Scaramucci: De Blasio is an unmitigated disaster
New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announces his 2020 presidential bid; reaction from Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci.
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 16, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to "Hannity". We're glad you're with us.
All right. Tonight, a lot of breaking news, brand new developments surrounding James Comey, James Clapper, John Brennan, we have got a monumental new report from Solomon about real Russian collusion in the Clinton campaign. We'll break it wide open.
And truth and justice as we promised is now beginning to cascade down. No one in the deep state is safe. They're all in fear this very night, because they're all facing real legal consequences.
But we start with another huge discovery from Judicial Watch tonight. They just obtained scores of heavily redacted documents featuring communications between Bruce Ohr and his wife, Nellie Ohr.
Now, remember, Bruce, the fourth highest ranking Justice Department official, Nellie Ohr working for Fusion GPS, doing op research on Donald Trump, then candidate. One e-mail chain from 2016 shows Ohr's planning a meeting about Russian organized crime with the first secretary at the German embassy.
Now, in the last message, Nellie Ohr writes, quote: Thanks. I'm now deleting these texts.
I wonder if she used Bleach Bit?
Now, why were those e-mails deleted? Now, keep in mind, Nellie Ohr working with Christopher Steele, working at Fusion GPS, her husband, Bruce Ohr, maintaining constant contact with Steele as well during his time as high- ranking DOJ official. And now, both deep state actors are organizing a meeting with the foreign government, and then deleting the evidence.
Now, Judicial Watch president Tom Fenton is calling it disturbing. He will also join us tonight exclusively with the details.
But, first, we have another bombshell from "The Hill's" John Solomon. He's been on fire the last few weeks. As it turns out, there might have been actual real Russia collusion in the 2016 election.
By the way, does the media care about collusion, or only getting Donald Trump? Interesting question. This collusion involves a prominent Ukrainian lawmaker who was reportedly feeding anti-Trump dirt to the Clinton campaign. And according to Solomon, the shady figure is being investigated for taking bribes from Russia in 2016, the very same time that he was actively working with Democrats on a smear campaign for the Trump campaign -- or against the Trump campaign.
So, think about it, if the media mob really cared about collusion as they claim, this story would be every second, every minute, every hour of every day on every network on the front page of every newspaper. We're going to have more of this monologue in a moment.
But, first, joining us with more on this breaking report, he is the investigative report and, of course, editor at "The Hill", John Solomon.
John, a lot of details, you have been on fire. I'll let you put it in your own words tonight.
JOHN SOLOMON, THE HILL EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, Sean, if you remember, we said about a month ago that the origins of the Russia collusion narrative started in the Ukraine. And since that time, we've learned lot of information. We learned that in December, the Ukrainian courts ruled that Serhiy Leshchenko, the parliamentary member that you just mentioned, had wrongly interfered in the U.S. election. This is a court ruling. He wrongly and illegally interfered in the U.S. election by leaking documents about Paul Manafort designed to smear the Trump campaign.
Then a few weeks ago, we got Nellie Ohr's testimony from Congress, and we learned that same Serhiy Leshchenko, that same parliamentary member was the one feeding Trump dirt to Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and Nellie Ohr's firm.
Tonight, we can report that in the time frame when he was doing both of those things, leaking the documents about Manafort, providing information to Fusion GPS for the Clinton campaign and DNC, he was receiving money, that's the suspicion, and Ukraine prosecutors say, from a Russian oligarch, then ended up buying a very expensive apartment, just a few days after Paul Manafort was forced to resign from the Trump campaign.
So, this is a beginning of an investigation in Ukraine. It's been announced the prosecutors told me today they are looking at whether that Russian money had something to do with Serhiy Leshchenko's dealings on the Trump campaign, the Clinton campaign, and, of course, Paul Manafort.
HANNITY: Unbelievable story. It will be interesting to see if the media really cares about collusion, they don't seem.
SOLOMON: Right.
HANNITY: Just like if they really cared about obstruction, I think they might care about subpoenaed e-mails, 33,000 deleted, Bleach Bit, hammers, SIM cards removed.
Just like if they really cared about the treatment of women only for Kavanaugh but not the lieutenant governor of Virginia and the serious allegations there. This is now the cascade effect. How much deeper this going to go as we only have a few more seconds.
SOLOMON: Yes, listen, I think the Ukraine prosecutors got to do their job. They've got to follow the money. Let's see if the Russian paid for. Let's see if it's connected to Manafort.
But there's no doubt tonight, Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian parliamentary member, a source for the Clinton campaign, is taking on new significance in America.
