Coming up next, our final news round up and information overload, Our all right news.
Round Up, Information Overload, our toll free. Our number is eight hundred and ninety four one, Shawn. If you ever want to be a part of the program, we'd love to hear from you. This is now becoming a thing, and it is harming. It is hurting, it is traumatizing,
especially young people. And that is when you go to the Internet and people are putting up you know, intimate imagery or deep fake pornography, and because of artificial intelligence and technology, it looks very real and there are people that are doing that, and even if you're an adult, it can be the most traumatizing event in your life. Imagine how horrible it would be if you are a child. And thank god, our friend Senator Ted Cruz in Texas
has is working alongside the First Lady Milania Trump. It's called the Take It Down Act, and it is a move to protect American citizens, especially young people in particular. I mean, this can cause somebody to go over the edge. It is so dangerous, it is so vile, It is so horrible what some people will do. It's just pure evil. But they will spread non consensual intimate imagery and deep
fake pornography. And with the First Lady backing this crucial legislation, it is clear that Trump administration serious about combating online harassment and exploitation. And it enforces very strict penalties on offenders and holds social media platforms accountable, ensuring that they act swiftly to remove harmful content. And you've got to give them a little bit of slack because we want freedom of speech. How and these companies are trying to
be as transparent as they can. Are they going to know that it's a deep fake phony imagery or that this is non consensual and it's a compromising position. No, but they do have an obligation to police that, and they're going to the act and forces strict penalties on offenders, holds these platforms accountable. And you know, people whining about encrypted communications are missing the point. This is about protecting victims and upholding justice, and it's not about limiting people's
right to freedom of speech. You don't have the right to put somebody else's image. You don't have the right to that person's image to put it up on social media as a form of harassment, embarrassment, intimidation and maybe even blackmail in some cases. Anyway, our friend Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is with a senator. It was great to see you the other night at the State of the Union. I still can't get over what we witnessed in the chamber. You never witnessed anything like that, did you.
No, That night was shocking. It's great to be with you again. It was great to be with you that the State of the Union. The President gave a phenomenal speech, I think the best speech he's ever given. It was positive, it was forward looking, It cataloged the incredible victories that we've already won just forty days into the administration. And the contrast with the Democrats. They are the party of rage,
they are the party of hate. They would not stand or applot or show anything other than anger the entire time. It was a despicable performance. But one of the moments that was really powerful is that President Trump addressed this issue that you just talked about, which is the growing problem of non consensual intimate images, revenge porn, deep fake porn, attacking and targeting women, and attacking and targeting teenage girls.
And this is a problem that is growing over three thousand percent, and we're seeing well, Milania Trump her guests at the State of the Union. Seated right next to her was a girl from Texas, Ellison Berry. I know Elliston well. She is from Aledo, Texas, which is North
Texas outside Fort Worth, and she's fifteen. When she was fourteen a year ago, she woke up one Monday morning to a bunch of text and calls from her friends, and a classmate of hers had taken a perfectly innocent picture from social media, had used an AI app online to create a deep fake so that it appeared to be naked pictures of her. It wasn't, in fact naked pictures. They were fake, but you couldn't tell. They appeared entirely real. And that classmate sent it to every kid in her school.
And so this poor fourteen year old girl wakes up just in tears with all of her friends thinking they're looking at naked pictures of her. Elliston, she and her mother, they tried to stop it. They tried to get it taken down. And one of the things they did is they reached out to me their constituents, and so they called their senator, and Ellison's mom said can you help with what happened to my I thought it was horrible.
I've got teenaged daughters at home. I thought what happened to her was wrong, and so I drafted the take It Down legislation in response to what happened to Alliston. And the take it Down legislation does two things. Number one, it makes it a crime. It makes it a felony to post non consensual intimate images. That means, in some cases their real pictures. Say two people are in a romantic relationship, they break up, and one of them is pissed and decides, I'm going to post these pictures of
videos for the world. You don't have a right to do that. That is a grotesque violation of privacy and it shouldn't be allowed. But the other instance is what I just described, where it's a real person but it's a deep fake and AI lets you create pictures and even videos that you can't tell they're not real, and the take it Down legislation makes that a crime as well. And then critically, it puts a legal obligation on the tech platforms to take the content down when the victor
notifies them that is non consensual. That's me take it down. And my legislation, it has passed the Senate one hundred to nothing. It's bipartisan legislation. I teamed up with Amy klovichar Democrat from Minnesota, and it passed the Senate with every Democrat, every Republican supporting it. This week, the First Lady came to Capitol Hill, Milania, came and listened to the victims, listen to multiple victims who've been targeted all over the country, and she called on the House of
Representatives to take this up and pass it. And then it's a State of the Union address. President Trump called out Ellison Berry in particular and called on the House passed this legislation, put it on his desk so that we can protect women and teenage girls and teenage boys and the victims of this abuse.
