'Hannity' townhall with former President Trump at southern border

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Trump slams Biden, Congress in 'Hannity' townhall

Former president joins Sean Hannity for an exclusive interview from the southern border

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," June 30, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: And welcome to HANNITY.

And tonight, we are broadcasting from the South Texas airport. We're only a few miles from the U.S./Mexico border where for the entire hour we will be joined by the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, along with the Texas governor, Greg Abbott. And we'll also ask the president about some other questions, other issues of the day.

But, of course, Donald Trump, no stranger to the Southern Border after his predecessor Barack Obama left him with an absolute mess. President Trump, he made it his top priority to secure our nation's borders, and that means enforce laws, protect our sovereignty, protect our borders.

He restricted asylum cases. He stopped Obama's disastrous Catch-and-Release Program. He instituted what was known as the stay in Mexico policy for new migrants; he negotiated deals with several Latin American countries to expedite the deportation of illegal immigrants.

He successfully built nearly 500 miles of new border wall, and this is important because he told migrants around the world, do not come to America illegally. He was very clear. Don't make this dangerous trip. Don't send your children unaccompanied through Mexico, across the Rio Grande and the desert into the border.

Make no mistake: President Trump's actions and rhetoric were as effective as they've ever been. For example, look at this headline, quote: Trump immigration policy showing results with the illegal border crossings plummeting.

Here's another from "Axios": Illegal border crossings continue to fall as U.S. enforces asylum agreements. And another, quote: Like them or not, Trump policies are reducing illegal immigration.

Now, sadly, just after Joe Biden was sworn in, he reversed almost all of President Trump's border policies. Now, you might remember this, it was after Biden and Harris, they told migrants, oh, come to America, come seek asylum in America.

On the campaign trail Biden literally telling migrants to surge the border.

Let's play the videotape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What I would do as president is several more things, because things have changed. I would in fact make sure that there is -- we immediately surge to the border, all those people who are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That's who we are. We're a nation that says, if you want to flee, and you're fleeing oppression, you should come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: President sippy cup seemed a little more alert back then in 2019.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Now the results of Biden's border surge have been catastrophic.

In February, illegal immigration more than tripled, 100,000 illegal immigrants apprehended in February, 170,000 in March, 178,000 in April, and a whopping 180,000 in May. And by the way, that's only the number of people we caught.

They are record-setting numbers, a 30-year high for illegal immigration, and get this: more unaccompanied minors are now crossing our Southern border than ever before.

It is a crisis of a monumental scale. Border Patrol agents -- I spent a lot of time with them today -- they are overwhelmed, overworked.

Dangerous cartels, they are making millions in human trafficking and taking advantage of the fact that all the resources are being used to basically process people illegally into the country. That gives free rein to the drug dealers, the human traffickers.

We know where 90 percent of America's heroin comes from, our southern border. We know the Fentanyl crisis. We know the number of deaths that happen each and every week, about 300 all across America, because of these drugs.

Migrant facilities now operating at over 300 percent capacity, and with the help of the Biden administration, illegal immigrants are being relocated all over the U.S. in exchange for a mere promise to show up to a late court date, if that date is even given out.

This crisis has no end in sight, but instead of reinstating the successful policies of Donald Trump -- well, Joe Biden, he punted all border duties to his vice president, Kamala Harris, who for months and months flat out refused to even visit.

And she finally decided to make a stop in Texas -- well, she had time to stop by El Paso for a couple of hours on her way to Los Angeles. One big problem, El Paso is not where the current crisis is happening, it's happening right here where we are.

And according to a new Harvard/Harris Poll, voters now rate Kamala Harris' performance on immigration as poor. The same poll shows that 68 percent of voters believe the Biden administration, that they are to blame for this surge. Sixty-one percent also blaming Biden for the surge of unaccompanied minors, 55 percent think Donald Trump's border policies never should have been undone.

Eighty percent think illegal immigration is a serious issue, but it's not clear that the Biden administration is able or willing to secure our southern border.

Actions, they speak louder than words. And to that end, during his presidency, Donald Trump visited the southern border all by himself six times. Joe Biden has never visited, not once. Just think about that.

Now tonight, we're here of the crowd of great Americans including many friends of President Trump. I see my friend Louie Gohmert is in the crowd. Congressman Billy Long, he is here with us. Governor Abbott will join us on this stage.

But first joining us right now, right here in South Texas, the 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

DONALD TRUMP, 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: Wow. This is a big crowd.

