To Sean Hannity Show. Eight hundred and nine to one, Shawn is a number you want to be a part of the program. We welcome to the program. Welcome back to the program. Our friend Brett Barr. He's the host of Special Report on the Fox News Channel. And by the way, he's written an amazing new book. It's called to Rescue the American Spirit Teddy Roosevelt, The Birth of
a Superpower. I think there is a lot of relevancy and a lot of similarities to what we are seeing unfold in terms of the re emergence of American strength on the world stage now under President Trump. But Brett Bhar always a pleasure to have you back, sir.
How are you hey, Sean? It is a crazy time. Thanks for having me back.
I think I'm more often a guest with you, though. I mean, I like when you're hosting election nights. I get to go on and give my commentary. And I think the last election, I think everybody on that panel, there might have been twelve people on that panel. We're looking at me like, Okay, he's really over his skis. And I even said, well, if I'm wrong, you can
print Hannity's wrong. T shirts, and I laid out what was going to happen the rest of election night about nine thirty in the evening, and I said, at this point, for Kamala Harris to win the race, she's gonna lose North Carolina Georgia, which you called shortly thereafter, and she had no chance in Arizona, and she would likely lose Nevada, which meant she would have to win Pennsylvania, Michigan, in Wisconsin.
And then I explained why she was she had a math problem because her numbers were weighed down from where Joe Biden had been four years earlier. I think everybody on that panel, I don't know about you. I don't know what you would think. And you kind of was Stoic was looking at me like he's nuts.
He's got the roadmap. Bill Hammer and I were like trying to keep up. But it turned out everything that you said early on nine thirty, I think it might have been before nine thirty, it turned out to be right, you know, only within within an hour a hour and a half.
You know, it was an amazing night in the historic night. And and this is what we live for in this business, isn't it. I mean, those nights that are big news nights. You love it. I love it, you know, traveling with the President of the United States, interviewing presidents and vice presidents and secretaries of States and foreign leaders. You know, to me, it's it's an honor to be able to do all of it. And and we both have had, you know, successful careers, and it's it's a lot of fun.
And I'm honored that people give us that opportunity every.
Night one percent. And those elections are like our super Bowl, and those big moments when you're traveling with the president or interviewing a president is there's nothing like that. You know, Teddy Roosevelt gives the speech in Paris that eventually becomes known as the Man in the Arena, And you could say, in this job, you're in the arena. You're covering stuff that is historic and moving the needle and actual a lot of people. So you know Teddy Roosevelt's words, it's
not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out to the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. And he goes on and it's one of his most famous speeches.
I want to get to your book in a second. I would argue, in the last presidential cycle, you had the most consequential interview of anybody. And that's when Kamala Harris agreed to sit down with you. And if I'm I'm mistaken, tell me he was supposed to be there and correct me if I'm wrong. Your show's on at six eastern and she was supposed to show up at five point fifteen. Am I wrong about that?
Yeah? So what happened was she wanted to do a pre tape and her event was going to end at four thirty, and I said, we will be ready at four thirty, but we have to be done by five point fifteen because we have to cueue the tape up and we were planning on doing half an hour and we had to run it at the top of six, so at the last possibility, we have to start taping at five point fifteen. And she finished her event at
four twenty. She went to a holding room right outside where our interview was set up, and we didn't hear from her, And so it was four point thirty and four forty four forty five four fifty five o'clock, five oh five. Now my producers are pacing, people are pulling their hair out. Five ten. Again, the cutoff is five fifteen. The Vice president walked out of that door at five fourteen thirty and walked to the seat and sat down and I said, mad and Vice President, it was an
interesting event outside, thank you for being here. And she looked at me and said you ready. And that's the two words she said when we started the interview.
So what's fascinating about it? She had done very few real interviews, I would argue up to that point, maybe none, And I thought it was it was a consequential moment. And and that's a tough position, I think for you to be in, because I'm on the opinion side of Fox News. You're on the news side of Fox News, and there is a delineation and people sometimes don't understand that. But I think I have a lot more flexibility, which I prefer. I think your job is a little bit
harder in that respect. But there were so many unanswered questions that that had had been hanging out there, and you had a very small window to get them in, and that it made that interview that much harder. And I give you a lot of credit in that interview because you did press her and when she tried to filibuster, you know, you understood the time was short and you really needed to get some questions in here.
