sean hannity from new york city is next. ♪ >> president trump: i am announcing today that the united states will withdraw from the iran nuclear deal. america will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail. >> we are putting the harshest, strongest, most stringent sanctions on iran. [cheers & applause] >> president trump: the fact we were able to get them out so soon was attributed to a lot of things including a

certain process that is taking place right now. [applause] >> president trump: june 12, in singapore, i'll be meeting with kim jong un to pursue a future of peace and security for the world. for the whole world. we are going to set the table. we are going to make a great deal for the world for north korea, for south korea, for japan, for china. welcome to the special edition of "hannity." trump's big week. i'm jason chaffetz in for sean. we witnessed history in the making from the middle east to korean peninsula to at home. this week, the trump administration saw consequencial progress all over the world. on tuesday when president trump pulled the united states out of the one-sided highly flawed iranian nuclear deal.

>> the iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. the deal allowed iran to continue enriching uranium and over time reach the brink of a nuclear breakout. this disastrous deal gave this regime and it's a regime of great terror. many billions of dollars. some of it in actual cash. today we have definitive proof that the iranian promise was a lie. therefore, i am announcing today that the united states will withdraw from the iran nuclear deal. >> up next on wednesday more progress in the middle east. according to reports, american and iraqi intelligence forces captured five senior members of isis.

the trump administration saw major progress surrounding the push for peace on the korean peninsula. early thursday morning, our prayers were answered. three americans long held captive in north korea were released and landed at joint base andrews. now president trump's summit with kim jong un moving forward. last night at a rally in indiana, president trump reviewed his historic upcoming meeting. take a look. >> president trump: on june 12, in singapore, i'll be meeting with kim jong un to pursue a future of peace and security for the world. for the whole world. you remember everybody in fake news when they were saying he is going to get us into a nuclear war. he is going to get into a nuclear war." you know what gets you into nuclear wars and you know what gets you into other wars?

weakness. weakness. i think it is going to be a big one and if it isn't, it isn't. if it isn't, it isn't. you have to have that because you don't know. we are not going to be walked into an iran deal where the negotiator john kerry refused to leave the table. obama, president obama. paid $1.8 billion for hostage hostages. you, not me, you last night you saw it. and again it's leading to some very big things. i think that kim jong un, kim jong un did a great service to

himself, to his country by doing this. but the hostages came out with respect. we didn't pay for them. we are going to set the table. we are going to make a great deal for the world for north korea, for south korea, for japan, for china. >> joining us now with reaction is fox news national security strategist sebastian gorka, chairman david avella and former obama economic adviser austan goolsbee. austan, i want to start with you. the president deserves credit, doesn't he? hostages coming home, muirment on next, capturing isis leaders? these are all good developments for the united states. >> those two i not only have no problem, i think he does deserve credit. and i just don't want him to get the united states into an unnecessary war. if you look at korea, he has some unconventional diplomacy

and thus far it's working. i think he deserves applause for that. capturing the isis leaders also he deserves applause for that. the iran deal i'm sure we will get into. i think all of our allies, plus by a 2:1 margin the american people believe it's a bad mistake to pull out of that. >> i don't know where you come up with 2-1. the number one thing you need to have -- >> the polls. >> the number one thing you have to have is verification. we don't have that. you can't go anywhere, anytime to verify. let me go to sebastian gorka. how do you see the iranian deal playing out and what move next do we see iran making? >> within minutes of the president killing the jcpoa as he had to, i wrote in "the hill" we now follow the north korea playbook and we use the pyongyang method. with nikki haley and the state department and with the president leading the way we put the squeeze on north korea

and they caved. they came to the negotiating table. we do the same thing with iran guess what? the europeans will follow the president's lead. we impose on them the toughest sanctions the world has ever seen until they start behaving like a normal country, or a quasi normal country again. >> david, let me go to you. the democrats, this puts them in a box. there was so much flailing about what president trump was doing and you heard everyone saying it would lead to the catastrophe. this success, how do the democrats -- i know you are with go pak, but how do democrats react to this? >> we saw how they would react this week. keep in mind president trump made it a magnificent week for three american hostages. he made it a miserable week for chuck schumer. because just as you pointed out, he has put chuck schumer in a box. all we can hear from chuck schumer this week is how bad