(CROWD CHANTING)

TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, thank you.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, wow. What a group.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you, everybody.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you. Gosh. What a group.

HANNITY: Have a seat, sir.

OK, I just have one minor complaint. I did not get that reaction when I came out.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: Thank you.

HANNITY: Mr. President, great to have you.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Hi, Sean.

HANNITY: Boy, I guess, one question. If I asked this crowd, do you miss him yet, I think I know the answer.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: From day one, the day you and Melania Trump came down that escalator, you talked about securing our country's borders. You had to fight hard to get the money to build 500 miles of wall.

TRUMP: Yeah.

HANNITY: The "stay in Mexico" policy; you built the wall. You ended Catch- and-Release. Now we see what's happening.

Your reaction to all of it?

TRUMP: Well, there has never been a better time six months ago, and there's never been a worse time. We had the tightest security. You could come into our country legally.

But you know what else we were stopping -- massive amounts of drugs, human traffickers, bad, bad people, criminals; they're emptying their jails into our country. You know, other countries are emptying their jails into our country.

We never had it better, and now we've never had it worse, in the history of our country.

I just saw -- we were with the governor, the lieutenant governor, we were with Ken, we were with a whole group, I think the largest contingent of Congress, congresspeople ever at the border, from what I understand.

I think they're mostly here, too, by the way. I see them, a lot of them right in front of me.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We had the largest -- we even have Dr. Ronny, right? So, my doctor in the White House who became a congressman.

(APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: By the way, Ronny, would you mind giving Joe a cognitive test?

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: President sippy cup, I don't know how well he's going to do, but I won't get you in trouble --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: He gave me one, and we aced it. I think I can say that I aced it.

HANNITY: Did he get one - he didn't get one question wrong did he?

REP. RONNY JACKSON (R-TX): Thirty out of 30.

HANNITY: Thirty out of 30. Wow.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And they did get a little more difficult after you got by 15, I would say. But -

HANNITY: I heard the first three questions are, is it a giraffe or an elephant, right?

TRUMP: Well, you know, that's what the fake news is. They take the first two or three questions and they put that -- and they put them in.

But let me tell you, they would not get those last 15 right. Certainly, no the last 10, that I can tell you.

But anyway -- but we have a -- we have a border that's very bad right now and very dangerous for our country, and fortunately, we have a lot of great people in Texas in particularly -- the job they did --

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: You know what's fascinating? All of a sudden Biden is blaming you --

TRUMP: I know.

HANNITY: -- for the current crisis. And --

TRUMP: It's called misinformation. They've done it for five years, six years. Russia, Russia, Russia.

And I told you this -- I told Sean this story. I'd go around, people would say sir, do you know anything about Russia? This is when I'm running years ago. I'd say, no, no.

A month later, do you know anything about Russia? Another guy comes up, sir, do you know anything -- and then I get a call from -- do you know anything about Russia? I'd say, what's going on with Russia?

And it was the Russia hoax. That was misinformation. Now they're saying it was the Republican Party that wanted to defund the police. Did you hear that, Billy? Billy's not a big defunder of the police, I can tell.

The Republican Party wants to defund the police. This just started yesterday. I don't know how they're getting away with that one, but all you have to do is -- you know, the good thing with you, you take the old clips that nobody --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I played greatest hits last night, sir. Yes, I played them all. You know, when you look at what else is happening too -- and it's interesting that states like Florida and South Dakota and many others, they're offering Texas and Arizona support now.

TRUMP: That's right.

HANNITY: And their law enforcement, because in the dark of night, they're taking illegal immigrants, flying them into these states and now the states are responsible --

TRUMP: That's right.

HANNITY: -- for food and shelter and healthcare and education. They can't afford it.

TRUMP: And the states don't even know they're coming. They bring people in and the states don't even know. They say here you're taking this -- it's an allotment, it's called an allotment. And the governors -- Republican governors are -- by the way, you look at the well run states, it's all done by -- for the most part -- Republican governors.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: All of them. In terms of crime, in terms of everything else. We have great Republican governors, we really do.

HANNITY: So the policies that have been reversed -- Joe hasn't come to the border. You've been here many times. Kamala really didn't come to the border, it seemed like a photo-op to me.

What would you want them to know that they don't know, or maybe they do know and they don't seem to care about?

TRUMP: Well, Kamala wouldn't have come if she didn't hear I was coming.

HANNITY: That's true.

TRUMP: I was invited by the governor.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: -- and I said, yes -- and I said, yes, it would be my honor.

