Donald Trump town hall with Sean Hannity on 12/5/23. Read the transcript here.
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Welcome to Hannity. And tonight we are in beautiful Davenport, Iowa with a massive crowd. Welcome all of you. Thank you for being here. Wow. In a little more than one month, the very first Republican caucus will be held right here in this state as it should be. And by the way, in just a moment, the candidate leading the Republican field by far, Donald J. Trump, will join us for the full hour tonight.
(00:39)
Let’s be clear. In 2024, the stakes could not be any higher. After three years under Joe Biden, our country is imploding on every level. Our economy is wrecked by inflation. Our southern border is an utter disaster. The American people are not safe. Take a look.
What I would say that is unique about the environment that we’re in right now in my career is that while there may have been times over the years where individual threats could have been higher here or there than where they might be right now, I’ve never seen a time where all the threats or so many of the threats are all elevated all at exactly the same time. That’s what makes this environment that we’re in now so fraught.
Are you concerned that international terrorism threats to the homeland are rising as the border continues to be broken?
I am concerned that we are in an elevated threat environment, a heightened threat environment from foreign terrorist organizations, for a whole host of reasons. And obviously their ability to exploit any port of entry, including our southwest border, is a source of concern.
Now, that was the FBI director, Christopher Wray today on Capitol Hill. Make no mistake, our wide open Joe Biden border is now a massive national security nightmare. It is a clear and present danger, and it is only getting worse every day under President Biden. In the past two years, well over what? 6,000 illegal immigrants from Afghanistan have crossed our southern border, along with 3000 Egyptians, more than 600 Iranians. Iran, the number one state sponsor of terror. More than 500 Syrians, 12,000 Russians, and a whopping 26,000 people from China. This is a dire national security crisis, but that is only one part of the problem.
(02:37)
For years, America’s bloated bureaucracy, it has now become politicized. That includes the FBI, the DOJ, which have wasted precious time and resources with political motivated witch hunts. What they’re looking into, traditional Catholics or angry parents that go to school board meetings or pro-life advocates that are nonviolent, Trump supporters, Donald Trump himself, instead of investigating real threats like terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking, gang violence, the FBI, their hyper-partisan Washington field office has obsessively, compulsively been targeting one person, one man, one family. And that’s Donald Trump, the Trump organization and the Trump family. So now the 45th president is vowing to fight back and obliterate the deep state. Let’s take a look.
If you put me back in the White House, their reign is over, their reign will be over, and they know it. And America will be a free nation once again. We’re not a free nation right now. We don’t have free press. We don’t have free anything. In 2016 I declared, “I am your voice.” Today, I add, “I am your warrior. I am your justice.” And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. Not going to let this happen.
That’s become a controversy among the left. Wrong, as he said earlier, but we’ll play that for him and get a response tonight. Now, that’s an important promise. America’s weaponized, politicized bureaucracy. It’s got to be dismantled. The far-left hacks and the media mob. Of course, they disagree. And once again, they’re predicting doom and gloom if Donald Trump is elected. Here’s the Washington Post yesterday, “The fear of a looming Trump dictatorship.” And this is today’s headline from Salon.com. “Americans are sleepwalking into a Trump dictatorship.” That’s now their favorite word over at fake news, all cable news channels, they’re featuring the same brand of fear-mongering. Obviously it’s clear they don’t want to talk about Joe Biden and his failed record. Take a look.
Dictatorship. Is that what we would have if we re-elect Donald Trump?
I think it’s a very, very real threat and concern.
I think the phrase sleepwalking into a dictatorship should wake people up.
Correct me if I’m wrong. It’s not going to be the kind of dictatorship with concentration camps and martial law overnight, is it? That’s not what we’re going to get. We’re going to get Trump borrowing from the Orbán playbook in Hungary, from the Modi playbook in India. And what does that look like, Jason? What would that look like here in America?
Fears of a dictatorship. The alarming prediction for a second Trump term.
Liz Cheney is right what she said that we are sleepwalking into a Donald Trump dictatorship if people don’t wake up and remember what Donald Trump was to the four years, what he tried to do to our democracy.
