This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” May 22, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Star of the long-running TV sitcom “M*A*S*H” Mike Farrell has kept himself busy since that show went off the air. He is the author of the brand-new “Of Mule and Man,” which chronicles the cross-country journey he took promoting his book.
And Mike drove from New York to California and back again, meeting people and carrying the banner for a number of left-wing, radical, liberal, extremist views.
(LAUGHTER)
And Mike is back here with us. How are you?
MIKE FARRELL, AUTHOR: OK, Sean.
HANNITY: The one thing we were talking about in the book, you write about me and Rush and you driving across country.
• Video: Watch Sean’s interview
FARRELL: The poor people in the middle of the country, all they can hear is you and Rush, and talk about the fact that there is no such thing as global warming —
HANNITY: There’s not. We know that.
(LAUGHTER)
FARRELL: And that you’re a great American if you agree you’re your political philosophy.
HANNITY: That’s not true I tell liberal all the time. I think you’re a great American.
FARRELL: Thank you very much.
HANNITY: Look, I have interviewed you enough over the years. I know you’re the real deal. You believe — your wrong, but you’re sincerely wrong.
FARRELL: Thank you very much.
HANNITY: Let me tell you one issue, before we get into maybe health care and some other issues we’ll debate, and issue where I am really radically changing my mind is on the death penalty.
FARRELL: God bless you.
HANNITY: And I’ll tell you what it is. It’s the Innocence Project, Barry Scheck. And there have been more people that have been found innocent because of new science and new technology.
I’m thinking, I don’t want one single innocent person ever put to death in this country.
FARRELL: And we know there are a number of them that have been put to death.
HANNITY: We do know that. That’s right. And that breaks my heart.
FARRELL: It’s a tragedy. It’s truly a tragedy. And it’s what has propelled so many countries in the world to give it up. They just determined it dehumanizes, demeans us, and we don’t need it.
And I appreciate your saying that, because it’s people like you who are opinion makers that are going to make a difference in terms of asking people to simply take another look.
HANNITY: Look, if we’ve got you on video beating up and killing an innocent person, and there is no doubt, it’s incontrovertible evidence, I’m still for the death penalty.
FARRELL: I hear you.
HANNITY: Is that fair?
FARRELL: It’s certainly fair. But if you are going to have the system that allows that to happen, then there are going to people that will fill it with all these innocent people and the other that certainly don’t belong there.
HANNITY: I think you could just raise the standard, that it’s got to be, incontrovertible, overwhelming, 1000 percent evidence, no chance. In other words, it can’t be an eyewitness, it can’t be DNA. It’s got to be video. That’s almost like my standard.
FARRELL: OK, I’ll accept that.
HANNITY: That’s fair enough? So I won you over?
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: We have a compromise.
Look, is there anything — you like Barack Obama.
FARRELL: I do.
HANNITY: You were not a fan of George W. Bush. I don’t want to go down the old road. Does anything — does $10 trillion in debt bother you? We just got newly revised number — $1.8 deficit that Obama’s giving us, four times what we had in 2008. In 10 years he’s going to give the country $10 trillion in deficits.
FARRELL: Those are projections…
HANNITY: CBO projections.
FARRELL: CBO projections — based on the current expenditures.
What you have to recognize is that Mr. Obama inherited a deficit that he is trying to cure, and the cure requires this stimulus package that he admits is going to put us into further deficit for two years, after which there will be cost cutting and the kind of changes necessary once the economy turns around. That’s what you have to do.
HANNITY: I want the economy to turn around. I don’t want to lose any more money in the stock market or my 401k. I want people to be able to retire in confidence. I want people who did the right thing and saved for their kid’s college tuition, I want that money to be there for them.
Here’s the problem. The numbers that he’s spending — if you didn’t like the Bush deficits, he’s quadrupled in a year. His debt — the CBO, which is the gold standard, nobody disagrees with that, Mike, the gold standard, they project that we’re going to be paying a minimum $806 billion on the debt. We’re stealing from our kids and grandkids.
FARRELL: That’s if we continue to spend and get income at the same rate we are doing now. But the projections are very different after two years.
And you have to understand that the difference between the way the Bush administration got us into this debt and what Obama is doing is very —
HANNITY: You are going to have to get over this. Bush isn’t president anymore.
(CROSSTALK)
FARRELL: No, I understand he’s not. But what he did was cut taxes and get us into what I believe was an illegal war, and the debt that has been created by — being created by Obama is a stimulus package that’s intended to reverse the direction the economy was going from the former president.
HANNITY: But Bush also inherited a recession. Bush had the negative impact of the — on the economy of 9/11. You may not agree with him, but he did keep us safe for the better part of his presidency.
And I don’t think — for an example. Let me give you an example. Do you have any problem with him, meaning Barack Obama taking a book from Daniel Ortega?
For example, he wants to talk to Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust. Ahmadinejad has talked repeatedly about annihilating Israel, wiping it off the map.
What would you say to Ahmadinejad if you’re sitting at the table with this madman, this Holocaust denying, evil madman? What do you say to the guy?
FARRELL: Let me go back just a minute. He didn’t take a book from Daniel Ortega. He took it from Chavez —
HANNITY: Hugo Chavez. Sorry. He listed to Ortega’s anti-American diatribe for 50 minutes. Sorry. I messed up my dictators.
FARRELL: And I think the answer is not yet out there about Hugo Chavez. But all he did was admit, recognize him, and —
HANNITY: Let me ask the question this way. Would you sit through 50 minutes of a two-bit murdering thug dictator like Ortega trashing your country like our president did, or would you walk out? I would walk out.
FARRELL: Well, I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what the circumstances were. Ortega was elected, whether you like it or not, and I don’t.
HANNITY: He’s a murdering dictator.
FARRELL: You’re going back to what, his Sandinista days?
HANNITY: Still a murdering dictator.
FARRELL: I’m not so sure.
HANNITY: The Castros are murdering dictators.
FARRELL: I don’t want to defend Ortega because I don’t like him and I was down there campaigning against him. But the fact is he’s not a dictator, he was elected.
HANNITY: Well, some would argue with the results. The same with Hugo Chavez. He wins with 98 percent.
But let’s go back to Ahmadinejad for just a second.
FARRELL: I’m not a fan of Ahmadinejad. And I don’t think — I haven’t heard President Obama says he wants to talk to Ahmadinejad. He wants to talk to Iran.
HANNITY: Without preconditions.
FARRELL: Yes, without preconditions.
HANNITY: OK, so he’s the president of Iran. What do you say to a country that denies the Holocaust and that repeatedly through its leaders threatens to annihilate an innocent country and an ally of ours?
FARRELL: If you read, Sean, you know that the denial of the Holocaust is one of those none-sensical things that these jerks do. And I think Ahmadinejad is clearly a jerk.
HANNITY: Mike, I know your heart’s in the right place. I appreciate your being here. Thanks very much.
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