this was that we got the hostages out. and austan talks about the 2:1 against the deal. one of the ones who didn't want to get in the deal he will remember was chuck schumer who didn't want this iran deal in the first place. now we don't know where he is going to be. in fact, chuck schumer had such a horrible week, you wonder if he is trying to get his own wing in the political hall of shame. it was disgraceful how he acted this week. >> austan, let me give you a chance to react to this. the republicans from ronald reagan now to donald trump have always believed in peace through strength. what is it that the democrats actually believe in? >> well, wait a minute. here you are trying to change the subject off of donald trump. let's make it about chuck schumer and make it about something else. >> no, no, no. no, i didn't. i said what is the democrats' belief on this? >> the democrats the not want us to get into a shooting war with the iranians. we already blew $2 trillion on

the iraq war. >> how do we do that? >> john bolton is advocating aggressive military style action against them. you have all of our allies, who are the people we need to enforce sanctions against iran, that we had when we put in place the agreement. when we unilaterally pull out of the agreement we now cannot convince the other trading partners of iran to impose those sanctions. so we can't put in place the tough sanctions that will bring them to their knees. it's not possible. and we are encouraging saudi arabia to now get in to a nuclear arms race with iran. because as they start building centrifuges and enriching uranium again, the saudis have to do the same. this is a very dangerous game to play. >> sebastian gorka, let me go to you. also playing in the political hotbed is what is going on in jerusalem. we make a move to make the embassy there in jerusalem,

how does this play into the whole dynamic in the middle east? >> it's a complete tectonic shifting of the geopolitics of the region. thanks to the president, thanks to the riyadh speech and thanks to his killing the jcpoa iran deal, we have countries like saudi arabia that are now allies of israel. what austan says about well, this is going to press and result in war, you don't prevent a war by releasing $140 billion to a regime that is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world. and sign a deal with them that actually means they can get nuclear weapons after seven years. that is not how you prevent a war. i want to tell him right now on live television across the country that european nations will follow our lead and they will join us in crippling sanctions. you can take that to the bank, austan. >> do you think that is true?

>> of course it's not true. >> what do you think they will do? what are they going to do without the united states? >> right. >> when you say "without the united states," they are going to commence trading with iran. >> no, they're not. >> is the united states going to shut down and launch a trade war against china -- >> let him finish the thought. i still haven't heard him answer the question of do you believe in peace through strength? nobody wants a shooting war. the other thing is our allies in europe who are relying upon the united states for pretty much everything in terms of safety and security, how can they not follow our lead. i want you to jump in to the opening up of the embassy in jerusalem. >> okay. you have two different ones going there. in my opinion, iran has already announced that they are going to recommence introduce style enriching of

uranium will lead to a nuclear proliferation and arms race of other middle eastern countries. saudi arabia and iran are direct regional competitors so if iran immediately tries to get a nuclear weapon again, the saudis will have to do the same. that is why all of our nato allies, plus in the polling of 2:1 majority of americans, all the democrats and the significant number of republicans think that the president has made a mistake doing this. now i will applaud him on north korea. i think the president is doing a good job exploring diplomacy. with iran we preemptively shot ourselves in the foot. i think we will see it play out. >> i think you are totally wrong. i think the unconventional approach from trump and peace through strength, i think the world understands when he speaks he means business about it. david, i want to give you a chance to weigh in on what is going on in jerusalem. a major move, major shift. the proximity with syria,

iranians and what is going on there. how do you read that? >> well, another position that chuck schumer was for. as has ever american president over the last couple of decades been for. which is moving the u.s. embassy to jerusalem. listening to austan talk it's not surprising that a position for democrats that john kerry runs to iran to try to keep a deal going. like the schoolboy that kept giving money so he didn't get beat up by the bully. now he is running over to give him more money to say hey, don't tell people i was giving you money not to beat me up. this is absurd! the democrats' position is we have to impede iran. who is for us getting out of the iran deal? other middle eastern countries who don't want iran to be a nuclear threat and use it to threaten them. >> gentlemen, thank you for this evening. i appreciate your insight. there is more to discuss on

