By Steve Rhodes
This transcript has been edited for sanity, clarity and comedy.
CNN: Tonight, eight candidates, one stage, one chance to take part in a groundbreaking debate. The Tea Party support and the Republican nomination, on the line right now.
RHODES: Seven candidates go home!
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WOLF BLITZER: And welcome to the Florida State Fairgrounds here in Tampa , the site of the first ever Tea Party/Republican presidential debate.
One year from now, right here in Tampa, the Republican National Convention will nominate the Republican candidate for president of the United States.
Candidates, please take your podiums. And while you do, I want to tell all of our viewers, everyone here a little bit more about how this debate will work.
RHODES: I will ask the most obvious questions that have been asked many times before and will be again. You will respond by repeating the rehearsed statements you and your advisors have been working on regardless of the question. I will fail to follow-up and you will pretend this is a real debate. Later, my news colleagues and peers will write and produce news stories and segments that also pretend something important happened here tonight, as if this wasn’t a staged pseudo-event designed for TV for the benefit of select interests.
Of course, if you say something that could be interpreted as a “gaffe,” no matter how inconsequential, we will blow it out of proportion in order to develop a narrative reflecting what we secretly think about you but are unwilling to report as news. True or not, you will then have to live with it. Is everyone ready?
BLITZER: Governor Huntsman, we’ll begin with you.
HUNTSMAN: Wolf, delighted to be here.
RHODES: Can I call you Wolf?
HERMAN CAIN: I’m Herman Cain. I am the only non-politician on this stage tonight.
RHODES: I dunno, no one else on the stage is much of a politician either!
BACHMANN: My name is Michele Bachmann. I know we can do so much better in this country. That’s why I’m the chief author of the bill to repeal Dodd-Frank, the bill to repeal Obamacare. And that’s why I brought the voice of the Tea Party to the United States Congress as the founder of the Tea Party Caucus.
RHODES: Bitches!
ROMNEY: My name is Mitt Romney. And like you, I recognize that America ‘s economy is in crisis. Got a lot of people without work, and a lot of people wonder whether the future is going to be brighter for their kids. I spent my life in the private sector. I understand how jobs come to America and why they go.
RHODES: To make guys like me rich, for example.
PERRY: I’m Governor Rick Perry. And I’m proud to be here today with the Tea Party Express. And I simply want to get America working again and make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.
RHODES: If elected, I will totally do nothing as your president!
PAUL: My goal has always been to promote the cause of liberty and to obey the Constitution. I plan to do that as president, as well.
RHODES: For example, nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the federal government is responsible for monitoring the food supply for E. coli or guiding airplanes safely through the air. In a Ron Paul presidency, you will be totally free to eat poisoned food of freedom and fly on planes liberated to follow their own unsafe flight plans!
GINGRICH: I think it is totally appropriate that we’re having this particular debate on 9/12. And in the spirit of 9/12 . . .
RHODES: I’m going to tap your phones, suspend habeas corpus, invade a country on a whim and make Katy Perry a star.
GINGRICH: . . . I hope to work with you to fundamentally, profoundly change Washington in what will be a long and difficult struggle against the forces of reaction and special interests.
RHODES: And that’s just the Republican primary!
SANTORUM: I’m a former two-term senator from a state that has over a million more registered Democrats than Republicans, and I won two elections there without having to change my policies or my party to win.
RHODES: Until losing his Senate seat in 2006 by the largest margin ever in the state to a Democrat in the biggest loss of the year nationwide.
BLITZER: Ladies and gentlemen, the eight Republican presidential candidates.
RHODES: That we choose to acknowledge. We don’t just report the news, we invent it.
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QUESTION: Tea Party, Jacksonville, Florida. My question:
How will you convince senior citizens that Social Security and Medicare need to be changed and get their vote?
BACHMANN: Well, one thing that we need to let senior citizens know is, for those who are currently on the Social Security system, the United States government made a promise to senior citizens, and we have to keep that promise to them.
But we also need to know that for those who are not yet on the system, the system simply has to be reformed in order for it to work. The same goes with Medicare. We know that President Obama stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it over to Obamacare.
RHODES: It’s on surveillance tape. He’s the one in the Ronald Reagan mask.
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BLITZER: Governor Perry, speaking of Social Security, you’ve said in the past it’s a Ponzi scheme, an absolute failure, unconstitutional, but today you wrote an article in USA Today saying it must be saved and reformed, very different tone. Why?
RHODES: Because Florida is a very important primary state, Wolf.
PERRY: Well, first off, the people who are on Social Security today need to understand something. Slam-dunk guaranteed, that program is going to be there in place for those.
RHODES: Um, let me rephrase that.
PERRY: But the idea that we have not had the courage to stand up and look Americans in the face, young mid-career professionals or kids that are my children’s age and look them in the eye and said, listen, this is a broken system. It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people long before me.
RHODES: By some of the very people attacking you now.
PERRY: But no one’s had the courage to stand up and say, here is how we’re going to reform it.
RHODES: Except every Republican presidential candidate since time immemoriam – and most of the Democrats.
