President Trump calls Mueller hearing 'shocking and sad'

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President Trump calls Mueller hearing 'shocking and sad'

President Donald Trump reacts to the Mueller hearings, the origins of the Russia probe and the media in an exclusive interview on 'Hannity.'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 25, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Yes, sir. Great show as always, Tucker.

Thank you. Welcome to “Hannity.”

We start tonight with Fox News alert. We are moments away. The president will join us for an exclusive one-on-one interview, full, complete reaction to all of the events yesterday. Of course, "The Squad", you don't want to miss it.

It has been a very good day, two days to the president and actually, great days for America. Horrible day if you are a part of the corrupt deep state. You're one of their operatives and the lying conspiracy theorists in and the destroy Trumpet media mob.

Here's the reality, they just seem incapable of accepting which is, I think, at the foundation of why they keep going here. They can't accept the 2016 election results. Donald Trump won, they didn't anticipate it. He is the president of United States of America.

The Russia hoax, those lies, they are dead and buried and now the people who abused power that were corrupt that broke the law will be held accountable. It's really that simple. All of these impeachment fantasies are totally completely flushed down the drain.

Thank God. Truth prevailed. So, this was a dangerous moment for this country.

Now, yesterday's hearing was a disaster for the radical Democratic Party, the raging psychotic Trump-hating lunatics in the video mob, tonight, they have nobody but to blame for this but themselves. That includes the Democrats like Schiff and Nadler and pretty much everyone else in the Washington swamp.

Many people knew Robert Mueller was not on top of his game. We all saw the nine minute presser. He's literally contradicting his findings of obstruction right in front of us. They saw him struggling. They saw that Attorney General Barr bailed him out with the joint statement with the special counsel's office.

They knew that he was saying don't called me and they did it anyway. He didn't want to appear before Congress. He wanted his report to basically be his report. They knew his testimony prep was going badly. I knew his testimony prep that his law firm was going badly from the sources I have, and I knew it, I'm pretty certain that they all knew it too.

But here's a reality check for them. They didn't care. They were determined to use Mueller at a later stage in his life. There is no diss on Robert Mueller at all. As a political prop though, they did that.

One last time, they were hoping he was going to say one thing that he could use to just hone in, to smear, slander, besmirched the president, spur impeachment, their goal. It was an abject failure, and frankly, painful at times to watch.

Mueller did not have a grasp on some of the most basic element of his own report. He had a difficult time tracking questions or remembering any of the details of the report. He contradicted himself on the report on numerous occasions.

As "Politico" put it, Mueller was struggling. Now, confirmation that we will right all along. Mueller was nothing more than frankly, especially towards the end of this lease, a symbolic figurehead in a special counsel's probe.

He didn't even know that Hillary Clinton's former attorney was on his staff? Andrew Weissmann, his pit bull, the guy who had to Hillary's victory of party, did all the hiring, he didn't know they were all Democrats? He didn't know that Reagan had given him an appointment? He didn't know Fusion GPS?

He didn't care that before that so called famous Trump Tower meeting that Fusion GPS met with the Russian operatives? Before and after the meeting?

In other words, for 20 months, Democrats used Mueller's so-called apolitical reputation, he is a decorated marine, he did serve this country and in combat. Long serving former FBI director using him to legitimize their partisan witch hunt, caring nothing about the person at all.

It seems that there was really publicly only one person that cared about Robert Mueller, kept trying to throw him a lifeline, kept trying to protect his reputation, knowing this would go badly, that was the attorney general. That was Attorney General Barr.

And he was slandered and smeared for it. Something was up when he very graciously agreed to the joint statement. It just didn't track right in my brain.

Hillary Clinton super fan, the guy at the victory party, Andrew Weissmann, the pit bull, this is the guy that Sidney Powell wrote about in "Licensed to Lie". The most atrocious prosecutorial track record I have ever heard of, likely running the show from day one, which actually, makes the conclusion even that much more remarkable.

Yesterday, the president tweeted that truth is a force of nature. He was right. The last hoax has been exposed. Actually, even "The New York Times" stumbled on some truth. Now, think about this. When they reported that the dossier was probably Russian disinformation from the get-go, what were they really saying there? That means, without saying it, they kind of inadvertently were saying that if the Russians were involved from the beginning, and they knew about Steele feeding this to Hillary, as they said, that it was likely Russian disinformation from the get-go, that means that the Russians were not helping Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. That would mean they were trying to screw over Donald Trump and get Hillary elected.

Now, an investigation into the origins of this witch hunt is well underway but as we speak, the conspiracy theorist on MSDNC, fake news CNN, they are racked with grief. Make no mistake. There is no remorse for lying to their viewers for nearly three years. They're just sad the gig is up. They've been caught spreading a baseless hoax, conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory.

Here's my prediction on the media. Sad, but it'll be true. They will never apologize to their audiences, shrinking as they are. They will never institute changes.

They will never just move on, you know, to the truth and gathering truth and ever becoming a real news organization. They will move onto the next to the mutually agreed upon conspiracy with the Democratic leaders who feed them information. It's a big insider cycle that they have.