Because we were very proud of the job we did. Nobody's ever done the job that we've done. We built over -- now I guess it's close to 500 miles of wall. And we were going to build an extra 200 because we had money left over. We were going to do an extra 200. And nobody's ever done this.

And all he had to do is go another two months and the wall would have been totally completed. And by the way, they have to paint the wall. I'm going to give that job to Brian -- we have to paint -- a great congressman -- we have to paint the wall because it's starting to rust. It's supposed to be painted, and they don't even want to paint he wall. It's so disgraceful.

Two more months, everything would have been completed and they said, just like with the Keystone Pipeline, they're not going to do it -- 48,000 jobs out the window, and an environmental pipeline, much better than other forms of transportation for the product.

So, it's -- when you look at what's happening - and inflation is going to be the killer of them all, because inflation is going to destroy our country, the border is going to destroy our country.

And you know what else is going to destroy our country? Bad elections -- phony elections are going to destroy our country. That's going to destroy our country.

(APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: I want to get to all that. Let me -

(APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: - if Donald Trump - and we had a hard time getting video. There were even congressmen - and I know Louie was part of it. I know that Senator Ted Cruz was down here, and many others. I'm not ignoring a lot of you.

And I know that if it wasn't for them, they wouldn't allow our cameras in the new cages they were building for kids.

TRUMP: Yeah, yeah.

HANNITY: Now, in 2018 they accused you of putting children in cages. It turns out the video was from 2014.

TRUMP: Right.

HANNITY: You were not president.

Now, Joe Biden is building these cages in the middle of a pandemic, high rate of positive cases of COVID. Kids living on top of each other. Imagine for a second, what would the press have been like, and Democrats been saying if you had built these new cages which they're building all over here?

TRUMP: But I really had that, because in 2018 and even after 2018, they came out with these horrible pictures. And somebody came up and said, well -- it was the contractor. He said, but I built those cages in 2014 during Obama's administration.

And it wasn't Trump. It was Obama that built those cages. Got a little bit lucky.

And after we said that, all of a sudden, the whole cage thing went away.

But now they're building them again because there's so many kids coming in. And you know, many of the kids are on suicide watch -- something we've never heard of. Think of it, it's so miserable, it's so hot. It's like hell.

I mean, I just walked - I will say, although, right now, I think it was hotter in New York than it was in Texas, it was 101 degrees in New York. This was like -- I got here it was like cool.

But their kids are on suicide watch, think of that.

HANNITY: Sad.

TRUMP: It's so terrible.

HANNITY: Look at 90 percent of the heroin crosses that southern border.

TRUMP: Yes.

HANNITY: Now, fentanyl, we've had the two biggest fentanyl busts in the history of the country. We're losing over 300 Americans a week, in some cases more.

TRUMP: The worst thing of all.

A sheriff just said in at a meeting we had -- we had a roundtable, and these sheriffs are incredible. The law enforcement in Texas -- and other places --

HANNITY: Great.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: -- he said -- and I didn't even know this -- he said toward the end of our administration, we had fentanyl virtually stopped. Now he said it's coming in at levels that we've never seen before. We had it stopped. It was very tough to get -- it was nasty.

Getting through our border, especially with almost 500 miles of wall, it was nasty to get through.

And these people -- and I gave them the right to stop people. Now they're not even allowed to talk to people, you're not allowed to talk to people.

But again, people coming in is bad. Prisoners, and real serious criminals of the -- murderers walking in. I'll never forget, I'm watching, of all places, CNN, OK? This was a short-term watch --

(CROWD BOOING)

TRUMP: -- and they had a reporter -- no, this is before --

HANNITY: I can't hear you, what'd you say?

(CROWD BOOING)

HANNITY: OK.

TRUMP: Well, now their ratings are down 79 percent.

(CROWD CHEERING)

HANNITY: That's true.

TRUMP: But I'm watching CNN, and a woman reporter is asking what did you do, what did you do? It's a very famous clip (ph). And this guy looks at her, murder. She said what? Murder. And she -- immediately they cut off the camera, and that was the end of that.

But we have thousands of hardened criminals. Like, we don't even have in this country practically. MS-13, we took them out by the thousands.

You know, I told the story just now, we had the border -- the three countries primarily, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, MS-13 and other criminals were coming out, and they wouldn't take them back in the Obama administration.

They refused to take them back. They would have planes on the runway, so when our plane would want to land, they couldn't land. They would stop the buses.

