When Liberal Activists Attack, Part 1
Andrew Breitbart on his encounter at progressive Netroots Nation Summit
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," June 20, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Left-wing activists around the country, they gathered in Minneapolis over the weekend for the annual "Netcooks" conference. But they were joined by an unexpected guest Andrew Breitbart. He's going to join me in just a moment.
Now shockingly, the left-wingers and attendants did not treat him with the same civility that they seem to expect of others. Take a look at their shocking attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Have you ever slept with a prostitute? Have you? Have you? Be careful how you answer! Have you? Have you? Just asking!
UNIDTENTIFED WOMAN: Next time you should pay like the rest of us!
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Out!
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Good riddance!
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Good riddance. Coward!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, believe it or not, Andrew Breitbart was not the only person that was not welcomed at the conference. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, well, he was not a hit with the crowd either.
Now, his answer to a question about "The Anointed One's" now flip-flopped on gay marriage, that didn't go over to well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Is the president going to evolve again and get back to supporting civil rights on gay marriage?
(APPLAUSE)
DAN PFEIFFER, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, a couple of things on that. The president has -- I think the best way to actually do this would be the -- I will sort of, I'll try to paraphrase and answer that the president gave.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Well, I've got his exact answer right here. "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."
PFEIFFER: If you actually go back and look, that question there was actually filled out by someone else not the president. There was a long debate about this --
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: So, it is a fake questionnaire?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: And joining me now with reaction, the inside scoop on his experience at the left-wing "Netcooks" convention is the author of "Righteous Indignation, Excuse Me While I Save the Word," Andrew Breitbart is here.
I was telling you earlier, I don't know if you are the bravest guy in the world, or the nuttiest guy to even bother show up at this thing?
ANDREW BREITBART, AUTHOR, "RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION": It is a bit of both Hannity.
HANNITY: That's a good point.
All right. Look, we see this experience unfold. It all-starred with one thing. An accusation that you're racist because of a question they say that somebody that worked for you or an exchange that somebody that worked for you had on the issue of race. Did that person in fact, in reality, work for you, do you know?
BREITBART: No there was a mythological event that happened or an event that occurred that had nothing to do with me, that followed me for two days as I had a New York Times reporter who's doing a profile on me, followed me around. And we were talking about how the left is able to accuse me through Salon.com and the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post. They're allowed to accuse me of anything in the world.
And so, while he's traveling with me, doing this profile, we start being confronted by people on the left saying, what about your employee that attacked the women in the hijabs? And there was no such incident. And The New York Times guy Jeremy Peters was standing there defending me from, you know, for about a 24 hour period because this became this mythological lie that is completely untrue.
HANNITY: All right. Then the next issue that came up was the issue of, you apparently did not pay to go to the event. You were not credentialed. And they got into your personal life but did you go...
BREITBART: Let me answer about the not being credentialed. Because I went into the common area of the Convention Center where you didn't have to pay. And so, there was an entrance place where you needed to have, you know, a necklace that had your name and credentials. So, I never went past there. So, again, it is a lie about me not paying. Because I never went into the paid area.
HANNITY: All right. Now, this guy got in your face very aggressively asking you about your personal life. Drug use. Have you ever been to a male prostitute? Have you ever been to a prostitute? Yelling, making a scene, carrying on. And I was thinking back to, you know, all the times that the president falsely accused talk radio Fox News, lack of civility, you know, all the charges that were made after the tragedy of Gabrielle Giffords, et cetera, et cetera, and the attacks that were made thereafter.
So, you know, I don't hear any calls for civility when they are attacking Andrew Breitbart.
BREITBART: Well, I obviously have a book to sell right now. The book that is most appropriate to sell right now is Ann Coulter's book "Demonic." And it's about the liberal mob. And I felt that weekend like I was Margaret Mead, a sociologist that was looking at the behavior of the Netroots crowd. Because when they were acting like a mob, lead by this one guy, who was asking incoherent questions that weren't grounded in reality. Everybody, you know, surrounded him and started to support him and started to chant, you know, terrible things at me. But when we were over at the hotel where the two groups were mingling from RightOnline and Netroots Nation, is that the actual lefties were kind of polite, wonderful people and we just agreed to disagree on policy.
HANNITY: Right. But with these personal questions, there's an agenda here. You know, they want to discredit you. Now, when I read your book, when it first came out, you told things about yourself, and I remember asking you at the time. Andrew, you know, look, too much information here. But then when I asked you about it, you said you wanted to get your story out, you wanted to inoculate yourself.
For example, the president admitted that, you know, he snorted cocaine, Barack Obama has admitted that in the past. I assume he did so as a means of inoculating himself from the question. Was that your idea, your thought? Even though, I mean, you are not admitting to what they are asking, but I'm just saying, there seems to be an agenda to destroy you personally.
BREITBART: Well, I know how the left works. I know how the hard left works. It's Saul Alinsky, it's the politics of personal destruction. And if I'm going to make myself a public figure, one that aggressively exposes the hard left, I know that I'm going to be the object of their tactics.
So, I've exposed the worst of Andrew Breitbart, stuff I'm not even that embarrassed about. I mean, I went to college in New Orleans and I did what you do in New Orleans, during my early 20s, and that's pretty much it. I've got four kids. I'm happily married and I have four kids now. So, try and find --
HANNITY: Look, I became a Christian when I'm 22. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not answering anybody's questions about the stupid things I did in my youth, period, end of sentence. Why did you go and do you regret it now? And we got only about 30 seconds.
BREITBART: No, of course I don't regret it. This is what I do. And going over to Netroots, I wanted to find Markos Moulitsas who said that I was the hacker over at the Daily Kos. I wanted to talk to these people and hear why they feel that they should be able to get away with blatant lies.
HANNITY: All right. Andrew Breitbart, it is either insanity or more courage than anybody I know. But certainly entertaining and I'm glad you survived. So, you're even saying, hanging in there in the balance of razor's edge, right?
BREITBART: That's right.
HANNITY: All right. Andrew Breitbart, thanks for being with us.
Content and Programming Copyright 2011 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2011 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox