Trump: "When I become president, the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on day one," he said, to applause. "I will meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately. I have known him for many years and we'll be able to work closely together to help bring stability and peace to Israel and to the entire region." American tycoon Donald Trump criticized the White House's treatment of Israel, saying, "There has never been a greater enemy to Israel than Barack Obama."
Clinton: In September 2010, while meeting with Netanyahu, Clinton said the US has an obligation to do all it can to "protect and defend the State of Israel and provide security to the Israeli people." She condemned Palestinian terrorism and advocated for Israel's right to defend itself.
Stein: Has proposed slashing the $4 billion annual military aid package to Israel, and would press for a peace deal with the Palestinians.
President Obama's executive actions, in part, have lifted a series of restrictions on Cuba, opened a U.S. embassy in the country and established travel and business between the two nations. He issued additional directives to further loosen restrictions aimed at increasing trade with the island nation.
"Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would lift the embargo completely and normalize relations with Cuba for nothing in return," Pence said. He continued: "The truth of the matter is if they could open it up all the way, they would."
The former New Mexico governor has been widely panned for a pair of foreign policy gaffes that have weighed down his long-shot candidacy. First, Johnson responded to a question about the ongoing civil war in Syria by asking his questioner, "What is Aleppo?" His inability to recognize Syria's largest city, and the epicenter of its humanitarian crisis, was compounded last week when Johnson was to "name one foreign leader that you respect and look up to." Johnson could not name one and admitted that he was having another "Aleppo moment."
Johnson, like most Libertarians, supports non-interventionist foreign and military policies.
"We put our military in this horrible situation where we go in and support regime change. They get involved in civil wars where hundreds of thousands of innocent people are in a cross fire. We're literally shooting at ourselves because we support both sides of conflicts, Syria as an example," he said. "We wonder why our men in service and women suffer from PTSD in the first place. It's because we elect people who can dot the i's and cross the t's on these names and geographic locations as opposed to the underlying philosophy which is let's stop getting involved in these regime changes. "
Evan McMullin: Yes
STEIN: I think we need to take a good hard look at NATO. In my view NATO needs to be part of a re-examination of a foreign policy that has been based on economic and military domination and we need to look at what the consequences of this kind of foreign policy are. And, you know we spent $6 trillion--
Q: What's the domination, where NATO comes into it?
STEIN: Well, NATO for example is how we can do an end run around our own internal process when we want to create regime change somewhere.
Q: So your running mate [Ajamu Baraka] referred to the "gangster states" of NATO. Do you share that view?
STEIN: Well, he uses language I would not use. But, shall we say, I don't think it represents American democracy to do an end run around our process or determining when we will go to war.
Q: Well he uses language, but what does he mean?
STEIN: I think he means the same thing I'm saying.
McMullin: How have we gotten to the point where we're considering electing a President who is being played and manipulated by a former KGB officer?
Q: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is a former KGB officer; haven't we had enough of that with Barack Obama?
McMullin: Absolutely. Not being strong enough with the Russians and Putin. This is the thing: Donald Trump, he fancies himself one of the world's best negotiators and that might allow him to do some branding deals. But that does not mean that he is sophisticated enough to go head to head with a former KGB officer. Putin, as the leader of Russia, presents a challenge to democracy and liberty across the country, across the world. Instability, even. His goal is to destabilize Europe and he's had some successes there. Obviously, in Ukraine, he's used force even to do it and his goal is to do the same thing in the United States, and Donald Trump is helping him do that.
DC: Christians and others will have to listen and read for themselves about my foreign policy rather than gather it from the establishment or mainstream media. As for Israel: Israel is a most important ally in the Middle East and for the most part Israel's enemies are our enemies. I am against foreign aid for anyone since there is no Constitutional basis for it, but I know that if we cut off the billions in aid to Israel's enemies and potential enemies, Israel would not need our help. The Israelis are therefore fully capable of defending themselves. I would not sit by and watch Israel be overrun and conquered, but at the same time, I don't believe that could ever happen.
More recently, he served as a Senior Advisor on national security issues with the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, and he's currently the Chief Policy Director with the House Republican Conference.
This spring, he came to campus to share his wealth of experience in conservative politics and unique insights into the past, present, and future of the Republican party.
"The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal. The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies as the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah.
The $400 million was Iran's to start with, placed into a US-based trust fund to support American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising, the US froze the trust fund. Iran has been fighting for a return of the funds--plus $1.3 billion in interest--through international courts since 1981."
He's served on boards of several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International (USA) and the National Center for Human Rights Education. He's also served on boards of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Africa Action; Latin American Caribbean Community Center; Diaspora Afrique and the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights.
Stein described Baraka as "a powerful, eloquent spokesperson for the transformative, radical agenda whose time has come--an agenda of economic, social, racial, gender, climate, indigenous and immigrant justice. Ajamu's life's work has embodied the immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
DONALD TRUMP: People want to see borders. They don't necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don't know who they are and where they come from. People want to take their country back. They want to have independence, in a sense. And you see it all over Europe. You're going to have, I think, many other cases where they want to take their borders back, they want to take their monetary [system] back, they want to take a lot of things back. They want to be able to have a country again. So I think you're going to have this happen more and more. And I think it's happening in the United States.
Q: Do you think he's right that there's a parallel?
SEN. TIM KAINE: There's a couple things you've got to understand. Young voters, those under 50, especially millennials, overwhelmingly voted to stay. And it was older voters who voted to leave [because pf] immigration issues and European regulation.
A: Many Sanders supporters have long straddled both campaigns. As the Democratic Party moves to sideline his campaign, Sanders' supporters themselves are getting the word out that the revolution continues here, inside our campaign.
Q: Who are you reaching out to?
A: For example, we are getting the word out to Latinos and other groups concerned about immigrant rights. They have seen that Republicans are the party of hate and fearmongering. And Democrats are the party of deportation, detention and night raids. We are the only campaign opposing border militarization, pointing out that the most important solution to the immigration crisis is to stop causing it-- through predatory trade deals, the war on drugs and U.S. military and CIA-supported coups and regime change. U.S. immigration policy effectively criminalizes millions of refugees fleeing the poverty and violence resulting from misguided U.S. policies.
"Free markets and liberal democracies don't just happen on their own; they require the support and leadership of powerful nations. It is our responsibility to be a force for good in the world," he asserted.
CARSON: What I would really like to see is an administration that seriously sits down with our experts in that region and ask them what is needed in order to accomplish our goal of eliminating this group of terrorists?
Q: So you don't know whether you'd want those rules of engagement loosened?
CARSON: Those of us who are not experts in that area can sit around all day long talking about doing this or doing that. But why don't we listen to the people who actually are the experts in that area, find out what it is that they need?
CARSON: I think the military solution is to try to exterminate ISIS and the other radical jihadists who will not allow peace to occur under any circumstances until they achieve their goals. But in terms of a place like Syria, the likelihood of an Assad regime maintaining peaceful control is extremely small. And the likelihood of El Masrah or any of the anti-Assad factions maintaining control is also very small. So, you need to be working on some type of mechanism to keep it from being in perpetual turmoil. I think the most compassionate thing when you're fighting a war is to do it quickly. The longer you drag it out, the more people are hurt. And I think we need to work in close conjunction with our Department of Defense, with our Pentagon, with our experts.