Here’s the thing, we already know what would happen under a Trump presidency. Why? Because he’s already been president. Lower taxes, stronger growth, a secure border, peace in the Middle East, new trade deals, energy independence, and a push to reform our bloated bureaucracy. There was no dictatorship. We did not lose our constitutional rights. We did not go to war. The people who hate Donald Trump, they simply have been and continue to lie to you. Now, it’s Joe Biden who has been using the justice system, his DOJ, to inflict retribution against his political rivals. And it’s Joe Biden, who called Donald Trump’s supporters, a quote, “Threat to America.” The very guy that says MAGA Republican. Oh, making America great is somehow bad. And it’s Joe Biden, who is leading this country into the brink of yet another possible war.
(06:42)
And that’s why Donald Trump is now beating Joe Biden in almost every major poll. Take a look at your screen. Latest Messenger Harris survey has Trump against Joe Biden up by six points. So now the big question, can Donald Trump seal the deal and get the country back on track? Joining us now for the full hour, the 45th President of the United States. Davenport, welcome former president, Donald Trump.
Thank you, man. Hello, Sean.
Thank you very much.
Great to see you. Have a seat.
Before we get into issues, and we have a lot to get into, let’s talk about these polls.
We love you, Trump.
By the way, I’ve lost all control of this debate as well. Here we go. Let me ask you, when you look at this, you look at the polls, you see the enthusiasm. You’ve done rallies and crowds. How are you feeling about the race?
I feel great. I feel it has to be. If it’s not, we’re going to be in big trouble. We’re not going to have a country anymore. We have no choice. And we have had enthusiasm. Look, we did phenomenally in 2016. We did much better in 2020. And I will tell you the enthusiasm… Some bad things happened, but the enthusiasm that they have now is bigger than either of those two races. And we’re actually less than a year out, but close to a year. I’ve never seen anything like it. We have crowds that are incredible in Iowa. We were here last week, we had overflow crowds, and other candidates have like seven people standing on a farm and they’re talking, and it’s a very nice thing to watch, especially for me. I enjoy watching that. But we have a tremendous enthusiasm because they want to see…
(09:08)
I see Biden talking about, oh, MAGA, MAGA. MAGA means Make America Great Again. That’s what it means. And that’s what people want. They want to see our country be great again. Right now, we’re not a great country. We’re a country in decline. We are a declining country. We’re laughed at all over the world. People that respected us three years ago, and they respected us, you wouldn’t have Ukraine and Russia. You wouldn’t have had the attack on Israel. You wouldn’t have had that withdrawal. You would’ve withdrawn. But we would’ve withdrawn from Afghanistan with tremendous strength and power. And that’s the way I had it set up. In Afghanistan, we didn’t lose a soldier. Many soldiers were being killed by snipers and others during the Obama administration. And Biden was there. I guess he wasn’t doing so much other than collecting some cash probably. But many, many soldiers were killed. And I spoke to the head of the Taliban, I said, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” Do you know, for 18 months we didn’t lose one soldier in Afghanistan. Nobody knows that.
(10:16)
Until that fateful day where they killed our soldiers, they killed our… Think of it. They killed our soldiers. They left Americans behind, and you covered better than anybody. And they also left $85 billion of the best military equipment. Because I rebuilt the military. They left 85 billion, not million, billion dollars worth of military equipment behind in the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. And the people of this country just don’t want to take this anymore. So we gave them 85 billion. They killed our people. And they have people there, they have Americans there that we didn’t even get out. It was like a surrender. And after that, Russia said, well, these people are incompetent. They’re overrated. And they went in, they attacked Ukraine. That would’ve never happened a million years. I used to speak to Putin about it. It was the apple of his eye, Ukraine the apple of his eye.
(11:10)
And I said, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” I won’t tell you exactly, but it was tough. In fact, he said, “You wouldn’t do that?” I said, “Yes, I will.” “No, you won’t do it.” And he didn’t believe me, but he believed me 10%. That’s all he had to believe me. And he never did anything. I mean, he never did anything. And by the way, President Xi with Taiwan, I had the same conversation. Different cities and different countries. I had the same exact conversation. And he would’ve absolutely… I mean, he’s looking at Taiwan very strongly. It would’ve never happened. And again, for four years it didn’t happen. And it was never going to happen. And now it’s very possibly going to happen, which would be a shame. So it’s one of those things… Thank you. I’d like to be back.
Let me ask you this.
…here earlier today, Joe Biden, I’m sure he mumbled the words as usual, he said this: If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running, he said, at a campaign event today. How do you react to that?
