This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” October 12, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: For only the third time in history a sitting president of the United States has been awarded the Nobel Peace Price but unlike presidents Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt, Barack Obama was nominated for the award less than two weeks after he took office and that is our headline tonight, “The 12 Days of Barack Obama.”
Now according to the Nobel Foundation the president won the prize, for his quote, “his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy.” But what exactly were those extraordinary efforts?
Well, here are just a few highlights from the first 12 days in office. On day one, after taking the oath it was time to take in the traditional Inauguration Day Parade, followed by several not-so-extraordinary black tie parties with his supporters.
Now jump to day three when the president vowed to close Gitmo within a year, a promise the administration now acknowledges will likely be broken. Then there’s day four when he reversed a Bush administration executive order to bar U.S. money going to foreign groups that perform abortions.
Well, that’s diplomatic. And on his first Sunday in office, well, the president skipped church. At that time he was still looking for a replacement for his old pal Jeremiah Wright. And then on the 12th day Obama once again skipped church and hosted a Super Bowl bash at the White House.
So there you have it. The fast track to winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
And joining me now with reaction is the author of The New York Times, number one bestseller, Fox News contributor, Dick Morris, is here. Dick?
DICK MORRIS, “CATASTROPHE” AUTHOR: Well, Sean, cut him a break. You couldn’t give it to him for economics.
(LAUGHTER)
MORRIS: You probably couldn’t give it to him for health care either, so it’s peace.
HANNITY: All right. So you spent all weekend thinking up that line. All right, think about this. He had to be nominated 12 days — look, 12 days into his office.
MORRIS: There’s a broader context to this. This is part of Europe’s efforts to colonize the United States, to reverse the effects of the American Revolution. We talked about it a week or two ago, about the G-20 and the inroads to our economic sovereignty and this, along with the prize to Gore and the prize to Carter after they opposed the Iraq war.
Those are all attempts by the Norwegian Parliament, a group of socialists in Norway, who make these decisions, to influence American politics. And it really represents America as they want it to be.
Great American Blog: Did Obama deserve to win?
In the same sense that when Gorbachev was running Russia, they gave him the Nobel Prize because that was Russia as Norway wanted it to be. And you have to see this as something akin to a New York Times editorial endorsement, not some prize ascended from Mount Olympus.
HANNITY: All right, but — Dick, it seems to me — we’ll get into this in our next segment with Mark Steyn in a lot more detail. I think if you apologize for America and you call the country arrogant, I think that contributed a lot to the perception they have of him.
If you believe the U.N. can solve the world’s problems and you want to talk to Adolf Jr., Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I think that’s part of it.
MORRIS: Right.
HANNITY: Here — this is a crucial week as it relates to the health care debate. And I know a lot of people — I think it’s been part of the strategy of the Democrats to inundate the American people with figures and numbers and bills, where it’s hard for people to really comprehend it all. But this is the week.
Go ahead.
MORRIS: I think it’s worse than that. First of all, let me just say that I think the reason that Obama was delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan is because he wanted this prize and he probably knew he was nominated for it, he knew roughly when the decision is being made, and I don’t think he’s going to send troops until after that award is safely in his pocket.
But go back to the point you’re making about health care. It’s worse than that. They are trying to distract the American people so we don’t think about health care. We talk about the Olympics, we talk about Ahmadinejad and Gadhafi and their tent and at the U.N. speech.
We talk about the Nobel Prize, we talk about Afghanistan. We talk about everything except the deformity of our most fundamental system in our country, the health care system, while this bill is narrowly making its way through Congress.
HANNITY: But Dick.
MORRIS: And the more I study this bill, the worse it gets.
HANNITY: All right. And that’s the point I want to get to. The problem is you can’t study this bill. This bill is not even written yet and they’re going to have a vote in the finance committee tomorrow and they’re going to vote on a bill and there’s not going to be anything written for anybody to read. That’s a big problem.
