FOX "Hannity"- Transcript: Republicans in Congress

Interview

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Joining us now, the of the brand new book "American Will, The Forgotten Choices that Changed our Republic and Offer lessons for its Future," 2016 Republican presidential candidate, he is the governor of the great state of Louisiana. Governor Jindal, how are you, sir? Good to see you.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Great to see you, Sean. Thank you for having me.

HANNITY: I appreciate your fight. I wish we had the same fight in Congress over Planned Parenthood, immigration, et cetera, ObamaCare. We don't have that fight.

JINDAL: Sean, I couldn't agree with you more. The Republicans in D.C. have become the surrender caucus. All they say is they can't. They can't defund Planned Parenthood, they can't stop amnesty, the can't stop ObamaCare.

HANNITY: Is it they can't or they won't?

JINDAL: Well, both. The reality is they need a backbone transplant. I don't like what Pelosi and Reid are doing to our country, but at least they fight for their principles. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of this lawsuit, quite frankly.

Look, the Obama attorneys might as well get comfortable in Baton Rouge. We're not backing down from this fight. We're going to fight to owe protect innocent human life. I know there are a lot of Republicans in D.C. that like to talk. It's time for them to act, including a lot of these Republicans running for president. A lot of these senators, whether it's Cruz or Rubio or Graham or Paul, we need folks to actually act on the front lines. I hope every governor will defund Planned Parenthood. They can't sue us all. They can't come after us all.

HANNITY: Why do you think your campaign has not broken out till this point? You have a great record as governor. You're a conservative. You fought on a lot of issues. Is it too much noise in the room? Is it the year of the insurgent, people don't want any politician?

JINDAL: Sean, we focused our time in Iowa. We're actually in the top five in the polls in Iowa. We're building momentum in the 53 counties in the town halls. We're building a movement, and it's based on what you said. We're the only candidate that cut government spending. Everybody talks about it. We've actually cut out budget 26 percent. Most pro-life states six years or out, highest legislative award from the NRA. We're pro Second Amendment. We fought for religious liberty. We're a top 10 state for job creation. So we've got a proven conservative record. But we're winning in the early state. I know a lot of folks ignoring Iowa and New Hampshire. I think that is a mistake. For 50 years our nominees all have won one of those states. We're going to win in Iowa in the first week of February.

HANNITY: Who is ignoring those states?

JINDAL: I think that there are a lot of establishment folks, a lot of donors that want to move away. You've heard the chairman of the RNC even suggest maybe Iowa shouldn't be first. I think it's a mistake just to look at national polls. Let the voters, not the donors decide. I think a lot of establishment wants to clear the field for Jeb, and I think that is a mistake.

HANNITY: Do you really believe that's the case? He's at four percent in the polls.

JINDAL: I think voters get to decide. Democracy is messy. They didn't like it when Donald Trump ran. I think it's better to let the voters decide. They're so frustrated. I said when Boehner stepped aside. I said, look, if McConnell is not willing to fight for us, he needs to follow Boehner's lead. I think voters are angrier at Republicans than Democrats. At least the Democrats are honest. They call themselves socialist, so your choices are honest socialists on the left, lying conservatives on the right. Voters are pretty frustrated. I think we've doing well in Iowa because we have proven that we will fight for conservative values.

HANNITY: You give a little bit of a history lesson here about some ups and downs and challenges we face. Did you do that through the prism of, hey, America has been through a lot already and we should learn from the past?

JINDAL: Absolutely. I hope people enjoy this book. Some of these forgotten stories -- we live in the greatest country of the history of the world but there are incredible leaders that made the right decisions at the right moment in time. One of the forgotten stories for example, we talk about Reagan, we all loved Reagan. He took on President Nixon in his own party over welfare expansion. Nixon, a Republican.

HANNITY: He also took on a sitting Republican president and nearly won.

JINDAL: That is exactly right, took on Ford as well. But Nixon was the one that was trying to federalize welfare. Does this sound familiar, was trying to say we need to have more able-bodied Americans dependent on government. You had Reagan fighting against the tide and he successfully won that fight.

HANNITY: Sounds familiar.

JINDAL: Absolutely.

HANNITY: All right, governor, good to see you. Good luck. It's called American will in bookstores now. Good to see you, Governor.

JINDAL: Thanks, Sean.

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