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FOX Nation host Lara Logan examines the issues along America's southern border on 'Hannity'

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," February 26, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Welcome to "Hannity". It's Friday night.

Tonight, we are tracking multiple developing stories.

CPAC is officially in full swing from beautiful Orlando, Florida -- you know, the state that actually protected the elderly from COVID and never adopted draconian shutdown measures and is doing so much better than those states that did like, you know, New York, Michigan, California, et cetera. We're going to bring the highlights coming up.

Plus, we have an exclusive preview of President Trump's keynote address coming on Sunday.

And later, we will expose the rampant hypocrisy in the Biden administration's foreign policy. Apparently, bombing Syria is now A-okay as long as a Democrat is in office. We'll bring you all of this.

Plus, a shocking new report is making us wonder, who was really in charge at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

And we'll have Biden's blunders a week in review.

But, first, if you think the $2 trillion so-called emergency COVID relief package has anything to do with the ongoing pandemic? Think again, this is, in fact, the Pelosi/Schumer pay off to the political cronies, a $350 billion budget bailout for liberal governors that misappropriated money and taxed people into oblivion. A bridge from New York to Canada for New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a tunnel in Silicon Valley for Nancy Pelosi, billions for social justice issues and green energy initiatives.

And, of course, loan guarantees for Planned Parenthood. Hundreds of billions of dollars won't eat them be spent until after 2022 and other funds won't be spent until 2024.

Now the disgusting Washington swamp, as you can see on your screen, at its worst, none of this is emergency COVID relief, period. And make no mistake, only 9 percent.

With this $2 trillion wish list of socialist Democrats, they are just getting started because they are also buying a separate $2 trillion green energy bill that socialist Bernie Sanders, AOC, the squad want to pass through what's called the reconciliation process. That's the procedure lawmakers can use once a year to avoid filibusters on budgetary legislation. In other words, he wants to ram it through Congress without any Republican support. Kind of like Obamacare, and Sanders is also looking for a way to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, again, through the reconciliation process, via a brand-new tax on businesses.

And Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the real speaker of the House, has another idea. She wants to fire the Senate parliamentarian who won't allow the minimum wage hike to be part of the spending bill. So much for that unity that Joe talks about, and so much for the U.S. Constitution, and so much for the idea of coequal branches of government. We don't even need a legislative branch.

Democrats now want to ram through the socialist visions with an iron fist. Now, here's the thing, Democratic socialists almost always remember are lying to you. They talk about unity. There's no unity. They talk about health care, no, they failed us there too.

They believe in taxes. They're against fracking. They only are I-believers, oh, when it fits their political agenda. And, of course, this is also true when it comes to foreign policy.

Now, for example, breaking last night, the Biden administration ordered air strikes in Syria targeting Iranian militias. But when Donald Trump, remember when he was president? Not that long ago, and he ordered targeted air strikes in Syria, he beat back the caliphate, too? Joe Biden called President Trump's actions, quote, erratic, impulsive decisions endangering our troops and making us all less safe.

In 2017, Jen Psaki, White House communications director, even questioned the president's legal authority for airstrikes writing, quote: Assad is a brutal dictator, but Syrian is a sovereign country. Does she still believe that today?

And Senator Harris also publicly question the legal rationale now Vice President Harris.

Apparently, these are all just hollow, empty, political smears against Donald Trump -- one standard for the Democrats, one if you are a Republican.

And according to a new shocking political report, Vice President Harris is quickly being prepped to take the foreign policy reins from the Biden administration. Biden is now reportedly encouraging vice president to engage directly with warring leaders. That would be his job.

And, by the way, even develop her own rapport with U.S. allies. Harris has also been meeting weekly with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

So the question tonight is, why? If Joe Biden is not up to the task, well, we know he rarely appears in public, and we know he takes very few questions. We know he has not schedule joint session of Congress for the state of the union address.

This week, he struggled mightily to read off of a cheat sheet. It was frankly embarrassing and hard to watch. We could all see with our own eyes that Joe is frail. He is weak, and yes, he is struggling cognitively.

Even a few Democrats are trying to take away the nuclear codes from Joe Biden so it's not in the hands of just him, one person. They never tried that with Trump and his vice president now holding one on one coals with other world leaders, what is really going on here? Who was in charge?

