This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 14, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: From mainstream media accounts, you might not know that a sea of Americans marched on Washington this weekend to show their anger and frustration with the government but we here at FOX News, we're keeping a close eye on this weekend's events and we go now to Griff Jenkins who was there. Griff?
GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Sean, it was a trip that took us from sea to shining sea. And while it was long it ended in Washington where I was over the weekend.
The organizers say this is just the beginning. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENKINS: 4,000 miles, 16 days, 15 states, we are in Washington, D.C. with some great Americans! What is the message — the politicians in the building behind me?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get ready to get out. Pack your bags.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not going to take it anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope everybody out sees this and gets off their couch and helps us save America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I figure my brother is fighting in Afghanistan for our freedoms and I'm going to do it right here at home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was a Obama delegate, I'm no longer Obama supporter because he's not doing the will of the people.
SAL RUSSO, TEA PARTY EXPRESS CHIEF STRATEGIST: Of course, we're going in the wrong direction and we've got to get involved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People thought that just a few people are going to come here. It was going to get dismissed, there's no big deal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it was Gibbs said that what movement? We didn't know anything was going on in Washington. Well, you know, you do now, Mr. Gibbs.
RUSSO: Get in here. It's got to go on for another year or so until November of 2010 where you can make real change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JENKINS: Now, let me make a couple of important points. Number one, the White House special adviser, David Axelrod, on "Face the Nation" saying, that it was, quote, "not indicative of the nation's mood," and Mr. Axelrod's advice was that — or message, rather, to this group was that they're wrong.
This is why I reported that it was the America that Washington forgot. They're simply not listening and I would advise all of the folks at the White House to pay attention. They want to be heard, as I reported. They're doctors, miners, farmers, these are normal people.
Now let me address something else and that is the numbers that turned out. A lot of dispute. FOX reported that tens of thousands turned out. That number was given by the D.C. Fire and Emergency Services Group. They said to a reporter off the record on background that 60,000 early on were there at Freedom Plaza.
I can tell you by my observation there was 100,000 more. There weren't a million but there was more than 100,000.
And number three, the fact that this is race-driven, that we heard earlier this was an angry mob, well, the park police confirmed for me over the weekend they were, are you ready, zero arrests.
I spoke to numerous African-Americans. I have talked to people of all walks of life. They're upset about the size of government and the direction the country is headed so that is what I observed coast to coast. You decide what you think. But that's what I got. Back to you, Sean.
HANNITY: And thanks, Griff. And joining me now to discuss all of this is the author of The New York Times"number one bestseller "Catastrophe" Dick Morris is back.
Welcome back, by the way. You were away for a while.
DICK MORRIS, "CATASTROPHE" AUTHOR: Yes.
HANNITY: All right. First of all, you look at these crowds, you look at these people, and it's like David Axelrod then goes on TV on the Sunday programs just dismisses them, just like he dismissed the town hallers and just like they attacked him all summer. Politically speaking, bad strategy?
MORRIS: Yes, of course, it' s a bad strategy. The — it resembles Nixon's strategy against the left where he kept vilifying the people that were opposing him as long-haired hippies and against the American way and lack of values.
HANNITY: Great analogy.
MORRIS: And what Obama is really doing is vilifying. But the people he's vilifying is 70-year-old ladies, you know?
HANNITY: Yes.
MORRIS: I mean it's not cool. And it's a very bad strategy. By the way, I loved what Axelrod said about me. Did you hear that? He was on FOX and he said — and they asked him what about the — Morris' contention about the scarcity of doctors and Axelrod said what med school did he go to?
So I want to say to my former employee, David Axelrod, who I hired to work for Bill Clinton — David, it's not a matter of med school, it's elementary school. That's all you need to understand that if you're expanding the patient rates by 50 million new patients you need some new doctors. Huh?
HANNITY: All right. With the poll numbers.
(LAUGHTER)
You love fighting back. You love hitting back. But I think this is a fundamentally an error that they just don't seem to get. Why would they continue attacking the American people? Why would they diminish the sea of people out there this weekend?
MORRIS: Because there is a bunker mentality going on where Obama is basically telling the Democratic senators, huddle down with me, come into the bunker, the heck with any of the other party, come in with me, we've got our 60 votes, we've got our majority in the House, we've got the White House. Come into this bunker with me and glare at everybody on the outside.
You know, on Wednesday, the day the president gave the speech, which is bumped up his numbers substantially, but will bring them down again, but when he gave that speech, The New York Times, for once, bless it, ran an article that made the point that we make in this book "Catastrophe" that if this program is adopted, the American Association of Medical Schools said there would be a shortage of 30,000 doctors immediately, and in 15 years, there will be a shortage of 125,000 doctors.
Which is just to say nothing of nurse shortages and CAT scans and MRIs which will force this draconian rationing. Just last night I was with a guy named Don Gordon, a GI doctor. My GI doctor. And he said to me there are 15,000 GI doctors in America, 8,000 are over the age of 50 and only 400 new ones are created each year.
HANNITY: They're not going into the profession.
MORRIS: He said they're going to retire.
HANNITY: They're going to retire.
MORRIS: And he said that I get 68 bucks a visit for a patient. If they cut me to $48, you know, I'm out of here.
HANNITY: All right. Let me — there's an emerging — let me go to the headline of Politico, "Dems see race factor for Obama foes." We had that woman, that city council in Illinois, Cunningham was her name, you know, if you don't support a resolution supporting Obamacare, we'll have zero impact, race is an issue.
MORRIS: They wish. But.
HANNITY: But the same thing, Maureen Dowd, Mike Lupica raised it in his column. This now, it seems, that if you oppose Obama, that this is now — is this a strategy that's emerging?
MORRIS: Sure it is. And it is so ridiculous. Nobody on the right wing has criticized Obama over race. There isn't a vestige of that. And now if you criticize him over air pollution or over trade with China or over foreign aid to Guam, it's race.
HANNITY: So let's go back to the health care issue because your article says, you know, you went after his speech last week. Here's the question we have.
MORRIS: It's a whole rebuttal of the speech. It's on DickMorris.com and worth reading it.
HANNITY: OK. But here's the question, the Democrats now don't seem to have enough votes either in the Senate, they're being told by prominent Democrats no government option. They have a split in the House among the left in their party and conservative Blue Dogs that want to be elected again.
Where does this all end up?
MORRIS: They have a phony strategy and it's a trap. What they're doing is they're publicizing the whole public option and then Obama is going to make a very publicized retreat and embrace the concept of co-ops instead.
Now, first of all, co-ops until they're set up are government programs because there is no preexisting co-op and takes two or three years to set it up. But secondly, public or private it won't address the basic issue of rationing and scarcity. That's an argument he can't answer so he didn't in his speech.
Instead he talks at length about the public option because he knows he's planning a retreat to buy off Olympia Snowe's vote, he hopes, the senator from Maine, and give him a bipartisanship veneer but it's a trap.
HANNITY: All right, Dick, good to see you. Welcome back.
MORRIS: Thank you.
HANNITY: Appreciate it.
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