BLITZER: Governor Romney, you said that Governor Perry’s position on Social Security is, quote, unacceptable and could even obliterate the Republican Party. Are you saying he could not, as Republican nominee, beat Barack Obama?
ROMNEY: No, what I’m saying is that what he just said, I think most people agree with, although the term Ponzi scheme I think is over-the-top and unnecessary and frightful to many people. But the real issue is in writing his book, Governor Perry pointed out that in his view that Social Security is unconstitutional, that this is not something the federal government ought to be involved in, that instead it should be given back to the states.
And I think the view that somehow Social Security has been forced on us over the past 70 years that by any measure, again quoting book, by any measure Social Security has been a failure, this is after 70 years of tens of millions of people relying on Social Security, that’s a very different matter.
So the financing of Social Security, we’ve all talked about at great length. In the last campaign four years around, John McCain said it was bankrupt. I put in my book a series of proposals on how to get it on sound financial footing so that our kids can count on it not just our current seniors.
But the real question is, does Governor Perry continue to believe that Social Security should not be a federal program, that it’s unconstitutional and it should be returned to the states or is he going to retreat from that view?
PERRY: If what you’re trying to say is that back in the ’30s and the ’40s that the federal government made all the right decisions, I disagree with you. And it’s time for us to get back to the Constitution and a program that’s been there 70 or 80 years, obviously we’re not going to take that program away. But for people to stand up and support what they did in the ’30s or what they’re doing in the 2010s is not appropriate for America .
ROMNEY: But the question is, do you still believe that Social Security should be ended as a federal program as you did six months ago when your book came out and returned to the states or do you want to retreat from that?
PERRY: I think we ought to have a conversation.
ROMNEY: We’re having that right now, governor. We’re running for president.
PERRY: And I’ll finish this conversation. But the issue is, are there ways to move the states into Social Security for state employees or for retirees? We did in the state of Texas back in the 1980s. I think those types of thoughtful conversations with America, rather than trying to scare seniors like you’re doing and other people, it’s time to have a legitimate conversation in this country about how to fix that program where it’s not bankrupt and our children actually know that there’s going to be a retirement program there for them.
ROMNEY: Governor, the term Ponzi scheme is what scared seniors, number one. And number two, suggesting that Social Security should no longer be a federal program and returned to the states and unconstitutional is likewise frightening.
RHODES: I’ll say.
ROMNEY: Look, there are a lot of bright people who agree with you. And that’s your view. I happen to have a different one. I think that Social Security is an essential program that we should change the way we’re funding it. You called it a criminal . . .
PERRY: You said if people did it in the private sector it would be called criminal. That’s in your book.
ROMNEY: Governor Perry you’ve got to quote me correctly. You said it’s criminal. What I said was Congress taking money out of the Social Security trust fund is criminal and it’s wrong.
BLITZER: Congressman Paul, let me expand this conversation.
RHODES: Before a real debate breaks out.
BLITZER: Do you agree with Governor Perry that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?
PAUL: Well, I agree that Social Security is broke. We spent all the money and it’s on its last legs unless we do something. One bill that I had in Congress that never got passed was to prevent Congress from spending any of that money on the wars and all the nonsense that we do around the world.
Now, what I would like to do is to allow all the young people to get out of Social Security and go on their own. Now, the big question is, is how would the funding occur?
RHODES: Freedom dollars?
BLITZER: Alright. Hold that thought for a minute, because I want Herman Cain to get involved.
RHODES: For all those on acid out there.
BLITZER: Are you with Governor Perry that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme?
CAIN: I don’t care what you call it, it’s broken. And here’s my solution. Start with optional personal retirement accounts. In 1981, the Galveston County employees, they opted out because that was a very short window of opportunity. They took it.
Today, when people retire in Galveston County, Texas, they retire making at least 50 percent more than they would ever get out of Social Security.
RHODES: Half-true.
CAIN: The Galveston County model worked, and it also worked in the small country of Chile.
RHODES: Not again.
HUNTSMAN: I don’t think anything should be off the table except maybe some of the drama that’s playing out here on this floor today. I mean, to hear these two go at it over here, it’s almost incredible.
You’ve got Governor Romney, who called it a fraud in his book No Apology. I don’t know if that was written by Kurt Cobain or not.
RHODES: Not.
HUNTSMAN: And then you’ve got Governor Perry, who is calling this a Ponzi scheme.
BLITZER: Speaker Gingrich, would you raise the retirement age for Social Security recipients?
GINGRICH: No, not necessarily, but let me start with – I’m not particularly worried about Governor Perry and Governor Romney frightening the American people when President Obama scares them every single day.
RHODES: Not as much as you.
BLITZER: Let me just pinpoint the question. What would you do to fix Social Security?
GINGRICH: Okay. But can I also expand for a second? Because that was not a rhetorical joke.
President Obama twice said recently he couldn’t guarantee delivering the checks to Social Security recipients. Now, why should young people who are 16- to 25- years-old have politicians who have the power for the rest of their life to threaten to take away their Social Security?
RHODES: Let’s transfer that power to unregulated hedge funds!
