Code Pink Head Reacts to Daily Kos Founder's Bitter Words

This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," April 2, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: "Impact" segment tonight, the far left Daily Kos Web site, a vicious enterprise, now attacking the far left anti-war group Code Pink. Apparently, the Kos is angry with the Pink people for protesting against some liberals, who supported the Iraq War, including Hillary Clinton. The Kos founder calls Code Pink, "an ineffective, self-indulgent, obnoxious and tone-deaf organization."

Joining us now from Washington to react, the head of Code Pink, Medea Benjamin, who will rally against war and the recession here in New York City on Saturday.

Okay, so what do you think this is all about, this Kos attack on you guys?

MEDEA BENJAMIN, FOUNDER OF CODE PINK: Well, I don't know, Bill. You really have to ask them, but perhaps it's because we don't tow any party line, Democrat or Republican. We're pretty independent and maybe they don't like that.

O'REILLY: Is Cindy Sheehan a part of your organization?

BENJAMIN: She might be a member. There's 200,000 people that are members of Code Pink, but she is independent as well.

O'REILLY: Okay, because she said the other day that — Obama was a warmonger. And I think that might have teed of the Kos. And she came out there. And I think there were Code Pink people around, but I'm not sure. It's funny, because the Daily Kos should be your best friend. I mean ideologically, you guys are pretty much on the same side.

BENJAMIN: Well, I don't know. I know there's a lot of Code Pink members who write on the Daily Kos.

O'REILLY: Right.

BENJAMIN: But there's a lot of different ideas coming out to the Daily Kos. I don't know what the general opinion of the Kos was around the bailout of Wall Street, for example. And we were very much against that. And there were Democrats that were shaping that policy. So that put us in a disagreement with a lot of people in the Democratic Party.

O'REILLY: Okay. Now, what's your vision of Afghanistan, Medea? You're going to be in New York City protesting against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan on the weekend. What's your vision there? What would you do — tell Barack Obama to do?

BENJAMIN: Well, we believe that Barack Obama is listening to just one side, which is.

O'REILLY: No, no, but I want to know what you would tell him to do.

BENJAMIN: Yeah, right. What we would tell him is to set a time line for withdrawal just like in the case of Iraq, to call a big international conference of all the parties involved and the neighbors, bring in the European countries as well, and start looking for a negotiated solution to that war as well.

O'REILLY: Okay, who would negotiate with?

BENJAMIN: We think that the country can't afford it.

O'REILLY: Who would you negotiate with — since the Taliban have rejected negotiations, they said they're not going to talk to anybody, they're just going to cut people's heads off. Who would you talk to if they don't want to talk to you?

BENJAMIN: Well, I don't think you can say you want to negotiate with the Taliban at the same time that you're calling for 27,000 more troops.

O'REILLY: Okay, all right.

BENJAMIN: think that.

O'REILLY: So your vision is all right, President Obama, you announce a withdrawal unilaterally. They don't give everything, but you said, okay, we're going to pull everybody out by next September. They're all going to come out. And now we'll sit down and the Taliban will come in. And then — now, the Taliban pretty much tell you whatever you want to hear because when the Americans and NATO get out of there, Taliban will

just take over, right? Would that bother you if the Taliban took over?

BENJAMIN: Well, I think when we're calling for is a time line for withdrawal is to call in the international community and perhaps.

O'REILLY: Well, the international community is already in there. NATO's already in there.

BENJAMIN: No, but they're in there as a fighting force.

O'REILLY: But you want the troops to get out.

BENJAMIN: not as a peacekeeping force.

O'REILLY: All right, look.

BENJAMIN: We want a peacekeeping force in there and we want

negotiations.

O'REILLY: Medea, Medea, these are simple questions. These are simple questions. I'm a simple man. We pull the troops out. The Taliban is going to take over. Does that bother you? Does it bother you?

BENJAMIN: We don't know.

O'REILLY: You don't know if it bothers you?

BENJAMIN: If we have the time line for withdrawal and we have a negotiation, there's all kinds of.

O'REILLY: Negotiations.

BENJAMIN: Taliban. The U.S...

O'REILLY: I'll try it more time, Medea.

BENJAMIN: there's more reasonable Taliban and more unreasonable. You talked to the more reasonable Taliban.

O'REILLY: The more reasonable guys.

BENJAMIN: In the end, it's the Afghans.

O'REILLY: Those are the guys with.

BENJAMIN: who are going to have to determine their future.

O'REILLY: Those are the guys who cut off your head quickly rather than take their time I guess. See look, here's the deal.

BENJAMIN: Bill, don't you think in the end it's the Afghans that have to figure out what's going.

O'REILLY: I think in the end, what happens in Afghanistan, because I've been there and I know the terrain is the guys who have the most guns run the country. It's not about the Afghan people. It's about if we get out, they come in. They take over. Al Qaeda then has a staging ground just as it had before 9/11. Okay? And the whole cycle continues. You

guys.

BENJAMIN: Well, the whole cycle is continuing now.

O'REILLY: No.

BENJAMIN: And we're leading that cycle. In fact, you know.

O'REILLY: We can just go out.

BENJAMIN: We're creating the recruit.

O'REILLY: There's no Al Qaeda camps there now. We're in control now.

BENJAMIN: We're creating the recruits for the Taliban.

O'REILLY: (INAUDIBLE) right.

BENJAMIN: We're creating recruits for Al Qaeda by killing innocent civilians there. And every day that were there.

O'REILLY: We're killing innocent civilians.

BENJAMIN: more troops there, more innocent civilians will be killed. It's a cycle of violence that has to end. And Bill, what we're calling

for.

O'REILLY: But it isn't - Medea, but this is what you don't get. It isn't going to end because we run away. It will continue because they will take over and they are violent people. They will kill Afghan women. You know how much Afghan women have progressed since the United States has gone in there? You don't care about Afghan women, Medea.

BENJAMIN: Yes, we do. We talk to them all the time.

O'REILLY: You don't give a hoot about them.

BENJAMIN: And they're calling for.

O'REILLY: Because when the Taliban gets in there, they don't go to school. They can't come out. They'll get beaten and killed. You don't care about the Afghan women at all. All you care about is this pie in the sky stuff.

BENJAMIN: I care about the Afghan women. I've cared about them long before you don't care about them, Bill.

O'REILLY: You don't care.

BENJAMIN: But we want to see if.

O'REILLY: If you did care about them.

BENJAMIN: A surge in diplomacy not a surge in troops.

O'REILLY: No, if you did care about the Afghan women, you'd want the Taliban to be defeated. That is the only solution for the Afghan women, period.

BENJAMIN: I want the war lords defeated, the Taliban defeated.

O'REILLY: Yeah, by what?

BENJAMIN: And the end of violence.

O'REILLY: By getting out of there. It ain't going to happen, Medea. Get in the real world, but we appreciate you coming on in.

BENJAMIN: Let's put peacekeepers in there and not combat troops.

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