fox on geraldo at large, you'll want to stay tuned to that at 10 p.m. eastern. you know the news as fox reports, sunday, september 13th, 2009. i'm julie banderas, see you same time, same place, same channel, time, same place, same channel, next weekend. captioned by closed captioning services, inc. take you for watching. see you back here tomorrow. governor mike huckabee. [applause]thank you. thank you very much, welcome to huckabee from the fox studios in new york city. well, tonight, ousted governor and his wife patty join us and we're going to ask them some questions and their answers could make headlines and the queen of cuisine, paula dean is here, you'll love her style and humor and you might be surprised

by other powerful and amazing story and then, all time country music great, george jones, is here. he's going to be playing one of his classic songs and a brand new one, never released before. but you're going to hear it here tonight. what a great show we have. thank you for joining us. [applause]. sad to report today the death of a good friend to all of us, journalism. the once esteemed state of our nation and protector of our freedoms and a watch dog of our rights has passed away after a long struggle with a crippling and debilitating disease of acu acute dishonesty aggravated by a loss of brain function. journalism once proudly patrolled our society and sought to tell us a story that informed and sometimes inspired us. journalism, presented the news that would irritate us and irritation not over the delivery, but the content, as

corruption and the deeds were revealed. and in recent years, journalism has grown increasingly dependent on spin doctor spoon feeding and circular and insular quoting of other journalists instead of tamenting to locate and quoting the first person sources. i told you a couple of weeks ago how the new york times, news week, and media outlet took words i said on my radio commentary, instead of quoting them they summarized them and distributed them. bloggers and other supposedly professional journalists took those already distorted interpretations, treated them as sources and added their own spices. news week had the audacity to use quote marks around a statement that never was utter add as if they were quoting my actual words. when van jones, one of over 30 unelected czar was caught making outrageous statements about republicans, police officers, and being discovered belonging to many radical groups, the

media was incapable of so much as a notice of his record and only mentioned him at the time of his rest i go i go nation, providing coverage for president obama in many statements, several journalists broke their arms patting themselves on their back and broke their legs tripping over their own words. the fall brought about serious head injuries, rendering the profession with only a minimal brain function. despite heroic efforts at the white house to show tender and thought feel love to friendly reporters, journalism has slipped from the news pages of major papers. survivors include the american people who long ago stopped buying the antique stained drivel that stained the pages of papers and people who attempt today read it. no memorials planned as the practitioners of propaganda seemed to be unaware they passed away and they continued to public anyway. well, that's my view and i welcome yours and you can contact me at mike huckabee.com

and click on the fox news feedback session. [applause] >> well, earlier this week, the president challenged critics of his health care plan to come up with a better one. >> i've got a question for all of these folks who say that we're going to pull the plug on grandma and this is all about illegal immigrantsen a illegal immigrants and you've heard all of the lines, i've got, i've got a question for all of those folks, what are you going to do? what's your answer? what's your solution? and now what? they koedon't have one. >> mike: well, my first guest does have an alternative plan to the president's proposal and this past wednesday, he was flanked by house and senate leaders to deliver to congress a petition signed by 1.3 million americans who agree with him. please welcome the father of health savings accounts, the president and ceo of the

national center for policy analysis, dr. john goodman, john, good to have you here. >> good to be with you. [applause] >> the president said there wasn't an alternative and nobody put forth a plan. so what is the alternative, what is the plan that might be an alternative to his proposal? >> welling, now, there are several good plans, john mccain had a very good plan when he ran for president, senator colbert had a good plan, senator demint. it would move helping people uninsured with tax relief when they buy their insurance making insurance portable and giving people more power over the health care dollars so they can manage more of their own health care. >> what's right about the obama plan? tell me if i'm listening to the president speak the other night and he makes this very powerful to me. >> political speech not so much a presidential one, but a strong political advocacy for his plan, even though we haven't seen it, what's right about what he's saying? >> what's right about what he's saying, he's very good at identifying real problems, the

costs are growing too high. we can't go forever with health growing twice the right of income. we have an access problem, not nobody everybody gets here in a timely way so these are real problems, but what he's proposing doesn't solve the problems, it makes it worse. >> mike: you say he's the doctor, he can do the diagnosis and didn't prescribe the treatment plan. >> absolutely. he's going to kill the patient. >> we hear the talk, john, there's 47 uninsured americans-- 47 million uninsured merckx and how many could buy insurance or qualify for existing government plans, how many truly uninsurable people? because i think that's the issue, not the uninsured. the unsnainsurable. how many are there. >> 10 million. maybe a fourth of the time we're used to harg, but in any event, a lot of us can fall into that trap, and sometimes in our lives, most people are uninsured for short periods, like being