And they will spread all the talking points that they'll spend every second, every minute, every hour of every day trying to destroy President Trump at all cost. That's their mission.

Still, tonight, there are some of the media mob, they are clearly agent dejected. Others are enraged. Or at least, they are feigning being in rage. But most are still in complete denial.

I first declared the media journalism and America's dead in 2007. Didn't know it was as red as I was at the time. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's shameful, shameful that Republicans were so focused on trying to undermine the origins of the investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were very disrespectful, I thought, the Republicans. They we have a tendency to be disrespectful to veterans in this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's not kid ourselves. This has been a wall-to-wall failure in all of these committees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That instinct for winning, that sort of controlled rage that you want great athletes to have before they go out into the field, that is something that Democrats lack. It is not in their DNA and it is so frustrating.

You turn to Donald Trump and say, hey, you know, Donald? Here's the deal. I may not win but neither are you, because I'm going to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week working, focusing, not going to sleep until I figure out how to turn your political bones to dust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: He's asking Jesus for forgiveness for ever being a Republican. OK.

After two years of claiming the president was a Russian operatives, working with and for Vladimir Putin, who stole the election, and -- that's what you get.

If the so-called journalists and newsrooms all around America, without exception, had any courage or decency at all, they would apologize to you, we, the American people for their lying, their hoax and their conspiracy theories but they won't.

It's clear they hate -- think about this -- who are they really hate in this, too? Half the country? Smelly, Walmart, irredeemable, deplorable Trump voters. You know, angry, bitter people in Pennsylvania that cling to god, guns, bibles, and religion?

There's a lot of sanctimony there and there is a lot of elitism and all those words, isn't there?

Now, this hatred does cloud their judgment. It's why they have been wrong about so much so often. We on this show, we take great pride. We're not always right, we'll admit when we are wrong, but we work hard to get everything right here.

We did almost single-handedly vet Obama. Many of us, we were right about the Duke lacrosse case. I went and met with the kids and the families. We're right about UVA, Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, we can take it back.

I learned my lesson with Richard Jewell. I was the only one that was right on that case. Look at Nicholas Sandmann. Look at what they did to that kid for wearing a MAGA hat. Look at what they did to Brett Kavanaugh. They don't seem to care much about I-believing when it comes to the lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Then, of course, they were wrong on the Russian collusion hoax and the list goes on and on. And that brings us back to the media's favorite hack and that would be the cowardly Adam Schiff.

I offered him four hours of airtime. An hour of TV, three hours on 620 of the best radio stations in America. He never gets back to me.

Now, over the course of Trump's residency, Schiff has participated, look at this, 419 TV interviews, 419. Not on this show. He actually spread real conspiracy theories about Russia, created false hope in all of these liberals and all of those resistance members. But despite many offers to come on his program for the full hour, he always declines.

Now, the cowardly Schiff knew he was full of B.S. He knew he was lying. He kept raising the bar, expectations, he said, I've seen it. We got the evidence. We don't.

And let's not forget Schiff is a coward. And, suddenly, after Mueller's disastrous testimony, which was a political stunt all along, pure, raw, ugly, smearing, besmirching, slandering, destroying of names and reputations, we knew it all along, he just backs away from his impeachment dreams. Never mind.

After telling the country for three years he had the evidence, prove the president was compromised, he said it again and again, the president was a Russian op, the government was in crisis, he is just content now to wait for the 2020 election. So, this is just a political gain.

Is this -- is this what we get from the people we send to Washington? All this fake, phony, selective moral outrage, and now, we got that from the beginning?

Now, tonight, Schiff, he's in very good company. The new leaders of this radical socialist Democratic Party known as "The Squad", they are no strangers to feigned moral outrage. They are constantly calling for the president to be impeached.

Recently, Congresswoman Omar called the president a racist who wants to deport all black and brown people. That is, of course, a blatant lie. Just this week, we learned that it was fellow squad member, Congressman Tlaib, who actually called for the deportation of President Trump on Twitter, in writing. And it turns out "The Squad's" constant, fake moral outrage is just a cover-up for their own deep-seated bigotry and extreme radical views that we are now exposing every day, especially, when it comes to Israel.

Each member of "The Squad" supports some form of the boycott of Israel. A widespread boycott with anti-Semitic comments and roots (ph) to back it up.

And as you know by now, Congresswoman Omar has referred to Israel as evil and says they've hypnotized the world. She compared the world's only Jewish state to the Nazi Holocaust, Nazi Germany.

And believe it or not, just this week, Congresswoman Tlaib did the same thing. Really? You are going to compare Israel to mass murdering, the Nazis in Germany? Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB, D-MICH: I can't stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government and the state of Israel. Americans of conscience have long and proud history of participating in boycotts, specifically to advocate for human rights abroad. Americans boycotted Nazi Germany in response to dehumanization, imprisonment, and genocide of Jewish people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now, Israel is not the only target of "The Squad's" hatred. In recently unearthed interview, Omar said that American should be more fearful of white men. Wow.

