Attorney for Kim Davis speaks out, Huckabee blasts 'judicial overreach' in case

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Huckabee blasts 'judicial overreach' in Kim Davis case

Presidential candidate stands up for Kentucky clerk released from jail on 'Hannity'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 8, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to "Hannity." And tonight, a second review of Hillary Clinton's e-mails by two government intelligence agencies, in fact, confirm that top secret information was, in fact, on her private server and that the information was classified at the time that she received it.

And earlier tonight, Clinton actually apologized finally for her e- mail scandal. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:  That was a mistake. I'm sorry about that. I take responsibility. And I'm trying to be as transparent as I possibly can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And joining us now with more is Ed Henry. By the way, not only it was the top secret designation, the highest classification available. She had denied this repeatedly. Why the turnaround?

ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sean, this is an independent review by the intelligence community, so she's not admitting that there was no top secret information. That's why there's no turnaround from her. The intelligence community, though, is bolstering their case, as they previously said in that first review, that they believe there was classified and in a couple of cases perhaps top secret information.

This is challenging her narrative yet again. That's, in part, why she's doing these interviews. That ABC part about saying, "I'm sorry" -- she's trying to clean up Friday's interview with NBC News, where she stopped short of an apology and said she was only sorry that this had been confusing to voters.

Also at work here is that after joking about her e-mail, she's trying to show a more contrite tone in these interviews. Today in The New York Times, Her campaign admitted this is part of a poll-tested approach. They said after a recent focus group where voters said they wanted to hear more on the e-mails, they decided to get more transparent and she started taking more questions from the media, her advisers ironically revealing in this carefully coordinated leak to The New York Times they want to bring more spontaneity to what has been a cautious campaign and that they actually have a strategy to have Clinton show more humor and heart.

Well, veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod tweeted, quote, "Today's New York Times story on HRC read more like The Onion, her detailed plan to show more authenticity and spontaneity, hashtag #justdoit."

To show that more spontaneous side, Clinton herself retweeted an MSNBC clip of her answering personal questions. At one point, she was pressed about whether she prefers e-mailing or texting. She actually laughed and said e-mail. That may have been off message, especially, as you say, on a day when we're learning this second review by the intelligence community is saying there was, in fact, classified information in that server, Sean.

HANNITY: Ed, are we supposed to believe, as this New York Times piece points out, that she wants to show more humor? I don't exactly look at Hillary and think Chris Rock, Larry the Cable Guy or Jimmy Kimmel. So it sounds kind of manufactured. And I'm not surprised that David Axelrod thinks it's silly.

HENRY: I think that's what Axelrod is exactly trying to get at, which is you remember George H.W. Bush at one point saying, "Message, I care," you know, taking a poll-tested message from advisers and sort of spitting it out to voters. You don't come across as authentic. Same problem for Richard Nixon, the wingtips on the beach.

Hillary Clinton has a problem connecting with middle class voters, even as she pushes a middle class message. That is why the campaign is very worried and that's why they're trying to shift course tonight.

HANNITY: But also, remember, the words that come out of people's mouths that describe her were not very flattering. First word was "liar," so -- let me ask you about this State Department employee that was being paid to monitor the server that was in the closet of the bathroom of the mom and pop organization that will plead the 5th.

What do we know about this employee? Did he report the income? Did they report it to the State Department?

HENRY: Well, that may be one reason why he took the 5th because the early reporting we've done suggests he did not report to the State Department, to the federal government that he had made extra money on the side. That's could be a reason why he's told Congress and we're also told the FBI that he doesn't want to testify because of fear of self- incrimination. We don't know the full story. We only know part of it tonight.

I think the other issue here is, don't forget what happened on Labor Day. Vice President Joe Biden was out on the campaign trial and was hearing from voters, Run, Joe, run. And he said, Look, go talk to my wife, suggesting the door is open, but he's still perhaps trying to get his wife on board, Sean.

HANNITY: All right, Ed Henry, thanks so much, covering the Clinton campaign for us.

Now, the author of a brand-new book joins us, "A Disgrace to the Profession." The one and only Mark Steyn is with us.

You know, I don't even know what to think of this. This campaign is in significant, in my opinion, legal trouble. Then you have this poor clerk in Kentucky who we'll talk about in a second, you know, the handcuffs, perp walk, fingerprinted, mug shot, put in jail.

