This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, it's Drew Franklin from NFL Cover Zero. The 2026 season is underway and we are loving football on TV. Here's what you can expect from the podcast in our second season. I would suggest for these preseason games, I think they should do what they do on the NFL draft. You know, when coverage of the NFL draft is basically for moms and they're just like, hey, he has a dog named Spark. Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks to all of you for being with us. Write down our toll-free telephone number. It's 800-941-SHAWN if you want to be a part of the program. Yes, I know I have a cold. That's all it is, is a cold. I mean, am I going to have a thousand articles written? I'm not taking prednisone like I did, you know, with my neck when I was training and I really had two pinched nerves in my spine. Am I allowed to get a cold, Linda, without like a million articles being written about just having a cold? Well, I already submitted my first op-ed about what you might have, so I'm sorry. Oh, okay. I apologize. Remember Rush used to...
Ravages of the cold virus. Oh, my God. Remember? He was so funny with that stuff. No, it was all funny. Well, I mean, the option is it's 36 days until Election Day, the most important, I think, in our lifetime. So, you know, why would I want to take off? Linda goes, do you want to take off today? I'm like. No, that's not what I said. That's what you said. I said, you should have told me that you felt like this. I would have got somebody to cover. No, cover what? Cover you. My voice is. And you're coughing and you're sneezing. I'm not coughing and I'm not sneezing. I'm not coughing and I'm not sneezing. Just sound like this. I'm going to call you sniffles. The only medicines I've taken is Alka-Seltzer plus cold medicine. Which is very good.
And Allegra D to dry me out. That's it. That makes sense. Do you take Allegra D on the regular? No, no, I can't stay. I hate all medicines. I hate them all. And my body doesn't react well to any of it. But all it is is a cold. I'm not losing any range in terms of my voice. I can go up. I can go down. I can go any way I want. Now, in the past, when I've lost my voice, I've taken prednisone. But nobody wants to hear about my stupid health. Just do the show, Hannity, and shut up. Well, we can hear about your stupid health. We hear it through your nose. Oh, my word. That's why we're naming you today.
You sound like the guest of honor at a mucus convention, okay? Okay, okay. It doesn't sound that bad, does it? Oh my god, no. Yeah, you sound great. That is so gross, bro. Oh my god. Does everybody in this audience just take off when they get a cold? Because I don't.
I don't believe in taking off. Only the liberals do. Most people don't talk on air for a living. Conservatives believe in infecting one another. Oh, my word. It's fine. Okay, so I have a choice. I could probably get my voice back if I took this stupid prednisone, then my face blows up again, and then I have another 4,822 articles written about how fat my face got, and then he looks sick, he looks unhealthy, he looks like he's dying. I wonder if he's dying. What does he have? I'm like, 30 years on the air, I've lost my voice a million times. I just don't go to the methods that I've used in the past, which is prednisone, to take it. Although, when I had the worst pain in my life, I will not take a pain pill, and I took the...
What do you call the stupid thing? The prednisone. And they gave me the highest dose I've ever had in my life. Then I had another choice. I knew my face was fat. I knew it was bloated. But, you know, it's one of the side effects of the medicine. And I decided to show up for work because I didn't want to take off. I don't like to take off if I don't have to. There you go. So everyone gets a cold. It's that time of year. I know 50 people that have colds. Yeah, you're all hanging out together. Oh, my word.
All right. So before we get going, we do have an update. British police have released the five suspects in the possible terrorist attack on a U.S. air base. United Kingdom police releasing five terrorist suspects on bail after they were arrested on suspicion of a terror plot targeting U.S. air base in Britain this weekend. Lawrence Taylor.
head of the counterterrorism policing, confirming that the investigations into the five men are ongoing, including that this may be actively committed by proxies or individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly working on behalf of a foreign state. Meanwhile, the Iranian embassy in the UK has denied a connection with the five men. I've been warning Western Europe. And this is really what we're seeing is a decline in Western civilization more than anything else. And it would be here if Donald Trump did not get elected a little less than two years ago.
And that is, you know, unfettered illegal immigration without assimilation in Western Europe. NATO allies that coupled with radical climate alarmism policies they've adopted and also socialism that they've adopted. I mean, I never thought in my lifetime that they'd have, you know, up to 100 Sharia courts in Great Britain. They do. Or no go zones in France and other countries. They do. I see the same thing happening in Canada.
which makes, by the way, the president's move in Greenland even that much more strategic, especially the fact that he's able to build military bases in perpetuity. The U.S. will be able to. And number two, it keeps out our top geopolitical foes, and that would be China and Russia. By the way, I'd say not bad in terms of my thought process for somebody that has a cold. Jeez, so irritating to work here with these people. He's not crying. I'm not crying. I'm just saying you're annoying. Everyone on this team is annoying. By the way, now get this. This is what frustrates me. Now, in 36 days...
