This is a rush transcript of “Hannity,” May 27, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: All right. Welcome to “Hannity” this big breaking news. 

Tonight, Dr. Doom and Gloom, flip-flop Fauci continues to spin in a million different directions as he watches whatever credibility he has left totally collapse. His sycophants in the media, well, they still don’t want you asking tough questions about the origins of the coronavirus, because get this, it is now apparently racist. We will explain straight ahead. 

And the Democrats — their defund, dismantle police agenda, that is falling like never before. We have new numbers out. And also, the shocking video will break it all down for you.

And remember that Idaho police officer who went viral, remember posting the TikTok mocking LeBron James and his attack on cops, that officer has now been fired and he will join us exclusively to explain what happened behind the scenes. And I hope he sues.

But, first tonight, well, Press Secretary circle-back Jen Psaki, she tried to warn us about sippy cup Joe. She tried to warn us about the never- ending, ever so confusing, mumbling and bumbling and stumbling Joe Biden all the way back during the campaign. 

Joey sippy cup, if you’re watching, if you’re up past your night-night time, if you haven’t had your warm milky in your little sippy cup — well, this is the message that you’re projecting to the rest of the world. And don’t take my word for it. Just listen to your own White House press secretary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There have been a number of moments where even those of us who have affection for Vice President Biden think, what on earth is happening right now?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF TEH UNITED STATES: From — from — Char — excuse me, from Charlotte, one — another line going from — in Florida, down to Tampa.

That is a major factor. We don’t see that that — look —

So the best way to get something done if you if it holds near and dear to you, that you like to be able to — anyway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Jen Psaki sees what we see, but now she’s just hiding it. That’s Joe sippy cup with the presidential seal.

So ask yourself the serious part of this what do you think Vladimir Putin, President Xi, the ayatollahs and Iran, the rest of the world of thinking when they see this. By the way, they’re not being influenced by the media mob and those protecting Joe, they see it for what it is. 

America, we do need strong, forceful, decisive leadership. The world needs it. And we need clear, cogent, common sense thinking. But what we’re getting from Joe is the exact opposite, a never-ending stream of stumbles, mumbles and outright incoherence. 

And by the way what is the rest of the world thinking when they see zero experience Hunter traveling all over the world, profiting off his father’s diplomacy, cutting deals, he has zero qualifications to be involved in? 

Why? Because Joe quid pro quo and zero experience Hunter — well, they have a lot of explaining to do tonight about the Biden family syndicate, the corrupt syndicate because a breaking story from Hunter’s laptop, Miranda Divine, “New York Post” and it reveals that Joe Biden himself back in April of 2015, he appears to have met with his son’s Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakhstan business partners had a nice dinner in Washington, while he was vice president. 

And according to records on Hunter’s hard drive from hell, well, now as we previously reported, the day after this dinner — wow, Hunter got an email from an executive at Burisma Holdings about an opportunity and thanking Hunter for the opportunity to meet his father while he was vice president. 

And get this, Hunter appears to have used his role on the board of the World Food Programme as a pretext to introduce his business associates to daddy. Quote: The reason for the dinner is ostensibly to discuss food security, Hunter wrote, before adding, quote, dad will be there but keep that between us for now. Thanks.

Now, Joe Biden is on record saying over and over and over again that he never once not a single time ever discussed his son’s foreign business dealings with him. Really, Joe? Do you stand by that? Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. Vice President, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?

BIDEN: I’ve never spoken my son about his overseas business dealings.

I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period.

REPORTER: Do you stand by your statement that you did not discuss any of your son’s overseas business? 

BIDEN: Yes, I stand by that statement.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Yes, I stand by that statement. Well, he’s lying.

Now, it does explain something, doesn’t it, why would a vice president ever say you’re not getting a billion dollars unless you fire a Ukrainian prosecutor? Why would a vice president want a Ukrainian prosecutor fired? 

Because that was the prosecutor investigating his zero experienced son being paid millions.

Now, add this explosive new development to what we already know — it was exposed first by Peter Schweitzer, Senator Grassley, Senator Johnson and others. But it’s about time we get actual answers actual transparency from Joe Biden. Imagine if it was Donald Trump. We have a lot more coming up.