And, by the way, should we be concerned? You got somebody weak, frail and cognitively struggling, matter of fact here's Biden's blunders, a week in review.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I -- you know, the idea that over 500, a carry a card on me every day, total number of folks who have been affected by the -- as of yesterday, there were 500,071 people who have died from this.

For God's sake, wear a mask.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bye-bye, thank you. Thank you so much.

BIDEN: My mask. My mask, my mask.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. Joining us now with more at the host of "Untold: Patriots Revealed" Pete Hegseth, along with Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is with us.

Good to see you both.

Now if you have one position when Donald Trump is president one view on striking Syria and Syria, sovereign country, Pete, and then Joe Biden does it, it's perfectly fine. It's like everything else the Democrats do. They're all I-believers but they're dead silent when it comes to Andrew Cuomo.

PETE HEGSETH, HOST, "UNTOLD: Well, of course, there is only one standard and it's a double standard in this particular case. Maybe we're lucky, Sean, because Joe Biden hasn't been right on a single foreign policy aspect of the last 40 years, so maybe outsourcing to Kamala Harris is a good idea. How much worse can you do then the worst?

But in this particular case, so much has to do with the fact that he's not capable. Why would you want him involved in those? And they were grooming her as the left has from the very beginning for that particular position.

So, the problem is it's also serious and the half measures that they're taking pale in comparison to the killing of Qasem Soleimani and the sanctions put on by the Trump administration that actually brought Iran to its knees so we can put them in a place where they don't get a bomb.

Now, we are bombing buildings on the Syrian border without a real strategy on the Iran deal. It's all foolish.

And Joe Biden is absent and he's wrong. Kamala Harris is front and center. Who's really in charge? We don't know, Sean.

But I would be remiss. I'm sitting right here next to my man, Matt Gaetz. He gave a great speech today at CPAC. He rocked the house, I got to say it.

HANNITY: Matt Gaetz, is that true? I mean, really? Did you let it all out or did you go full on or just half measure? I'm imagining full on Matt Gaetz came first and out.

(LAUGHTER)

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Pete and I look like we're having a great time in Florida. Sean, we're having the best -- we are not even wearing ties here in Florida. No ties, no lockdowns.

HANNITY: Wow.

GAETZ: No mandates, just conservatives together enjoying patriotism for our great country.

You got Democrats in Congress now, Sean, talking about taking the nuclear authorities away from Joe Biden. You got Kamala Harris taking these meetings with foreign leaders. You have to wonder, has the transition to Kamala Harris already begun?

I mean, I'm watching these clips you just read of Joe Biden -- Joe Biden would score below average on the cognitive matrix at like a Florida retirement community.

And somehow this guy is the one that's supposed to be running the country, it really begs a lot of questions. And on this foreign policy stuff, Pete is absolutely right. And we have to realize in Syria, what are we really trying to win there? Like, what does America hope to get out of these misadventures in Syria?

I think it's time that we focus on our people. That's the doctrine that President Trump advanced.

HANNITY: You know, I'm doing -- I know it's Biden's blunders week in review and a part of it, kind of, Pete, is a little bit funny. You know, he loses his place, oh, I got my card, you know?

I feel like he's reading my name is Joe. My wife's name is Jill. I live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, because he was looking for a number that we have lost 500,000 fellow Americans to COVID and he just had a vigil like the day before.

And he was having a hard time remembering that number. That's not a hard number to remember. And it was slow and it was confusing, and he loses his place. It's kind of getting disturbing.

And then I watch all of this foreign policy being conducted by Kamala Harris. And I begin to wonder why. And why isn't there a State of the Union Address scheduled?

HEGSETH: Good question. It's not hard, Sean. It really isn't. It hasn't been from the beginning.

And in this particular case, day after day, time after time, we have examples. And remember that executive orders? You had the cards with the one line written on what they were, and he was reading them line by line while signing them? Who wrote them and what does he really know about them?

Of course, the far left is driving this. You know why it's serious? Because they're firing on all cylinders in Beijing. The Chinese know this is the time to full-court press on initiatives, whether it's militarily on -- big tech and their technological advantages.