And I said, well, do we pay these countries any money? They wouldn't take them back at the beginning of my -- the three countries -- I'm -- I know the heads of the three countries, and they're smart, they're very street- smart dictators --

HANNITY: Right.

TRUMP: OK. But they're very street-smart people. And I like them, they like me, we get along but, you know, it's like business is business.

HANNITY: You know they're evil, but they're not dumb.

TRUMP: I don't know, they're not -- look, we got along.

I said, how much do we pay those countries? Five-hundred-million dollars, sir, but what does that have to do with it, sir? It has everything to do -- don't pay anymore. We didn't pay, and then I was called (ph) --

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: -- stop payment.

You know what it's called? We stopped payment. Did you ever hear the term - - we stopped payment.

And we stopped payment, and then the next day, I get a call from all three. President, you stopped payment, no more money coming into the three countries. I said, that's right, you're not taking your criminals back. But we would love to, nobody asked us properly. We would love to take our --

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: -- we would love to take MS-13 back.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: They are wonderful people.

I said fine. We sent them back by the thousands, they took them.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: Yeah.

TRUMP: By the thousands.

But nobody's ever done that before. Nobody ever did it before.

HANNITY: Do you have a theory, an idea? Because I really can't think of one except that, you know, I think in years gone by, I would argue that there were Republicans that wanted illegal immigration so that they get cheap labor. And I think that Democrats want to provide something of great worth, which would be amnesty --

TRUMP: Yeah.

HANNITY: -- citizenship.

TRUMP: And you have RINOs. You do have RINOs. Look, the RINOs --

HANNITY: There's a lot of RINOs out there.

(CROWD BOOING)

TRUMP: The RINOs are -- these people -- you don't have any RINOs in this group. We've got to -- we probably have 45 congressmen here and women. You don't have any RINOs in this group.

But you have RINOs. I call them weak Republicans. They walk into the White House -- I've been watching for four weeks now -- they walk in, they meet Biden, he doesn't know what the hell's happening. They meet Biden --

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: -- he's sitting, and they're talking about infrastructure.

And finally, they walk out, they have a deal, and the deal is a terrible deal. But it's a deal, and it sort of reminds me of England a long time ago, we have a deal, we have a deal. You remember the deal they made with Germany? Not too good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

TRUMP: That didn't work out too well, right?

But it reminded me this -- they walk out, we have a deal, we have a deal. And it was the typical names -- there were a couple of good ones in there, I don't know how they got roped in. But they walk in --

HANNITY: Yeah.

TRUMP: So, they have a deal, and then Biden canceled the deal, because the radical left said you can't make that deal; that deal's no good. We want to spend $6 trillion.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: They would back door -- everything they didn't get in the deal --

TRUMP: Yeah.

HANNITY: -- they would back-door through the reconciliation process.

TRUMP: Well, we need better leadership at the Senate level, you need better leadership.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: You need somebody better than Mitch McConnell.

HANNITY: Yeah.

TRUMP: Mitch McConnell can no longer do the job.

HANNITY: When you -- you know, it was a very difficult process, because I was covering it every night. And that was the Congress was not assisting you for the money for the border wall, which was a signature promise that you made --

TRUMP: Yes.

HANNITY: -- in 2016. But you found a way to get the money --

TRUMP: I did.

HANNITY: -- and build the wall.

TRUMP: So, what I did is, I got a big military budget approved, and I took it out of the military. Because the way I look at it, this is defense.

I spent two and a half years winning lawsuits. We won all of the lawsuits, there were 11. We won every one of them. I started building the wall.

It's two months from completion, and this guy stops it.

HANNITY: Yeah.

TRUMP: And that's tragic, and it's dangerous for Texas and Arizona and every other state. It's tragic.

HANNITY: All right. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we'll be joined by the governor of the great state of Texas straight ahead.

Also, Sara Carter will bring us an exclusive report from the southern border where migrants have been and continue to die taking this perilous journey.

Governor Abbott will be here and much more. More with President Trump as we continue from South Texas. We're glad you're with us.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERICAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. We're at the great state of Texas. We're at the Southern border tonight. Thank you for being with us. And we're with former President Donald Trump, and our conversation with him continues in a few moments.

But first, Sara Carter has been reporting night after night for this show about the crisis at our Southern border.

Well, Biden's border crisis is not only damaging to the country, but also presents what is a serious danger, a perilous journey to those crossing and trying to enter this country illegally. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA CARTER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Just down this road, sheriff's deputies here in Brooks County, along with a judge, are recovering a body of a migrant.