BUSH: I don't think we will. I have great doubts whether Russia would make that big kind of sea change. But we always should be in dialogue with Russia. My problem is, talking to Russia from a position of weakness only enables their objectives. It has nothing to do with ours. If we were stronger, we would be in a better position to deal with them.
HUCKABEE: If you mean coalition of the unwilling, those who refuse to lift a finger to stop this aggression, they should be isolated. And, yes, we should put sanctions on them. There's no excuse, especially for Middle Eastern nations, especially for Muslim Middle Eastern nations, to simply sit back and do nothing and let America, the United Kingdom, France, NATO countries, to let the rest of the world attack this malignant cancer called Islamic jihadism, and then sit back and protect their own special and well-funded kingdoms.
O`MALLEY: The terrorist attacks in Paris suggest that we do not have the networked intelligence that we need to defend ourselves. An immune system is strong not because it outnumbers the bad germs in this world but because it's better coordinated. That is not the old way of a CIA and siloed bureaucracies. It requires a new age of rapid communications and intelligence sharing with neighbors that, in the past, a lot of security agencies thought ran contrary to our national interests. When it comes, also, to fighting ISIL on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, we need to up the battle tempo and we also need new alliances with many other nations that are open-ended and ideally work through the U.N. Security Council. It also requires an open-endedness to allow the Russians to come in and help us provided we can get that a short-term political solution that directs their firepower.
He acknowledged that as governor he does not have the ability to prevent refugees from moving to his state. "We don't have the authority; we can only express our concerns," Kasich said. "I'm criticized for having a big heart but I also have a big brain," he said.
He urged the federal government to "pause," and put in place stringent background checks before allowing Syrians to enter the US. He said refugees should be relocated to "safe zones" located on the borders of Turkey and Jordan and are protected by no fly zones.
(VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE W. BUSH: The face of terror is not the truth faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.
Q: Is Islam peace?
JEB BUSH: I know what Islamic terrorism is. And that's what we are fighting with ISIS, al Qaeda, all of the other groups. And that's what our focus should be on. This is not a question of religion. This is a political ideology that has co-opted a religion. And I think it's more than acceptable just to call it for what it is and then organize an effort to destroy it. The simple fact is that these are Islamic terrorists that has have co-opted a faith that is peaceful. But, nevertheless, this is something we need to fight.
BUSH: It's both. And I think Governor O`Malley probably agrees with me that we need to lead. We cannot lead from behind. We have to take a leadership role to inspire our Arab partners and the European countries, NATO allies, all of them together, create a strategy, act on it, unleash a strategy on ISIS and we'll be successful.
Kasich also sharply criticized President Barack Obama for what he said were years of inaction in the region that has allowed Assad to remain in power. "No more dickering, no more delaying, no more negotiations, he has to go," Kasich said of Assad. "The longer we look at the void that America has created in this world, the more chaos we have. The time has come for the United States to act."
Trump then got into a specific example: Saudi Arabia, one of the more important US allies in the Middle East. Saudis "make a billion dollars a day. We protect them. So we need help. We are losing a tremendous amount of money on a yearly basis and we owe $19 trillion," he said.
Walking back trade deals and agreements that allow the US military to operate overseas is easier said than done. But Trump has tapped into a powerful anti-Washington populist sentiment.
Christie: I think the Pope was wrong. I just believe that when you have a government that is harboring fugitives, murdering fugitives like Joanne Chesimard--who murdered a state policemen--that this president could extend diplomatic relations in that country without getting her returned so that she can serve the prison sentence, is outrageous
TRUMP: Well, I had heard that he wanted to meet with me. And certainly I am open to it. I don't know that it's going to take place, but I know that people have been talking. We'll see what happens. But certainly, if he wanted to meet, I would love to do that. You know, I've been saying relationship is so important in business, that it's so important in deals, and so important in the country. And if President Obama got along with Putin, that would be a fabulous thing. But they do not get along. Putin does not respect our president. And I'm sure that our president does not like him very much.
SANDERS: I think it's impossible to give a proper number until we understand the dimensions of the problem. What I do believe is that Europe, the United States and, by the way, countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, must address this humanitarian crisis. People are leaving Iraq, they're leaving Syria with just the clothes on their backs. The world has got to respond. The United States should be part of that response.
Q: When it comes to Syria, how much of the problem is the United States' fault, of policy, whether Bush in Iraq or Obama in Syria?
SANDERS: Look, I voted against the war in Iraq; much of what I feared would happen, in fact, did happen: Massive destabilization in that region. The issue now is not who is at fault. The issue is now what we do. And what we do is bring the region together.
KASICH: We don't know what's going to happen in 18 months. I've been on the Defense Committee for 18 years, and you got to be careful not to paint red lines that you can't keep. In addition to that, I think we ought to hold Iran totally accountable for what they do, if they break any part of this deal, if they fund the radicals like Hamas and Hezbollah. In that kind of case, we've got to slap the sanctions back on. We would then have the high moral ground to talk to our allies and get them to go along with us. But in addition to that, if we get to the point where we think that Iran may be developing a nuclear [bomb], well then I think military action would be warranted. But let's wait until we get there and let's stay calm because that's one of the most important things we need to do when it comes to foreign affairs.
KASICH: I support that. I think it's important that we don't let anybody infiltrate who's part of a radical group. But America needs to be part of this solution. It's fundamentally a European problem, but I think there are some things we can do. Beyond taking [in] these people, I think we can provide some logistical support so people aren't losing their lives. And in addition, maybe some humanitarian aid.
Q: And in the long run?
KASICH: We need to look at this as an opportunity to try to draw closer to our European friends. Finally, I think it's important that Europe and Western civilizations begin to stand up for their fundamental values, their primarily Jewish and Christian values, so that when these folks come, we can have assimilation. So they don't change us, but maybe in some way we either change them or live peacefully with them and we have full integration.
KASICH: Well, I think maybe this is an opportunity for the United States and the western world to work together to solve what is an unbelievable crisis. And I think we do have a responsibility in terms of taking some more folks in, making sure they assimilate, and at the same time helping people to actually be safe as they move. That's logistical support. But this is fundamentally an issue that Europe has to come to grips with. We can provide some humanitarian aid to them. But the bottom line is we should have been supporting the Syrian rebels years ago. I pitched Boehner and McCain on it, the administration ignored it. This thing could be over by now. But when the United States draws red lines and walks away without a solid policy, we see human tragedy unfolding right before our eyes.
SANDERS: I think you can argue that there are times and places where drone attacks have been effective, and there are times and places where they have been absolutely counter-effective and have caused more problems when they have solved. When you kill innocent people, the end result is that people in the region become anti-American who otherwise would not have been. So, I think we have to use drones very, very selectively and effectively. That has not always been the case.
A: Well, I think it highlights the necessity of us taking a very strong stance for our allies. South Korea is our ally. There should be no doubt about that in anybody's mind, including North Korea, that we will stand with our allies, no matter what is going on.
