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to African-American Community Examined; Possible Role for Ivanka Trump in
Donald Trump's Administration Discussed - Part 1>
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST (voice-over): Tonight...
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Russia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union.
HANNITY: Sore loser liberals keep pushing a narrative that Russia helped Donald Trump win the election. Laura Ingraham is here with reaction.
Then President-elect Trump officially taps Exxonmobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state. Lou Dobbs is here tonight to weigh in.
OBAMA: We have by no means overcome...
HANNITY: And President Obama plays up racial division while Donald Trump meets with African-American leaders. The Reverend Darrell Scott, NFL legend Jim Brown -- they met with the president-elect today. We'll get their reaction.
All of that, plus Ainsley Earhardt on the question of whether Ivanka will join her dad's administration.
"Hannity starts right here, right now."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And welcome to "Hannity." And tonight, President-elect Trump continues his thank you tour. We'll have highlights for you. That's coming up later in the show.
But first, sore loser Democrats continue to push the idea that Russia helped President-elect Trump win the election.
That's tonight's "Opening Monologue."
All right, so liberals -- they desperately keep playing up a narrative that Russia has hacked and helped Donald Trump with his electoral victory over Hillary Clinton, despite, of course, conflicting views on the issue of intelligence from the CIA and the FBI.
Now, the left wing is running wild with reports that say that the CIA, without any concrete or new evidence -- none! They had it all before the election! They think now that Russian hackers influenced the election all in favor of Donald Trump. That's a conspiracy.
Now, Democrats and the abusively biassed alt-left mainstream media -- they're pushing the CIA's assessment as an undeniable fact. But of course, you need to know the truth. It is not.
Now, the FBI has reached a much different conclusion than the CIA because they have not found conclusive evidence that Russia was trying to assist Donald Trump in any way.
Now, Reuters is reporting that America's top spy agency, the office of the director of national intelligence, is not embracing the CIA's conclusions, either. Why? There's a lack of evidence.
Now, instead of accepting the facts on all of this and telling you, the American, people the truth, the left, led by President Obama, continue to repeat falsehoods. Why? What's their motive here? To delegitimize President-elect Donald Trump.
As for President Obama, now he's done a major flip-flop on potential of the election in America being rigged or interfered with. You may remember back in October -- well, this is President Obama mocking Donald Trump for raising concerns about fairness in an election. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The larger point that I want to emphasize here is that there is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even -- you could even rig America's elections. And so I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: You could do it. Stop whining. Who's whining now?
So only after Donald Trump won, well, now President Obama is saying that, yes, outside forces could have influenced the election. Take a look at the hypocrisy from the president. This was on "The Daily Show" last night. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Russia trying to influence or elections dates back to the Soviet Union. What they did here, hacking some e-mails and releasing them, is not a particularly fancy brand of espionage or propaganda. We were, frankly, more concerned in the run-up to the election to the possibilities of vote tampering, which we did not see evidence of and were confident that we could guard against.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Remember last week, "Opening Monologue," I said they were not your friends? Obama is not Donald Trump's friend. Now, in the same interview, President Obama took the Russian hacking idea even further by alleging that President-elect Trump has direct ties to Russia. Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: You had what was very clear relationships between members of the president-elect's campaign team and Russians and a professed shared view on a bunch of issues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, when it comes to working with the Russians, well, President Obama clearly has a pretty short memory. Now, you may remember when he was caught on a hot mike saying this to the prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, back in 2012.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.
DMITRI MEDVEDEV, RUSSIAN PRIME MINISTER: I understand. I'll transmit this information to Vladimir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: As long as we're talking about the issue of interfering in elections, well, the Obama administration -- they know a lot about that, too. Remember a congressional investigation, they found back in 2014, an Israeli political group used a $300,000 Obama State Department grant -- why? To create a political apparatus to try and defeat the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now, while President Obama pretends to be morally outraged over Russian hacking and influence -- well, he's done next to nothing on cybersecurity in the entire eight years he's been president. Now, despite several massive attacks, by the way, no the federal government during that timeframe -- for example, since 2012, hackers have attacked NASA, the Department of Energy, the FEC commission networks, the U.S. Postal Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They've hacked the White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, the IRS and the Office of Personnel Management!
Now, the whole election cycle was all about Hillary Clinton's e-mails, Wikileaks. So where was the hacking outrage before she lost?
Now, on this show, we have been warning that something needs to be done, which is why I've been saying often and criticized often for saying that we need to learn from Julian Assange and Wikileaks and actually try and fix the problem. Remember, he hacked into NASA and the Department of Defense when he was only 16 years old.
Well, that's not going to happen any time before January 20th because here's the simple truth that you've got to remember. The president doesn't care about hacking. All he cares about after eight years of doing nothing is to undermine and delegitimize Donald Trump's presidency.
Here now with reaction, editor-in-chief of Lifezette, FOX News contributor Laura Ingraham.
Laura, if they cared about hacking, we've known that this has been going on. They don't care about hacking. This is about politics. Do you agree or disagree?
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. Totally agree. If Hillary had won the election, we'd never hear anything about this again. They'd move on to the other cause of the moment or the day.
And remember, Sean, when we learned that the Chinese had hacked into 50 million U.S. personnel files, including mine -- and I know that because I got a notice from the U.S. government saying that they would give me, I think, a year of some type of identity theft protection service because they had my background check...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: ... sponsor of mine, Laura, probably yours too.
INGRAHAM: Yes. Well, they had a -- they had a -- you know, they had a copy of my background check for when I was a White House employee or Supreme Court clerk, one of the two. So I don't remember President Obama ever taking China to task. They have 50 million files of Social Security numbers, home addresses, all of our siblings, all of where -- all the places where we ever lived of 50 million government employees. That's China. Now, last time I checked, they are one of our geopolitical adversaries, as well.
So you're exactly right. You're right on the money on this. This is all about sour grapes and trying to delegitimize the Trump victory, and also I think try to subtract from any mandate that he believes rightly that he has to reform the government. So they never change their ideas about policies, Sean. They just move their lines of attack, which is what they're doing right now.
HANNITY: It's funny because Obama did go on "60 Minutes" and sort of exonerated Hillary Clinton over the e-mail server scandal. Oh, it's no big deal. Now, of course, we later learned a 99 percent certainty that five foreign intelligence agencies were able to get top secret information, special access program information. So he was wrong there. Nor did he seem to care.
So I've got to believe that all of this is politics. So here's my next question. First they tried to recount. That didn't work out to well for them. Now they're trying the hacking. But behind the scenes, it seems that Obama and Clinton surrogates have their fingerprints all over this Electoral College effort to try and get them to switch their votes. To you take that as real? We're six days away from the Electoral College voting.
INGRAHAM: I think we won't know until the vote is actually cast. I think the push to get all the Trump electors to watch the -- or to get some type of intelligence briefing -- I mean, that's really rich. I mean, why -- why shouldn't the Clinton electors get a briefing as to all the things that you described in your monologue, the breaches into our system, the lack of transparency, right off the bat, and all the prevarication and misrepresentation, to put it kindly. I mean, they should get that briefing. If the Trump people are going to get another type of briefing, let's make it fair.
So is this going to change the outcome? I doubt it. But I think a lot of this, Sean, is about feeding the beast of these activist groups that are really antsy and angry right now on the left. They feel like they put it all on the line for Hillary Clinton, even thought a lot of them liked Sanders better.
They were suspicious of Mrs. Clinton for her ties to the establishment, but they -- a lot of them kind of, you know, bit the dust for her anyway. And now they're mad. And they need something to believe in. They need something to hold onto.
So I think this is much about getting e-mail addresses and raising money for the next electoral push as it is about anything else.
HANNITY: Let me ask you this because every bit of information that we're hearing we all knew before the election. There's nothing new here. Now, the director of national intelligence, Clapper, the FBI director and the FBI itself -- they've come to very different conclusions about this. There's nothing new here.
So then that raises questions. Why is the media and why is Hillary Clinton, who warned that Donald Trump can't do this -- this has never happened, you can't challenge an election like this, that's not how our system works -- how does she justify being a part of all of these efforts?
