This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” February 6, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Earlier, I sat down with Whoopi Goldberg to discuss a host of issues with the Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Award winner.
Take a look:
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: The last time you’re on, people said, “You guys are too friendly.”
WHOOPI GOLDBERG, ACTRESS: Yes. I know. I don’t understand it. I mean, you know, that’s one of the things that I grew up with and I’m sure you grew up with, was the idea of America was that you could disagree without having to hate each other.
HANNITY: Now we’re going to disagree.
GOLDBERG: We probably will.
HANNITY: But I’ve — but, look, I love your spirit. You have — I have always liked “The View.” I think Barbara Walters is a genius for creating the show.
GOLDBERG: Yes. Yes.
• Video: Watch part 1 of Hannity’s interview | Watch part 2
HANNITY: But look how politically influential the show has become this year. You have Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, John and Cindy McCain, Blagojevich goes on “The View” because he wants to be heard.
GOLDBERG: It’s amazing. I mean, I’m very excited about it. You know I — I’m happy to have the job because I.
HANNITY: Right.
GOLDBERG: I have people always say, what are you talking about? But, you know, when the industry also begins to let people go, you know, we’re seeing these cuts across the board everywhere, so I am — knocking on wood right now — happy to have a gig.
HANNITY: Yes, well, you have a lot of talent, certainly. You’re an actress. You did radio for a while. You, you know, have been doing this. So I don’t think you’re going to run without a gig. You have done a lot of stand up over the years.
GOLDBERG: Well, you know, I’m lucky that I have the kind of job that I can take with me, but I like having, for the first time in my life, a job that is steady, because, you know, when you make movies, you’re on a gig for a couple of months, and then you’re done. And then you’re like gypsy-esque. But I also se what’s happening, you know, and I’m glad to be working.
HANNITY: All right, let me, first all, thank you. Joy Behar has called me dangerous. Now to hear it so surreal. I’m working out, doing my daily workout, and there’s Sean Hannity is dangerous. And you stood up for me. You said, oh, he’s not dangerous. He just disagrees with you.
GOLDBERG: That’s — I mean that’s my philosophy. That’s why I can’t take it any other way. Someone — you know, when people get — there’s some things that bother me that I think are not OK with me, just for me, but, you know, I love the idea — I mean that’s why I love being with Elisabeth, because we can, we can have these great things and then she can tell me about breast feeding.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: You know? I mean you don’t get that opportunity.
HANNITY: I’m friends with Elisabeth. She never — we never got into that discussion.
GOLDBERG: Well, see?
HANNITY: But you know — but I love her. She adds a lot — she adds so much to the show.
GOLDBERG: Yes, she’s a good girl.
HANNITY: She comes on. We love having her here when she’s here.
All right, let me, let me tell you an area where we do disagree. Let’s see if we can have a discussion about this. You defend Barack Obama a lot. I watched you defend Michelle Obama. I remember, for example, one day you said when Michelle Obama said, “For the first time in my life, I am really proud of my country.” One of — and you put emphasis on the word, “really.”
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HANNITY: It was one other time she said it without saying the word “really.” She once said “America is a downright mean country” in 2008. And I was watching you in that show and I was yelling at the TV because I remember.
GOLDBERG: Right. Right.
HANNITY: And I said, Whoopi, this should concern you. That — if somebody doesn’t love or feel proud of this country or thinks it’s a mean country, why doesn’t that bother you?
GOLDBERG: Because I have had those thoughts myself, Sean.
HANNITY: Explain.
GOLDBERG: Well, when I was younger, I saw my mom treated in a way that I did not understand. You know? And that’s my mom. You know, my mom is a great woman, she’s a great woman, just like your mom is a great woman, and never in my life did I ever think we would not get to the point where we would be balanced, but I feel on occasion — you know, it’s like when I said after the election. I said I feel like I can put my bags down.
Do you know what I mean? Because when you’re a kid, and they say to you, you can be this or that, this or that, “You think, OK. I can be this,” but when you recognize that there is a disparity, and no one will explain it, because, you know, when you’re a little kid, your parent doesn’t — you mother does not want to say, “listen, you’re black and it’s going to be rough for you.” She doesn’t want to say that. She wants to say, “This is America. This is your country.”
So there are times when I haven’t been proud of America or really proud. But there have been times that I’ve been incredibly proud of the country. But because I’m coming from a different place that’s why I have felt that way.
HANNITY: Look, everyone will acknowledge the moral evil of slavery. I think we need to use that word.
GOLDBERG: Not slavery.
HANNITY: There’s human evil. Slavery, discrimination.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HANNITY: But my grandparents came here at the turn of the last century. Irish Catholic, need not apply.
GOLDBERG: Yes, right.
HANNITY: And you know what? They had no money.
GOLDBERG: But they could come here and vote the minute they got here.
HANNITY: It’s not comparison. I’m not making.
GOLDBERG: No, no, no. What I’m saying. Yes.
HANNITY: Discrimination. Slavery. Bigotry.
GOLDBERG: Absolutely.