BLITZER: Senator Santorum, when it comes to Social Security, are you with Governor Romney or Governor Perry?
SANTORUM: Well, the question is who is with me? Because I’ve been out here talking about – you want to talk about courage to tell the truth, Governor? I was out in 1994 running against a Democratic incumbent in a campaign managed by James Carville, and I went out and talked about Social Security reform.
RHODES: And in 2006 he lost his Senate seat talking about Social Security reform.
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DR. BRIDGET MELSON, PLEASANTON TEA PARTY: What is your plan to balance the budget and get this spending under control so that my children’s share of the debt is erased without compromising my retired mother’s already tenuous financial future?
BLITZER: How do you do that? How do you protected seniors, balance the budget?
So much of the budget goes to defense and entitlements like Social Security, Medicare.
GINGRICH: But that’s just a Washington mythology. And anybody who knows anything about the federal government knows that there’s such an enormous volume of waste, that if you simply had a serious effort to modernize the federal government, you would have hundreds of billions of dollars of savings falling off.
RHODES: Vote Gore!
GINGRICH: Let me say, I helped balance the budget for four straight years.
RHODES: Vote Clinton!
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BLITZER: Senator Santorum, you voted for the prescription drug benefits for seniors when you were in the United States Senate costing about $1 trillion. If you had to do it over again, you wouldn’t vote for that, but if you were president of the United States, would you repeal prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare?
SANTORUM: I think we have to keep a prescription drug component, but we have to pay for it. In other words, we have to have a program that is funded.
Now, the reason that that program has actually worked well is it’s come in 40 percent under budget because it’s a program that uses private sector insurance, not government-run, one-size-fits-all health care. If we do that for the rest of Medicare, which is what the Ryan proposal suggests, and something that I proposed, again, years ago, had the courage to go out and lead on this issue, then we would be able to have a prescription drug program and we’d be able to have Medicare that you choose.
The idea that unless we have a government-run, one-size-fits-all Medicare program, that that’s throwing grandma off a cliff, is Washington think – is people who think in Washington this president, who believes that they know better than you how to run your life and how to purchase your health care. I trust you, I trust the American people.
RHODES: Except those in government.
BLITZER: Governor Perry, it was President Bush who pushed for prescription drug benefits for senior, not President Obama.
If you were president, would you vote to eliminate, to repeal those prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare?
PERRY: No. It’s a $17 trillion hole that we have in our budget we’ve got to deal with. And I think that’s the issue of, how do you find the savings and still deliver the services?
For instance, in the state of Texas, we combined a substantial amount of our health and human services from 10 down to five agencies. We put an Office of Inspector General into place, and we saved over $5.3 billion, Newt, just by finding the waste and the fraud in Texas state government. I’m thinking there might be more waste and fraud in the federal government than even there is in the Texas government.
RHODES: So you fund prescription drug benefits by finding $17 trillion of waste? Sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me.
BLITZER: Just to be precise, if you were president, you wouldn’t repeal prescription drug benefits for seniors under Medicare?
PERRY: That’s what I said.
RHODES: Not precisely.
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QUESTION: My name is Sandra Jones from Yorktown, Virginia. My question is, what would you do to get the economy moving forward? Do you have a plan? And, if so, what is it?
BLITZER: Alright, good question.
RHODES: For a fifth-grader. My God. Um, yeah, I was just wondering, is there somewhere I can read about your background, you know, where you’re from, if you’re married, if you have a plan to move the economy forward? ‘Cause if y’all do have a plan, I’d love to know all about it!
HUNTSMAN: I have put forward a program that I want all of you to understand is basically patterned after what I did as governor.
RHODES: Tax Mormons?
HUNTSMAN: First and foremost, I want to reform this tax code.
RHODES: Unlike every presidential candidate – Democrat and Republican – from time immemorial.
HUNTSMAN: I put forward a program that the Wall Street Journal has come out and endorsed. It basically calls for stripping out the loopholes and the deductions and lowering the rates for individuals, cleaning out corporate welfare and subsidies on the corporate side and lowering the rate, leaving us a whole lot more competitive for the 21st century.
RHODES: Or we could collect a tax for every time a politician promises to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse while reforming the tax code and closing those darn loopholes. We’d balance the budget in seven to 10 days.
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HUNTSMAN: This country needs to wean itself from its heroin-like addiction to foreign oil. We need energy independence desperately in this country.
RHODES: Elect Carter!
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BLITZER: Governor Perry, the president in his new plan has a lot of tax cuts, payroll tax cuts, middle-class tax cuts, tax credits for hiring veterans, tax credits for hiring long-term unemployed people. Are those things you would support?
PERRY: And he’s going to pay for them all with raising your taxes.
RHODES: And cutting them!
PERRY: He had $800 billion worth of stimulus in the first round of stimulus. It created zero jobs, $400-plus billion dollars in this package. And I can do the math on that one. Half of zero jobs is going to be zero jobs.
RHODES: Governor Perry, are you saying the president’s stimulus plan didn’t create a single job? Not one? Wolf? Bueller?
