This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” June 10, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWT GINGRICH, “RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY”: What’s at stake is the future of this extraordinary experiment in individual human freedom.
I am not a citizen of the world. I am a citizen of the United State of America. No government bureaucracy has the right to take from you the rights that God gave you, and rationing under health care is inevitably limiting your life at the whim of a bureaucrat and at the manipulation of a politician.
If we have been endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. How can a government bureaucrat tell you you don’t deserve the best possible medicine, the best possible procedure, the best possible hospital?
Under the Obama administration, we have fallen back into the utopian fantasies and self-deception of the 1977 Carter administration and the 1993 Clinton administration.
The great difference between Reagan’s rhetorical skills and President Obama’s rhetorical skills are that Reagan used his rhetorical skills to shine light on truths and fundamental facts. Obama uses his rhetorical skills to hide from fundamental facts.
There’s a clear road back to a majority. And before you say it can’t be done, let me remind you of Jon Voight’s great quote. “Do not tell me it can’t be done.” It was true for FDR, it’s true for us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Now, hopefully, three years from now, Republicans will look back on that speech on Monday night by Newt Gingrich as the moment that they found their direction, they found their cause, and they began the road back to true conservatism.
Former speaker of the House, FOX News contributor, host of the documentary “Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny,” Newt Gingrich is with us.
• Video: Watch Sean’s interview
Mr. Speaker, apparently raised a lot of money in that speech.
(LAUGHTER)
GINGRICH: I’m not used to being introduced by me.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Well, welcome to you. But you know, you’re not a citizen of the world, you said in the speech. You’re a citizen of the United States of America. You also said that Obama has already failed. Explain.
GINGRICH: Well, let’s — I specifically referred to the stimulus package, which they promised us would limit employment than 8 percent. It’s now past 9.4 percent. That means there are 1,890,000 more Americans unemployed than they promised us there would be if we had the stimulus package.
So we get $787 billion in spending, turning enormous power over to politicians and bureaucrats, and we get almost two million more unemployed than they promised us in January there would be. Sounds to me pretty much like a failure.
HANNITY: You know it sounds to me like it as well. And one of the things, they actually showed the chart. They had their prediction, which couldn’t have been more off. They said well, we passed the stimulus, unemployment won’t go any higher than 8 percent. If we don’t pass it, it’ll go to 9 percent. Well, now, it’s 9.4 percent in a short period of time.
One of the things a lot of people have focused on, you said, well, look, I’m happy that Colin Powell and Dick Cheney are Republicans. Colin Powell got the candidate he wanted in the last election, the moderate, more liberal Republican. John McCain. He voted against him. He voted for Ronald Reagan.
You know, I’m not saying we do not want a big tent, but obviously, he didn’t want the very candidate he said he wanted.
GINGRICH: Look, Colin Powell served many Republican presidents starting with Ronald Reagan. And I believe that everybody occasionally strays. I’d love to have Colin Powell back as a good Republican in 2012, but I am making a deeper point.
Ronald Reagan carried 49 states in his reelection in 1984. A lot of those states were pretty darn liberal, but he carried them. 64 percent of Californians who recently voted against spending and taxes in the referendum, including a majority of people in San Francisco, and if we can get a Republican candidate, who could win the governorship on taxes and spending with 64 percent of the vote, that’d be a pretty big party. We’d have a lot of arguments inside on specifics.
HANNITY: Yes.
GINGRICH: But it’d be a lot of fun to have that size majority.
HANNITY: Starting tomorrow, now, the president yesterday talked about pay-go after he spent all the money. He talked about pay-go and then he’s going to talk about nationalizing health care, Obama care. That big debate begins tomorrow.
That is not included in the pay-go nor is the stimulus, nor is the omnibus, nor is the $3.6 trillion budget. So it’s really deceptive. He’s trying to create the impression he’s conservative on fiscal matters when, in fact, he’s not.
GINGRICH: Well, Democrats only talk about pay-go when they want to raise taxes. Democrats only sound conservative when they want to raise taxes. This administration and its allies, with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid on Capitol Hill, are spending an extraordinary amount of money.
We have passed $1 trillion in debt already this year. It’s unending, and I think the fact is that they waived every rule they want to waive to fit them and then hide behind the rules to fit them. And we are just relaxing.
This is a big spending, big government, big politician, big bureaucracy administration. I am deeply opposed to Washington bureaucrats deciding whether or not to ration your health care or the health care of your loved ones. And I think that it’s a fundamental choice for America.
Do you really want to have your future and your life and your health in the hands of the Washington bureaucracy?
HANNITY: Well, and by the way, they are claiming that in spite of the massive job losses that they have actually created 150,000 jobs when we have lost 2.5 million since January, so I’m not sure — you know, I guess Joe Biden had it right. He said, “I’m not an economist.” No truer words were ever spoken.
GINGRICH: I think it’s very important to recognize, as I said in my speech Monday night, which by the way is available at Newt.org both in the text form and the videotapes available if anybody wants to go to Newt.org and see what you’ve been talking about, Sean.
But I can tell you, this is a president who uses rhetoric to hide from reality. I have learned very sadly not to pay attention to his words, because they are, in fact, not good indicators of what he is going to do, and I think we just have to recognize that they want government-run health care. They want massive tax increases.
They want politicians in charge of virtually everything. They put a 31-year-old who hasn’t even gotten out of law school in charge of redesigning Chrysler and General Motors, and acts, frankly, arrogance on a scale that’s almost unimaginable.
HANNITY: All right. But you know, you say that and I agree wholeheartedly, and let me give you the latest example of this. You know the Obama administration terrorist relocation program because the first Gitmo detainee is now on U.S. shores.
But The Weekly Standard is reporting tonight that the Obama Justice Department, and we are going to show a tape of Obama saying he’d never do this. That’s coming up a little bit later on the show — that he quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high-value detainees captured or held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan. According to Mike Rogers.
GINGRICH: This is — Congressman Rogers on the intelligence committee was in Afghanistan. This report in The Weekly Standard is unimaginable. It’s worse than anything Jimmy Carter ever did. It’s worse than anything that President Bill Clinton ever did.
The idea that we pick up in a war zone a terrorist, and the first thing we do is say to them, “We want to make sure you understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney.”
First of all, that’s just not true. They are not American citizens. They are not in the American criminal justice system. These are enemy agents in a war. I think this is — we have got to recognize — these folks are going to get a lot of people killed if we continue down this road of crippling our intelligence capability, crippling our military capability, crippling our FBI and pretending that terrorists are Americans.
HANNITY: Well, it’s frightening on a scale that I never thought possible in America. Now, one last question. As it relates to the Republicans, and you are addressing their comeback, is this now — are they getting the traction? Have they gone through enough introspection? Do you think now there are ready for this come back? And what do you expect in 2010 and 2012?
GINGRICH: I think we’re going to do very well in 2010. I think the rate that the administration is going, we have a very good chance for this to be a one-term presidency.
HANNITY: All right, Newt Gingrich. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.
GINGRICH: Thank you.
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