This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 28, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: My next guest says the controversies surrounding the Ford commercial is just the latest in a laundry list of examples of the White House bullying big businesses.
Joining me now to explain is the author of the number one New York Times best-selling book "Culture of Corruption," Michelle Malkin. Michelle, welcome back.
MICHELLE MALKIN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Thanks for having me back, Sean.
HANNITY: You know, when you think about it this really is bullying. When you think about, you know the idea that -- you know, the president has a narrative. I save the car companies. And Ford, you know, comes without this ad saying, wait a minute, this guy bought this car for the reasons that he's expressing, that he wanted to support a company that didn't look to the government for hand out. God bless him.
MALKIN: Yes, absolutely.
HANNITY: And here it comes. But this is just one example of many that you point out in your recent column.
MALKIN: Yes, I think this is just indicative of a long pattern of bare knuckles, brass knuckles intimidation by this White House. Even the way that this whole Ford fiasco has unraveled tells you everything you need to know about how this White House and its water carriers in the media operate.
Now, you had a brave whistle blowing columnist, Detroit news columnist, Daniel Howes, who first called attention to Ford, and he reports that there were White House officials who complained about the ad that was critical of the auto bail-out.
And that there were -- was apparent grumbling in the Obama administration because they consider Allen Melee, the CEO of Ford some kind of hypocrite because although Ford did not accept federal auto bail-out money, they did not oppose it, and in fact I think supported some of it for its competitors. And it has a record of having accepted some federal funding the past.
All that aside, though, there's this cloud over the White House because of these allegations, that they somehow leaned on the company to pull the ad. Now naturally the company is denying that there was any pressure, wouldn't you? I mean, many of these companies are scared out of their pants by this White House and its bullying. But just because there's denials on both sides doesn't mean the truth of what Daniel Howes is saying is in any debunked. In fact The Detroit News is standing by the story.
HANNITY: I think probably the worst example though is when the S&P downgraded for the first time in our history our bond rating. All of a sudden the Justice Department goes after S&P. Now I would assume for a couple of reasons.
They don't want another downgrade and number two, maybe they're sending a message to Moody's, maybe they're sending a message to other people, don't mess with us. You know, and you point out in your article, Deer, Caterpillar, Verizon, AT&T, these are all companies hauled before Congress. I assume Coke is going to be next because Coke's CEO this week was critical of the president's economic plan.
You know, do we just sum it up and say it's the Chicago way? Does the White House get away with this? Do people really -- if you're not involved do you concern yourself with the abuse of power?
MALKIN: Well, I think that the context is very important. Like you say, Sean, I have an entire litany of examples like this that go back to day one. You know, the thing that's most obnoxious about this administration and its commander-in-chief waving around his brass knuckles is that he always playing the victim when this guy has been the Chicago bullying victims clothing from day one.
And you know what also annoys me? The fact that the media is so willing to whitewash it when they themselves have been victimized and harassed by this. The Plesonton Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Herald, all of these newspapers have in some way been punished or admonished for doing things that the Obama administration didn't like.
And yet they'll look the other way and say that stories have been put to rest about corporate intimidation because it doesn't fit Obama's narrative that somehow he's the white knight and all the rest of us are the ones that are thugs.
HANNITY: Yes, we can't, by the way, forget Gibson guitar in this and you mentioned that in your column.
All right, let me move on really quickly and get an update from you on the Solyndra, Lightsquare scandal.
L.A. Times broke a story this week to their credit and they said that Obama himself in fact was warned by Summers, by Geithner that these companies hadn't been vetted and that there might be problems. Add to that Geithner says it's a bargain, $200,000 per job according to the jobs plan. That's what we're going to pay. And now we've got the jobs program, our own Department of Energy -- we're spending $23 million per job for the so-called green energy jobs program.
MALKIN: Yes. We just keep having an avalanche of new information and disclosures about how this administration ignored every single last, honking red flag about the green jobs big boondoggle, and they went ahead anyway to reward all of their donors.
It didn't matter that we were being put on the hook for all these huge sinkholes. I always remind people about the first rule of holes, which of course, classic rule, when you're in one, stop digging.
Yet despite the Solyndra scandal, we had the Department of Energy announce that it is pouring a billion dollars more into these shady deals.
HANNITY: It's $737 million.
MALKIN: That's right for one of them. Another one is about nearly half a billion for a second deal. On top of that, watch very closely, the continued fight over the Commerce secretary nominee, who just happens to be a big mogul who invests in and is pushing, guess what, solar energy.
HANNITY: Unbelievable. You know, Canada had a recession in 2009. Guess what? They drilled their way out of it.
Michelle, great work as always. Good to see you.
MALKIN: You bet. Take care, Sean.
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