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BLITZER: So just to be precise, Governor, whenever the president supports tax cuts, that has to be balanced with spending cuts?
PERRY: I would suggest to you that people are tired of spending money we don’t have on programs we don’t want.
RHODES: Name those programs.
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CAIN: I believe we throw out the entire tax code and put in my 9-9-9 plan.
RHODES: Drink!
CAIN: 9-9-9. A 9 percent business flat tax, a 9 percent personal income tax and a 9 percent national sales tax.
RHODES: And a 9 percent crazy tax, a 9 percent nutso tax and a 9 percent can you believe this guy was a CEO tax.
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ROMNEY: What’s happened over the last 20, 30 years is we’ve gone from a pay phone world to a smartphone world . . .
RHODES: Unless you’re Ron Paul.
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ROMNEY: I think Governor Perry would agree with me that if you’re dealt four aces that doesn’t make you necessarily a great poker player.
RHODES: Or three 9s.
ROMNEY: And the four aces that are terrific aces are the ones the nation should learn from, the ones I described, zero income tax, low regulation, right to work state, oil in the ground and a Republican legislature. Those things are terrific.
And by the way, there has been great growth in Texas. Under Ann Richards, job growth was under 2.5 percent a year, under George Bush was 3 percent a year, under Rick Perry it’s been 1 percent a year.
RHODES: Under Cain it was 9 percent.
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BLITZER: Congressman Paul, you’re from Texas. Does your governor deserve all that credit?
PAUL: Not quite.
(LAUGHTER)
PAUL: I’m a taxpayer there. My taxes have gone up. Our taxes have doubled since he’s been in office. Our spending has gone up double. Our debt has gone up nearly triple.
So, no. And 170,000 of the jobs were government jobs. So I would put a little damper on this, but I don’t want to offend the governor, because he might raise my taxes or something.
PERRY: While I’ve been governor, we have cut taxes by $14 billion, 65 different pieces of legislation.
RHODES: Not quite, but a far more accurate claim than Paul’s.
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BLITZER: Let me bring Speaker Gingrich into this conversation. If you were president, would you work with the Democrats, assuming they were the majority in the House or the Senate? Would you compromise with them on some of these gut issues?
GINGRICH: Well, you know, after the last debate, when Governor Huntsman and Governor Perry and Governor Romney each explained how their state was the best at job creation, Brady Cassis, who works with me, went back and checked.
In the four years I was Speaker, we created – the American people, not me – created more jobs in Utah than under Governor Huntsman, more jobs in Massachusetts than under Governor Romney, and more jobs in Texas than in the 11 years of Governor Perry.
RHODES: Same with the four years when I freelanced.
GINGRICH: Now, I don’t claim credit for that because it was done by investors . . .
RHODES: #humblebrag.
GINGRICH: . . . and in fact, Mitt, at that time, as the private sector, was part of the job creation. But I just want to point out, the American people create jobs, not government. Okay?
RHODES: Okay.
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BLITZER: We have a question via CNNPolitics.com. “All of you profess to be pro-business candidates for president. Can you be pro-worker at the same time?”
CAIN: The answer is absolutely yes, because I was a worker before I was an executive and before I was a business owner.
And when I ran the National Restaurant Association, it is a collection of small businesses. Godfather’s Pizza is the same way, when I ran the region for Burger King. One restaurant is the basic fundamental business unit in this country.
And so, yes, I know how to be pro-worker because I came from a pro-worker family. My mother was a domestic worker, my father was a barber, a janitor, and a chauffeur, all at the same time. I understand work because that’s how I came up. So the answer is, absolutely yes.
RHODES: Actually Cain’s record at Godfather’s is quite impressive.
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HUNTSMAN: Let me just say about workers, this country needs more workers. Can we say that?
RHODES: Not at a Tea Party debate.
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BLITZER: Congresswoman Bachmann, you know that Governor Perry has suggested that Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve, potentially should be tried for treason for what he’s doing. Do you agree?
BACHMANN: Well, as president of the United States, I would not be reappointing Ben Bernanke, but I want to say this. During the bailout, the $700 billion bailout, I worked behind the scenes against the bailout, because one of the things that I saw from the Federal Reserve, the enabling act legislation is written so broadly that, quite literally, Congress has given the Federal Reserve almost unlimited power over the economy.
That has to change. They can no longer have that power. Why? Because what we saw, with all of the $700 billion bailout, is that the Federal Reserve opened its discount window and was making loans to private American businesses. And not only that, they’re making loans to foreign governments.
This cannot be. The Federal Reserve has a lot to answer for. And that’s why it’s important that they’re not only audited, but they have got be shrunk back down to such a tight leash that they’re going to squeak.
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ROMNEY: But at the same time, we recognize that we need to have a Fed. Why do I say that? Because if we don’t have a Fed, who’s going to run the currency?
RHODES: Ron Paul would let it run itself.
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QUESTION: Hi. My name is Tyler Hensley. I’m from Napa, California.
RHODES: I like quiet dinners and long walks on the beach.
HENSLEY: My question is, out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?
RHODES: 9 percent!
