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Corey Lewandowski; Pollsters Assess Trump's Army; President Obama's Policy
on Syria Examined; Illegal Immigration Suspecting of Murdering Wife - Part 1>
Mike Boudreaux, Bo Dietl, Michael Meyers>
Affairs; Terrorism; Immigration>
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEAN HANNITY, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, sore loser Hillary Clinton is making even more excuses for her election loss.
HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He has a personal beef against me.
HANNITY: Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski reacts to all of this.
Then, President-elect Trump promises to get tough on radical Islamic terror.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: We will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: Dr. Sebastian Gorka is here tonight with reaction.
Plus, a mother of four from California is missing. Police suspect her husband killed her. He was an illegal immigrant from Mexico. We'll have the details.
And first lady Michelle Obama takes a shot at the incoming Trump administration.
MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: We feel the difference now. See, now we're feeling what not having hope feels like.
HANNITY: "Hannity" starts right here, right now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And welcome to "Hannity." So the biggest liberal crybaby of them all, sore loser Hillary Clinton, keeps on making excuses for her election loss. That is tonight's "Opening Monologue."
All right, so Hillary Clinton is still refusing to accept the real reason she lost to President-elect Donald Trump. Now, instead of just acknowledging that she was a terribly flawed, corrupt candidate with a very long track record of failure and a large majority of American voters didn't like, thought was dishonest, Hillary Clinton is now blaming everything but herself for her election loss!
Last night, at a swanky party in New York City -- well, her and her liberal elitist donor friends -- they went out there. And she's blaming the FBI, Vladimir Putin, Russian hacking for her historic defeat. Listen to this.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
CLINTON: Swing state voters made their decisions in the final days, breaking against me because of the FBI letter from Director Comey. And Nate Silver believes, I happen to believe this, that that letter most likely made the difference in the outcome.
Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyber attacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me. This is not just an attack against me and my campaign, although that may have added fuel to it. This is an attack against our country.
We are well beyond normal political concerns here. This is about the integrity of our democracy and the security of our nation.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
HANNITY: A personal beef? OK, Hillary. Let's see if I got this straight. It's the FBI's fault that you set up an insecure private e-mail server in a mom and pop shop bathroom closet. It's their fault it had top secret special access program and classified information on that computer server that put America's national security at risk. It's their fault.
Hillary, that's not the FBI's fault. That is your fault. And if we're being totally honest here, well, you're kind of lucky that President Obama's Department of Justice has protected you because you did break the law, and many, including myself, think you should be prosecuted.
And as for Russian hacking, well, it's not a fact that Russia acted with the purpose of helping Donald Trump win, so you need to stop saying that because you're lying to the American people yet again, something you do often.
Now, FOX News has learned that an internal CIA memo confirms that the intelligence community is now in agreement that Russia sought to interfere in the election, but the memo does not include a reference that there was an intention to aid Donald Trump.
Now, the CIA has been taking the lead on this. Well, that's the same agency that lied to the American people, all of you watching, by changing the Benghazi talking points to say terrorism was not to blame. Their argument -- spontaneous demonstration related to a YouTube video and the demonstrators just happened to have mortars and RPGs in their back pocket. Really?
Now, President Obama reacted to Clinton's claim at his year-end press conference earlier today. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I saw President Putin in China, I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn't happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out and there were going to be some serious consequences if he didn't.
Thirty-seven percent of Republican voters approve of Putin. For too long, everything that happens in this town, everything that's said is seen through the lens of, Does this help or hurt us relative to Democrats or relative to President Obama. Unless that changes, we're going to continue to be vulnerable to foreign influence because we've lost track of what it is that we're about and what we stand for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Obama is so tough, he told Putin in China to cut it out! Now, if the president's so concerned about interference in elections from foreign governments, then why did a congressional investigation find that back in 2014, an Israeli political group used $300,000 taxpayer dollars from the Obama State Department in a grant to create a political apparatus to try and defeat the Israeli president, Benjamin Netanyahu? In other words, Mr. President, were you trying to interfere in Israel's elections?