MARK STEYN, "A DISGRACE TO THE PROFESSION" AUTHOR: Right.

HANNITY: And...

STEYN: Right.

HANNITY: ... now we've got Hillary Clinton's campaign saying, oh, they want to show that she's funny. I don't look at Hillary Clinton and see Larry the Cable Guy. I don't see Chris Rock. I just don't see it!

(LAUGHTER)

STEYN: Well, I -- actually, as David Axelrod pointed out, it's hilariously funny to have your campaign spokesman announce that you're planning to be more spontaneous. I mean, I gather that Hillary's director of spontaneity has announced that she's going to be spontaneous this Thursday at 2:00 PM at Bud's diner in Nashua, New Hampshire.

So if you're there, you'll get the chance -- and you're -- and you've undergone the background check, you'll get the chance to see...

(CROSSTALK)

STEYN: ... Hillary being spontaneous this Thursday.

HANNITY: And if you sign the loyalty pledge before they let you into the event! I mean, it's getting a little crazy.

STEYN: Yes. No, no. That's actually -- that actually is what is -- I mean, this is a post-modern campaign. The point about campaigning in something like the New Hampshire primary is that you encounter voters, and you persuade them to vote for you. They were a Bernie Sanders guy, but they go to a Hillary event, and they're so stunned by her spontaneity and her humor that they switch.

With the Hillary campaign, you have to announce before they'll let you into it that you're pledging your lifelong allegiance to Hillary. So in other words, the campaign has conceded that she is incapable of political persuasion.

That's why politicians go on the stump. That's why they have whistlestop tours. Without it, there's no point to doing it! You might as well just mail in your pledge, or e-mail it to the server in the toilet in Colorado!

HANNITY: All right...

STEYN: This campaign is a joke, but not in the way that Hillary's poll-tested director of humorologically (ph) approved campaigned spontaneous ad-libs and quips would like!

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Just like a town hall, where they bus in all the people that are having -- asking spontaneous questions.

STEYN: Right.

HANNITY: As long as you're a Democratic operative, you get in. But there's more bad news...

STEYN: Right. Right.

HANNITY: Donald Trump is beating her now...

STEYN: No, no. That -- that's...

HANNITY: Go ahead.

STEYN: Yes. No, no, I was just going to say, I mean, this is -- this is the problem is that, basically, Hillary is the straight man. She's actually the butt of her own jokes. And that is why this campaign to announce that you're suddenly going to be lightening up and everything -- it's just -- that's never going to work.

HANNITY: You can't make it -- look, either you have it or you don't.  To her husband's credit, he's got that. You're the only person that matters to him in the world if he meets you. She doesn't have his warmth.

STEYN: Right. Right.

HANNITY: She doesn't read a teleprompter like Barack. She's got problems.

Latest poll, Donald Trump beating her 5 points in a head-to-head matchup.

STEYN: Right.

HANNITY: Bernie Sanders up 9 points in New Hampshire, gained on her significantly...

STEYN: Right.

HANNITY: ... in Iowa. Joe Biden's numbers are now going up. And you know, now we have a second review of only 40 e-mails, and they have determined, yes, there was top secret information about North Korea's nuclear program, including satellite imagery.

She lied to the American people! Now it's a legal issue. Don't you think that's her bigger -- should be her bigger concern at this moment?

STEYN: Yes, I think so. I mean, I think there's no doubt now that she broke the law. There's no doubt she committed a crime. And she committed a crime that if she were anybody else, she would be in jail for.

And as you mentioned a couple of minutes ago, it's happened at a time when a low-level county official has -- was dispatched to jail.

HANNITY: Yes. All right...

STEYN: And that actually is one of the big issues in this country, whether we're bifurcating into a system whereby if you belong to a certain privileged elite, the laws don't apply to you. And the Clinton assumption has always been that the laws don't apply to them.

So if we're in a situation now where it's taken for granted by everyone from the CIA and the other intelligence agencies that she, in fact, broke the law, and she is wandering around with impunity that nobody else would be allowed to get away with, I don't see how long she can carry on campaigning.

And Joe Biden, you know -- in 2008, the Democrats were told Hillary is the heir presumptive. Let her get on with it and win the nomination. And she loused it up. She defeated herself.