HANNITY: Here’s, though — the human experience, though, shows us that there’s the good side of humanity and there’s the dark side of humanity. OK? And that’s probably within every human soul good and evil.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HANNITY: But the better part of America, way I look at this is that I don’t think America is a downright mean country. It’s made plenty of mistakes, but we also have been the greatest force for good that the world has ever seen. We have defeated the Nazis, Imperial Japan.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HANNITY: Fascism, totalitarianism, communism.
GOLDBERG: All of that is right.
HANNITY: And now terrorism.
GOLDBERG: All of that is right, Sean.
HANNITY: And so — but when she said “America is a downright mean country,” I was thinking, no, it’s not. It’s an imperfect country but we’re not a mean people.
GOLDBERG: We have been mean on occasion and if you have.
HANNITY: There was more goodness.
GOLDBERG: There is but when you’re looking at it from the fact that your grandparents could come to the U.S., right? And from the time they…
HANNITY: They weren’t wanted when they got here.
GOLDBERG: I understand that. We were wanted because they wanted us to work.
HANNITY: Right.
GOLDBERG: We understood that. But we couldn’t vote until 1968 in the entire country. That’s the piss off. That’s the piss off. That’s our lifetime. Now, as a kid, I don’t know, I don’t know how aware of that you were.
HANNITY: Of course I’m aware.
GOLDBERG: But I — no, no. As when you were a kid, I’m saying.
HANNITY: I was aware, of course, of my background.
GOLDBERG: I don’t know how aware.
HANNITY: I was aware.
GOLDBERG: OK. Most people don’t realize that 1968 wasn’t that long ago, so I think that, I think that she was expressing just like the reverend, you know, just like the reverend that everybody got crazy with. You know.
HANNITY: No, no. I led the way.
GOLDBERG: You didn’t.
HANNITY: I was — I thought — America’s chickens have come home to roost. No, don’t God bless America, God blank America? How could you say…
GOLDBERG: Oh you can’t say it on air. You can’t say the word.
HANNITY: You could say whatever you want. I’m…
GOLDBERG: Well, he God damn America.
HANNITY: He said God damn America.
GOLDBERG: Yes. Yes.
HANNITY: And I’m like, no, I want God to bless America.
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HANNITY: Because I think the beauty of America is this, and I would agree to finish this thought, is that, America has righted its wrongs. Corrected its injustices. You know, for its imperfect, as even our founders and framers were, they put in place a system that works. They put in place a system that ultimately we get to where we think we ought to be, and that America’s conscience and moral justice is going to, is going to, you know, rule the day.
GOLDBERG: Well, that is — that is the way that they set it up. Unfortunately, when you have human beings and ideology — you know, human beings are flawed. So they said, well that, this part, this means us, not you. You’re over there. So it’s interesting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN PART 2)
HANNITY: Now, yesterday, we brought you the first part of my sit-down with “The View’s” co-host, the moderator Whoopi Goldberg. Tonight, we have the final part of that interview. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: I have a problem with Barack Obama. I don’t think Barack Obama — and I want to say this gently. I know he’s only been president a couple of weeks.
GOLDBERG: Just say it. Just say it.
HANNITY: I don’t think he is an honest person. I know that’s a pretty harsh thing to say, but let me tell you why. I don’t believe him when he said he didn’t know that the Reverend Wright was a radical. I think he was lying to us. It was a lie.
I don’t believe him when he said had no idea about William Ayers, that he thought he was rehabilitated. The guy wrote on September 11, “I don’t regret setting the bombs.”
And I think he’s far more radical than he lets on, and I think we’re beginning to see it, for example, in the stimulus bill. Talk me off the ledge. Why am I wrong? Why should I have a different — because you support him a lot more than I do.
GOLDBERG: Well, I support him because, as I did with all — most all other presidents, you know? I don’t know how to run the country. And…
HANNITY: Actually, I think you might do a pretty good job.
GOLDBERG: No, because I piss everybody off. I would piss everybody off.
But let me say this about him talking about Reverend Wright. You know, you can be with people and not share their ideology. I have a couple of really good friends, who I don’t want to single out on this show, because it’s not right for me to do, who were very, very radical, who, you know, are now part of the fabric of — the fabric of America.
We all, if we really shake our trees, somebody is going to fall out that we perhaps are surprised at. Like Robert Byrd. You know, everybody has their background. Did we like what…
HANNITY: Let me ask a question — finish your thought.
GOLDBERG: So if you want me to say, “Listen. He should have known more about William Ayers, so if he knew more about Ayers, what would that change? That — because the man is the man, and 30 years is 30 years.
And I have to say. There are many, many things that I don’t agree with. There are many of people. I don’t agree with a lot of what Reverend Wright says, but you know, this is our America, and we get to say it.
HANNITY: The point — I’m asking a different question, though.
GOLDBERG: No, I’m…
HANNITY: My question is honesty.
GOLDBERG: I don’t know him well enough to say if he’s dishonest. You don’t believe he is. I don’t know him. I haven’t spent any time with him.
HANNITY: Well, the thing is, is you spent time with Obama. I didn’t.
GOLDBERG: No, I didn’t. He was on the show. He was on the show. That is the first and only time I’ve met Mr. Obama.
