A: I’m very, very passionate about abortion and the whole issue of abortion. But it leads me to a conclusion, which is I oppose it. That’s a principle I’ve held forever, and I’ll hold it forever. That’s not going to change. But I also believe that in a society like ours, where people have very different consciences about this, it’s best for us to respect each other’s differences and allow for choice. So with regard to Roe against Wade, since my view is that there shouldn’t be a litmus test on Roe v. Wade, it seems to me the best position to take is I don’t want a litmus test for judges.
Then you personally would not feel it’s OK if the Supreme Court overturned it?
A: The country could handle it. We’ve got a federal system. What would happen is states would make decisions.
A: I don’t think it’s a question of being disappointed or being happy about it. I think it’s a question of not wanting to make this a litmus test for judges, so that a judge feels free to listen to the facts, listen to the arguments, and come to the decision they think is the correct interpretation of the Constitution. Some strict constructionist judges are going to decide it was wrongly decided. Other strict constructionist judges may give more weight to the precedential value of it, the fact that it’s been the law for this length of time. You can see the tension there between these two things. And I think the court should be allowed to decide this.
Q: Would you nominate someone whose record shows that he opposes a woman’s right to choose?
A: If I thought that on 20 other issues they would be terrific, I might be able to, sure. I don’t consider it a litmus test.
A: Many millions of Americans have that same position that I have. Personally, if you asked my advice, if a woman asked my advice about abortion, the advice that I would give is: Shouldn’t have the abortion, better to have the child, I’ll help you, I’ll support you in that choice.
Q: Why?
A: Because I think having the child is a much better decision. I think it’s a much better moral decision. I think it’s much better for society. I think adoption is a better option than abortion. I supported that position by helping adoptions increase in New York when I was the mayor by 66%. During the 8 years that I was the mayor, adoptions over the eight years before went up 130%. I have a very strong view about that. I have an equally strong view that in a society like ours, you have to respect the right of other people who are of equally good conscience.
A: Correct. On parental notification: I looked at the laws that were passed. They created judicial bypass. It seems to me that that is a reasonable way to do it. On partial-birth abortion, I was concerned that there’d be exceptions for the life and the health of the mother. The 2003 congressional hearings, and then the eventual legislation, made provision for the life of the mother and made findings on the health of the mother with which I agreed. I supported it then. I supported the decision.
A: I’m not going to deal with the platform. Any candidate of the party has about 9 out of 10 things in the platform they agree with and 1 or 2 things that they don’t agree with. I know what my positions are. A very, very big portion of my party agrees with that. A certain portion of my party disagrees with that. My attempt is to try to broaden the base of the Republican Party, to try to bring in people that can agree and that can disagree on that, because I think the issues that we face about terrorism, about our economy, about the growth of our economy are so important that we have to have the biggest outreach possible.
A: Sure, big time. Compare that to other states and the federal government during that period of time, and it was about the lowest growth in government. It was below inflation & the growth of the economy. It was about the only government that was able to accomplish that. I lowered taxes, because I lowered the growth of spending in ways nobody else had ever done compared to other states, other governments And actually, the reduction in welfare was 640,000. And you have to see it in the context in which I did it. I did it in the context of a place that never did it before. I had to teach New York City how to use principles of fiscal conservatism.
A: Correct.
Q: And yet, when you were mayor, Pres. Clinton--when he had that power back in the mid-’90s, he used it to line-item veto what he said was excessive Medicaid spending. You not only opposed it, you took him to the Supreme Court and you got it ruled unconstitutional. So it’s because of you we don’t have the line-item veto.
A: The line-item veto is unconstitutional, and I’m a strict constructionist. If we want the line-item veto, it has to be done by constitutional amendment. The reality is it so fundamentally alters the separation of powers, it’s unconstitutional. The Supreme Court decided that. I believe that. And of course, it was in the interest of my city to advocate for it. It was my job to protect the people of NYC, and I did it vigorously and strongly and we were correct in our interpretation of the Constitution. And the president was incorrect.
A: I did everything I could as mayor o New York City to reduce crime. And the strategy against guns, both civil and criminal, was very aggressive.
Q: But that wasn’t just tough in New York City, it was tough around the nation.
A: But so was the strategy I utilized in New York City on everything. I was criticized for being too aggressive about the enforcement of the laws, including the gun laws. But the reality is I began with the city that was the crime capital of America. When I left, it was the safest large city in America.
A: The quote that I have from the time I was mayor is that the conditions in New York and the things you do in New York about guns may be different than Texas. And the reality is I’ve always looked at it that way.
Q: But at the time you said, in fact, that weak gun laws in other states might actually end up producing guns on the streets of New York, so you needed nationwide laws.
Q: What we were doing was using civil remedies to try to help New York, as well as using criminal remedies to help New York. The reality is as mayor of New York, I looked to do all the things that I could do to protect the people of my city.
Q: And as president?
A: As president, my interest is going to be how to protect the people of the United States of America. When I take that oath of office, it’ll be real clear to me who the people I have to protect are.
A: Going on defense on Iraq & going on defense about terrorism is not just about Iraq. It’s about the opposition to extending the Patriot Act, the opposition to electronic surveillance, the opposition to interrogation. Both those things, interrogation & electronic surveillance, have to be done legally, but they have to be done aggressively. I detect in the Democrats a kind of attempt to go back to a pre-Sept. 11 mentality in which we’re not anticipating.
A:My director of emergency management recommended 7 WTC.
Q: I have got a copy right here of Jerry Hauer’s directive to you, in which he said that it’s a bad idea. And the police chief, Howard Safir, said it was a bad idea.
A: Jerry Hauer recommended that as the prime site & the site that would make the most sense, and he recommended it. And the reason that that site made sense was it was also the location of the customs service, the Secret Service & a number of other federal agencies that we had to be in contact with And we also had backup centers at the police department, and in Brooklyn we had a virtual command center. So when that command center was inoperable, within a half hour of September 11 we were able to move immediately to another command center.
A: That is a total misunderstanding. My interest as mayor was to focus on the criminals that were here. I wanted the INS to throw them out. At the same time, there were 400,000 illegal immigrants in NYC, roughly, when I was the mayor. The immigration service could throw out no more than about 2,000 a year. The question was, should the children of the other 398,000 illegal immigrants go to school? Did it make sense, in a city that had so much crime, to have 40,000 kids sitting at home? Should they be able to report crimes? Of course they should. The criminals who criminalized them were going to criminalize others. Should they get treatment in hospitals? If they don’t get treatment in hospitals, you have communicable diseases. I had real responsibilities that I had to deal with. This was a very effective way to deal with those responsibilities.
A: The commitment that we have to make is to emerging from Iraq with a stable situation there that is going to help us in the effort against terrorism.
Q: If the surge were to fail--I want to get a sense of how committed you are--would you basically say, at this point, that we’re going to stay in Iraq until we get a stable situation? In other words, is or isn’t failure an option in Iraq?
A: Failure should never be the option in a war, because if failure is the option, failure happens. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You should be in a war or in a situation like in Iraq--it should be about victory. It should be about success.
Q: So you’re going to stay there even if the surge fails?
A: Well, no. If, God forbid, failure happens, it happens and you have to deal with it, but you don’t predict it.
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The above quotations are from Chris Wallace presidential candidate interview series, "Choosing the President", on Fox News Sunday, throughout 2007.
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