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| Transcript of Bill O'Reilly's Interview with the former Speaker |
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Fox News: The O’Reilly Factor
March 17, 2008
Now for the top story tonight. Should the Republicans seize the moment and gin up Wright controversy? Joining us from Washington, FOX News analyst Newt Gingrich, author of the big bestseller "Real Change."
OK, so Senator McCain is in Iraq. And the Republicans have been fairly quiet on this. Hillary Clinton certainly not saying anything. And I guess the strategy on both the Republican party and the Clinton campaign is just to see how badly this damages Obama without getting in. Correct?
NEWT GINGRICH, FMR. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, I think there's a different set of problems. I think Senator Clinton can't very aggressively go after left wing anti-Americanism, because there are too many people in her own party who share it. I mean, if you look at what Senator Durbin of Illinois said a year ago, comparing the United States to Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, and Pol Pots Cambodia. Don't underestimate how far -- how many people there are in the Democratic party's left wing, who secretly share and agree with Reverend Wright, but wouldn't say it as vividly and as enthusiastically but they say it.
And they say it and they say it regularly. Susan Sarandon said the United States has raped every part of the globe. I mean, these kind of comments are not, you know, uncommon on the hard-line anti-American hard left that has probably 10 or 15 percent of this country.
So I think in that sense, Reverend Wright is a problem for the entire Democratic party. But he's a bigger problem for Senator Obama because he raises, I think, two fundamental questions that go at the heart of who Senator Obama is.
The first is a question of judgment. How could you have heard these kind of things, read these kind of things, seen these kind of things over a 20-year period and not noticed them until they made FOX News? And I think that there's a disingenuousness about Senator Obama's answers.
But the second, I think, goes to the very core of his entire candidacy. I don't think he's being candid. I think that he is giving political answers. The fact is he had to have known a great deal of this. And he actually thought it was fine or irrelevant or unremarkable.
O'REILLY: But wait, let me stop you. Why would you say he thought it was fine? Why couldn't a man have a personal relationship? Say Wright and we don't know Wright and here's something interesting. We're trying to track him. We think he's in Africa. They got him out of the country. That -- you know, that's where we think he is. But say Wright is a very nice guy, an emotionally supportive guy. And this persona that he puts out in his church is nothing like he is in private. Say that's a fact. I don't know if it is, but could be.
GINGRICH: (INAUDIBLE).
O'REILLY: And Obama is going to say, listen, this guy has helped me. And he's brought me closer to Jesus. And he's a real good guy. It's just that this part of him, and we all know people like that, there's a part of them they don't like is wrong. So, you know, could he -- could that be a rational explanation?
GINGRICH: Look, I think if you're talking about a private friendship between two people, one of whom happens to have fairly nutty ideas, that's fine. But Reverend Wright wasn't a private person. Reverend Wright was in the pulpit regularly. He went with Louis Farrakhan to visit Gadhafi in Libya publicly, reported on it, wrote about it. They have a newsletter that they print at their church that's pretty explicit.
So you're talking about what is the weekly pattern of language? And I think to say that this is a caricature of him, I mean, we're not taking one sermon one time for three minutes. If you look at the various and sundry quotes and the various things people are watching on television, this is a pretty consistent, authentic left wing hate America diatribe that is factually false and very vicious. To suggest that the United States government invented AIDS to kill black and other people of color, which is explicit quote to suggest that the United States is engaged in terrorism in South Africa when in fact it was American policy which ended apartheid and American policy which helped the transition to the new government in South America. When you go through the statements, they're not just bad. They're not just divisive. They are factually false and they are viciously anti-American.
O'REILLY: OK.
GINGRICH: And I think that makes a difference.
O'REILLY: Now does -- should the Republican party seize on this at any time during this campaign and make it even more of an issue? The polls show 66 percent of Americans have heard about this story. 34 percent don't know anything about it. So if you were advising John McCain, would you say hey, here's something you can drive home?
GINGRICH: Look, I think it's fair for the Republican party to say that if somebody tells you they have the judgment to be commander and chief, and they tell you the judgment to be president, and for 20 years they haven't noticed this level of anti-Americanism in their own church, you have to ask what kind of judgment they have. And I think in that sense, this is a legitimate campaign question about Senator Obama's judgment.
O'REILLY: All right. Newt Gingrich, the book is "Real Change." Big bestseller. And we appreciate it, Mr. Speaker. |
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