What they're saying is that the dehydration, the hot sun, the heat, and as well as the elements, other elements -- in fact, a few of the bodies that have been recovered out here have been tested COVID positive -- so they're dealing with a lot out here. And remember, this is just one county.

SHERIFF BENNY MARTINEZ, BROOKS COUNTY: Anytime you recover seven bodies in -- within six days, that's a high volume. And that's what we're experiencing.

Now that we -- we're testing for COVID, we had two that were positive out of that group. So you mean - you know very well that you have others that are contaminated that are walking through or made it through, right.

CARTER: Right.

MARTINEZ: Because these are left behind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've got the bodies in the back of the truck with the wrap. They're getting ready to smuggle them across.

CARTER: For people that are crossing in this heat, you know, especially under this extreme weather condition, is that part of your mission to search and rescue, of course, and recovery?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, a lot -- often times, what will happen with the illegal immigrants is they will get lost, and they do have cell phones, and they'll just call 911 and say I'm here and I'm lost, I don't know where I'm at.

And with the technology now, we can ping where the, you know, the individual on the ground can be (ph), where that call came from, and we can go in that area and find them.

LT. CHRIS OLIVAREZ, TEXAS DPS: They get detached from the group, they get lost, they're out in the elements with the South Texas heat. They don't have water, they get dehydrated, and that's when you start seeing more of these fatalities that are taking place in those specific areas.

And right now, in Brooks County, I believe they have already encountered 49 deaths up until this year, which is a lot.

CARTER: Wow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right, joining us now with more, FOX News contributor, investigative journalist, Sara Carter.

Sara, you have interviewed kids that are out there alone. You talked to ranchers that recovered dead bodies. This is not uncommon, what you're reporting.

CARTER: No, it's --

HANNITY: Go ahead.

CARTER: No, it's not, Sean. It's not uncommon, and it's a tragedy.

If you think about it, we have over 22,000 kids right now -- plus -- being held in camps all across the United States. That journey takes over a month.

They've already found this year over 202 bodies, and those are the ones that they've recovered. Think about all the people they never recover because either the elements take them away, the animals, the environment.

There's a lot of -- there's a lot of difficulty for our law enforcement when they're trying to do recovery operations. I want to put it to you this way -- in 2019, 250 people were recovered. This year we're only halfway through the year, and it's over 202.

So, Sean, this is a very difficult time, this is a very perilous journey. A lot of children lose their lives even before they make it to the border, and I can't imagine how many more lose it and we don't know that are here right now.

HANNITY: All right, Sara Carter, thank you.

We're back with President Trump.

Also joining us now, the governor of the great state of Texas, God bless Texas, Greg Abbott is with us.

Governor, great to see you.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: You've now -- you've been very generous with your time coming on this show often, and you have pointed out that all -- you couldn't even send in your child protective services to check on -- do their job and check on kids. You know about ranchers finding dead bodies on their ranches.

We know about the perilous journey, but the government won't even allow you to enforce the laws that they refuse to enforce. Now you're left with, what, building your own fence because he's not president?

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: Exactly.

We -- we in Texas have been left to our own devices to fend for ourselves. It's like we're some outpost somewhere along some territory that the federal government doesn't care about anymore.

It's not like it was with President Trump. He cared about Texas. He stepped up to Texas. He built a wall in Texas.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: What I'm having a hard time -- and I'm sure everybody here is having a hard time with -- we are supposed to be a nation of laws. If President Trump -- if he jaywalked, they'd want to impeach him, right. Let's be honest.

But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are picking and choosing not to enforce the laws of the land, and you don't have the authority as the governor to enforce it for them. So now you're -- what, now you'll do the next best thing?

(CROSSTALK)

ABBOTT: So, the first error that the Biden administration is making is they have abandoned the rule of law, they are not enforcing the immigration laws that have been passed by Congress. And hence, we have this complete open border policy.

The state can make the same apprehensions that the border patrol can make, but we would just turn them over to the federal officials who believe in Catch and Release.

So, what Texas is doing, because I declared a disaster, the penalties have increased for anybody trespassing, anybody who vandalizes anything, and they can -- they're going to go to jail. We are working with sheriffs, men and women in the White House behind me and --

(CROWD CHEERING)

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Well, I want to be -- I want to be very clear here.

(CROSSTALK)

ABBOTT: Sean, real quick.

HANNITY: Yeah.

