Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2013-2015: on Families & Children

Donald Trump: Federal tax breaks to support child care costs

Trump's plan, which would expand tax benefits available to Americans paying for child care, falls outside of traditional Republican Party thinking. But Ivanka made it a centerpiece of her July speech as she pitched her father as the right man to help working families get by. Trump's new proposal, which the campaign says would "exclude childcare expenses from taxation," clearly came from her, which Trump confirmed."I've been working on [this] with my daughter, Ivanka," he said. "She feels so strongly about this."

Polls show Trump lagging behind Clinton among women voters. Ivanka's influence and the specific child care proposal are both meant to address that gap.

David French: Pornography corrodes values that sustain family life

On Internet pornography:
• "Porn makes men pathetic. Its true toll isn't the loss of 'virility,' but the corrosion of values that sustain family life. A generation of young men are now experiencing the high cost of low character."--April 7
• "This is the era of sexual liberty--the marriage of hedonism to meaning--and the establishment of a new civic religion. The black-robed priesthood has spoken. Will the church bow before their new masters?"--June 26, 2015

John Kasich: Paid maternity leave is reason for pay gap

"The reason why that's important is," Kasich went on, "when women take maternity leave or time to be with the children, then what happens is they fall behind on the experience level, which means that the pay becomes a differential."

Only a third of American women work for companies that offer paid maternity leave and 40% of American workers aren't even permitted to take unpaid leave, which means that Kasich can't really blame the "differential" in pay on new moms.

Just about all of the research out there finds that mothers and children (and dads!) thrive when parents have time to bond with babies. But the exhaustive data is probably beside the point for Kasich.

John Kasich: Offer maternity work-at-home, but not paid leave

"The one thing we need to do for working women is to give them the flexibility to be able to work at home online," Kasich said. "When women take maternity leave or time to be with the children, then what happens is they fall behind on the experience level, which means that the pay becomes a differential. And we need to accommodate women who want to be at home, having a healthy baby and in fact being involved, however many years they want to take care of the family."

Virtually every other developed nation offers paid leave, often for several months. In the U.S., workers at companies that employ at least 50 are entitled only to unpaid leave--although about a third of corporations voluntarily offer several weeks of paid time off.

Lawrence Lessig: Sexually abused by his choir teacher as a schoolboy

Lawrence Lessig: 2008:Criticized Catholic Church for immunity on sexual abuse

Carly Fiorina: Paid maternity leave OK if voluntary, not mandated

"I have had lots of men imply I was unfit for decisionmaking because maybe I was having my period," Fiorina told CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday.

This identification with women, as a woman, can be a great asset for Republicans. Fiorina often says that every issue is a women's issue. She opposes popular ideas such as federally mandated paid maternity leave (voluntary, yes; required, no). But such a stance may not matter among Republican in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa.

Bernie Sanders: 1972: wrote fictional "satire" about men oppressing women

SANDERS: Look, this is a piece of fiction that I wrote in 1972. That was 43 years ago. It was very poorly written. And if you read it, what it was dealing with gender stereotypes, why some men like to oppress women, why other women like to be submissive. You know, something like "50 Shades of Gray," very poorly written 43 years ago. What I'm focusing on right now are the issues impacting the American people today. And that's what I will continue to focus on. And what I think the American people want to hear.

Mike Huckabee: Don't allow kids to listen to toxic music like Beyonce

HUCKABEE: You know, if people read the full chapter, it's in the context of first of all saying Beyonce is a wonderful talent. My point is, she doesn't have to do some of the things that she does in the lyrics, because it's not necessary. She has nothing to make up for. But it was President Obama who said that some of the lyrics he won't listen to with his daughters because it embarrasses him. Well, here's my point, if it embarrasses you then why would you possibly think it's wholesome for your children to put it into their heads? The Obamas are great parents; they're careful about making sure their kids get a lot of vegetables & eat right. That's terrific. But what you put in your brain is also important as well as what you put into your body.

Rand Paul: Revival of values depends on fusing freedom and virtue

Paul championed his anti-abortion stance; he was introduced to the crowd by a video montage of his own pro-life remarks interspersed with sonograms of babies in the womb. "I'm one who will march for life and who will stand up in defense of life as long as I'm privileged to hold office," Paul told the crowd.

Paul's strongest applause came when he brought up was his failed legislative attempt to stop foreign aid from reaching countries that persecute Christians. "Let's stop this madness!" he said.

Rand Paul: Volunteer eye surgery for blind kids in Guatemala

Rand Paul says, "This is an amazing enterprise. We have a surgery center. We have a dental clinic and we have a place doing glasses."

Scores of people line up every day for a week--hoping American doctors can give them their sight--and their lives back. A 79 year-old great-grandmother who has cataracts. A farmer just wants to see again so he can work in his field. A mission to restore sight, and hope, to the poorest of the poor.

When asked if this helps his presidential ambitions, Paul notes, "I've been doing this kinda stuff for 20 years--I think the first kids I operated on were 1996. This isn't something new that we're doing. A physician is who I am."

Rand Paul: Re-establish inter-country adoptions from Guatemala

In January 2008, Guatemala shut down all intercountry adoptions. Paul noted, "There were thousands of kids being adopted from Guatemala until 2009, and then it's dwindled. They've cleared some of the backlog, and they said it used to be maybe too easy and now it's way too hard but there could be a legal way to try to improve immigration this way. But with regards to immigration, I let him know I don't think the source of the problem is in Guatemala. It's in our White House."

Bobby Jindal: Entered into "covenant marriage" with his wife

On paper, Jindal seems like an improbable candidate to marshal the religious right in the culture wars. He is an ethnic minority in a movement that is almost entirely white. Perhaps most problematically, Jindal was raised Hindu, and became a Catholic in his late teens only after a complicated, and sometimes messy, conversion that he later detailed in a series of articles for an obscure religious journal. The articles are nuanced, fascinating, and deeply human, revealing a level of self-awareness and sophistication about faith that is uncommon among aspiring politicians.

Mitt Romney: Impact of same-sex marriage on kids won't be known for years

ROMNEY: I think marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. And I think the ideal setting for raising a child is in the setting where there's a father and a mother. Now there're many other different settings that children are raised in and people have the right to live their life as they want to. But I think marriage should be defined in the way that it's been defined for several thousand years and if gay couples want to live together, well, that's fine as well.

Q: But do you think it's had a negative impact on society?

ROMNEY: Oh, I think it's going to take a long, long time to determine whether having gay marriage will make it less likely for kids to be raised in settings where there is a mom and a dad. That's not going to happen overnight. It's something which happens over generations.