This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” June 26, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED KENNEDY, (D) MA: This may not be perfect, but it’s the best opportunity we have to do something significant and substantial, and I believe that the bill is good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: That was Senator Ted Kennedy pushing for the immigration bill, which was resurrected in the Senate earlier today. It is too early for proponents of the deal to celebrate, as some major hurdles still need to be cleared, like the House.
Joining us now is radio talk show host Laura Ingraham. Laura, they voted 64 to something to reintroduce it. But is the House ever going to pass this bill?
LAURA INGRAHAM, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, it looks increasingly doubtful. The longer this goes on, despite the fact that cloture obviously was approved today, tomorrow there will be another cloture vote, so it will be late Thursday. There will be another cloture vote, I guess that’s the day after tomorrow. And then Friday will be the vote on the entire bill.
So there are 24 amendments. I have a list of the amendments in front of me. There are 24 amendments, Alan, and there are a couple that are likely to be killer amendments. There is an amendment by Senator Menendez to essentially extend chain migration, bringing more family members in. And then there are others from Senator Hutchison and Senator Thune that are going to be tough for the liberals to swallow. So this is going to be a wild ride.
COLMES: I don’t like it for the opposite reasons that you don’t like it probably.
INGRAHAM: Good. We agree though. In principle we agree.
COLMES: In principle it’s a bad bill. But I don’t like it for other reasons. It’s a big spending bill — $4.4 billion extra in this bill. The fence they are talking about, the 700-mile fence is probably going to cost five to 25 times more than they are already saying it’s going to cost.
INGRAHAM: Alan, do you know how much illegal immigration costs us?
COLMES: Whatever you are going to say, are you going to subtract the amount of money these people bring into the economy?
INGRAHAM: Twenty billion.
COLMES: And the taxes they pay.
INGRAHAM: Twenty billion. Alan.
COLMES: They also pay taxes. They also send money into the economy.
INGRAHAM: Here is the deal. Here is the deal. We either decide that we are a country, or we are not a country. If we want to be part of just some global marketplace of ideas and economics, then we can do that and that’s fine. But if we want to be a country, then countries have borders. And if we have borders, then the borders should be enforced. And we haven’t been doing that.
COLMES: This doesn’t do it.
INGRAHAM: And I think you can see, Alan, from the reaction across the country, left, middle and right, people basically don’t want this bill. And all these Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and, you know, the list goes on, Trent Lott, et cetera, et cetera. I’m telling you, a lot of people are now calling them former senators. Former Senator Graham.
COLMES: If you think a fence is going to do it. If you think the billions of dollars we are throwing at the problem is going to do it.
INGRAHAM: We have a little acronym on our show called ETL, enforce the laws.
COLMES: How are you going to do it?
INGRAHAM: Employers shouldn’t be hiring illegal also obviously. We can enforce the laws. We can hit home plate in Yankee Stadium with a nuclear weapon if we want to. We are so accurate militarily. You don’t think we have the ability to enforce our borders?
COLMES: I don’t know that we can.
INGRAHAM: Oh, come on.
COLMES: Not with a 3,000-mile border.
INGRAHAM: So you are saying, Alan.
COLMES: And you’ve got to do something about…
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Hang on a second. Laura, finish your thought and I have a question for you.
INGRAHAM: Alan is saying the world’s greatest super power cannot secure her borders. I’m stunned that Alan Colmes is saying that on national TV. It’s ridiculous.
HANNITY: Listen. I’ve worked with him long enough. Nothing he says stuns me.
INGRAHAM: I know. We still love him.
HANNITY: Let’s look at the political side of this for a second, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Sure.
HANNITY: The president now, since they started this debate has lost 10 points. His approval rating was already low. Congress is now what, seven or eight points below that. The American people by a margin of 80 percent do not want this bill, but they keep forcing it down our throats. Why would they do that just for pure political reasons would they not see that they’re on the wrong side of the issue here?
INGRAHAM: Well, the Democrats want to do it because this electorate is not as liberal as the Democrats need it to be to get all their social policies enacted. It’s just not working. So they need a new electorate. That’s why the Democrats are doing it.
HANNITY: Do you think they are really thinking that long term?
INGRAHAM: Sean, they are in it for the long-term. This is long-term. Some people think it’s morally the right thing to do. And that’s fine. I’m sure President Bush thinks that others really believe that globalism and the global economy requires that we have essentially an unlimited supply of cheap labor coming into the United States at all costs, at sovereignty costs, at national security costs, health care costs, education costs, all of it. That’s what it is. It’s globalism with morality and, you know, a little bit of electorate protection thrown in.
HANNITY: I think the Republican Party is now fractured over this.
INGRAHAM: Oh, yeah, you think?
HANNITY: I’ve been on talk radio, Laura, now this is my 20th year if you can believe that, since I started my radio career.
INGRAHAM: Oh my goodness. You started when you were three.
HANNITY: Basically, yeah. But I have never ever heard an audience this angry, this frustrated. Feeling that distant from their government that they feel their government is incapable of solving even the most basic of problems here. And it seems simple to me. Build the fence, hire the agents, use new technologies, secure the border first. Why five and a half years after 9/11 can’t we get to that point?
INGRAHAM: Well, it’s shocking and it’s outrageous. And let me tell you this. Republicans have stuck together as a coalition, the national security Republicans, the social conservatives, and the libertarians.
And right now the traditional conservatives, kind of the more socially conservative voters. They are going to think that the business community is more of a danger to their future, to their culture than, let’s say, liberals. When Bernie Sanders is more in touch with the American people than President Bush on this issue, you know the Republican Party is in trouble.
HANNITY: All right. Let me ask. Do you think it gets stopped in the Senate? We have got another cloture vote on Thursday.
INGRAHAM: We can still stop it.
HANNITY: Or does it go to the House.
INGRAHAM: Well, I think there is a good chance that one of these killer amendments, either the Thune amendment, the Hutchison amendment or the Menendez amendment is going to fracture this thing beyond repair. I think that’s a real possibility. I think the House is hearing it.
These guys, Sean, are essentially at the point where they need to unplug their fax machines and take their phones off the hook because they’re getting so many calls.
HANNITY: They need to start listening, actually, to what those people are saying that are calling in in droves.
INGRAHAM: It would be nice, wouldn’t it?
COLMES: When Bernie Sanders is more in touch maybe you ought to reconsider party affiliation. You know what I’m saying.
INGRAHAM: Alan, please, you are hopeless. We love you.
COLMES: From you that’s a badge of honor…
INGRAHAM: We love you.
COLMES: …when you tell me that, Laura.
HANNITY: By the way, I agree with Ingraham, he’s hopeless. Hopeless.
COLMES: Badge of honor when you say it too, Hannity.
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