This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” March 20, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to a special “Time to Fire Tim Geithner” edition of “Hannity.” Now the story tonight, the lies keep coming. They’re coming from Tim Geithner. They’re coming from the president and they’re coming from Chris Dodd and while they’re busy feigning outrage and pretending to take responsibility, we have all the proof and that is our headline on this day 60 of the Obama presidency: Proof of Lies. Now remember all the madness, all the outrage that Democrats hurled that AIG CEO Liddy over the bonus scandal? If you don’t remember, here’s a reminder.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This old school teacher is going to give you a little bit of advice. Pay the $165 million back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you have done here is basically, you’ve reserved the bonus pool for the employees and not only have you done that in this agreement, but you basically protected yourself, immunized yourself from the stupidest decisions made by AIG.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now don’t be fooled by the fake demonstrations of anger. These people passed the stimulus bill. They green-lighted the money for AIG and it is all in the bill that they never read. Now there are warning signs. Congressman John Boehner, he’s one that saw it coming.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): Eleven hundred pages and not one member of this body has read, not one. What happened to the promise that we’re going to let the American people see what is in the bill for 48 hours? But no, we don’t have time to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: So now everyone is crying foul, claiming they had no idea these ridiculous bonuses were OK’d. Well, wrong again. Tim Geithner, well he knew on March 10 only after he spent a couple of days playing pretty stupid.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM GEITHNER, TREASURY SECRETARY: This comes with appropriately tough conditions on compensation to senior executives. It’s going to — incent what we need to happen and make sure that taxpayer dollars are not going to benefit those senior executives in ways that don’t make sense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, not so fast, Mr. Tax Chief. On March 3, that’s a week before, in an open hearing before the House Budget Committee, he was asked about these very bonuses by New York Congressman Joseph Crowley. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOSEPH CROWLEY (D-NY): Just last month AIG paid 343 employees of AIG FP, their financial products division and created the financial hole that AIG is in. And in turn, a multi-billion dollar bill for American taxpayers of $56 million in bonuses and are slated to pay an additional $162 million in bonuses to 393 participants in the coming weeks. The company claims to be on the brink of disaster and it’s handing out bonuses.
GEITHNER: It is very important that we make sure that we’re providing exceptional assistance to these firms, that that assistance is going again to achieve the objectives of the programs, not to rearward the kind of executives that got us in this mess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And if we really want to dig further back, we can go all the way back to November, 2008, when Geithner, then the head of the New York Federal Reserve was negotiating the specifics of the restructuring of the AIG bailout and according to documents that were received by the FOX Business Network, multiple e-mails went back and forth between AIG attorneys and the Federal Reserve about the handling of executive bonuses and AIG executives, well, they maintain that they also informed the New York Fed. So are we supposed to believe Geithner, the head of the New York Federal Reserve would not have been privy to any of this information, which by the way was circulating between the Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the New York Fed? Well the American people are not that stupid.
Now enter Senator Chris Dodd who is doing plenty of lying himself. He created the loophole that allowed executives to receive their $1 million bonuses. Do you know why? It was called the Dodd amendment. But here’s what he said this past Tuesday, March 17 when blame was getting thrown his way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD (D-CT): I can’t point a finger at someone who’s responsible for altering the language that put those dates in. I can tell you this much, when my language left the Senate, it did not include it. When it came back it did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: But then miraculously Mr. Dodd, well he had an epiphany and he said this this Wednesday the very next day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DODD: As many know, the administration was among others, was not happy with the language. They wanted some modifications to it. They came to us, our staff and asked for changes and the changes at the time did not seem that obnoxious or onerous, so we agreed to some modification at the time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: So here we are now March 20, with the Treasury secretary, well he’s caught up in blatant lies. Chris Dodd, he’s trying to save face as opposed to your money and where is your president?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The immediate bonuses that went to AIG are a problem but the larger problem is we’ve got to get back to an attitude where people know enough is enough and people have a sense of responsibility and they understand that their actions are going to have an impact on everybody. And if we can get back to those values that built America, then I think we’re going to be OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: All right, the lies stop here, Mr. President, Secretary Geithner, Senator Dodd. You know what? We’re onto this and the American people are also on to you and it is time for heads to roll. Do you know why? Because the American people that are saving for their retirement and their kids’ college education, they deserve better. And here with reaction is former New York City mayor and former presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani. You’re a former prosecutor. Look, Dodd and Geithner lied and the White House either has been lying or is incompetent. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.