HANNITY: OK, but my point is, when he said — well, first of all, he said, “I could no longer disown Reverend Wright than I can the black community.” He disowned him, when it was political expedient.
GOLDBERG: You know — you know, I think you guys are a little bit full of — full of mess. You know, the pressure…
HANNITY: Why don’t you say that? We’ll bleep it. Go ahead.
GOLDBERG: No. Because it’s not — I don’t want to say that. I do — I don’t know. I really do think that, you know, it’s like being pressured into saying, “Did you try drugs?”
“Yes, but I didn’t inhale.”
“Did you have…”
(CROSSTALK)
GOLDBERG: “OK, did you have your foot under that toilet stall?”
“No, I didn’t even know what was going on.”
HANNITY: “I have a wide stance.” I don’t think.
GOLDBERG: You know what? I do, too. I could meet all kinds of people in the bathroom.
I mean, you know, we all have those times where you say, you know, you’ve just got to give up. If this is what it’s going to take, fine.
You know, I’m not a politician, and I know this is one of the reasons I couldn’t do it.
HANNITY: You know why I love you? But you’re making — I don’t want to make excuses. I want to see the truth. I want to…
GOLDBERG: I don’t know it yet.
HANNITY: But when he said he had been in that church 20 years — and I’m not going to go harp on this — but he had no idea he held those views, and he was shocked. And it was only after he repeated them at the National Press Club.
And here’s what I want. Maybe this is naive. Maybe I’m living in a fantasyland. Maybe I need to live in Disney.
GOLDBERG: OK.
HANNITY: Because as you — if you’re our president, tell me the truth. We lived with a president who didn’t tell us the truth.
GOLDBERG: We are. But you guys defended this cat.
HANNITY: I’m talking about Bill Clinton.
GOLDBERG: I’m talking about Mr. Bush.
HANNITY: Well, George Bush didn’t lie. He used the best intelligence available. He made the best — used the best intelligence available and he made the — I think he liberated millions of people.
GOLDBERG: I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
HANNITY: Intelligence is not a perfect science.
GOLDBERG: No. None of it is a perfect science, and that’s the problem. We — I think we look for it to be perfect, and it’s not. We look for these guys like Bush and Clinton and Nixon. They’re not perfect guys. They will take short cuts. They will step in the dog doo. And you know what? This is what it is.
HANNITY: Do you have any problem with the tax cheats that he keeps appointing to the administration? And do you have a problem…
GOLDBERG: One I have a question about. I sort of feel about Daschle, and I’m not sure about all of it. But I know that he reported a lot of stuff and forgot one. Now, what we discovered on “The View,” which…
HANNITY: Investigative reporting?
GOLDBERG: Investigative reporting. Was that you — if someone loans you their car, you’re supposed to pay taxes on it. Yes.
HANNITY: You ever loan anyone your car?
GOLDBERG: Yes.
HANNITY: Shh. I’m not telling anyone.
GOLDBERG: So you know, I called my guys and said, “Do I need to be worried about this?”
And they said, “Well, if you told us that somebody had loaned you their car, maybe not.” So, you know, there’s a lot of tax crap that I don’t understand.
HANNITY: Charlie Rangel writes tax law. Timothy Geithner. And he was told about two years, and then he didn’t pay the other two years.
GOLDBERG: Your side, my side, the bottom line is this.
HANNITY: You’re worried about any of his?
GOLDBERG: Here is what I’m worried about. I’m worried about the fact that there is no, seemingly — no one who has a really clear, like, angelic record. I want to know.
HANNITY: I’m a former altar boy.
GOLDBERG: They’ll find something.
HANNITY: Yes, that’s true. I’m not saying that. They’ve to go back way far, though.
GOLDBERG: They’d have to go to the womb.
HANNITY: Don’t…
GOLDBERG: I mean, where are the people? Have we scared them away, all the people who are maybe not as savvy in politics? Have we scared them away by saying you’ve got to live up to a higher standard.
HANNITY: Here is my last thought on this. I think that the politicians — what happened?
GOLDBERG: Oh, I just got a pain in my thigh.
HANNITY: You’ve got a pain? You all right?
GOLDBERG: Oh, my God.
HANNITY: I just want honest people in government. Here’s the problem I have. This stimulus bill, $400 million for sexually transmitted disease prevention. Don’t have sex with strangers. That will help.
My attitude is, I want honest government. Honest people, with principals and integrity. And if you’re telling me a boldface lie, then you don’t belong being my president.
GOLDBERG: Well, you know what? We have — had bald-faced liars…
HANNITY: We have.
GOLDBERG: … all along. And what I say is day 15 or 16, I’m not quite ready to toss them out with the bath water.
HANNITY: No, no, no. I’m not either.
GOLDBERG: No, no. But I do — I just want to see. I want to watch him — what do you call it when they’re — when they’re going like this? Not struggling, but I want to see them work it out. I want to see them, OK. Take this out, but I need to have this, because this is important.
HANNITY: I want to see if he grows into the job. I want to see…
GOLDBERG: They always do.
HANNITY: It will be interesting.
GOLDBERG: They always do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: The always interesting Whoopi.
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