this. we could do a whole show on how outrageous john kerry's actions have been in the middle east. tried to undermine the strength of united states and what the president is trying to do in the region. gentlemen, thank you again for joining us. coming up, kim straussal out with a stunning piece asking if the f.b.i. planted a mole in the trump campaign. plus trey gowdy and john ratcliff join

mom, dad, can we talk? sure. what's up son? i can't be your it guy anymore. what? you guys have xfinity. you can do this. what's a good wifi password, mom? you still have to visit us. i will. no. make that the password: "you_stillóhave_toóvisit_us." that's a good one. [ chuckles ] download the xfinity my account app and set a password you can easily remember. one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. >> jason: welcome back to this special edition of "hannity." trump's big week. while president trump continues to make huge foreign policy gains in the korean peninsula and beyond, the mueller witch hunt continues at home. kim strassel at the "wall street journal" is out with a bombshell new piece titled "what about that f.b.i. source: did the bureau engage in outright spying against the

2016 trump campaign?" joining me now to explain more from the "wall street journal" is the author of the piece kim strassel. thank you so much for joining us. give us a quick senap analysis of what you -- synopsis of what you found and why this is unusual in this setting. >> up until last week all we knew was house intelligence chairman devin nunes had a new line of inquiry and was demanding new documents from the department of justice. in their desire to make chairman nunes look bad, and justify why they were not giving those documents, someone in the government leaked a lot of details about what was happening. it turns out he is asking about a top secret government source who has worked for the f.b.i. and the c.i.a. who is a u.s. citizen. would seem to have some sort of entanglement with the foreign intelligence agencies or maybe his base overseas. based on all of those bread crumbs and some reporting,

i've got a pretty good sense of who it is. it does look as though indeed there was an f.b.i. attempt, a successful one to basically go out and spy with a human asset on the trump campaign. >> jason: what about the timing in is the timing about all of this is critical. do we understand the timing? what are the implications for that? >> yeah. it is so important because remember the f.b.i. has been doggedly sticking with this story that what initiated the counterintelligence probe was a tip they got in july about this supposed drunken conversation of a junior campaign aid named george papadopoulos. if for any reason we find out that this person, this asset of theirs was, in fact, surveilling or spying on the trump campaign prior to that time, then they've got an issue, right? that is no longer their origin

story and there must have been something else they based this on. whether it be the dossier or some information they used as a reason to surveil the trump campaign. >> jason: how are we going to figure out the solution to this? every time that trey gowdy, devin nunes and other goes to the department of justice they get the stiff arm, even though there are subpoenas in place. how do they figure this out? >> we have a great piece in the "journal" today by a formal f.b.i. officer just talking and his job was to fulfill congressional requests. talking about how obnoxious and outrageous it that the department of justice is not complying with simple requests and subpoenas from congress. the fact they didn't give the information over to chairman nunes all the way last year when he said he was investigating the f.b.i.'s conduct is pretty striking. they are going to congress as a body and the good news is chairman nunes looks to have the backing of all the leadership and the other members in the republican party.

make it clear if the department of justice does not turn this over they will move to contempt. with any luck the white house is putting out a message they need to cooperate and hand over documents. >> jason: i thought the white house was backing up the department of justice at this point, weren't they? >> it's interesting. the department of justice made a big deal in the letter to chairman nunes about how it had, this had all been done in consultation with the white house. curiously it did agree to sit down with chairman nunes. probably they have the order to accommodate him in some way. they are trying to do it without handing over the actual documents but if that is what nunes and others are after, it seems it's what they have to hand over to fulfill the request. >> jason: as one who has been to the department of justice and sat in the meaning and listen to the blow-hards tell me how congress has no right to see this stuff.

it is offensive. at what point does the constitution come into play? they give lip service to oversight but they are leaking -- it's pretty well documented that they are leaking. what is it they think they can't and shouldn't so to congress, which is essentially the american people? >> look, you know this better than anyone. we have processes in place whereby congress gets to oversee the executive branch. they can't just say give us everything. they have to have specific cause, reason, things they are looking for. as this piece we ran today made clear when the cases came up, the department of justice has always helped and been good about it. we have processes whereby in particular the gang of eight, right? >> jason: yeah. >> the senior member of the intelligence committee of leadership can see anything in classified situation. any argument this should be off-limits are bonus. people should read them for what they are which is an attempt by the department of justice and the f.b.i.