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HUNTSMAN: On the corporate side, I think we recognize the reality that a whole lot of companies can afford to have lobbyists and lawyers on Capitol Hill working their magic.
RHODES: Then maybe we aren’t taxing them enough!
HUNTSMAN: Let’s recognize the reality that they’re all paying 35 percent.
RHODES: Let’s not. [Editor’s Note: To be fair to Huntsman, I suspect the transcript dropped a “not.”]
BLITZER: Speaker Gingrich, some of the biggest companies in the United States, the oil companies, they got – I guess some would call government handouts in the form of tax breaks, tax exemptions, loopholes. They’re making billions and billions of dollars. Is that fair?
GINGRICH: You know, I thought for a second, you were going to refer to General Electric, which has paid no taxes.
RHODES: Go on.
GINGRICH: You know, I was astonished the other night to have the president there in the joint session with the head of GE sitting up there and the president talking about taking care of loopholes. And I thought to myself, doesn’t he realize that every green tax credit is a loophole . . . that everything he wants – everything General Electric is doing is a loophole? Now, why did we get to breaks for ethanol, breaks for oil and gas, et cetera? We got to them because of this idea, which the young man just represented. If we make it possible for you to keep more of your own money, you will do more of it.
We have a simple choice. We can depend on Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, or we can encourage development in the United States of manufacturing, as Rick said.
We can encourage development of oil and gas. We can do it by saying we’re going to let you keep more of your money if you create more of what we want.
RHODES: So . . . you are pro-loophole?
BLITZER: But I just want to follow up, Mr. Speaker. If you eliminate some of those loopholes, those exemptions, whether for ExxonMobil or GE or some other companies, there are those who argue that is, in effect, a tax increase and it would violate a pledge that so many Republicans have made not to raise taxes.
GINGRICH: Yes, a lot of people argue that. They’re technically right, which is why I’m – look, I’m cheerfully opposed to raising taxes. This government – we have a problem of overspending. We don’t have a problem of undertaxing.
And I think that it would be good for us to say, we’re not going to raise any – which is why I’m also in favor of keeping the current tax cut for people who are working on Social Security and Medicare. I think trying to raise the tax on working Americans in the middle of the Obama depression is a destructive policy. So I don’t want to have any tax increase at any level for anyone. I want to shrink government to fit income, not raise income to try to catch up with government.
RHODES: So . . . you are pro-loophole?
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BLITZER: Alright, let’s go to Cincinnati.
QUESTION: Would any of you be willing to support the fair tax?
BLITZER: Governor Romney? A fair tax basically is a national sales tax.
ROMNEY: The idea of a national sales tax or a consumption tax has a lot going for it. One, it would make us more competitive globally, as we send products around the world, because under the provisions of the World Trade Organization, you can reimburse that to an exporter. We can’t reimburse our taxes right now. It also would level the playing field in the country, making sure everybody is paying some part of their fair share.
But the way the fair tax has been structured, it has a real problem and that is it lowers the burden on the very highest income folks and the very lowest and raises it on middle income people. And the people who have been hurt most by the Obama-economy are the middle class.
And so my plan is to take the middle class individuals and dramatically reduce their taxes by the following measure. And that is for middle income Americans, no tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. Let people save their money as the way they think is best for them, for their kids, for their future, for their retirement.
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BLITZER: We have another question from Portsmouth, Virginia.
QUESTION: My name is Linda Gunn. I’m part of the Virginia Taxpayers Alliance. My question has to do with executive orders. Under what circumstances should a president sign an executive order? And how frequently should such an order be signed?
RHODES: Depends on which president is doing the signing! No, but seriously . . .
PAUL: The executive orders have been grossly abused by all administrations for a lot of years. Some executive orders are legal. When the president executes proper function of the presidency like moving troops and other things, yes, it’s done with an executive order. But the executive order should never be used to legislate. That is what is so bad.
So the executive order should be taken under control. And I have made a promise that as president I would never use the executive order to legislate.
BLITZER: Governor Perry, as you well know, you signed an executive order requiring little girls 11- and 12-year-old girls to get a vaccine to deal with a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer. Was that a mistake?
PERRY: It was. And indeed, if I had it to do over again, I would have done it differently. I would have gone to the legislature, worked with them. But what was driving me was, obviously, making a difference about young people’s lives.
Cervical cancer is a horrible way to die. And I happen to think that what we were trying to do was to clearly send a message that we’re going to give moms and dads the opportunity to make that decision with parental opt-out.
Parental rights are very important in state of Texas. We do it on a long list of vaccines that are made, but on that particular issue, I will tell you that I made a mistake by not going to the legislature first.
Let me address Ron Paul just a minute by saying I will use an executive order to get rid of as much of Obamacare as I can on day one.
RHODES: So it was a mistake to issue an executive order regarding the health of young women instead of consulting with the legislature, but it’s not a mistake to issue an executive order dismantling Obamacare without consulting Congress, which only spent an entire year thrashing out the legislation. Just when, Governor Perry, is an executive order an appropriate tool? That’s what the caller wants to know.
