, the U.N. rep, unmasking up to 300 people, most of them Trump people, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice. And you have to ask yourself what is going on here? And how dangerous is this to the 4th Amendment from your perspective?

GINGRICH: Well, look, I think if you were to take all the different ways in which the Obama Justice Department was abusing the system, abusing it on the one hand to defend Hillary Clinton, abusing it on the other hand going after Republicans and people who were for Trump -- I mean, this is -- I think this is a radically bigger scandal than anything about Russia.

Here you have an administration which deliberately was going after political figures, which on the other hand, was deliberately defending its own political figures. This may be the most egregious abuse of the criminal justice process in American history. I mean, it's truly extraordinary, and nobody yet has put it all altogether, and I'm hoping that the Congress is now going to realize that they have -- and you said it well in your opening monologue -- I mean, was General Clapper not informed that there was a FISA warrant or did General Clapper lie about the FISA warrant?

There are a whole series of these things that come out of these reports, and when you take the totality, they're quite astonishing. And it goes back to the point I make in my course on defending America, which is the country you and I know is under siege by a deep state which really wants to create a very different America and is willing to break the law and abuse the law in order to achieve that.

HANNITY: All right, Mr. Speaker, I totally agree. Thanks for being with us.

When we come back, leaking, surveillance, unmasking -- what's going on? Gregg Jarrett, Monica Crowley are here with more on this explosive report. Paul Manafort's phone was wiretapped, and the media did lie to you.

Also, John Bolton back with reaction to the president's hard-hitting address at the U.N.

And I have an announcement and actually some good news at the end of the show straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So according to reports, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was actually wiretapped by the U.S. government before and after the presidential election. So on this new information, does it vindicate what the president tweeted out on March 4th about wiretapping?

Joining us now, Gregg Jarrett. He has a new op-ed out. It's entitled "Sessions should resign, but not before taking action against Clinton, Comey, and Rice." And also joining us is conservative commentator Monica Crowley is with us.

Monica, let me start with you. All right, the media is so wrong again. And they basically -- oh, the president has no facts, no truth. We reported this on this program on March 8th. We were right, they were wrong. Now, for example, CNN reports it, but they don't admit every one their reports was dead wrong. When do they ever take responsibility for fake news, false reporting?

MONICA CROWLEY, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Well, don't hold your breath, Sean, on that one. Look, I have long said that with this president, there's almost always a method to his madness. Almost. Not always, but almost always.

And at the time when he put out that tweet that he and Trump Tower were wiretapped by the Obama administration and by its surrogates, all hell broke loose, right? And I kept warning my liberal friends, Do not jump all over this because, obviously, the president knows something that we don't. And now it's clear, according to this report, that at least Paul Manafort, who, by the way, not only worked at Trump Tower but lived at Trump Tower, was under surveillance by the government.

Now, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, Sean, because we don't know what the surveillance turned up. We don't know whether Manafort's conversations with the president were, in fact, intercepted as part of this surveillance. And we also don't know what Robert Mueller's end game might be. So we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it does look like, in fact, the president knew what he was talking about and was correct when he put out that tweet.

HANNITY: You know, and rightly, Gregg Jarrett, obviously, surveillance took place here. And Manafort's saying tonight, Hey, release them. We have discussed in detail all of the issues involving intercepts, leaking, unmasking. Why would Samantha Powers (sic) and Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes - - to the extent, they're spying on an opposition candidate. But here's my broader question.

Assuming all of that is true, now we're back in a situation which goes to your column today. I'm trying to understand, 11 months of Russia, Russia, no evidence, and they now have investigative creep, and yet all of these issues and all of these crimes that you laid out so systematically in your column today, that explain -- where is Jeff Sessions?

GREGG JARRETT, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Well, that's the big question.

HANNITY: I mean, I've always liked Senator Sessions. Where is he doing his job?

JARRETT: He has spent seven months as attorney general. And his tenure is notable for a series of failures to act where action is demanded. And he has done nothing about James Comey or Hillary Clinton or Susan Rice. He can appoint a special counsel to do it, and second special counsel. You can't count on Mueller to investigate Comey, for example. But he hasn't done it. And I argue that he has not just been unproductive and ineffectual, he has proven to be incompetent. And I hate to say that. I really do because he's a very fine man. And he was a good U.S. senator.