Probably sooner if you're going to vote early. I am telling you, there's not a single Republican that's supporting this insane DSA agenda. Not one. There's not a single Republican that is supporting, you know, welfare and benefits and health care for illegal immigrants. Not one. And as imperfect as some of these people are, and they are, they are a lot better than what the alternative will be. And a new strategy, and I'm going to explain this in detail coming up this hour, that has emerged in terms of how the Democrats are approaching this pending election, and I need you to be aware of it.
I'll tell you this. There's 10,000 households that earn more than a million dollars that were collecting unemployment benefits in 2024. This was in The Washington Times receiving nearly 100 million dollars in taxpayer money, according to data shared with The Washington Times. I had Dr. Oz on Hannity last week, and he's talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. All these people that are enrolled in Obamacare, they don't even exist. And they took them off the rolls. There's not even anybody complaining because the people didn't exist in the first place.
But you've got high tax Democratic led states, blue states top the list of locations where the millionaires collected unemployment where they live. California ranked first. Shocking. Followed by New York. Shocking. Followed by Massachusetts. Shocking. Followed by New Jersey. Shocking. And Washington. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican, who has tracked the issue for years, obtained the data from the IRS, shared it with the Washington Times, said it's wrong for those who are so well off to take the money. You think unemployment?
is primarily funded by taxing employers. This mandate is effectively a reverse Robin Hood tax that takes from hardworking small businesses to reward the well-off for not working. And let me tell you something, you disincentivize work and you offer everything for free, who's going to ever want to work? Nobody. There's another story in the Washington Times that the IRS is a prime target for fraudsters who now bilk that tax agency out of as much as $300 billion a year in refunds or underpayments on taxes owed.
And according to a new analysis by a Congress top watchdog, scammers include average people, firms intentionally underpay their taxes, but it also includes criminals, international operations that steal identities and file completely fabricated tax claims in their names. The Government Accountability Office said the IRS is vulnerable to all of that. Not only does it lack a fraud coordinator, it doesn't even have an anti-fraud strategy, according to the GAO. An anti-fraud strategy, either at the agency-wide or division level, would help IRS coordinate, communicate its overall approach to tax fraud risk management to ultimately mitigate such risks and reduce revenue loss to fraud. And you know what they spend? I pay all of my taxes. I have more people go over my taxes that know what they're doing. I have accountants. I have lawyers because I know these people hate me. And the government does have a deep state. So I pay my taxes. I urge everyone else, pay your tax bill. Just do it. You don't want these people breathing down your neck. Although we do have RushTaxResolution.com that can help you. They're one of our advertisers. At the top of the next hour.
Chris Rufo will join us. He did an incredible investigative report on California's shadow welfare system for illegals, and he goes into great specificity and detail on how California is spending billions on housing, health care, other benefits. Get this. California has this shadow welfare system that we've never known about. We know that Gavin Bragg is about giving health care to illegals, but they also are giving to illegals on top of health care, rental assistance, college grants, tax credits, low-cost car insurance, and smartphones that the taxpayers in California are paying for.
In total, California taxpayers spent at least $11 billion subsidizing illegal immigrants in the last fiscal year. And he explains that if you're an American citizen and you want the same benefits, good luck with that because that's not going to work. All right, on to where we are. We're 36 days out of this election. A strategy is emerging that I want you to be aware of.
You have Axios reporting Democrats in some of this year's most critical congressional battlegrounds are sending clear messages. They don't want certain people showing up. One of them is Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We don't want you to campaign for us. If they continue, the snubs may, according to them, meaning Axios, hurt AOC standing as a potential contender in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. Well, who do they want? Because there's a whole other article out there that they don't want Kamala Harris to show up either. And this was in the New York Post over the weekend. Democrats on the campaign trail.
are passing on asking, except for Abdul El-Sayed. He doesn't care who campaigns for him. But she's been back out there on the campaign trail. And Kamala Harris has not ditched her reputation for idiotic answers while stumping for controversial U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. We covered that last week. But that's not the full strategy. And remember, this is 44% of Democrats now are okay with the idea of violence to stop President Trump. You got 25% of American adults, including 44% of self-identified Democrats, say they support the use of force to prevent President Trump from being president.