But speaking of and demanding straight answers, we do turn to our other top story. And that’s surrounding, you know, Dr. Doom and Gloom, flip-flop Fauci who continues to play coy on how your taxpayer dollars were spent at the Wuhan Lab of Virology and whether they were used as part of what is called gain of function research. He was grilled by Senator Kennedy of Louisiana on all of this yesterday. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): You gave them money and you said don’t do gain to function research.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS

DISEASES: Correct.

KENNEDY: And they said we won’t.

FAUCI: Correct.

KENNEDY: And you have no way of knowing whether they did or not except you trust them. Is that right?

FAUCI: Well, we generally always trust the grantee to do what they say and you look at the results — 

KENNEDY: Have you ever had a grantee lie to you?

FAUCI: I cannot guarantee that a grantee has not lied to us because you never know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: In the past, he said, oh, they — we never did such a thing. Now, maybe I don’t know. Anyway, the Biden administration still reluctant to ever be critical of China at all. And now, they’re still deferring to the corrupt WHO on a probe into the origins of this virus. 

But we’re now learning that the Senate has approved a bill that will now require the Biden administration to declassify intelligence on the origins of the COVID-19 virus that killed how many people worldwide, how many Americans? And a top U.S. general is sounding that alarm. 

China’s COVID cover-up is hampering efforts into getting to the bottom of where this started and how to prevent it from ever happening again. 

Remember, only a few short months ago that even mentioning the lab leak theory got you written off by everybody in the media mob and the Democrats and big tech as a conspiracy theorist — just for asking the logical questions. But now, by the way, the corrupt left-wing institutions, they’re now doing a complete and they’re in total damage control mode. 

For example, Facebook, oh how nice of them. They finally ended their ban on posts about the lab leak theory, acknowledging that maybe it wasn’t a conspiracy theory at all. Just like “The New York Times” is doing, fake news CNN is doing, “The Washington Post” is doing.

But still, despite growing evidence supporting the lab leak theory — well, some of the media mobs still don’t want to ever talk about it and they don’t want to be able to ask legitimate questions. For example, fake news reporter over at “The New York Times” tweeting, quote, someday, we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. 

Okay, but alas, that day is not here yet. Oh, Maggie Haberman blaming Donald Trump. I guess they’re really at “The New York Times” wanting to get real answers about a virus that has killed millions worldwide. That’s racist.

The destructive Democratic agenda doesn’t stop there, because the Biden administration, they’re now trying to jam through that guy. He’s the ATF nominee, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms. David Chipman is his name, no friend of the Second Amendment in our Constitution, stumped repeatedly yesterday when asked to define — well, you want to ban assault weapons and you don’t want any police and schools protecting our kids, well, what is an assault weapon? Can you define it? Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENNEDY: Do you believe in banning assault weapons?

DAVID CHIPMAN, ATF NOMINEE: I do, sir.

KENNEDY: Okay. Define assault weapons.

CHIPMAN: Assault weapons would be something that members of Congress would define.

KENNEDY: Well, how do you define it? You’re going to be running the agency.

CHIPMAN: Senator, I think this is a good question. If I am confirmed as ATF director — 

KENNEDY: I got 35 seconds left. Define it for me, would you please, sir? 

What’s an assault weapon? 

CHIPMAN: Yeah, Senator — the bill to ban assault is — 

(CROSSTALK)

KENNEDY: What is your definition of an assault — 

CHIPMAN: There’s no way I could define an assault weapon.

KENNEDY: You don’t have any — you’re going to run in this agency and you don’t have a definition of assault weapon?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Here to react to that and more, he gets two gold stars, one for Fauci and one for the ATF guy, Senator Kennedy of Louisiana.

That might have been the most entertaining but yet sad beat-down I think I’ve ever seen. I’ve been a talk show host 33 years. I’ve never done that good a job, Senator. Take a bow.

KENNEDY: Well, I appreciate it. And, Sean, it was sad. 

And look, the people that President Biden has appointed to make policy for him are the most radical folks I’ve ever seen, and I’m not — I’m not saying you know just a reasonable disagreement. These are people that that have contempt for America. They have contempt for Americans. 