You know, Senator, you and I signed up.
We are in the political fray in this country, and a lot of false things have been posted and said about both of us over our long careers, and we can both handle it right. I don't know if anyone zephver did a deep fake porn on me, because I just don't look at this crap anymore. I just if I want to aggravate myself. You know, I can spend a few hours and feel terrible about myself. I can spend a few hours online and just you know, read all the hateful comments.
I'd rather not.
I think I have better things to do with my time. I think you probably do too. However, this is very different. I mean, now we're talking about intimate photos, reel or fake and young people involved. And there are instances and you're aware of it, and I'm aware of it where young people see it and they're so distraught that they bring harm to themselves or they've committed suicide. That's how serious this can become. That's how real this is to them.
Well, Sean, you're exactly right. And at the roundtable that we hosted with the First Lady this week, one of the witnesses who spoke at the round table with Brandon Guffy, who is a state representative in South Carolina, and tragically that happened to his son Gavin, And what happened to his son Gavin, he was a teenager and he was approached over social media by what he thought was another teenage girl, and he was convinced to send explicit naked pictures of himself to the teenage girl.
Well, it turns out a stupid mistake that any teenage kid might make. It is not that that uncommon. And I'm just being real here with your senator. I mean, kids get caught up and stuff.
Yeah, kids, kids do foolish things. And he thought it was a cute girl and he was trying to flirt with her, so he sent the picture. It turned out it was a scam artist and engaged in what's called sex torsion, and they immediately began threatening him. Okay, we're going to take this picture of you and we're going to send it to your friends. We're going to make it public. And Gavin, this teenager, he committed suicide. He
took his own life. The entire time between the first outreach from this scammer and when Gavin committed suicide was one hour and forty minutes.
Oh my gosh. As poor kid.
And by the way, Brendan, his father, testified that after his son had committed suicide, they found this on his phone. They found the communication. The scammer then tried to blackmail the father and said, Okay, you know I have your son's naked picture. I'm going to put it all out there unless you give me money and trying to shake that they.
And they knew the kid was dead and that they were responsible for him dying.
What the father said is the scammer. Bragg to him said, your son begged for his life and I didn't care, and that's why he's dead. And send me money or I'm going to release it.
Anyway.
Did we ever get this guy? Did we ever find them?
Oh?
No?
And many of many of them are foreigners, Many of them are are in other countries, and it can be big business to to shake people down for money and for blackmail, and and and we're seeing every year dozens and dozens of teenagers committing suicide because of this. And one of the maddening things is that it is incredibly hard to take down the content. And so Brandon was saying, the provision, So the way I wrote the law is I actually borrowed a mechanism from a different law called
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, And that's existing laws. And so if you or I, if you tweet out a song from the Lion King, they'll pull it down within a couple hours, because you can't tweet out something that's copyrighting and then that's that's existing law. And so the way we wrote to take it Down Act is non consensual intimate images are treated the same, which is, when the victim notifies a tech platform this is me. It's explicit and I do not consent, the tech platform has
forty eight hours to remove it. And I'll tell you so when Ellison, when I first met her, she and her mother, Anna, came to my office and we were doing a press conference because I was introducing the bill, and I was visiting with her and hearing her story in person, and I asked her then, I said, Ellison, what happened to the pictures? And she got upset for a minute and she said, well, they're still up. We
can't get them down. It had been nine months, nine months since this had happened, and she said the mother. The mother Anna said she had called Snapchat, she'd emailed them.
And she just hit a brick wall.
They just didn't care.
Sean.
I turned to my staff and I said, I want you to get the CEO of Snapchat on the phone today. I want this garbage down today. They took it down with hours. Now it should It was a sitting senator having to make a phone call to get it taken down. And this bill will give every victim the right to get that taken down, and that really empowers victims.
Quick break right back, we'll talk more with Senator Ted Cruz on this terrible, terrible crime of exploitation and sextortion and how real it is and how you know how widespread it's really become. On the other side, we'll get to your calls. Also coming up eight hundred and nine to four one Seawan on this Friday.