This time around, Joe Biden was told again Hillary is the heir presumptive. And she's loused it up again!

HANNITY: Yes.

STEYN: And the fact is that neither he nor any other Democrat should sit around just watching this slow-motion train wreck.

HANNITY: Let me just go back and remind people, as big as this e-mail server is getting, she was the one that was excoriating the Bush administration for, quote, "using private e-mails." And she also admitted at another time, oh, that she didn't use an e-mail or write anything down for fear of being subpoenaed. You may remember these.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Our Constitution is being shredded. We know about the secret wiretaps. We know about the secret military tribunals, the secret White House e-mail accounts. It is a stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you keeping a diary? You keeping good notes of what's happening?

CLINTON: Heavens, no. I'd get subpoenaed. I can't write anything down!

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right, so she admits she doesn't write anything down, Mark, and then she excoriates them for a secret e-mail. You know, and then there's all the other lies. This is why people -- the number one adjective people, unsolicited, the word they use to describe her is "liar."

Remember when she said she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire? Let's remind people.

STEYN: Right. Right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I remember landing under sniper fire. It was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead, we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right, now, Mark, I'm showing video right now. I'm going to show the video of her actually landing in Bosnia. She's walking.  There's no ducking. There's no dodging. She's being met with flowers.

So she has a history of lying...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: ... and hypocrisy. I mean, this is -- this -- what do you think in terms of the ads that people could make against her?

STEYN: Well, you know, I think you can get away with it if you're like Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton is a liar, and he tells the lie he needs to tell to get out of the situation he's in. And he does so very charmingly.

And the point is, Hillary, I think, would possibly have a sporting chance of surviving this if there was any good side to her campaign.

But everything about her campaign is tone deaf. When she was endorsed by Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire over the weekend, she had this ridiculous choir of arhythmic white NPR-listening women pretending to do some Negro spiritual where they'd substituted Jesus' name and replaced it with Hillary.

I don't know whether that's -- you know, who thought that was a great idea, whether they're going to do that with every well-known hymn, What a friend we have in Hillary. She walks with me and she talks with me and tells me poll-tested jokes. I don't know whether they're going to do that with every beloved hymn.

But the fact is, there's no upside. It's not as if she's a great rogue, which is what Bill Clinton is. And you know he's an unprincipled rogue, but he gets away with it because the charming bits are very charming.

Here, when she's not being criminal, she's just being wooden and unlikable. And the danger for the Democrats is that Bernie Sanders will end up sneaking this thing away from her in Iowa and New Hampshire, and her so-called South Carolina firewall is going to crumble, too.

HANNITY: Absolutely.

STEYN: That strategy won't work.

HANNITY: I don't think that's going to work, either. By the way, if they ever change "Amazing Grace" to "Amazing Hillary," I'm done. I'm out.  It's over. We've lost.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: All right, Mark Steyn, good to see you.

STEYN: Amazing Hillary...

HANNITY: Oh!

STEYN: ... swing low, sweet Hillary. Don't forget that one.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: I won't forget all the great hymns.

All right, and coming up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...

KIM DAVIS, ROWAN COUNTRY, KENTUCKY, CLERK: I just want to give God the glory! His people have rallied, and you are a strong people!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: The Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples was finally released from prison earlier today. Governor Mike Huckabee was with her today and will join -- he'll join us next along with Kim Davis's lawyer.

And then later -- Hillary Clinton would actually lose to Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, according to a recent poll. We'll check in with Laura Ingraham and Steve Hayes next here to respond.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So earlier today, Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis was released from jail. Now, Davis had been behind bars for six days after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Standing by in D.C. with the latest details, our own Shannon Bream tonight -- Shannon.

SHANNON BREAM, FOX CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sean, Kim Davis was overcome with emotion as she thanked the hundreds who'd gathered to support her today, shortly after the same judge who ordered her to jail set her free, but not without conditions. Federal judge David Bunning warned Davis that if she interfered with her deputy clerk's efforts to issue marriage licenses, she could be again facing fines and jail.