They think they’re smarter and more virtuous than the American people who didn’t vote for President Biden in their opinion. They think we’re all a bunch of deplorables. We can’t think for ourselves, and they think democracy is too important to be left to the people. They ought to get to make all the decisions.

And he’s nominee to the ATF, his copy of the Bill of Rights goes from Amendment One to Amendment Three. I’m convinced he doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment.

Now, this is America, you’re going to believe what you want, but you can’t ignore the Constitution when you take an oath of office to abide by it. And these are just really radical people.

And I just think that the Biden administration by virtue of its appointees and otherwise, they just have this huge blind spot about the lives and the problems of middle class America. 

HANNITY: You know, it is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I would think you’d have to have some fundamental knowledge of firearms. 

Let me move on to Dr. Flip-flop Fauci. And we were all called conspiracy theorists by the people that pushed the biggest conspiracy theory ever, and that is the Trump-Russia collusion hoax lie. 

But now, we know that China knew early, and now we have evidence and phone records and other anecdotal evidence that, in fact, that is where the virus came from and China knew about it. And the greatest evidence they knew about it senator is you could — they had a travel ban you couldn’t leave Wuhan province and go anywhere else in China. You couldn’t travel to Wuhan from the rest of China, but you could leave Wuhan and travel to the world. 

Is there any doubt in your mind that China knew and hid it? And what should we do? 

KENNEDY: Well, we don’t know, and let me say a word about Dr. Fauci. I know Dr. Fauci. I respect Dr. Fauci. I’m disappointed in Dr. Fauci. 

On too many issues, he has flip-flopped like a banked catfish. On too many

— on too many other issues, Sean — you know, I’m a simple guy. I like breakfast food and straight answers. 

And he won’t give a straight answer. He dodges, bobs, weaves, rope-a-dopes. 

This is — this is serious business. This is not some academic frolic. 

People’s lives and livelihoods are at stake.

Now, his agency, he gave money to the Wuhan lab that was playing around with this virus. He needs to tell us everything he knows about that. What did they use the money for? What could they have used the money for?

He says they didn’t do gain of function research. Gain of function just means they might have turned a benign, harmless virus into a killer. And he said, well, they didn’t use my money to do that. 

Well, how do you know? What other labs has he and his agency given money to in China or in the United States? Who else is doing this research trying to create Frankensteins?

In terms of President Biden, has — we’ve now found out he’s disbanded President Trump’s task force that was trying to get to the bottom of where the virus came from. Why — Dr. Fauci says he didn’t know anything about it. Now, I’m not saying he did or didn’t but he needs to be candid. 

And when he found out — found out, why wasn’t he on the phone to President Biden raising fresh hell? 

And I understand Dr. Fauci doesn’t like former President Trump that much. 

And this is America. He’s entitled to believe what he wants. But that’s irrelevant to me. We’ve got to find out where this virus came from so we can stop it from happening again if — and if the Chinese are playing around with viruses turning them into deadly killers, whether — especially with our money, we need to know and we need to stop — 

HANNITY: Well, I think — I think we need to — they need to compensate the world just as a start.

Last question — I only have 30 seconds. 

Joe Biden denied any knowledge of Hunter’s foreign dealings, business dealings. We now know he lied, Senator. What should the consequences be?

KENNEDY: Well, President Biden needs to address this issue. President Obama put him in charge of the foreign affairs of two countries, China and Ukraine. And in both cases, his son walked away with millions of dollars worth of contracts. You know the message that sent to the world? American foreign policy can be bought, like a sack of potatoes.

And President Biden needs to hit this one head on.

HANNITY: Well, if it was Donald Trump, I think — I think Donald Trump would be impeached over it.

Senator Kennedy, thank you as always. Appreciate it. Great week for you.

Now, we turn to our other top story tonight, the dangerous consequences of the Democrats defund, dismantled, the police agenda which is now delivering a brutal reality check to even its biggest supporters. 