Now, Clinton, Obama and the left -- they've also been pushing the idea that Wikileaks worked hand in hand with Russia to release John Podesta's e- mails. But the facts, sadly for them, it (ph) says otherwise.
Yesterday, I had the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, on my radio show and he said Russia did not give him the Podesta e-mails. Do they have any proof? So far, they haven't presented it. But listen to Assange.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: Our source is not the Russian government.
HANNITY: So in other words, let me be clear. Russia did not give you the Podesta documents or anything from the DNC.
ASSANGE: That's correct.
HANNITY: Can you confirm whether or not you have information involving hacked info from the RNC?
ASSANGE: We received about three pages of information to do with the RNC and Trump, but it was already public somewhere else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Whether you like Julian Assange or Wikileaks or not, for 10 years, they have never been proven to have gotten anything wrong, not one time!
Then there's President Obama on "The Daily Show" saying there was no vote tampering done by the Russians in this election. He told us himself! Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
B. OBAMA: 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 we're confident that we could guard against.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, so what we're seeing here is the sore loser left acting like spoiled little brats. They didn't get what they wanted for Christmas, so now they're going to ruin the holiday for everyone else.
But here's one thing they're not talking about, and that is what Wikileaks actually exposed about the Clintons and the DNC. It's all true! It's not like anything that you heard was a lie.
Now, Wikileaks proved what many of us had suspected for a long time, the Clintons are corrupt. The mainstream alt-left media is corrupt, as well, and they were colluding with the Clinton campaign! We learned the DNC worked against Bernie Sanders in a corrupt way. And we learned that some the DNC e-mails contained racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-semitic language.
Now, in my opinion, the country was better off because the truth was told to you, the American people. Now, all of a sudden, this administration cares about is hacking. Well, my question to President Obama, where have you been for eight years?
Now, look at this list. These government agencies have been hacked dating back to 2012, and the Obama administration -- they didn't lift a finger to try and fix the problem.
Now, I've said it many times on this program, yes, Julian Assange is controversial, but did he not do us a favor? Did he not do us a favor by exposing one of our glaring weaknesses, and shouldn't we have been fixing it the last eight years?
So if the left is so upset about publishing stolen material, OK, if you're really consistent intellectually, where was the outrage when The New York Times reported Donald Trump's stolen tax return? They all reported it.
Now, if Wikileaks had all this information that was about Donald Trump, well, I think the left would have loved it being exposed. So give me a break. It would have been wall-to-wall coverage every day, every minute, every night.
Now, what this really comes down to is this. The left, the media, they're mad. They're angry. They're in denial. They don't want to admit they failed and that they got exposed, and in the end, they lost and they can't admit that they failed.
And by the way, what happened to the left's attitude before the election, remember, when they were telling Donald Trump to stop raising concerns about the system being rigged? Remember when Obama just a couple of weeks before the election said this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
B. OBAMA: There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even -- you could even rig America's elections, in part because they're so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved. There's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time. And so I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Yes, President Obama and Hillary -- they need to stop whining. Hillary Clinton -- she did the same thing. Remember this before the election?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: That's horrifying. You know, every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him.
Now, make no mistake, by doing that, he is threatening our democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Hillary, stop whining and complaining! Listen to your own words, your own criticism because what you said and what the left is doing is you're advancing a false conspiracy theory as to why you lost. You can't accept responsibility.
It's also time for Hillary to stop making it all about her. Now, for decades, she's been playing that same victim card, the same conspiracies, blaming all her troubles, all her many scandals on someone or something else. Remember in the '90s, when Hillary tried to blame the so-called "vast right-wing conspiracy" all about Bill Clinton's misconduct? Let's blame somebody else. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: This is what the Clintons do, sadly. They deny, they lie, then they point the finger, they pass the blame. And this is about as big a conspiracy as Roswell, New Mexico, and area 51.
Joining us now with reaction, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. How do you interpret all of this?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FMR. TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: You know, Sean, it's amazing, as your clips just demonstrated that. When it suits them, they call on Donald Trump to stop saying things that they believe to be incendiary and untruthful. But when Donald Trump wins the election, the largest electoral landslide since the Reagan reelection campaign, now they're saying, No, it's the Russians' fault, that the Russians did something that Julian Assange and Wikileaks were all designed to help Donald Trump.