A: Well, they are a very opaque regime, and as a result, you have to be prepared for unpredictable actions from them. We are the guarantor of stability in all of the Asian Rim. We have been since the end of World War II. in the long term, this is an opportunity for us to get a confidence-building with China. This is an area where China has some influence, and perhaps can help us resolve a situation. The questions I would have with respect to this administration's policy have been the actions of China in the Senkaku Islands and then all the way down along the Rim, in the Spratlys, where they are very clearly expanding their military presence. And I think we could do a lot more.
CARSON: All you have to do is go to Israel and talk to average people. And I couldn't find a single person there who didn't feel that this administration had turned their backs on Israel. And I think the position of president of the United States should be one where you begin to draw people together behind a vision. Not one where you castigate those who believe differently from you.
Q: what specifically is anti-Semitic in what the President is saying?
CARSON: I think anything is anti-Semitic that is against the survival of a state that is surrounded by enemies and by people who want to destroy them. And to ignore that and act like everything is normal there and that these people are paranoid, I think that's anti-Semitic.
A: I have been going to Israel for 42 years. My first trip was in 1973. I have been dozens and dozens of times. I have got a lot of friends there. I will be visiting with a number of officials and discussing the Iranian deal, because I think it's the most dangerous situation that we face, not just for the Middle East, but for the rest of the world. This is essentially arming and equipping a terrorist state. The Iranian government is not to be trusted. And for 36 years, they kidnapped Americans. They have killed Americans. They hold Americans hostage right now. And we're being pushed to get into a deal that gives us nothing, but gives the Iranians the capacity to ultimately end up with a nuclear weapon, and that's just insane.
SANDERS: We have got to go through every possible effort in order to make sure that we achieve that goal of Iran not having a nuclear weapon without going to war.
Q: So, do you support the agreement?
SANDERS: Yes, I do. Look, I'm not going to tell that you this is a perfect agreement. And every agreement can be better.
Q: What about hard-liners chanting death to America in Iraq making common cause with the opponents of this deal?
SANDERS: I wouldn't frame it that way. But this is the way I would frame it. It's so easy to be critical of an agreement which is not perfect. But the US has to negotiate with other countries. We have to negotiate with Iran. And the alternative, you know what it is? It's war. Do we really want another war, a war with Iran? I think we go as far as we possibly can in trying to give peace a chance, if you like, trying to see if this agreement will work. And I will support it.
A: My first alternative and preferred alternative is to arm the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Emiratis and the Saudis to bring this fight to those folks. They need more help. They need better arms. They need more support from an intelligence perspective and they need to know that America's going to stand with them when the polls are up or down.
A: What he's doing is not going to work, to absolutely just cave in the Cubans. The fact is that we're now going to send hundreds of millions of dollars down to Cuba in tourist activity and economic activity and none of that is going to get to the people of Cuba.
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.
KASICH: Well, I think radical Islam really is number one. And, you know, I've said all along we should have a coalition. We should be there, including boots on the ground. And we need to degrade and destroy ISIS. Number one.
Q: You would be sending more troops?
KASICH: Well, I would have them in a role where they're going to be on the ground fighting. I mean, you've got the air power, but you can't solve anything just with air power. But I would be part of a coalition and I would take them down and begin to destroy the caliphate.
A: Our foreign policy as a nation is not subject to what China wants to do or Russia wants to do; we have our own foreign policy. It needs to be in the national security interests of the United States. I would have never entered this negotiation unless we understood up front that Iran was going to stop enrichment activities, was going to stop their ballistic missile capabilities, & was going to stop sponsoring terrorism.
A: I would end the diplomatic relations with an anti-American communist tyranny, until such time as they actually held a democratic opening in Cuba, allowed people to organize independent political parties, have freedom of the press and freedom of expression. In fact, all these conditions are laid out in the law right now in the Cuban Democracy Act.
JINDAL: I think a bad deal is worse than no deal. I fear this administration could start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Sunni countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are likely going to want their own nuclear capabilities This would be a threat to Israel, to Europe, to America. We're talking about an existential threat to the region, to the United States. Never mind the fact that we're not even asking Iran to recognize Israel, to cut off ties to terrorism, to release American prisoners. I'm just talking about giving up enriched uranium, giving up all their centrifuges, anytime, anywhere inspections. Those are the basic tenets of a basic deal. And it doesn't look like we're getting any of those things.
FIORINA: Well, I would have walked away because if you can't walk away from the negotiating table, the other side just keeps negotiating. And that's precisely what's happened. We have caved on every major goal that President Obama set, so I would walk away and I would tell the Iranians that until and unless they are prepared to open every nuclear facility, every uranium enrichment facility to full and unfettered inspections, that we will make it as difficult as possible for them to move money around the global financial system. We can do that. We don't need anyone's permission or collaboration to do that.
WEBB: I would be hesitant with what I see right now, what we do not want to do at this point is to send a signal to the region that we are accepting the notion that eventually Iran would be acquiring nuclear weapons. There are other ways we can improve relations with Iran, confidence building gestures as we did with the Soviet Union over many years.
WEBB: I would probably say China is a long-term strategic threat, if you look at the expansion that they have conducted over the last 15 years. I've been talking about in the South China Sea and building blue water navy. I take General Dunford's point about the turbulence with respect to Russia, but I think our friends and allies in Europe have done a pretty good job of helping us address that.
Q: As president, would you send weapons to the Ukrainians for example?
WEBB: I would be open to looking at that.
A: If the Iranians walk away from the table, and tried to break out and get a nuclear weapon, if we can't end their program peacefully, I would stop them. If they get a nuclear weapon, the Sunni Arabs will want a nuclear weapon of their own, and we're on the road to a nuclear arms race in the Mideast. I think a good outcome is to basically leave the interim deal in place and give the next president a chance to conclude a final agreement with the Iranians.
STEIN: To provide a welcoming path to citizenship for immigrants and to restore our civil liberties, our foreign policy platform is very important. We feel that we should have a foreign policy that basically gets rebooted and established on the basis of international law, human rights and diplomacy, and that we should not be in the business of funding basically weapons for everybody who wants them, and in particular, we should not be delivering weapons systems or support of any sort to nations around the world that are human rights violators.
Soon afterward, several GOP candidates seized the opportunity to attack Obama while touting their own foreign policy platforms. In an appearance on Fox News, Carly Fiorina chimed in: "It's been clear that President Obama hasn't had a plan. It's been equally clear that the Pentagon has been giving him options, and of course our allies have been asking for very specific things to help us defeat ISIS."
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.
A: Who would not be in favor of a deal if it would be a deal that Iran would allow themselves to walk away from any sort of enrichment or reprocessing? But that's not what the deal is. We now know what the outlines of the deal are and they're much worse than anybody anticipated. And in terms of saber rattling in our approach to terrorism: When you give these radical groups safe havens, whether it's in Syria or Iraq or Libya, they use those safe havens to carry out attacks against Americans and our allies, and increasingly here in the homeland.
CARSON: All options includes all options. That doesn't mean that would be my first option. When we look at Russia and we look at Putin, we can realize that he has great ambitions. His ambitions have been thwarted of late because of falling oil prices. And we should take note of that and realize that the economic weapon is a tremendous one in his case. We have incredible natural resources in this country in terms of oil, in terms of natural gas, but we have energy exportation rules from the '70s when we had an energy crisis that need to be gotten rid of, so we can use that to make Europe and other portions of the world more dependent on us. And that decreases his influence and his ability to expand.
CARSON: No, I wouldn't go to war over Ukraine, but I would handle Ukraine a very different way. You know, Ukraine was a nuclear arms state. They gave up their weapons. You know, it was agreed they would be protected if something happened with aggression. Have we lived up to that? Of course, we have not. And what does that say to our other allies around the world? It's not a good sign.
A: Don't think there's a snowball chance in hell that a Congress is going to approve this framework the way it's set up. The ayatollah saying he gets immediate sanction relief with no intrusive inspections.
Q: So what's your plan for a nuclear deal with Iran?
A: I will release today nine core principles of what I think a good deal will look like. Any time, anywhere inspections of military/nonmilitary facilities will be a bipartisan must. So, this idea that we can't go where we need to go is going to fail. The Chinese are talking about building five reactors for the Iranians. Any nuclear enrichment program must be limited to one reactor. At the end of the day, you can't lift sanctions until the behavior of Iran changes. They can longer be a state sponsor of terrorism before you lift sanctions down the road.
PAUL: Interestingly, many of the hawks in my party line right up with President Obama. The war that Hillary prominently promoted in Libya, many of the hawks in my party were right there with her. Their only difference was in degree. They wanted to go into Libya as well. Some of the hawks in my party, you can't find a place on the globe they don't want boots on the ground.
Q: And that's their point, that you're to the left of all them.
PAUL: No, my point is, is that they are actually agreeing with Hillary Clinton and agreeing with Pres. Obama that the war in Libya was a good idea. I'm not agreeing with either one of them. I'm saying that that war made us less safe, that it allowed radical Islam to rise up in Libya. There are now large segments of Libya that are pledging allegiance to ISIS, supplying arms to the Islamic rebels in the Syrian war.
A: I think the thing about the Clintons is that there's this grand hypocrisy in the sense that we've got this war on women thing that they like to talk about. And yet Hillary Clinton has taken money from countries that rape victims are publicly lashed. In Saudi Arabia, a woman was gang raped by seven men. She was publicly lashed 90 times. And then she was convicted of being in the car with an unmarried man. We should be voluntarily boycotting a country, not buying stuff from a country that does that to women.
Q: What would you say to Hillary on that?
A: I would expect Clinton--if she believes in women's rights--she should be calling for a boycott of Saudi Arabia. Instead, she's accepting tens of millions of dollars. And I think it looks unseemly. And there's going to be some explaining she's going to have to come up with.
Early in his Senate career, Paul was clearly influenced by his father's views. In 2011, he proposed eliminating all foreign aid, including to Israel, insisting: "I just don't think you can give other people's money away when we can't rebuild bridges in our country." As he seeks the presidency, facing a wide and varied GOP field that includes candidates with far more hawkish views, Paul has backed off on his past support for ending U.S. aid to Israel
HUCKABEE: Well, a lot of people don't know my first trip to the Middle East was in 1973, 42 years ago, when I was all of 17. I have been to the Middle East several dozen times. Just got back from Israel last month, was there three times just last year. I have been to virtually every country that we talk about, whether it's Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Turkey, Pakistan, India. This is a part of the world with which I am familiar firsthand. And as a governor, I also met with many world leaders, as well as CEOs of multinational corporations. And, frankly, most governors do. I think it's sometimes perceived that governors don't have much of a world view. I would tend to take issue that that is not always the case.
Walker responded by ticking through his recent itinerary of face time with foreign policy luminaries: a breakfast with Henry Kissinger, a huddle with George Shultz and tutorials at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute. But then Walker suggested that didn't much matter: "I think foreign policy is something that's not just about having a PhD or talking to PhD's," he said. "It's about leadership."
Walker contended that "the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime" was then-President Ronald Reagan's move to bust a 1981 strike of air traffic controllers, firing some 11,000 of them. "It sent a message not only across America, it sent a message around the world," Walker said. America's allies and foes alike became convinced that Reagan was serious enough to take action and that "we weren't to be messed with," he said.
Jeb Bush sought to arrange a meeting between his father and exile leaders. He called for economic sanctions that would "tighten the noose on Castro." And he questioned the Justice Department's prosecution of a Cuban militant who had already been incarcerated in "Castro's jail for 23 years."
Jeb Bush also sought a promotion for an Army colonel who he noted could become the first United States general of Cuban origin. The president's staff thought better of acting on that request. "Armed Services promotion board reacts very negatively to any sort of political pressure, perceived or otherwise," wrote one of his father's top aides.
In the fall of 1970, he enrolled in a class called Man and Society, which featured seminars on "poverty, conflicts (violence) and power structure." At the conclusion of the course, students were given the option of spending the winter trimester either in South Boston or central Mexico. Bush chose the warmer locale. It was a decision that would change his life.
The trip to Mexico was designed to introduce a small group of students to another world, a village with an indigenous population where Andover boys would help build a cinder-block schoolhouse. Bush said at the time that he went to Mexico to learn Spanish and study the culture [but the 17-year-old Bush also met his future wife on that same trip].
SANTORUM: Well, really, there isn't anybody else who's looking [at the GOP primary] that has any kind of significant national security experience. I was eight years on the Armed Services Committee, where I was a subcommittee chairman, worked in a very strong bipartisan level, never had an amendment that I brought to the floor that was ever amended without bipartisan support. So we always did it in a way that was above politics. Secondly, I authored two major pieces of national security legislation, foreign policy legislation: one on Syria, a bill that was vehemently opposed by President Bush when I offered it. And within three years, he signed it, came around to the position that I had taken. The next one was on the Iranian nuclear program; it passed unanimously in the US Senate.
As Saudi Arabia has courted international controversy--by launching a bloody war in Yemen last year and embarking on a steep increase in executions for minor or political crimes-- the country has also ramped up its efforts to influence the American policy debate. Still, one of the main goals of Saudi outreach is to promote the idea that the country serves as a strong ally to U.S. efforts in Syria, a point referenced by Kasich. The truth, however, is that Saudi shifted much of its military from striking ISIS targets in Syria to focus on the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
GRAHAM: Well, North Korea would be great place to sell products. They don't have anything. When America engages a country, we do so with our moral voice, just not cigars & rum. So, for the last 50 years, Cuba's gone from being an interventionist communist power in Angola to Grenada, to a backwater, poor dictatorship. And without any reason, we have changed our policy. Look in your vault of CBS News stories in 2013 and 2014 and show me one where Cuba is becoming more democratic. The Congress is not going to reinforce this policy. There will be no confirmation of an ambassador to Cuba because the Castro brothers are terrible dictators who deserve no new engagement. They deserve to be condemned and isolated.
GRAHAM: When it comes to funding any proposed embassy in Cuba, I'm in charge of all foreign aid; will do everything I can to limit to size and scope of this embassy, because you are rewarding people who kidnap Americans and who really are still communists in every way.
Q: Do you think that Cuba at this point in time represents a security threat to America?
GRAHAM: Last year, the Cubans were shipping arms to North Korea in violation of the embargo. Yes. Cuba to me represents everything that threatens us. Are we safe when somebody right off our shores practices totalitarian communism in our backyard? They were actively trying to send weapons to North Korea a year ago. Should we be worried about North Korea? Yes. Should we be worried about Cuba? Yes. And Iran is watching. I can only imagine what the ayatollahs in Iran must be saying when our president reaches out to a communist dictatorship that has done nothing to change.
GRAHAM: Make it so hard on the North Koreans, they don't want to do this in the future. Reimpose sanctions lifted by President Bush. Put them back on the state sponsor of terrorism list. Put [them] on notice that it's just not a movie [referring to "The Interview", an anti-North Korea film]. It's our way of life. They attacked who we are. And when the president calls this [North Korean cyberattack on the movie's producer Sony] an act of vandalism , that just really bothers me greatly. It is an act of terrorism. And I hope he will respond forcefully.
Q: You're not talking about taking military action against North Korea, are you?
GRAHAM: I'm talking about putting them in a spot in the world where they are diminished beyond where they are today. I'm talking about consulting with China and holding them accountable. This is the first act of cyber-warfare that's really gotten a lot of attention. How the president handles this is very important.
RUBIO: No, it shouldn't. Look, the North Koreans, it's not even a government. It's a criminal syndicate that controls territory and need to be treated as such. Now, unfortunately, they possess nuclear weapons and are led by an irrational leader. North Korea is going to be a growing problem for the foreseeable future. You have a person running that country that is mentally unstable, but also someone that is fully capable of overestimating his own strength and ends up miscalculating and creating a real catastrophe, not just vis-a-vis South Korea, but also Japan and the United States. This is a very serious threat. It's not just a cyber-threat. I think North Korea has the potential to become a source of huge instability.
RUBIO: It's important to understand why I oppose it. I am not opposed to changes in Cuba policy. I think we constantly need to examine our foreign policy. I'm opposed to changes like this that have no chance of leading to the result that we want, which is more freedom and more liberty for the Cuban people. This change is entirely predicated upon with false notion that engagement alone automatically leads to freedom. And I think we have evidence that that is not the case. Look at Vietnam and look at China, countries that we have engaged. They are no more politically free today than they were when that engagement started.
RUBIO: Now, our job is twofold. There is existing law that has codified the US embargo. And whatever regulations are now written to implement the president's new policy have to live up to that law. And beyond it, I think we need to examine, as Cuban the government doesn't make any changes to their human rights record--they're going to arrest people today. They arrested people yesterday. They're going to continue to crack down on opposition in the island. We need to hold this administration accountable for these policies changes and if in fact that Cubans do nothing reciprocal to live up to or to open up political space, constantly challenge and reexamine these policy changes the president has made.
RUBIO: Well, obviously, I disagree. And he has the right to become a supporter of President Obama's foreign policy. But I think it's premised on the same false notion that engagement alone leads to freedom. It doesn't. We have engagement with Vietnam and China. And while their economies have grown, their political freedoms have not. Look what China is today 30 years after that engagement. China steals our military and commercial secrets, obviously actively conducts cyber-operations against the United States. And, internally, their people have no religious, no freedoms, no freedom of speech, no unfettered access to the Internet.
Q: Should we break relations with China?
RUBIO: From a geopolitical perspective, our approach to China by necessity has to be different from Cuba
RUBIO (ON TAPE): This entire policy shift announced today is based on an illusion, on a lie.
Q: What was working with the old policy?
RUBIO: Well, I think that's not the question. The question is what new policy can actually achieve our goal of freedom and liberty for the Cuban people. On the contrary, Raul Castro made very clear that there will be no political changes on the island. Nor did the president ask for any.
Q: But you acknowledge the old policy wasn't working?
RUBIO: I keep hearing about how the old policy was designed to overthrow the Castro regime. That's false. The embargo's original purpose was to protect American companies because those properties had been expropriated. American companies in Cuba had their assets seized. And so, in order to prevent that, that was the reason why the embargo was put in place. The new purpose of the embargo in the 21st century was to serve as leverage towards democracy.
Q: What are your thoughts on the president's deal here with Cuba?
PAUL: I grew up in a family that was about as anti-Communist as you could come by. And when we first opened up trade with China we were thinking it was a bad idea. But over time, I've come to believe that trading with China is the best way to actually, ultimately, defeat Communism. You know, the 50-year embargo with Cuba just hasn't worked. I mean, if the goal was regime change, it sure doesn't seem to be working. And probably it punishes the people more than the regime, because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship. And if there's open trade, I think the people will see all the things that we produce under capitalism. So in the end, I think probably opening up Cuba is a good idea.
Paul then posted this message on Facebook: "Senator Marco Rubio believes the embargo against Cuba has been ineffective, yet he wants to continue perpetuating failed policies. After 50 years of conflict, why not try a new approach? I believe engaging Cuba can lead to positive change. Seems to me, Senator Rubio is acting like an isolationist who wants to retreat to our borders and perhaps build a moat. I reject this isolationism. Finally, let's be clear that Senator Rubio does not speak for the majority of Cuban-Americans. A recent poll demonstrates that a large majority of Cuban-Americans actually support normalizing relations between our countries.
"I would argue that instead of lifting the embargo we should consider strengthening it again to put pressure on the Cuban regime," Bush told cheering supporters at a gathering of the US Cuba Democracy PAC, a pro-embargo advocacy group.
Bush did not spell out proposals for strengthening the embargo. But he implied that he wanted to reverse travel rules made by President Obama that allow Cuban-Americans to make unlimited trips to visit relatives. "Thousands of people travel to Cuba from the US , spending billions of dollars," Bush said. "Would lifting the embargo change the fact that the government receives almost all of the money that comes from these well-intended people that travel to the island?"
In calling for a foreign policy laced with "humility," Bush echoed his brother's call in 2000 to have a "humble" foreign policy. A year later, the US became far more interventionist after the 9/11 attacks, which ultimately helped lead the nation into invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush said Obama failed to accomplish any of these goals: "It undermines our credibility in the world. Our allies don't trust us. And our enemies don't fear us. There is no situation worse for stability and peace than that," Bush said. "The iron rule of superpower deterrent is 'mean it when you say it.' And it has been broken by this president."
PAUL: It depends on your stage of the disease. Quarantine is a tough question, because the libertarian in me is horrified at the idea of indefinitely detaining anyone without a trial. One of our basic rights is habeas corpus: if anybody was detaining you, you have recourse to a lawyer and to a judgment.
Q: She had a lawyer. They filed suit to get her out of New Jersey. Now she's in Maine and again saying, "I am not contagious."
PAUL: Well, I think common sense would say that it makes a different whether or not you're febrile, afebrile or asymptomatic.
Q: She doesn't have a fever.