This is serious times. We can't have a guy asleep at the wheel. That's why we can joke all we want. It's not funny because we have real adversaries that are taking advantage of this moment where --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: You know, I think about this all the time. Matt Gaetz, guess what? Putin is a hostile actor. Russian -- Russia, a hostile regime. The Iranian mullahs hate us. Joe Biden is trying to get South Korea to hand over $7 billion to the Iranian mullahs.

I worry about them. I worry about China. I worry all these hostile regimes.

And you've got to believe that they studied the American political system. And you've got to believe that they see what every person that I know sees in Joe Biden. And do they begin to think they can take advantage of that? That does concern me.

GAETZ: You mentioned the mullahs in Iran. Next week, I'll be introducing the No Cash for Iran Act to insure that in any reentry into a deal with Iran, we don't shovel cash on them, that then these proxies and militia forces are able to use around the world when they're shooting at Pete's buddies who are still wearing the uniform.

So, we need to make sure we stand strong on that.

But, Sean, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that the state of intellectual wonderment that Joe Biden is in is somehow stopping the progress they are making. Remember, Hunter Biden's lawyers, law partner has been installed in the criminal division of the United States Department of Justice. They are taking Peter Strzok's wife and putting her in an enforcement role when you look at the American financial sector.

And I think that the vertical integration of people who are going to hunt MAGA, that should concern everyone and that is happening even though Joe Biden probably doesn't know it.

HANNITY: All right. I don't know, I know both of you pretty well, you're both friends of mine, Gaetz and Hegseth in Orlando -- trouble. I don't know -- I don't know what trouble, but I just sensed trouble, somewhere, or someplace. I'm going to have -- we will have to send bodyguards down there. Keep it --

(LAUGHTER)

GAETZ: Bail money, Sean, if we need bail money, we know you can wire it. So, just answer it if we call tonight.

HANNITY: All right. I'll wire the bail money. I'll be a good Christian. Thank you both.

All right. Now let's turn to CPAC which is officially off and running, yep, down in Florida. They didn't have draconian shutdown. They're doing a lot better than New York and California. And on Sunday, President Trump set to give his first public remarks since leaving office.

Earlier today -- well, here's what Senator Ted Cruz of Texas had to say about Donald Trump and the future of the Republican Party. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): There are a lot of voices in Washington that want to just erase the last four years. Want to go back to the world before where we had the government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists, where the Republicans compelling message was, Republicans! We waste less.

They look at Donald J. Trump and then they look at the millions and millions of people inspired who went to battle fighting alongside President Trump and they are terrified. And they want him to go away, let me tell you this right now -- Donald J. Trump ain't going anywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Senator Cruz is right. Even Trump hater Mitt Romney admitting that if President Trump runs again, he will get the party's nomination.

Now, we have Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saying he will support President Trump in 2024 if he becomes the party's nominee, which brings me to an important message to every conservative and Republican. I understand how this works. Ronald Reagan called it the 11th commandment -- thou shall not attack other Republicans. Humorous in Reagan's way.

Of course, that's not going to happen, but I do believe in Reagan's 80 percent principle. If we agree with people 80 percent of the time, well, they are not really your enemy.

And the Republican Party -- well, I would prefer to be as conservative as I am. It is not but the Republican Party like the Democratic Party is made up of a broad coalition. If Republicans are to succeed and win elections moving forward, it's really not that complicated.

They have to stop the infighting and focus on a few basic America First, Make America Great Again, Reagan conservative principles. Let's see, conservatives, what do we believe?

We believe in freedom. We believe in liberty. We believe in limited government, lower taxes, less bureaucracy so a good business environment and we can create jobs.

We believe in constitutionalist on the bench, judges. We believe in law. We believe in order. We believe in safety and security and in every city, every town in every neighborhood.

Parents should have school choice all across the country. We want our borders secure. We want free and fair trade. We believe in energy independence, national security reasons we like to pay lower prices at the pump and less for heating our homes.

We believe in the First Amendment and yes, the Second Amendment. We believe in the Constitution. We believe in peace through strength with the meanest, toughest most advanced military equipment on the face of the earth. And yeah, free and fair trade.

That's it. I'm a conservative. That's my agenda. I have not changed in 33 years on radio and 25 years on FOX.