The bottom line is, and you've already pointed this out, every single e- mail that was published from the Podesta e-mail chain has proven to be authentic. And the Clinton campaign did not want to authenticate those one-off (ph), but they have never, ever said that those e-mails were wrong or that they weren't authentic because they know them to be true. So this is just, you know, sour grapes, is what this comes down to.
HANNITY: Where -- tell me where the evidence is that Russia's involved. Now, the DailyMail had a report yesterday about this guy, Craig, I believe his last name is Murray. And Craig Murray says he got them directly from a Democrat who was disgruntled because Bernie Sanders had been cheated and the corruption at the Clinton Foundation, and that the actual e-mails were handed off personally by American University in a wooded area. Which is more likely to be true?
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, the bottom line is, you know, there is no hard, fast evidence. We heard President Obama say it directly that the Russians were involved in any way, shape or form. And the fact that our system, as President Obama pointed out, is so decentralized that there's no individual way to go and steal this election.
Donald -- this election was not stolen! Donald Trump went out, he connected with the voters. And look at what the stock market has done since Donald Trump has taken over as a president-elect. It is through the roof.
HANNITY: All right, so...
LEWANDOWSKI: I hope that means more people are more money to spend at Christmas.
HANNITY: So let's look at this objectively, though. So we're to believe that the Democratic blue wall that broke down in Iowa and Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, states that have a lot in common economically, that those are the states, the only states that were the ones that were influenced by, quote, Vladimir Putin and Russian hacking.
Wouldn't it be more likely that it was the message that we can get America back to work, putting America first, bringing in manufacturing? Isn't it more likely that those states that have suffered disproportionately to others that the message was what made those states change? Otherwise, the whole country would have bought into Russian hacking, right?
HANNITY: Well, that's exactly right. And the bottom line is you get states that have been disproportionately affected by bad trade deals that, as you know, Hillary Clinton was in favor of TPP. She called it the gold standard, until she was running in a campaign when Bernie Sanders points out the flaws and she changed her position.
States like Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania have been hammered by bad trade deals. Donald Trump from day one on this campaign has said, We're going to have fair trade. It's going to be fair trade to the American people for a change.
That message resonates with all those people in those states that have been put out of work by bad trade deals perpetrated by previous -- this administration and others, and they want a change. Washington had lied to them for 30 years, and now they're ready for a change.
HANNITY: All right, now the last questions. So you worked for CNN during this process. How horrible -- I mean, I guess it was you, Jeff Lord and what was -- Kaylee (ph) -- is that what's her name?
LEWANDOWSKI: Kaylee (INAUDIBLE) yes, nice woman.
HANNITY: OK. What was it like, six, seven, eight, nine on one every night?
LEWANDOWSKI: Look, I think there's a lot of good people over there. I think what the difference is, Sean, is that they fundamentally believe that Hillary Clinton would have been a better president than Donald Trump. I don't believe that. I've never believed that. That's why I worked for Donald Trump. That's why stood up for Donald Trump every chance I could on CNN because there's a fundamental difference.
Washington is broken, and until now, we have not had a leader who has been beholden to special interests that is willing to go and change it. Donald Trump is the change agent.
HANNITY: Well said.
LEWANDOWSKI: The American people see it now. Now the networks are seeing it, and they're going to have a great year moving forward because Trump is going to change Washington for the better.
HANNITY: It is kind of nice to hear your comments without David Axelrod and Van Jones getting in your grill. Corey, good to see you. Congratulations.
LEWANDOWSKI: Thank you, Sean. Merry Christmas.
HANNITY: Merry Christmas, sir.
Coming up -- President-elect Donald Trump back on his thank you tour tonight. He's in Florida. We've got the highlights.
Also coming up tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I will get the Gulf states to give us lots of money, and we'll build and help build safe zones in Syria so people can have a chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, President-elect Trump -- he says that he can get the Gulf states to pay for the Syria safe zones. We'll check in with Dr. Gorka. He'll weigh in on that.
And later tonight, a California mother of four missing, and police suspect her illegal immigrant husband may be to blame.