Yeah, and you know it is a balance, and you know you can follow up up again and again, and you know my rule is three times and the audience knows she's not answering the question. But there were a couple of times where she stopped and said, Brett, you know what I'm talking about, and I said, matter if I president, No, I.
Don't, not really. And you know, I don't think anyone still ever got an answer to the question, do you still support taxpayer funded sex change operations for illegals and for convicts. I don't think anyone ever got that question, in.
Which arguably was the most effective commercial that ran during football games in the NFL. Leaving up it was huge. Yeah, well, well it's coming to fight, I think, and she wanted that fight. And believe it or not, when we wrapped up, and there was a hard wrap by their people, you know, saying you've got to finish, which is why we I was going to say at the end, if you win, how can you bring the country together? I could never
get there because they were wrapping me so hard. But at the end, her people said, that's what we wanted. We wanted it to be tough, we wanted her to push back. I just didn't think that that was the best look in the in the interview itself.
And I think, what did they cut it down to that eighteen minutes instead of a half hour, you weren't able to go the time that it had been promised. An allocator for you, if I recall. So, I've been reading your book and I'm fascinated by Teddy Roosevelt, and I'm fascinated like you are, by history, and it's it's kind of amazing. I was amazed at the parallels of Teddy Roosevelt's time in the birth of a superpower, and I felt America in terms of its stature in the
world declined dramatically. Again, this is my opinion during Biden, especially the disastrous pull out in Afghanistan. And I think that President Trump has reasserted American leadership and dominance and strength as a superpower since he's gotten back into office in a way that I don't think anybody anticipated. Or imagined. You know, the Iranian nuclear strike would be an example, you know, working so hard to get peace in the
Middle East and the release of the hostages. I saw China today had had bought into not exactly a boycott, but they're pulling back on the purchasing of Russian oil because of the terriff issue that's now associated with it, which is Trump exerting, you know, economic strength of the US. But I saw a lot of parallels between Teddy Roosevelt and President Trump and what he's doing. Now do you see those parallels and how would you describe them?
Yeah, I see the direct parallels. I mean, it's not one to wan across the board on ideology, on everything, but it is first of all a force of personality and a figure that's larger than lives, but one who one wants to reach forward and be active in the world. You know, for all of the people who say President Trump and who's administration and America first was going to be isolationist, it's exactly opposite of that. It is America thinking about America, what's good for America, but also being
forceful in the world. And you look at how some of these leaders are reacting to President Trump. You know the Gulf States, how that first trip, you know, they all put out the red carpet in a way that they had never done before. And now we're integral in
making the ceasefire work and hopefully hold between Israel and Hamas. So, you know, Roosevelt, this book kind of is centered on his legacy to position the United States as this world power, and his most significant one of them was brokering this peace deal between Russia and Japan, and he arranges for the two sides to hold a peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and he really works behind the scenes, as President Trump did in a lot of these different peace
negotiations that he's done. He works behind the scenes to kind of reach an agreement, and Roosevelt the result of that is a nobel pras he later, when Japan gets a little ornery and things are strained, he comes up with the idea to show American force and ships of the American fleet all painted white from battleship Gray and he creates the Great White Fleet, and he sails the fleet around the world in a peaceful demonstration of kind
of American might and the reminder of its power. And promise, and I just think that that has similarities about our strength around the world and what the president, President Trump is trying to do.
Let me ask you, I think i'd be negligent because I mean, there's so much history in this book, which is pretty amazing, and I urge people to get a copy of it. And it's called to Rescue the American Spirit Teddy Roosevelt, The Birth of a Superpower. It's on Amazon dot com, Hannity dot com, bookstores around the country. I often criticize the media. I think the media generally speaking, I've made the argument that I believe legacy media is dead.
I think it died in this election. I think Donald Trump has forever tattooed the words fake and news into the forehead of CNNMSDNC and the three major networks. I think people are more skeptical than ever before. Do you have an assessment of where they've gone wrong? I thought it was interesting Barry Weiss asking the sixty Minutes team, why does the country think you're all biased? That's an interesting question because most people I know believe they're very biased.
Yeah, and clearly the Paramount Purchase is interested in finding more balance and an effort to get back to some semblance of coverage that's there. Listen, We've talked about this, Sean, you and I and you know, I'm not where you are as far as giving up. I think that there are still some good reporters out there and some good folks.