Hor example, Atlanta councilman, mayoral candidate, Antonio Brown, he voted to defund the police and had his beautiful white Mercedes stolen in broad daylight by a bunch of kids this week, now telling local media that they were more than 11 or 12 years old. Police eventually found the vehicle a few hours later,

And out in Chicago, there is a new foot chase policy to further paralyze police. It actually bans officers from giving chase for minor traffic violations and they must not separate from partners. Oh, how’s that going to make communities safer? How’s it — does it get good — isn’t that going to make the job of officers a lot harder to stop crime?

And look at your screen. Here in New York, shocking video shows a Tuesday shootout on the Upper West side New York City in broad daylight. Two men exchanging gunfire and fired multiple times, but that’s the response to acts of violence like this from far left activists to continue attacking police. 

Now, look at this video from Kansas City. It shows a BLM demonstrator talking about carrying out revenge killings against police officers for the death of George Floyd. Take a look. You decide.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will kill one of theirs in Chicago, baby. We will (INAUDIBLE). We are going to blow your mother (EXPLETIVE DELETED) head off. 

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: We’re going to blow their mother effing head off. Where’s the outlet rage from the left? Where’s the calls for accountability for this evil, reckless rhetoric?

New poll of FOX News showing that a whopping seven in 10 voters think crime is on the rise, 77 percent of urban voters saying crime is up. But, of course, just like clockwork, rather than take any responsibility for this undeniable truth and disaster of an anti-police agenda, Democrats — well, they’re just doing what they always do. If the dog bites, if the bee stings, if you’re feeling sad, just blame Donald Trump. Or as James Carville now urging his fellow Democrats to blame Donald Trump for surging crime. 

James, who are the ones rioting in every city last summer. And by the way, who are the people denying that riots were riots? Who are the ones calling to defund and dismantle the police? It wasn’t Donald Trump. 

Who was the one that said police become the enemy and who was the one that promoted a bail fund for Minnesota rioters? Oh, Joe and Kamala.

Here with reaction, host of “The Dan Bongino Show”, weekdays from FOX Nation, noon to 3:00, FOX News contributor, Dan Bongino.

Sir, welcome back.

DAN BONGINO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Sean. Good to talk to you.

HANNITY: I don’t even know what — okay, defund, dismantle, then we’ve got you know no bail laws. Now we have even new considerations and then when all else fails, just blame Trump.

This — you see now the stats. What’s happening? More people are getting shot, more people are dying.

DAN BONGINO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, I saw Portland was up 800 percent, L.A. 144 percent shootings, homicides. You know, Sean, in the history of liberal stupid ideas and believe me, there are a lot of them — open borders, confiscatory taxes, government-run healthcare. I mean the list of dumb ideas is long and strong.

But I’ll tell you, defunding the police is the single dumbest idea liberals have ever produced. A matter of fact, there’s not even — if we’re an Olympics of stupidity there’s a goal but there’s no silver and bronze. That they’re on the podium stand themselves the people who celebrated this absurdity of defunding the police.

Now, the problem with this is this isn’t funny. We enjoy it, but people are dying, people are being killed. And I’ll tell you who I blame. I don’t only blame liberals for celebrating this stupid idea, but the media for not calling them out early. 

The media propagated this myth, that the police officers were the enemy and the criminals were really the good guys so what did people do in liberal cities? Attacked the police, coddled the criminals and shocker, Sean, people are dying in liberal cities all over America because of this tragic stupidity.

HANNITY: All right. Dan Bongino, thank you.

When we come back Kevin McCarthy on how the Republicans are fighting back against Biden’s radical spending plans.

Also, Governor Greg Abbott on the border crisis. We have an update, that’s straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY: All right. Joe Biden has said in the past, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. Well, America is about to find out what Joe values if he even knows. And apparently, it all comes down to two words tax and spend. 

Now, “The New York Times” reporting Biden is releasing a $6 trillion budget, and he wants to spend more federal money per year than any president ever since World War II. He wants to spend it on things like electric cars, the New Green Neal, new entitlement programs. That’s right, free child care, free college, paid leave, expansion of Medicare benefits, guaranteed government job, guaranteed government healthy food, you know the whole list.