That and more straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." So President-elect Trump -- he's back out on his thank you tour speaking to supporters. Here are some of the highlights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, let's start off by saying merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I'm here today for one main reason, to say thank you to the incredible people of Florida. What a group.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: As you know, Florida is my second home. In many ways, it's my first home. And I love this state. I love the people. I love the people of the state. You propelled to victory a grass roots movement the likes of which the world -- they've never seen it before.
Look at these people. How many people are here? Man!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: That's a lot of people.
There's rarely been a time when we've needed military power more than it is right now, and we're going to have it. It's going to be peace through strength. Peace through strength.
At the same time, our foreign policy needs a new direction. We've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, and now it's in worse shape than it's ever been before, years of horror. And look at what's happening over there right now -- $6 trillion and look what's happened. It's death. It's a horrible thing. We're going to do everything we can. We're going to get it straightened out one way or another.
At home, our infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are failing, and our workers can't find good-paying jobs. You know that. Oh, we're going to change that so fast, your heads are going to spin.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Instead of rebuilding foreign nations, it's time to rebuild our nation, and that's what we're going to do.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: For too long, we've been moving from one reckless intervention to another, countries that most of you have never even heard of before. It's crazy, and it's going to stop.
A Trump administration will focus on the vital national security interests of the United States, and that means crushing ISIS rapidly and defeating radical Islamic terrorism!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here now with reaction, pollster Frank Luntz and Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin. Good to see you both.
What do you make of this effort by the president, Hillary to delegitimize - - Oh, the Russian hacking did it. There's no new evidence. There's nothing new that came in since -- we knew all of this before the election.
FRANK LUNTZ, GOP POLLSTER: It's 2000 all over again. This is a Democratic strategy so that voters will not accept the outcome to try to needle (ph) him (ph).
HANNITY: It's going to backfire, though.
LUNTZ: It -- but the problem is -- it -- it -- I love the fact that Trump is going out to the people. This is the first time since Ronald Reagan that a president has this kind of army. For every issue, for every concern, Donald Trump will be able to turn out not just tens of thousands, Sean, hundreds of thousands of people that'll come to Washington and say, You have to listen to us.
HANNITY: Yes.
LUNTZ: It is a brilliant strategy to run against that cynicism that the Democrats are promoting.
HANNITY: So the president is -- he's had eight years to fix the so-called hacking. We've known about this forever, even talked about, Oh, I told them to stop, meaning the Chinese and the Russians, and I'm, like, Gee,that's so tough Mr. President.
OK, influencing elections is so horrible. You were the pollster...
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, TRUMP POLLSTER: Right.
HANNITY: ... for Prime Minister Netanyahu.
MCLAUGHLIN: Right.
HANNITY: Did Barack Obama use taxpayer dollars and did Barack Obama send his surrogates on the ground in Israel for the purpose of defeating Bibi Netanyahu?
MCLAUGHLIN: Absolutely, yes. U.S. Senate panel found they used tax dollars. And that was chaired (ph). It was bipartisan. It was also the tip of the iceberg. He sent Jeremy Byrd (ph) over there, his political director. They set up a huge super-PAC that spent more than the 11 political parties combined. And it got minimal press here. And the reason he was trying to do it...
HANNITY: This is the One Voice PAC.
MCLAUGHLIN: Right.
HANNITY: And this helps in every regard.
MCLAUGHLIN: B-15 (ph). Right. And they had -- they -- they were -- they were teaching our opposition how to organize and turn out the vote. But I'll tell you what it was about. My suspicion was it was all about stopping Bibi Netanyahu from being able to speak to Congress and win the election and then tell them about how bad the Iran nuclear deal was.
HANNITY: Which he did.
MCLAUGHLIN: Which he did. Frank at the time came over to Israel and said it was worsening relations between Israel and the U.S. It was wrong, but the president was behind this stuff and the tactics that we learned with Prime Minister Netanyahu, we were able to employ in the Trump campaign to help him beat Hillary Clinton.
LUNTZ: So there's a question, though. Was this election more a rejection of Obama or a rejection of Clinton? I've not been able to...