And for the idiots of Washington, D.C., that want to fight each other, if you stay focused on that agenda, it's not that complicated. It's simple and you will win, and you will get power. All you need to do if you promise it, go fight for it. By the way, affordable health care using free-market standards, yeah, instead of Obamacare.

By the way, not just for America first principle. That's not what all of this is about but also the smears, the attacks from Democrats, the media mob. There are enough enemies in your life.

Here with reaction come, of course, this landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United, David Bossie is with us. American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, he runs this whole mess down there in Florida.

I'm usually there. I took a year off. I hope you don't mind.

MATT SCHLAPP, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION PRESIDENT: You are.

HANNITY: I hope you're not mad at me. But this is an important year. And I think this speech is coming at a very pivotal moment, especially now Mitch McConnell's comments, other Republican comments, the Democrats seemed more divided. Republicans seem to now be coalescing together.

SCHLAPP: Yeah, I think that's right, Sean. That's same for me. And let me tell you, we are mad that you are not here only because we love it when you are here. And -- but I have to say that FOX is doing a great job of covering it.

And I think this is an important moment and I think David would agree, conservatives and Republicans don't emote too much. We're more like logical thinkers. But there was something emotional about having your president get silenced, get shut down, have his Twitter account and everything shut down.

The way the election ended, it was really upsetting to these people and they're really -- it's jarring to see the socialist policy just coming at them every day. The fact that the president is going to come and reconnect with the people that love him so much on this stage I think is going to be a very, very important moment for actually healing amongst conservative side of all of this, but I think for the country generally, no one's voice should be silenced and definitely not a president of the United States.

HANNITY: You know, I'm noticing H.R.1, David Bossie, the bill that the Democrats want. They want to take all the changes in election law and bake them into, you know, permanent status, things we were told specifically designed in consideration for COVID.

That would include overturning the landmark decision of Citizens United. That would include felons' right to vote. That would include automatic registration. That would include no voter ID and no signature verification standards whatsoever.

Now, if that happens, even "The New York Times," they had said that would open this country up to fraud and a lack of confidence in our election results.

Do you think that that will happen next? Is that the next shoe to drop?

DAVID BOSSIE, PRESIDENT, CITIZENS UNITED: Well, I certainly hope H.R.1 is defeated. Look, I think the left will pass it out of the House but I don't think it will get through the Senate. Mitch McConnell, we have a lot of disagreements over the years, but he is unbelievably good on free speech. I think we're going to be able to defeat this monstrosity.

But what it does, Sean, is it's going to continue to educate the American people about how far left the Democrat Party has lurched. They do not know any boundaries. They are going to move this country to the socialist agenda. That is what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that they would do and that is what we see the left demanding of Joe Biden.

And I think that we're going to see that. And we're going to benefit from it.

Look this is a tremendous place for a rebirth for Donald Trump and for conservatism. And CPAC has always been the leader and really the cathartic moment postelection, we come together as a movement and we move forward as Matt was talking about. We talk about the conservative ideas that bring this all together.

Donald Trump is going to bring in energy to CPAC on Sunday. I think it's going to be off the charts. I'm excited to see it. I can't tell you -- I can't tell you how much.

HANNITY: I'm expecting surprises. Real quick. I have no idea if the president will make an announcement about his future plans. I have no idea what he's ultimately going to decide to speak about, but I would assume the president will talk about "I told you so", if this agenda of Biden's is radical and these are the differences between the two parties.

And he will talk about the trouble of media mob, and big tech controlling, creating this candidate protection program, Matt, where Biden was hidden in the basement the whole time.

SCHLAPP: Yeah. I mean, wow. I mean, just -- it is shocking to me to think about. But I think what he might talk about. He might talk how he's going to get revenge with a new social media platform or new strategy when it comes to the silencing of conservative forces on social media, or maybe helping those victims of the cancel culture.

He's clearly going to stay involved in politics. You know what normally Republican presidents do, including the last who I revere? They tend to leave the stage.

Donald Trump is not leaving the stage, and I think that's the greatest thing. Hillary Clinton never left the stage, Bill Clinton never left the stage, Barack Obama never left the stage.

Guess what, guys? Donald Trump can stay on that stage too.

HANNITY: Yeah. Last word, Dave Bossie.