But I do think that President Trump in the first term and the second term broke the minds of some reporters that were normal, straight down the middle guys and women, and the emotion that came with their pushback became Trump derangement syndrome, and it showed in almost every story that they did. And so then we got years of Russia, Russia, Russia, and to your credit, you, you know, you really pushed back with substance and were one of the leading people
on you know, pushing back on all the narratives. Eventually it all came much like your election night predictions came to be, and you know, the coverage of that was not to be seen around the country. So I think people got set up and looked at a lot of this and said I'm sick of it. Now. I will say that six to seven Special Report, we're trying to do all sides, and we're trying to give it. You know that people have a sense of what's happening in the US and around the world with some analysis at
the end. It's a different animal, you know than an opinion show. But I think it's one of the only places left that is kind of trying to do it.
I'll be honest. I think it's it. I don't see it anywhere else. I just don't, which is a credit to you and Fox in my view. Yeah, anyway, the book is great. A lot of kudos to you. I urge everybody to get a copy of it. To rescue the American Spirit, Teddie Roosevelt and the Birth of a Superpower. We have a link on Hannity dot com or you can go to Amazon dot com or bookstores now all across the country. My friend colleague Repbaer host a special
report six pm Eastern on the Fox News Channel. Sir, thank you always a pleasure and we appreciate you coming on with us.
Thank you for having me.
Sean, We'll see you eight hundred nine four one, Sean our number. You want to be a part of the program. Listen, we all need a better night's sleep. It's just a fact, anyway. Eight hundred and nine to four one, Sewan. If you want to be a part of the program, Linda, you're not a sports person. I don't know if I can bring this.
I am a sports person. I just you know, I'm not.
It's crossing the plane. What's crossing the plane?
That is when you take your football and it goes past the pylons into the goal line and you get a touchdown.
It's only taking you nearly a decade to get it mostly right.
Listen, all right, I'm standing by my field goal equaling one, two or three. We had a coach come in.
The field goal does not equal one to two or three. The field goals is three points.
Depends on the situation.
No, okay, there's no situation in NFL football or college football. We're a field goal football.
I'm not doing anything with NFL. And they're bad bunny bs. They can stick it up there, you know where I'm not.
You know they're talking about having an alternative.
They're not talking about it.
They're having it. Oh, it's real going to happen. John Rich and a bunch of other people are getting together and John.
Rasa gets in on it too. Would be fantastic.
Yeah, he'd be great. I agree with you, it'd be very.
Anything's better than this demonic. You only can speak Spanish in halftime.
It's crap. I don't know anything about this guy. Nothing.
Well, that's what you need to learn to speak Spanish one then he can communicate with you. He's an idiot a studio Espanol on a squoiler like, well, you did pretty good there. I'm glad you can speak a little bit after studying in school for three years. But at the end of the day, we don't.
We don't. We don't need to all speak English. Those todays I can do that, I can count.
And then that idiot Roger Goodell saying, oh I'm not I'm not removing bad bunny, blah blah.
Shut up.
It's such utter not.
They don't care apparently the guy. They're woke.
So it's an either end zone. But you can't wear a cancer or an American flag on your helmet. You can't wear anything positive on your body. But you can put like, you know, whatever their unity signs or they have five slogans and they have to be in the end zone of every single team in the NFL. It's utter nonsense.
So let me tell you what's happening with sports betting and betting in general. So I have a friend of mine, and this guy's brilliant and he's great at what he does. He's an addiction specialist and he helps people all kinds of addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction. You know, he runs the Gambit and we had a conversation about gambling addiction.
And now the sports betting world and betting online has now made it possible that basically anybody that wants to bet can bet twenty four to seven, and it's become a real problem. He said. The dopamine hit that betters get is so powerful you can't overcome it. And he's describing the most heart wrenching scenarios of case. He doesn't tell me who, obviously, he said, Sean, they're people committing suicide because they're in debt up to their eyeballs and
they don't see any other way out. He said that, you know, you have successful people, financially successful that blow up their lives and they spend every dollar and they lose their family home and their cars are being repossessed, and they literally are in debt now up to their eyeballs and they don't like there's nothing he can do for them except tell them, you know, try and get them to, you know, stop. And he said that in
and of itself, is hard to do. He said, it's easier to treat This is what he said to me that really stood out to me. It's easier to treat alcohol, holism and drug addiction then people that are that are addicted to gambling. Can you imagine that that's that's how pervasive.
