Santorum on John King, USA
CNN’s John King interviewed former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, after his contributor arrangement was suspended by Fox News Channel. The full interview aired tonight on John King, USA at 7 p.m. ET. The full transcript is after the jump.
Full Transcript
THIS IS A RUSH FDCH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN KING, HOST: We are the first stop tonight for a likely contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, who until today was not allowed to sit down with any TV network not named Fox. But Fox News suspended its contributor contracts with the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum today because both are openly exploring presidential campaigns. Senator Santorum is with us now live.
FORMER SENATOR RICK SANTORUM (R), PENNSYLVANIA: Thank you, John.
KING: Welcome to the land of freedom and, we’d like to think, objectivity.
SANTORUM: It’s nice to be here. Thank you.
KING: So, FOX essentially said since you and Newt are exploring this and moving around and scheduling yourself with forums and the like that you can’t be on the payroll as contributors, which is wise by FOX News. But they also said they will terminate that deal as of May 1st. It’s suspended for now. On May 1st, they will terminate it unless you have given their word that you are not running.
So, does that speed up your decision process?
SANTORUM: No. I mean, it doesn’t really affect my decision process at all. I sort of look at it as — I’ve very been up front about — you know, that I’m looking at this and exploring it. And it’s not going to — it’s not going to have any impact on what I’m hearing in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, you know, how our fundraisers are going. All the things that when you test the waters you have to test to see how you’re doing really are quite separate than media appearances on FOX.
KING: I asked Governor Huckabee about this last week. He’s on a book tour. So, I was allowed to talk to him.
(CROSSTALK)
SANTORUM: — there is a caveat, John.
KING: Do you guys ever interact? I was joking with him. Do you have debates in the green room? Because you have Huckabee, Gingrich, Santorum, Palin, maybe John Bolton.
SANTORUM: Right.
KING: Do you interact at all. Do you have fun exchanges about who might be out there?
SANTORUM: You know, I don’t — I don’t see Mike very often. But, yes, I see Newt quite a bit. I’ve seen — I see John Bolton all the time.
And, no, I mean, it’s actually — you know, it’s — as you know, I mean, you cover campaigns. There’s a sense when you’re involved in an effort even though there’s a rivalry, there’s also a camaraderie that comes with it.
And I think everyone has the same objective, which is we want to have a new president in 2013. And I think at this point, that’s really the focus of everybody.
KING: I want to get some substance of Rick Santorum but a FOX executive told The L.A. Times today, well, they didn’t do the same thing to Governor Palin or to Governor Huckabee because any see no evidence at the moment that they are actively taking steps to explore. Do you think they’re going to run?
SANTORUM: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what, why FOX differentiated whether there’s been conversations. They didn’t talk to me and ask me whether I’m running or not. It wasn’t something that we had a conversation about. I don’t know whether other people have had conversations.
And so, all I can say is I think they made their call and I respect it.
KING: What would Rick Santorum’s place in a Republican field be? Help me understand it. One prospective rival would be the governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, who is a social conservative.
SANTORUM: Yes.
KING: But has said, you know what, with the deficit problem we have, with the polarized politics we have, it’s time to have a truce on issues like abortion and gay rights. Just set them aside for a few years, focus on fiscal areas. That sells with Rick Santorum?
SANTORUM: No, it doesn’t. I mean, to me, I look at almost every issue that we deal with in this country has a moral component to it. And so, to divorce a moral component to the debt burden we’re leaving the next generation, the tax structure to how we spend our money in Washington, and how we — you know, how we value human life — I mean, all of those things, to me interrelate. They’re not — they’re not separate issues.
I mean, I’m a big fan of Ronald Reagan, but think the concept of the three-legged stool of the Republican Party I think is a little amiss. I mean, the fabric of the stool is America is a moral enterprise. I mean, we are a people who believe in certain things and want to see a society in a certain way. We have common shared values. And those values are morally based.
So, I think to say we’re going to need to set that aside just — I think fundamentally misunderstands what America is about.
KING: A college student a week or so questioned the morality of Newt Gingrich, raising the fact that he has been married three time, divorced twice. Is that an issue in Iowa? Is than an issue for Rick Santorum?