HANNITY: Investigative reporter John Solomon, thank you for sharing that report.
As promised, every night on this program, we will bring you all the latest develops from our mission, investigating the investigators, something the mainstream media is not doing after a year of peddling lies, a hoax, conspiracy theories, pretty sad. Stay tuned. In the coming weeks, a lot more will be revealed.
Now, the Attorney General Barr is now leading the effort to hold bad actors accountable. Tonight, our very own Bill Hemmer caught up with the attorney general, Barr, in El Salvador, and asked him about this ongoing investigation. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I've been trying to get answers to questions, and I found that a lot of the answers of been inadequate. And I've also found that some of the explanations I've gotten don't hang together. So, in a sense, I have more questions today than I did when I first started.
BILL HEMMER, ANCHOR: Some of what things don't hang together?
BARR: Some of the explanations of what occurred.
HEMMER: Why does that matter?
BARR: Because I think people have to find out what the government was doing during that period. If we're worried about foreign influence, for the very same reason, we should be worried whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on the scale. And so, I'm not saying that happened, but I'm saying that we have to look at that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, Bill Hemmer's full interview airs tomorrow 9:00a.m. right here on FOX on "America's Newsroom".
But joining us now from El Salvador tonight with the preview, he got the interview I wanted.
Good job, Mr. Hemmer. Fascinating piece that you just shared with us. Tell us more.
HEMMER: Yes, Sean, good evening to you, in the capital city of San Salvador.
I came down here to talk about MS13 and gangs, which he did all day. His schedule was chockfull of that and you're going to hear a lot more about that tomorrow on "America's Newsroom". I think the clip that you just heard is perhaps the most telling aspect of what his job is now.
We found out this past week that federal prosecutor had been appointed weeks ago, now, to start looking into everything that was happening during the campaign of 2016, the summer of 2016, and possibly, Sean, even prior to that. He took the job on Valentine's Day, February 14 this year, just three months ago. He said he kept asking questions, but the answers did not make sense to him.
And that's where that phrase you heard, don't hang together, that's the thing that he remembers the most, based on his experience thus far. He's trying to get to the bottom of this, including in the interview there you heard that he's not quite sure where it goes. That's part of it now, and you get the rest of that conversation tomorrow.
In addition, it talks about James Comey, question about John Brennan, and James Clapper. Not a lot of detail or information on that, but it's clear they're looking at the Trump Tower meeting with Comey in January of 2017.
I would say also, Sean, things to listen to tomorrow are his feelings about being called a liar, how he's defending himself on obstruction, whether there was witness tampering and how he considered that in a legal sense when judging the Mueller report.
There's a lot in this thing, Sean -- his conversation with Nancy Pelosi yesterday on Capitol Hill. You get the sense from Bill Barr that he knew he was going to be a target and he did not care. Now, where does this go and where does it lead, we're not quite sure. But you're going to find out more when you see that tomorrow.
HANNITY: Wow, we'll be watching, 9:00a.m., "America's Newsroom". Thanks for sharing all of that with us, Bill Hemmer, as always, thank you.
And while the Attorney General Barr searches for truth and justice, well, the Democrats on Capitol Hill predicatively busy wasting your time, other people's money, still advancing a hoax, still advancing lies and conspiracy theories. For example, Jerry Nadler is now demanding the attorney general revealed grand jury information in the Mueller report. Nadler actually wants the attorney general of the United States to commit a crime or he's going to be handcuffed by the sergeant of arms. Really?
As law professor Jonathan Turley has pointed out, it is Nadler who is in for a world of hurt if he continues this. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN TURLEY, LAW PROFESSOR: I believe that the contempt action of this committee was unfounded. But I also believe that if it goes to a federal court, this is another area where I think that this committee could lose.
When senators ask me, why won't he commit to releasing the full, unredacted report? I said, because that would be a crime.
You are heading into a world of hurt if you go to the D.C. circuit and argue that you could order Barr, that Barr could unilaterally release Rule 6-E information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, Nadler's fishing expedition is going nowhere. But in an effort to be transparent as possible, Barr has expanded access to most unredacted, the most unredacted version of the Mueller report, so that Democrats, if they just take the time, they can see almost all of it. No word by the way if any Democrats will bother to take the time to look. One sentence and seven partial sentences removed, everything else remains.
Meanwhile, as we just heard, Barr's legitimate investigation into the deep state is well underway, so is the Horowitz probe into FISA abuse and the Huber report investigating leaking. And just this week, we learned about the John Durham investigation into the origins of the Russia probe. The once powerful, high ranking members of this deep state that we've been talking about and exposing for two years, they are tonight all running scared and they're now turning on each other.
