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December 19, 2008

Newt Gingrich on Blagojevich, Auto Bailout

Hannity & Colmes

COLMES: Joining us with more on this story, the author of the bestselling brook, "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less," former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

Mr. Speaker, what do you think of that performance today?

NEWT GINGRICH, "DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW, PAY LESS" AUTHOR: Well, I think it's a performance. Every evidence we have is that he was breaking his oath of office, he was trying to sell a Senate seat. We don't know how many other things he's tried to sell.

He clearly should be impeached and convicted by the Illinois legislature, and they ought to get him out of office as early as possible, hopefully next week. But, but, if you're in his shoes, what are you going to say? I mean he's trying to negotiate with the U.S. attorney, and I think he's trying to indicate he's not going to go quietly or easily.

COLMES: Doesn't he have a right, though, to actually have a defense, if he's impeached, to stand trial in the House -- of the legislature in Illinois or the upper legislature? Doesn't he have an opportunity to defend himself without being -- without it being said he should be convicted?

GINGRICH: I think he should have every opportunity to defend himself. I also think that there are moments when the evidence is sufficiently great that they should find a way to suspend him from doing his duties during the period that this trial's under way.

After all, the minute he is impeached, I think there will be overwhelming belief that this is a man who abused power, broke trust with the people of Illinois, and was trying to sell offices, and apparently the tapes are quite clear about this.

So I do think that while you need to enter that stuff in evidence, nobody's alleging that these tapes are phony or that they were somehow manufactured. I think clearly you need the case -- I would say that the U.S. attorney is profoundly wrong to place the criminal trial above the impeachment.

I think the most important step is to get Governor Blagojevich out of office, and I think that means they ought to release the tapes and allow the legislature to use the tapes, and they ought to have the impeachment and trial as rapidly as possible.

COLMES: We're talking about two very different procedures here, the legal issues on whether there's a criminal case and whether or not there is cause to impeach and then convict him and we get him out of office that way.

You know we had Victoria Tensing on the show the other night saying that she's not convinced there's not enough legal reason to get rid of him. Well, we don't -- there is no proof that there was actually -- any pay for play. He may have talked about it, bloviated about it, doesn't mean it happened.

GINGRICH: No. Conspiracy to commit a bribe is a crime. Solicitation of a bribe is a crime. You don't have to have a transaction where the money is given. All you have to do is have an elected official seek the money, and from every evidence we've seen so far, the tapes are going to indicate quite clearly that he was, in fact, actively engaged in trying to get people to pay him for the U.S. Senate seat.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: And Mr. Speaker, it's fairly disingenuous, too, as we were watching today because he's even saying on the tape -- he doesn't even want to be the governor anymore, so do you think what we're really witnessing here is political posturing? He's hoping to cut a deal that as part of his punishment he leaves office?

GINGRICH: Well, generally speaking, when you have these kinds of trials, the biggest single price that an elected official pays in theory is to lose their office. So generally speaking, in every one of these corruption trials, the incumbent has a huge interest in holding on to office until they get a plea bargain of some kind.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: And I'm sure that that's what Governor Blagojevich has in mind because he's clearly -- I mean I would be very surprised if he was not convicted.

HANNITY: Well, it's like -- you know, how is it that the governor of New York, you know, gets away with soliciting prostitution? He didn't get charged. I think a lot of people say well, that probably -- may not happen to everybody, but it should. Why do we have these laws on the books.

I want to go back to this whole.

GINGRICH: Let me just say, let me just say.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: I think that was part of the deal Spitzer cut that he would resign from the governorship.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: . in return for not being prosecuted. That's exactly my case. I think Spitzer said if you agree not to prosecute, I'll step down.

HANNITY: He -- I want to go to a statement that David Axelrod made just a couple of years ago in "The Chicago Tribune" defending the idea of pay to play, and he actually used a line here. Elected representatives use their influence, et cetera including sometimes the exchange of favors, consideration for jobs being just one.

And we've had a lot of people say in the last number of days that if you're a big contributor to any political party, and you really raise a lot of money, if you want an ambassadorship, you could basically buy one.

Is that the way things work in politics?

GINGRICH: Well, it's not this way that they should work, and I think that it's pretty clear if you look at the track record of U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald who has now convicted 24.

HANNITY: Yes.

GINGRICH: . consecutive government officials in Illinois, won every single case, that he certainly intends to put people in jail if they follow that kind of (INAUDIBLE).

HANNITY: I agree, he's been relentless, and -- from what I've read about him, he won't even go to sleep until he's finished with a particular case that he's working on.

Let me ask you this next question. You took issue with the Republican National Committee and an ad that they ran, and from a political standpoint, this is not an insignificant matter.

We're talking about the selling of a Senate seat. We know that Barack Obama said he had no contact with the governor's office, but now we're learning that, in fact, his chief of staff is on tape, you know, handing Blagojevich and his chief of staff, that's Rahmbo Emanuel, a list of acceptable names or replacements.