PAUL: Right. When you're febrile, you're beginning to be contagious. And so there is a reasonable public concern. I think that we have to be very careful of people's civil liberties, but I'm also not saying that the government doesn't have a role in trying to prevent contagion.
PAUL: I think the president's biggest mistake was saying," oh, it's no big deal, you can't catch it if you're sitting on a bus. And we're not going to stop any travel." It's very contagious when someone is sick. I don't think anybody should be riding on a bus or coming from Liberia to visit when they could be contagious. So, I think a temporary stop of travel for elective travel, if you're coming to visit your relatives, couldn't that wait for a few months?
Do you think we ought to tighten the restrictions on who can come to this country?
PAUL: From the beginning of our country, we always had restrictions on infectious disease. That was one of the primary things we did at our border. Commercial travel for people who just want to visit the US, that really isn't a necessity, and we can wait few months on it. And it would make our problem a lot less if we were only thinking about health care workers coming back.
Unlike many Washington-based competitors for the foreign-policy-hawk vote, Perry has not left any fingerprints on the budget plans that are cutting the Army and Marines to their smallest size since 1940. Senator Marco Rubio can credibly say that he opposed the defense cuts all along, but Ted Cruz has championed even bigger spending cuts that would inevitably impinge on defense spending.
Furthermore, Perry can assert distance from the unpopular pieces of the George W. Bush foreign-policy legacy by virtue of his own famously adversarial relationship with Bush and his Texas team.
"To every extremist: We will not allow you to exploit our tolerance, so that you can import your intolerance. We will not let you destroy our peace with your violent ideas. If you expect to live among us, and yet plan against us, to receive the protections and comforts of a free society, while showing none of its virtues or graces, then you can have our answer now: 'No, not on our watch!' You will live by exactly the standards that the rest of us live by. And if that comes as jarring news: Then welcome to civilization."
"The president of Russia, Mr. Putin, may regard treaty obligations as so many words on paper, and just as easily tossed aside. But we operate a little differently in the NATO counties: We actually keep our commitments. That helps explain why, after nearly 70 years, there is still a NATO while the Iron Curtain, Eastern Bloc, and Warsaw Pact all belong to a miserable history we were all glad to put behind us. As before in history, holding to our NATO obligations can mean the difference between threats invited and threats deterred. Worse troubles are always avoided when we stick together as the inseparable allies that we are and offer more than consoling words to friends like Ukraine. Hostile actors need to know that in every circumstance we defend our interests and keep our word."
CRUZ: Well, look, Fidel Castro and Raul Castro, they never miss a chance to push propaganda. You know, what I can tell is, the Castro brothers have put in place a brutal regime that oppresses their citizens, that murders their citizens, that tortures and imprisons their citizens. And the Castros are never shy to jump up and engage in some propaganda to criticize the United States.
JIM WEBB: Well, it doesn't. And actually, I think it's fair to say right now that we are at a crossroads as a nation in terms of how we view ourselves, how we say these things to ourselves. And the way that these issues are going to be resolved in the next couple of years will affect us for a very long time. We have not had a clear articulation of what American foreign policy is, basically since the end of the Cold War. So when you're looking at places like Iraq and Syria, you're seeing policies that can't be clearly articulated.
Q: You're basically saying President Obama doesn't have a foreign policy.
WEBB: I'm saying that in terms of a clear doctrine, we have been lacking that for a very long time. And it particularly impacts the Middle East.
WEBB: I think what you were seeing in Egypt was: make sure you've got a clear grasp on where you're going before you leave where you are. This was accentuated in Libya. I spoke very strongly against the notion that a president could unilaterally conduct military operations in an area where we had no treaties at work, we had no Americans under attack or at risk. And you take a look at the end result of Libya, are an enormous number of weapons that are unaccountable, which are probably in Syria, and can you get to the Tripoli airport today? And who's talking about that? Now if you take a look at Syria, and these other parts of Iraq, we now have a situation where we're asking these freedom fighters, or whatever you want to call them, who were going after Assad, to help us go after ISIS.
According to an audio recording of the event, he said Putin had taken the measure of Obama. "I don't believe, given who I am, that he would make the same judgment," Christie said. "Let's leave it at that." One attendee described Christie's answer as disturbingly heavy on swagger and light on substance.
Christie places tremendous value on the personal projection of authority, as evidenced by his suggestion that Putin would think twice about challenging him. "Foreign policy, in my view, is about human relationships," Christie said at an American Enterprise Institute conference. "Men and women across the world judge each other," Christie said, "and they take a measure of the person based on your actions and your words." With Obama, he said mockingly, "words matter more to him than actions."
PERRY: When you have the president and his administration trying to second-guess Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, then I think you see what I'm making reference to: the idea that our best ally in the Middle East, the longest-serving democracy in that part of the world, that there's any air between us and Israel is beyond me. I don't understand why this administration would criticize Israel for trying to protect their citizens and their country from a group who have clearly stated that they will not be satisfied until Israel is wiped off
GRAHAM: What we've learned from these changing times is that without American leadership the world disintegrates pretty rapidly. America is the glue that holds the free world together. When you see us missing or AWOL as President Obama's been, you see fracturing on multiple fronts. Russia is more aggressive, not less. The sanctions clearly are not working. Hamas is demanding open borders. Show me a statement by Hamas leadership that recognizes the right for Israel to resist, then I would consider that request. Passive responses to naked aggression all over the world is our foreign policy. Look what ISIS has been able to do in Syria and Iraq. Without American leadership, the world gets to be a very dangerous place and our allies, like Israel and Ukraine, suffer.
GRAHAM: Well, let's look at it this way. Russia has dismembered the Ukraine, a neighboring nation. It is intimidating its neighbors. Russia has seized territory from the Ukraine. Here's what I fear with this passive response, this lack of decisive action. The Ukraine has asked for weapons to defend itself for months and we're still thinking about it. The Europeans can't lead without America setting the standard. And without American leadership organizing Europe and the world you see people like Putin.
Q: What would you do?
GRAHAM: I would come to Congress and I'd ask for additional sanctions on the entire Russian economy, Putin included. I would come to Congress and ask for money to equip and train the Ukrainian military.
FIORINA: Yes, it is fair. Because American leadership matters in the world. American strength matters in the world. And it particularly matters when things are going wrong. I think President Obama has made two crucial errors. First, he confuses ending a war with securing the peace. And unfortunately, the way he ended the wars in Iraq and is attempting to end the war in Afghanistan are making both of those situations very, very troublesome. Secondly, he continues to believe that his words matter. And his words matter less and less because both our friends and our allies as well as our enemies have figured out that words do not signal intention. There is no execution behind them. And that creates a situation in which our allies believe they cannot count on us and our enemies believe they can ignore us.
CRUZ: What we appear to know right now is it appears to have been a Buk Russian missile, and that kind of technology is not randomly found on the streets. That likely found its way into the hands of Russian rebels and Russian separatists in Ukraine because of Putin's direct involvement.
Q: So, how would you get Putin to stop?