As we reported last night, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, they're putting all the blame right on then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Comey is trashing Strzok and Page on national TV. Rod Rosenstein is being trashed by James Comey, and he's now trashing back. They're both attacking each other's character. Then, of course, there's Brennan and Comey, they're blaming each other for promoting and pushing the dirty Clinton bought and paid for Russian dossier.
And Comey's general counsel, James Baker, just revealed he was, quote, quite worried that his boss, Director Comey of the FBI, was literally blackmailing Donald Trump with Hillary's dirty Russian dossier. You couldn't put this in a spy novel but it's true. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES COMEY, FORMER TOP FBI LAWYER: The Hoover days, especially the investigation of Martin Luther King Jr., what was done there, I don't know, what the word is, the blackmailing of Dr. Martin Luther King. And so, yes, we were quite worried about that, quite worried how it would come off. And so, we wanted to try and make sure to convey to the president-elect that that's what we were not doing. That, sir, we have this information, it came to us in a particular way, the press has it, it's about to come out, you should be alerted to that fact. We don't want to proceed on this basis without you being aware of those facts. But, no, we were worried about the Hoover analogies and we're determined not to have such a disaster happen on our watch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, we've warned Jimbo, it's not a good look when your own general counsel is comparing you to J. Edgar Hoover. Of course, the FBI chief who was famous for abusing power, spying on Americans, and, yes, blackmailing his political adversaries.
While Baker expressed concern over how Comey was using the dossier, he also claimed that the FBI took the dossier seriously, but not literally. Really? Because was that was the bulk of the information in the FISA applications. So, it sounds like they took it literally. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BAKER: The information came in and there was a lot of detail with respect to a lot of different types of activities that were allegedly going on. And so, I guess the way I have phrased it, I think we took it seriously, we didn't necessarily take it literally that, was literally true in every respect. But it was something that we were obligated to deal with and obligated to assess, given what we understood, what I understood to be the source of the information, Christopher Steele at that point in time. We were obligated to take it seriously and look at it, and try to figure out whether it was true or not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Hold on a second. If you didn't take the Hillary bought and paid for Russian dossier seriously or literally, why did James Comey in October of 2016 swear, it says at the top of the FISA application, verified? Why did he swear that the contents were true and accurate in the first FISA request? Why was that request marked verified at the very top?
Now, did James Comey lie then or did he lie in January of 2017 when he said to then President-elect Trump, it's salacious but not verified.
He is at the center what was a multi-year effort by the most powerful unelected bureaucrats clearly first to rig an investigation into their favorite candidate when the evidence was overwhelming and incontrovertible. Hillary Clinton, the Espionage Act, Hillary Clinton, obstruction of justice, the intent was clear -- destroy the evidence, and that's why you delete 30,000 subpoenaed e-mails, that's why you'd use Bleach Bit, that's why you'd have an aide take a hammer and bust up all your devices and remove all of the SIM cards. That would be intent, something they tried to pin on Donald Trump when there was no underlying crime.
Four investigations including the Mueller report, no collusion. By the way, it's over.
Joining with us a lot more, Judicial Watch president Tom Fenton, also FOX News contributor Ari Fleischer, and FOX News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett.
Tom Fenton, we'll begin with you and your breaking developments tonight.
TOM FENTON, JUDICIAL WATCH PRESIDENT: Yes, new e-mails out of the Justice Department that we uncovered as a result of a lawsuit, they weren't voluntarily disclosed. And it's an e-mail communication between Nellie Ohr who had been working for Fusion GPS, and her husband Bruce Ohr, top official at the Justice Department.
And the subject line reads, you know, analyst Russia organized crime. Nellie writes, thanks, I'm deleting these e-mails now. So, you've got, looks like Russia related e-mails being deleted, at the request of Bruce Orr, Justice Department material, and certainly it could be possibly relevant to the Russia-gate hoax targeting President Trump and the investigation generally.
As you quoted me, it's mightily disturbing that you've got Justice Department officials, A, sending material to their spouses who are working for a candidate for president, and then, B, telling them to destroy these set of documents.
HANNITY: All right. We just heard from John Solomon, we just heard from Tom, I wonder if they used Bleach Bit is the only question I have. Then you got the circular firing squad among deep state actors, they're all turning on each other, on top of the comments that Comey might have been blackmailing.
GREGG JARRETT, LEGAL ANALYST: Right.