Shouldn't -- shouldn't we know whether or not he did have contact? Doesn't that sound like contact to you?

GINGRICH: Look, look, there are -- there are two legitimate ads the Republican National Committee could have run. One would be to demand that the new senator from Illinois be elected by the people since it's quite clear there's corruption in Springfield. You have no idea whether or not the lieutenant governor ever engaged in this kind of behavior, and why should the politicians of Springfield pick a U.S. senator given what we've now learned about Governor Blagojevich?

So I do think they can ask that. The second is to demand that all of the tapes be released so we know what was said.

HANNITY: Yes. All right. Now we're going to have Bob Bennett here in analyzing whether or not there's a chance that Blagojevich may actually get off here, but we're going to have more with Speaker Gingrich on the other side of the break.

And then later, President Bush approves $17 billion in a loan for the auto industry. So can this bridge loan save the industry? Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: Now earlier today President Bush announced $17 billion in emergency loans to faltering U.S. automakers, General Motors and Chrysler. Now they're expected to use the money immediately while Ford Motor Company said they don't need the loan at this particular point.

President Bush, he defended his decision in a press conference, and that was earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Under ordinary economic circumstances I would say this is the price that failed companies must pay. And I would not favor intervening to prevent the automakers from going out of business.

But these are not ordinary circumstances. In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: And we continue now with former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich.

Mr. Speaker, I want to stand back and look at the big picture here. $700 billion bailout for banks, for financial institutions, for insurance companies. We have Barack Obama and the Democrats putting on the table nearly $1 trillion including a new welfare program they'll create as part of their stimulus package.

Now the $17 billion is a loan. I don't want to see one auto worker lose their job, neither does any American, but we need the unions to work with the auto companies, but here's my problem. With all of this news and all of this outrage over the auto CEOs and private jets, et cetera, et cetera, here's what we discovered.

The Princess Nancy Pelosi and Prince Harry Reid and every member of Congress during these tough economics, they're going to get $4,700 in a pay increase. Nobody's mad that Nancy Pelosi has her private jet. You didn't have a private jet as speaker of the House .

Why isn't there more anger at -- Washington government mismanagement than - - you know, companies?

GINGRICH: Well, I think there's a pretty bit of anger about Congress and the entire mess in Washington. I think there's hope that President-elect Obama will somehow represent a change, but I have to say that the -- the things we're seeing happen are almost unimaginable.

Here you have the U.S. Congress rejecting help for the auto companies saying that it shouldn't be passed unless there are very strong changes and having the united auto workers in particular reject those changes. Now you have the president saying he doesn't care what the Congress did, he's going to write a check for $17 billion.

Fundamentally wrong in every way. The fact is that the United Airlines, for example, went into bankruptcy, spent four years reorganizing, came out of bankruptcy, is healthier and stronger today, and would not have survived without that reorganization.

Giving these companies $17 billion without having them change their behavior simply throws away the money, buys a few extra months, and then the companies are going to continue getting weaker and weaker.

COLMES: But they do have to change their behavior, Mr. Speaker. By the way, on the private plane for Nancy Pelosi, she was advised after 9/11, as I understand it, for security reasons -- that she needed to have the private plane. That's why she has it based on what happened after 9/11.

GINGRICH: That is just -- that's baloney. That is just baloney. Denny Hastert did not get a private plane. There's no reason for anyone but the president and vice president of the United States to have that level of security.

COLMES: But she was taking advice to do this. She didn't decide to do it. She was advised that this would be the safest way for her to travel.

HANNITY: She has.

GINGRICH: Alan.

COLMES: That's what happened.

GINGRICH: Alan, if you believe that, I want to introduce you to Mr. Martyr who may have a little bit of his phony stock left because I'm sure.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: Thank you. Thank you for caring about my financial well-being. That's very kind of you, Mr. Speaker.

Look, President Bush is the one who is spending all this money. He's the one who is spending $700 billion on Wall Street. He finally, thankfully, did something for main street today. It was the Republicans in the Senate, and especially actually the House, who didn't want to help these auto companies.

The president might be, finally, did the right thing. You don't agree with that?

GINGRICH: No, look, first of all, Senator Corker of Tennessee had exactly the right amendment in the Senate. Had it been accepted, I think that the provision would have passed overwhelmingly, and what Senator Corker said was the auto companies have to commit themselves, and the United Auto Workers have to commit themselves to meet the price structure of other American auto companies.

Remember, we have a lot of American auto companies that are not in a crisis, but they're called Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, Toyota, Nissan, Honda. How come they can all build cars in the U.S. and don't need a bailout and how come Ford.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: The UAW.

COLMES: These companies, by the way, have to reform, they have to report back by March. They have to show that they've made structural changes or it all goes away. So there are strictures in place that they're going to have to live up to.

Anyway.

GINGRICH: I don't think that.

COLMES: Go Ahead.

GINGRICH: No, I was just to say, I don't think they're nearly as strong as they were in the Corker amendment, but in any event, I wish both of you a Merry Christmas.

COLMES: Thank you. You too, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.

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