Are you sick of fake news?
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Sean Hannity.
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Go to USCCA dot com Slash class register for a free training class today. Empower yourself and never stop fighting for your rights and your safety. That's us CCA dot com Slash Class today. All right, we continue now with Texas Senator Ted Cruz as we discussed the terrible issue of sextortion, which is resulting in young people even taking their own lives on some occasions. And thankfully he has now come up with the take it down to Act. But I got to imagine that that these tech companies
are sympathetic towards this. It was a case of this Nigerian man who is extradited to the USA after he was indicted in connection and I think this is the one that you're talking about with the sextortion case of the South Carolina teen. I mean, so we do get them occasionally, there's got to be a digital footprint in all of these cases, doesn't there.
They're often is, and in some instances it's another teenager at the school. And over ninety percent, in fact, upwards of ninety five percent of the victims of this or either women or teenage girls. And you see it in high schools where teenage boys think, hey, this is a great idea. I'm going to make fake naked pictures of my classmates and send it to everyone, and they'll think
it's real, and it really is abusive. And you know, another person who testify it at the roundtable is a teenager from New Jersey, Francesca Manny, who had the exact same thing happened to her that Elliston did in the very same month, October October, just over a year ago. It happened to her as well, same thing, and she said, you know what, the boy who did it, they know
who it is. He suffered no consequences. He still goes to school with her, you know, he gets to laugh and see her every day, having sent these these pictures that everyone thought were real naked pictures uh to everyone
of her classmates. Also a growing problem when you have people who are victims of human trafficking and you have either children who are being sexually molested or adults who are being sexually molested, and the predators will post the videos and post the pictures online and to take it down act he protects them here too, because if you've been through some sort of horrible abuse, that that that
is like the most terrific experience of your life. And as long as it remains up on on on a social media platform, you're revictimized over and over and over again.
Looking at it.
And so this bill gives you the right. And so we heard testimony from victims of abuse who the predators put it up, and this gives them the right to say, I want that down. That is me and you do not have my permission to have it up there. And so it really gets about protecting and empowering the victims.
I'm glad you're drawing attention to this, Senator. This is this is a real problem, and these kids are very vulnerable, and this is a real crime and it's it's a very sophisticated, dark evil network of people that would do this, and hopefully this will put an end to it. Senator Ted Cruz, Texas, we appreciate you enlightening us on all this.
Thank you, sir. You know they're never ever going to get it on the left.
They just are not that hard hitting news show the view Joyless behar By the way, did I tell you Linda that they invited me on the show after I said, well, they don't invite me anymore.
Apparently they heard me say it.
Wait wait, wait, when did this happen?
It was the last time I said, oh, I used to go on that show, but they don't invite and invite me anymore. They called hurd it and wanted to invite me on.
Now.
The last time I was on the show, it was a complete Adam Schift show. Yeah, they had Rosie there. That was a hot mess.
Oh do you think it's going to be any different with Joyless? Do you think it's going to be any different with Sonny Houston? I don't think so.
I actually think you do. You want to hear my idea. It's actually this is a fantastic idea. Everyone should sit down and just listen for a minute, because it's about to be right here we go, get ready. I think that you and stephen A should go one together.
It's going to be six on one not that I can't handle it, it's just why.
I don't want one. First of all, essays your boy, So you guys would be friends, like you'd be sitting there together like not only.
No, no, no, he's going to be like, yeah, they're right, Yeah, they're right. Eody. Oh, he's not going to let him attack me personally. He wouldn't do that because we're just I think it.
Would actually be fun. I think he'd be Switzerland, and I think it would be fun.
He wouldn't be Switzerland. He can't help, you know.
The other night when when the State of the Union, I will give him credit, he was texting me and this is He's like, this is a disgrace. He thought it was unbelievable discress democrats whoever. He still kind of has that Hey Trump in him, and he just doesn't like he doesn't like Trump's style. That's what it really comes down to. And I think he doesn't understand Trump and the policies. And I said, let me ask you, what do you know about weaponization? It was a serious conversation.
And like, for example, on sports, when he asked me something about sports, if I don't know what, he's far more knowledgeable than me. And he'll say stay in your lane when he talks politics. Often I'll say back to him, you gotta stay in your lane. And you know now that now that everybody's been out there and he's been enjoying every second of this talk about him maybe be running for president, He's not running for president.
I know, Steven Ay.
I tell you right now, if it's Essay or Kamala, I'm voting for Essay.