HANNITY: Wow.
JARRETT: They're talking about blackmailing because they actually were engaged in blackmailing. And also --
HANNITY: Explain how.
JARRETT: Well, they needed to take their holy grail, which was the dossier, and they needed to slip it in to the private version of the intelligence community report, so they could then brief the President-elect Trump. That was a pretext to then leak it to the media, and they could then publish the contents of the dossier.
So, now, you've got nefarious characters, Comey, Brennan, and Clapper, who are now pointing the fingers of blame at each other, the circular firing squad as you say. You got James Baker who is now out there trying to rationalize the corrupt acts that the documents belie.
HANNITY: It's interesting because Baker was the one guy that saw the obvious crimes of Hillary and was overruled and pushed out of the way.
JARRETT: He was.
HANNITY: Kind of bullied and ganged up on.
JARRETT: And he's under criminal investigation.
HANNITY: You know, Ari, when you get to the bottom of this, this is unbelievable that this could happen in the United States, at least to me, that you have an exoneration written before an investigation. You have the people involved in it, laughing and joking, the fix is in. The attorney general at the time, Loretta Lynch, is never going to indict Hillary, the evidence is overwhelming, the evidence on obstruction overwhelming, so they save her.
Then they use her dossier to spy not only on citizen Carter Page, but backdoored their way into all things Trump campaign, all things Trump transition, and then, of course, to bludgeon and destroy his presidency. And I'll add to that, they used Hillary's dirty Russian dossier that the "New York Times" now suggests probably was Russian disinformation as the foundation to get these warrants.
To me, the biggest abuse of power, corruption scandal we have seen in our lifetime.
ARI FLEISCHER, CONTRIBUTOR: Sean, think of it this way, people criticized President Trump for breaking the norms of Washington, D.C. Once you get beyond the smooth words of Barack Obama, what you really had was the worst transmission American history, where one admission, the outgoing one, was so shocked about who won, that they did everything in their power during the transition to undermine him, including using the secret state powers of the government to undermine him, leak information, unmask officials, and leak that information, not to mention release classified phone calls to foreign leaders. All of this took place.
And it's pretty -- step into the president's shoes. You don't know Clapper, you don't know Brennan, you don't know Comey. The three come in to give you a briefing as president-elect about the government's most cherished secrets, in a choreographed moment, two of those three leave, leaving Comey behind. Comey to share something so sacred with the president, and it turns out to be the Steele dossier, which the president himself would know was true or wasn't true.
So what is he to conclude? He knows it's not true. He concludes that James Comey is trying to lord something over him, hold something over him, as the FBI director to the incoming president.
HANNITY: But interesting thing is -- but, Ari, three months earlier, he signed a FISA want verifying it's true as an official law enforcement -- the head of the most prestigious law enforcement in the world, the FBI.
FLEISCHER: Yes. I'm glad, thank goodness, the Justice Department is looking into all this.
HANNITY: Yes.
FENTON: And that blackmail operation, remember, that Comey talked about going to see then-President-elect Trump in the Oval Office with President Obama, then Vice President Biden, Susan Rice, they all talked about that outreach to then-candidate -- then-President-elect Trump.
You know, I think President Obama needs to come clean about what went on, what he knew about the dossier -- how he authorized the FBI director to go in with the garbage dossier, that they all knew was salacious and unverified to use Comey's language to intimidate the incoming president.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: You're right but you're wrong, because that's not what he said in October.
Gregg?
JARRETT: William Barr's interview was very interesting. He's been around the block a long time, many times. He can smell a cover-up a mile away.
You heard him tell Bill Hemmer he was getting incomplete answers that didn't make sense. That means people are lying, blaming others, and covering up the truth.
HANNITY: The number one book called "The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump", I think the author reached number one in the "New York Times", multiple weeks. Do you know him?
JARRETT: A lot of that is in my book.
HANNITY: Last word, Ari Fleischer.
FLEISCHER: No, I just think thank goodness we have a Justice Department that's going to do what should have been done and look into the origins of this and figure out if wrong was done. And I have faith in Bill Barr. He's an honest man.
HANNITY: Ari, are you on to something profound, how high up, what did Biden know, what did Lynch know, what did Rice know, what did Clapper and Brennan know? What did Obama know? When did they know it?
Thank you all.
FLEISCHER: Yes.
