This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” June 14, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Sharron Angle surprised election watchers with her victory last week in the Nevada Republican Senate primary. Now her victory was a testament to the growing power of the Tea Party Movement which is strongly backing her candidacy and a warning sign to Prince Harry Reid.
Now according to the latest polls, Angle leads Reid by 11 percent, 50- 39, in the polls and she has had plenty of time to expand on that lead in the future.
Joining us now is Nevada Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle.
Sharron, good to see you. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.
SENATE NOMINEE SHARRON ANGLE, R-NEV.: Thank you.
HANNITY: Eleven points out of the box. Harry Reid’s disapproval rating, I see, is 33 percent. Why is it so low?
ANGLE: Why is his disapproval rating so low? Well —
HANNITY: Or his approval so low? His disapproval so high.
ANGLE: Well, because he’s “let’s make a deal,” raid the Social Security lockbox, tax and spend Harry Reid. Everything that he does continues to water-board the economy there in Nevada.
We have 14 percent unemployment, the highest foreclosure rate in the nation and the highest bankruptcy rate in the nation. We’re tired of it. And it’s time to say Harry Reid, you’ve failed. He says he can do more for Nevada. But we say stop now, don’t do any more.
HANNITY: Well, apparently — the Examiner has a piece out today. He dares the people of Nevada to vote against him. Said basically he’s running as an insider which in this year is kind of an odd strategy here.
And do you think that will — meaning that he’s more powerful, he’s more experienced. What is your plan to respond to that?
ANGLE: Well, first of all, we’ll take that dare and, Sean, I’d like to dare Harry Reid to come on your show and debate me on the issues.
HANNITY: Listen, if Harry Reid will come on this program, I will offer an hour airtime and I will just get out of way as much as I can, throw out a few issues, stay out of the way, and let you guys have at it for an hour. He won’t have the courage to come on this program.
ANGLE: Well, I hope he does because we —
HANNITY: So do I.
ANGLE: We have to ask Harry why he doesn’t care about Nevada, why he doesn’t care about America.
HANNITY: What do you — look, Harry Reid is attacking you in this latest ad that he’s got out there, saying that you want to phase out Medicare and Social Security. What is your reaction to what he said?
ANGLE: Well, it’s nonsense. I want to save Medicare and Social Security. I’d like to put some of that money back in the lockbox that he has raided and put an IOU in. He’s had 20 years to fix Social Security and Medicare. And what we have is an empty lockbox.
And what we need is to make our senior citizens feel secure once more with their own Social Security and Medicare. But going forward we need to personalize that program in a way that the government can’t go in and raid it any more.
HANNITY: The narrator says first the scientology plan to give messages — I’m sorry, massages to prisoners, now she wants to get rid of Medicare and Social Security. What’s next?
So he’s trying to paint you as an extremist. Now Harry Reid made comments about smelly tourists when they opened the Capitol Center. I guess — because I was there at one point, I guess I’m a smelly. I guess we the people are smelly so they built this center.
He talked about Barack Obama being a, quote, “light skinned African-American,” no Negro dialect. He said to school children that George Bush, when he was president, is a loser.
He said the war is lost, the surge has failed before the surge even started. Now that he’s opened the door into negative campaigning are these things that you might use in the campaign against him?
ANGLE: Well, certainly he’s used them against himself. I say sometimes that Harry Reid is the best man on my campaign because if we’re looking for a wacky, certainly the things that come out of his mouth are a little wacky.
But beyond that he gave us the stimulus, the bailout, Obamacare, he thinks amnesty should be the priority, cap-and-trade. All of those things that I oppose, he agrees with. So, if I’m wacky, what is that? What is he doing?
And really like I said, he doesn’t care about America. He doesn’t care about Nevada. He lives in that penthouse suite in Washington, D.C. And he’s completely out of touch with the rest of us.
HANNITY: He — do you think you’re going to be able to — based on his early attack right out of the box, do you think it’s going to be a campaign about issues or do you think you’re going to have to fight fire with fire?
Because, as I said, there’s a lot of controversial quotes that you could use about him that he’s made over the years. Obviously — look you’re over here and he’s over here on issues. There can’t be a greater choice for the people of Nevada.
ANGLE: And that —
HANNITY: There just can’t.
ANGLE: Well, that’s exactly why we thought this campaign was a winning campaign. That’s exactly why I got into the campaign in the first place, is because we needed that contrast. We don’t need Harry Reid and Harry Reid light.
What we need is a definite message that says America is going in the wrong direction. Nevada is a perfect example of what happens when you go in that wrong direction. And what we need is a turnaround. And we have the right principles — lower taxes, less government regulation, more individual freedom.
We have the right contract with America, our Constitution. And we have the right angle to defeat Harry Reid, SharronAngle.com.
HANNITY: No pun intended?
(CROSSTALK)
ANGLE: Oh no.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: But what does this say to you? Rand Paul, for example, in Kentucky, the Tea Party Movement is obviously having a huge impact on a race like yours. I mean from early on it was believed that it was going to be the Tarkanian or Sue Lowden. And you came up in the final weeks of this campaign and won by a significant margin.
What do you — what does that tell you about the mood of the country and the strength of the Tea Party Movement?
ANGLE: First, we need to look at what TEA stands for — taxed enough already. And what the voters of Nevada were really looking at was this record that I have of voting over 100 times no against tax and fee increases, poor public policy and unconstitutional bills. They were also looking at a lawsuit that I took all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And that was to defend our Constitution.
I got the Ronald Reagan Freedom Medallion for that. So they were looking at the — the acts, the deeds. What did you do, not just what do you say?
And those are the things that this movement is all about, is we’re tired of people that say the right things, but vote left.
HANNITY: It’s obvious the media wants to attack you just like Rand Paul, who was on this program last week. Are you going to give them what they want? Are you going to go on their shows or are you going to run your campaign locally in the state? What are — what are your plans media-wise for this campaign?
ANGLE: You may have heard that I’ve been dodging the media. But I actually I’ve been doing five to seven interviews with folks that can really help me, everyday I’m — I’m on somebody’s talk show.
HANNITY: Right.
ANGLE: And the message is — you may not be able to vote for me, Sean, but you can send money to SharronAngle.com.
HANNITY: Oh you’re good at the Web site.
ANGEL: The, yes — well —
HANNITY: And Harry Reid is invited on this program. Harry Reid, come on the program, debate Sharron Angle the full hour. We’ll open up the show to both of you.
And we — we really appreciate you being here, best of luck in your campaign. Thanks for being here.
ANGLE: Thank you — so much Sean.
HANNITY: Thank you. And by the way there’s few times on the radio I said Nevada, instead of Nevada, forgive me. It’s a big deal when I go out there. People — they get mad.
ANGLE: Well, it’s only — it is only local. We like you to know it’s Nevada —
HANNITY: Well, they like because, when I go out there for a Freedom Concerts, I spend a lot of money in the casinos. Anyway good to see you, thank you.
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