I think somebody gave him a talking point they thought that would sound good. I just found out that Democrats are funding Nikki Haley’s campaign. I hear that Democrats are contributing to Ron DeSantis, or Ron DeSanctimonious, to Ron DeSantis’ campaign, and then you hear the talking points. That’s the only thing they’re good at: Cheating on elections and great talking points.
(12:42)
They say we want to run against Trump. They want to run. We did really well in 2016 and we did so much better in 2020. The person they don’t want to run against is us. It’s us. It’s not me. It’s us because it’s a movement, the likes of which this country, Sean, has never seen before.
At the beginning-
We have never seen the likes of what we’ve all done together. This is not me, it’s everybody here and millions and millions. I think it’s not 75 million people. I think it’s 150 million people. It might be more than that. Who doesn’t want to see strong borders and a strong military and low taxes and low-interest rates and go out and buy a house?
I play it on purpose because I see what the media is doing now. I put a montage together. They want to call you a dictator. You use the words “I am your retribution.” And now, before that, you said you’ve been wronged and you used other words as well, but I want to be very, very clear on this. To be clear, do you in any way have any plans, whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people?
You mean like they’re using right now? In the history of our country, what’s happened to us, again, has never happened before. Over nonsense, over nothing. Made up charges. I often say: Al Capone, he was one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals. He was a mob boss, the likes of which… Scarface, they call him and he got indicted once. I got indicted four times. I wonder what my father and mother would say looking down.
We had a lot of private conversations in the lead up to your announcement and the day that you came down that escalator and, in that lead up, we had some passionate discussions back and forth. You were telling me that Iraq should give us oil to pay for the war and American blood should not be shed overseas in these long protracted wars. We talked a lot about that. And you have been under fire from that day forward. Russia, Russia, you talk about it all the time. Now, you face as many as four criminal trials during an election year. Now, I’ve said this publicly, and I’ll say it here in Iowa, I’m not sure that Donald Trump can get a fair trial in New York, Washington, DC, I don’t think you can get a fair trial in Fulton County, Georgia. Now, where I think you would do better in terms of real justice would be on appeal. The trials will take place during-
Let’s do it in Iowa.
But that has got to weigh heavy on you and what is your reaction to that, considering all the charges all stem from a couple of years ago?
Yeah. They could have done this three years ago and it would’ve been long over, but they didn’t want to bring them because they had no case, and then they saw how well we’re doing in the polls. The two questions I get more than any other is number one, will they do it again, sir? Will they do it again? Will you stop them and we’re going to stop them.
(16:01)
Number two is how do you take it? How do you get up in the morning and how do you take it? And that part is easy for me to say. I love what I do because we are going to make our country greater than ever before and it’s so important, it’s so important. We are going to do things. We’re going to close the border. Day one, the border gets closed and day one and a half we drill. We drill, baby, drill. Drill, drill, drill.
(16:33)
And probably on day two, we’ll get rid of this ridiculous electric car mandate. We have to go and buy a car. We’re going to buy a car and it doesn’t go far. There’s a little problem. It’s very expensive and it doesn’t go far. They want to keep you away from going too long a distance from your home, but the whole thing is crazy. They want to make now electric army tanks and they want to make electric trucks, but the electric trucks don’t go very far.
(17:04)
On a diesel-fuel truck, the big ones, great ones, you go 2000 miles. On an electric truck, you have nothing left because the battery is so large, believe it or not, it takes up most of the space, so that’s a little problem, but it only goes 300 miles and, yet, it doesn’t matter to them. A child would understand. Therefore, you can’t do it. You talk about a supply chain problem, therefore, you can’t do it. The country is sick and you say this, do they know what they’re doing? Are they smart or do they know what they’re doing? How could they do it?
(17:36)
I see John Kerry all over the place talking about we have to get rid of our coal plants, and yet China is building one coal plant a week, massive coal plants, and they’re doing it just automatically. And John Kerry wants us to stop doing anything. We can’t. We have a country, we have to fire up our factories. Wind is not going to fire up our factories and it’s the most expensive energy. Even solar. I like solar from a concept standpoint, but it’s massively expensive and we can’t allow China to build a factory a week and we do nothing. They build a coal plant and they’re obvious about it. And then Biden goes to see them about global warming. The only global warming we should be thinking about and worrying about, because it could happen tomorrow, is nuclear global warming. Not global warming.
We almost have to go to a break. I want to go back to this one issue, though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.