BLITZER: Congresswoman Bachmann, do you have anything to say about what Governor Perry just said. You’re a mom.
RHODES: Moms issue executive orders.
BACHMANN: I’m a mom of three children. And to have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection through an executive order is just flat-out wrong. That should never be done. It’s a violation of a liberty interest.
Little girls who have a negative reaction to this potentially dangerous drug don’t get a mulligan. They don’t get a do-over. The parents don’t get a do-over. That’s why I fought so hard in Washington , D.C., against President Obama and Obamacare.
RHODES: I thought Perry was doing the injecting.
BACHMANN: President Obama in a stunning, shocking level of power now just recently told all private insurance companies you must offer the morning-after abortion pill, because I said so.
RHODES: You Can’t Have An Abortion If You Are Not Pregnant. Though there are probably gaps in that theory.
BLITZER: Let’s let Governor Perry respond. Was what you signed into law, that vaccine for 11- and 12-year-old girls, was that, as some of your critics have suggested, a mandate?
PERRY: No, sir it wasn’t. It was very clear. It had an opt-out. And at the end of the day, this was about trying to stop a cancer and giving the parental option to opt out of that. And at the end of the day, you may criticize me about the way that I went about it, but at the end of the day, I am always going to err on the side of life.
RHODES: Except when it comes to executing people.
BACHMANN: I just wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order there is a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate.
BLITZER: What are you suggesting?
RHODES: You heard me, Wolf!
BACHMANN: What I’m saying is that it’s wrong for a drug company, because the governor’s former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company. The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor, and this is just flat-out wrong.
RHODES: Doesn’t the drug company have free speech rights? It’s a person too.
BACHMANN: The question is, is it about life, or was it about millions of dollars and potentially billions for a drug company?
PERRY: The company was Merck, and it was a $5,000 contribution that I had received from them. I raise about $30 million. And if you’re saying that I can be bought for $5,000, I’m offended.
BACHMANN: Well, I’m offended for all the little girls and the parents that didn’t have a choice.
SANTORUM: I think we need to hear what Governor Perry’s saying. He’s saying that his policy was right. He believes that what he did was right. He thinks he went about it the wrong way.
I believe your policy is wrong. Why, ladies and gentlemen, why do we inoculate people with vaccines in public schools? Because we’re afraid of those diseases being communicable between people at school. And therefore, to protect the rest of the people at school, we have vaccinations to protect those children.
Unless Texas has a very progressive way of communicating diseases in their school by way of their curriculum, then there is no government purpose served for having little girls inoculated at the force and compulsion of the government.
RHODES: I don’t get it. Aren’t schools run by government? And aren’t the vaccines inoculated there done so by government mandate?
BLITZER: I’m going to move on, Governor Perry, unless you want to say anything else.
PERRY: Look, I think we made decisions in Texas. We put a $3 billion effort in to find the cure for cancer.
RHODES: Now Ron Paul is offended.
PERRY: I passed parental notification piece of legislation.
RHODES: Isn’t that a mandate on doctors?
*
QUESTION: I’m Caroline Taylor. I’m from Orange Park, Florida, with the Peoples Tea Party.
My question is, health insurance is expensive because health care is expensive. What is your plan to reduce the cost of health care so that our insurance premiums and other related costs can also be reduced?
CAIN: First, repeal Obamacare in its entirety. Secondly, pass market-driven, patient-centered reforms such as, under the current code, deductibility of health insurance premiums regardless of who pays for it. But as you know, I want to throw that out and put in my 999 plan.
RHODES: Drink!
*
BLITZER: Governor Romney, a lot of the Tea Party supporters here and around the country have a real serious problem with the health care mandate that you got through in Massachusetts. Is there anything you want to say to them to revise or amend? Do you stand by what you did?
ROMNEY: Absolutely. And I agree with almost everything you said, Herman, but the reason health care is so expensive, I think you hit the nail on head. You said it’s not just because of insurance, it’s because of the cost of providing care.
RHODES: Actually the caller said that, not Cain.
ROMNEY: And one reason for that is the person who receives care in America generally doesn’t care how much it costs, because once they’ve paid their deductible, it’s free. And the provider, the more they do, the more they get paid.
We have something that’s not working like a market. It’s working like a government utility.
And so what we have to do is make sure that individuals have a concern and care about how much something costs.
RHODES: So it’s sick people’s fault.
ROMNEY: And if I’m president, on day one I’ll direct the secretary of Health and Human Services to grant a waiver from Obamacare to all 50 states. It’s a problem that’s bad law, it’s not constitutional. I’ll get rid of it.
*
ROMNEY: We dealt with the people in our state that were uninsured, some nine percent. His bill deals with 100 percent of the people.
RHODES: There are some gaps in your theory.
*
BLITZER: You’re a physician, Ron Paul.
RHODES: And a surprising one.
BLITZER: Let me ask you this hypothetical question. A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I’m not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.
Who’s going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?
PAUL: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.
BLITZER: Well, what do you want?
PAUL: What he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would be to have a major medical policy, but not be forced –
BLITZER: But he doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have it, and he needs intensive care for six months.