HANNITY: When, we come back, failing New York City mayor, comrade Bill de Blasio, is running for president but you can't build tall buildings with steel or glass anymore. OK, Lawrence Jones hit the streets of New York, what do New Yorkers and others think of his candidacy and a lot more, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. Tonight, New York City mayor, Comrade Bill de Blasio, is the now 23rd Democrat to enter the 2020 race. And he's already, well, managed to unify the country on day one because absolutely no one wants him to run, including his constituents in New York City.
Look at the cover at "The New York Post". Recent poll find that New Yorkers do not support his bid. We event sent our own Lawrence Jones out to the city to see what the residents of New York think, that video coming up.
But, first, only days ago, de Blasio got booed during his own press conference after he stormed Trump Tower to promote his radical Green New Deal, even had protesters outside his appearance this morning on "Good Morning America". But, still, the mayor remains as delusional as ever, about his White House chances.
But it gets worse. Friends, former aides, have called the campaign, quote, insane and idiotic. And just moments ago, President Trump had this to say about the New York City mayor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: I can't believe it. I just heard that the worst mayor in the history of New York City, and without question the worst mayor in the United States is now running for president. It will never happen, I'm pretty good at predicting things like that, I would be very surprised to see him in there for a long period. But it's just not going to happen.
If you like high taxes and if you like crime, you can vote for him. But most people aren't into that. So, I wish him luck. But, really, it would be better off if you get back to New York City and did your job for the little time you have left. Good luck. Do well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right. Even the left wing media, they can't hold back their laughter -- that tells you a lot -- including our friends, the women of "The View." Let's take look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WHOOPI GOLDERG, "THE VIEW" CO-HOST: This morning, it became official. New York City mayor --
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know!
GOLDBERG: Bill de Blasio is running for president. His campaign video said --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoa!
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: Is this a good career move for him? Right now? No!
Here's the thing that you didn't mention. Homelessness is near record highs. Congestion pricing, we'll take the minimum wage money that we just gave to people, it will take it away from them, because they have to pay the congestion pricing.
Public housing is falling apart. You can't seem to fire anybody. Subway underserved. The buses are slow. What the hell you're going on do?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Whoopi, the greatest monologue in the history of "The View." Great job.
And don't forget, about as far left agenda to control every single aspect of your life. Like meatless Monday at public schools. He swears the kids love it.
And his plan, he will ban glass and steel. No more glass or steel skyscrapers in New York City.
And his tenure as mayor has also included serious allegations of pay-to- play schemes and don't forget the debacle with the groundhog that actually died. It died after de Blasio dropped the animal during a city ceremony back in 2014, the poor animal, and the zoo went to great lengths to hide the death of the animal from the public. And now, De Blasio's bad behavior doesn't stop there, which is why we decided to send our investigative reporter Lawrence Jones to hit the streets of New York for reaction.
Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE JONES, CONTRIBUTOR: So your Mayor, Bill de Blasio, he's going to run for President now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw that announcement this morning, yes.
JONES: Does he deserve that promotion?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I don't think he deserves that promotion. He hasn't done well in New York here.
JONES: He wants to be President now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nah. No way.
JONES: So you're no-go for--?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No-go, no-go at all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have mixed feelings. I support in many ways, and other things that we need to talk about.
JONES: He's running for President.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck.
JONES: Do you think he'll win?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
JONES: Does he deserve a promotion?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He should be working on New York City, not becoming President.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He ain't going to win.
JONES: He ain't going to win? He has no chance. He can't even beat Trump?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. No, I don't think he can beat Trump.
JONES: Do you feel like he's done a good job as Mayor?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I live in New York for 39 years. I say no.
JONES: He's running for President now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Let's see about that. I don't think that's going to work out for him.
JONES: You think he's done a good job? You like the roads, you like the subway?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, of course.
JONES: You think he's done a really good job?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think so.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) we have to get rid of him.
JONES: You got to get rid of him? You want--
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want him to go, gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right. De Blasio has been spreading his far left lunacy to every corner of the city. Just hours ago, the police union put out a statement reading, "It is laughable that a mayor who has shown zero interest in running New York City for six years now says he wants to mismanage the entire country."
Well, he's had idea after bad idea, failure after failure, and no better person to give a reaction, just coming off a huge, big seminar in Vegas, I know because my friends were there, the Founder of SkyBridge Capital, our friend Anthony Scaramucci.
