Tea Time in Ohio
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This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 3, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: A tea party protest erupts in Columbus, Ohio, thousands of protesters gathering at the Ohio statehouse on Saturday, some chanting, some making speeches protesting government bail-outs, the exploding national debt, proposed health care reforms and more, the protests organized by the Ohio Liberty Council. Jason Rink is a member of the Liberty Council and joins us live.
Jason, first of all, what is the Liberty Council?
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JASON RINK, OHIO LIBERTY COUNCIL: Greta, the Liberty Council is basically just an organization of a lot of grass roots leaders, just regular people who want to just stop complaining and start doing something about, you know, what we see wrong in this country.
VAN SUSTEREN: How many people showed up, do you estimate? And I realize that -- that, you know, it's sort of a -- it's difficult to estimate. But what do you estimate?
RINK: We estimate there was between 8,000 and 10,000 people there, a great turnout. Families came out with kids. It was a good time. We had a lot of great speakers, including Judge Andrew Napolitano, representatives from a lot of different organizations who were a part of it. And the Ohio Liberty Council is really just dedicated to promoting constitutional principles and wanting to hold our representatives accountable to that.
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VAN SUSTEREN: Do you have a job, sir?
RINK: I'm -- I'm -- I do have a job, yes. I'm trying to make a living in this economy, just like anybody else.
VAN SUSTEREN: What do you do?
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RINK: You know what? I'd rather not say. I'm actually just working in the financial world, and you know, I -- I do this organization on the side. It's something I do because I want to preserve America.
You know, something happened to three years ago to me. I read the Constitution, something I recommend that all our representatives would read themselves because they vow to uphold and defend it. And so, you know, in my spare time, I go out there, I try to energize and encourage people to stop complaining, take action. And we're actually getting ready to do another event in September in Cincinnati, September 5th. And we're already in the works, trying to double the number of attendees that we had at this event.
The other thing is...
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VAN SUSTEREN: Besides...
RINK: ... is this is not an anti -- this is not an anti-Obama rally. It's not an anti-tax rally. It's a pro-liberty rally.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Besides Judge Napolitano, who was there -- that sort of is interesting to me because he's a colleague here -- who else showed up? You know, what were there, community leaders, or were they just people who -- you know, citizens who are just interested? How do you -- how do you sort of describe your -- the crowd that showed up?
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RINK: We had a lot of different people. We had, you know, Libertarians, Republicans, independents, Democrats. We had Senator Tim Grendell (ph) of the Ohio Assembly came there. We also had Jarrod Martin (ph), who's a representative here in Ohio. And you know, our speakers had words for the Republicans who violate the Constitution. You know, it was the Republicans who -- President Bush who got the first bail-out pushed through, and you know, also, you know, Republicans have pushed their share of bills through Congress without reading them, so it's not just the Democrats.
We really just want to unify people. The American people -- we're ones who are paying the price, and we just got to bring our representatives back in line with the Constitution. That's what we're really all about.
VAN SUSTEREN: And Jason, I didn't mean to put you on the spot (INAUDIBLE) job, I was just sort of curious just to put context into sort of, you know, what might be -- you know, what might be your interest, and you know, people come to these demonstrations with all (INAUDIBLE) different interests. So I didn't mean to put you in the hot spot. But thank you for joining us, and good luck, Jason.
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RINK: Hey, no problem. Please visit the Ohio freedom Web site at Ohioliberty.com.
VAN SUSTEREN: I'm going to Ohio sooner than you think, but for other reasons. Anyway, thank you, Jason.
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