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 The O'Reilly Factor

O'REILLY: "Impact" segment tonight, most analysts believe Barack Obama will win the Democratic nomination unless there's a huge upset tomorrow night in North Carolina.
 
However, one dissenter is Newt Gingrich.
 
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
 
BARBARA WALTERS: We hear that Hillary Clinton can't get the delegates, can't win.
 
NEWT GINGRICH: That's false.
 
WALTERS: OK, that's what I want to know. Candidate?
 
GINGRICH: As of today?
 
WALTERS: Yes.
 
GINGRICH: I think Senator Clinton.
 
(END VIDEO CLIP)
 
O'REILLY: Wow! The speaker joins us now from Washington, where he's celebrating the success of two bestsellers, the non-fiction book "Real Change" and his brand new novel "Days of Infamy" about Pearl Harbor.
 
You know, your head must be blowing off. You got Jon Stewart, "The View." Did you get a word in edgewise with "The View" by the way, or was that...
 
NEWT GINGRICH, FMR. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well...
 
O'REILLY: I think that was a total of -- that's all you said.
 
GINGRICH: Listen, you know how aggressively you and I can go at it. Imagine you had all five of these women, all of them busy without me and then I show up and the conversation just gets even more hectic.
 
O'REILLY: Yes, I don't have to imagine. I've been on that program a half dozen times. And...
 
GINGRICH: Well, you know then. It can get pretty wild.
 
O'REILLY: Yes. My eyeball winds up in the back of my head here. But I disagree with you. I think Barack Obama is going to get the nomination. And I expect him to win in North Carolina. I think that African-American voters are going to turn out big for him there.
 
I expect Hillary Clinton to win in Indiana largely because of the interview she did with me. Whether that's true or not, I don't care. That's what I'm going to say. And then I was surprised to see that you think, you know, Hillary's still going to do it.
 
GINGRICH: Look, one of the things you and I disagree about, I think, is that I believe in the end they have to seat Florida and Michigan. They've got to find some way to accommodate the fourth...
 
O'REILLY: No, they're not going to do it. Not going to happen.
 
GINGRICH: Well, see, that's where we start off, Bill. I don't see how they go to Denver and reject the fourth and 8th largest states in the United States.
 
O'REILLY: They have to have a revote. And because, you know, Barack Obama-- and he can make, I think, a very good case. Look, I didn't put a lot of resources in there. That was the deal we made and you can't go back on it now.
 
GINGRICH: Right. Then I think the day after Senator Clinton wins in Puerto Rico, which is the last scheduled primary, the next big pressure point will be to revote those two states. Michigan actually has a state primary on August 5th. So it would not be very hard at no extra cost to the taxpayer to add the presidential ballot on August 5th for Michigan. Florida actually was -- their names were both on the ballot. But I think that -- I just don't see how you can write off Florida and Michigan.
 
O'REILLY: Are you going to predict that they'll do that? Florida and Michigan?
 
GINGRICH: I'm going to predict that they're going to find a way to seat the two. If that means a revote, it's going to be a revote. And I think when you add in the size of Hillary's margin in Florida, forget Michigan, when you just did in Florida where both of them were on the ticket, the fact is that she has a majority of the vote between the two of them. He does not.
 
O'REILLY: OK, but you can't do that because he didn't campaign down there. But anyway...
 
GINGRICH: She didn't either.
 
O'REILLY: ...if they do revote -- yes, but I think Obama and his campaign would absolutely throw everything they could into preventing that. And I can't imagine that happening.
 
GINGRICH: But what's their battle cry? Florida and Michigan don't count?
 
O'REILLY: Well, their battle cry is the rules were the rules. We obeyed the rules. Now you're trying to take it away from us and the Democratic machine. See, look, this is going to come down to the machine versus the people. These are already setting that up.
 
GINGRICH: So let's write off 15 million people because a bunch of politicians didn't follow the rules.
 
O'REILLY: Look, I'm not -- I don't have a dog in the hunt. I mean, all I'm talking about is...
 
GINGRICH: No, but -- we're starting with -- look, you and I are starting with two differences, I think, of opinion. The first is I believe that they are going to find a way to get Michigan and Florida back into play. And I think that gives her a big leg up.
 
The second is, I think the more often Senator Obama makes mistakes, the more Senator Clinton is able to say to the super delegates you really want to spend October with this guy going down the tubes and making sure John McCain's president? And I do think that that has had some impact.
 
O'REILLY: OK. All right, well, if they do vote in Michigan and Florida again, then the whole thing gets thrown into -- you know, but as it stands now, she can't overtake him in popular or elected delegates.
 
GINGRICH: No, you're right.
 
O'REILLY: And then the pressure to, you know, the super delegate thing ain't going to happen because Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Sharpton told me they'll be out there with 10,000 people screaming and yelling. It'll be 1968 all over again. And that's not going to happen either. OK. You watched the interview with Hillary Clinton, Senator Clinton and myself.
 
GINGRICH: I did.
 
O'REILLY: And did anything jump out at you during that?
 
GINGRICH: Oh, this may shock you. The biggest surprise to me was how civil the conversation was on both sides. It seemed to me that unlike a lot of these shows where it's all -- you know, it's people beating on each other, you and she were actually having a genuine conversation between two adults, both of whom knew a great deal about the issues. And you stayed on the issues, which I thought was a remarkable comparison to some of the shows we've seen this year.
 
O'REILLY: OK. But you know, if I had gone and attacked her, that would have damaged my franchise, the FOX News Channel. It would have played into every far left piece of propaganda you see that we're not fair, we're not balanced, and this and that. I can't get that across to the Clinton haters who...
 
GINGRICH: Look...
 
O'REILLY: ...you know, I think more flack on the right. I took some flack on the left, but I took for more flack on the far right for that interview.
 
GINGRICH: The thing I liked about the interview, though, was exactly what you just said. It was exactly what everybody on the left thought was impossible to have on FOX News. And therefore, there was a lot of information that came out. You went through a lot of different topics in a very orderly way.
 
O'REILLY: Right.
 
GINGRICH: I think you probably can learn as much about Senator Clinton's views on key issues by the tape of those two nights as you can by any other thing that she's done this year. I'll bet you there weren't 100 people in the Democratic party who thought it was possible to have that kind of an interview with you.
 
O'REILLY: I don't know why, because you know, we try to illuminate. We're tough, but as long -- and we got John McCain on Thursday. I mean, you know, going to be the same thing.
 
GINGRICH: Your legend is larger than the reality.
 
O'REILLY: Right.
 
GINGRICH: And the legend is how tough you are.
 
O'REILLY: Well, that's the propaganda, you know with the business spin on it. All right. Buy Mr. Speaker's book. "Day of Infamy" is the novel. "Real Change", the non-fiction. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

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