So where does all of that get you? Well, according to Biden’s own estimates, by the time his plan has run its course, our national debt will be of 117 percent of GDP, making it nearly impossible to ever pay off.

With reaction, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Well, I don’t see how they can stop it because they got a five-seat majority in the House and we got the reconciliation in the Senate, which I assume they will use that process to pass it there. Correct? 

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: That’s correct, but this is too extreme and too expensive. Think about what we’re saying right here

— this is what everyone has ever warned us about. That your debt becomes so large, it’s more than a hundred percent of your GDP. There’s no coming back from that. This sounds like Venezuela or Cuba.

Even Obama’s economists tell you this is wrong. And when he’s doing it is wrong. He’s doing it with an economy that’s come booming back.

So what’s he doing? Creating inflation. He’s rewarding people not to work. 

In a short five months, he’s put us in a place we haven’t seen since Jimmy Carter. 

If he simply did nothing, he would make America stronger, but by these actions will put into doubt. Everyone will get their taxes increased. 

Inflation will come. So whatever money you have will be devalued. 

This is what happened to Venezuela. And before our very eyes, we cannot allow this to go forward.

HANNITY: Well, I agree. So we’re going to increase taxes, massively increase spending but not spending on something important like defense, at a time where an unholy alliance between Russia, China and the Iranians now, Russia, China providing arms to Iran to fight a proxy war in the Middle East, and then there are members of your caucus that are now referring to those that have spoken out in against Israel victims of terrorism as the Hamas caucus. 

Any comment about that?

MCCARTHY: Well, you see it. Why doesn’t Nancy Pelosi ever hold her caucus accountable? Think about this, in five months, he opened the border and it’s not people from Central America just coming. We’ve had 2,200 from Romania. Is Kamala Harris going to do something about that? 

We’ve caught people on the terrorist watch list from Yemen. Why are they coming here? Who are they meeting? And what do they have planned?

We’ve watched as he made our adversaries stronger like Russia, by allowing them to have produced more oil, sell it to us at a higher price and not allow Americans to become energy independent. Who’s going to buy our debt but China, to have a greater hold on America.

This is a problem. This is a concern that we have going forward that we need to make America stronger and we have those American First policies. 

But you know what else we should look in this budget is he going to go pay the World Health Organization because the first thing he did when he took back over was reverse what President Trump did, to stop funding the World Health Organization that China control that lied to us about COVID. And then he said, no, President Biden, and gave them $200,000, literally rewarded them for lying to the world. 

We need to hold China accountable instead of rewarding them and they need to be held accountable for financially for what they have done to the world. They should not come out stronger of this and make us weaker. We should be stronger in the course of history, holding them accountable.

HANNITY: All right. This is why 2022 will matter. It’ll matter a lot.

All right, Congressman, thank you for being with us.

Now, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how much more of Biden wants to dedicate to securing our southern border, but don’t hold your breath because it’s doubtful to be much of a priority. As Biden continues to ignore the significant crisis, those on the border don’t have that luxury, and it’s not just people pouring across Biden’s open borders, it’s drugs as well — you know, like fentanyl and 90 percent of this country’s heroin.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announcing today that the Texas Department of Public Safety has seized 95 pounds of fentanyl so far this year. That’s just 11 pounds of the drug in all of 2020.

This stuff is deadly. It is addictive. It kills. It’s dangerous. The federal government isn’t doing a darn thing about it. They’re actually helping to facilitate more of it coming into the country.

Joining us now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott. 

The way it’s been described to me, Governor, and correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not an expert on heroin and I’m not an expert on fentanyl, but if you have the equivalent of three, four grains of salt size fentanyl, that it could kill a 200-pound man. That what you heard?

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: Sean, two milligrams of fentanyl can kill you and when you look at the amount of fentanyl that has been apprehended just by the Texas Department of Public Safety just this year, it is enough to kill every man, woman and child in the entire state of New York. 

Biden’s open border policies and open border crisis has now turned into a deadly, dangerous situation for all Americans because the Mexican cartels are shipping fentanyl across the border and, yes, it’s coming into Texas, but also, it’s crisscrossing the entire United States of America.

