How Do You Create a Job? Don't Ask Richard Blumenthal

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," October 5, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: All right, without a doubt the key issue of the 2010 midterms is jobs so it should be no surprise that the big headline out of last night's Senate debate in Connecticut involves that very subject.

Now take a look as the Republican candidate, former WWE CEO Linda McMahon asks her opponent, Democrat Richard Blumenthal this very basic, simple question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATE CANDIDATE LINDA MCMAHON, R-CONN.: Tell me something, how do you create a job?

SENATE CANDIDATE RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, D-CONN: A job is created and it can be in a variety of ways by a variety of people. But principally by people and businesses in response to demand for products and services.

And the main point about jobs in Connecticut is, we can and we should create more of them by creative policies. And that's the kind of approach that I want to bring to Washington.

I know about how government can help preserve jobs.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: What? I don't know how the audience was able to hold back from bursting into laughter. Now sadly Blumenthal's incoherent rambling goes on for almost another minute until, out of the goodness of her own heart, McMahon bails him out. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCMAHON: Government, government, government. Government does not create jobs. It's very simple how you create jobs.

An entrepreneur takes a risk. He or she believes that he creates a good or service that is sold for more than it costs to make it. And if an entrepreneur thinks he can do that, he creates a job.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. All told it took Richard Blumenthal one minute and 21 seconds to try and answer that question. By contrast, businesswoman Linda McMahon was able to explain very clearly in under 20 seconds exactly how a job is created.

And joining me now with reaction from Washington is former White House press secretary, Fox News contributor, Dana Perino. And here in studio is the host of "Varney & Company" of the Fox Business Network.

By the way, we're borrowing Imus' studio tonight.

STUART VARNEY, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Yes, you are.

HANNITY: I better leave him a note and a cup of coffee and a "Hannity" mug so he'll be happy in the morning.

VARNEY: Treat it well.

HANNITY: I just -- it was breathtaking.

VARNEY: Yes, it was.

HANNITY: The answer was so bad. He had no clue how to answer that question.

VARNEY: We're going to find out how wrong Mr. Blumenthal is come Friday morning when he get the latest unemployment report.

HANNITY: Yes.

VARNEY: Which is going to show the unemployment rate in all probability going up.

HANNITY: How high?

VARNEY: Nine, seven, nine eight. We've spent $1 trillion and 18 months later we've got an unemployment rate that is going up.

Mr. Blumenthal was flat out wrong in his incoherent way and Linda McMahon was flat out right.

HANNITY: And she did it so simply.

Dana, your reaction?

DANA PERINO, FORMER WH PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I thought it was interesting that later on he also said that, well, I want to be an entrepreneur by going to Washington and being in the Senate.

Like you -- well, that is her point, which is government is not the place where we want to be creating jobs. You want to find people that have the courage and the confidence and the risk -- the level of risk that you need in order to go out on a limb and start a new business.

That's what her point was. And so I think where some people had written her off, she is closer to winning this election than ever.

HANNITY: Yes.

PERINO: I think this debate helped. I also think that it was time that she called him out on his fabrications about serving in Vietnam.

HANNITY: You know what the biggest problem is? A lot of these people running for these jobs, they never ran a business.

VARNEY: No.

HANNITY: I've run a business. I know what it's like to meet payroll, to pay worker's compensation, Social Security, taxes.

VARNEY: Right.

HANNITY: You know, to worry where the next amount of work is going to be coming from.

VARNEY: Sure.

HANNITY: You know, it's simple. Goods and services you provide for people that want -- need and desire them. It's called capitalism.

VARNEY: Look, you know, in that debate, the Blumenthal-McMahon debate, in many ways it framed the two sides of the argument in this forthcoming election. Government -- can it create jobs? Can it get the economy moving. That's the Blumenthal position. Private enterprise, the Linda McMahon position.

I mean we've got ample evidence that the government has not succeeded in its efforts to grow the economy and get the jobless rate down. Flat out failed to succeed. And in the last 12 months, we have added $1.6 trillion to our national debt, trying to show that the government works.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, I'll tell you, from a political point of view, Dana, I also think this ad that Linda McMahon released just prior to this debate pointing out the Blumenthal lied on Vietnam was one of the best I've seen this election cycle.

Your reaction to that?

PERINO: Well, I think it was smart. I was kind of surprised that nobody had really done it yet. Maybe she was just waiting for the right time.

But voters in Connecticut ought to know, you know, what this is all about. I thought back to -- and it's not exactly a parallel -- but remember when John McCain said Jeremiah Wright was off-limits?

HANNITY: Yes.

PERINO: And he didn't run any ad so define that. And this was a part of President Obama's life for 20 years.

HANNITY: Yes, that was my motto. Jeremiah was off-limits.

PERINO: Right. And then now with Blumenthal, I think it's worth -- I think that people ought to know and be reminded that he was willing to, you know, tell lies, basically about his service. And it's not fair to all those who did serve. So I think I was the right thing to do. I think she'll tighten this race up.

HANNITY: It was -- it was such a blatant lie. You know, when I came back from Vietnam -- he never served in Vietnam and he said it not once, not twice, but repeatedly, which I think goes to the heart of somebody's character. I mean and character matters.

And if you're going to lie to the voters in Connecticut about what, what else are you going lie to them about?

VARNEY: Well, you -- back to your other point. Look, how many members of the Obama Cabinet have ever met a payroll? How many of them made --

HANNITY: You know. You follow business.

VARNEY: None.

HANNITY: None.

VARNEY: None.

(CROSSTALK)

VARNEY: Flat out none. There is no business experience in that Cabinet.

HANNITY: You know what's frustrating, though, Stuart, to me, and this is -- this is your area of expertise, not mine. But I got to tell you something. I go back and -- the paradigm and the model could not be any more clear. Reagan takes the top marginal rate, 70 to 28 percent. Twenty- one million new jobs it created, revenues to the government, doubled.

You see what happened under Obama. Keynesian economics, stimulus after stimulus, some stimulus grants on stimulus. No jobs created. Look what's going to happen. They leave town, they don't vote on what our taxes are going to be in January.

VARNEY: Look, it was the wrong policy by the Obama administration right from the get-go.

HANNITY: Yes.

VARNEY: He chose Keynesian economics, government spending. That's what he chose. That was his method of getting the economy going. It was precisely the wrong policy and flew in the face of history. John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, the second George Bush.

HANNITY: George Bush.

VARNEY: All of them lowered tax rates, increased tax revenue to the Treasury - -

PERINO: But did you hear from --

VARNEY: -- and grew the economy. That's what it's all about.

HANNITY: Dana?

VARNEY: From a political standpoint did you see today -- it's not a new position for him but President Obama reminding people that he is open to the discussion of lowering the corporate tax rate.

I think if he were really open to that, I think we probably would have seen some policy.

VARNEY: Where is his heart?

PERINO: But he throws it out there today as chum. It's not going to work.

HANNITY: Where is the president's heart? Where does his heart lie? Does his heart lie really in cutting taxes and growing private enterprise? I'm sorry I think not.

PERINO: Well, it doesn't, but his head thinks about November 2nd, and thinks that might have helped.

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: I think his heart lies in his radical Keynesian model. That's -- am I allowed to answer a question that you posed to me?

VARNEY: Please do, Sean. This is your show.

HANNITY: I'm just checking. All right, guys, good to see you.

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