SANTORUM: It’s not an issue for Rick Santorum. It’s a — you know, every candidate out there or potential candidate out there is going to have issues. I mean, you know, they don’t — they don’t make them perfect anymore. And so, I’m going to just go out and talk about, you know, what I have done in my career, what I stand for, what I’m about, and let the other folks do the same. And I think that’s the best way we’re going to get the best possible person to face off in 2012.
KING: We’ll have a lot of time to talk now because you can talk to us. And so, I want to essentially use this as a threshold, set a baseline for Rick Santorum.
SANTORUM: Yes.
KING: And then we’ll keep in touch as you make your decision. But explain to somebody watching there right now that says, I think I might remember this guy. He was in the Senate but he’s been off the radar a little bit.
Why, when you look at — there’s Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, maybe Sarah Palin, maybe Newt Gingrich — forget all them for a minute. Rick Santorum is the most qualified to be president. Why?
SANTORUM: Well, as far as qualifications are concerned, I served 16 years in Congress, four in the House and 12 in the United States Senate.
KING: But is there an overriding message of Rick Santorum beyond the resume that makes you the superior candidate?
SANTORUM: Well, you asked qualifications, so I answered qualifications. But as far as overwhelming — yes, I’ve been a consistent conservative on all the issues that I think people care about when it wasn’t cool to be that.
You know, I was out there fighting the reform battles that a lot of the Tea Party people are fighting right now. I was leading the charge on Social Security reform when it wasn’t cool to do it back in 1995 and ’97.
I went on with Bill Clinton to Kansas City, Missouri, and lead the charge with Bill Clinton trying to — this was before, unfortunately, the Monica Lewinsky situation, where they were trying to do some serious things about entitlement.
And I was out there as a freshman Republican in the state that had the highest per capital population of seniors, Pennsylvania, leading the charge on Medicare and Social Security reform. I survived an election after that. I didn’t survive a second one, but — because I went out in 2004 and did the same thing when Bill — excuse me when George W. Bush said we’re going to reform Social Security.
Jim DeMint and I went out there, did debates on the floor of the United States Senate, talked about how we had to do Social Security reform.
So, I’ve been out there trying to control government spending and at the same time, have been a very, very strong pro-growth guy. I mean, I’ve worked on tax reform and other types of litigation reform, regulatory reform, reforming government to create a better atmosphere for businesses in this country.
So, on the issues that are sort of the front burner issues, I think I have a pretty good solid record and the interesting thing is I think where I maybe differentiate myself is I have a record on other issues that people care about too — national security. I served eight years on the Armed Services Committee. I was author of two major pieces of foreign policy legislation, both of which in the Middle East, Iran, Freedom Support Act, and the Syrian Accountability Act.
And, you know, really led the charge on trying to articulate at a time when I think the prior president and this president have shied away from identifying the enemy and talk about who the enemy is and why we need to know who the jihadists are and why they’re at war with us, I’ve been touring the country — not just Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but other states, talking about the importance of the ideological war, the war that — of ideas which I think is important for America to know about if we’re going to continue to sustain this long war.
KING: I want you to listen. You’ve been very tough on the current president of the United States. I want you to listen to this from your speech to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference. Just a short time ago, you’re talking about how this is — American exceptionalism is a term that comes up often from critics of the president. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANTORUM: If everyone is exceptional, nobody is exceptional. The president of the United States — let’s just be very clear — he doesn’t believe America is exceptional.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He bristled with this when you bring it up, and he says it’s frankly horse manure.
SANTORUM: Well, I just go to his quote. When he was asked the question, “Do you believe in American exceptionalism,” the president said, yes, as much as the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greece believe in Greek exceptionalism. If everybody is exceptional, nobody is exceptional.
KING: His response to that would be that he delivered that quote at a time Wall Street, the United States’ financial markets had essentially collapsed the world economy and put the world at risk, and he was trying to be diplomatic early in his presidency. That is how he explains that one time he said that. Do you buy that?
SANTORUM: I don’t. I mean, look, America, at points in times in our history, has always had problems — but doesn’t make the foundational principles of America anything but exceptional. And so, when you — when your belief in American exceptionalism depends on how we’re doing today, then you don’t understand what America is all about and you don’t believe it’s at its core America is exceptional.
KING: Senator Santorum, we’ll keep in touch in the days and weeks ahead.
SANTORUM: Thank you, John.
KING: I’m glad you can come in and say hello to us. Thank you for being here.
###