And so many people in the United States are completely unaware of this seemingly invisible substance that can be laced onto other drugs or consumed in other ways that kills people without people even knowing that they are exposing themselves to it.

HANNITY: Okay. So we have laws, right? We — you’re not allowed to enter this country illegally. We ask people to respect our laws and our borders and our sovereignty.

Now, Joe Biden, they’ve made a decision that they are choosing not to enforce the law. If I think if I ever did that, I’d get in trouble. 

My question to you is, knowing what the law of the land is, you’re the governor of Texas, is there any recourse, anything you can do on your own to say, no, we are enforcing the law of the land and you will not allow these people into our state. And if you’re not going to enforce the law, we will. Are you allowed to do that?

ABBOTT: Sean, we are working on strategies as we speak right now, to ensure that Texas will have the ability to do that. Let me give you several examples.

First, I’ll tell you — part of all this process, the legislature — the Texas legislature is adding more than a billion dollars into our budget that will be passed at the end of this week, to make sure that we will use that billion dollars for border security. 

They’re also passing several important laws, one of which will allow us to crack down on these smugglers and arrest these smugglers and arrest those who are going and using stash houses, but also additional tools where arrests will be made — 

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Here’s my broader question, though — I want to sink my teeth into this because this is important. So if ICE and Border Patrol agents that are paid by the federal government, if they are doing what the Biden administration isn’t — they’re just processing people and then dispersing them all around the country.

My question is, if they won’t enforce the law do you have the right as Texas governor to enforce the law, or is it going to be a showdown between varying law enforcement agencies, one that wants to ignore the law and one that would like to enforce the law?

ABBOTT: I’ll answer your question if you tell me which law you’re talking about being enforced.

HANNITY: The law that says you can’t enter this country illegally. That one.

ABBOTT: Got it, got it. 

So, on that ones, according to the Texas attorney general, he said that that issue was resolved in the case of Arizona versus the United States where there were the legal challenges a couple of years ago with Arizona trying to enforce those laws and they said that it could be a criminal violation for a state official to try to enforce those federal immigration laws. 

That, however, Sean, is exactly why Texas is adding additional laws where we are going to have tools where Texas is going to be able to arrest these people coming across the border. 

The Texas Department of Public Safety has already arrested more than a thousand people who’ve come across the border and now the additional resources we have — 

HANNITY: Do you have the right to deport them?

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Would you have the right to deport them?

ABBOTT: On the deportation issue, again, that goes back to the Arizona versus the United States decision that came out of the Supreme Court that addressed that issue and they said states and state officials do not have that authority for the deportation. However, that does not stop us from arresting them and putting them in jail.

HANNITY: Thank you, Governor. Appreciate it.

When we come back, Biden’s radical gun control agenda on full display. Dana Loesch, Lara Trump, they’re next.

And also later, the police officer, remember, he went viral, made his video making fun of LeBron James. He’s been fired. Wow. Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Right now, Biden doesn’t want to just raise taxes and spend trillions he also is taking aim at the Second Amendment, your constitutional rights. Just look at this ATF nominee that we played earlier, David Chipman is his name. And, you know, he said in a recent hearing that, yes, he does support a ban on AR-15s, which happens to be America’s most popular gun but he can’t define it. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIPMAN: With respect to the AR-15 on — I support a ban as has been presented in a Senate bill and supported by the president. The AR-15 is a gun I was issued on ATF’s SWAT team and it’s a particularly lethal weapon. 

And regulating it as other particularly lethal weapons I have advocated for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Every weapon potentially is lethal. How dumb are you?

Here with reaction, FOX News contributor Lara Trump, and syndicated national radio host, Dana Loesch.

Both gun enthusiasts and as am I pro-Second Amendment.

Okay, I played earlier when Senator Kennedy asked him the simple question, Lara, I’ll start with you. You know, can you define an assault weapon? He couldn’t define it. He doesn’t know. How do you become the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms if you don’t know that answer?

LARA TRUMP, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it’s a great question, Sean. I mean, imagine being this unprepared to run a federal agency. He knew he was going to be asked these questions and yet seemed relatively unprepared, could not answer. He did, by the way, get around to finally answering it and the definition that he gave was anything over a 22 caliber that had a detachable magazine which Dana will be able to tell you, as well as I and folks at home that don’t know a lot about guns, it’s basically every modern gun out there, every modern rifle out there. So you’re going to get rid of all of them according to this guy.

