Stuart Varney Calls Obama a Socialist; Refers to Imus as "An Animal Guy"

Even though New Jersey resident Stuart Varney stayed in New York City last night, Imus appreciated that his guest trekked through the snow to appear in studio this morning. “It’s always a pleasure to appear with the great Imus,” Varney said. “I’m very fortunate, and glad to be here.”
 
Told his statement dripped with insincerity, Varney, the host of Varney & Co. on the Fox Business Network, replied, “This is true.”
 
The Congressional Budget Office, a bipartisan arm of Congress that “crunches the numbers,” as Varney put it, predicted yesterday that unemployment will not go down to 5 percent until 2016, a scary assessment, and a big problem for the President, along with the continued drop in housing prices.
 
Sensing an opportunity to make the conversation about himself, Imus noted that he recently lowered the price on his own home in Westport, CT, which, it turns out, was Varney’s first landing spot when he moved to America from England in the early 1970s.
 
“I flew into JFK, a newly-minted immigrant, was taken at night to a relative’s house in Westport, Connecticut, stayed overnight, got up the next morning, walked around, and I thought, ‘My goodness, me—I am in heaven. The streets in America are truly paved with gold,’” he recalled. Believing all of America was like that, Varney promptly moved. To New Jersey.
 
At least he didn’t move overseas, which is where General Electric moved thousands of jobs over the last decade. As such, President Obama saw fit to hire GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt to lead the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Awesome.
 
“He blasted business as being a bunch of ‘fat cats’ before,” Varney said. “Now all of a sudden he’s appointing a top business guy to an advisory council? There’s a deal here. GE gets contracts—government contracts—for wind turbines and green energy, GE gets bailout money, $11 billion for its credit union. In return, GE makes NBC a unit of the Democratic Party, and tries to reelect Barack Obama.”
 
Picking up on hints of a conspiracy theory in Varney’s rhetoric, Imus observed that his guest is “as crazy as the rest” of the Right wing nuts on a quest to take their country back. “Who took it away from you?” Imus wondered. “Who are you going to take it back from? And what were you doing when they took it from you?”
 
Before Varney could sufficiently answer anything besides “the Left,” Imus said, “They took the country away from you because you guys weren’t doing anything with it.” Accused of being “a secret Leftist,” Imus abdicated this line of conversation by declaring, for a change, “Leave me alone. I don’t feel well.”
 
But the two weren’t finished yet. In the ensuing minutes, Varney admitted he believes Obama is a socialist, but he wouldn’t touch the “birther” argument with a ten-foot pole. He further whined that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie refuses to appear on his program, even thought Varney strongly believes the dude should run for President.
 
Like many Republicans, Varney thinks Sarah Palin could better serve her Party by recruiting new people “into the conservative idea spectrum,” and not by running for President. He encouraged Imus to watch Sarah Palin’s reality show about her family, where in one episode she “beat the crap” out of a halibut she caught on a fishing trip.
 
Funnily, Imus had seen that clip, and found it outrageous, not to mention inhumane. “Oh that’s right,” Varney said, sounding especially British. “You’re an animal guy, aren’t you?”
 
Also, he wears Uggs. But only when it’s really cold outside.
 
-Julie Kanfer