Listen, it's very scary. But you know, there is such a thing as free will, and if people want to go and it's all.
About free will, at the end of the day, you're gonna have to make a decision. You don't want any more pain in your life, and you're just gonna have to give up the dopamine hit that you get when you know in the charge you get when you're you're you're betting and looking for an outcome, and you know, and you're waiting for that field goal to be kicked for three points, not two, not one, but three at the end of the game, and and everything's writing on it.
And if you hit it, you're in happy land. If you lose it, you may be lost one hundred grand. I mean people are spending that kind of crazy money. Now, these companies are not stupid either, because they will have a profile on every one of their customers, and they build out these algorithms and they can literally fine tune exactly the type of thing you're going to be most interested in betting on, and they will they will right you, and they will incentivize you to bet if you haven't
bet in a while. And it's like wow. Anyway, Cash Pattel detailed massive sports rigging, a sports rigging operation with ties to the mafia that led to the arrest of an NBA player and a coach, The Portland Trailblazer coach Chauncey Billups his name and Miami Heat guard what's his name, Terry Rosier arrested and charged in connection to this illegal game gambling schemes. UH. In the case of this this Miami heat guard, his case related to suspicious betting activity
during a game. I mean these you can bet on whether or not a pitch is going to be a
ball or strength. We had the case of this one pitcher that so much money was waged on two specific pitches that he threw in the dirt in one case, uh, and that they they literally can can fine tune whether or not that that bet was way out of line with normal and whether or not there's some type of collusion anyway, one FBI agent saying the FBI supervisor agent, you know, marveling at the apparent resurgence of the American mafia. Fox News covered this today. Interestingly, ESPN blew off this
massive FBI presser on NBA gambling indictments. All other major cable news networks aired it because if you can't watch a sporting event today without you know, reading about the odds and watching ads for sports betting apps, I you know, I might like hit around and say to Clay Travis, all right, I'll bet you five hundred bucks that this team is gonna win this. By the way, every bet I've ever had with Clay Travis, I've won everyone I've
never asked to collect. But he like, he can't believe it because he's way more into you know, that world than I am. I mean, I look at the stuff they Portnoid does. I'm like, my gosh, he bet like a million dollars on some stuff. I mean, but he's also got them as advertisers. I'm sure he gets I'm sure he gets a lot of consideration there. But put it off on the side. This has the potential of ruining potential sports. But it's even bigger than that. It
is the potential to ruin lives. That part scares me because people aren't They're not going to be able to stop. You're not at all interested in the sports topic, are you?
No, it's interesting. I mean, I don't know who any of the people are what you're talking about, but you know, sure, I'm learning.
All right, Explain to this audience how a field goal can be for either one, two or three points. Explain that I can't right now. We're talking about basketball. That's the that's the sport that I'm focused. Now we're switching to you want to step up, you know, like, okay, so now you explain how you can because you can't get one or two points from a field goal.
We're doing basketball. It's round, it's orange, has a lot of black stripes. Katie and and Jason argue about it and.
How many how many points do you get for three free throw? And everyone in that room I don't even know what.
A free throw is. That's my hands of God.
You don't know what a free throw is.
Not even a clue, not even a clue.
I don't know.
I know how many points if you let's say, if you do a layup, how many points do you get? No idea, don't help her.
I don't even know what a layup is.
I don't know.
I'm not kidding, it's not you know. What I liked I watched the Kobe Bryant documentary about his life. That's interesting to.
Me that I like that was that was the most preventable helicopter and.
The fact that his little girl was with him broke my heart heartbreaking.
Well, seeing him and helicopter was grounded, it was amazing. And he had a helicopter that required that is made for two pilots, not one, but he was flying just one.
Uh.
They requested even though every every police helicopter was grounded, they requested it what's called a vision flight, meaning where they can see and they wouldn't go above that altitude. And sure enough they ran into all the cloud cover which grounded all the other helicopters and they didn't see it coming. It's so sad. It was John in my free state of Florida. What's up, John, How are you?
Thanks for taking my call. You know, I'm a New Jersey transplant from sadur River living in Naples, and I have to tell you a couple of things. Number One, when we look at Mickey Cheryl, we understand that she could fly a plane and she hates Trump. What else is she going to do for New Jersey?