BOSSIE: President Trump speech I think is going to talk about the future. Certainly, he's going to talk about what happened. And I think that is a very important thing cathartically for the conservative movement for the Republican Party to hear directly from the president about it, but I think -- you look at what we will be able to do. The left is going to move so -- the Democrats are going to move so far to the left over the next year or two that 1994, 2010 all over again. We are going to see us begin to take back the House and Senate in 2022.

HANNITY: Right.

BOSSIE: And Donald Trump is going to be the leader, the political leader, the ideal leader, the thought leader, and the fund-raising leader for our party over the next couple of years. And I think he's going to be tremendously successful at it.

HANNITY: All right, coming up, thank you both.

CNN continues to cover for disgraced Governor Andrew Cuomo, as the Democrats in New York that are fighting to get him impeached. We'll talk to Joe Concha, Miranda Devine next as we continue this busy, breaking Friday news night. Thank you for being with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY: Now, more explosive developments tonight surrounding Andrew Cuomo's burgeoning sexual harassment scandal as we are now learning, the New York state attorney general is reviewing a letter from Republican state senators asking for a full investigation, but in all fairness, this effort has started because of Democrats, not Republicans in the state of New York. And, by the way, this all because even left wing Hollywood now is beginning to turn on the man they gave their Emmy to.

And as the times, group, for example, released a statement calling for full pledge investigation. As they're reporting, Governor Cuomo's denying the allegations. Ask yourself, where are -- where is the entire I-believer caucus? Where are the rest of the I-believers? Where is Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand? The ones that rushed to judgment and gave no due process to Justice Kavanaugh? By the way, who by the way get to -- said this, reportedly said she hasn't even read the complaint against Cuomo. Yeah, of course.

The Cuomo scandal is a media scandal. Major networks have largely ignored both the nursing home cover-up and the sexual harassment allegations. Look at fake news CNN finally covered Cuomo allegations from a mere 96 seconds while totally ignoring it during primetime hours.

But compare that to their endless, never-ending hysteria of unfounded allegations against Justice Kavanaugh and Donald Trump, every second, minute, every hour of every day.

Look at these two headlines right there on your screen. Look at the one from September 2018. Woman accuses Kavanaugh of assault in letter to senator. Compared to a headline from Thursday, quote, Cuomo denies harassment allegations. Oh, slight difference in coverage. You see the abusive bias.

And don't forget, you know, a lot of these fake news channels covered up Cuomo's nursing home scandals for months and months, refusing to take it seriously, despite what was overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing. And now they continue to downplay what is a growing harassment scandal with very serious claims. Fascinatingly, it's Democrats leading the charge.

Here with reaction "New York Post" columnist, FOX News contributor Miranda Devine, and FOX News contributor, media columnist for "The Hill", Joe Concha.

Miranda, you know, if you really look -- they are not even any Republicans I can name in New York to be honest to have any kind of real influence in New York state, not trying to be rude. I'm just being factual. But the point is, you know, you look at this case. This is largely Democrats going after Cuomo. They are the ones calling for impeachment and censure and investigations.

MIRANDA DEVINE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah. So, it is a one-party state and anyone who has worked with Andrew Cuomo we discover what a bully he is and knows about his skeletons in his closet. It is just that they kept them all hidden when he was useful to them in terms of attacking Donald Trump.

And, of course, he was used last year and put himself forward as a foil against Donald Trump and Joe Biden called the gold standard in leadership during the pandemic, which, of course, he was the opposite. He was a terrible leader during the pandemic as we know, with the nursing home crisis, and all sort of other disasters that have happened under his reign which are under a cloud. There are lots of questions being asked about the contributions, the donations he received from the nursing homes and the hospital industry.

And the fact is that if he were a Republican governor, you can bet that CNN and MSNBC and "New York Times" and all of the Democrat-leaning media would have made an absolute mountain out of this story. There would have been hundreds and hundreds of stories by now, just as they were with Justice Kavanaugh.

HANNITY: Yeah. And, Joe, look, you followed the media for a living. This isn't surprising. This is pretty much every day -- every day of the year, every minute of every hour of every day.

JOE CONCHA, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, that is not surprising that that is the shame of it all, Sean. And who knew that CNN, the Cuomo news network, because how do you explain the bias of omission around a story that has so many layers and has such legs to it.