Okay, it's not going to be Essay or Kamala. It's going to be Essay and a conservative and he's not a conservative, but he's got more a more moderate, common sense way of thinking about him so.
And not.
And on top of that, he's just a nice guy. He genuinely is nice. He's willing to mix it up. He's a broadcaster, he's talented, he's gifted, he's got all these great things going on.
For me, I couldn't be more proud of him. I'm so happy for him.
And he goes on the view and they don't even understand him. And even they were like going after him for just just mildly, you know, defending Donald Trump.
You know, like give a Elon Musk a chance?
Can we give the guy a chance before we just, you know, openly condemned the guy, and they their minds are closed.
So you're I mean, you know, you're you think I should actually thought, you actually want me to consider going on the view.
I think it would be fun these days, because similar to what is happening with the Dems at the State of the Union or the Joint Address, whatever we're calling it, if my person worth the.
Cost of it might be worth the price of admission just to say, joyless, it's so good to see you again.
Listen, they're going to be you would hate that.
I think they're going to be on their best behavior and then they'll slowly become unhinged. I think your biggest adversaria would actually be on a Navarro because she's so hate filled, she's really hate filled.
Would be joy and.
Joy and joy is not like Trump Trump derangement on steroids and human growth hormone discussing the discussing the difficulties of being friends with a Trump supporter. Gee, what a complicated mess this must be.
Listens with Trump supporter. I won't give them a kidney, but I could be friends with very I mean, the question, the thing about it is it's not just about politics. Its about morality, ethics, it's about cruelty, it's about discrimination.
When it's about a lot of things.
So there's about personal human values. We're not really just talking about fiscal conservative who pays more taxes. We're talking about you as a human ban So it's hard to be friends with someone who signs onto something like that. On the other hand, to open to discussion, I like to talk to them, find out where exactly do you know about this guy?
Yeah, I agree with that because I think you know, we're in abnormal times. This is not the Republican Party of yesterday. This is sort of the trump I think it's the Trumpeting Party in many respects.
It's so extreme.
And if someone is supporting or voting for someone who is hurting members of my family, members of my community, our elderly, our children, gutting our government, firing people, I do have a hard time right and c being friends.
With that person.
You can't reason with them. They voted for a woman that supported five hundred and seventy four riots encouraged it and told them not to stop. They voted for a woman that wanted taxpayer funded sex change operations. And wide open borders and wanted to ban fracking and drilling. I mean, it's very hard to have a reasonable conversation Sonny House that actually went as far as to say people need to fight and die for their rights to oppose Trump.
Democrats are not meeting the moment against this existential threat. Throw out of their minds. Chris Matthews is back. Trump is Mussolini and he's using us in the media. They're They're insane. I I can't handle it. Actually, it is a coloss I think it would be a colossal waste of my time, and I think that this audience, you know, would prefer not waste my timing it.
You know, I don't know. Maybe we should put a poll up. What do you think?
Okay, so what's the poll.
How would you like it to read? Would you like Sean to go on the View?
Or not?
And that's.
Should No, we should make it fun. It should say something like, should Sean Hannity go on the View?
And school would be enjoy.
No, because now what you're doing is very tricky and sneaky, and I know what you're up to.
I'm not trying to do you're trying. No, you're not just asking.
You're trying to get the audience to vote the way you want them to vote. Because you want me to go up there and do this. It's not going to be you sitting there getting yelled at.
I promise you, if you do this, I will be in the front row and I will rah rah raw you the whole way through.
Oh rah rah rah. They gonna look at you and probably remove you from this security.
Please take the woman in the front.
You're gonna be al Green getting you removed. I'll stand up and sing to our busy phone. Speaking of al Green, Jim and Alabama. What's up, Jim, how are you?
Hey? Good afternoon, Sean. As you said yesterday when they centered al Green, my first question is what does that mean? Secondly, he said he would do it again, and it sounds like there's little or no ramification. So is there a ramification for the center?
Is there a ramification for CenTra? Yeah?
I mean if it happens again, then it goes to the next step and uh, you know, then then they begin to lose four privileges and then they can vote to remove them from Congress. Listen, I don't really want it to come to that point and I may surprise people by saying that what he did I in the end, if this is who they are holding up their bingo cards, being unwilling to stand for mothers that lost children and a young man with cancer and the wife of a hero that was murdered in the line of duty, then
let them be that party. If they want to be the party of endless wars, if they want a champion men's rights to play women's sports, if they want a champion the rights of illegals over our safety, if they want reckless spending in the hundreds of billions of dollars for their radicalism abroad, then let them be that party. You know, America now sees them for what they are. And it took Donald Trump winning this election, you know, for a lot of this to get exposed and for
people's eyes to be opened. And now that they're opened, and now that they're doubling down on stupid, I think they're just hurting themselves every step of the way.