CRUZ: We should do a number of things. One, we need vigorous sanctions. We need sanctions that target the Russian energy sector, the Russian financial sector that put serious consequences for what Putin is doing. Two, we should immediately reinstate the antiballistic missile batteries in Eastern Europe that President Obama canceled in 2009 in an effort to appease Russia. And three, we need to open up the export of liquid natural gas, which will help liberate Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
PERRY: In that part of the world, we have allies there in the form of Israel and Jordan that expect us to stand with them, to help them. When you read his op-ed, he talks about basically, what I consider to be, isolationist policies. America can no longer draw a red line around the shore of America, and think that we're somehow or another not going to be impacted. We must engage and tactically, thoughtfully, use the assets that we have against ISIS to keep these individuals from being able to create an Islamic state.
RUBIO: ISIS wants to establish an Islamic caliphate in sections of both Syria and Iraq, and other places. Potentially, Jordan is next. This calls for us to continue to empower those moderate rebel forces in Syria who are engaged in conflict against ISIS, not just Assad. And I think we need to provide more assistance for Jordan, both in security and in their border, because I think this poses a risk to Jordan down the road, and one that we should take very seriously. The urgent action is to draw up plans that allow us to begin to degrade their supply lines and their ability to continue to move forward.
Q: With airstrikes?
RUBIO: Yes, that border between Iraq and Syria is quite porous. We have got to figure out a way to isolate ISIS from Syria and Iraq, isolate them from each other. And, then, look, I would leave the rest to military tacticians.
RUBIO: Well, I don't agree with that statement. I think that's quite an exaggeration. The truth of the matter is that, if we do nothing, Iran is still going to be involved. And imagine if Iran becomes involved, and somehow helps the Iraqis turn back ISIS. You can rest assured that a future Iraqi government will be completely, 100% under the influence and in the pocket of Iran. They will have expanded their strategic reach to include practical control not just over Syria if Assad survives, but also over Iraq, increasingly positioning themselves as a hegemonic power. The United States has different hope for Iraq's future. Our hope is a country that includes Kurds and Sunni and Shia and even Christians, an inclusive country for its future. That is not Iran's goal here.
CRUZ: Well, you know, I just got back last week from traveling to Israel and Ukraine and Poland and Estonia. One of the things Ambassador Rice said that was absolutely correct is that American is the indispensable leader. But what our allies are expressing over and over again is that leadership is missing. And the most frequent thing you hear when you talk to an ambassador, a foreign minister of our friends and allies is they pull you aside quietly in hushed tones; they say, "Where is America?" When America's weak, when the American president is weak, it leaves our friends and allies vulnerable.
Paul often complains that his worldview is caricatured by people who are eager to cast him as a clone of his father, former Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who is deeply suspicious of American involvement overseas. "They start out with a mischaracterization of his point of view, bastardize it, make it worse," the senator said.
Part of Paul's strategy is to appear before audiences that are not necessarily friendly to him, such as the Heritage Foundation, where he left the impression that he knew he must evolve.
Some observers say this is the evolution of a savvy politician with presidential ambitions. Paul says it is more like a slow reveal. "I've been expressing gradually where my foreign policy is," he said. "Foreign policy isn't set in stone. It isn't either-or. And it isn't always right or wrong."
"Imagine for a moment, if the U.S. government had shut down POLITICO the day it launched in 2007--or any conservative, liberal or mainstream online news outlet for that matter," he said. "As Americans, we would be outraged. Press freedom is a universal human right, and we should be outraged that yet another blatant instance of repression has taken place in Cuba," Rubio said.
DR. BEN CARSON: What is at stake is what kind of place is America going to be? Are we truly an exceptional nation with a different core of values than the rest of the world? Is that what led us to the pinnacle position in the world? Are we a nation that's for, of and by the people? Or are we for, of and by the government? This is what this election's about.
The bill would also increase natural gas exports to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy, Rubio said, and it would urge the president to expedite the deployment of missile defense installations in Eastern Europe.
Obama unveiled a new raft of sanctions against Russia, but the expanded penalties stopped short of sanctioning entire sectors of the Russian economy--a step that would constitute a significant escalation.
ROMNEY: Well, there's no question, but that the President's naivete with regards to Russia's intentions & objectives has led to a number of foreign policy challenges that we face. We need to understand that Russia has very different interests than ours, this is not fantasy land, this is reality, where they are a geopolitical adversary. They're not our enemy. But they are certainly an adversary on the world stage.
Q: [The Russian invasion of Ukraine and Crimea] caught a lot of people by surprise it seems to me?
ROMNEY: Well, there may have been some people surprised but there are many, many others who predicted that Russia would try and grab additional territory. We recognized that Russia has a major base in Sevastopol in Crimea, there couldn't be a surprise to folks that Russia might take the opportunity to grab that territory.
ROMNEY: Well, you look over the past five years and good things have not been bursting out all over. The Middle East is in turmoil. Iraq is fragile and may fall back into a devastating setting. We're not making the kind of progress in Afghanistan that had been promised. And our esteem around the world has fallen. I can't think of a single major country that has greater respect and admiration for America today than it did five years ago when Barack Obama became President. And that's a very sad, unfortunate state of affairs.
It wasn't immediately clear who Paul was attacking. He did not name names, but that may simply have been because he had too many targets. He could have been referring to several of his potential rivals for the presidency.
Feingold's assignment came just as a new group of rebels, trained and equipped by Rwanda, was gaining strength and even threatening to take the Congolese capital. Feingold has undertaken a dizzying round of talks in at least eight different African capitals, cajoling leaders face to face, negotiating with skittish rebels late into the night and strategizing with fellow diplomats, all in a very uphill effort to stop a long-running conflict in a region littered with failed peace deals. He said after the trek, "this is one of the favorite things I've ever done in my life."
CRUZ (VIDEO TAPE): A critical reason for Putin's aggression has been President Obama's weakness. That Putin fears no retribution. You better believe Putin sees in Benghazi four Americans are murdered and nothing happens. There is no retribution. You better believe that Putin sees that in Syria, Obama draws a red line and ignores the red line.
Q: (ON CAMERA): So how would you stand up? What would you do? Military action?
CRUZ: No. No, look, not at all.
Q: Sanctions? Would you do sanctions?
CRUZ: Absolutely, yes. There are a host of things we can do. Let's rewind the clock a little bit. #1, don't demonstrate weakness for five years. We have seen historically over and over again tyrants respond to weakness. We keep making that mistake with Putin. Putin is a KGB thug. When the protests began in Ukraine, the president should have stood unapologetically, emphatically for freedom. And when the US doesn't speak for freedom, tyrants notice.
CRUZ: I'm a big fan of Rand Paul. I don't agree with him on foreign policy. I think U.S. leadership is critical in the world. And I agree with him that we should be very reluctant to deploy military force aboard. But I think there is a vital role, just as Ronald Reagan did. When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire," when he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate and said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," those words changed the course of history. The United States has a responsibility to defend our values.
