This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," January 5, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: She's no stranger to controversy, and now Ann Coulter is calling out the left for pretending to be the victims when she says they are the victimizers.
Joining us now, the author of the brand-new book, just out today, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America," Ann Coulter, right here.
All right. I've got to admit: this is — this book not only makes great points on the back. It says about the press — what you write in the book — "The media really wanted to screw Obama, but only in the sense that they wanted to have sex with him."
• Video: Watch part 1 of Sean & Alan's interview I Part 2
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR, "GUILTY": Accurate.
HANNITY: You were holding back.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Is that projection?
COULTER: Accurate, I think.
HANNITY: Well, it is an Obama mania media. I mean, it's...
COULTER: Yes.
HANNITY: Michael Beschloss was on with "Imus in the Morning." That's because "he has the highest I.Q. of any president."
So Imus goes, "Well, what is it?"
"He's the smartest guy to ever become president."
"Well, what's his I.Q.?" "I don't know."
And this is — all right. Let me ask you this. First of all, the headline on Drudge. What's going on? You were scheduled for how many weeks to be on "The Today Show" tomorrow morning?
COULTER: For a long time, but the whole thing was a charade and a setup. It's clear now.
HANNITY: They canceled you.
COULTER: Yes, well, I was never listed in the promo. People are wondering about that. I was never on their Web page, though their no-name guests were all listed. The interviewer forget we had a pre-interview and said he didn't know who the interviewer was going to be.
So the whole thing was a setup from the beginning. It was to book me so that I wouldn't go on, which I will be on, CBS News, "The Early Show." I love you, Harry Smith. But it's going to be hard to have an interview with an MSN reporter and, you know, letting — having an argument. I'm going to love him so much for having me on. "I agree, Harry. I was wrong."
HANNITY: I can't wait to see it.
All right. But you've had a few run-ins with Matt Lauer over the years. I mean, you've had...
COULTER: I don't know why NBC — well, there was the Katie Couric thing. She's not at NBC.
HANNITY: What was the Katie Couric thing?
COULTER: The affable, love of moronic (ph) TV. But she's not there. She's at CBS, and I will be on CBS tomorrow morning. No, I'm very upset about this.
HANNITY: And they're denying — they're denying that you're banned for life. So are they backing off out of pressure or were you told you're banned?
COULTER: I know the whole thing was a setup to block me from other TV shows. I know that their one conservative host, Scarborough, the head producer told the publicist, "No, I think we'll pass on this book." Just the best-selling conservative author in America.
So I knew this was a setup. I've now heard — now I've been kind of busy. The book comes out tomorrow, not today. So I guess Matt Drudge gets results. That's what we know.
And this is very upsetting. This is like being fired from Chrysler. Because NBC, I mean, they are just chugging along. I think if this book does well, I can buy NBC.
HANNITY: But now wait a minute. Chris Matthews had on the unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers. So here's a guy that blew up the Pentagon and the Capitol, but they won't let Ann Coulter on because you are too controversial? You dare to — look, I read the whole book cover to cover, and I love it, and it's thoughtful. And you're right: liberals do make themselves out to be victims when they are the victimizer all the time.
COULTER: Right, right.
HANNITY: I've never seen a presidential candidate get such favorable coverage as Barack Obama.
COULTER: Right. Right, so they can't even...
HANNITY: They can't hear — listen to different views?
COULTER: No, no.
HANNITY: But they'd interview Obama [SIC], unrepentant one.
COULTER: And one of the things I write about...
COLMES: You're just jealous because Obama gets good press. It's nice to have a president who does things right so they can get good press. Isn't it, Ann.
COULTER: Well, NBC claims in what they told Drudge that they wouldn't have me on because of the mean things I said about Obama in the book. But I'm not very mean to him. I'm mean to the press.
COLMES: I'm actually — I'm actually going to take up for NBC. Didn't they —- isn't there a war going on in the Mideast? Isn't there — sometimes you rebook guests because of wars that go on?
COULTER: And then you book Perez Hilton?
COLMES: No, no, no. With, wait.
COULTER: He got four hours, Alan.
COLMES: She spoke — he — he, rather. I'm thinking of Paris. He is booked in the fourth hour of the show.
COULTER: So was I, and that was canceled, too, Alan.
COLMES: But the fact is, sometimes they make changes because there's, like, a war going on.
COULTER: Alan, they're not going to be doing war for four hours. That's silly.
COLMES: You know, you know the show is going to rebook all the guests.
COULTER: I knew they would say, "Oh, we have to cover Gaza." You have a bunch of no-name guests on. Knock it off.
COLMES: We rebook shows all the time.
COULTER: You're interviewing me right now. Why aren't we talking about Gaza?
COLMES: I don't have much of a choice.