According to the news surveys, you know, described by the University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape, Pape is warning that the 2026 midterm elections could produce a level of political violence not seen in the U.S. in decades and under a worst case scenario could become the most violent election in American history. That shouldn't make you feel good. AOC following Hassan Piker shows up at Cornell University and Hassan Piker, you know, Abdul El-Sayed's BFF, you know, from the river to the sea, from the river to the sea, they start chanting it and he joined in the chant. He kept putting the microphone up to his mouth.
aoc didn't seem to do it but she didn't stop it either i mean this is how radicalized but that's not where the change is that's coming so i want to pay close attention to this Democratic candidates, not only are they following the Telefrico, Abdul El-Sayed, Troy Jackson in Maine, and basically every Democrat running for office. They got this idiot running in Kansas, this pastor, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, seeking to unseat Roger Marshall. Roger Marshall's a great guy. Anyway, he told his congregation to repent for eating beef and raising cattle and repent for driving. I'm like, okay, you're a nutcase. But I'm going to give you a headline here, and then we'll go into more specifics.
Democratic candidates are now adopting a drastically more negative tone towards their own party in the 26 midterm elections. Now, here's the problem. They don't mean a word of it. Because as evidenced by, nobody will take on the true power source that is now running and governing the Democratic Party. And that's AOC, that's Momdani, that's The Squad, that's Pocahontas, that's Bernie Sanders. The only one that has taken them on is John Fetterman. And what Axios found, which is interesting, is they identified 47 ads in the last 30 days run by Democrats.
running as the de facto Democratic nominee featuring the type of negative messaging from 19 in 2024 to 15 in 2020. Now, candidates are pitching themselves as bipartisan problem solvers. None of them are doing anything other than lying to you. That is AOC saying it's woke 1.0. So understand that the new strategy of the Democratic Party is being institutionalized, which means they're adopting the strategy instead of saying we're DSA supporters. No, we're liars. We're just going to hide who we really are, like Abigail Scamberger. On November 6th, I'm the cat in the hat.
Look at it started. You know the hat. I am a entertainment specialist. Now meet the cat. The clients today, you have to do more to impress them. These aren't your father's kids. My father has other kids. Do you go on long business trips? Oh, no. Bill Hader is... Cat! Cat! Cat in the hat. You have gone too far. Did you say toot fart? I said too far. Toot fart too far. I heard toot fart again. The Cat in the Hat. Only in theaters November 6th.
Football's back. Hey, it's Drew Franklin from NFL Cover Zero. Enjoy the NFL season while listening to NFL Cover Zero. We have storylines, predictions, and lots of silliness. Here's what you can expect from the podcast in our second season. When you meet people and you say your job's a sports announcer, it's always interesting to see what the first thing they say is. I did have one of the more difficult questions, though. He sits next to me and he sees I'm on my computer and he goes, I'm a big sports fan. And I was like, yeah, actually. And he goes, what do you think about my Jaguars this year? I realized, like, no one's ever asked me that question ever about anything. And I was like...
Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, 25 now till the top of the hour. 800-941-SHAWN if you want to be a part of the program. You want to say what you were saying off air, on air now? No, I don't want to hurt your feelings. You're acting like a liberal. I'm not acting like a liberal. No, you didn't hurt my feelings. You keep talking about them. I think it's starting to seep in. You're getting sensitive. No, I think you're being annoying on purpose trying to get me all pissed off and it's not working. It's working a little bit. No, it's not working. I think it is a little bit. Do you hear your voice? Do you have to agitate it like that? That agitation? I think the audience can hear it so far. The audience can't hear anything. They can't. Oh, welcome, Mr. Hannity. Franklin Square in the house. I was making fun of you.
The audience can't hear anything. Listen, at least he doesn't have moon face. He's doing all right. He's got a crappy voice. He snuffled off, I guess. But his face is normal. It is a cold. I think you sound like you could use some monoclonal antibodies. Oh, man. You know, I just can't win.
All right. Did we put up on the website what I promised this audience on Friday prominently? That is the DSA agenda. Donald Trump's accomplishments from TV. Did we do that? We did. Is it still up there? It is still up there. Can you please keep it up there for 36 days? If you ask me nicely. I feel aggressive the way you're asking me. I think it might be the cold. I will write Blair and I will have it handled myself. Oh, God. Oh, my God. I mean, if I'm going to get such hostility. I'm not irritable with the cold. I feel fine. The only medicines I've taken are Alka-Seltzer plus cold and what do you call it? Allegra D.
to dry me out, so my nose is not... He's still grouchy. Just so you know. I'm not grouchy. A little bit. Go ahead, do you show me. I know you're busy. Ethan, do you think I'm being grouchy? You can say so. He's not going to say that. I'm not happy. I'm not unhappy. I'm fine. Katie, am I happy or not happy? My normal self or not? In between. Jason, ugh.