Every day, there's a new development that we are learning about. And you have a layer one, for example, and this goes back to last March, right, when the governor signed that order to put COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes.

Then you have layered two, when you have a senior aide, Melissa DeRosa, she said this recently about the nursing home depth tallies. It's amazing. Quote: We weren't sure if we were going to give the Department of Justice what we were going to give the Department of Justice was going to be used against us and we weren't sure if there was going to be an investigation. That is literally a mission of a cover-up.

Then you have layer three, these allegations of bullying by again by Democrats, a New York Democrat, Assemblyman Ron Kim, echoed by others.

And then layer four, just recently now, this allegation of sexual misconduct by Lindsey Boylan. And this isn't an allegation that comes from 40 years ago when Cuomo was in high school. This is something that happened relatively recently.

So as far as scandals go, to use a baseball term, this one hits for the cycle. But because there's a D next to Governor Cuomo's name, he gets a pass here by most of the media and particularly CNN, and the D, by the way, means disregard, nothing to see here and that is a dereliction of duty, Sean, because this is absolutely a huge national story.

HANNITY: What amazes me, Miranda, is, OK, the I-believers, right? You have the I-believer caucus. I believe, I believe, I believe.

OK. I didn't say I took the position that Justice Kavanaugh, we need more facts, he deserves the presumption of innocence. I believe in due process, and I'm taking the same position here. Just because somebody says something, we don't have all the facts. I don't believe rushing to judgment.

The Democrats are the ones that use it when it's convenient as a political story, which should bother people.

DEVINE: Absolutely. And, you know, every man should be given the presumption of the innocence when these allegations come out. Every victim should be heard, but we should keep a sense of proportion. But it doesn't work like that with the Democrats. They use feminism as a weapon. It's not about what's good for women. It's just about power.

HANNITY: Yeah, sad.

Last word, Joe.

CONCHA: 2018, Julie Swetnick comes out and accuses Brett Kavanaugh of being a party to gang rape. She is represented by Michael Avenatti, you know, the serious presidential contender who became like a debate captain at Rikers at a cellblock? OK. So, her allegations are given no scrutiny, nothing whatsoever, she even gets on national television, gets an interview.

Now, in this case with Lindsey Boylan, we can barely cover it. So that's all you need to know if you want to compare the way these two stories were covered again because one was a conservative who is being accused, and now, the other one is a Democrat and a prominent one.

HANNITY: Joe Concha, Miranda Devine, thank you both.

When we come back, liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds. Wait until you hear what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did this time. Congressman Steve Scalise, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Talk about rank hypocrisy, now resurfaced tweets from both Joe Biden and, of course, his spokesperson, Jen Psaki, communications director, slamming President Trump's previous Syria airstrikes. It's now fueling claims of hypocrisy and a massive double standard after the Biden administration launched what was a retaliatory strike last evening against Iranian-backed militia in Syria.

For example, in April 2017, not that long ago, Jen Psaki tweeted, quote, well, what is the legal authority for strikes? Assad is a brutal dictator, but Syria is a sovereign country.

Oh, you sit back and do nothing?

That, of course, prompted a response from other Democrats like Congresswoman Omar, who responded, quote, great question.

And in June 2019, Joe Biden called President Trump's airstrikes, quote, impulsive and claimed he didn't understand the consequences.

OK, Joe, really? Donald Trump was alert and aware and used targeted strakes to take out terrorist and defeat the caliphate that you and Obama never defeated and take out Soleimani who you never took out. And even took out Baghdadi and associates and the al Qaeda leader in Yemen.

By the way, you were avoiding endless boots on the ground conflicts in the Middle East and, of course, bribing the Iranian mullahs. You know, you held Iran accountable for their actions? Did you ever do that while you were vice president, as you appeased Tehran, appeased these mullahs? Now restarting the disastrous nuclear deal, pressuring South Korea to hand over 7 billion more dollars now?

Well, the contrast couldn't be clearer.

Here with reaction, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, along with Texas Republican Congressman Crenshaw with us.

Congressman Scalise, it's either the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. Now Obama/Biden couldn't beat the caliphate. Trump did because he took off rules of engagement and let the military do their job. They've been critical the whole time, but it was successful.