ABBOTT: So, what -- what we're -- what I've been working for the last several weeks with these sheriffs on, we're going to start arresting people, putting people behind bars, putting them in jail, not giving them the red-carpet treatment the Biden administration has been giving them.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: They love the governor. He and I had a great relationship, along with a lot of other people in this room from Texas -- and from other states, in all fairness. But very special what Texas has been doing.

And we had just -- it was over. We stopped a lot of the drugs that were coming in, which is very tough to do. And they have some real criminals bringing this stuff in. They have the toughest people - these cartels, these are tough, smart people.

They're like -they went to the Wharton School of Finance and graduated number one in their class, but they never did that. But they would have graduated number one. They're very, very tough and smart.

And what they've been doing with human trafficking, and drugs, and all of the other things, is a disgrace. We had it largely stopped, and in two months, three months, they ended.

Stay in Mexico was so great, stay in Mexico - they couldn't stay in this -- and they ended it.

(APPLAUSE)

You take a look at the governor saying Catch and Release - I ended that. That's where you catch a criminal, and you release them in our country, and then they're supposed to come back for a trial three years later.

Louie Gohmert, I would say they don't come back to often to trials, right? You would never see them, is that correct, Louie?

Louie is a great congressman too, and he's the only one that might be even tougher than us on the border.

But I will say this, look, we had the relationship -- everything was good. You need the federal government; they need help from the federal government. I gave it to them times 10, and we did it.

And then he comes in and he stops building the wall. All you needed was two more months, and we would have had it completed.

But even so, we built almost 500 miles of wall, and it really had such a huge impact. And the people had an impact, and those sheriffs are -- and law enforcement generally in Texas has done an unbelievable job. But they're getting no support from the federal government.

(APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: All right. We've got to take a break. We'll come back, more with President Trump, Governor Abbott as we continue.

We're close to the Texas-Mexico border and the problem that every state is now facing. And we'll tell you how other states are stepping up to help the great state of Texas and the state of Arizona, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right, we're broadcasting from Edinburg, Texas, right near McAllen. And I'm joined on stage by former President Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: All right, this is a town hall. We're going to have some questions.

Ma'am, welcome to the program.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.

HANNITY: What's your first name?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Janet Brown (ph), and I live in Edinburg.

HANNITY: Welcome and thank you for being with us.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.

HANNITY: What's your question?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I am Hispanic. I am -- I actually came from Nicaragua, Central America. I'm very familiar with Central America, because I lived there two years in Honduras, and the rest in Nicaragua. I came to the United States in 1960, I won't tell you my age.

But anyway, I came here legally, and it is really sad to see what's going on at our borders here.

HANNITY: Question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is, President Trump, what long-term damage and destruction will Biden's open borders agenda do to the country? And what is it costing law abiding U.S. taxpayers?

TRUMP: So, it's a very fair question, and I know you know that answer probably as well as everybody in this room. It's incalculable how bad this is -- where you have, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of people storming into our country. Some of them, as we discussed, are from prisons, and they're bad, and they're murderers, and all of the things that I said before. It is -- there's no way to judge that kind of damage.

And you know getting them out is a -- is an ordeal. And all sorts of things will happen. It's going to be very hard.

But I will say this: it has to be stopped now. This can't go until 2022. They all say, oh, we're going to win Congress. This can't go -- they have to do something immediately.

People are storming up -- you look at some of these caravans where they have 15,000 and 20,000 and 25,000 people. And you don't know who's in those caravans. And dotted in those caravans is some of the worst people on Earth. So, it's a tremendous cost.

And it's also monetarily a tremendous cost. You're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars.

ABBOTT: Sean, can I add to it?

HANNITY: Yes.

ABBOTT: Janet (ph), what's happening here is the erosion of the social fabric of the United States of America. The United States of America was built upon the rule of law, and what the Biden administration is doing is not enforcing the rule of law.

The first thing that happens for all the people they are letting in, they know they're getting away with violating the rule of law. That will erode the United States of America, it must be stopped.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Agreed. I agree.

HANNITY: Let me -- let me pick up on -- and thank you, ma'am, thank you for coming (ph).

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Viva Trump!

TRUMP: Thank you.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: I don't know, Governor, if we should take it personally. It wasn't viva us, you know, just him, maybe --

ABBOTT: We'll just leave the stage, you know, it'll be all Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Let's talk a little politics. You're up, Governor, in 2022.

I, like President Trump, I'm open with my opinions. All the fake news journalists, they say they're objective, we know they're not. They have an agenda.

But you've done a great job for this state. I support your nomination --

ABBOTT: Thank you, Sean.

HANNITY: I think the president has.

