This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 29, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: In the state of Washington, Democratic Senator Patty Murray is fighting for her political life. Unfortunately for her, skeletons are coming out of the closet that I'm sure she would rather forget.
Like something that the senator said about Usama bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Now we played the clip on "Hannity & Colmes" back in 2003. Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY, D-WA.: He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building daycare facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. He's made their lives better. We have not done that.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Well, comments like that can perhaps explain why Murray's lead has slipped to just one point in her race with Republicans challenger Dino Rossi.
Now the latest Fox poll has Murray with 48 percent, and Rossi with 47. So that is within the margin of error.
Joining me now with reaction to all of this is the author, columnist, the one and only, Ann Coulter.
"Patty Murray, The Stupidest Person in America" I think is the title of a column that somebody wrote.
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR & COLUMNIST: Just went up tonight. Anncoulter.com. I did get a few comments already even before coming here tonight with people pointing out that really was completely unfair. She is the stupidest person on the planet. And I will refer --
HANNITY: Not just in America.
COULTER: -- to that point. I mean the skeleton isn't -- it's not like a skeleton. A skeleton has a higher IQ.
I never want to hear about Christine O'Donnell not being -- not being smart enough or Sarah Palin who has a manifestly high IQ.
Patty Murray makes the two of them -- forget the two of them -- Christine O'Donnell look like Albert Einstein.
HANNITY: All right. But you did a lot of -- you did a lot of research in this column. And you found a lot of quotes. You found, for example, a radio interview she gave in 1992. Explain.
(LAUGHTER)
COULTER: Well, you don't hear much from Patty Murray because the Democrats are smart. And by the way, they're often smarter even than the Republicans in this regard. They realized that she is an abject moron. They will not let her out of her office to give a quote that can be quoted by a newspaper.
But every once in a while she slips out. And she got -- right after she was elected she was talking about how when she was a child in case of nuclear war they used to have -- set off an alarm and you'd hide under your desk.
Would that do anything? I don't know. But we need do something similar for children today who are afraid of guns.
HANNITY: Yes, but that's what she said.
COULTER: No, A, she's not sure if hiding under your desk in the event of a nuclear attack would do anything and wants to do something similarly pointless for the fear of guns in schools like imaginary --
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I got to tell you that Usama bin Laden, he did a lot of good work. He's building daycare facilities and health care --
(CROSSTALK)
COULTER: That's the one you just played, right?
HANNITY: This is after 9/11.
COULTER: Daycare facilities. Yes. And take your daughter to workday.
HANNITY: Yes. Which --
(LAUGHTER)
COULTER: Because he is so big on women being able to work.
HANNITY: All right. Well, so Dino Rossi, I think, now has made some inroads in the campaign but it is still a pretty close race.
COULTER: Stop the enraging.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Well, it should be --
COULTER: Washington voters, you are looking as dumb as California voters right now. You have got to be kidding me.
Dino Rossi, I mean the one disadvantage I suspect he has because it often happens when someone runs for office, and loses, people sort of -- there's almost like a taint to that person. And Rossi ran for governor.
But voters of Washington, the first election was stolen from him. He was robbed, outright. And the next one it was like a Pete Wilson deal where it was a deal with the public sector.
HANNITY: We've had this discussion. You are admonishing Republicans. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Now Dick Morris is extraordinarily optimistic. He's telling everybody to listen that, you know, shoot for 100 seats. Forget about --
COULTER: I love Dick Morris.
HANNITY: Forget about the 40.
COULTER: His job is to come on Fox and whisper sweet nothings in right-wingers' ears.
HANNITY: Well, maybe, maybe, maybe not. This is such a volatile year. I don't think anybody can really predict.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: But certainly the trends, the intensity factor, all these -- just the utter disaster of Democratic rule.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: The one-party rule. I think anything can happen. You're urging people to be a little bit more cautious. And you don't want to dampen people's enthusiasm. But I don't think you could if you wanted to.