unemployed. it's a lot of people, for short periods and strangely enough, there's nothing in the obama health plan that deals with the short periods of underinsures. nothing at all. >> what is the the best way to handle that. >> that's what we're advocating and i think that's the single most important reform we can push for. >> and portable, means that your interest is owned by you not by your employers, so if you move across state lines and take a different job, you keep your personal health insurance just like you do your life insurance or your car insurance? >> absolutely. now, here is the strange thing, in arkansas and texas and just about every state in the country, it's against the law for the employer to buy or his employee insurance that the employee owns, against the law. so the employer cannot give the employee the kind of insurance they most want and need, insurance that will go with them from job to job when they go in and out of the labor market. it will travel with them throughout the labor market.

>> mike: you're often called the mother of the health savings account. hsa, tell me why that should be talked about more than a program to compete with the health system. >> it's a little better than the department of motor vehicle in most places and it operates like a bureaucracy, and, this bureaucracy doesn't see you, the patient, as its customer, they look to the third party payers as their client. when you empower the patient and give the patient control over the money, all of a sudden the patient becomes the client and they have to cater to the patient's wishes. >> mike: the president did mention the possibility of medical malpractice reform, were you surprised that he actually introduced that and do you think he's serious, is he really going to put that on the table? >> i don't think they're serious, i think they're talking about some sort of pilot program that we'll try and go away. the trial lawyers just give too much money to the democratic party and we give tough republicans, too.

but it will be hard for the democratic leadership in congress to endorse real tort reform. >> you mentioned pilot programs, there have been attempts to do a government type program similar to what hr 3200 the house bill does. massachusetts tried it, tennessee has tried it, dismal failures, why don't we try something out of the state before we do this at the federal level and all 50 states and make a mistake? >> air right. massachusetts is the closest thing to obama care, massachusetts has been a failure, costs are rising, and it's hard to get-- to be a doctor today as it was when the plan was started. the waiting times involved for a new patient to see a doctor, are twice as long as in any other u.s. city. >> mike: well, and that's what we can look for for the whole country. thank you for joining me today. what a pleasure to have you here. i hope you will not forget to make contact with our congressman or senator if you have concerns about the health care proposal. john goodman and his group delivered 1.3 million

signatures, i hope yours will be one of them. okay he's accused of being a corrupt chicago politician who used his power for his own political and financial gain. coming up former governor rod blagojevich and his wife patty, they'll be right here in our studio. and when i come home from my restaurant, i love showing bailey how special she is. yes, you are. i know exactly what you love, don't i? - [ barks ] - mmm. aromas like rotisserie chicken. and filet mignon. yeah, that's what inspired a very special dry dog food. [ woman ] introducing chef michael's canine creations. so tasty and nutritious it's hard to believe it's dry dog food. chef-inspired. dog-desired. chef michael's canine creations.

woman: (thinking) so, i stick this bounce bar inside my dryer and for about four months, it'll freshen my clothes automatically? wow, let's see you in action. hmm, i wish all my chores took care of themselves automatically. ( ♪ ) (dryer buzzing) ( sniffing ) enjoy automatic freshness for about four months with the new bounce dryer bar. why is dick butkus here? i hired him to speak. a lot of fortune 500 companies use him. but-- i'm your only employee.

we're gonna start using fedex to ship globally-- that means billions of potential customers. we're gonna be huge. good morning! you know business is a lot like football... i just don't understand... i'm sorry dick butkus. (announcer) we understand. you want to grow internationally. fedex express (applaus (applause) >> rod blagojevich is accused of serious charges, like using his power to shake down businesses and political opponents and trying to sell off the illinois senate seat by-- that by-- vacated by president barack obama, but he says he's innocent and offers his side of his brand new book called "the governor." former illinois governor rod blagojevich and his wife patty