HANNITY: So what could he do now? Is it possible he's doing all these things, Gregg...

JARRETT: No.

HANNITY: ... and we don't know about it yet?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'd know about if he were doing them. He is not. You know, as I argue in my column, he's either ignoring them or twiddling his thumbs or both. And you know, something has to be done.

HANNITY: But it's not like you can get rid of him because now you need Senate approval again and...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can appoint an acting attorney general, which is anybody who's been confirmed in any branch, including the Justice Department. So there are plenty of people who could serve as acting attorney general until a permanent one is named. So there are plenty of options here, but Sessions needs to do the right thing and resign.

HANNITY: All right, guys. Thanks.

When we come back, the former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton has reaction to the president's speech to the United Nations from earlier today.

That and we kind of have a big announcement and some good news to share with you at the end of the show straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JACKIE IBANEZ, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: This is a Fox News Alert. I am Jackie Ibanez in New York.

A powerful earthquake shaking central Mexico killing at least 139 people. The 7.1 magnitude tremor causing buildings to collapse and plumes of dust. You can see it there. The mayor of Mexico City says nearly four different buildings collapsed in the capital alone. The quake comes less than two weeks after another powerful trembler killed 90 people in the country's south. It happened on the anniversary of the 1985 quake that killed thousands.

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I am Jackie Ibanez. Now back to "Hannity."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It is far past time for the nations of the world to confront another reckless regime, one that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing death to America, destruction to Israel, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room. The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: President Trump's historic speech at the United Nations from earlier today where he condemned the rogue regime in Iran. Joining us now, Fox News contributor, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton.

So ABC, fake news, first reaction is, oh, my gosh, this is bordering on a threat of war crimes by the president. Then the Democrats say it's bombastic and dangerous. And then I look at the one adult that has been on the world stage that has understood evil in our time, Prime Minister Netanyahu from Israel. And he said, you know what, in the over 30 years I've been listening to speeches at the U.N., in my experience, I've never heard a bolder and more courageous speech, he said. And the president spoke the truth about the dangers that face this world. That was my interpretation which obviously is a little different than the corrupt media and the Democrats.

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Look, I thought it was a great speech. I thought in particular the way he addressed the nuclear threat of North Korea, the nuclear threat of Iran were outstanding. You cannot be a great statesman, you cannot lead the United States unless you face reality. And the reality that President Trump faces is they are no good options because of 25 years of mishandling the North Korean and Iranian threats. And I think he put it right to the people in that hallway of the General Assembly, and I think he's made the best case he's made so far to the American people about why these threats need to be dealt with.

HANNITY: It's funny, because earlier you said it was the best speech of his presidency. I asked Newt earlier tonight, I asked what about this kinetic option? And he gave a pretty good explanation about military capabilities that most Americans have no knowledge of, which they shouldn't. I should not know about it. But if the speaker described it correctly, where we could wipe out all communications and everything that Rocket man Kim Jong-un, as the president calls him, has at his avail, that to me would be the one good option that nobody is talking about. True or false?

BOLTON: True. Look, the president said expressly which respect to North Korea, but it was clear he meant it for Iran to, that denuclearization is the only option. That is to say, we're not going to live going forward with either of these countries having a nuclear capability.

So they can either give it up voluntarily which isn't going to happen, that's what the last 25 years proves, or we can change the regime, and there are possible ways of doing that, or we are going to deal with nuclear weapons through military force.

The concern specifically with respect to Korea about the use of force is the retaliation that North Korea might undertake. And I think a large part of the planning that has gone on at the Pentagon before and is going on now is how you minimize North Korea's capability to retaliate because the president's job -- we are very concerned about North Korea and Japan. We should be. But the president has got to be concerned about American citizens first. And I think that's the lesson that comes out of this speech. It was very clear that if his objective is to denuclearize these two countries, time is running out to do it peacefully.

HANNITY: I don't know how any American could be against putting their security first. Ambassador, good to see you. Thank you, great insight.

BOLTON: Good to be with you.