All right. Now, look, let's talk about your book. How about that?
COULTER: I would love to.
COLMES: Now, you talk about "Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and..."
COULTER: Yes.
COLMES: "... social outcasts."
COULTER: Yes.
COLMES: So you're putting down single mothers. "We have a term for youngsters involved in children of divorces, or as I call them, future strippers." How sensitive of you.
COULTER: Yes, it's very sensitive. Well, and it's something that needs to be said. What I'm saying is there is no better example of victimizers who are treated like victims, and single mothers. This was not an accident that the illegitimacy rate has gone up 300 percent since 1970. This was a plan by liberals. Liberals claim...
COLMES: Wait, wait. Liberals want the rates to go up?
COULTER: They hate marriage. Yes.
COLMES: Liberals hate marriage. Wait a minute. Let me just take my ring off, OK?
COULTER: Yes. Well, there are laws. There are court rulings, and marriage has been under attack for 30 years. This is a plan. I have quotes in the book from liberals in the mainstream media. Movies promoting illegitimacy.
COLMES: Ann.
COULTER: You have the Supreme Court saying...
COLMES: Ann, you said...
COULTER: ... that — that a good-for-nothing biological father can bust up an adoption. And by the way, adopted children, curiously enough, do better than non-adopted children. But they're not given up for adoption.
COLMES: If you loved marriage, you'd be married by now, wouldn't you?
COULTER: What we know is that children, no, you get married before having children is the point.
COLMES: Oh, you only get married to reproduce.
COULTER: Seventy percent of the inmates in prisons right now come from single-parent families. Seventy percent of teenage runaways. Seventy percent of teenage delinquents, 70 percent of drug abuse. All of this is a problem, not just of illegitimacy, of single motherhood. And single motherhood is...
COLMES: You're making a statement. I have a very short time.
COULTER: I'm describing what the challenge (ph) is...
COLMES: You go after single motherhood, and then you go after Barack Obama and Halle Berry and Alicia Keys and what you call "matinee idol Barack Obama"...
COULTER: Matinee idol.
COLMES: ... for dissing their fathers and having their mothers raise them.
COULTER: No, dissing their mothers who raised them while...
COLMES: Well, insulting the women who struggled to raise them.
COULTER: Right.
COLMES: When you insult single mothers by saying they're strippers and...
COULTER: I don't insult single mothers.
COLMES: ... they're — it's a recipe to create criminals. You're insulting them.
COULTER: It is a recipe — no, it is a recipe to create criminals, strippers, rapists, murderers...
COLMES: So you're insulting them.
COULTER: No, I am insulting single motherhood, which is avidly promoted by the left.
COLMES: So that's what you are accusing Barack of doing.
COULTER: No, those are different chapters and completely different points. You are conflating two things that have nothing to do with each other.
The point is, in — on the Alicia Keys and Barack Obama, it is that all of these children of a black father who abandoned them and a white mother who raised them, they all identify with the ethnicity of their black fathers to establish victimhood and status in America.
COLMES: Are you accusing them of insulting...
COULTER: Because that is how you get ahead in America, by being a victim.
COLMES: And you accuse them of insulting the women who struggled to raise them. Yet, you have insulted them by calling them strippers.
COULTER: No, I didn't call the mothers strippers.
HANNITY: Oh, my goodness.
COULTER: I said that this is a recipe for creating...
COLMES: Oh, their kids are strippers. OK.
COULTER: Yes. They will be, and that is a fact. You liberals pretend you care about facts.
COLMES: I am "you liberals."
COULTER: We have 30 years of analysis on what — on what single motherhood produces.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLMES: We now continue with Ann Coulter. Her new book, "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America," in stores tomorrow. Line up now.
All right. The — some of the things — you've got that smile on your face.
COULTER: I love arguing with you, Alan.
COLMES: You talk — thanks, so much. You call Scott McClellan, the former White House secretary — press secretary, retarded.
COULTER: Yes.
COLMES: Is that appropriate?
COULTER: Is it accurate?
COLMES: No.
COULTER: Yes, I think it is.
COLMES: That's accurate? Do you think that might be an offensive word?
COULTER: No.
COLMES: It's not?
COULTER: No, it's an accurate word. Are we going to go over this whole word?
COLMES: Based on what?
COULTER: Because I have one great fact I just wanted to get out there. From a liberal institute, from the chapter you were very upset about, on single mothers. They looked at single motherhood — and Sean is distracting me. Here I am on the other side.
COLMES: He's going to be talking to you in a moment. He'll have plenty of time.
HANNITY: Come on (ph).
COULTER: This liberal institute determines that, if you took — if you take out the factor of illegitimacy, the difference in black and crime rates disappears.
COLMES: Well, let's move on.