join us now. great to have you both here. thank you, patty. [applaus [applause] >> let me get right to one of the-- to me, major questions, i think, a lot of people have. the connection that existed between you, rahm emanuel, the white house chief of staff and barack obama. was there communication and conversation that was going on about the senate seat when barack obama resigned to become president? >> well, mike, i wrote a lot about that in the book. wrote about my detail to pick a united states senator as i look at your audience, i want them to know i did nothing wrong, false accusations when i accused seeking to sell a senate seat, and the prosecutor a crime spree before it happened. he mutilated the truth. the day before. the morning before i directed my chief of staff to work out the tactics what was a routine political deal and was working with rahm emanuel and others

leading democrats, harry reid and i had conversation abouts that. and senator durbin offered to help on the deal where i would appoint the attorney general of illinois matigan, whose father was my political nemesis in exchange for that. yes, there was a deal. detail was a public works bill to create 500,000 jobs for working people. >> mike: i mean, it was a quid pro quo in essence. he had to support the bill and his daughter would get the senate aappointment. >> he would pass the bill. >> mike: and who knew this, did rahm emanuel know about this? >> rahm emanuel i write in the book knew i want today the deal with matigan. he's the kind of guy, rough and tumble kind of guy who now how to get the deal done. >> mike: he knew about this. >> he had discussions, spoke to my chief of staff and was doing the right thing. he was trying to get a senator that they wanted, but he also was going to be part after

process that would put 500,000 people to work, expand health care to 50,000, to 300,000 working families and a written guarantee mike, you'll like not to raise taxes. >> mike: that was the other end of the deal, the reason were you going to bring menendez and durbin and harry reid because they decided they wanted lisa matigan for the upcoming reelection to the senate. >> such a pleasure talking to you, mike, versus regular media they don't understand the intercassies of politics, you're a former governor and you understand how things work and you want to get things done and chicago is a different place in illinois than arkansas. >> mike: you have a reputation in chicago, rod about the politics. city. >> and i consider myself on the other side of that. when i would try to approach some of these big democrats in illinois to do the right thing for people. they couldn't do it. there always had to be something in terms of what they wanted. >> mike: and people weren't exactly doing the right thing and tony restco, for example,

and probably a deeper connection to rezco and programs. >> yes. >> mike: tell me how that worked, you, restco, barack obama, restco is in prison right now. >> two things, on the senate seat so the audience knows, there are taped conversations, they taped our phones. the accuse i remember took snipets of conversations out context and said i was selling the seat. this is iffing golden and the had me arrested and led to a process had me removed wrongfully from office. the court won't allow the tapes to be heard. i want the whole tapes to be heard and you'll hear the tut. one of us is lying and it ain't me and the tapes will tell you what the truth is. with regard to resco i write in my book, of course i made some misjudgments we all do, we're only human. to err is human to forgive is divine. and as president obama didn't know he was the person that he

turned out to be. and as i write in the book when president of-- a boneheaded relationship looking back with the hindsight of 2020. i call it a stupid relationship, but i never ever ever ever violated any law, i never considered violating a law much less intend today violate any law and the truth, mike, is in those tapes. >> mike: we're going to come back, rod, with you and patty and i want to talk to you more about what took place, and a couple of questions i want to ask, i don't think you've been asking for and i'm anxious to give an answer, i think it may be very interesting. rod says one of the reasons he wrote the book because his family needs the money, but his new law would force them to surrender any profits that the former governor had next year. and we'll ask them what they'll do if that ends up happening. we will be right back.

this is humiliating. stand still so we can get an accurate reading. okay...um...eighteen pounds and a smidge. a smidge? y'know, there's really no need to weigh packages under 70 pounds. with priority mail flat rate boxes from the postal service, if it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. cool. you know this scale is off by a good 7, 8 pounds. maybe five. priority mail flat rate boxes only from the postal service. a simpler way to ship.

. . >> mike: we are a back. rod, you were on our show a few months ago and at that time, patty, you were on a show in coast reek called "i'm a celebrity get me out of here" that had to be a crazy experience, why did you do it. >> i did it for a lot of reasons. the main reason they wanted my husband on the show and so the due to circumstances beyond our control he was not able to go and nbc came to me with the offer would i take his place so we had to think about it a lot and soul searching because i'd never been away from our children for any length of time at all, but it was an opportunity to help support my family and in a significant way after my husband was removed from office, i got fired from my j job, working for a not for profit for homeless people. they didn't like the publicity and the cameras coming to work, we were in a situation both of