INGRAHAM: Well, I think it's kind of rich for Hillary Clinton to tell us that's not how the system works when that's the entire way she ran the State Department, whether it was the influence peddling that we know was happening, the use of consultants who are also on the government payroll who are working for the Teneo Corporation -- all of that shouldn't have been done. So whether Donald Trump decides, I guess, not to pursue an investigation into the Clinton Foundation or not, we know what's happening!
HANNITY: But that's not his call, is it. Wouldn't that be the attorney general and Justice Department's call?
INGRAHAM: Well, I think, ultimately, it would be. But you know, obviously, whatever signal Trump gives probably is going to have some influence. But I agree, if you're going to run based on the rule of law applying across the board to all people regardless of what their last name is or where they came from, and if there was real criminality or potential for real criminality, probable cause to believe there's criminality, then, I mean, I think you have really to take this seriously.
HANNITY: And the CIA -- we know, for example, the Obama administration has a history of manipulating intelligence for gain, like in the Centcom scandal. But also, didn't the F -- didn't the CIA write or rewrite the talking points as it all related to Benghazi...
INGRAHAM: To Benghazi.
HANNITY: ... while having never spoken to anybody that was there on the ground? They manufactured it in Langley. By the way, and I'm not criticizing our intelligence agency, but there are some political agents there that would have us believe this was a spontaneous attack where people had RPGs and mortars in their back pocket and spontaneously pulled them out and attacked the embassy, which never happened.
INGRAHAM: Yes, I think there's a lot of reasons to believe, going back to the Iraq war, that there was politicized intelligence that was being put out to the American public for a variety of reasons. And again, I think they're such noble, heroic efforts on the part of our intelligence agencies. There's so many good men and women are putting their lives on the line. We don't want to in any way cast aspersions on them. But the idea that you -- it's just all sacrosanct because some -- some anonymous source leaks it out of the CIA -- I just think that's ridiculous! I mean...
HANNITY: All right, stay right there. We got to take a break. We're going to have more with Laura, though, coming up right after this quick break.
And coming up, President-elect Trump -- he holds another thank you to (ph) a rally tonight in the state of Wisconsin. We'll play the highlights
Plus, he made it official. Donald Trump announced this morning that he is selecting Exxonmobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state. We'll get reaction from somebody who knows him, Lou Dobbs.
And then later tonight, the Reverend Darrell Scott, NFL legend Jim Brown -- they met with the president-elect at Trump Tower today. They spoke about issues impacting the black community. They'll join us in studio later tonight straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So President-elect Donald Trump continues reaching out to his supporters on his thank you tour. Here are some of the highlights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Thank you, everybody. So when I started 18 months ago, I told my first crowd in Wisconsin that we're going to come back here some day and we are going to say merry Christmas again.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Merry Christmas. So merry Christmas. Happy new year, but merry Christmas.
Speaker Paul Ryan -- where's the speaker? Where is he? He has been -- I tell you, he has been terrific. And you know, honestly, he's like a fine wine. Every day goes by, I get to appreciate his genius more and more. Now, if he ever goes against me. I'm not going to say that, OK?
He's a great guy, and we have some amazing things in store. And we're going to work on taxes, we're going to work on "Obama care," we're going to work on -- and he's going to lead the way. So thank you. We're going to work on the wall, Paul.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: You think we're playing games. Somebody said the other day, Well, now that Trump won, he's really not going to build the wall. I said, what are you -- we're going to build the wall, OK? Believe me.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We're going to build the wall. We have to. Got to stop the drugs from coming in, and wall's going to be a big, big factor.
Today I announced my plans to nominate Rex Tillerson...
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: ... the chief executive officer and chairman of Exxonmobil, to be the next secretary of state. Rex is one of the greatest and most skilled global business leaders of our time, made some of the greatest deals ever made in the oil industry or any industry, a great diplomat, a strong man, a tough man, a man who's already earned an avalanche of endorsements and growing praise from our nation's top leaders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And we continue with Laura Ingraham with more on this -- I love the idea -- if you ask people to do something and they do it, I love the idea of saying thank you. But more importantly, I firmly believe that what we see happening now is only the start. And I do believe everything will be done to politically destroy him by the left. It's only -- this is nothing compared to what's coming, in my opinion. And for him to bypass the media, go directly to people and make this a signature of his presidency I think would be very wise for him to continue.
INGRAHAM: Yes, I mean, it's -- he's his own press secretary. He's -- he's doing in such a, I think, a really smart -- this is a brilliant strategy, going right to the people and going around the stereotype that the left has tried to paint him now for over a year-and-a-half, which is, Oh, he's just a billionaire, he's just saying these things, he doesn't mean them. He's just -- you know, he's all about celebrity.
No. He's with the people. And what he's reminding folks of is how politics and identity politics, Sean, what you've talked about for years -- the politically correct nonsense that has invaded our university settings, that is stultifying to free speech -- he wants to wipe that all away and do things that actually make the lives of everyday Americans, people that we grew up with, like we grew up -- their lives better.
And that will drive the left crazy, Sean, because he goes into their territory and he tells people, and normally Democrats, it doesn't have to be this way. Just try it with us for a while. See what we do for you life to make it better, and we want you to be part of this great new American experiment.
HANNITY: I'm beginning to see the opposition build among the Republicans.
INGRAHAM: Oh, yes.
HANNITY: Like they seem to side, McConnell and Ryan, with the CIA over this issue, not the FBI, not the director of intelligence. That's troublesome because it's almost like they still want to be liked by the establishment, but they are in many ways the establishment. Will that be a problem dealing with McConnell, dealing with Ryan? Will they pass the more controversial aspects of the promises that he ran on?
INGRAHAM: I think you're exactly right to raise this issue early on. Donald Trump has a very short window to get a lot done. And I think not only will the establishment entrenched interests on the left be at his throat, but you're right about McConnell and Ryan. Not that they'll not work with him on a lot of things. I think they will. But on issues from trade -- which -- which -- Sean, keep your eye on who the pick is for the U.S. trade representative. That's the individual who will actually litigate cases for us and run the strategy in the international tribunal and actually negotiate trade deals.
We haven't named that pick yet. We haven't seen that pick yet. That's going to be very important. Dan Damico (ph), who's fabulous, former CEO, manufacturing CEO, Bob Lightheiser (ph), former deputy USTR in the Reagan administration...
HANNITY: Well...
INGRAHAM: who is incredibly brilliant. Those are two really smart picks. There are others -- some other people out there who I think raise some eyebrows among...
HANNITY: Right.
INGRAHAM: ... among us who believe that we should have more of an economic populist approach, which is Trump's approach.
HANNITY: All right...
INGRAHAM: So that's really important. I think Ryan and McConnell are going to be pushing the more, you know, globalist agenda on the USTR office.
HANNITY: All right, Laura Ingraham, always great to see you. Thank you so much.
When we come back, President-elect Donald Trump -- he picks Exxonmobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state. Lou Dobbs joins us with the insider track.
Then later tonight, well, Reverend Scott and NFL legend Jim Brown -- they met with President-elect Trump to talk about issues impacting the African- American community. They'll be in studio.
Also tonight, "FOX & Friends" co-host Ainsley Earhardt is here to talk about Ivanka Trump and will she work for her dad in Washington, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So after weeks of rumors, speculation, President-elect Donald Trump has made a decision on secretary of state by officially nominating Exxonmobil chairman, CEO Rex Tillerson to be America's next top diplomat.
Now, the president-elect also took to Twitter, writing, quote, "I have chosen one of the truly great business leaders of the world, Rex Tillerson, chairman, CEO of Exxonmobil, to be the secretary of state."
All right, somebody who knows everybody in business so well, from the FOX Business Network, our good friend, Lou Dobbs. How are you? Good to see you, by the way. Merry Christmas.
LOU DOBBS, FOX BUSINESS: Good to be with you, Sean.
HANNITY: And happy new year.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: What can you tell us about him? The only comment negative that I saw was from Tony Perkins. It was about social issues, and he's not going to be involved in social issues.
DOBBS: That's not his responsibility. And I know a lot of people have got some negatives. They talk about the fact he supported TPP. The president is saying he's against. You can go against a list of things where they're at variance, but you've said the important thing. He is to be the secretary of state. He's not responsible for social issues. He's not going to have a box of wedge issues that he's going to retreat to.