I guess the question is, let's talk about 2022. Really good chance you'll be re-elected, the House could turn Republican.

(APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: And then we look at the states where Senate races are, I don't think it could be a bigger bellwether -- Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, New Hampshire, we have Ohio, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Those are all states we're very familiar with.

How important is it for the Republicans to take those key Senate races?

TRUMP: Well, I think without weak Republican RINO leadership you'd win every one of them.

HANNITY: Every one?

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Dotted in there are people that you almost would say don't like this country, they don't like the Republican Party.

With strong Republican leadership in charge of those states, you'll win every one of them. Without that, you won't.

HANNITY: Governor, I'm going to give you -- this is your last segment with us, what it means to you to be the conservative governor of Texas?

ABBOTT: Listen, even in Texas -- remember this, Texas is also the state of people like Beto O'Rourke. And so, what we have in the state --

(CROWD BOOING)

ABBOTT: What we have in the state of Texas is -- is a battle for the soul of our economy. Are we going to be capitalists or are we going to be socialists?

We've seen the socialist agenda from Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro and people like that. Texas must prevail, we must keep Texas capitalism.

Let me tell you this last thing that Democrats will not, and that is, it's been capitalism, not socialism, that's lifted more people out of poverty than all of the socialistic programs in the history of the world. We're not going to let the socialists take over.

HANNITY: No. I'll say this about Texas, and it's so telling. If you take a U-Haul from California to Texas, it's about 2,500 bucks. If you take it from Texas back to California, it's about $300. You're doing U-Haul a favor.

Now, I know Texas is very inclusive, but if people are going to come from California and New York to Texas, I think it's fair to say they need to leave their liberal policies that destroyed their states behind. Fair?

ABBOTT: Fair enough.

HANNITY: Governor, we always love having you. Thank you for being with us.

ABBOTT: Thank you, Sean. Thank you very much.

HANNITY: All right, when we come back, we'll return a few other questions for President Trump, non-border related, as we continue our town hall.

Thank you for being with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right, as we continue HANNITY on the ground in Texas tonight. We continue with the former president, Donald Trump. What a great crowd.

We don't have a lot of time, but let's talk about your future plans. Now, I have a --

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: Let me ask the crowd. Of everybody here, would you like to see the president run again in 2024?

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: You're not going to answer, but I have to ask. Where are you in the process -- or -- let me ask you this, without giving the answer - what the answer is -- have you made up your mind?

TRUMP: Yes.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: I think you got it right. Yeah.

When you look -- you know, it's funny, because I've known you 25 years, and I remember when you were first talking about running, and we actually argued. Remember we'd argue about certain things -- on Iraq and certain wars and everything?

And then you became president. And I remember when I supported you, I said, I -- I said he will govern as a conservative, and people didn't understand. You really governed as conservative as any president in the modern day because that is your core belief.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And actually, Sean, you have known me for a long time, and my views have never really changed. I mean, I've -- if you look at my views, my views haven't changed. I felt this way about these crazy endless wars where we're losing so many wonderful young, beautiful people, and we're not fighting. We're just sort of there, and we don't do it.

You know, we knocked out ISIS. You saw what I did during a short period of time.

HANNITY: Sure.

TRUMP: Over a period of a year and a half --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Wiped out the caliphate.

TRUMP: -- ISIS -- wiped out the caliphate. It was -- it was getting worse and worse.

But we got to bring our people back home. It's time. Twenty-one years in Afghanistan, 21 years.

And so, we rebuilt our military, it was totally depleted. It was -- it was terrible. We had jets that were 40 years old, jet fighters that were 40 years old that they didn't make parts for anymore.

You had to go to the desert to get the parts where they have what they call the airplane graveyards. And we have now all brand-new planes, brand new everything, all made in the USA now. We have to get -- we have to get ourselves set. We have to reorient.

But the Middle East has been a disaster for this country. We've spent trillions and trillions of dollars. We got nothing. And the beauty was we didn't need their oil anymore, but now we're going to need their oil again, because we're not going to be energy independent now.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: We're not very long (ph). Here --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't believe we are now, and you're -- you're -- when I left it was a $1.87 a gallon for gas.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And now it's three-and-a-half.

HANNITY: It's almost $1.30 more just since Joe's gotten to be president.

Let me ask you a question, because I would argue, and I did argue on air often, that you had treated -- it was a whole other standard for you.

