Is 'Cable TV' to Blame for Town Hall Rage?

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 11, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Guess who press secretary Robert Gibbs blames for protests like that? Us, cable news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Dissent is part of the American tradition. I think what is unproductive, though, is if somebody tries to come to a town hall meeting, and you can't ask your question or your mother can't ask her question because somebody else is yelling. That's what cable TV and the food fight brings to this.

I think we all have something to lose, Matt, if we let cable television come to town hall meetings and kill health care reform for another year and put the special interests back in charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAN SUSTEREN: Joining us live is Dana Loesch. She's a radio host who works with the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition. She went to Senator McCaskill's town hall meeting today. Dana, first let's talk about Robert Gibbs. Was cable television there supporting this or promoting it or anybody -- anything like that? I'm just sort of curious whether we are to blame, as Robert Gibbs says.

DANA LOESCH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: I don't think that at all. I think Gibbs is -- he's using cable news as a cop-out. This is the problem. He wants to talk about being constructive. This is what is not constructive, when you get elected officials standing up in front of people, being disingenuous about health care legislation. That's not what is constructive, if we're going to have a discussion about what is and isn't constructive.

That is -- and I don't like the blaming of the American people for responding to that. The elected officials -- their job as being our representative is to be transparent about the bills that they're voting on, to be transparent about the bills that they're sponsoring...

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let me...

LOESCH: ... and writing.

VAN SUSTEREN: Let me ask you -- in watching this, I mean, is it -- did Senator McCaskill get a fair chance, in your opinion, to answer the questions? Now, you may not have liked her answers, but did she get a fair chance to answer?

LOESCH: I do think that she did get a fair chance. And to her credit, I think that her tone has been way more welcoming and warm than some of -- the tone of some of her colleagues.

But I don't like that condescension. And the fact that she was admonishing the crowd and saying, Do I have to use my mother's voice? Well, maybe we should use our mother's voice on you. You don't tell lies. Plain and simple. One of the examples that I can give is when they were talking about whether or not the president was going to eliminate private insurance. Well, technically, it's not in the bill expressly, but let's look at the obvious here.

The president is supporting a plan that's going to really jack on these regulations to these private insurance plans that's going to skyrocket the cost of them and push people to the public option, then, yes, logic dictates that because of that, he would support getting rid of private insurance. I mean, let's just look at how the logic flows here.

VAN SUSTEREN: But is it -- is it a deliberate attempt to be deceitful or is it simply a different view in terms of how things will ultimately roll out, based on whatever -- whatever -- a particular change?

LOESCH: I think it's a little bit of both, honestly. I think with Senator McCaskill, I think that she -- they don't think that single-payer is imminent. I don't know how you can look at this legislation and think otherwise.

VAN SUSTEREN: So you're not saying she's dishonest. You're not saying that Senator McCaskill is being dishonest.

LOESCH: Not with that particular aspect. However, I think maybe there's -- there's a couple of things that she said that there are a lot of things that people were getting pretty upset about. But not -- I don't think she's truly malicious, like, being maliciously dishonest with it. But I still -- but that doesn't mean I give her credit for not realizing the perspective of what we're all looking at here. I mean, we all see -- I don't give her -- I don't give her credit for not being a little bit more open-minded, I guess. But I don't think she's a liar.

VAN SUSTEREN: And Dana, as you know from radio business, I got a hard break, so I got to know. You know from your own business. Dana, thank you very much.

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