Hannity, Ingraham Propose ‘Massive’ Free Speech Tour of Liberal College Campuses With Coulter, Limbaugh, Levin

Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” show host Sean Hannity and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham discussed author Ann Coulter being denied the opportunity to speak at a previously scheduled event at the University of California at Berkeley.

The event, however, was canceled due to safety concerns.

During that segment, Hannity and Ingraham tinkered with the idea of doing a tour of the country’s most liberal college campuses and would include Coulter, conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin and Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas as well.

Partial transcript as follows:

SEAN HANNITY, HOST OF FOX NEWS CHANNEL’S “HANNITY”: Here with reaction, the editor-in-chief, Lifezette, FOX News contributor and nationally syndicated radio talk show [host]H, our good friend, Laura Ingraham.

You know, I have to say this. I got to give Coulter — who we’ve known for what, 20-plus years now…

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, yes. Absolutely.

HANNITY: You got to give her a lot of credit that she’s willing to step into that lion’s — I — I don’t want to go to Berkeley! I’d do it just to make a point, at this point. But you know, who needs this aggravation?

INGRAHAM: Well, Hannity, I’ll go with you. Let’s say you and I will do a tour of the…

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: … Coulter.

INGRAHAM: … most radical campuses — yes, with Coulter. We’ll — I mean, we’ll do it with Ann, and Ann has a lot of things going on, but one of us, two of us, all three of us will do a tour of the most radical campuses in the United States. Those are easy to find. And we’ll just see how much they believe in free speech. We’ll see how much they believe in tolerance and the peace and love and everybody get along movement, right?

They really don’t. They never have. The Free Speech Movement of the 1960s in Berkeley — you can go back and watch all those old video reels. Harry Reasoner was there covering it, and you know, Bill Buckley did a “Firing Line, famous “Firing Line” show in 1967 about the Free Speech Movement…

HANNITY: Such a good point.

INGRAHAM: … the anti-war movement. Yes, I mean, let — that was the — it was called the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. They were pushing for communist professors to be able to be protected by standards academic freedom. So communists could be protected, but Ann Coulter’s speech isn’t. Come on.

HANNITY: You know what — you know what — it’s almost like Ahmadinejad gets invited to — you know, here’s a guy that talks about wiping Israel…

INGRAHAM: Columbia.

HANNITY: … off the fact of the earth. Columbia, an Ivy League institution — you know, he gets to speak there. And not only does he get — a guy that threatened to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust – – that’s OK. Ann Coulter — you know, wait a minute. You’ve given me a great idea. Let’s expand on this. You know, this is extemporaneous television.

INGRAHAM: OK.

HANNITY: How about you, Coulter, me, I — I — we got to ask Rush, see if he’ll come, the “great one,” Mark Levin…

INGRAHAM: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, he’ll do it!

HANNITY: We’ll ask him.

INGRAHAM: Yes. Of course, he’s not going to do it, but we’ll ask him just for the heck of it. He’s not going to do it.

HANNITY: We’ll get every — how about Clarence Thomas? (INAUDIBLE) Clarence Thomas makes liberals bubble and fizz like Alka-Seltzer and water.

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: … just, yes, give a speech on — right.

HANNITY: We’ll go a massive tour, and we’ll air it on the FOX News Channel.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I mean — oh, my God, Sean, first of all, it will be a smash hit. We’d actually get a lot of great students to show up who are actually interested in ideas because those students today feel like they are outnumbered and they’re outgunned. They’re — they’re in danger. But they actually do believe in a vigorous exchange of ideas. Those students are out there. You hear from them. I hear from them.

So I don’t want to tar all students with — with the — with the Black Mask crowd, the anarchists funded by, you know, all these left-wing groups, global groups, that want to, you know, seek anarchy and…

HANNITY: Wait a minute. I got a great idea.

INGRAHAM: … show America to be an illegitimate country. Yes. What can we call it?

HANNITY: We’ll do a — we’ll call it the Great American tour. I don’t know. So here’s — or how about the Make America Great tour. But here’s the thing. We’ll do 100 cities, and we’ll crescendo in the biggest place we can.

INGRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: And Donald Trump will give the closing speech to that crowd, as big a crowd as we can get. That will really drive them insane because I think this is all rooted — I think a lot of this — on a serious note — is really rooted in — there’s a hatred towards the president that is so bad and so deep…

INGRAHAM: Oh, yes.

HANNITY: … that anybody that likes him…

INGRAHAM: That’s visceral.

HANNITY: … anybody that supports him…

INGRAHAM: It’s visceral.

HANNITY: … comes under attack, including his 10-year-old son and his own wife and his own daughter and any of us that support him. But maybe students really need to hear what conservatism is, right?

INGRAHAM: Well, you know, I think — I think, Sean, a place we could end the tour would be Brown University, probably the most left-wing of all the Ivies. I love Providence. I grew up in Connecticut. I think Brown is, you know, an incredible place.

But really push the envelope. We’ll go from West Coast and end in the East Coast, OK? So we’ll do all the West Coast colleges, do Berkeley, we’ll do UCLA, USC, US — UCSD. We’ll do the Claremont, Pomona College. Then we’ll move across the country slowly. We’ll do U — Madison, Wisconsin, all the lefties. We’ll — we’ll — you know, we’ll do the — Boulder, Colorado. Then we’ll end up ultimately at Brown University.

To me, that makes sense. We’ll do Yale. We’ll go to Obama’s alma mater and we’ll end up there.

HANNITY: OK. But On a serious note, I really do think that conservatism as a philosophy, as an ideology, number one, is good for America. It’s good for young people. It’s an opportunity society. It’s a climb the ladder thing…

INGRAHAM: It’s freedom!

HANNITY: … where a guy like me — it’s freedom. It — that’s a good way to sum it up.

INGRAHAM: Yes.

HANNITY: But it’s about opportunity. It’s about American independence. It’s about a strong national defense and energy independence and jobs and – – and corporations. I never got a job from a poor person.

INGRAHAM: They don’t want that.

HANNITY: Why?

INGRAHAM: Right. But they don’t want that. They want chaos.

HANNITY: I started a dishwasher. Here I get paid more…

INGRAHAM: Chaos and anarchy — exactly. Chaos and anarchy is where these — these — these folks thrive. And to demonstrate how cowardly most of them really are — they’re a bunch of cowards — is that a lot of them walk around in masks. They put either half of their face covered or their whole face covered. Or they just — they’ll just spout a bunch of cliches and bromides. There’s no real argument.

Ann Coulter would actually get up there and make an argument, a logical argument. You might disagree, you might agree about why immigration laws are important and are actually bipartisan. She’d make that argument, and really smart students would get up and ask her questions, maybe challenge her, say, Well, I don’t really understand that. Why couldn’t we do it this way?

HANNITY: Well, said.

INGRAHAM: That’s what smart kids do. That’s what smart students do. These aren’t — they’re not interested in learning. They’re interested in disruption, chaos and — and — and complete anarchy. That’s where they thrive. That’s where they live. And that’s how they’re getting funded. They want to show this whole American system to be illegitimate. That’s their goal. If they can do that, then they win.

HANNITY: You know, I’ll say this, then we got to go to break here. But if you really think about it, it’d be such an opportunity to have this free, open, lively exchange of ideas and ideals and philosophies and opinions. Everybody could actually benefit from it, rather than — where are these people on the left tonight? Where’s the Hollywood liberals tonight? Where’s Michael Moore tonight? Where’s Bill Maher tonight?

INGRAHAM: Where’s Pelosi?

HANNITY: Where’s Pelosi?

INGRAHAM: Where’s Nancy Pelosi?

HANNITY: Where are all these people on the left?

INGRAHAM: Nancy Pelosi lives — Nancy Pelosi lives about 25 minutes from Berkeley, 30 minutes from Berkeley. That’s where she lives. OK, where’s Dianne Feinstein?

HANNITY: Yes, that’s a good point. I’ve got to break.

INGRAHAM: They all live close to Berkeley. Where are these people? They’re nowhere to be found because they…

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Let’s invite them. I got to take a break. We’ll come back. More Laura Ingraham right after the break. Great points, Laura.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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