Newt Gingrich on Media Coverage of Sarah Palin

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," September 3, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: And welcome back to this special edition of "Hannity & Colmes." We are live. We're in St. Paul. We're at the Republican National Convention. Now all eyes will be on Senator McCain's V.P. choice. Governor Sarah Palin when she takes the stage at the RNC. That's coming up in just a little bit.

Her address comes as many Republicans are striking back over the unfair treatment she is receiving by certain media outlets. Now, even celebrity magazine Us Weekly is taking a negative stance on the Alaskan Governor, while they took a positive one on Senator Barack Obama.

Newt Gingrich defended Palin's experience yesterday during an incredible exchange on -- well, what is known as the Obama network, MSNBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her resume is not something that we're not familiar seeing with presidential candidates.

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It's stronger than -- stronger than Barack Obama's. I don't know why you guys walk around saying this bologna. She has a stronger resume than Obama. She's been a real mayor. He hasn't. She has been a real Governor. He hasn't. She's been in charge of the Alaska National Guar. He hasn't. She was a whistle blower who defeated an incumbent mayor. He has never once shown that kind of courage.

• Video: Watch Sean and Alan's interview with Newt Gingrich

I'd like you to tell me one thing you think Senator Obama has done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks very much, Speaker. We're going to leave it there. I'm not going to argue the case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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HANNITY: Joining us now is former speaker of the House, FOX News contributor Newt Gingrich.

Simple question. Wasn't very hard.

GINGRICH: It's been fun to watch the news media when you start saying, OK, the Alaska state budget is 11 billion. And there are 15,000 employees. The Obama Senate budget is 4.6 million, and there's 71 employees. I mean, which of these looks to you like real experience?

HANNITY: Well, it's obvious who they want to win this election. It's obvious -- it's never been any more clear to me, that media bias. There's a part of me that gets mad. But then there's a part of me that knows that she's going to have a chance to speak unfiltered to the American people tonight, and I have a lot of confidence in the American people.

GINGRICH: I think the American people are going to discount the elite media 90 percent by October. Because the degree to which they are biased in favor of Senator Obama and the degree to which they are biased against Governor Palin is so grotesque that I don't think I've seen anything like it in my lifetime.

HANNITY: She says in this speech tonight she takes this media bias on, head on and she says, "I'm not here to get your good opinion. I'm here to serve the American people."

GINGRICH: I think that's why you're going to see a tremendous grassroots response, and I think you're going to see about half of Senator Clinton's supporters, the ones who are the blue-collar, hard-working Democrats, get very attracted to Governor Palin.

HANNITY: One of the issues I have stayed on, and it was in Howie Kurtz's column in the Washington Post today. I've been very critical. He's run for 19 months. He's had one question about William Ayers.

There have been more questions by the media about Sarah Palin's 17- year-old daughter than Barack Obama's relationship with William Ayers for 19 months. Can you explain that to me?

GINGRICH: Nobody in the elite media wants to concede that there have been American terrorists who kill people. Nobody in the media wants to concede that there are tenured faculty members like William Ayers who are today proud today to be a terrorist. And nobody in the elite media is willing to take seriously trying to vet Senator Obama because they want him to win. They don't want him to be exposed.

HANNITY: Very well said.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Does it disturb you at all that the candidate for vice president of the United States for the Republican ticket is much less qualified for that job than you are?

GINGRICH: No. I think that's a non-sequitur. I think that she has, first of all, more executive experience than I do.

She is, second, a very competent negotiator. She -- you know, she worked out a terrific deal on building a natural gas pipeline, which is a multi-billion-dollar project. She worked out a terrific deal on forcing big oil to pay more to the people of Alaska, and then she turned it back to the people of Alaska as a tax cut.

I think that, by any reasonable standard, Governor Palin is a smart person of real experience who will be a good vice president.

COLMES: We can't -- we're not having an honest debate when we say -- you said on NBC that -- you said Obama had no experience, never accomplished anything. He's had a number of pieces of legislation. He's done an incredible number of things. I can go down the list of things, but it would bore everybody. He's had hundreds, literally hundreds of pieces of legislation with his name on it locally...

HANNITY: None of them have passed.

COLMES: ... and even nationally. They have passed. That's not true. That's not true.

HANNITY: That's good.

COLMES: So to diminish him, and people call him a community organizer and say he's had no experience and never done anything in his life, is that really the kind of dialogue we want to have in this election?

GINGRICH: Wait a second. First of all, in the state senate he voted present 160 times, avoiding tough issues. He did successfully stop a bill, which would have blocked abortionists from allowing babies to die if they were still alive after the abortion.

COLMES: There was already -- I've got to break. I've got -- being cued here to break. But there was already a bill in place, a law in place for that.

HANNITY: It was the exact wording of the federal bill.

COLMES: There was another local bill in place. There was another bill in place in that state.

Newt, good to see you.

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