You know, I'd like to know why she doesn't know how she made seven million dollars. I'd like to know why she gives conflicting answers on why she was not allowed to walk with her graduating class and why she's not in the yearbook of her graduating class at the Naval Academy because she keeps saying something different every single time. I want to know why she won't take a pledge not to raise taxes on New Jersey when it's one of the highest tax states in the country.
That's true. I mean, if you think about it, you know, Democrats never met a tax that they didn't like. Let's and let's face it. You know, at the end of the day, she voted against the salt deduction that they've been talking about for forty five years now, and she voted against the banning boys from playing women's sports. So at the end of the day, these are facts. They're not my facts, they're the facts.
So well, New Jersey, this may be their last opportunity. This may be it because the damage will be so great. I don't know if you're ever going to be able to come back. You'll be New York two point zero. You're you're right there now, But at least New Jersey. The polls show this is a winnable race for Jack Chitterelli. Now, I made a mistake in the last election cycle. The polls never showed it was going to be close. If it did, I would have paid more attention. And then
Jack Chittarelli only by three points. And if I had known that, I would have paid attention. I'm not making the same mistake twice. Now that Matt Towry and Robert Caahley pulled New Jersey and showed to one point race, that means if you are a voter in New Jersey, you can stop the madness and reverse course. Now this may be your last shot. Now I'm gonna go above and beyond for the state of New Jersey. I'm gonna have an announcement next week about what I'm going to do. How do you like that?
That's great, And I'm gonna go one step further. I think we're going to see New Jersey flipbread and New York is gonna flip bread after governor, it's about time and let the adults.
Well.
If New Jersey doesn't flip, I would say the odds go down exponentially in New York. Hey, New Jersey has to go first. This is New Jersey's opportunity. Understand, if you're in New Jersey and you're hearing my voice, go out and vote, because this is gonna be This race is going to be won by twenty thousand votes. Smack. That's how close this race is going to be. Okay,
you got a shot. This is your shot. I'm not saying it can I'm saying it can happen, but it's going to take all of you taking it seriously and look at it as your last opportunity to save that pathetic state because it's pretty pathetic. Under Phil Murphy. All right, my friend, appreciate it. Quick break right back to our phones. Eight hundred and ninety four one, Shawn our number. If you want to be a part of the program.
The Final Hour roundup is next.
You do not want to miss it, and stay tuned for the final hour Free for all on the Sean Hannity Show. All right, back to our busy phones, Maureen. Next on The Sean Hannity Show. What's up, Maureen? How are you?
Hey, Sean?
Great to talk to you.
What's going on? Great to talk to you.
I want to know.
I want to know why they're not pushing for CMO to drop out. It's a clear choice between a communist and law and order.
Curtis Sliwa, that's what.
We need you.
No, you're you're asking a great question. I mean, you know, all of a sudden with you know, early voting starting this weekend. Now everyone hit the panic button this week. I mean you should have hit the panic button after Zoron you know, uh COMMI Marxist Bondani won the primary. That's when, that's when it was time to hit the
panic button. And when I guess, I guess CMO was on with Sid in the morning, and and you know said and Sid as well, why don't you approach Curtis and make a plan and kind of team up together. I never thought of that Oh okay, Well that's your fault. That's on you because you're you're the master politician. But you know, look, I think they got in a lot of blows last night against Mamdani. It was interesting to watch them sweat, but I don't think they had a
knockout blow that's going to be a race changer. I didn't see it. I think this race is Ma'm Donnie's to lose by far. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm realistic and I'm not going to be Pollyannish and lie to my audience. I refuse. I just hope.
Beautiful down here, but I love New York. I don't want to see it go down the toilet. And I was a cop for twenty one years up there. My daughter's a cop there now, and I'm just praying for Curtis to get in.
Well.
I hope for the safety and security of my friends that remain in New York that that's the case. Although I got to tell you, with very few exceptions, everybody I know is leaving New York when they can. People come visit me all winter long. Oh man, I love it down here. I got to get out of there, That's what I hear from everybody without exception. I'm like, yeah, it took me a long time to get out anyway, I appreciate the call, Mareen. Thank you. Look we're barreling
towards the longest government shutdown in history. You know what for a lot of families now, it's a lot of financial anxiety. Democrats won't even pay our military for crying out loud. They don't want to give up their leverage. As we heard from Catherine Clark, a representative, yesterday, unbelievable