Don't forget. Ocasio-Cortez said we're a garbage country. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ILHAN OMAR, D-MINN.: Our country should be more fearful of white men across our country because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country. And so, if the fear was the driving force of policies to keep America safe, Americans safe, inside of this country, we should be profiling, monitoring and creating policies to fight the radicalization of white men.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: White men.

In reality, we should be most fearful of "The Squad's" radical socialist ideology. It will destroy this country. I mean -- and very quickly.

The New Green Deal, no oil, gas, the lifeblood of our economy, Tlaib wants a $20 minimum wage, $5 higher than Bernie, Bernie Sanders. She's also supporting the Green New Deal, a social transformation of America because of how hot it is the summer.

And naturally, she's also calling for your tax cuts to be repealed so she can give your hard-earned money to the people who really deserve it. This is what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TLAIB: So, recently, I introduced the Boost Act. This legislation completely repeals the GOP tax scam, that is only helping while the individuals, the rich, the corporations. Do you know what I did without money? Do you know what I said? Uh-uh. We are going to go ahead and put it into the pockets of folks like everyday Americans. That's what we do with our public dollars paid. We give it back to the people, the people that are earned it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: We'll take it, steal, and give it away.

Well, so, just who deserves your hard-earned money?

Here's an idea. Congresswoman Omar now calling for taxpayer-funded abortions were illegal immigrants, look closely because these are the leaders of the Democratic party.

Now, they are the ones that are having the most impact on the 2020 Democratic hopefuls. They are the ones, they've gotten everyone of them to buy into some origin of this insane Green New Deal.

And, by the way, this particular hour, it's not Pelosi, she's speaker in name only but you have Congresswoman Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez, and Pressley, all being cheered on by the radical days, including the far left crowd in Hollywood. Anti-Trump hysteria on the West Coast, they are at a fevered pitch. Many in the film industry becoming literally unraveled.

Take, for example, remember this guy who worked in fake news CNN, D.L. Hughley, whatever his name is, just said the devil worshipers were better than Trump supporter's.

Then, there's Beth Midler. Instead of actually making movies, well, she now spends her days, well, raged-tweeting the president, like the media, but yesterday when she tried to bash the president, she actually tweeted out something racist, yikes.

Midler posted this picture of a Trump rally with a caption, look at what she says here, look, there are African-American men in this shot. How did it much did they pay them to be in the background?

Maybe nobody told her that we have the best employment situation since 1969 and a record low and employment history of the country, for African- Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women in the workplace, and youth and employment. That happened because of Donald Trump's policies. That didn't happen under Biden-Obama.

Beth Midler thinking the African-Americans, what, they can have differing independent political views? Pretty despicable, disgusting, vile, and racist, and virtually no one in Hollywood is willing to call her out, shocking.

The social justice warriors constantly accusing conservatives every single two, four years, being racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, wanting dirty air and water to kill children and throw granny over the cliff after granny only eats dog food and cat food. Well, that is up there too by some of the people on the left.

I think we know what's going on here and it could be summed up in just three words: fake moral outrage. Midler, Hollywood friends, they don't care about racism, sexism, xenophobia, or any of this unless they can bludgeon Trump or a political ally of the president, or a conservative.

In the end, Beth Midler is just the perfect representation of today's radical left. Hates the president, his supporters, never talks about his success, and she's obsessed, willing to go to any length to smear people. Even if that means tweeting out what she did.

All right. Let's go to -- well, joining is now is the president of the United States of America -- President Trump, sir, thank you for being back with us.

I don't think -- we do have him I think, I hope. Somebody?

OK, we're going to get to -- hopefully, we'll get that connection in a connection.

We'll go to Trace Gallagher though. He has the latest update on all of these matters we are covering, tonight.

Trace?

TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we are talking about these police that keep getting doused. And then, Sean, there were three, first, Brooklyn, and then Harlem, now, there's a third video of NYPD police officers getting doused with buckets of water. This time, in the Bronx.

The video runs about a minute and it shows a dozen or so men and women on a street corner where two female police officers are standing watch. When traffic passes, the group carrying several buckets starts unloading on police. The officers don't yell at the group or engage in any way. They simply shake themselves off.

One police source calls this a disgraceful trend and others say this is the byproduct of years of antipolice rhetoric from state and local politicians.

The two other videos of police being attacked by water have resulted in three arrests and now, because of this video, more may be coming.

Meantime, check out these pictures from Chicago. This is called community day and it's organized by the Eastside Chamber of Commerce, billed as a day of fun for the kids that included a pinata made to look like an ICE agent.

Organizers say they didn't know about the pinata. Apparently, they also didn't know about kids throwing balls at an image of President Trump -- Sean.

HANNITY: Unbelievable. Wow.

Trace Gallagher, thanks for that report.

It is sad what happens to the cops. We'll get to that.

The president of the United States, President Trump, always a pleasure to have you, sir. Thank you for being with us.

Sorry about that, I guess we had a phone problem on our end. I apologize on behalf of the entire FOX News Channel.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT (via telephone): Don't worry about that, Sean. Thank you very much.