Anyway, good call, go ahead, Lest word.
God, can you go a little bit further now? You said if they center him a second time, what would happen.
Center has long been viewed as a punishment of last resort admonishing someone for something that is perceived as a serious wrongdoing and informs the public of a formal disapproval. And what does censer mean in Congress? Well, it comes just one step below expulsion and usually is triggered only for the most grievous wrongdoings. And vote for censure used to be few and far between. They've become fairly commonplace, and it's happened to other people more recently. You might
remember Jamal Bowman. It happened to him. Marjorie Taylor Green was up for a censure over past statements that never happened. But at some point they'll face expulsion if they continue these antics. He said he would do it again. I'm like, go ahead, do it again anyway. Thanks my friend. Eight Seawn is our number. If you want to be a part of the program. Back to our busy phones, let us say hi with Eric and North Carolina.
Hey, Eric, how are you glad you called?
Hey Sean, pleasure to speak with you for the first time.
Thank you. Oh my question, Leasure.
My question is very simple. Which democrat is going to be the first one to step out of line? Surely that somebody has the fortitude to to look at what's what was being proposed and what they're doing. After watching that speech the other night, I was like, somebody has got to have some real leadership qualities that they would actually step out of line and start disagreeing with the leadership of the Democratic Party, And what is that? What for that person? What is it going to look like?
Well, it's interesting because apparently yesterday there was a behind the scenes meeting of the Democratic Caucus and the leadership was admonishing the way the Democrats acted during the State of the Union. But I didn't see Hakeem Jeffries or Chuck Schumer stands. So they're just as guilty as everybody else. So I thought that was a bit of a joke. And John Fetterman spoke out against it. He's the only current member. Joe Manchin spoke out against it, but he's
no longer a current member. I don't think there's gonna be anybody. I think this is who they are and it defines them and the American people got.
To see it all.
Fortunate, that's for sure.
Anyway, my friend, God bless you appreciate the call. Pennsylvania. Wayne, We have a minute, Wayne, it's all yours. Glad you called.
Hey, Sean, thanks for taking my call, and I think you should do the view I want to talk about.
I thought you liked me. I thought you were my friend. Okay, Tuesday night, we're.
Not using Linda's push poll language either. If it's going to be Shoean Hannity go on the view, yes or no, that's it.
I only have a minute here, So Sean, on Tuesday night with the State of the Union, I look at the two parties as brands, and the Democratic Party did some pretty bad damage to their brand on Tuesday. And the Republicans have a wealth of campaign advertising material from that night. And what they should do is they should take that DJ and split screen with what the Democrats were doing. I mean, these people went through some traumatic
tragedies in their life. And Trump, you know a lot of people say he lost his fastball.
He are you kidding me? This guy has never been thrown harder life.
Not only did he pitch a no hither, he came up to bat and hit a grand slam. And the Democrats have some real problems and for the legacy media to double down on what they did. The Democrats did on Tuesday Night. I mean, do they not see what they're doing?
I don't think their party has become radicalized and extreme.
This is who they are.
And while they tried to hide it, it's been exposed by President Trump and Elon Musk and we saw it on the State of the Union. And now people's eyes are open to it. And once your eyes open and so you can't unsee it anymore. And if they try to moderate, I don't think it's going to come off as credible. It's going to come off as political expediency, which is what it will be. Anyway, Wayne, I wish I had more time. We love our friends in Pennsylvania.
God bless you, my friend eight hundred and ninety four one Sean if you want to join us. And that's gonna wrap things up for today. Hannity Tonight, nine Eastern on the Fox News Channel. Charlie Kirk, who had a little shootout with our old friend Gavin Newsom, Janin Piro will join us. Mike Road tonight, Jimmy Fayla and David Sachs at you DVR Tonight, Hannity nine Eastern. A lot of news what's breaking tonight. We'll get to all of
it on the Fox News Channel. Oh, by the way, don't forget on Foxnation dot com our friend Jillianmichaels for a long form interview. It's all on Foxnation dot com if you want to check that out. Thanks for being with us, have a great weekend, and thank you for making this show.