Read the transcript and see how the "tough" Hillary Clinton stood up to the famous FOX bully Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: OK. Oil prices. Now, you want us to suspend the federal gas tax. So does John McCain. Obama doesn't. But when I hear that, I say, it's the same old politician stuff, because the Democratic Party was opposed, is opposed to ANWR drilling. You voted against nuclear energy seven times. And I'm saying to myself, both parties, both parties have sold the folks out on energy. And now the folks are getting hammered and they should be angry at both parties. Where am I going wrong?
CLINTON: Well, here's what I think. I think there's plenty of blame to go around. We have not done what we should have done...
O'REILLY: Even for you?
CLINTON: ...for more — oh, for all of us, for everybody.
O'REILLY: OK. So you're taking some blame.
CLINTON: But consumers, drivers, political officials, the oil companies, you name it. We're not acting like Americans, Bill. We're not in charge. And I want to put us back in charge, and that's going to...
O'REILLY: OK, so you're going to change your votes on drilling and nukes?
CLINTON: Well, here's what I'm going to do, and I've said this very clearly. In the short term, I do want a gas tax holiday, but to pay for it by putting a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.
O'REILLY: What's that mean though?
CLINTON: Well, here's what...
O'REILLY: What does that mean?
CLINTON: Now look, what it means is that the oil companies have made out like bandits. You know that.
O'REILLY: Right. Record profits.
CLINTON: We all know that, right?
O'REILLY: Yes.
CLINTON: And there is no basis for them to have these huge profits. They're not inventing anything new.
O'REILLY: So, but what do you do? Take 20 percent of their profits away from them?
CLINTON: You set a baseline, and above that baseline you begin to tax their profits.
O'REILLY: So Congress has got to say yes to this.
CLINTON: Congress has got to say yes. Now, I know that's an uphill climb.
O'REILLY: You bet.
CLINTON: But I'm trying to lay the groundwork so that when I'm president we can get in there and say this has been going on way too long. I also want to take on OPEC. You know, OPEC is a cartel, it's a monopoly.
On universal healthcare:
O'REILLY: $5 billion deficit, OK? The biggest expenditure in both California and New York? Medicaid, Medical. Fraud, between 10 and 20 percent. So you're going to tell me President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, is going to, A, run this efficiently and B, not bankrupt the country, when California and New York are already bankrupt? How are you going to do that? Moses going to come down?
CLINTON: Well, he could help. Don't you think?
O'REILLY: Yes, that's who you're going to need.
CLINTON: On those tablets, here's what's going to be written: If we don't get to universal health care, we will continue to bleed money. If we don't have more accountability, like through electronic medical records, we will never catch up to the fraud. If we don't make a decision right now that we're actually going to protect what is best about the American health care system, we won't recognize it in 10 or 20 years.
So here's what I say: Everybody who has health insurance who's happy with it, you keep it. No changes. But what I am going to do is take an already existing plan — it's not government-run, it's not a new bureaucracy. It's the way Congress and federal employees get their health care. And we're going to open it up to every American, because I think it's about time...
O'REILLY: But you're going to subsidize it.
CLINTON: Well, we are. But here's why. You already are subsidizing it. Your family policy has a $900 hidden tax. Why? Because when some poor person who doesn't have health insurance...
O'REILLY: Goes to the emergency room...
CLINTON: That's right.
O'REILLY: ...you've got to pick it up.
CLINTON: You pick it up.
O'REILLY: And I don't mind doing it.
CLINTON: Well, but we're going to get the costs down for everybody, because people should pay something if they can afford to pay it. So under my plan, we're going to tell the insurance companies, no more discrimination, you've got to take care of people with pre-existing conditions. We're going to regulate them differently. And we're going to give them a different business model.
O'REILLY: All right. It's a complicated issue, and I don't think you can do it.
CLINTON: But you know, Bill, it's a moral issue.
O'REILLY: It is and it isn't.
CLINTON: It is a moral issue. Oh, no, it is.
O'REILLY: I mean, there's a self-reliance that has to kick in, you know?
CLINTON: That's right. There is a self-reliance. But...
O'REILLY: I mean, I don't want to be paying for someone who's taking heroin and drinking a bottle of gin a day.
CLINTON: But I assume you want to pay for some hardworking family whose kid has juvenile diabetes.
O'REILLY: I do.
CLINTON: Or some woman...
O'REILLY: I don't mind doing it.
CLINTON: ...that just gets diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
O'REILLY: I think there should be safety nets, but I don't know if you're going to be able to do this.
CLINTON: There — well, but if we don't do it, we'll meet here again in five or 10 years. We'll have more uninsured people. The prices will have continued to go up, because we will not have put into place the safeguards and the accountability that our health care system needs.
O'REILLY: All right.
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