HANNITY: Mr. President, just -- I'm just going to open it up to you to go wherever you want with this. This has been something you've had to deal with your input entire presidency almost. You have and were loud and saying it was not true. It was a witch hunt. And we had four separate investigations backing up your claim and culminating in what you saw yesterday, sir.

Your reaction to all that.

TRUMP: Well, I think people learned a lot yesterday, watching a very poor performance and watching things that they couldn't believe when they saw what was going on. And hopefully, we are going to be able to find out how a thing like this started.

It was a disgrace to our country, it was a disgrace from every standpoint and I would say that most people have never seen anything like it. And then on top of it, you watch that performance, it was -- it was shocking and very sad.

HANNITY: How much -- how much of that did you watch, sir?

TRUMP: Say it, Sean?

HANNITY: How much of the Mueller testimony did you actually watch?

TRUMP: So, I wasn't going to watch it all, and then I started thinking about it, and then I watched a little bit at the very beginning and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. So, I ended up watching more than I wanted to.

HANNITY: Well --

TRUMP: And then I watched the afternoon because, you know, it was such a big crater at the beginning, and I said, now, I have to watch -- I have to watch shifty Schiff because he just went through three hours and now he has to go through Schiff. And I said, this is going to be interesting.

And I've never seen anything like it, actually. It was sort of good television. So, I couldn't watch it all. I had meetings, I had economic development meetings, and I was saying, fellows, maybe we could move it to another time but I didn't want to do that.

But I got to watch enough and it was shocking. It I thought the Republicans represented themselves brilliantly. John Ratcliffe and Jim Jordan and, I mean, all of them, Louie Gohmert, I can mention 15 names or however many they have that spoke. It got fairly close to that number, I guess, maybe it was a little bit less than that.

But I will tell you that everybody representing the Republicans I thought was really good and I thought the other side was typically biased, but they were stuck with the situation that they couldn't believe.

HANNITY: Mr. President, I just mentioned, "The New York Times," not long ago, actually said that they believed that -- well, the dossier, which I was stunned Mueller didn't know about Fusion GPS, the things he didn't know shocked me, didn't know Jeannie Rhee, Clinton's attorney, worked for him. But we'll put that aside.

But they suggested that "The New York Times" that the dirty dossier that Hillary paid for that was used to spy on your campaign, your transition, and even your presidency, sir, was likely Russian disinformation from the beginning. Now, if that's the case, that would mean that the Russians knew that Hillary was paying for those lies, which would mean that the narrative that the American people have been fed by the media and the Democrats, that, well, they were trying to help you, the Russians, that would mean that "The New York Times" is right for once and I suspect they may very well be, that they were trying to hurt you more than Hillary.

TRUMP: Well, based on the fact that we just become -- and, you know, fairly recently, a little while ago, the number one oil and gas producer and energy producer in the world, by far, Russia, Saudi Arabia, now second and third, based on the fact that we now have the best -- we will soon have the most modern military we have ever had with the best equipment, the best -- newest planes and all of the things that we have done, and so many other things, Sean, based on all of that, the last person they should want is me.

But I have heard the same thing about the fake dossier. I've heard it came out of Russia. I think a lot of it also is made up. It was just made up like you would write a novel but it was a fake and it was paid for by the Democrats and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC and it's incredible. These are incredible stories.

Nobody would write a novel like this because people wouldn't believe it. It wouldn't be believable.

HANNITY: You know, Mr. President, I famously have asked Lindsey Graham, he really, when Attorney General Barr was before his committee, he went through a list of things, do you feel that Mueller did his job? Do you think he had the resources? Do you believe that his had every opportunity?

You turned over 1.5 million documents, I can't believe -- you encouraged everybody to testify before Congress, before the special counsel, I was shocked. McGahn did, but we'll put that aside here.

And you keep saying that you think we can't let this happen again. And, I guess the -- we've learned from the attorney general that he is going to look into whether the investigation into Hillary's server was rigged, he's going to look into potential FISA abuse, he's going to look into the origins of this probe, we know that Durham has now interviewed Steele for nearly 16 hours, and we know the I.G. is very close to a FISA report.

What do you -- why is it important to get to the bottom of this from your perspective?

TRUMP: Because this should never happen to another president of the United States again. This is an absolute catastrophe for our country. This was a fake witch hunt and it should never be allowed to happen to another president again.

This was treason. This was high crimes. This was everything as bad a definition as you want to come up with. This should never be allowed to happen to our country again.

HANNITY: Your thoughts -- you have often said fake news. I called them out also on this program. It turns out there's been, you know, I give a list, starting with Richard Jewell and Ferguson, Missouri, and Cambridge police and Baltimore, Maryland, and UVA and Duke lacrosse, and Nicholas Sandmann.

But they went with every single lie, every conspiracy theory. I don't see the media very often talking about the things you have accomplished. I mention the employment situation is the best since 1969.

What you say to the press in this country? The press that is supposed to be fair, balanced, objective, down the middle? I'm a talk show host. I -- unlike the whole newspaper. We do everything.