us were unemployed and an opportunity to do an unconventional thing to support my family and stay in the home that our daughters have been living in since they were babies and allowed them to continue to go to school they've been going to and i felt all that was going around us, i need today keep things as stable as possible for them. keeping some things, the school and home the same as we were living in the middle of a hurricane. >> mike: speaking of stability, it's a difficult thing to make a normal way of life. your income is gone, your income is gone. the book may be awith a to recover income and yet, representative jack franks of illinois has gotten past piece of legislation if you're convicted actually tried to say, you can't get any profits off the book. >> well, the book is, this law that's unconstitutional would al apply ply right now, they would prevent me from getting profits off the book. if i could--

how great patty was, she ate a at that ran trantula in the middle of the jungle and i was left home with the two little girls. that's a channing. >> mike: avenue got to ask you a question. there's a possibility in the trial one thing you're going to have to do is bring some people in to testify. would you subpoena rahm emanuel to testify if it meant the difference between being free and going to jail? >> absolutely. not only that, they said you can ask the president of the united states to come in and testify. >> mike: will you ask the president of the united states, barack obama to testify at your trial. >> i certainly wouldn't be interesting in doing that, i'd love to have him as one of our star witnesses, whether or not that could happen. michelle obama could very well be a witness in the case because there are some relationships with tony resco that she could put in context the false allegations in relation to me.

senator reed, senator durbin, senator menendez, the leading democrats and let me point out. it's not that they didn't anything wrong either. we had political discussions trying to put together the best result for the people of illinois, i right in the book the first choice for senator was someone i did not like and how much do i love the people of illinois, can i make her a senator because her father is a good thing-- and that's what we should do, and again, that's the truth and if i could just make it clear again, prosecutors brought the false charges and i hhe was stopping a crime before it happened. a peck peculiar incidents i'm telling my chief to work out the deal. the next day we had fbi in our home and bedroom and our little fi little-year-old crawled into bed with us-- >> before we run out of time. that's a horrible experience for

anybody. i was asking to ask you a question. did david axlerod one of the chief advisors of the president ever ask you about running for president. did that ever happen. >> the irony is ironic, at o'hare airport in chicago and had people who actually wanted autographs, a guy who came up and a picture with me then u.s. senator barack obama and i was the governor and i wrote a tale of two guys whose careers are going in different directions and i signed it and the day after john kerry was beat bye president bush, david axlerod who worked forp me when i was a congressman, called me and suggested a midwestern of democrat the heartland of america to challenge hillary clinton in the next election season you should consider that, have an open mind. he was obviously trolling around potential candidates and interestingly had the horse in the stable with barack obama. >> mike: he acknowledges he was encouraging you and soliciting you to run for president.

we'll have to ask mr. axlerod. rod, thank you for being here today. >> thank you. >> mike: so good to have you here. coming up, her cooking is so good you can almost taste it through the tv screen. paula dean is going to be joining us. we will be right back. [applause]. my doctor told me i should've been... doing more for my high cholesterol. what was i thinking? but now i trust my heart to lipitor. when diet and exercise are not enough, adding lipitor may help. unlike some other cholesterol lowering medications, lipitor is fda approved to reduce the risk... of heart attack, stroke, and certain kinds of heart surgeries... if you have several common risk factors... or heart disease. lipitor has been extensively studied... with over 16 years of research. lipitor is not for everyone, including people with liver problems... and women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. you need simple blood tests to check for liver problems. tell your doctor if you are taking other medications,

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>> from america's news headquarters, hello everyone, i'm julie banderas. new haven police, we're told, expected to a hold a news conference at the top of the hour estimated at nine o'clock eastern time with the very latest on the disappearance of a yale university grad student. here she is, 24-year-old annie le seen outside a lab on tuesday. they've been searching a trash and nearby incinerator for clues. le, as you know, was supposed to be married today. they called off the wedding on friday. now, her entire family gathered

in new haven, connecticut where yale university is. waiting for answers desperately waiting for any word on her whereabouts, her fiance, not a suspect i might add, is a columbia university grad. he is cooperating with authorities. we will bring you that news conference that happened. i'm julie banderas. >> (applause) >> she's known as the queen of southern kcuisine and while she has many of us licking our chops with her mouth watering recipes she is on a mission to help feed those who don't have enough to eat welcome one of my favorites and i'm sure one of yours, paula dean. >> hey, you! (applause) >> how are you all? my husband, y'all. >> hi, paula. >> oh, help me up. oh, my god.

>> mike: how are you? >> i'm fine. how are you doing? >> delighted to have you here. >> is that not the cutest-- i love it keep talking, keep talking here. >> listen, so happy to see his dimples and then he told me how he got it so i realized why he only has one. >> mike: now you're going to make me tell the story, paula. >> great and i got lipstick on y you. >> mike: already made a mess of me, only 15 seconds. >> i don't usually enter a room and start kissing strange men, that was my husband. >> mike: so glad. >> but he was enjoying every minute. i'm glad it was your husband, if you want to miss the other men in the audience, feel free. >> i'm a kisser and a toucher and the one next to him is my business manager and agent barry and the next one is dennis pitman, who's here with me from the smithfield. >> mike: well, we're going be to be-- >> there he is. >> mike: a terrific thing going

with folks feeding hungry people and did you that what, you dropped off food somewhere and decided to-- >> well, we have been partners for about three years, i think, dennis, and we realized after we formed this partnership, that i love to feed people. so we said why not take this opportunity for us to join together on this and really try to make a big deal out of it. do it very loudly because hunger in america is unbelievable. why do i call you, darling, do i call you governor or mr. mike? >> just call me mike or call me for lunch if you want because i know we are going to have a wonderful plate if you do that. >> i think i'll call you darling. >> mike: darling works. i'm southern enough that i understand what that means. >> what darling means. your wife is right over there. so anyway, we said, let's do this thing loudly because hunger

in america is kind of overloo d overlooked. look, i wrote my cheat notes down, y'all, because i get my numbers confused no spring chicken anymore, but hunger affects 35 million people in america, y'all. and 13 million of those are children. and it's amazing, mike, how many elderly go to bed at night without a meal. >> mike: we don't think about that very much in america. >> we do not think about it and here is this crazy thing, it's not the man on the street,s irresponsible person that doesn't have a job, it's the working hungry, it's the people out trying to make something of themselves, trying to pull their weight between rent, utilities, the prices of gas, the way they shot up. by the time their paycheck pays

all those, you know, groceries, it's the one that's going to go lacking. the bottom line is-- and the most important, is we're there to take care of something that never should happen in a country as rich as america. >> mike: it should not. >> should never happen. >> mike: if you'd like to be a part of this effort it's on the screen with the website information and we will be able to invite you to be a part of paula's efforts. we are going to talk with paula about her personal story and it's amazing. don't go away because we're going to have more with paula dean right after this. >> thank you. >> mike: thank you. with polr i've been growing algae for 35 years. most people try to get rid of algae, and we're trying to grow it. the algae are very beautiful. they come in blue or red, golden, green. algae could be converted into biofuels... that we could someday run our cars on. in using algae to form biofuels, we're not competing with the food supply. and they absorb co2, so they help solve the greenhouse problem, as well.

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better for the environment. still ziploc fresh. all at no extra cost. designed with you in mind. s.c. johnson. a family company. (applaus (applause) >> we're back with paula dean. paula, your story to me is amazing because i see you as this incredibly vivacious, optimistic, go-getter person, all of this stuff going on, but if i've been talking to you 20-something years ago, we wouldn't be seeing this very outgoi outgoing-- >> well, you would see it, but you'd have to come to my house. >> mike: but you didn't get out of your house very much. >> there was times when i could not. i went on a 20-year ride, y'all, with agora phobia, i didn't know it had a name. i thought i was the only person in the world and i was so ashamed and embarrassed. >> mike: and agore phobia is the fear of getting out. >> i think if you you go to the

dictionary, it's something like fear of open spaces, but it's basically a fear of leaving your safety zone and that's usually the home. >> mike: so you had-- >> you don't run into agora fobics, let me tell you all. >> mike: ed your parents die when you were young and they we daddy was, mother was so mix was very, very young. and, yeah, itus really pe toe. i tripped and i didn't know to get backup. >> mike: then you worked at a bank and you held up. >> i worked off and on. than . theree but, the stinking thinking never left me, itever left me and cou i never >> mike: you were held up. >> i was, i was getting better. doing so much bette and the guy

with a full mask ran in with a loaded gun and there was two of us at the bank and ran straight up to me and put the gun to my temple and it was just dancing all-around and i said, well, you know my biggest fear is finally here. i'm fixing to die because there's no way he cannot shoot me. out of just pure refreks flexes because this man was scared to death and i found out the story why he was so scaredn