PAUL: That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody –
BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?
PAUL: No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals.
And we’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it.
RHODES: Have you met our neighbors, our friends and our churches?
PAUL: There’s no competition in medicine. Everybody is protected by licensing. And we should actually legalize alternative health care, allow people to practice what they want.
BLITZER: Congresswoman Bachmann, go ahead and weigh in on this hypothetical 30-year-old who needs six months of intensive care, has no insurance.
BACHMANN: Well, first of all, what I want to say, with all due respect to the governors, I’ve read this health care bill, I’ve been fighting this fight the last couple of years.
BLITZER: Which health care bill?
BACHMANN: President Obama’s Obamacare bill. And waivers and executive orders won’t cut it. If you could solve Obamacare with an executive order, any president could do it and any president could undo it.
That’s not how it can be done.
*
BLITZER: Let’s go to Cincinnati.
QUESTION: What would you do to remove the illegal immigrants from our country?
SANTORUM: I’m the son of an Italian immigrant. I believe in immigration. I believe that immigration is an important part of the lifeblood of this country.
But what we have is a problem of an unsecure border. Unlike Governor Perry, I believe we need to build more fence.
RHODES: I’ve got to have more fence.
SANTORUM: Until we build that border, we should neither have stormtroopers come in and throw people out of the country nor should we provide amnesty.
What we should do is enforce the laws in this country with respect to employers, and we should secure the border. And then after the border is secured, then we can deal with the problem that are in this country.
But I think it’s very important that we understand and we explain to folks that immigration is an important lifeblood of this country, something that I strongly support and something that we have to do legally if we’re going to have respect for the law.
PERRY: There’s not anybody on this stage that’s had to deal with the issue of border security more than I have, with 1,200 miles of Texas and Mexico. And our federal government has been an abject failure at securing our border.
RHODES: Maybe it should be left to the states.
PERRY: But the idea that you’re going to build a wall from Brownsville to El Paso and go left for another 800 miles to Tijuana is just not reality.
*
BLITZER: What are the candidates doing to attract the Latino voters?
RHODES: Toning down the spic jokes.
SANTORUM: Well, I mean, what Governor Perry’s done is he provided in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Maybe that was an attempt to attract the illegal vote – I mean, the Latino voters.
RHODES: No he diin’t!
SANTORUM: But you track Latino voters by talking about the importance of immigration in this country. You talk about the importance of – as Newt has talked about for many years – having English as the official language of this country.
RHODES: That will win them over. But tell it to them in Spanish so they understand.
SANTORUM: We’re a melting pot, not a salad bowl.
RHODES: In Chicago we’re surf-and-turf.
BLITZER: Governor Perry, you did sign legislation giving some illegal immigrants in Texas the opportunity to have in-state tuition at universities in Texas.
PERRY: In the state of Texas, if you’ve been in the state of Texas for three years, if you’re working towards your college degree, and if you are working and pursuing citizenship in the state of Texas, you pay in-state tuition there.
RHODES: Even if you entered illegally? What happened to boots on the ground? Or does eluding border agents show the kind of gumption Texas likes?
PERRY: No matter how you got into that state, from the standpoint of your parents brought you there or what have you. And that’s what we’ve done in the state of Texas.
RHODES: Wow.
PERRY: That’s the American way. And I’m proud that we are having those individuals be contributing members of our society rather than telling them, you go be on the government dole.
RHODES: Okay, who are you and what have you done with the real Rick Perry?
BLITZER: You heard some boos there. But go ahead, Congresswoman Bachmann, is that basically the DREAM Act that President Obama wants as well?
BACHMANN: Yes, it’s very similar. And I think that the American way is not to give taxpayer subsidized benefits to people who have broken our laws or who are here in the United States illegally. That is not the American way.
PERRY: I’m not for the DREAM Act that they are talking about in Washington D.C. that is amnesty. What we did in the state of Texas was clearly a states’ right issue. And the legislature passed with only four dissenting votes in the House and the Senate to allow this to occur.
We were clearly sending a message to young people, regardless of what the sound of their last name is, that we believe in you. That if you want to live in the state of Texas and you want to pursue citizenship, that we’re going to allow you the opportunity to be contributing members in the state of Texas and not be a drag on our state.
BLITZER: Governor Huntsman, you also signed legislation in Utah that gave driving privileges to illegal immigrants. Was that a good idea?
HUNTSMAN: Well, first of all, let me say for Rick to say that you can’t secure the border I think is pretty much a treasonous comment.
RHODES: Maybe border patrol is a Ponzi scheme.
HUNTSMAN: Rick, we can secure the border. We can secure the border through means of fences, through technology, through the deployment of our National Guard troops, we can get it done. In fact, when the elected president of the United States, I would work with you and the other three border governors to ensure that through your law enforcement officials you can verify that that border is secure.
But I will tell you before Wolf here directs a question, they were given a driver’s license before and they were using that for identification purposes. And I thought that was wrong. Instead we issued a driver privilege card, which in our state allowed our economy to continue to function.
RHODES: I don’t get it. So they could drive to their jobs that Americans refuse to do?