I think the scariest thing to me though is the ultimate power grab that I think we see happening right now under the leadership of Joe Biden because to get back to it — look, remember about packing the courts remember about D.C. statehood. This is just another step to infringe upon our rights as American citizens. I was embarrassed for this guy, but more so than anything as an American, I was terrified to see that this is the individual that could be in charge of, you know, ultimately our Second Amendment rights.

HANNITY: Now, Dana, I know you could define what an AR-15 is, but I want to ask you more relevant question. And I ask every American, in light of dismantle and defund the police and this guy basically saying you can’t have anything but maybe a 22 and I’m sure he’d probably take that away if he could — my question, everybody, is what will you do? Somebody breaks into your house and wants to harm you and your family. 

I know what I’m going to do. Dana, I’m pretty sure you know what you’re going to do, and I know, Laura knows what she will do.

DANA LOESCH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Oh yeah. Now, I think you’re right, Sean, with that and — I mean, it just — I’m watching this guy yesterday. 

This guy’s a bureaucrat. He’s a career bureaucrat. He’s worked — he’s coming from the anti-gun sector. He’s worked with gun control agencies for what a decade and a half since he left the ATF. 

He wants that ambiguity, Sean. He doesn’t want to actually specify what an assault weapon is and it’s we all know it’s a made-up unicorn term by people who don’t actually know what semi-auto is — the difference between one trigger squeeze and one pew or one trigger squeeze and three pews if you’ve got a three round burst or one trigger squeeze and just a — you know, endless pews, like infinite breadsticks at Olive Garden or something.

This whole thing is ridiculous. Watching him talk about this, I think he kind of knew what he was doing. And he — I was watching him dance around Senator Kennedy, you had him on a little bit earlier, Sean and he was trying to really get something solid from David Chipman. 

Chipman realizes that he can’t give anything definitive on this because the moment that he does, it’s up. I mean, the curtains up. Everybody knows that this is not about controlling crime. It is about controlling you. 

Everything that he talked about including making semi-automatic firearms and I know that, Laura and Sean, I know you both realize this but for everybody else out there, what he’s talking about is banning not just AR- 15s but semi-automatic firearms period and making them fall under the National Firearms Act which, Sean, as you know creates a de facto gun registry and you have to pay the government two hundred dollars for permission to continually owning your legally purchased and legal to own private property. 

Oh heck, no. We’ve dumped tea in the harbor for less.

HANNITY: Yeah. By the way, that’s why — you’re talking about president sippy cup. I got it with the presidential seal. 

I know, Lara, you have young kids. I am going to send some over as special gift.

L. TRUMP: Please send one, yes, thank you.

HANNITY: Okay. All right. Thank you both. Have a great week holiday weekend.

Remember — remember that guy, the cop that went viral? His video says — hey, guys, please don’t stab each other, let me call LeBron, remember that guy? He got fired. He’ll tell us why next, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now, a few weeks ago, we showed the video of Idaho Deputy Marshall Nate Silvester mocking LeBron James. Take a look. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NATE SILVESTER, IDAHO DEPUTY: Dispatch, I’ve arrived at that disturbance. 

Will you have LeBron call my cellphone right away, please? Thank you.

Excuse me, sir. Excuse me. No, can you put the knife down, please, sir? No, no, no, sir. Stop stabbing. Hold on. Hold on, it’s LeBron. 

LeBron, hey, yeah, it’s me again. Listen, I’m out here just disturbance call, and there is a guy trying to stab another guy with a knife. What do you think I should do? And why does that matter?

OK. Well, they are both black. So, you don’t care if a black person kills another black person but care if a white cop kills a black person even if he’s doing it to save the life of another black person. I mean, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then again, you are really good at basketball, so I guess I’ll take your word for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: He was suspended after that video came out. Now, a big update, he’s been fired. The mayor of the city of Bellevue confirmed the firing, put out a statement saying, quote: The police policy violation have nothing to do with the tone or the tenor of the speech that he posts online. He was terminated for his failure to follow clearly laid out, well-established policies. 