I would assume that this strike last night was the right thing to do. I don't know the background yet. One day, we'll probably know.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Yeah, Sean, and good to be with you.

Yeah, I agree that, in the end, let's see where the facts are on this strike but it was the right thing to do to send a message to Iran who backs terrorism all the time around the world. President Trump led with peace through strength. It was a doctrine that actually worked to stand up for America and our allies again.

But the whole time he was doing that, you had Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Jen Psaki, all the ones you mentioned, who are critical of that, questioning whether it was erratic or illegal authority. They were wrong then, hopefully, they are right now.

But it's this double standard. You see hypocrisy. Maybe the first 100 days of Joe Biden are defined by nothing but hypocrisy, whether it's shutting down schools when the science says to open schools, they sidelined the scientist when they said they'd follow the scientist. You know, having John Kerry fly around the world on a private jet telling American energy workers that they had to go install solar panels.

I think people are sick and tired of that hypocrisy but it's on full display. Hopefully, they're right here. Hopefully, it keeps a peace through strength mantra, but he also needs to recognize -- Iran is not our friend, don't go back to dealing with Iran and giving them a pathway to nuclear weapon.

President Trump took the right steps by backing away from that deal. Let's not lose ground.

HANNITY: And, Dan, the movement towards pressuring South Korea to give the Iranians money on top of that tells me what? Do they think bribing the mullahs and Iran will make them be nice to us? Because their $150 billion in cash and other currency didn't particularly buy us any goodwill and didn't stop their nuclear program.

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): No, policies of appeasement do not work.

Look, I like killing terrorists and I like it when Obama killed Bin Laden. I like it when Trump killed Baghdadi and Soleimani. And I like Biden killing these Kataib Hezbollah guys that were just killing our people last week. I like all that.

I also like consistency. And I think what people are upset about is just the lack of standards, because, you know, they have no standards except for double standards.

Criticizing Trump, you know while applauding Obama, telling us that we will engage in World War III, just last year when Trump made the decision to kill Soleimani. It was good decision.

Peace through strength actually works, but it does not mean that we're engaging in endless wars. I think we should look at AUMFs and maybe modernize those. I don't think Americans want 100,000 troops on the ground.

But we do have to recognize that sometimes we do have to retaliate and we do have to show strength against Iranian mullahs as you're saying. I think that's exactly right.

HANNITY: Here's my question though. Do you think it -- do you fear as I do that if our enemies -- are they assessing Joe Biden as a leader that they are fearful of?

Because I actually think in an interesting way, Steve Scalise, that Donald Trump's -- well, being unpredictable probably -- you know, they couldn't figure him out which I think is a good thing.

SCALISE: You're exactly right. And look, every president is tested at some point, and usually, it's early in their presidency.

I think when Donald Trump made it clear, number one that, yeah, you weren't sure where he was going to go, but a lot of allies were worried he was going to pull out of NATO. What he did, he strengthened NATO by making sure our allies put up their own fair share.

But he also sent a message to the Middle East and the rest of the world when he put the United States embassy in Jerusalem. And they were predicting, you knew that, they predicted there was going to be violence and there was going to be all kinds of wars on the Middle East.

What do we get? We got peace agreements, Abraham Accords in the Middle East, because people recognize Donald Trump is a man of his word, he's going to follow through. He believes peace through strength, but he rebuilt our military and it worked.

There will be a test no doubt like every president that Joe Biden gets. I hope he stands up for America and our allies around the world when that day comes.

HANNITY: Dan, you get the last word.

CRENSHAW: Look, I think that's absolutely right. President Trump had a good foreign policy, you know, like small quibbles and disagreement mostly just how much troops you would reduce at a time. But for the most part, Trump took a pretty aggressive stance. And I'm not even sure supporters even recognize that to a large extent.

And that stance helped us a lot. We regained our deterrence against Iran. And that moment happened when we killed Soleimani. That was a really big change and I hope that the Biden administration continues down that path.

Frankly, the strike last night is a sign that they -- that they are at least learning some things from the last administration. It's a good sign, and I hope they maintain that path and do not pay off the Iranian mullahs, do not reengage in this disastrous Iran deal without a much better deal at hand.

HANNITY: All right. Thank you both.

Dan, appreciate it. Steve Scalise, good to see you both.