COULTER: You're right. Right. Well, on one hand you do have absolute blind rage throughout the country. On the other hand, in the Senate, you have really, really blue states. Washington, Oregon, California, New York. They are not good states for us.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: And Connecticut.
COULTER: I think it's going to be a good year for Republicans.
HANNITY: And Delaware. I mean --
COULTER: And Connecticut, I'm happy to see that Linda McMahon, though not my number one choice, she is crushing Blumenthal.
HANNITY: Yes. Well -- all right.
COULTER: And she deserves to.
HANNITY: So let's go through this. So you assume, I guess, like a lot of people, you are optimistic Republicans will take over the House. But what do you see in the Senate?
COULTER: I never thought we could take the Senate. So by the way establishment Republicans, stop whining about Christine O'Donnell. It's not like the Senate hung in the balance.
HANNITY: Who would have thought Russ Feingold would be down eight points in the latest Fox poll?
COULTER: OK. But let's wait and see that. You see that's a perfectly good example. I certainly hope that this fantastic Republican running against him, Johnson, a businessman, and he's running -- a fabulous speaker.
HANNITY: He's running a great campaign.
COULTER: I heard about him when I spoke in Milwaukee earlier this year. Everyone was talking about. It is still the primaries on every --
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: I'm surprised you didn't go there with Madison and -- to Madison with the president yesterday.
COULTER: Well, at least I could be sure that Feingold wouldn't be there.
HANNITY: All right. If you're going to --
COULTER: Obama was there.
HANNITY: All right. There is a little battle emerging. I don't know if you saw Politico today. And a number of Republicans in the Senate are attacking Jim DeMint. Jim DeMint has been the one guy --
COULTER: He's our hero.
HANNITY: Well, I agree. Jim DeMint has been the one guy that's been willing to say no to really change what we need --
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: -- changed in Washington. We need solid conservatives.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: And now he's being punished for it.
COULTER: Yes, well --
HANNITY: Now I got to tell you something. If the establishment in the Republican Party doesn't see this for what it is, a conservative ascendancy.
COULTER: Right.
HANNITY: And if they don't understand they're on probation --
COULTER: If any Republican in Washington is upset with DeMint this just explains why there's a Tea Party Movement. Republicans are -- or rather Americans are sick of Republicans going to Washington and saying we'll just be in Washington generals to the Democrats' Harlem Globetrotters. Let's just agree, be good losers to everything.
That is what the Republican establishment has been doing for decades, decades, decades. While the Tea Party movement is holding their feet to the fire and saying no, we want -- we want people who will represent us and not get to Washington, and get comfortable and vote for more huge spending programs.
HANNITY: That's what -- that's why I find it so astonishing because they don't recognize that if they're not going to lead, get out of the way.
COULTER: Right. Well, they might find that out when they face their own primaries.
HANNITY: They might. They might very well.
COULTER: Look at what all -- what happened to all these establishment candidates.
HANNITY: What do you think of what's happening? You know, John Kerry is lashing out at voters. The president is lashing out at liberals in his party. Joe Biden is calling them whiners.
What do you make of their intramural battle that's going on? So much was made about the GOP is in a civil war.
COULTER: Two things. One quickly, look at how they approached the Tea Party. I mean the Tea Party was both independent voters, people not really involved in politics. The Republicans say OK, come run in our primaries, you win, we're for you.
The Democrats called them racist and morons.
One other thing that we didn't get to do --
HANNITY: Not if you're Lisa Murkowski. Not if you're Mike Castle. Not if you're Charlie Crist.
COULTER: Of course not. That's because establishment Republicans are swine. We didn't get to the most important point that the media is hiding about Patty Murray and that is her great start in politics was fighting to save a program, a class to teach parents how to parent.
You know, the next class is waking up. And how to comb your hair. Anyway her ferocious campaign to save this class, they neglect to mention it was her own class. She was just a public employee fighting to save her useless, pointless job.
HANNITY: All right, Ann Coulter, it's always a pleasure. Good to see you.
COULTER: Good to see you.
HANNITY: Thank you for being here.
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