Yeah, to tell his side of the story, author of an upcoming book, “Never Off Duty”, former deputy marshal of Bellevue, Nate Silvester is with us, along with FOX News contributor, Tammy Bruce. 

Tammy, good to see you. Nate, what happened here? Because now it sounds, oh, it’s another video. It’s another policy. It sounds to me like they are afraid you are about to hire a lawyer and sue their asses off. That’s what I’m guessing. 

SILVESTER: Well, I would like to think so. I’m just — I’m the latest target of cancel culture, Sean. That’s all it is. None of my other videos that — you know, depicted me and my uniform or that involved body camera footage, none of those mattered. They didn’t care about those. They knew they existed but they didn’t matter.

It wasn’t until my LeBron James TikTok surface and struck a political nerve that they started to pay attention and complain about it and come up with forms of discipline. 

HANNITY: Yeah. You know, Tammy, I’m looking at this and I’m thinking, first of all, it’s funny. But what wasn’t funny is LeBron James putting out what looked like a bounty almost on the head of the officer, you are next. 

And, you know, meanwhile, the officers saved the life of a young African- American woman. You could see the knife in the hand of the other girl about to be plunged into these other girl’s chest or neck. And this guy had half a second to decide to save this life. 

And I think Nate was making a good point in that video. 

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, yes. And this is important. And I think the context is key. That is something that police officers face every day, is that they leave their families. They do not know if they’re going to be able to go back that night. Their spouses kiss them good-bye. They wave to their kids, and they don’t know what is going to happen that day. 

And that was an officer saving another person’s life. 

What that was on social media — tens of millions of retweets and likes from LeBron James was effectively a bounty. But what I would say in this case without knowing the nature of that department that our marshal was let go from, but with his book, it sounds like we’re going to be hearing a lot more. The fact is every single police department, every single law enforcement department in this country has the responsibility to stand up for their officers. Every — even though it’s the major cities we heard about, Minneapolis and New York and Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles, all of these major blue cities, the fact is, with social media and the liberal news media, every police officer is under threat. 

And if they think now with cities unable to find new police officers. 

Retirement skyrocketing, the inability to recruit new police officers, saving and keeping officers who care, whether you like their TikTok videos or not, the context now is different. You must be standing up for and have the backs of your officers. 

It’s a shame that the marshal here felt the need to even do that considering it should have been the department that was standing up and humanizing their own officers and making sure the community knew we don’t stand for what — for bounties on officers. This is unacceptable and it’s not acceptable in our community. 

HANNITY: Two quick questions, Nate. One, are you going to sue? And two, I know because we’ve interviewed governors from around the country, they’re looking for officers like you and they support their police officers like in South Dakota, and Florida and elsewhere. Do you want to stay in law enforcement? 

I think you have a future in comedy. To be honest, you’re pretty funny. 

Will you sue? 

SILVESTER: Thanks, Sean. You know, that’s the stuff I’m still trying to wrap my head around at this point. I was just fired this morning so I’m still trying to get my head up straight and all of it, but — 

HANNITY: Let me help you out. I would sue them. 

SILVESTER: Okay. 

HANNITY: My humbled, my two cents. And I think Tammy — 

SILVESTER: Well, I do have a meeting with my attorney later tonight. 

HANNITY: OK. Next question, would you consider moving to a state that is looking and supports their police officers? 

SILVESTER: I definitely would consider that and have considered that. I’ve gotten several offers from different leaders and agencies and elected officials even from all over the country. 

BRUCE: There you go.

SILVESTER: So, that’s not something that’s off the table.

BRUCE: Not surprised. Good.

HANNITY: All right. Thank you both. Good luck to both of you. Good luck to you. And, Tammy, always great to see you. 

When we come back, our villain of the day, a socialist who apparently likes the benefits of capitalism. How convenient, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

HANNITY: That’s all the time we have left for tonight. Now, I hope you set your DVR. Never miss an episode. 

And let not your hearts be troubled. The news continues. Laura is next. 

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

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