Now, coming up, according to one report, border officials, get this, they're projecting 13,000 unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the border in May and guess how much it is costing you, the taxpayer for every illegal immigrant and every person that gets amnesty.

Let's put it this way, it's hundreds of either millions or billions. We'll give you the answer coming up and Lara Logan.

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HANNITY: Now, we are continuing to see the dangerous real-world consequences of the Biden open borders amnesty agenda. Border officials are now reportedly predicting 13,000 child migrants will cross the border in May this year alone, which would exceed the height of 2019 crisis and calls the Biden administration to expand the capacity of their migrant centers, or as the media called it under Trump, "kids in cages."

Well, meanwhile, Border Patrol is deploying hundreds of northern and coastal border patrol agents to the southern border to help handle the surge in Latin American immigrants. Now, in the Rio Grande Valley sector alone, agents have recently been apprehending nearly a thousand migrants a day and warned the facilities are being overwhelmed.

And don't forget, open borders comes at a major cost to you, the U.S. taxpayer, as a new report for the Center of Immigration Studies finds amnesty will cost the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, brace yourselves, hundreds of billions of dollars, billions with a B. Hundreds of them.

Here with reaction, the host of "Lara Logan Has No Agenda: Return to the Border", now available.

Lara Logan, thank you for joining us.

You know, what is fascinating is 2018, they show images of Biden and Obama's kids in cages. The video was from their time in office, their administration. They built the kids in cages.

Now they decide to switch to cargo storage containers that have bars on the tiny windows, but they do say they put pictures of butterflies on the walls so we should all feel better?

LARA LOGAN, FOX NATION HOST: You know, Sean, what this is symbolic of is obviously the hypocrisy of the media, which has been exposed so many times now that many Americans see through it. Bu also, what it's masking is the policies of the Biden administration in terms of the border, because what you're -- what they're not telling you is that they are having this problem, in spite of the fact that they are pushing these children through as quickly as they possibly can.

And that is happening so fast because, in part, they don't want anyone to really see the numbers. They don't want anyone to have a real sense of how many people are coming over, because those figures you just gave, those don't include the gotaways, those don't include the people that are literally running past border patrol agents.

And they also don't tell the whole story because there has just been a significant threat issued by a cartel against Border Patrol agents, the marine units down in the Rio Grande Valley where crossing so many people.

They move the team in position with snipers to attack these boat units. And the government of Mexico was instrumental in driving the cartel members out of the area.

So, now, they are telling Border Patrol agents, make sure you got your long guns, and your body armor. And why is that so significant? Because all we're talking about is migrant care and immigration. No one is talking about border security. Both sides are allowing the conversation to be defined by immigration and ignoring what this means for security.

All those agents coming from the northern border, they are not doing security patrols. They are doing migrant care.

HANNITY: You know, I think when you control the border, we should be able to check people's backgrounds, make sure they don't have radical associations. Obviously, with COVID, I think a health check would be warranted myself.

Then, of course, I think people should be able to show us that they will be able to provide for themselves and their families. The study that came out, hundreds of billions of dollars. Well, that's real money at a point where we don't really have that kind of money to give away.

LOGAN: You know, it's so interesting, Sean, that you raise that point because I can tell you, everyone that I speak to that is responsible for securing the border, that's their number one concern. They are literally telling me over and over again no matter who I speak to that they don't know who was crossing the border.

So as you are pushing to get rid of people as quickly as you can, what is the impact of that? They are no longer being interviewed. They're no longer being held for a period of time long enough for foreign governments to confirm what they may or may not know about them. And they don't even know if they are the age they say they are.

So children, unaccompanied minors that are being released, they often get people who are 22, 23, 24 and who are saying they are 20 so they fit in that category and they can be released. And the reality is that they say you can't hold people accountable if you have no idea who they are. And that's what's really concerning so many of the agents.

HANNITY: Great report. Lara, thank you.

All right. We'll have more "Hannity" right after this.

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HANNITY: All right. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have left this evening. As always, we want to thank you for being with us, you make the show possible. We hope you will set your DVR so you never miss a episode of "Hannity".

We will be watching the president's speech Sunday. We'll talk about it on Monday. We hope you have a great weekend.

We'll always be independent. We'll never be the media mob.

See you back here Monday. Thank you for being with us.

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