How are you? Good to see you.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FOUNDER & CO-MANAGING PARTNER, SKYBRIDGE CAPITAL: Sean, it's great. It's great to be here. I left a dinner to come over here to talk about my favorite mayor. OK? This guy is an unmitigated disaster. And I'm sitting next to a person who worked for New York City, and she said, please you can't use my name, but let me just ask you something, you should tell the American people this. This guy has been a bad leader for the employees of the City of New York. We're disgusted by it. Mismanagement, failure to police the subways, failure to clean the subways. We can't get any help when we need it. We ask for help from the city, corporate management. They won't do anything for us. And so the first person I ever met in my life that said something nice about him was that one poor gentleman out there.
HANNITY: Yes, that one guy.
SCARAMUCCI: But I don't know anybody, rich or poor, any ethnic background that likes this guy. This guy has, in five years - we had 20 great years of executive management between Mayor Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg, 20 throughout the Bloomberg--
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: --the big gulp and no salt bothers me.
SCARAMUCCI: All right. That's your conservativeness, but at least the trains are running on time and the place was clean and the cops liked him. I mean, they did a good job--
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: How do you build a skyscraper without steel and glass?
SCARAMUCCI: That's all the nonsense. That's - he's appealing to left- leaning people that are upset about the environment and don't recognize that if you start going in a direction like that, you'll upset the entire economic apple cart and you'll lead into more situation for the United States.
HANNITY: So we have - we have similar backgrounds. We grew up in--
SCARAMUCCI: Yes.
HANNITY: --pretty much the same place.
SCARAMUCCI: Yes.
HANNITY: A lot of my friends make their living in construction. A lot of my friends count on building buildings. And to stop that progress, what does that say to the--
SCARAMUCCI: It's absurd. I mean, I know you don't like Bloomberg, but think about the last thing he did. He re-zoned this midtown Manhattan so that we could get taller skyscrapers and make more competition for the city. This guy is a walking disaster. But here's the problem. OK. We're in a one-party city, and he's a very difficult guy to beat for an independent or a Republican because of the way the system is rigged. And so I--
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: You're a libertarian.
SCARAMUCCI: --be the next mayor.
HANNITY: But Rudy Giuliani won.
SCARAMUCCI: Yes.
HANNITY: He was, I think, the best mayor in history.
SCARAMUCCI: Remember, the place was in a complete mess. He only won by 1.5 percent against arguably the second worst mayor.
HANNITY: But I can see you running because you're libertarian.
SCARAMUCCI: You could see me running?
HANNITY: I can.
SCARAMUCCI: I live in Long Island. How am I going to run as Mayor of New York?
HANNITY: Well, when you - you pay taxes in the city--
(CROSSTALK)
SCARAMUCCI: You're going to buy me an apartment in New York?
HANNITY: Oh, sure.
SCARAMUCCI: And then you're going to make me a minority partner in my own life?
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: This is a guy that makes money like by the second.
SCARAMUCCI: My fellow New Yorkers, when a dollar comes in, here's the highest tax rate, $0.53 goes out. You're the minority partner in your own life. We got to fix that.
HANNITY: Good to see you--
(CROSSTALK)
SCARAMUCCI: --great to be here.
HANNITY: Thank you, buddy. Thank you, as always.
Coming up, well, creepy, sleepy Uncle Joe Biden taking a, well, shot at this show in a campaign ad. We have an answer when we get back for Uncle Joe. And then later, SATs, those tests are adding a new adversity score. What does it mean? Trace Gallagher has a full report. My views might surprise you. I'll explain. Coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. Sleepy, creepy, crazy Uncle Joe Biden is at it again with a new Spanish language campaign ad, attacking Fox News primetime, including yours truly. I'm shocked. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We the people--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): (Foreign Language) Now, Joe Biden is running for President. (Foreign Language)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Clearly, Biden is trying to fit into a Democratic Party obsessed with identity politics, but he cannot escape his own history of racially insensitive comments. Here are just a few to remind crazy Uncle Joe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. (Inaudible).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kind of a chance would a Northeastern liberal like Joe Biden stand in the south--?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Better than anybody else. You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He got the first sort of mainstream Central America--
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: --who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Romney wants to let the - he said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street, put you all back in chains.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Did I mention he supported segregated schools? Ah, forgot that part. Oh.
Joining us now, the author of the brand new novel, right from today's headlines, it is called Collusion, former Speaker of the House, Fox News contributor, Newt Gingrich. The first mainstream African-American who's articulate, bright and clean. That's storybook man.
NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I don't think it's fair to pick on Joe Biden for being utterly irrational, having no memory and reinventing himself every week. I mean, he's going to do the best he can do. He's got - he's got to pretend he's somebody he's not because if he lets us know who he is, he won't win.