it would seem to protect something they simply don't want people to know because it might prove embarrassing. >> jason: that is the heart of it. i proves embarrassing. from my vantage point having been there, every member of congress both sides of the aisle should stand behind devin nunes, trey gowdy, and john ratcliffe and the investigators that are going in there. senator grassley for instance. kim strassel, a great piece in the "wall street journal." she is one of the best writers out there. >> thank you. >> jason: best reporters so thank you for joining us tonight and thank you for great piece you put out. also, yesterday, house intelligence chairman, the committee chairman devin nunes and the house oversight committee chairman trey gowdy actually went to the department of justice to view documents. they have been asking and were under subpoena for months. but sources tell fox news that nunes and gowdy were only briefed. another meeting is scheduled for them to see it. but the best way to get the information is talk to someone in the meeting. trey gowdy and also john

ratcliffe from texas. both are federal prosecutors and been through the system and through the process. thank you for joining us on this beautiful friday night. chairman gowdy, did you get a lot of lip service? did you get to read the documents? what did they tell you? >> jason, it was a productive meeting yesterday. i think every question i asked the bureau and the department now understand they are relevant, material, they are specific and pointed. there is a reason congress wants to know the answer to the questions. it was a constructive -- i know that is not good news from the media standpoint that we had a boring, constructive meeting yesterday but that is what it was. so constructive we have agreed to meet next week. you ask if we saw something. i can learn with my ears and my eyes. i can got to ask questions. we were prosecutors and i know

the questions to ask in an investigation like this. yesterday was actually productive. >> jason: when do you actually get to see them? >> well, let me say this. i worked in all three branches of government. there is tension, there intentional tension put between the branches. there are a lot of things that happen in the judicial branch that members of congress can't see. there are things that happen in the executive branch that members of congress can't see. there are things we do, jason, as you recall in congress we don't let anybody else see. that tension we have got to work through. i learned information this week. you still want to see the documents. they have taken the request under advisement and regretting farther taking this approach, meeting eyeball to eyeball opposed to exchanging letters and seeing who can leak them the quickest. that is not constructive. what is constructive is to have a conversation and we're making progress toward access the document. >> jason: it's a shame that nunes had to issue a subpoena

and threaten contempt and the southern gentleman in trey gowdy coming out. i'm glad you are making incremental progress step by step. i want to go to john ratcliffe and get your perspective on james comey. he is fresh off a book tour and he has said a lot of things and we have learned more about director comey. has he made the situation better or worse for himself after the book tour and the things we have learned about his actions while he was the f.b.i. director? >> good to be with you. one thing that has come out of james comey's interviews on the book tour and the release of his secret memos, it's ironic to me that he is the one that created the allegation of obstruction of justice against donald trump. now he is the same person who has effectivel torpedoed the ability to prove obstruction. i say that because the 15 pages of the secret memos never mention "obstruction of justice" a single time. in fact, one of the memos does

the opposite. it says that it is an admission by the former director that president trump asked him to fully investigate whether or not anyone, that the trump campaign was colluding with the russians. that is why trey and i refer to the memo as defense exhibit "a" in any charges that would be brought against donald trump. i think he has also hurt the mueller case and the ability to prove that. you can't build a case around a star witness who has damaged his own credibility and hurt his own reputation as i think james comey has done over the last few weeks on this book tour. >> jason: do you think -- does he have any legal jeopardy himself, director comey? >> i think the best answer to that, jason, will come with the release of the inspector general report. you know we all anticipate that that will happen shortly. we also know that the inspector general michael horowitz has proven himself to be a fair umpire. someone who calls balls and

strikes fairly and where appropriate making criminal referral of the deputy director. having not having seen the report i'd be surprised if they don't find misconduct by former director comey. i think he will find that he violated the employment agreement and made unauthorized disclosures of the f.b.i. documents. whether they are classified or not, they are improper leaks. i think you will find he made demonstrably false statements. they have conflicted with the public interviews he is given. i think michael horowitz will make if recommendation. >> jason: when do you think we will see this? what do you expect out of this? do you think there will be any criminal referrals coming from this? >> i don't know about the