HANNITY: I think it's both...
(CROSSTALK)
MCLAUGHLIN: It was both. It was change election.
(CROSSTALK)
LUNTZ: ... more important?
MCLAUGHLIN: We just -- we just did a survey for Secure America Now, and it's up on our Web site, McLaughlin (INAUDIBLE) .com. The voters as of this week want change, 52 to 39. And that includes -- I mean, and by the way, Trump has a 48 job approval...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: 41.
MCLAUGHLIN: 41. And it has 24 percent job approval among African- Americans, 44 among Hispanics.
HANNITY: That's demographic shift if he can turn those into votes.
MCLAUGHLIN: And if he goes into 50 and 60, Frank's saying he'll be like Reagan. If he approaches, and your -- your point about polarization -- we're not going to be unanimous. But if you have a 55, 60 percent of the population approving you, we can get the Republican Congress to repeal and replace "Obama care." That's a 60-30 (INAUDIBLE)
HANNITY: All right. I got to break.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Look, you didn't think Trump had a good chance.
LUNTZ: No, I did not think -- I did not think he had a good chance...
HANNITY: That's what I mean.
LUNTZ: ... but I thought that he was absolutely viable because of what he had said and how he said it. Two points. In fact, just one. If Trump can keep this majority of these new voters who've never voted Republican before...
MCLAUGHLIN: Right.
LUNTZ: ... and bring back some of those Republicans from the suburbs who voted for Clinton but voted Republican all the way down the line...
MCLAUGHLIN: Right.
LUNTZ: ... this is a long-term majority. He has a chance to change politics as we know it if he can keep both of these groups together, and he has the capability to do it.
HANNITY: I got to run. Good to see you both.
LUNTZ: Thank you.
HANNITY: Merry Christmas to both of you.
LUNTZ: Thank you.
MCLAUGHLIN: Merry Christmas.
HANNITY: And up next tonight right here on "Hannity"...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I will get the Gulf states to give us lots of money, and we'll build and help build safe zones in Syria so people can have a chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Extreme vetting, safe zones in Syria. We'll check in with Dr. Sebastian Gorka. He'll weigh in on that.
And also later tonight...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. OBAMA: See, now we're feeling what not having hope feels like, you know?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: I guess for the first time in her adult life, she feels hope is going away. Why? Because Donald Trump won the election. What's that all about? We'll have a full report. Bo Dietl, Mike Myers (ph) have reaction.
And much more straight ahead tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We will keep radical Islamic terrorists the hell out of our country!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, that was President-elect Donald Trump talking about defeating radical Islam. He's also addressing the humanitarian crisis in Syria, now promising to build safe zones for those that are suffering from that civil war and much more and all the people that are there. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And we'll build safe zones in Syria. When I look at what's going on in Syria, it's so sad. It's so sad. And we've got to help people. And we have the Gulf states. They have nothing but money. We don't have money. We owe $20 trillion. I will get the Gulf states to give us lots of money, and we'll build and help build safe zones in Syria so people can have a chance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Here with reaction, the author of "Defeating Jihad," Dr. Sebastian Gorka is with us. You've been in touch with the transition team. You've talked about radical Islam. You believe it's something we can defeat. Obama was out there at a presser today saying he took the best course in Syria. Really? Do you believe in that assessment?
DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA, AUTHOR, "DEFEATING JIHAD": No, because I live in the real world, Sean. It's a catastrophe. Remember the red lines. The real reason he calls it ISIL and not ISIS --
HANNITY: Why is that? What is the reason?
GORKA: The real reason is because he doesn't want to remind people that "S" stands for Syria and that he drew the red line again and again and again. And what happened? Assad kept on marching, the Jihadis kept on marching. The fact is this is all going to end on January the 21st. Our foreign policy has been a disaster. We've neglected and abandoned our allies. We've emboldened our enemies. The message I have is a very simple one. It's a bumper sticker, Sean. The era of the pajama boy is over January 20th and the alpha males are back.
HANNITY: Let me play Obama here and what he said at his press conference today, and then you tell me out of this what Donald Trump will do differently. Let's roll the tape.