Remember, this is a guy who had to drop out of a presidential race because he stole an entire speech from the British Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, and pretended it was his personal story. Now, there's nothing new about this. Biden's ability to make things up, to say whatever he wants to, is unparalleled. And frankly, if he hadn't had Barack Obama to carry him, he wouldn't have been Vice President.
HANNITY: He also has this other thing. It's called a record. Russia and their chaos that actually happened on the Biden-Obama watch, the worst recovery since the '40s, 30 million more Americans on food stamps, 8 billion more on poverty. Then you got the $150 billion that he dropped in a tarmac for Iranians mullahs that chant "Death to America." I don't think that's a good record.
GINGRICH: It's not. But the challenge you've got, I think, Sean, is there are Americans for whom facts matter and there are Americans for whom emotions matter. And the emotional Americans are all going to go, "But Uncle Joe means so well."
The fact that he's incompetent, the fact that none of his programs work, the former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates said, in four decades that Biden was consistently on the wrong side of every national security question. Now, Gates was serving Obama when he wrote that. So if this is a race about facts, Biden might as well go home this evening. If this is a race about "do you feel good knowing that Joe Biden wants to smell your hair and hang out with you and really cares about you"-- (LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: That is so bizarre. That's so creepy.
GINGRICH: --then he's got a shot.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: That is so creepy, those videos. We'll show them a lot, by the way. But when you look at - let's compare the record-breaking success and the economy, jobs, record-breaking African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian-Americans, women in the workplace, these guys had no recovery.
GINGRICH: This is going to be a - this race is going to be between winners and whiners. And all of the whiners are going to gather around the left- wing Democrats and they're going to whine about something. We don't know what it is yet.
And all the winners are going to say, "More jobs, higher take-home pay, better recovery, better future for America." And so the people who like winning end up voting for Trump and the Republicans. And the people who feel a need to hide in the corner and suck their thumb and whine are going to be for Joe Biden and the Democrats. And we'll see how the American people define themselves over the next year-and-a-half.
HANNITY: He's a frontrunner now. Does he stay there?
GINGRICH: I doubt it. Look, I - but I - first of all, Hillary Clinton was 30 points ahead two weeks before Iowa, lost to Obama, never recovered, came in third in Iowa. So you can collapse very fast inside your own party. Second, I just watched Biden for his whole career. I just pulled up the Palin-Biden debate where he talks about going to this restaurant, which had been out of business for I think 13 years--
HANNITY: I remember.
GINGRICH: --before the debate.
HANNITY: Yes. That was--
GINGRICH: I mean, this is who he is.
HANNITY: Checkmate Sarah Palin on that debate. She won it hands down.
GINGRICH: If you're going to be mean and insist on facts, it's going to be a hard night for Joe Biden.
HANNITY: All right, Mr. Speaker. Always good to see you. Thank you.
GINGRICH: Insist on (ph) fact.
HANNITY: When we come back, SAT wants to add an adversity score to the test. What does it mean? Trace Gallagher, full report. Geraldo, Dan Bongino, they debate that. Straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. The SAT has now introduced a new grading category. They're calling it, "the adversity score," which will evaluate students' social and economic background. Trace Gallagher is live in the West Coast newsroom tonight. He has the very latest. Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: And Sean, this will certainly reignite the debate over using race and class in college admissions. Every student who takes the SAT exam will now be assigned an adversity score from one to 100. Anything above 50 indicates hardship, below 50 indicates privilege. Race is not considered, instead the scores are based on 15 factors like crime rates and poverty rates in local schools and neighborhoods.
That information will come from public records like the U.S. Census. But the college board won't reveal how they weigh the factors or calculate the scores, and the students won't be told their adversity score. Only the colleges will see those numbers, which is a point of contention, especially in the wake of the college admission scandal where we now know that students have been cheating on SAT exams for years.
One high school counselor told our corporate cousin, the Wall Street Journal, the focus on diversity is already high and this will only magnify that, quoting, "Do I feel minority students had been discriminated against? Yes, I do. But I see the reverse of it happening right now." 150 schools will use adversity scores this fall, and most schools by 2021. Sean.
HANNITY: All right. Trace Gallagher, thank you.
Joining us now with reaction, Fox News contributor, Dan Bongino; Fox News Correspondent-At-Large, Geraldo Rivera. Maybe my position will surprise you. I think (inaudible). Let's say a kid's dad served in the military, and the dad was killed when he was in ninth grade. His grades were crap for ninth and 10th grade, maybe even in 11th.
GERALDO RIVERA, CORRESPONDENT-AT-LARGE: Sure. Sure.
