This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 24, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: So at this very second, we have already been on the air for over 37 minutes. As you can see at the bottom of your screen, the never ending economic speech delivered earlier today by the president is still rolling on. Believe me when I tell you the snoozefest is far from over, because sadly he tried for more than an hour after five years to explain why we need to have yet another economic recovery, and of course, blaming everybody else but himself for the poor recovery. Thankfully, he eventually stopped trying.
Now before we get back and check in on the president's progress, let me bring in former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee and radio show host, Hugh Hewitt is with me. Welcome both of you. Good to see you.
All right, Austan, let's see we're going on $8 trillion in new Obama debt. We've double the number of people on food stamps, the lowest labor participation rate since World War II. The world's worst recovery on record --
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER OBAMA ECONOMIC ADVISER: No.
HANNITY: -- yes, absolutely since World War II.
GOOLSBEE: This is a better recovery than the last recovery.
HANNITY: No, Austan. Nice try. There's the president. He sounds like he did five years ago, the same speech. I'll prove it to you. Dip into the speech and see if it doesn't sound like five years ago.
GOOLSBEE: All right, dip it in.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We've got to get more out of what we pay for.
HANNITY: More out of what we pay for.
OBAMA: Some colleges are shortening the path to a degree, or blending online teaching with online learning to help students master material and earn credits in less time.
HANNITY: blah, blah, blah, five years later. Come on, Austan.
GOOLSBEE: First of all, let's not replace the professors, sounds like that's what he's saying there. But the Republicans in the House have now voted 37 different times to repeal ObamaCare. Why are you not saying that they are repeating themselves?
HANNITY: Because it hasn't worked yet, and I'm with Mike Lee, defund ObamaCare and do it now.
GOOLSBEE: OK, when I was a young man I loved the movie "Star Wars." I saw it 22 times. Some things are good enough we ought to hear them again.
HANNITY: OK, so we're going to hear the same speech for the next three years?
HUGH HEWITT, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Sean, Knox College has been around since 1837, they've never heard a speech that long and not heard a single thing that was new. The backdrop for that speech should have been Detroit because the president spent, what was it, $787 billion, Austan, on stimulus five years ago?
HANNITY: Wait a minute. He bailed out Detroit.
HEWITT: I know he did.
HANNITY: Save it.
HEWITT: I should think that the back drop for Detroit -- for the president's never ending speech next time should be Detroit because they have 100,000 creditors, they owe $20 billion and this president has utterly failed urban America.
HANNITY: Austan?
GOOLSBEE: I don't agree with it. I think in this speech today, you're not giving it enough credit. If you -- I know you're running it, but you should be paying attention, Sean, because he is laying out the contrast of strategy for the epic battle that is about to come over the budget and the debt ceiling and shutdown. The president saying these are the things that are important of how we grow and he's going say look the Republicans want to cut those things while the deficit is already shrinking at the fastest rate in the history of the United States.
HANNITY: It hasn't been as high as they have been now and it's still higher than when Bush was president.
GOOLSBEE: No --
HANNITY: Yes.
GOOLSBEE: The president's already going to go to $1.3 trillion a year before there ever was a Bush or Obama administration.
HANNITY: It's nearly $8 trillion in new Obama debt. He's nearly doubled the debt in the time he's been president. Hugh?
(CROSSTALK)
GOOLSBEE: That's what happens if they hand you the worst economy in the last 75 years.
HEWITT: Austan, I think you need to confront it. The president's strategy is on display in Detroit. All of the president's policies were tried in Detroit for 20 years. We now see a completely bankrupt city. We now see $20 billion, we see public employees are not going to get paid their pensions. Everything that you devised, everything the president has proposed has been tried and tried for 20 years in Detroit. So when the president got done talking today, he was simply saying to the rest of America, let's do what Detroit did. I don't think the American people are going to buy it.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Wait a minute. Let me play the president. Let's play the president -- he saved Detroit. He told us in the last election. Let's watch his own words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
OBAMA, JUNE 14, 2012: When my opponents and others were arguing that we should let Detroit go bankrupt, we made a bet on American workers and the ingenuity of American companies, and today our auto industry is back on top of the world.
OBAMA, OCT. 13, 2012: We refuse to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refuse to let Detroit go bankrupt. I bet on American workers and American ingenuity and three years later it's paying off in a big way.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HANNITY: We refuse to let it go bankrupt. Guess what, Austan. In case you haven't heard, Detroit is bankrupt.
GOOLSBEE: I agree that language now doesn't sound that great. That's because obviously he's talking about the Detroit automakers, not Detroit the city.
HANNITY: We refuse to let Detroit go bankrupt. He didn't mean what he said?
GOOLSBEE: He should say the Detroit automakers.
HANNITY: I've been to Detroit. It looks like a war zone where they are bulldozing entire neighborhoods after 50 years of Democratic rule. Watch out the rest of the country.
GOOLSBEE: Wait a minute. Here's where I disagree with you. I agree it was a catchy line, but the fundamental problems of Detroit, they've had massive population loss in Detroit for the last 30 plus years.
HANNITY: Why would that be?
GOOLSBEE: A, they have massively concentrated industry so if you look at what are the three factors that have lead to successful cities over the last 50 years--
HANNITY: It's Bush's fault.
GOOLSBEE: I do not -- you are too sensitive about that. I do not blame it on Bush. This predates Bush by a long time. They had concentrated industries. They had a low skill work force, lowest education of all the big urban areas and they have very cold weather. Those three things combined do not bode well for cities.
HANNITY: That's why. It's the weather's fault, Hugh, it's cold in Detroit!
GOOLSBEE: Do I need to tell you that the Sun Belt has grown over the last 50 years and the colder states have gone down?
HEWITT: We need to focus on the fact that red America where Rick Perry is working, John Kasich in Ohio is recovering, and that in blue America where Detroit, it represents all of the president's policies, it's failing. It's actually kind of responsible for the president to give an hour and a half speech today and not mention Detroit, Sean. You've got the never ending speech there. How can an American president with the backdrop of this collapsing city behind him, refuse to even deal with reality. It's sort of emblematic. He doesn't deal with reality.
HANNITY: Let's dip into the speech again and let's see if this sounds like every other economics --
OBAMA: -- threaten the dreams that you worked a lifetime to build. As we speak, we're well on our way to fully implementing the Affordable Care Act. We're going to implement it.
GOOLSBEE: I'm going to start clapping with them, Sean.
HANNITY: What's that, Austan?
GOOLSBEE: I'm going to start clapping with the audience.
HANNITY: We're out of time. He forgot to mention that it's three times its estimated cost and it's going higher.
GOOLSBEE: It's still cutting the deficit.
HANNITY: By the way, even Jimmy Hoffa Jr. doesn't want it now. Nobody wants it. We can't afford it. It's the guy who wrote the bill Max Baucus calls it a train wreck.
GOOLSBEE: No.
HANNITY: Yes.
GOOLSBEE: No.
HANNITY: Yes. Yes, want to bet?
GOOLSBEE: He's talking about a narrow implementation on one part of it.
HANNITY: Train wreck. Max Baucus wrote the bill, train wreck.
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