While Davis has been behind bars, five of her deputy clerks have been issuing licenses to all couples, altering them so that Rowan County, rather than Davis's name, appears on the document. Her legal team says that is not good enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whether her name is on it or not, it's under her authority. We say the clerk of Rowan County -- we know that that clerk is Kim Davis. She cannot allow her name to be associated with something that conflicts with God's definition of marriage!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: 2016 GOP presidential contender and former governor Mike Huckabee quickly rushed to defend Davis last week, and he headlined today's rally in her support.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will stand with Kim! We will stand with the Constitution! And we will stand with our faith and will not be bullied, no matter even if they incarcerate us!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BREAM: Senator Ted Cruz, also a 2016 GOP candidate, was not part of the Huckabee event, but he did also visit Davis in jail today. She could be back to work as early as Thursday -- Sean.

HANNITY: All right, Shannon. Thanks so much for that report.

Joining me now is one of the attorneys for Kim Davis. Roger Gannam is with us. The thing I'm trying to understand here, why jail, fingerprinted, mugshots, six days in jail? Are we criminalizing now Christianity or somebody that has a deeply held religious faith or view?

ROGER GANNAM, ATTORNEY FOR KIM DAVIS: Thanks for having me on, Sean.  And that's exactly right. There is no reason why Kim Davis needed to go to jail for this, especially when a very reasonable and easy accommodation would be available that would allow her to keep her conscience intact and would allow marriage licenses to flow from Rowan County.

HANNITY: Yes, can -- I think an argument can be made, can't it, considering, I guess, this is the first time that a society has changed the definition of marriage -- couldn't the case be made that her job description has dramatically changed?

GANNAM: Well, there's no doubt that when Kim Davis ran for office and was elected to office and took her oath, marriage was defined as one man and one woman in Kentucky law, and really, it still is. The Supreme Court decision imposes same-sex marriage on all the states against their laws.

But in this case, the governor of Kentucky had the opportunity to exempt any clerk who had a conscientious objection to participating in someone else's same-sex marriage. But rather than take that opportunity, which was really his duty under Kentucky law, the governor just ran roughshod over all the clerks' rights and said, Issue the licenses under my command.

HANNITY: But don't the people eventually get to decide this? I mean, that's the important part here. And it was Kim willing to accept the accommodation or a different job so she didn't have to participate in something -- a new statute that shifted her job description.

GANNAM: Well, Kim Davis asked the legislature to take action on this issue well before the Supreme Court's decision in June. She did it within weeks of becoming elected. So this wasn't a spur of the moment decision for her not to issue licenses.

But the fact is, she was elected to the Rowan County clerk office, and she's doing a great job for Rowan County. Marriage licenses are less than one tenth of 1 percent of what she does there.

HANNITY: Yes.

GANNAM: But like all persons under Kentucky law, she's entitled to an accommodation for her conscience. The governor could very easily pass an executive order that says the licenses are issued under someone else's authority and under someone else's name, and that would satisfy Kim Davis.

HANNITY: All right, thank you, sir, for being with us. Roger we appreciate it.

Here now with more, 2016 Republican presidential candidate, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Governor, you did go as far. You said this is criminalizing Christianity. I think the 1st Amendment is very, very clear, the free exercise thereof.

This was not the job description when she was elected. I think she probably has a pretty strong lawsuit at the end of this. Thoughts.

HUCKABEE: Well, I hope she does. And Sean, one of the things that I find amazing -- I was in Gitmo a few years ago and went down there to see what was going on with the detainees.

We accommodated the terrorists. We painted stripes in the cell to point toward Mecca, gave them a prayer rug, made sure they had Muslim- approved halal meals because we wanted to be sure to accommodate the faith of terrorists.

Are you telling me that we cannot just somehow accommodate a person, an humble Christian woman, who by the way is a Democrat, and at least allow her to carry out her conscience because of what the Supreme Court has I think illegally ruled would violate her basic obedience to God?

HANNITY: But she's also an elected official. And I understand there's a job description for that job. But the job description changed since the time she was elected. Isn't there something -- would you support the idea of states deciding this issue?

HUCKABEE: Well, that's how it has always been. There's not a word in the federal Constitution about marriage. Nothing. The Supreme Court had to legislate from the bench in one of the most overreaching decisions they've ever made. This is a mark, Sean, not just of judicial overreach, but it really comes to judicial tyranny.

Everybody who ever passed civics knows the three branches of government are equal and everybody knows that the courts can't pass a law.  They can review one. They can rule on the constitutionality of one. But then they can't just go ahead and prescribe exactly what it looks like.  That's why we have a legislature. It's why we elect people to be in the House or the Senate, so that they have the power of the purse and can actually create the law. Then the executive branch signs it and enforces it.

HANNITY: Governor, what are we...

HUCKABEE: This is an extreme court that wants to be all three branches!

HANNITY: I think I agree with you almost -- fully and completely here. My issue is, we almost seem to be on a collision course here, and that is changing cultural...

HUCKABEE: We are.

HANNITY: ... mores, and the Constitution and freedom of religion. In this particular case, a woman of Congress, a Christian, that is practicing her faith, a job description changes because a court decides.

You know, what do you see in the future? I never understood why they put this woman in jail for six days with, you know, rapists and murderers and thieves! All right, so she didn't sign -- she wasn't going to sign the paper. Don't you think this is a bit of an overreach? And do you see more of this coming?

HUCKABEE: When an unelected judge puts an elected official in jail for doing the job that she has, which is following the only law that she has in front of her -- it's interesting to me that she's incarcerated without bail. My gosh, John Wayne Gacey...

HANNITY: Yes, because she had the ability to pay bail. That was amazing, too.

HUCKABEE: (INAUDIBLE) bail.

HANNITY: Unreal. All right, Governor, we'll watch...

HUCKABEE: But I'll tell you -- you asked what's coming. I'll tell you what's coming. I'll tell you what's coming, Sean. It's -- next, it's going to be your pastor, the head of your Christian school. Who else is going to go to jail before this over? This is long from over. We have to stand up for what's right.

HANNITY: In other words, if they won't marry or they won't hire...

(CROSSTALK)

HUCKABEE: ... what's constitutional.

HANNITY: Well, we saw this with the Little Sisters of the Poor, right? We saw this...

HUCKABEE: Exactly.

HANNITY: Yes. All right, Governor, good to see you. We'll see you out on the campaign trail. Thank you.

And coming up, we have new poll numbers are in. They do reveal in a head-to-head matchup, Donald Trump would now beat Hillary Clinton if the general election were held today. We'll check in with Laura Ingraham, Stephen Hayes. They're here to weigh in.

Later, conservative economist brilliant scholar Thomas Sowell is here to weigh in on the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2016 election, and much more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." A new poll by SurveyUSA has Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton 45 to 40 percent in a head-to-head matchup. Now, it's still early, but can the Republican front-runner keep the momentum going?

Here with reaction, editor-in-chief of Lifezette.com, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, from The Weekly Standard, Steve Hayes. Both are wonderful FOX News contributors.

Laura, I'm looking at, number one, we got Trump. Number two, we got Carson. Number three, we got Carly, and number four is Ted Cruz in a lot of the polls. Those are four insurgent candidates!

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Not the favorite of the GOP establishment.

HANNITY: I don't think so.

INGRAHAM: And Carly Fiorina -- Carly Fiorina, by the way, snagged 25 endorsements over the Labor Day weekend from fairly prominent folks in northern New Hampshire. Obviously, Trump is on the top of most polls, has been for a while, despite all these predictions, including, I think, early on my own, that, Well, I think he's going to get bored of all this, he's going to, you know, kind of flame out.

And what I think we see is that for now, at least, people see only one candidate really talking about those bread-and-butter issues of the middle class. And he's offering, I think, hope to a lot of people.

And these other candidates are, like, Look, the establishment's failing. We're going to fix it. So Carson and Fiorina and Cruz and Trump all together represent, I think, the average American, again, right now in the election.

Things can change. And I know Trump has a lot of folks who don't like him or think he's not conservative. But I think for now, people just want their lives to get better and they -- they'd like an outsider to lead the way.

HANNITY: I think they do. And I think it also runs a little deeper in this sense, Steve, is that conservatives like Laura, myself -- we're looking at Republicans that promised, what, in the 2014 election, Oh, they're going to stop this illegal, unconstitutional executive amnesty.  Five years in, we still haven't repealed and replaced "Obama care" because they don't want to get blamed for a government shutdown.

Wait for this fight coming over the issue of funding Planned Parenthood. Are they going to back down because they're afraid they'll be blamed for a government shutdown? In other words, haven't they really earned the contempt of conservatives? They've created this problem, haven't they?