HANNITY: Then all of a sudden, it kicked in. Or if you grow up in a horrible neighborhood - I don't have a problem at all factoring in life, background and experience. But test scores?
RIVERA: But you do that with an intelligent experienced admissions officer who looks at the whole picture of the candidate--
HANNITY: Right.
RIVERA: --and then makes those judgment. I call this the woe-is-me index. How poor are you, Geraldo? I'm so poor. I used to put water in my cold cereal. I used to - my car burned more oil than gas. I'm so poor, but - it's - I could see the college admissions racket is so highly evolved that I can see these advisors, so-called advisors, telling rich families to sublet a place in Harlem or the South Bronx and give that address to your kid--
HANNITY: Wow!
RIVERA: --for his--
HANNITY: You're already taking it to another--
RIVERA: --adversity score.
HANNITY: Goes up.
RIVERA: This is the SAT trying to stay relevant because they're moving more and more to de-emphasizing the standardized tests, more and more on what the kid is--
HANNITY: Some kids don't do well in testing situations.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERA: So the SAT, this is a test a kid can't fail.
HANNITY: What do you think, Dan?
DAN BONGINO, FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT: This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Social justice worries, a message from Dan Bongino tonight. Please stop helping with air quotes. You are not helping. Sean, Geraldo just laid out one of the problems. You laid out another counter pro and con. Let me lay this out for you. This is supposed to be the SAT, an objective measure of academic aptitude and achievement. That's what it is. It's not a life resume, OK? So let me lay this problem out for you now.
Now, you get an employer, an employer who doesn't give a damn about your life circumstance. I'm sorry, snowflakes, employers are in the business to make widgets, products and to earn money. That's what they do. The world is a tough place, get used to it. Now he's looking at this candidate out of a great school. What's he thinking, Sean? Is this an adversity score person or is this really a smart kid?
HANNITY: It's interesting. It's - if you're - it's such a great analogy, such a great point because if you had the adversity and you overcame it, the odds in that situation you're describing is describing, Geraldo, in an interview, I want the street fighter that's hungry.
RIVERA: Sure you do. But the admissions officer who interviews the kid and understands the circumstances and the facts of that kid's life--
HANNITY: Like a military kid who lost his father.
RIVERA: Exactly. Or the kid who really grew up in--
HANNITY: In poverty.
RIVERA: --abject poverty, who had been (ph) hungry and had gangs and--
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I would take that into account, but in that process, not in this.
RIVERA: But when you try to objectify it in this way and make it a math situation where you fill in the blanks, it's very easy, I think, to game it. It's just a question of time until they figure out the formula for it. And the question is, are you getting the most diverse students you possibly can? I don't think so. I think that if you were eager and enthusiastic and understanding and sensitive, you would pick the best candidate.
HANNITY: Dan?
BONGINO: Hey, Sean, one last point on this. Here's another big problem for you. How do you know that this rich kid, his family wasn't poor their entire life, and just made it after busting their humps for 20 years? And then he - but he gets penalized while, say, a poor kid whose family was rich and got into some crime business and lost money a week ago, what, he gets an adversity score boost over the kid whose family just made it after a decade?
My wife said this to me today. My wife is an immigrant to this country. She was, "Let me get this straight. I busted my hump for 20 years to get my daughter into a good school who's now going to be penalized?" This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. They should be ashamed of themselves for even proposing it.
HANNITY: This isn't the way to do the factoring-in of life.
RIVERA: But this is the way the SAT stays relevant. Everybody wants to dump the SAT. SAT is scrambling to find a way to stay in business, and this is their formula.
HANNITY: All right. Great debate, both of you. Good to see you both.
When we come back, the Great One, Mark Levin, for the full hour tomorrow. Why? We'll tell you after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: All right. Special programming note, please tune in tomorrow night for the full hour the Great One, Mark Levin, he has a remarkable new book that you're going to want to read. It's called Unfreedom of the Press. By the way, here's a preview clip of him explaining why the media got the Russia collusion story so wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK LEVIN, HOST OF LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN: They don't care about right and wrong. They're driven by ideology. When you're driven by ideology--
HANNITY: But they reported it wrong?
LEVIN: Purposely. They want to take the President out. They decide what's in the news, what's left out of the news. That's why, for them, there's a red line, and all of these issues involving the dossier, all of these issues involving spying, they dismiss them, they dismiss the people who speak about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Don't miss tomorrow night. We're not the media mob. Let not your heart be troubled.
Laura Ingraham?
Content and Programming Copyright 2019 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2019 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.