criminal referrals. members of congress i try to avoid accusing people of committing crimes. that was my old job. i don't know enough to do it. all three of us have tremendous confidence in michael horowitz, the inspector general. a former federal prosecutor. a straight arrow. fact-centric. i think the reason it is taking longer, jason, than he anticipated is he is finding more information. so what i would tell my colleagues in the house give him the time, independence and the resources to do everything he needs to do. i know we wanted it in february and march and that is human nature to want it quicker but i want it to be complete. i want it to be fulsome. i want the american people to have confidence in what horowitz has done. if he could represent that he is accessed every document and every witness, i mean he found the page-strozk text and found some were deleted and through his help they were reconstructed.

i'm as impatient as everyone else. i know this. i want horowitz to present a fulsome picture when he comes. if it means waiting another couple of weeks so be it. >> jason: do you have a date? do we have a date when you are having the hearing? >> we have set one and we moved it. you remember how that used to be. we are shooting for the first week of june. i will say with this caveat. you know horowitz, jason. he is not giving me any updates on his investigation, nor should he, nor would i ask. i'm simply saying we would like to schedule the hearing and i will pick a date and he will tell me whether or not he thinks he will make the target date or not. i have no inside information and i'm not supposed to. >> jason: real quickly, congressman ratcliffe in ten seconds, director mueller. how long do you think it continues to go on? will it impact the 2018 election or will he wrap this thing up? >> hi has to be careful -- i think he has to be very careful.

mueller has to not make the mistake that they criticized comey for to allow the investigation to impact an election. which the republicans and the democrats agreed happened in 2016. >> jason: gentlemen, it's good to be on the air with you an honor and privilege to serve with you in the congress. thank you for joining us tonight. coming up, even after president trump's big week democrats still won't give him credit. stay with us as the special edition of "hannity" continues.

we can't be seen to give the north korean regime credit for returning americans that never should have been detained in the first place. it is so troubling to hear president trump say that kim jong un treated the americans excellently. kim jong un is a dictator. he capriciously detained

american citizens. robbed them of their freedom, didn't let them go home to their families. their release should not be exalted. it should be expected. it is no great accomplishment of kim jong un to do this. when the president does it, he weakens american foreign policy and puts americans at risk around the world. >> jason: he can never accept success for donald trump. welcome back to the special edition of "hannity." that was senator schumer berating president trump because he thanked kim jong un for returning the hostages. some members of the main stream media gave trump credit for his success this week but not all. msnbc primetime program spent 30 seconds on american prisoners' return home from north korea. 30 seconds. joining us now with reaction is florida congressman matt gaetz and former clinton

pollster and fox news contributor doug schoen joining me in studio in new york. congressman, thank you for joining us here. is america fooled, was president trump fooled? is that the right word for senator schumer to use? >> it must be very embarrassing for the political left and the main stream media that dennis rodman conducted more diplomacy in north korea than president obama did and now we have trump delivering results. check the scoreboard. under obama administration we put five terrorists back on the battlefield to get the deserter jack beau bergdahl. and president trumpet takes them off the battlefield and he is bringing home three americans. so if you look at the results and you look at the scoreboard, president trump has america winning. that is not something we were used to in last eight years. >> jason: yes, doug, again, you are joining me in studio. listen, i remember candidate barack obama.

he talked about the idea that hey, listen, i would go meet with the world leaders. now you have president trump not having to pay to bring home hostages through good hard tough negotiation and being able to say hey, look. peace through strength has been his position. i mean he does deserve some credit or was he fooled like what senator schumer said? >> no, he does. i say this as a democrat. but jason, first of all as an american. we have to stop the politics. we all, democrats, republicans, liberals and conservatives, want and need a deal with north korea. we need with iran to work with our allies to make sure they do what president rouhani said. stick to the terms of the deal. if they start enriching, tighten the sanctions. but this is an american set of issues. this is not democrat versus republican. i praise donald trump as an american who is proud that the american president brought home the hostages. >> jason: to congressman