I think -- and I don't know this, but I assume the president-elect chose him because he has handled massive deals. He works with governments, other large corporations. And Donald Trump said it absolutely correctly. He is a world-class businessman who has carried off -- you know, I mean, he's carried off some deals that are incredible, working with Russia, working anywhere in the world.
HANNITY: Well, apparently working successfully with Russia, negotiating deals with them, in the minds of people in Washington right now, is a negative. But it's Exxonmobil's responsibility to make a profit...
DOBBS: Right.
HANNITY: ... and to bring their products and services to market. And he did a great job, good job?
DOBBS: A great job. And furthermore, the secretary of state's job -- no matter what John Kerry may pretend, the secretary of state's job is to lead our diplomatic efforts! He's -- leave it to the Defense Department if want to go to war with someone. Leave it to the president, the commander-in- chief. He'll make those decisions.
The secretary of state -- it should never be a negative that he or she in that position would want to have positive, affirmative relationships with other nations! That should be their goal!
HANNITY: Explain how big, for people that don't follow business as closely as you do, people like me, to be perfectly frank -- his economy or his business, the amount of money that he would handle is bigger than a great percentage of world countries.
DOBBS: Yes. And the company itself is massive, and it works on plans that reach out 10 years in terms of development. And by the way, Rex Tillerson came up through the development side of the business before merging with Mobil.
This is a guy who has expertise that the president says -- and let's say that it was negligible expertise. Let's say he had a negligible background. He is the president-elect's choice, and that should be enough for most people.
HANNITY: Let me ask you this. So from the economic side, if Donald Trump is able to repatriate the trillions from multinational corporations at 10 percent, if he drops seven bracket to three in terms of tax brackets, if he gets a 15 percent corporate tax rate, if he eliminates "Obama care," I that may end up being like a tax refund for Americans because they'll have cheaper health care costs, and if he adds the component of energy independence, which he seems he wants to because we have more energy than all of the Middle East combined when you add natural gas and shale.
DOBBS: Do you want to go for the whole...
HANNITY: I want the whole thing.
DOBBS: ... Mount Rushmore portfolio?
HANNITY: Yes.
DOBBS: And he secures the border and our ports...
INGRAHAM: Less competition.
DOBBS: ... and rationalizes our immigration system and makes it absolutely clear that this country is not going to get involved...
HANNITY: But you've reported on the economy for all of these decades that you have been in the media, and somebody I've watched for years. Is this the formula to get us at what percent GDP growth, Obama being the only president in history that never had one year at 3 percent GDP?
DOBBS: As quickly as he can move toward rationalizing these so-called free trade agreements. We have had 40 years of consecutive trade deficits. Donald Trump in no way has exaggerated about the problem...
HANNITY: You're a free trader.
DOBBS: I'm absolutely a free trader!
HANNITY: Fair trader.
DOBBS: I want to be fair. I want the same trade policy as a Europe or China. You know, they have free trade as a goal, too, except for one thing. They make certain they're getting trade surpluses, not trade deficits. The world has been living off our deficits for a very long time.
HANNITY: If an American car company wants to sell a car in China, what do we pay?
DOBBS: Good luck. It's not going to happen.
HANNITY: Why?
DOBBS: Because there are huge barriers. There are cultural barriers. There are social barriers. And ultimately, there are tariffs.
HANNITY: Yes. Exactly.
DOBBS: There are tariffs!
HANNITY: I know. All right...
DOBBS: Don't tell anybody!
HANNITY: Lou Dobbs, don't miss him, every night 7:00 PM on the FOX Business Network. Thanks, Lou. Appreciate it.
DOBBS: Good to be with you.
HANNITY: Up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We have by no means overcome the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow and colonialism and racism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Is Obama saying America has not overcome the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. Up next we'll speak with the reverend Darrell Scott, NFL legend Jim Brown. They met with president-elect Donald Trump today, and they're talking about issues that will impact the black community. They're in studio.
Also tonight, president-elect Trump says he would like his daughter Ivanka to join him in Washington. What role might she have? We'll check with "FOX AND FRIENDS" co-host Ainsley Earhardt who interviewed Ivanka multiple times during the campaign. She joins us with reaction, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY. So last night during an interview on "The Daily Show" the president, President Obama, reflected on a wide range of issues and said this about race in America today. Take a look.