• Video: Watch Sean’s interview
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We do, the worst part of it is all this does is continue to create a lack of confidence in the whole system going forward. You see the repercussions of it in the stock market the last two days. There’s a sense that, either nobody is in charge, or if they are in charge, they don’t know what the right hand is doing, what the left hand is doing. To pass a bill of this magnitude, of this sweeping magnitude and tremendous impact on the American economy, American budget, without reading it — is absurd.
HANNITY: And then to be showing, feigning this outrage. We’re so outraged when they didn’t read the bill. The American people deserve better when they’re losing their retirement.
GIULIANI: As you point out, they didn’t read the bill and there are probably a lot of other things in there that are equally obnoxious. This is a particular thing they did focus on. The explanation they didn’t know about it is also — this is not just a question of negligence. There is the question if, this was presented to them. They did agree to it. They appeared to have agreed to it in a compromise that was worked out and now all of a sudden when the thing becomes a big disaster they’re all trying to run for cover and run away from it. That’s not leadership, which is what America needs right now. It is just the opposite of leadership.
HANNITY: So what do we do with Geithner? Geithner is saying he was shocked. He learned about it. He gave a very specific date. The White House gave a timeline earlier the week. Now we have tape that he knew a week earlier and The New York Times reported and these e-mails point out by the FOX Business Network that they knew about this. He was the architect of this back in November. So if he knew about it and now he’s feigning outrage and saying he didn’t know about it, that’s a lie. He has to go, doesn’t he?
GIULIANI: I think he will. I think it’s a matter of time and how they finesse it and how they explain it and how they move on. Because whatever else you think of the Obama administration, they want to be successful and you have got to have at any time a secretary of the Treasury who has great credibility. At a time like this you can’t have a secretary of the Treasury that is someone people don’t have confidence in.
HANNITY: What are we to think of Barack Obama at this particular point and I know he gets great reaction when he goes on Jay Leno and he seeks adulation. I don’t know when the guy ever works because he’s always out doing a town hall meeting. But these botched —
GIULIANI: … using a private airplane.
HANNITY: The cost I think per hour is $100,000 an hour.
GIULIANI: The biggest private airplane in the world.
HANNITY: But botched appointments. He’s got broken promises, earmarks, lobbyists, the biggest spending proposal in the history of the world. And he’s got all of this, I —
GIULIANI: And the Chinese leadership lecturing him on responsible economics, the Chinese communist leadership.
HANNITY: I want to cry. You’re making me laugh. I want to cry.
GIULIANI: Don’t spend so much money. (INAUDIBLE) big investment in your country, please don’t act so irresponsibly, the Chinese communists.
HANNITY: And Hillary begging them to please buy our bonds. It is embarrassing.
GIULIANI: The Chinese say we got problems with this.
HANNITY: This is important we get this in before we lose you here. So where do we go from here? Is this an indication if they run health care, education, if they come up with this cap and trade radical environmental agenda. I’m afraid for the country now.
GIULIANI: I don’t get to run their agenda that any means. If would seem to me that if that’s what they have in mind, they’re actually losing credibility and they’re going to have a very hard time with those programs, which maybe is the good news for this because maybe there will be a mid-course direction, but this is going too far.
HANNITY: The American people will probably force it. What do you think about the Fed? Are we headed for inflation with $1.2 trillion now being pumped into the system?
GIULIANI: Of course we’re headed for inflation. Just think about it this way. We’re spending $1.2 trillion, more than that really and there are only two ways to recoup that as the economy straightens out: high taxes. They’re going to do that, but that gets you maybe 20, 25 percent, even if you get 90 percent, you’ve got to print money. The Federal government can deal with spending any amount of money. The problem is they deal with it by printing money. As you print money, you reduce the value of present money. So you’re looking at, unless there’s some dramatic change, inevitably, 10, 15 percent inflation per year at some point when this all starts to kick in unless we reverse it.
HANNITY: Do you have a good idea of who would be a good replacement? You know a lot of good —
GIULIANI: If I were to mention any replacement, they would be done completely. The problem is that we, you got to have some people in any administration, Republican or Dem who have actually been in business, who have actually run a business, made money, had to deal with payrolls, had to deal with paying taxes for other people, held that responsibility. And have also figured out what works and what doesn’t work in our economy.
HANNITY: It would be nice if the president had executive experience.
GIULIANI: I don’t see anybody around right now that has that practical experience and maybe that’s the kind of person I’d look for.
HANNITY: I got to thank you. You made me laugh on a day when I wanted to cry. Mr. Mayor, good to see you, thank you, appreciate it.
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