gates, are -- to congressman gaetz are the expectations too high for the sit-down with kim jong un? the expectations seem to be so high now. what is your perspective on that? >> expectations are high because we are making progress. but just because we are making progress it doesn't dictate or gain -- guarantee any type of results. on all the comments that trump said about the issue if there are not terms that are favorable to the united states and verifiable way to ensure that north korea cannot continue to do harm we will get up and walk away. we won't make a bad deal. that is a major difference in this administration and the last administration. the last administration made a bad deal with iran. it's timely that the president now is saying we are not going to do the bad deals anymore. we will enforce the terms and we will have enforceable terms not secret side negotiations or documents that the congress and the american people don't see. i'm very encouraged. i'm hopeful but certainly there is no result that is

guaranteed. >> jason: doug, what is a reasonable expectation of success for the president going in here? what is reasonable? >> what is reasonable is that we would be on a path toward a verifiable deal that denuclearizes the korean peninsula. i think representative gaetz is right. we are not going to have a quick fix deal in 30 seconds. obviously we know that there is a lot of work that is done presummit to condition the playing field. the president has said rightly he will leave if he doesn't find the negotiations productive. but this is going to take a while. we have to be patient. >> jason: real quickly, i want to give a shout out a little bit to the first lady melania trump. first, she made me immensely proud. she has been a great and a wonderful first lady. she has taken care of barron trump and she is a great representation of the united states. she laid out the "be best" campaign. what is your perspective of

that? >> well, i think it's wonderful that the first lady is reaching out to young people and encouraging them to be part of this great uplifting american experience. with an improving economy, low unemployment rate. ensuring that we don't foster bullying in the schools and we have an environment that young people feel safe and secure and able to prosper. i think she is a wonderful representation of what the american dream can truly be for everyone who is here in our country if we all strive to be the very best version of ourselves. >> jason: doug, what is the democrats' perspective on the first lady? >> i think she a symbol of great success. to me, the benefit of immigration, legal immigration. i hope we get a deal on daca and the wall so we can move forward in a bipartisan way. >> jason: if you and i could work on it we could have it done by the end of the segment. >> absolutely. >> jason: by the end of the show and it would be conservative by the way. >> it would be fair and reasonable. and would give the dreamers a

pathway to staying here. i dare say citizenship. >> jason: that you've gone too far. thank you for joining us. thank you for being with us. still to come, more on president trump's major week concerning north korea and iran as this special edition of "hannity" continues. i'm alex trebek, here to tell you

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>> president trump: at 2:00 in the morning i had the incredible honor of greeting three brave americans who had been held in north korea. and we welcomed them back home the proper way. and on june 12 in singapore, i'll be meeting with kim jong un to pursue a future of peace and security for the world.

for the whole world. you remember everybody in the fake news when they were saying, "he's going to get us into a nuclear war! he's going to get into a nuclear war!" and you know what gets you into nuclear wars? and you know what gets you into other wars? weakness. weakness. among the many grave national security blunders of the previous administration, one of the world's worst was the disastrous iran nuclear deal. a deal that would allow iran to go right to the brink of nuclear weapons and ultimately very quickly have a nuclear weapon. i hope to make a good deal for them. good deal, fair deal.

better for them. better for them. but we can not allow them to have nuclear weapons. we must be able to go to a site and check that site. we have to be able to go into their military bases to see whether or not they're cheating. >> jason: welcome back to the special edition of "hannity." trump's big week. that was president trump talking about the administration recent actions concerning iran in north korea. iran is already showing the true colors after the president pulled us out of the nuclear deal. the rogue regime reportedly is saying it's ready to restart the nuclear program on a, "industrial scale." earlier this week, lawmakers in iran chanted "death to america" and burned the united states flag. joining us now with reaction to all this week's big foreign policy developments, former counterterrorism adviser to vice president cheney and florida congressional candidate michael waltz, awe for of "reaper," former

brigadier general tony tata and author of "nuclear showdown: new york -- north korea takes on the world" gordon chang. general, i'll start with you. when you see iranians chanting that, that is not the people of iran. that is the parliament, the government burning the united states flag. what is the implication of what donald trump did? >> well, jason, there is an old saying, "when you want it bad, you get it bad." the obama administration truly wanted the deal so badly. i assume because they didn't do anything else for eight years. but this deal is the worst deal. president trump was right to get out of it. it's an economic boondoggle for yurm, which -- for europe, which is why they are fight something hard to stay in it. and before the deal was signed obama administration had clapper, one of the most dishonest people in government