HANNITY: When we come back, former governor Mike Huckabee is here. And later, I sat down with the Egyptian president el-Sisi for an exclusive interview about radical Islam and so much more. You don't want to miss this straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The United States will forever be a great friend to the world and especially to its allies. But we can no longer be taken advantage of or enter into a one-sided deal where the United States gets nothing in return.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: More of the president's speech at the U.N. today. Joining us now, Fox News contributor, former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee. It really is an amazing compare-contrast. It's not an apology. It's not appeasement. It is a direct -- it's a direct response to the evil of this generation. And the fact that people on the left don't appreciate that, I'm trying to understand what it is that they want, because bribing Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong Il didn't work. Bribing the mullahs in Iran will not work. And anything short of appeasement, they seem to find offensive. Your reaction?

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: His speech today was bold and it was a mark of clarity. But more importantly, Sean, this wasn't a rally. This wasn't one of those rallies that he would give in Phoenix or Springfield, Illinois, or even Missouri. This was directly to people who didn't like him, who didn't want to hear his message. And he said it to their face. This was a gutsy speech. It both vindicated everything people had tried to say about him and it validated him as a world leader who deserves to be on that stage.

I thought it was a brilliant speech, and I frankly think that when he called little Kim "Rocket man," that was a very powerful moment because he didn't try to go up and play the role of the diplomat, because diplomacy sometimes is a bunch of people pretending to be polite. He just spoke to them.

HANNITY: I was like queue Elton John. I think we have music that can accompany that line. But it's also him being him, which I think is so important for anybody to be successful in whatever they do. You have got to be yourself.

I want to go to the other issue, the top story tonight, and that is we did learn the president was right back in March, early March. When he said Trump Tower was being surveilled. We reported it on the eighth on this program, of March. And we had pretty much incontrovertible, overwhelming evidence. Now the media is reporting what we were saying back then as it relates to Manafort.

Here's my question. We give our intelligence community -- I love these guys -- we give them the most powerful weapons to fight back against the evil in our time. And if they weaponize -- if they use these weapons against the American people, we will have no Fourth Amendment rights and no constitution because that means they are surveilling the American people. They're not getting a warrant. It's illegal search and seizure. And we keep hearing about it again and again with this surveillance, unmasking and leaking of intelligence, and nobody seems to be dealing with it. That to me is privacy 101. Whatever your political orientation, you should agree that this is paramount in this country.

HUCKABEE: You really should. Every American should be scared to death that their own government would use all of its resources, its unlimited resources, to come after a private citizen because they have an agenda toward that private citizen, not because that private citizen has given probable cause of having committed some specific crime, but because that private citizen represents a political point of view that is not one in keeping with whoever it is that is running the government at the moment, whether it's to the right or to the left. Sean, we lose this great republic if that should become the norm in this country. We can't let it happen.

HANNITY: All right, governor, good to see you.

When we come back, yesterday I sat down with the Egyptian president el- Sisi. I asked him how do we combat radical Islam? And a big announcement, and a little bit of good news, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So earlier today at the U.N., the Egyptian president, he addressed the United Nations. Yesterday I sat down with President el-Sisi to talk about how his country is helping to fight radical Islamic terrorism and much more. I think you will find this interesting. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: Mr. President, it's a great honor to have you. Welcome to the United States.

ABDEL FATTAH EL-SISI, EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT: It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you very much.

HANNITY: Thank you.

You took one of the most courageous stands I have very seen on the world stage as it relates to radical Islam. And I want to remind our audience what you said, and you gave a speech and it was translated, and you were talking about the Islamic world and the destruction of the rest of the world, and you said -- you raised a question. You said is a possible that 1.6 billion Muslims should want to kill the rest of the world inhabitants, that is 7 billion, so they themselves may live? Impossible. And then you said Islam needs a religious revolution. And I want you to go into that further. Explain.

EL-SISI (through translator): Here I was talking about the false ideas that misrepresent this religion. And I was talking about such steps of ideology that can be adopted by some people which led to what we can see around in this world now because terrorism and extremism that we see practiced by some, and the extremist organizations are just misinterpretation of such religion.

So when we talk about rectifying the religious rhetoric it means that we want to filter the false ideology and the misconceptions of those who follow it so that we don't see what we see happening around us.

