Jindal: Rhetoric not enough to defend Obama's record

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Gov. Jindal: 'Not enough to defend this president's record'

Louisiana governor on the second debate

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," October 16, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY, GOP PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think you know that these last four years haven't been so good as the president just described, and that you don't feel like you're confident next four years going to be much better either. I can tell that if you're going to elect President Obama you know what you're going to get. You're going to get a repeat of the last four years. We can't afford four more years like the last four years. He said by now we'd have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans without work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Welcome back to Hofstra University. Joining me now in the spin room is Romney surrogate, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Governor, how are you? Good to see you.

GOV.BOBBY JINDAL, R-LA.: Great to see you as well.

HANNITY: I thought this was a prosecutor point by point just, you had four years, made promises and said unemployment would be nine million jobs more than we got, devastating.

JINDAL: Absolutely. Look, the president -- he must have drank all the Red Bull and caffeine they could find for him in the White House. Didn't make any difference. You can combine speaking skills of Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill. It's still not enough to defend this president's record. I think Governor Romney did a great job.

The problem the president has, he made specific promises. Fix the economy in three years, it didn't happen. Cut the deficit in half, it didn't happen.

He said he's going to cut health care premiums $2,500, didn't happen. Gasoline prices have doubled. Fact after fact -- what was interesting, he didn't spend one minute talking about new policies for next four years. Four years ago it was hope and change. Now it's about destroy, distract, divide, lie about Governor Romney's record.

HANNITY: Let me ask you. This affects your state of Louisiana. Early part of the debate they spent quite a bit of time on energy. And yes, energy production is up, in a large part thanks to North Dakota and private lands. But the president tried to say under my administration they're up when leases are down in some cases 50 percent.

JINDAL: Absolutely. Look, you look at offshore leasing and permitting activities. They cancelled almost more leases than sales than actually conduct sales. You look at offshore permitting activity, down by as much as over half in many cases. You look at the Keystone pipeline. He took credit for approving -- he said look at the pipelines we've built. They only approved the pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas.

Someone needs to buy him a map and show him how many states there are between Oklahoman and Canada. We're talking Canadians basically, don't send oil down here to our refineries in the Gulf Coast, send it to China. He singled out the oil and gas industry for higher taxes. This is a president that every chance he has he's not embracing increasing domestic energy production.

HANNITY: One thing we haven't discussed tonight. I think this president is not used to being questioned. This president has had a fawning media. I don't think they've served him well. He has a hard time, he did not like it. He was visibly angry, fighting for time and then, saying -- except for Benghazi -- let's move to the next question. Thank you for distorting the truth Candy Crowley.

JINDAL: That is exactly right. We saw thin skin he has during the oil spill down in -- off my state's coast. He never -- responded so poorly to criticism. Going back to Libya. The moderator is wrong on this. The reality is this administration has offered three different explanations and days after the attack, they said it was about the video. The president himself went to the U.N. six different times citing that video. Jay Carney said it was not a premeditated terrorist attack. Ambassador Rice went out on the TV shows, said it was about the video. Then they said --

HANNITY: The president himself went on "The View" 14 days later, on the 25th, and said, he was asked directly, was this terror? We're investigating it.

JINDAL: And then they said, maybe it's spontaneous terrorist attack, their third explanation, by the way, belatedly was -- there is no protest about the video, by the way, there. Instead it was a pre-meditated attack. Pretty obvious, he owes the American people, not only the explanation of that --

HANNITY: The truth.

JINDAL: Absolutely. He also owes some explanation about the claims that additional security resources were requested and not provided. And we need to hunt down the perpetrators, issuing a stern statement is not enough --

HANNITY: You know what makes this worse, though, Governor, in my opinion, is that we knew in real time. We had testimony from the State Department, Charlene, I forget her last name, from the State Department. They're watching in real time. The intelligence community knew within 24 hours. Is he saying to the American people that he didn't know? I didn't know what is worse, not knowing or lying. I suspect that he did know. I suspect it was a cover up. I suspect there is probably going to be some revelation some point down the line, be it in the next three weeks I don't know.

JINDAL: Secretary Clinton yesterday takes responsibility. President Obama tries to catch up with her today. Four years ago, she made a pretty powerful ad saying will he be ready, that 3 a.m. phone call. We may be learning that now, unfortunately.

HANNITY: Governor, good to see you. I'm glad things are going well. What's the unemployment in Louisiana?

JINDAL: We've been below the national Southern average every month. We're one of only two states in the south -- with Texas -- has more jobs than before this recession started. We're showing cutting taxes, cutting spending works.

HANNITY: All right, good to see you, Governor.

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