Really? You want to ask me? You sound like me, only less fun. Oh, and you're Mr. Barrel of Laughs all the time. Mr. Sunshine, yep. Yeah, Mr. Sunshine over there. So you got 44% of Democrats now okay with violence to stop Donald Trump. I mean, that is as sick as it gets. But I told you that some new strategy is emerging, and I can tell you why it's emerging. It's emerging because all of the things that the DSA is still promoting on their website and these candidates support, that it is not polling well.
Now, what's interesting is the polling has been so off this year, especially with DSA candidates, that it's almost like the Trump phenomenon. Nobody seems to be able to poll Donald Trump well, except for people like Matt Towery and Robert Cahaley and John McLaughlin and Rasmussen. And that's pretty much it. And if you look over the years, you know, three election cycles now, they just can't poll Donald Trump. I think that a lot of this, and you need to understand, is to take away incentive and motivation and deflate turnout on the conservative side, on the Republican side.
And then you've got this other group of malcontents out there. And if Donald Trump doesn't reach their individual purity test on whatever the issue happens to be, then they're willing to either stay home. Or they won't even go as far as to vote for a crazy DSA radical that wants to defund the police and abolish prisons and open borders and amnesty and end all deportation on top of, you know, defunding the Department of War, eliminating the U.S. Senate, eliminating your opportunity to elect a president, packing the courts. Then, of course, moving straight into their radical new Green Deal, which is cradle to grave, womb to the tomb. I'll get to that in a second, too. But Axios actually is chronicling this and they did it in a clever way. I think a pretty clever way for them.
Because they have adopted, Democratic candidates now, are beginning to adopt a more negative tone towards their own party. Now they're doing it because they're trying to delineate themselves from the dominant view, voice in the party, which is, that would be AOC and the squad and Mamdani and Pocahontas and Grandpa Bernie. They run that party. There's a reason Chuck Schumer will not condemn Abdul El-Sayed. As a matter of fact, when he went last week or the week before, whenever it was, to Washington and met with Democratic senators, they gave him a warm reception. And then on top of that,
They handed him $10 million to run his campaign against Mike Rogers in Michigan, Hassan Piker's BFF. So what this is reflecting is, Democrats, are they really against the dominant voice in their party? The answer to that question is no. And the way they did it is fascinating because they identified 47 ads in the last 30 days run by Democrats or independents running as the de facto Democratic nominee featuring that type of negative messaging. That's up from 19 in 2024. In other words, more than double. And by the way, if you want to go back to 2020, they only have 15 such ads. So what candidates on the Democratic side are now doing is they're pitching themselves as, quote, bipartisan problem solvers. Now, how many of you actually believe that any of these Democrats running for either the House or Senate are going to be bipartisan? They're not. They're going to capitulate.
to the dominant wing, which is now wanting power, and that is the radicalized DSA Democratic Party. And I don't see any of these candidates in any way, shape, manner, or form, and that would include John Ossoff of Georgia, that would include Sherrod Brown, that would include any of the other candidates that are out there that are Democrats. Troy Jackson, Abdul El-Sayed, six-gender Tellurico, God is non-binary Tellurico. So, but that's what they're trying. They're leaning into this anti-establishment rhetoric, as Axios puts it, and with ads denouncing a broken political system.
Now, we're blaming both. Well, what are they going to do to stand up to their party? Now, are they ever going to openly condemn the likes of the squad? Are they going to condemn Abdul El-Sayed or six gender non-binary god Talafrico? The answer is no. If they're elected, they will vote with them. I've been saying this. I can guarantee you if you're in Ohio and Sherrod Brown and you're stupid enough to put him back in office, he will vote with the radical Democrat that dominates this Democratic Party now. That's what he's going to do. That's what John Ossoff would do. That's what any elected Democrat is going to do.
And, you know, their analysis is this could be a headache for House Minority Leader Jeffries, who's set to face, you know, rebellious progressives who have declined to commit to voting for him to speak. Well, I'm telling you the days of Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are over anyway. They're done. So it's, you know, it's bad enough. Blame both parties. You know, you have a House candidate that quoted Sam Forstag in Montana saying that a whole lot of co-workers got a sour look on their face when he revealed he was running as a Democrat. He said he can think of no better articulation of the literal disconnect between the representatives at the federal level and what it's like on the ground. Okay, but if you look at where it is, you know, it's, you know, one of the things is most people don't know what I've been telling you, and that is about the economy.
Most people don't know that the Atlanta Fed's predicting 5.4% GDP growth. Nobody's pointing out the lowest level of poverty for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans. That median income has gone up to 87, 800, 80 records of the stock market, which only helps people's 401ks. They're not pointing any of that out. But if you look at Democratic negative ads against their own party, well, now you're seeing that the Democrats are doing it dramatically. And what they're trying to really do, if you want to read between the lines, if you want the true analysis, is they don't want to let you know who they really are. They're hiding their true identities. That's what they're trying to do. You know, if you, you know, and there is a danger out here. The battle for Congress, you know, by my estimation, remains close.
I don't think anybody can accurately predict the outcome of this election yet. I just don't. I can't for sure. Anyone that says they can with any degree of certainty, I think is just lying to you. But if you look at generic ballot, you know, it's very, very close between Republicans and Democrats. So you don't know, you know, how much is this message of a radicalized Democratic Party getting out there? I don't know the full answer to that. You know, that's why I put up on my website what the DSA stands for.
You know, AOC's team even admitted that the Green New Deal was never about saving the planet. You know, that's why do they call it the Green New Deal? Because it sounds better than communism. It sounds better than socialism. Because that was 2019 when Ed Markey and AOC introduced the Green New Deal in both houses of Congress, claiming it would address the existential crisis of climate change. Well, how does government healthy food and government guaranteed daycare and government guaranteed jobs and government guaranteed salaries and government guaranteed health care and retirement and a pine box for when you croak? How is that? And one of the problems is, and this was an article.
on MSN now is 59% of Democrats now call themselves supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America. They don't even know what it means. They have no idea. You know, I never thought, you know, Kansas, if you believe the polls, and I'm telling you not to even pay attention to them, but, you know, they would tell you that Roger Marshall is in a tight race against his lunatic, Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor who, you know, literally the Democratic nominee who called on his congregation to repent for driving and repent for eating meat. What the hell is he even talking about? In North Carolina, you got this, he's been elected twice statewide. Governor Roy Cooper's sanctuary agenda has cost taxpayers in North Carolina over $3 billion and the soft on crime.
policies of this and his sanctuary policies protecting illegals as governor. Not only did it cost money, $3.14 billion, and vetoing legislation requiring law enforcement to cooperate with ICE, nearly 500,000 illegals resided in the state under Cooper's tenure. And you might remember that there have been a lot of people killed by illegal immigrants in North Carolina, and I'm told that the ads that are being run against them are not that effective right now. There's an interesting race in Winston-Salem for the AG out there. And Jim O'Neill has got the support of a Democratic sheriff, which is a bit of a phenomenon. We ought to get him on the show. But, you know, Mike Watley needs to step up his game in North Carolina if we're going to hold on to that seat. But this demoralization campaign is in full swing right now. I'm telling you, don't fall for it.
As in every election, I am telling you that you cannot believe the pollsters. How can they possibly be off and tell us that Francesca Hong is due to win by 20 to 30 percent of the vote and loses by 3000? How could they tell you Al-Sayed, Abdul Al-Sayed is going to win by 20 points and he wins by a point? There's something radically wrong with the polling in this election season. And I'm telling you, don't pay attention to it. And if you want to know what the future is going to be like, you know, tune in the next hour, Chris Ruffo, about how bad this this issue of benefits for illegals has gotten out in the state of California.
In New York, a new report found that New York State has the highest tax burden. Thank God I got the hell out of there three years ago. For resident in the U.S., second highest spender in the U.S., and that comes as New York City mayor, Mayor Zoran Moran, Marxist Kami Mondani, proposing taxes in recent months. But the Citizens Budget Commission study found that New York residents are taxed 22% more per capita, even in California, which has the highest income taxes, sales taxes, and gas taxes. And taxes in New York were 71% higher per person than the national average.
I mean, I can tell you New York City has a larger budget than the entire state of Florida for under 9 million people, and Florida's got, what, 23 million people now? It's crazy. Mondani refuses millions of dollars for homeless vets over a federal rule to house them based on biological sex. There's a story out there how Seattle is dying. It's in the Washington Examiner. Why is it dying? It's dying because they're chasing out the people that pay the bills. The top 10% of wage earners, they pay the largest amount of taxes, and that's all the way across the country. The bottom 25%, by the way, of people, of earners.
in this country, they're now doing better than they've ever done under President Trump's just less than two years in office. Hey, it's Drew Franklin from NFL Cover Zero. The 2026 season is underway and we are loving football on TV. Here's what you can expect from the podcast in our second season. I would suggest for these preseason games, I think they should do what they do on the NFL draft. You know, when coverage of the NFL draft is basically for moms and they're just like, hey, he has a dog named Spark. Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.