HANNITY: In this city, I grew up in New York. I've lived around the rest of the United States. In this city we lost 3,000 people and it led to a big war on terror. Does the world, the people of this world need to unite against modern-day evil that is radical Islam? Would you like to see that?

EL-SISI (through translator): The extremist ideology is not the only thing. It's the extremist organizations as well. We need to confront those in the Arab Islamic world and the whole world community. And we all need to stand firm with a comprehensive strategy against these, and it's not confined to military security. Confrontation has to have a comprehensive one with a lot of other components, economic, social, cultural, in addition to security and military components of this confrontation.

HANNITY: When you indoctrinate children into believing they are doing the work of a creator, of Allah, whatever the religion, into believing that when they kill innocents, and this is men, women, and children, how is it possible that you get to the root cause of it?

And one of the things that I liked about your speech is you addressed the radicalism had on. That's what was courageous. I think there has been a timidity, a cowardice almost when it comes to saying "radical Islamic terror." In this country, people that say "radical Islamic terrorism" are criticized. Does that surprise you?

EL-SISI: Criticism and deference are normal with any idea, whether the idea has already been proposed or is now being proposed. But let me tell you that I want you to imagine this. If one in 1,000 people from the 1.6 billion Muslims becomes radicalized, how many radicalized people would be in the world, one million, 100,000? And this is of course a hypothetical number. But let me explain here one thing, that we don't want to tarnish the whole Muslims with one brush because of the malpractices of some extremists.

Again, I am saying the confrontation cannot be confined to New York or the United States. But we in our part of the world have borne the brunt of this extremism and terrorism and for many years, not only from the last decade. We are the most people who paid the highest price for the extremists in the world.

HANNITY: That is true, more Muslims have been killed by radicalized Muslims than any other group. I concede the point. You yourself had to take military action with the death of 21 Coptic Egyptian Christians dealing with ISIS in Libya at the time. And you took strong military steps. So it would be good in my view if the world would recognize the radicalism and confront it. Fair?

EL-SISI: Absolutely. I want to say that this was the first time when we deployed our troops outside the territory of Egypt to attack these elements when that slaughter took place. In Egypt as a responsible leadership for the whole nation couldn't just sleep at night or miss that night without retaliating.

HANNITY: You took it a step further. Your country, for example, recognizes that the Muslim Brotherhood, you designated it, I agree with you, as a terrorist organization. You have asked the United States to similarly designate this as a terror organization. But there's been resistance in the United States like there was resistance to identifying radical Islamists. Why do you think there's this resistance to just identify those people that would commit evil in our time against innocent men, women, and children?

EL-SISI: The United States is a great country. And it's the superpower in the world. It has different shades of ideologies. And the United States has its own perspective that we respect and admire. Maybe it takes more time on the part of the United States until they recognize that the extremist organizations have bad impacts not only in the United States but on the whole world.

And the United States is responsible not only for the safety and well-being of Americans but of the whole world. And I'm asking the people to ponder at the extremism and it's ideology and stand unified as one from whatever the names are, Boko Haram, Daesh. These are different names of the same entity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: When we come back, I have some good news, and a big announcement. I hope you will stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." I have some good news. I'm pretty excited to announce that I am an executive producer of my first movie. It's called "Let There Be Light," a movie the whole family can see. The movie just won best picture at the Canadian International Faith and Family Film Festival. By the way, here's a preview of the movie. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you discover that everything you believe is a lie, where do you find the truth?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you consider consulting a different source?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You come to me and you say Pastor Benny, what does "let there be light" mean?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What if it's a simple as this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This ain't brain surgery. Jesus gets whacked, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've never exactly heard it put that way, but yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe that God hears?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: God always answers prayers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: Don't worry, I don't play a big role. It's been two years in the making, very, very proud of this project that I've been a part of, and we will soon be announcing where the theaters are. It will debut in theaters on October the 27th, and we will tell you when and where you can go watch it. We hope you'll enjoy it, and your whole family can go.

That's all the time we have left this evening. As always thank you for being with us. Don't forget, next Monday back to our old time slot at 9:00 p.m. eastern, 6:00 pacific. And let's just say we have a few surprises next week. Hope you'll join us then, hope you'll join us tomorrow night, and have a great evening.

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