TRUMP: Well, I think the press has lost all credibility, much of it. But it's lost a big part of it. I mean, a very substantial part of it, lost all credibility.

And I watch as people scream at these poor Democrats, the congressmen, scream like I've never seen. You must do this, you must do that, I mean, these are supposed to be journalists, talk show host, of all sorts of people, I could not believe it. And they are actually trying to force them to do what they want to be done.

I've never seen anything like it. And I've seen it -- you know, they use the word unhinged, they are unhinged. The media has become totally unhinged. They are very dishonest.

And when I say enemy of the people, when people give purposely fall stories and when they tried to get politicians to do things that are wrong and they are no they are wrong, that really is the enemy of the people. It's fake news but it's the enemy of the people, more importantly.

HANNITY: In other words, if you're claiming to be fair, balanced, objective, not in the middle, and you purposely like and you don't have any interest in the truth, you make a distinction between the two and I heard you say that many times. I'm interested in this question because you are very critical of Mueller, the whole issue of whether or not you told your counsel to fire him, and you have the authority, according to Alan Dershowitz, many unconstitutional attorneys I've interviewed, under Article 2, for conflicts of interests, you could have fired Mueller yourself.

But my question is, now that you saw how little he actually knew, do you have a different opinion of him? Did you at any point almost feel sorry for him, during this?

TRUMP: So, I had the absolute right to fire him but I didn't. And I never suggested to do it. But I had the absolute right to fire him under Article 2 and perhaps for other reasons but, I didn't do it. I didn't do any of the things -- you know, when they said he was going to do this or said he was going to do that, I didn't do any of it and it's really incredible when I hear this.

And, you know, the whole concept of obstruction, first of all, they create a phony crime which was just a terrible thing to say about somebody, especially somebody that loves the country as much as I do. So, they create this phony crime and then they say he obstructed. They said there was no collusion but he obstructed. And there has never been anything like this ever before in our country.

This crime was a -- the crime was committed on the other side and we will find out about that. We have a great attorney general who is looking at it. I'm involved in that. He is looking at it and, you know, I've been hearing a lot of the media actually talked about investigate the investigators and a lot more than that.

And I think that things are -- I just see it. I feel it. I think a lot of good is going to come out of it. We went through hell. A lot of people went through hell. They came down to Washington wanting to do a phenomenal job for the people and they get served with papers to come and testify and go before a grand jury's and by the way, nothing affected the Trump Organization.

You know, all of these things like the Russian bloggers, they had nothing to do with us. And everybody knew it. In fact, there is a little sentence and they are saying that it had nothing to do with the Trump administration. But it was like a lot of people, 24 vehicle or something.

A lot of bloggers, bloggers in Russia, they will never see these people. They know that. They sent out papers to these people, they will never see them. People probably never even got the papers.

But all of these people, none of them had -- they went through people with old tax cases, old cases. Cases that were not even going forward and, you know, just went after them viciously and violently. General Flynn, who is a good man, what they did to General Flynn and so many others, Hope Hicks, this wonderful young woman. She spent much of her time in Washington fighting off, you know, horrible stories and things and she was just a high-quality person.

So many. I mean, I could name almost everybody. What they went through. And still, to this day, I mean, I heard people saying that -- I heard some of the media saying that they thought Mueller performed OK. In other words, they let a day go by and then they'll try and spin it.

These are very dishonest people. These are very bad people.

HANNITY: Mr. President, the power of the pardon -- I actually think the best pardon you gave is to Alice Marie Johnson. I think you commuted her sentence should be more accurate. It's absolute. Have you at any point, ever considered in the back of your minds, a pardon for any of the people you mentioned? Or you would weigh? I think you had said at one point you wouldn't consider it until after it all worked through?

TRUMP: Well, I don't want to comment on that as far as the pardons are concerned. Yes, it is absolute and it's a beautiful thing. I've had people, Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion of the world in the early 1900s, and, he went to jail for, you know, no reason.

And so many other things and Alice Johnson is another good example. You know, I really feel good about giving it, where people have been treated unfairly and abused, actually. But, I haven't talked about it with respect to what's going on now. I mean, it's, you know, I think there's a whole new day starting. I think I used to use and I still use drain the swamp.

We have some very, very bad people in government. That would be willing to divert bad things and for bad reasons. So, I don't mention, pardon, but I don't say what is going to happen in the future. I just don't comment on it.

HANNITY: Mr. President, last question on this and that I want to switch to 2020, if I may. Comey, McCabe. As Comey signed the first FISA warrant which opened the door, apparently, according to Nunes and the Grassley-Graham memo, the bulk of information was Hillary bought and paid for a dirty Russian dossier.

And we found out from John Solomon last week that they had a spreadsheet, even the FBI in early 2017, said 90% of this saying was false garbage and not true. Comey though signed it that allowed a backdoor through Carter Page to spy on your campaign, later transitioning and then presidency.

But McCabe, Strzok, Page, Brennan, Clapper, may be sourcing out what would be illegal intelligence gathering. We know the Attorney General was there. Is there any of these names - what do you think of these people?

