Perry: I talked about smart regulations. There's a difference between more regulation and Dodd-Frank, [the banking regulation law]. Dodd-Frank drove community banks out of business. I used to be on a small bank board back in Haskell County in Texas, and I know what these regulations are doing. I think it makes a lot of sense for us to have these big banks. You realize that the six largest banks in the country have 61% of the mortgages now. It's a stunning number. We're seeing Freddie and Fannie Mae back in the business of having small down payments to be able to get a loan.
PERRY: Tear up that agreement with Iran. That's the biggest challenge I think that we have in this country and securing that border with Mexico is incredibly important as well, and those two things can happen on the first day.
A: I think we have the laws in place; enforcement of those laws is what seems to be lacking. We see individuals who were obviously mentally impacted. These were individuals who I think that somewhere, somebody didn't do their job in the standpoint of enforcing the laws that are only on the book. I will suggest to you that these concepts of gun free zones are a bad idea. I think that you allow the citizens of this country, who have been appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms to carry them.
A: I know the cost of war. I know I've seen it on the face of these young warriors and on their families. And before we ever send our young men and women into combat, we need to use every tool that we have.
Q: Do you think we've exhausted every measure possible before doing that [in Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS]?
A: I don't have all the intelligence. I would suggest we need a coalition of those Gulf States, of Saudi, of Jordan, of the Egyptians, the Turks, the Israelis--we cannot affect ISIS without having personnel on the ground in a direct combat role
PERRY: Well, I don't think he understands the challenge, obviously. I was the governor of Texas for 14 years. The governor of that state with the 1,200 mile Mexican border. When it became abundantly clear that the president wasn't going to deal with this immigration issue, we acted last summer. We surged our law enforcement and our National Guard there. And as a result we saw a 74 percent decrease of apprehensions in that region of the border where the real challenges were.
Rick Perry continued to highlight his executive experience in his criticism of the president's ISIS policy. "Positive rhetoric alone does not solve problems, action does," he said in a statement. "If I were Commander-in-Chief, it would not take nine months to work with our military leaders to develop a complete strategy to destroy ISIS and protect American security interests and values."
One of Perry's talking points has been his record of decisive action rather than promises and speeches. In his campaign launch on June 4, he advocated for a tougher approach to Russia and Iran, declaring, "This will be a 'show-me, don't tell me' election, where voters will look past the rhetoric to the real record."
During Perry's last five years as governor, Texas led the nation in job growth. He attributed that success to his focus on keeping taxes low and slashing spending, which included curbing regulations and expediting coal-fired power plant projects.
RP: Yes, absolutely. And I would suggest to you, we've been missing a real opportunity to work with India. India could be the absolute most important country for us to have a very strong allied relationship.
HH: And Vietnam and Japan and the Philippines are with us on this flotilla as well, aren't they?
RP: Oh, absolutely. But I'm talking about a big country that has the ability both economically and militarily to weigh in heavily. And I think we've missed opportunity after opportunity with this administration, whether it was being able to sell the Indians the aircraft that they wanted in their inventory, and we didn't. They ended up going to France and buying the Mirage fighters. So the point is in that region, we're going to have to push back. We need to, China is a complex issue.
RP: Well, I think we need to be competitive. And I think we need to have a conversation about how we are more competitive by number one, changing our tax policy and changing our regulatory policy so that our companies can be more competitive. But here's what changed me. And I don't think anybody can stand up and defend the Ex-Im Bank after the corruption and fraud became.....
HH: But reform it. Don't end it, reform it.
RP: Well, and you know what? My deal is that sometimes, you've got to threaten people pretty deeply to get their attention, and doing away with them is a very powerful threat.
RP: It's good to have a contrarian voice that's thoughtfully engaging in a process like that. Now from my perspective, it is very, very important for us to be able to have a technological advantage, and use every advantage that we have to be able to identify these people that would come into our country or would put our allies in jeopardy. We've been a country that always balanced our civil liberties against protecting our citizens. But I will always err on the side of defending our citizens' safety, but again being very mindful that our civil liberties don't need to be trampled on. And if there are agencies or people that are abusing that, they need to be held accountable, and use every bit of the power of this country to punish anyone who is using the Patriot Act in a way that is not appropriate.
RP: No, it's not. When you start looking at what she's doing from the standpoint of this Clinton Foundation, there is a clear quid pro quo about speeches her husband has given. I mean, $30 million dollars in the last year and a half for speeches? Then when you look back at when she was Secretary of State, the places that Bill Clinton went to give speeches, I just think this thing is getting so smelly.
HH: Hillary appears to have forgotten that she used a lot of different emails on her private server.
RP: The fact is this is not a lapse of one's memory. This is a lapse of one's ethics. There are real ethical questions that must be answered by the Clintons from the Foundation through the Secretary of State. And we haven't even gotten into this entire Benghazi issue. And as we peel back the layers of the onion, if you will, this becomes more and more rotten.
RP: Well, listen, I think that Snowden verged on absolute treachery, if not absolutely so. There, if you've got a problem with this country, there are ways of dealing with it. Taking that information and putting it out the way he did put American citizens and American allies in jeopardy. I don't consider that to be anything close to patriotic. I consider it to be treasonous, as a matter of fact.
Asked about the measles vaccine controversy, a spokesman for Perry affirmed his commitment to "protecting life" and pointed to efforts by his administration to increase immunization rates.
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is considering a run for president, has noted that the link between autism and vaccines was discredited. As governor, he received his flu shot at the State Capitol and encouraged all Arkansans to get vaccinated.
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The above quotations are from Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2015, interviewing presidential hopefuls for 2016.
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