*
ROMNEY: The question began by saying how do we attract Latino voters. And the answer is by telling them what they know in their heart, which is they or their ancestors did not come here for a handout. If they came here for a handout, they’d be voting for Democrats.
RHODES: No he diin’t!
*
ROMNEY: With regards to illegal immigration, of course we build a fence and of course we do not give instate tuition credits to people who come here illegally. That only attracts people to come here and take advantage of America’s great beneficence.
PERRY: This is a states’ right issue. If in Massachusetts you didn’t want to do that or Utah you didn’t want to do this, that’s fine. But in the state of Texas where Mexico has a clear and a long relationship with this state, we decided it was in the best interest of those young people to give them the opportunity to go on to college and to have the opportunity. They’re pursuing citizenship in this country rather than saying, you know, we’re going to put you over here and put you on the government dole for the rest of your life. We don’t think that was the right thing to do. And it’s working. And it’s working well in the state of Texas.
*
HUNTSMAN: I think we can spend all night talking about where Mitt’s been on all the issues of the day. And that would take forever.
RHODES: No he diin’t!
HUNTSMAN: But let me just say that all the Latino voters, Hispanic voters want is opportunity, can we say that? The greatest thing that we can do for the people in this country on illegal immigration is fix homeland security.
I mean, when are we going to have an honest conversation in this country about the root causes. We can’t process people. The H1B visa process is broken. We need to bring in brain power to this country to shore up our economic might.
RHODES: And think of things Americans refuse to think of themselves.
*
BLITZER: Let’s take a question from Phoenix.
QUESTION: The United States has an abundance of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. The American people have been told for decades that energy independence is a top priority. What will you do in your first 100 days in office to assure the American people that energy independence will finally become reality.
CAIN: I would put together a regulatory reduction commission for every agency starting with the EPA. The people that I would appoint to that commission will be people who have been abused by the EPA
RHODES: There would be 999 members.
*
BLITZER: Do you plan to decrease defense spending to balance spending?
PAUL: First thing I would like to do is make sure that you understand there’s a difference between military spending and defense spending. So I would say there’s a lot of room to cut on the military, but not on the defense. You can slash the military spending. We don’t need to be building airplanes that were used in World War II.
SANTORUM: On your website on 9/11, you had a blog post that basically blamed the United States for 9/11. On your website, yesterday, you said that it was our actions that brought about the actions of 9/11.
PAUL: This whole idea that the whole Muslim world is responsible for this, and they’re attacking us because we’re free and prosperous, that is just not true.
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been explicit – they have been explicit, and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing –
(BOOING)
PAUL: I’m trying to get you to understand what the motive was behind the bombing, at the same time we had been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years.
Would you be annoyed?
*
SAHAR HEKMATI, TEA PARTY EXPRESS: Hi. My name is Sahar Hekmati. And my question to you is, as the next president of the United States, what will you do to secure safety and protection for the women and the children of Afghanistan from the radicals?
HUNTSMAN: We are 10 years into this war, Sahar. America has given its all in Afghanistan.
We have families who have given the ultimate sacrifice. And it’s to them that we offer our heartfelt salute and a deep sense of gratitude. But the time has come for us to get out of Afghanistan
RHODES: In other words, you’re on your own, Sahar.
*
BLITZER: Eight Republican presidential candidates on the stage.
You know, Americans are looking at you. They also want to know a little bit more about you.
I’m going to start with Senator Santorum. I want to go down and get your thoughts on something you would bring to the White House if you were the next president of the United States.
An example, President George H. W. Bush put in a horseshoe pit. President Clinton put in a jogging track. President Obama added a vegetable garden.
Senator Santorum, if you’re president, what would you bring to the White House?
SANTORUM: Well, mine is pretty obvious. Karen and I have seven children, so we’d add a bedroom to the White House.
RHODES: Borrrring.
GINGRICH: Well, first of all, I would reduce the White House by kicking out all the White House czars the first day, creating a lot more space
RHODES: Please, can’t you be gracious for just one question?
PAUL: I’d bring a bushel basket full of common sense. And I would also bring a course in Austrian economics to teach the people the business cycle and why the Fed creates inflation and depressions and all our unemployment problems.
RHODES: Let me repeat the question . . .
PERRY: I’m going to bring the most beautiful, most thoughtful, incredible First Lady that this country’s ever seen.
RHODES: Let me repeat the question . . .
ROMNEY: You know, one of my heroes was a man who had an extraordinary turn of phrase. He once said about us, he said, you know, you can count on the Americans to get things right after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives. And now and then we’ve made a couple of mistakes. We’re quite a nation. And this man, Winston Churchill, used to have his bust in the Oval Office. And if I’m president of the United States, it’ll be there again.
RHODES: Dog whistle.
BACHMANN: I would bring a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and that’s it.
RHODES: Let me repeat the question . . .
CAIN: I would bring a sense of humor to the White House, because America’s too uptight.
HUNTSMAN: I would bring my Harley-Davidson and my motocross bike.
RHODES: With a driver’s privilege card.
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Posted on September 14, 2011