This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” March 31, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome to night two of our “Conservative Victory” Tour. Tonight we are coming to you live from Borders Books. We’re in Salt Lake City, Utah. And over the next several weeks we will be traveling coast-to-coast. We’re going to be talking about the principles that are going to help the conservative movement take this country back in November.
My brand-new book just released yesterday. It’s called “Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda.” It is a roadmap for how conservatives can come together and get America on the right track.
Now we’ve seen our Constitution trampled in recent weeks with the passage of the Democrats’ health care bill. And on this tour we are going to be standing with average Americans like — that are here tonight that are saying enough is enough.
Now sadly Democrats are now coming clean. They’re telling us why they pushed for their health care overhaul and it wasn’t about, well, towering costs or extending coverage. It was about a dramatic redistribution of wealth theme here in America.
Let’s take a look:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD DEAN, FORMER DNC CHAIRMAN: The question is, in a democracy, where does the right balance between those at the top who — 20 percent of the people do most of the consumer spending and so forth and so on — and those at the bottom? I think it has — when it gets out of whack as it did in the ’20s and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution.
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care. But if you call that a redistribution of income, well, so — I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Just being fair. Well, it looks like the truth is finally coming out. And here with reaction to that and much more, a warm Utah welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Senator Orrin Hatch.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Senator, how are you? It’s good to see you.
(APPLAUSE)
I think you’re pretty popular still in the state, Senator.
(APPLAUSE)
Let me ask you. First of all, I know the senator is here and you’re voice is a little bit shot.
SEN. ORRIN HATCH, R-UTAH: I have laryngitis.
HANNITY: You have laryngitis, but you’re here. Don’t worry I’ll fill in the gaps.
HATCH: OK.
HANNITY: I have a very hard time talking so it’ll be — it won’t be that hard. You’re in Washington. You’ve been there a lot of years. You worked out a lot of deals. You tried reach across the aisle. You tried to work with Ted Kennedy. You tried to work with people.
Have you ever seen it this bad?
HATCH: I’ve never seen it this bad nor have I ever seen a group that is so arrogant that we have in Washington right now. It’s absolutely arrogant. They’re actually Europeanizing America against our will. They’re taking over banks, they’re taking over car companies. They’re taking over a number of other entities in our society. And basically federalizing everything.
And it’s really starting to worry me. Plus, they’re spending us into bankruptcy. They’re actually — you know when Obama took over, we were 6.2 trillion — $6.3 trillion in debt. National debt.
That came up to $56,000 per family.
HANNITY: Per family.
HATCH: It is now 8.3 — $8.2 trillion in debt and that comes up to about $76,000 per family. By 2020 according to Obama’s own budget we’re going to be $20 trillion in debt. And that’s $170,000 per family.
HANNITY: It’s $170,000 per family. You got — you know, how does America ever recover from that? There’s some interesting things. Al Sharpton said this is socialism. We just heard Howard Dean. Joe Biden is out there saying, you know, look, if you want to call it redistribution, well, I call it being fair.
And it sounds like that — is it Marxism, to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability? Is there a label, collectivism, stateism, socialism? The labels even matter? How do you describe it? What adjectives do you use?
HATCH: Well, I like to call it the Europeanization of America. But it’s a lot worse than that. They are actually spending this country blind. You know, when they start recognizing that terrorists have the same rights as American citizens, it starts to make you wonder.
When they come up with special — like the new going to be tough guy on the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker, and they’re just going to recess appoint him even though all 41 Republicans said don’t do it because this man believes that he can put card check into law even though it’s regulation, rather than having to go to the regular American process.
You can go right on down the line almost everything they’re doing as a matter of real concern to me.
HANNITY: Yes. All right. So what are you to make of the president? You’ve met with the president? Right?
HATCH: Yes.
HANNITY: You’ve talked to him. Many, many times. You knew him in the Senate.
HATCH: I like him.
HANNITY: All right. You like him personally. What is it — is this who he is? Is he — look, I write in my book, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth. I think he’s the most radical president in American history. I think in that sense we’ve never seen such radicalism.
And he seems like this really rigid, really rigid, rigid, rigid ideologue that he won’t listen to the American people. They’ll — you know, literally, if it means that we say congressmen and senators voted on a bill that they never voted on, we’ll deem it passed. We’ll bribe certain senators to get their votes in some states.
Is this all about ideology for him?
HATCH: He’s certainly the most liberal president we’ve ever had. And I might add that — sorry about this voice. But I might add —
HANNITY: No, you’re doing great. He’s doing great, right?
(APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: We’re going to encourage you, Senator.
(APPLAUSE)
HATCH: Well, I believe that, you know, he’s gone all the time from the White House. The people around him are all academics or bureaucrats. There’s hardly anybody who has ever created a job around him.
So that’s what we’re putting up with. And I might add that he’s — you know, he talks centrist and everything they do is left. And I believe they’re — I believe they’re actually running this country right into the ground.
HANNITY: All right. Well, you know, that’s a powerful statement for a United States senator. And by the way, you are not known as a fire brand. You’re known as a gentile person, somebody that reaches across the aisle. You were friends with Ted Kennedy.
That is a very powerful statement coming from you to say that when they now took over 1/6 of the economy. If the Republicans take back the House and the Senate, can they de-fund Obamacare? Will they — is that the next step before the 2012 elections?
HATCH: Well, keep in mind. They claim that they’re going to provide health care for 32 million Americans. Sixteen million of those 32 million are going to be pushed into Medicaid.
You’ll notice they are pushing more and more people into Medicare and Medicaid. That’s what I call the Europeanization of America.
HANNITY: Yes.
HATCH: And I’ve got to tell you something. There’s a method to their madness. The bottom 50 percent of this country pay three percent of our income taxes, the bottom 40 percent don’t pay anything. They now claim — some people — that that’s a size 49 percent were dependent upon government. I believe they want to get it to 60 percent.
HANNITY: That’s a voting majority.
HATCH: That’s right.
HANNITY: By the way Barack Obama did say the time for profits is not now. The time for profits is later. I’m like, is this America?
HATCH: Well —
HANNITY: The time for profit is now, Senator. I want those people that start businesses create jobs.
HATCH: That’s right. And Joe Biden saying that, you know, redistribution of money, is just fair. Look, it’s not fair because they’re taking it from those who work. They’re taking away opportunities.
That was all (INAUDIBLE) the former head of the Congressional Budget Office. He showed me a special — special economic chart. You and I and others — or maybe a little older, we had a chance of going straight up this chart, basically has these kids today they — straight cross.
HANNITY: Straight across.
(CROSSTALK)
HATCH: They cannot get through.
HANNITY: Senator, you’ve been a trooper. Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Orrin Hatch. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
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