Because James Comey signed the first FISA application in October 2016, went to Trump Tower in January 2017, and told you it was unverified, months earlier, he swore on that application, the FISA application that it's verified, so he lied. What are your thoughts about these people today?

TRUMP: Well, Comey is a liar and a leaker and that's obvious. All you have to do is just follow him along and see what he said to Congress. Clapper and Brennan and all of these people, McCabe, these are bad people. My opinion, they are very bad people. They've been very bad for the country.

They were - I used to think incompetent but they are really I guess competent at other things and maybe bad things but we will see what happens. I mean, I guess a lot of things are coming out and is going to be very interesting and it will be great to clean up a real big mess because again, it could never happen. This could never be allowed to happen again, Sean.

HANNITY: Mr. President, you have the power to literally release the FISA applications and the 302's and the gang made information and you made a decision to hand it over to the Attorney General and let him decide. And I'm curious as to why?

TRUMP: Well, we have a very respected gentleman, very high quality person named William Barr and he is doing - I can tell you he's working so hard and rather than just doing a total release, I gave him a total release, in other words he's got everything anything he needs, he's got it.

He is the Attorney General of the United States. He's got a lot of very good people under him that I guess are involved and I gave them a total release. So all of it has been released and he has all of it. I've also given him authorization to release it to whoever he wants. Whether it's his people or, frankly, perhaps people like Devin Nunes who is a star, what he has done and the amount of suffering he has gone through, you know what they did with him where they tried to drive him right out of politics and probably worse than that. He has done an incredible job.

And, so many others I mean, the job - they are warriors. We have had, I'll tell you the good side of all of this is the level of intelligence and strength and goodness that we have had on the Republican Party, a lot of them, not everybody, of course, but we have had tremendous, and I say, when I say we I'm talking about the country.

The country has had tremendous reports from Meadows and Jordan and Devin Nunes and so many of the names that you saw yesterday, perform so well. I mean, they perform so well and they worked so hard because they saw this was a scam. This was an illegal takeover, as you would say in the business world.

I mean, this was a coup attempts in my opinion. And this is the United States. And we wouldn't stand for it and I wouldn't stand for it. We have some very great people but we also have some very bad people. And I think we caught them.

HANNITY: I believe, sir, that we have the premier Law Enforcement Agency in the world our FBI. We have the premier intelligence people in the world but that's 99 percent but the 1 percent of the top, the ones we're talking about abusing power.

All right, so how closely you're paying attention to the 2020 Democrats that by the way seem most influenced by "The Squad" and all of them having even adopted some version of the insane New Green Deal that would get rid of the life blood of our economy oil, gas, plains and cows and the combustion engine?

TRUMP: Well, it's very interesting because I haven't seen it at all for the last four or five days. There are talking about the Democrats. They are talking about Mueller and how bad he performed. How badly he performed. And they're talked about everything that happened over the last few days but in particular, yesterday, you are not saying much about the Democrats.

But, look, you have got a few of them that are doing a little bit better than others. It'll be interesting. Whoever it is, I'm okay with it. We have the best economy we've ever had, as you know, we have the best stock market numbers we've ever had in the best history of our country.

If we look at weren't 401(k)s, if you look at the kind of money that people are making, I'm not talking about rich people or just rich people, I'm talking about everybody. And blue-collar workers went up proportionally more than anybody you saw the polls that just came out. Things are doing great.

The best unemployment numbers, the best employment numbers. I'll tell you what, more people working in the United States today than at any time in the history of our country. And then we have the lowest unemployment numbers, especially for African-Americans, for Hispanics, for Asians, women are almost 70 years, the best numbers, and soon to be historic, meaning forever meaning from the beginning.

No, I think we are going to be in great shape. Then you have the AOC, I caught AOC +3--

HANNITY: Let me ask you one thing, who do you think--

TRUMP: --the three anger is on. They're really hurting. I really believe they're going to hurt the Democrats. We will see. But I think we're going to well, Sean. I think we're going to do very well. We have tremendous spirit every time you never seen an empty seat. We go into these massive arenas and they are packed and there are thousands of people outside. You've never seen an empty seat. I think we're going to do very well.

HANNITY: All right, three quick questions and I'm going to let you go because you've been very generous with your time. Who do you think wins and will you tell us, and is there one of the group of Democratic hopefuls that you hope wins because you know you can beat them easily?

TRUMP: Well, you know, I could say that obviously, the top three or four look like they are doing better than the rest. So, sleepy Joe is okay but he is fading, I think he is fading fast. The only good thing about Mueller is it made Joe Biden look like your dynamo. So, when you watch Mueller's performance yesterday, I think probably Biden is the one that asked him to go on.

So, you have him and he is sort of a little bit leading and then you have a whole group. You have Elizabeth Warren, formally known as Pocahontas. I'm sure that'll come out because that's a tough thing for her to withstand, I believed, because her whole life was a fake. She used that very, very adeptly and it was not good.