If you had sons that lied on a gun permit, threw a gun in the dumpster, smoked crack, got money from Ukraine with no experience, Kazakhstan, no experience, Russia with no experience, $100,000 shopping spree and a $1.5 billion deal with the Bank of China with military connections, I have a funny feeling that the media would go after you. It would be unrelenting.

Why does Joe Biden get a pass?

TRUMP: The Democrats got a pass. Hillary Clinton got a pass. The Democrats get a pass.

You look at a guy like Bill Barr, they said they're going to impeach him. And once they said they were going to impeach him, he became a whole -- he became afraid, he became afraid. I said, what's wrong with you? He became scared.

They go after people. They go after them so hard and so viciously. And, all of a sudden, that's what happened -- not in all cases. We have some people that are incredible. But you have some people that get brought over to the other side for fear, and we can't have that.

We have to -- we have to fight so strong. Look at me, they go after me with Mueller, with this one, with that one, with impeachment one, impeachment -- I call it the impeachment hoax one and two.

And all of this, all nonsense, made up stuff. In fact, they were the ones who were guilty. They come after me. New York radical left prosecutors come after me. You got to always fight. You got to keep fighting. It's a disgusting thing. It's very unfair.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: I guess they don't call politics a blood sport for no reason.

If you move forward, you know how difficult it is. You seem ready to reengage in that battle. And when you --

TRUMP: It's not that I want to, the country needs it. We have to take care of the country.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I don't want to, is this fun? Fighting constantly, fighting always?

I mean, the country -- what we've done is so important. When I say the greatest tax cuts -- now they want to raise your taxes, they want to double your taxes, and nobody -- and the Republicans in the Senate -- and the House -- but the Republicans in the Senate have to fight hard that their taxes don't get up, because that'll be terrible for the country.

HANNITY: I -- I've known you for years. I've watched you for years at Trump Tower. I watched you all the years you were in the White House, you sleep maybe four hours a night, four and a half, five max. You never stop working.

Joe Biden averages less than one scheduled event a day, gets up at 9:30, he gets his warm milky and sippy cup around 7:00 p.m. If he's good, he gets a night, night story.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Now, in all seriousness, we saw what happened at the G7 where he just was paralyzed. You see what happens, how he struggles to communicate.

I asked you, and you kind of punted the last time you were on, do you see a cognitive decline in Joe Biden, and what does that mean to America?

TRUMP: Well, let me say it a little bit differently, he is surrounded by vicious people that are very smart, but they don't stand for the values that the people in this room stand for. These are very smart people.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I mean, he didn't campaign against me. He didn't debate well; he didn't make good speeches.

HANNITY: He hid in the basement.

TRUMP: I watched him on the State of the Union get up and speak and was terrible. It was -- I don't want to go into that, but it was terrible, it was a terrible -- and I thought he was going to get killed. And I had to watch your competition just to see what they were saying.

Now, FDR was a great speaker. You remember, some of the speeches he made were incredible. And the only thing you have to fear is fear itself, with that beautiful -- they compared him to FDR. OK.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Now the good news is they've lost --

HANNITY: You should've been watching HANNITY. That was not what was happening.

TRUMP: No, I know, I watched - well, that one I could've predicted.

HANNITY: Yes.

TRUMP: But no -- but look, it was nothing good. It was embarrassing. And they were comparing him to FDR.

Now, it was so embarrassing to watch that, I couldn't believe it. I was depressed. I watched specifically because I said he's going to get killed. He didn't get killed. They said great.

And Nancy was sitting behind him with the single biggest mask I've ever seen. That was the -- that was the largest, it covered her entire face, I've never seen anything like that.

(LAUGHTER)

TRUMP: No, I've never seen anything like that.

HANNITY: I've got to wrap things up.

TRUMP: And she didn't rip up his speech either.

HANNITY: Like she did with you, ripped.

Mr. President, thank you very much.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

HANNITY: Thank you for your time.

TRUMP: Thank you. Appreciate it.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: All right, Sean Hannity at our town hall on the ground in Texas. We'll wrap things up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right, unfortunately, that's all the time we have left.

Now, if you're in Sarasota -- you had over 40,000 in Ohio -- July 3rd, you'll be in Sarasota, Florida.

TRUMP: It'll be big.

HANNITY: You like being out on the road again?

TRUMP: I like it. I have a good time.

HANNITY: You're having a good time.

TRUMP: We love the people.

HANNITY: By the way, Texas, did you have a good time tonight?

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: Thank you all for coming. Let not your heart be troubled.

We will see you back after the Fourth. Have a great holiday weekend. God bless America, God bless Texas. Thank you for being with us.

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