COULTER: Yes. Let's let Hollywood keep promoting single motherhood.
COLMES: In terms of facts, you say Obama himself compared Palin to a pig and then denied doing it.
COULTER: Yes.
COLMES: He never did that at all.
COULTER: Yes, he did. He said...
COLMES: "Lipstick on a pig" was not at all about Sarah Palin.
COULTER: Yes. Yes, it was.
COLMES: You can actually look in context to what he said. And he said, nowhere was he referring to Sarah Palin.
COULTER: I know this is what everyone was saying at the time, which is why I put it in my book. And you're going to (ph) let me answer that.
COLMES: He was talking about McCain's policy. Not Sarah Palin.
COULTER: I know that's what he said. It was nonsense.
COLMES: No, it's not.
COULTER: It would be like saying, you know, after John Edwards' illegitimate child comes out, "That's like throwing the baby out with the bath water."
This is right after the single most important speech in American history in a decade: is Sarah Palin saying of herself, the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick, pointing to herself. It's two days after that you say "lipstick on a pig." Yes.
COLMES: It wasn't two days after that.
COULTER: Yes, it was.
COLMES: It wasn't two days after that.
COULTER: It was three days. It was.
COLMES: Ann — Ann, you are conflating — you're talking two different things. You're conflating two different things.
COULTER: No, no, no, no. No, no, no. There's no question, that that's what it was about. That's what the audience thought it was about.
COLMES: You're wrong.
COULTER: That was what it was about.
COLMES: You also talked about...
COULTER: As I described. And by the way, I — one of the ways I prove that in my book, that can't be done quickly on TV, is to go through the headlines immediately after Sarah Palin said that with all of the same jokes.
COLMES: No, you've got to look at his speech, is what you've got to look at.
HANNITY: Let me go to Ann. Let me go back to this single mother — this single mother issue here, because you make a pretty profound point that isn't often made.
You know, I thought we live in a land of the free and home of the brave — brave. You have choices in life. You know, for example, if you decide to get in the back of a car, and you start making out with your boyfriend and girlfriend, and you start removing one article of clothing after another.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: This is a choice to get in the car. This is a choice to take off the clothes. This is a choice to have sex. You do it of your own volition.
COULTER: Right. And it's a choice not to give an illegitimate child up for adoption, which is, I say, surprisingly, I think to me, an interesting statistic, is that adopted children rank better on every measure of well-being.
They don't think about being adopted. Their parents don't think about them being adopted. They have less use of drugs, less run away, less criminal behavior than non-adopted children.
And adoption is discouraged while legitimacy and single mothers are elevated as if they are, you know, the personification of selfless virtue.
HANNITY: You go through this in a lot of detail in — we have been studying this for over 30 years.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: One of the conclusions, you cite a 2008 study by a Georgia State University professor, and what he concludes is — is that unwed, divorced, single mothers cost the U.S. taxpayers $112 billion a year.
But if you say — it's — somehow it's not a pejorative. It's not a negative — and by the way, I don't want mothers to have abortions. I don't want them to give up their children. But it would be nice, too, that if we had some sense of morality or understanding that, if you can't afford to bring a child into the world — where did we ever get away from the idea you've got to be responsible for your own life?
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: And if you say that, you're mean-spirited.
COULTER: Right. Where did we get away from the idea of deferred gratification and keeping your knees together before marriage? And the way we got away from it was, as described in my book...
HANNITY: You're a wordsmith.
COULTER: ... this was not an accident. This was a plan by liberals. I have Barbara Ehrenreich...
HANNITY: Why do you mean — explain what you mean about that, though.
COULTER: They hate the nuclear family. Now...
COLMES: Liberals hate the nuclear family?
HANNITY: Let her finish the point.
COULTER: Yes, would you stop interrupting? I'm trying to make a point.
COLMES: I lost my head.
COULTER: You have this — this endless attack on the nuclear family. You have it through the courts, for example, by allowing shiftless, unmarried men to come up — in and bust up these beautiful adoptions of children in the '70s. Remember the Baby Richard case?
HANNITY: Sure.
COULTER: That was the Supreme Court overturning a thousand years of law, which said if a man said wants rights to his child, he'd best be married to the mother before he — the child is birthed (ph).
HANNITY: You think...
COULTER: And if a woman wants money from the man, she'd better be married to him. Now we have laws to try to make up for one simple law: marriage.
HANNITY: I want to see if "The Today Show" has the courage to put you on the air.
COULTER: I think I'll accept and then cancel at the last minute.
COLMES: They put you on how many times already?
HANNITY: Congratulations. Ann Coulter's brand-new book, "Guilty."
COULTER: And how many best-selling books do I have?
HANNITY: One of the best you've written so far.
COULTER: Thank you.
HANNITY: Thank you for being with us.
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