And you have Harris and Bernie looks like he is fading, to me, Bernie looks like he missed his time. I think what Hillary did a few years ago was pretty tough, frankly, for Bernie. But that was his time. I don't think it's Bernie's time. I see him flailing. He is flailing all over the place. He's going crazy. I call him crazy Bernie.

But the fact is, That I think those would be probably the three or four, maybe there is another one or two, you know, I don't necessarily see anybody else gaining traction.

HANNITY: Mr. President, last two questions. First one is on both Iran and North Korea. They have recently fired test missiles. Here's my question for you. I think I've known you for nearly 25 years. I know your mind-set on this very well. I said it on the air in a message to the molars that they better be careful. You will not put boots on the ground. You're probably going to show some level of patience but at the end of the day, if they force you, I believe, knowing you, I believe is you will devastate them.

And North Korea, you have given them nothing. People criticize and said certain things I believe about Donald Trump. One, you will put boots on the ground. You will never try to drive and bribe a dictator like Clinton did with North Korea unlike Biden Obama did with the molars. And I do believe that if pushed, the military might unleash would be mighty and wouldn't require boots on the ground, am I right?

TRUMP: Well, I think that in the case of Iran, I know that better even than you do, and probably even stronger than you said it. I think they understand that very well. And in the case of North Korea, I'm actually getting along very well with him but we will see what happens. I mean, you know, the sanctions are on. The hostages are back, we are getting the remains back, they haven't done nuclear testing, they really haven't tested to missiles other than, you know, smaller ones which is something that blot test.

But I think with North Korea, we have been doing very well here but that doesn't mean it's going to continue. We have a relationship, President Obama had no relationship. You would have been at war. Had Hillary won this election, you would be at war with North Korea. I have no doubt about that. That's where it was heading, it was heading there very rapidly.

HANNITY: As I said, yes.

TRUMP: We will see what happens, but I think what you said might be somewhat of an understatement.

HANNITY: Last question Mr. President. And I have said many times in this program, all you've given Kim Jong-Un is your time and we got remains back, we got hostages back, and missiles stopped up until fairly recently. You just gave time.

Let me ask - maybe it's because it's New York and I know a city that you obviously love a lot. You've seen and you've watched with us, these police officers who are being pounded with water. And not reacting. To me, if this continues that is a disastrous situation for the people in New York City?

HANNITY: Well, it's a bad Mayor probably the worst Mayor in history of New York City. He has done a bad job and I was running for President. The people can't even believe it. He's a horrible Mayor. The policeman and women cannot stand him. They don't respect him, they don't like him, remember, they turned their back on him a couple years ago when he got up to speak everybody turned their back and they kept at that way. And still they want to do it but they still have respect for the office, if not him.

HANNITY: Yes, Mr. President.

TRUMP: I thought that was tragic, watching that scene a couple of days ago when I first saw it. I couldn't believe it. I said, let me see that again. I don't believe what I'm seeing. And I know New York's finest and New York's finest, in fact, we were in touch with him today. They are devastated that frankly, that that could happen and also that those two officers would allow that to happen. That was a terrible thing.

HANNITY: Well, every single one that we have on video, I would like to see arrested. Mr. President, I won't take anymore of your time. Thank you so much for being with us. As always, we really appreciate it sir.

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

HANNITY: Thank you. Here now with reaction of my exclusive interview with the President, Fox News Contributor, my friend Don Bongino and Fox News Correspondent at-Large, Geraldo Rivera. You always say something - we fight we have some real knocked down drag opposite at times but you say something that I'm always appreciate about you and that's that you want our President to succeed.

You saw what happened yesterday. You saw what's going on the last two and half years you just heard the President react to it. I don't think any of that was good for the country and I think if we don't get to the bottom of this, we are going to have a lot of problems in the future.

GERALDO RIVERA, CORRESPONDENT AT-LARGE: We get one President at a time Sean and his success is the nation's success. And the miracle is, that his administration has been so successful in terms of unemployment and these other trade deals in North Korea and so forth, given the fact that every day he went to work, knowing that the Justice Department's, his own FBI, was crawling all over him.

You know, turning people, informants, wiretapping, snitches, indicting people, they were trying everything they could and what you call this failed coup attempt and yet, he stayed relatively measured. He stayed focused as President. The gravest shadow on his presidency has been revealed to be smoke and mirrors and I thought the miracle of it all is, and it really is, something very significant, the fact that he could keep it all together knowing that he had enemies on all sides.

He had people going to knife in the back, people trying to overthrow his presidency, people trying to turn, you know, some of his closest associates against him. I think that it was - he has been brilliant and he was totally vindicated yesterday with that whole thing hesitant testimony from frail, fragile Robert Mueller who made me feel very old watching it, Sean.

HANNITY: You know, and by the way, Geraldo is about to celebrate 50 years on the air and everything from what the investigative reporting that you've done, willow brook, you, single-handedly changed how we treat those that are in need and that tape will make anybody cry today. To the Geraldo Show, to--

RIVERA: Enough about me. Enough about me.

