Newt Gingrich on Wall Street's Wild Week

This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," October 10, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight: analysis of the economy and the election. Joining us now from Washington, Newt Gingrich, the author of the book, "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less."

Did you lose a lot of money this week?

NEWT GINGRICH, AUTHOR, "DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW, PAY LESS": Oh, I'm sure I did. I've been seeing my savings shrink every day for about a month. And you know, I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy. I'm in the market for the long run. I hope that it comes back in time for me to use it in my lifetime, but it is sobering. And frankly, it shakes you some.

My brother e-mailed me this morning and asked me advice. And I gave him probably bad advice, but I told him if he needs the money in the next five years, get out now. If he can afford to wait, I suspect over the next 10 years it will more than recover. But in the short run, it's very sobering to watch this kind of a meltdown and be part of it.

O'REILLY: And you know why I'm so angry about it, because the people buy into the system is legitimate, and that, you know, you invest your money for five, six, seven years, and you do what they tell you to do, you put a little savings aside for 401(k)s, this, that, and the other thing, and then you see it go up for five or six years. And then in two weeks, two weeks, ten days, gone. A lot of it. And people are saying, hold it, that's not the system that I believe in. That's not the country that I live in. That's Las Vegas. And that's why the folks are mad. And they want these people punished who allowed this to happen. And I haven't seen either Obama or McCain show any passion on this at all. Have you?

GINGRICH: No. In fact, I think the last debate was very disappointing because you have a moment when the American people both want to hear anger, but they also want to hear straight talk and real answers and not just baloney. And these two guys behaved like politicians. They didn't behave like leaders. Neither one of them.

And I think that in Obama's case, he has a very hard time being clear about this because his own record, his own advisers, people like Franklin Raines of Fannie Mae, his own leaders in the House and Senate, as McCain just pointed out, like Chris Dodd who got a special deal, favored interest loan from Countrywide just before they went broke, you know, I think it's hard for Obama.

But in McCain's case, I frankly am puzzled because he has every opportunity to stand up and just tell the country the truth about the fact that predatory politicians have been much more damaging than Wall Street, and that the politics of this really stink, and you really deserve…

O'REILLY: Well, you have to lay it out. And laying it out is interesting. It's basically about people like Congressman Barney Frank, because he's the best example. And you saw him here I'm sure in that little dustup I had with him.

Frank wanted all of the government lending agencies and indeed the private banks to lend money to poor people, because Frank's philosophy is poor people get hosed in America and we have to be proactive in getting them entitlements, which include mortgages.

So Frank's whole philosophy and whole career has been built on that, and he's not alone. But he's the head of the House Finance Committee, so that's where the pressure was, social engineering. ACORN, that's what they do. And Obama is tied into that whole social engineering philosophy, if you will, all right?

Now, it's not a bad philosophy. It's humane, it's compassionate, but it's irresponsible in a capitalistic system because the system can't afford it. But McCain would have to lay that out in a way that every American could understand, and I'm not sure he has the communicative skills to do it.

GINGRICH: Let me just say, first of all, I just disagree with you. It's a bad philosophy. It's bad to tell people they can have something for nothing. It's bad to get people in a mortgage they can't pay for. It's bad to put them in a house they're going to lose. It's bad to set the entire housing system up to fail. It is bad to have ACORN go out, as they did in Chicago, where Obama was one of their trainers, and have them go out to bankers' homes and humiliate bankers in their neighborhoods and pressure them into making bad loans. It is bad to take your tax money and my tax money, as the Congress did this summer, the Democrats did this summer, and give it to ACORN. $500 million a year of your tax money and my tax money is going to go to left-wing organizing groups.

These things are bad. They're not just value neutral. And I think they've been bad for America. And I am very — I'm very saddened that John McCain hasn't had the nerve and the coherence to go nose to nose with Obama and force Obama to give back the money that he's taken from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, forced him to fire Franklin Raines, who after all got $90 million in six years while totally mismanaging Fannie Mae.

O'REILLY: OK. Now you're talking about the donations that Fannie Mae gave Barack Obama, about $500,000. The only one who got more was Hillary Clinton.

GINGRICH: Right.

O'REILLY: McCain got $150,000 of that. And you're also talking about a guy though that Barack Obama says does not work for him, Franklin Raines. And he said it a hundred times. Franklin Raines doesn't work for me. So I don't know whether he does or not, but he's on record, but I just want to clear one thing up.

GINGRICH: He was listed as his housing adviser.

O'REILLY: OK, whatever. He says he doesn't work for him. I don't know.

You and I don't disagree that all the things you said are bad for this country, giving people stuff they can't afford, you know, having a system geared toward irresponsibility on the fiscal level. My point was it's humane to try to help people, but you really want to help them. You just don't want to give them something. I just want to clear that up because you're putting me on the side of the givers, and I'm not. I'm going to get them. I'm the getter here, Mr. Speaker.

GINGRICH: All right.

O'REILLY: All right, and we appreciate you coming on.

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