STEPHEN HAYES, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, look, in many respects, I think they have. And I think if you look at movement conservatives, people who've been involved in the conservative movement for, you know, a decade or two decades, like you and like Laura, like me, the disagreement isn't so much...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I didn't mean to keep you out of the list, by the way, but Laura and I are a little more right-wing than you. But go ahead.

HAYES: Oh, that's right. I'm a RHINO establishment. I forgot.

(CROSSTALK)

HAYES: This is new. This is new.

Look, if you look at people who have been involved in the conservative movement for a couple decades, the disagreement isn't so much in what the problems are, it's whether Donald Trump is the solution to those problems.

I agree with so much of the assessments that you just talked about, the things that Laura is saying...

HANNITY: Yes, but why is Ted Cruz hated? Why is he a pariah because he stood up to fulfill the promise that all those other guys made? Why is he a pariah to these guys?

HAYES: Look, I think in many ways he's embarrassed them. He's taken them head on from inside the Senate. And I think it's obvious why they wouldn't like him. If you don't want things to be disrupted in Washington, you don't like Ted Cruz. That explains it I think in a fairly simple way.

HANNITY: So Ted is resonating. That's interesting.

All right, Laura, next question. Joe Biden I think is going to get into the race. Can the guy that actually said about Barack Obama, he's a mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean, a nice looking guy, can that guy win? Can that gaffe machine win?

LAURA INGRAHAM, EDITOR IN CHIEF, LIFEZETTE.COM: That's part of his charm, Sean, all those gaffes. You can pull the string and it's a gaffe-o- matic. But it's part of his charm.

I think Biden has in many ways a lot of the charm, different substance, different ideas but a lot of the charm of Trump, right? He looks like a working class guy, rolls up the sleeves. Now, Trump doesn't look like a working class guy necessarily, but he relates to them. He has a way with people that is endearing. I know he's infuriating to a lot of people, but Biden also has that. He has the fluidity on the stump. Even if he make as gaffe, somehow people find it -- oh, that's Joe. So I think he's going to be a lot harder to beat than Hillary.

HANNITY: Maybe so. What do you think Steven?

HAYES: I agree with that. I would argue, to take the negative on Laura's comparison there, I would argue they both say a lot of stupid stuff as well. But, look, I think, you know, Joe Biden is somebody who can come into this race, particularly when he's running at a time, if he runs, when Hillary Clinton is saying she's going to be authentic, she's going to have a reset of her campaign. We're going to now see the true Hillary Clinton, the one that's been hidden from all these years.

HANNITY: The one that makes us laugh like Larry the Cable Guy?

HAYES: You know, she's already now she's apologizing for something that just yesterday she said wasn't a mistake. That's not the best way to rebrand yourself as authentic.

But Joe Biden, look, as much as we laugh about the things he says sometimes, and I think he's tough to defend President Obama administration like he would have to do, obviously, he does speak from the heart. He says things in an unscripted way. And I think that accounts for a lot of his gaffes, but I think it's also appealing.

HANNITY: We'll, we're going to continue this discussion. This is getting interesting. I think Trump has gotten stronger as a candidate, and it's showing itself on the campaign trail.

Good to see you both, thank you.

Coming up next tonight on "Hannity."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CORNELL WEST: Anytime you have black rage expressed based on black suffering in the face of white fear ground in white privilege, that clash is one in which you're going to get in fact some hyperbolic rhetoric.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Oh, really? Conservative economist Dr. Thomas Sowell, he is next to weigh in on the Black Lives Matter movement. He'll talk about his brand new book.

And then later, Citizens United is now seeking the help of the former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson to gain access to Hillary's e-mails. Can Hillary go to jail? We'll examine that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." So a local chapter of the Black Lives Matter caused a lot of controversy several days ago after they were caught on tape chanting a derogatory slogan about the police. Now, naturally many liberals rushed to defend the controversial group. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we have to not smear the entire movement because of one tiny part of a march where people said something despicable.  That is not representative of the whole movement for police reform.

WEST: Any time you have black raged expressed on based black suffering in the face of whited fear grounded in white privilege, that clash is one in which you're going to get in fact some hyperbolic rhetoric.  There's no doubt about that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're saying it was only hyperbolic?