then and today remove iran from the state sponsor of terror list. that meant that businesses could do trade with them, foreign aid could go to them and arms could go to them. meanwhile, flushed iran with billions of dollars of cash that immediately went to the enemy unless the region. hamas, hezbollah, syria and the palestinians that threatened our number one ally israel. so this was a terrible deal. it had very, very loose teeth in it. there was just no way to enforce it. the reason europe is fighting for it is because the economic boondogglal. >> jason: general, thank you for your service and thank you to michael waltz also joining. his time in the military. i want your perspective. what is it from the military standpoint behind the scenes. they had to know that the president would make this move. but what is secretary doing, what is the defense department doing to make sure that this doesn't spin out of control? >> well, there is a couple of things. one, we have to militarily support our greatest ally in

the region and president trump knows this. and our greatest ally is of course israel. secondarily, we have to have our military forces fitted and ready and equipped to be a credible use of military force. and what president trump instinctively knows that president obama never truly understood is that the credible use of military force is actually what helps diplomacy move forward. then, finally, the iran deal is incredibly important. it's a critical piece. but president trump knows that is just a piece of a broader strategy against these dictatorships. particularly, against iran. there is a terrorism piece, the missile piece, and that it's their economy. both the iranian and the north korea economy are their achilles' heels. once we put our foot on the neck of their economy, these dictatorships will fold and they will come to the table. finally, jason, we can't forget that both north korea and iran are linked in so many

ways. there have been north korean chemical engineers in syria. don't forget that the israelis bombed a north korean built nuclear reactor in syria years ago. that was also backed by iran. these are linkages here, strategic linkages that ambassador bolton, president trump, secretary mattis understand and know how to go after. that is why you are seeing real results from the trump administration. >> jason: that is what i want to ask gordon about. gordon, you saw what we have been doing in north korea. you are such an expert on that. what is the message of north korea and how should the iranians read what president trump has done in north korea? how is that going to play in iran? >> i'm sure that the iranians understand that president trump is willing to use force. that has unnerved the chinese, the south koreans and the north koreans. anything that unnerves the north koreans is going to unnerve the iranians because as we know the two programs, iran and north korea, are linked. we have iranians technicians

in north korea. the iranians technicians have seen the north korea nuclear detonations. they have been there. so the two regimes are joined at the hip. iran's supposed to pay north korea something like $2.5-$3 billion a year for various forms of cooperation. that is an indication that the two nations the two regimes are so close together. >> jason: general tata, i want to ask you quickly, i have to go around the horn because i have to wrap up here. what is the effect in syria? you see a lot of actions by the israelis but what is the effect directly on what is going on, on the ground in syria? >> well, if we impose new sanctions as i predict we will do -- that is one of the impacts that the previous sanctions were having on iran, that the money was not flowing as strongly into syria and the other groups that i mentioned before. hezbollah, hamas and the palestinians. so you are going to see syria be separated a little bit from iran. and hopefully strategically

the trump administration who is doing this artfully as michael said. >> jason: michael, let me bring in michael here. we have towrope. >> -- to wrap up. effect in syria. >> we have stay engaged and support syria. we have a relative short footprint on theground but it a esthe long-term strategy of how we roll back gains the iranians have made in the last eight years of the obama administration turning its back on the middle east. >> jason: i wish i could spend the whole hour talking to you. i appreciate it. thank you for joining us tonight. coming up, more of this special edition of "hannity" right after the break.

." >> welcome back to this special edition of "hannity." that's all the time we have left this evening. thank you for joining us. sean is back monday. i can't think him enough for allowing me to sit here. it's mother's day, to my wife,

my daughter who is a mother now, my mom, thanks to all the 7:00. tucker carlsson is up next. .... >> tucker: good evening and welcome to tucker carlson tonight. you offer hire breaking news that is important and this one is. and it is shocking. according to new reports that the fbi may have had a spy in or acting within the trump campaign in the 2016 election. a government spy in the campaign. that sounds like an important piece of information that the obama administration may have been spying on the trump campaign. why are we learning about it now? apparently the fbi and doj hid that