GRAHAM: Putin very much cares about democracy on his borders. I would like to create a democratic noose around Putin's Russia. Let's accelerate Georgia's admission into NATO. Moldavia is under siege by Russia. Let's help Moldavia, Poland and the Czech Republic. We abandoned our missile defense agreements with them to protect Europe from a rogue missile attack coming out of the Mideast. Russia backed Obama down. If I were President Obama, I would reengage Poland and the Czech Republic regarding missile defense. I would admit Georgia to NATO. I would have a larger military presence in the Balkans to NATO members who are threatened by Russia. I would fly the NATO flag as strongly as I could around Putin. I would suspend his membership in the G-8, be the G-7. And every day he stays in the Ukraine, I would add to it.
RUBIO: Well, I think our policy towards Russia under this administration deserves a heavy amount of criticism. I usually shy away from that in moments of crisis, when it's important for the nation to speak with one voice. But I do think in hindsight as we look forward to our future relationship with Russia, it's important to learn from the errors of the last few years where I think we have not accurately, or through this administration, assessed clearly what it is Russia's goals are under Vladimir Putin. They're not interested in building an international norm that nations conduct themselves under. They're interested in reconstituting Russian power and Russian prestige, and often at the expense of U.S. national interests. We know that the Russians have basically violated every major treated they've ever entered into
RUBIO: I think previous administrations deserve criticism as well [as Obama] with regards to clearly viewing what Vladimir Putin's goals are here. We know that the Russians have basically violated every major treaty they've ever entered into. I mean, let's call it what it is. They are lying and this government is a government of liars, the Russian government. And you see it, what's happening now in Crimea. They're claiming they're not there. But clearly, they're Russian troops, even though they refused to acknowledge it. So you're dealing with a government that lies as a matter of course, and it's very difficult to enter an understanding with them on anything when they are willing to lie and cover things up in this way.
ROMNEY: No, I think they're very real when you have the kind of specific threats that were leveled at the games. You have to take them seriously.
Q: You've been critical of the Russian government spending $50 billion to host the games in Sochi; you wrote: "If a country wants to show off, what's the harm? When need is as great as it is--harm occurs when a country spends more than it can afford to keep up appearances with big spenders. And harm occurs when the world's poor look in anguish at the excess." Time to limit that excess?
ROMNEY: I really think so because you don't need to spend $50 billion as Russia has or as China did to put an Olympic sport. Olympic sport can be demonstrated at $2 or $3 billion. And all that extra money could be used to do some very important things in terms of fighting poverty, as opposed to showing off a country--or I think more cynically--showing off the politicians in the country.
RYAN: No, not at all. I think they have crony capitalism in Argentina, where you have real exploitation. That is not the free market. That's crony capitalism. And we're starting to see some crony capitalism here in America. What I'm excited about the pope's comments is he is inviting a debate. He's not settling the debate, he's inviting the debate. And he is asking lay Catholics to say how we would actually tackle these problems and bring the poor in, stop isolating the poor. And if you look at his comments very closely, he always talks about the welfare mentality.
Q: But you don't think he'd endorse your budget, do you?
RYAN: Of course not. He's a pope. Popes don't endorse budgets.
Moments later, he seemed to disregard his own mantra, saying: "I do detect some confusion in the world about who we are and what we stand for. That needs to be clear."
It is that story which informs the thinking of Pres. Obama when he declares that the US 'has been the anchor of global security' i.e. the provider of an indispensable safety net without which transcontinental chaos would have ensued. In his version of exceptionalism, the brutal war in Vietnam was a war to free the Vietnamese people from communism, and the millions of people who died in Iraq were worth the price to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Today, Christians in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria are on the run--persecuted or under fire--and yet, we continue to send aid to the folks chasing them. While they burn the American flag and the mobs chant "Death to America," more of your money is sent to these haters of Christianity.
Even if all the atrocities to Christians were not occurring in these countries, we simply don't have the money to engage in this foolishness. We must borrow the money from China to send it to Pakistan.
It is clear that American taxpayer dollars are being used to enable a war on Christianity in the Middle East and I believe that must end.
According to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, North Korea's threats directed at Austin could just be another form of flattery: "Economically, what has happened in Texas over the course of the last decade has made this city an epicenter for a lot of technology, a lot of economic development," the Republican said in a CBS interview. "And I think the individuals in North Korea understand that Austin, Texas, is now a very important city in America, as do corporate CEOs and other people who are moving here in record numbers."
Perry also noted that rumblings from any country in possession of nuclear weapons should be "treated as a very real threat."
"At the same time, Jong's death is an opportunity to reunify the peninsula if the situation is handled effectively. Kim Jong-un is an unknown quantity, and may not be able to maintain power. The US must now strongly reaffirm our commitment to Asian allies, particularly South Korea, and maintain a strong military, diplomatic, and economic presence in the Pacific region during this period. We should also engage with China, and encourage Beijing to work towards a peaceful transition from a grim dictatorship to a free Korea."
In particular, Rubio says he will reinforce the importance of promoting democracy. "We don't always agree with other democracies but very rarely do we find ourselves fighting them," he says.
This kind of rhetoric on U.S. policy abroad certainly doesn't fit the stereotype of a politician who rode to office in 2010 on the backs of tea party activists. He is contradicting the notion that the tea party is synonymous with international isolationism. And he is challenging the narrative that his party, as a whole, is headed in that same direction.
In an online video response to a constituent question, Rubio laid out his case. The United States has to "be more careful about how we spend foreign aid," Rubio acknowledged, but "if it's done right, it spreads America's influence around the world in a positive way. I think sometimes, in the press and in the minds of many, our foreign aid is exaggerated. It really is a miniscule part of our overall budget. And it's not the reason why we have this growing debt in America," he said, instead pointing to entitlement programs.
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Democrats running for President:
Sen.Michael Bennet (D-CO) V.P.Joe Biden (D-DE) Mayor Mike Bloomberg (I-NYC) Gov.Steve Bullock (D-MT) Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) Sen.Cory Booker (D-NJ) Secy.Julian Castro (D-TX) Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI) Rep.John Delaney (D-MD) Rep.Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) Gov.Deval Patrick (D-MA) Sen.Bernie Sanders (I-VT) CEO Tom Steyer (D-CA) Sen.Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Marianne Williamson (D-CA) CEO Andrew Yang (D-NY) 2020 Third Party Candidates: Rep.Justin Amash (L-MI) CEO Don Blankenship (C-WV) Gov.Lincoln Chafee (L-RI) Howie Hawkins (G-NY) Gov.Jesse Ventura (I-MN) |
Republicans running for President:
V.P.Mike Pence(R-IN) Pres.Donald Trump(R-NY) Rep.Joe Walsh (R-IL) Gov.Bill Weld(R-MA & L-NY) 2020 Withdrawn Democratic Candidates: Sen.Stacey Abrams (D-GA) Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-NYC) Sen.Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) Sen.Mike Gravel (D-AK) Sen.Kamala Harris (D-CA) Gov.John Hickenlooper (D-CO) Gov.Jay Inslee (D-WA) Mayor Wayne Messam (D-FL) Rep.Seth Moulton (D-MA) Rep.Beto O`Rourke (D-TX) Rep.Tim Ryan (D-CA) Adm.Joe Sestak (D-PA) Rep.Eric Swalwell (D-CA) | ||
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