WEST: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't run for president and not talk about Black Lives Mattering. That is a testimony to the power and the strength of this movement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now just to remind you what they said, this happened in Minnesota.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: Pigs in a blanket fry like bacon! Pigs in a blanket fry like bacon!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here now with his take on the Black Lives Matter movement, author of the brand new book "Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, an International Perspective," he's a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, our friend Thomas Sowell is back with us. Sir, how are you?

THOMAS SOWELL, AUTHOR, "WEALTH, POVERTY, AND POLITICS": I'm fine.

HANNITY: You know, why is it controversial to say that all lives matter? How did that become a controversy?

SOWELL: I'm still working on that. It will be a long time before I figure it out. All lives do matter.

HANNITY: All lives matter. We as conservatives, we're pro-life. We believe that every life matters. But yet this is apparently a controversial thing to say.

SOWELL: Well, I think there are people who have the movement and they have their idea of what's going to help. What's painfully tragic already, and it's going to get worse if it continues, is this notion that only black lives matter, because black lives are the ones that are being lost more so than any other lives in this great crusade against the police. Just the number of blacks killed additionally compared to last year in Baltimore alone, is up by some amount far --

HANNITY: Almost 80 percent. No, you're 100 percent right. Violent crimes -- and I think especially post the Freddie Gray, Michael Brown cases, you see police are afraid to do their job. So they're staying back.  They're not going into the dangerous neighborhoods. They're not taking on those with guns dealing drugs, et cetera, because they fear to do their job.

SOWELL: Absolutely. This is not even new is what gets me. About a decade ago, Heather McDonald did a book called "Cops are Racists." And she points out after the demagogues come out and they start trashing the police and so on, the police pull back. And the net result is the criminal element then has a freer hand and more blacks will be killed than there were before. So I don't know why you would keep going down that same road when it produces these same results, again and again.

HANNITY: So let me play for you a democratic candidate. It's not just Hillary in the race. She's got her problems, as we've been discussing. But I want to play former governor O'Malley. He said black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter. But more importantly, I want you to listen to the crowd reaction, immediately after he says white lives matter, all lives matter. Roll the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN O'MALLEY, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every life matters. And that is why this issue is so important. Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.

(BOOS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Then he apologized for saying all lives matter. But what are those boos tell you, professor?

SOWELL: I think that this is a movement which has a desire to have power and prominence, and logic doesn't mean much to them. And I'm afraid that no lives really matter very much to them if they can do this.

HANNITY: There's a poll that came out today, a Rasmussen poll, and it talked about President Obama and the issue of race. Only 20 percent of voters believe the president has brought Americans of different races together. And 47 percent think that he has driven different races further apart. Do you believe that?

SOWELL: Yes. It's part of the whole political polarization. You've got to turn women again men, blacks against whites, workers against employers, the whole bit, because that's how you get more votes and you try to convince as many people as possible that they are victims, and that only by turning to them can they be safe, because all other people are their enemies. To the extent that this works there will be more votes.

HANNITY: Dr. Sowell, you're a brilliant writer. You have taught economics at Cornell, at UCLA, at Stanford, you're at the Hoover Institution. You wrote a new book and in this new book you talk about all this, we keep hearing about income inequality lately. And this is what you deal with ere. And you talk about the disparity between nations, cultures, geographic, demographic, cultural imperatives that shape the wealth of nations and individuals. What is the characteristic for the 94 million Americans out of the labor force or the 50 million Americans that are in poverty, 46 million Americans on food stamps, those that are not successful economically? What is the answer? What have you learned?

SOWELL: Well, the most important thing I learned is that when you consider the factors involved -- geographic, cultural, political, et cetera, demographic, there was never ever any rational basis for expecting even approximate equality of incomes. So when we find that's the case, there's no point going and looking for some special villain because that's the way it is. But that doesn't mean that's the way it has to be, because many things have come along, many very poor people have risen to prosperity and sometimes great prosperity.

HANNITY: All right, so you're following the political race. Is there any one candidate out of the Republican 17 that grabs your attention the most, that you like the most?

SOWELL: I guess there are two -- Governor Scott Walker and Governor Bobby Jindal. And my main reason is that they are people who have done things and have had to take the responsibility for the consequences.

HANNITY: Dr. Sowell, good to see you, thank you for being with us.

SOWELL: Thank you.