HANNITY: These crazy people. Don Bongino, let's get your general reaction to the President's remarks. You have covered a lot of territories but he spent a lot of time on obviously yesterday's events.

DON BONGINO, CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Sean you asked a very important question to the President and I thought his answer was very telling. What was the role in the media in all of this and the collusion hoax?

Now, Sean, for you and I and Geraldo and John Solomon, Sara Carter and others who followed this case, this case was obviously a hoax from the start. If the media would have respected their oath and had any journalistic integrity, it would've been obvious. I mean, can I give you a quick example, good real clear investigations that a report on the footnotes in the Mueller report. This is fascinating. The footnote, one of the ways they kind of knock the integrity of the Trump team and it adds into the Russians.

One of the footnote says, that a guy told the guy that Trump was thinking about stopping by a Chess Tournament in New York where a Russian guy was there. Folks, you can read that in the Mueller report. I'm not making this up. You can read it. That was in the Mueller report. That a dude told another dude that Trump may stop by a Chess Tournament and there was a Russian guy there.

This is what they did in the Mueller report. The examples are everywhere. And one more quick thing, where were the media reports that Christopher Steele already indicated to the State Department that two sources for his dossier were two Russians? Have you heard any more about this? Only one campaign--

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I want to ask you very quickly, wouldn't that mean that if "The New York Times" is right and this was Russian disinformation from the beginning and they knew that Hillary was paying for it, wouldn't that take away the whole narrative that Russia was trying to help Trump? And that would mean they were trying to help Hillary? Geraldo.

RIVERA: Of course it was only one campaign colluded, Hillary's.

HANNITY: Now, all right guys.

RIVERA: Remember he was President of the United States being a trader committing treason against his own country. They thought to say on television that the President was knifing the republic in the back. It was so sick. And it should be exposed and every one of them should be exposed.

HANNITY: I'm doing a 50 year retrospective on Geraldo coming up in weeks ahead. We have a lot more to get to it. It media credibility, a huge nose dive, will they ever get out of that? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Of course the media's credibility I mean all across the fake phony news media. The media mob, the rage Trump psychotic media mob they took a huge hit yesterday. Joining us now Columnist Jeffery Lord, along with the great New York Radio Host in WOR, my affiliate there Joe Concha, Fox News Contributor Sara Carter.

Well, I used to watch on these panels on Fake News CNN, Jeff Lord and it was you against 20 other people, you against 10 other people usually setting there a combination the reporter Kayleigh McEnany and 20 the other side. But I don't think they can get it back. I think they lost it. And the President has so - he's so awake in this public to who they are? Their agenda, the phony reporting I do not think they can get it back.

JEFFERY LORD, "SWAMP WARS" AUTHOR: I don't think they can either, Sean. What amazes me it never seems to occur to them that they were damaging their own credibility when they do this kind of thing. They would do it over and over and over again and their ratings would drop and drop and drop.

One of the amusing things, I see that Rachel Maddow says she wants to get the staff behind the Mueller report out there to talk about it? Sean, there's not enough popcorn for me to get to see Andrew Weissmann sit across from you on this show for an hour and answer your questions. Is the rest of the media going to be doing this? I don't think so.

HANNITY: I think as they say they have a lot of explaining to do. Sara, we consciously all - we talked a lot. John, Gregg, - I mean I can't mention it - Joel, Victoria I can't mention everybody. I'm going to miss people like a mad about getting it right, about doing it our way, about having the standards of sourcing down packed before anybody went with the story. We been right ever long and proven right all along, but we had a history on the show of doing that. I mentioned it earlier from Richard Jewell, Nicholas Sandmann, Ferguson, Dulce O Cross. They always get it wrong. How?

SARA CARTER, CONTRIBUTOR: That's right, Sean. They just bought the spiel that was being given to them by John Brennan, by James Comey, by Clapper, by Andrew McCabe and others within the FBI. All of those leaks. This is what people have to realize. And you're right, Sean, we'd go the extra mile to find three, four, five sources.

HANNITY: We had a story on a Monday we wouldn't release it until three Mondays later.

CARTER: You are absolutely right. You're absolutely right. We would not do that.

HANNITY: But we did it a lot. We held back stories we knew for a long time.

CARTER: That's right.

JOE CONCHA, "WOR TONIGHT" CO-HOST ON 710 WOR: Sean, I keep going back to this Axios 30 hour study that happened just not too long ago. 72% of Americans believe "Traditional major news sources report news they know to be face, false, purposely misleading" three quarters of the country believes the news media does that. And that's largely because of the reporting that we saw here around Russia and collusion that didn't happen. We saw Robert Mueller yesterday. That's the final chapter in this sordid tale.

HANNITY: I'm apologizing. I'm a bad host bad time management. We'll continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: We're going to continue our investigation of the investigators. We're going to continue to hold them accountable. We've made you that promise we're not going to stop. I think the President is right. This ever happens again, it is really bad. People can get away with what they got away with? That's worse.

We will never be the destroy-Trump media mob. Thank you so much for being with us. Let not your heart be troubled.

Hello, Laura.

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