MORRIS: Like the British constitution, it’s unwritten. Look, there’s something that came out today that really was incredible. You look at the concept of helping the uninsured. Now imagine that you’re a young, healthy individual or a member of a childless family, and you have a choice.
Do you want to spend eight percent of your income paying for a health insurance policy you basically don’t think you need which would cost you, if you make $60,000 a year, would cost you $5,000, $4,000, or pay a $1,000 fine? You’re going to pay the fine. Then when you get sick, you’ll go and you’ll sign up for the policy.
And the insurance company is going to have to give it to you because the Obama bill obliges them to. So basically none of these people are going to sign up for this insurance. And what’s going to happen is they’ll sign up immediately if and when they ever need it.
The premium will be much higher then but it’s subsidized by Obama so it’s not going to be any skin off them. And then the medical costs get paid by all the rest of us who have insurance policies. The insurance institute estimates that this bill will cost us each $2,000 extra in premiums for health insurance.
HANNITY: Actually it’s higher than that.
MORRIS: And that’s if you’re low enough not to be in the 40 percent tax bracket of the more expensive policy.
HANNITY: The little bit.
MORRIS: So this bill that’s to promote health insurance is going to make health insurance $2,000 more expensive per family.
HANNITY: Actually $2,300. Because what it actually says, and I know — and I know what you’re talking is the nine years in the process, the typical family is going to see — under this program they’re going to pay $2,700 more than they would under the current system.
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: That works out to be about $2,300 a year. Now I want to go to the political ramifications of this. Harry Reid is now down, according to a poll, with one challenger by double digits and he’s also in a head-to-head match-up against another challenger would be down by I think five.
What are the political implications of this, especially if unemployment stays at, you know, around 10 percent?
MORRIS: Well, I’ve always felt, Sean, and I’ve said it often on the show, that the Republicans are going to do very well in the 2010 election and either actually take back control or functionally deny any real power to the Democrats by the margin being narrow enough.
The question is do we have a health care system by the time it happens? Do we have a manufacturing base? Do we have our voting rolls flooded with people that are here illegally.
HANNITY: All right, but here’s a question.
MORRIS: Those are the questions and that can only be stopped by mobilizing over the next three or four weeks. That’s why I want people to go to DickMorris.com and give us money to ran ads to defeat this thing.
HANNITY: All right. But you got — you look at what’s happening in Virginia. You’ve got McDonald, a Republican, who’s going to win in Virginia. You’ve got Christy the Republican who has a very good shot of winning in the state of New Jersey.
So the question is, are the blue dog Democrats going to walk off the plank and sacrifice their profession, their careers because of political party pressure by Pelosi and Reid and Obama? Are they going to do that?
MORRIS: Well, at this moment, yes, they are. At this moment, Obama is higher in popularity, his job approval is over 50, the Nobel Prize is going to give him four or five points, I would imagine, and there’s a sense that Obama is kind of getting it together after a terrible summer.
But if we can change that dynamic through shows like this and through publicity and through focusing on it and through breaking through this clutter the administration is putting out, we can create an environment in which the blue dogs do not give him the votes that he needs.
HANNITY: All right. They’re going to vote on this tomorrow. There’s nothing written as of yet, they’re not going to give the American people…
MORRIS: Tomorrow in the committee.
HANNITY: In the committee.
MORRIS: That’s the start of the fight, not the end of the fight.
HANNITY: Well, it’d be nice if…
MORRIS: We’ve got a lot more ammo and a lot more weeks.
HANNITY: How can anybody vote for something they can’t read? It’s mind-numbing. But we’ve got to run. Dick, good to see you. Appreciate it.
MORRIS: Thank you.
— Watch “Hannity” weeknights at 9 p.m. ET!
Content and Programming Copyright 2009 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC, which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user’s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, LLC’S and CQ Transcriptions, LLC’s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
Leave a Reply