HANNITY: And coming up, speaking of trouble for Hillary Clinton's campaign, you don't want to miss this. Former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson is now getting involved in the server scandal. He's going to help Citizens United access to all of her e-mails. He joins us next as "Hannity" continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Lawsuits against the State Department are piling up with groups seeking the State Department to release Hillary Clinton's records during her time as secretary of state.  One group, you might have heard of them. Citizens United has even enlisted for U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson to help gain access to Clinton's records. Here to explain much more, former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson, the president of Citizens United David Bossie. Not a bad deal, Bossie, having your name on a Supreme Court decision. I think that is pretty --

DAVID BOSSIE, CITIZENS UNITED PRESIDENT: Well, Sean, Ted, won it for me, so we're putting the team back together.

HANNITY: Yes. And Ted, how many times have you argued before the Supreme Court?

TED OLSON, FORMER U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: It's 61.

HANNITY: That is pretty impressive. You're one of the brightest attorneys in America, extraordinarily bright. Tell me the arguments that you will make to get the release of the records, and how soon do you think it could happen?

OLSON: Well, the judge already ordered many of these records to be produced. In fact, last May, four months ago, the judge had the parties in front of him -- this is Judge Emmitt Sullivan, federal district judge in Washington, D.C. And he said I'm going to set a schedule. And he looked to both parties and he said, let's work something out that we can agree upon.

And both sides, including the Justice Department lawyer, agreed that September 14th would be a part of the schedule that these documents will be produced on September 14th, that's seven days from today. And the judge specifically said you better be comfortable for that because I'm not going to give extensions. That's going to be the date. And the Justice Department lawyer said that's fine. We understand. No extensions. That's the date. So these documents, many of them, are due to be produced next Tuesday.

HANNITY: And we also had the Reuters report from earlier tonight, David, and they're going to shift at the State Department about 50 people to bolster through the sifting through of these emails coupled with the second review now. We have special intelligence review that in fact shows she did have classified material, top secret material involving North Korea's nuclear arms and satellite photos that she had to have known were classified, top secret.

BOSSIE: Sure. Look, if they want to do that with Hillary Clinton's documents about classification, I can understand that. And I'll be open- minding to hearing what they have to say.

However, the documents that we're expecting next week are Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin documents. I don't think many of those, I am hopeful that many of those don't have classification review issues. So if they want to give it to us in pieces we're open. But I can tell you, having a stay for four or six months is unacceptable to us.

HANNITY: I agree with you. And by the way, you started this two years ago, so a lot of credit given to you behind the scenes.

Ted, I want to ask you this question. I talked to Rudy Giuliani, former prosecutor himself. He has identified 12 to 13 statutes that may have been violated in all of this. You're the expert. You understand the law as well as anybody. Who do you see in terms of legal problems she may have?

OLSON: There is nobody who would know more than Rudy Giuliani. He was the associate attorney general at the same time I first served in the Justice Department, which is the individual responsible for virtually the entire department. He was the prosecutor in New York. He's a very, very careful lawyer. He knows what he's talking about. There are all kinds of laws involved here.

Now, David said that, well, if there is some problem with classification, he can understand how they have to go through the process.  These documents that he is entitled to next Tuesday, they have known about these documents for four months. They have had plenty of time to go through these things. If they had issues, they should have raised with the judge long before this. This motion now to try to delay everything comes along at the last minute. There's very little doubt in my mind that the motion the Justice Department and the State Department have made to delay everything and consolidate it before a different judge is because they had to produce these documents next week. They did not want Dave Bossie and Citizens United to have these documents. So this is a last-ditch effort to take the whole issue away from the judge who has ordered them to be produced.

HANNITY: Wow. Maybe a lot of late-night reading next week. Guys thank you for what you're doing. Thanks for your hard work, David, appreciate it. And Ted, we'll be watching closely.

When we come back, we need your help. Our "Question of the Day" is straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Time for tonight's "Question of the Day." So do you think the Kentucky county clerk should have been jailed in the first place? Let's see, handcuffed, perp-walked, mug-shotted? I don't think so, unless maybe Hillary is next. You never know.

We want to know what you think. Go to Facebook.com/SeanHannity, @SeanHannity on Twitter and let us know what you think.

That's all the time we have for tonight. We hope you'll set your DVR so you never miss an episode. We take attendance. We miss you when you're not here. Hopefully, we'll see you back here tomorrow night.

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