Evan McMullin: Yes, but limit the scope of the government's powers
"If you integrate infantry units by gender, more Americans will die, and our enemy will have a better chance to prevail on the battlefield," French wrote, citing a Marine Corps study that found all-male infantry units out-performed mixed gender ones.
"Will we have to endure the broken bodies of men and women who could have been saved, of breaches in lines that never should have opened, before we acknowledge reality?" French wrote. "Men are stronger than women, and in ground combat, that strength is the difference between life and death, victory and defeat."
Three months after French wrote this column, the Defense Secretary overruled the Marines and said that women will be allowed in all combat positions in the U.S. military.
A: When NATO was formed, it has 28 members, the US was one of those members. When it was formed, there was probably some use for it. We were very concerned that Soviet tanks would come rolling across the German frontier at any minute and it was something that was supposed to prevent that. We had just come out of World War II and we encountered a new enemy and that's really not the case anymore. The US kind of entered into a deal with those other 27 countries, and that is, you won't have to provide your own defense, we'll do that for you. In return, you can use your entire GDP to advance your economies and fund your welfare states. And the United States can't afford it anymore. It's becoming a little too belligerent. Promises were made between President Reagan and President Gorbachev that NATO would not advance to the edge of the Soviet Union or the old Soviet Union, if the wall would come down.
TRUMP: I saw it on television. So did many other people. It was 14 years ago. But I saw it on television. I saw clips and many people saw it in person. I've had hundreds of phone calls to the Trump Organization saying, "We saw it. It was dancing in the streets." So many people saw it. And, so, why would I take it back? I'm not going to take it back.
CARSON: I agree that there's no such thing as political correctness when you're fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you and everything that you have anything to do with. And I'm not one who is real big on telling the enemy what we're going to do and what we're not going to do.
Q: But you would do that even though many consider waterboarding torture?
CARSON: As I said, I'm not real big on telling them what we would or would not do.
CARSON: Well, I said in the larger capacity that we should monitor anything -- mosques, church, school, you know, shopping center where there is a lot of radicalization going on.
Q But how would you know that is happening?
CARSON: Intelligence. We have intelligence on the ground already. We do need to enhance that. For instance, we've learned last week that the FBI seems to be only to be able to monitor 30 to 60 people at a time. And we know there's a lot more than that that needs to be monitored. We need to get very serious about our intelligence.
CARSON: Well, as you, I'm sure, know, there are a lot of people on that watchlist and they have no idea why they're on that list and they've been trying to get their names off of it and no one will give them information. You know, I am a big supporter of the Second Amendment, and I don't want to deprive people unnecessarily of that. There needs to be better due process. And that's one thing that I'm very interested in finding a way to make government more responsive to the people. It's really unfair that people can't get a real hearing. And they get put on a list and nobody can tell them why they're there, and they go through for years and years and they have to be tormented. It just doesn't make any sense.
CHRISTIE: I will highlight that we were wrong to cut back on the NSA's metadata collection and that its been destroying the morale of our intelligence officers. We need to rebuild that program. We need to support law enforcement, which this administration hasn't been doing. We need to do all those things first and foremost to protect the homeland, because the number one job of the president of the United States is to protect the safety and security of the American people. National security is not an option. It's a fundamental right. And that's what we will be focused on.
CHRISTIE: This is part of the problem with this administration. They're an imperial administration that just decides they're going to place people in individual states and not even inform the state of government of the fact that they have done it. And they're placing them through nongovernmental organizations and not giving any information to the state governments. We should set up a safe haven in Syria, so these folks don't have to leave their country in the first place. This is something that the president has created and now he wants the American people to absorb this crisis that he has created.
TRUMP: Well, we have to be strong. You know, they don't use waterboarding over there; they use chopping off people's heads. They use drowning people. I don't know if you've seen with the cages, where they put people in cages and they drown them in the ocean and they lift out the cage. And we're talking about waterboarding. I would bring it back, yes. I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they'd do to us, what they're doing to us, what they did to James Foley when they chopped off his head. That's a whole different level and I would absolutely bring back interrogation and strong interrogation.
TRUMP: Well, I don't want to close mosques; I want mosques surveilled. And all I would do, certainly there are certain hot spots and everybody knows they're hot spots. Good material was coming out of those mosques. We were learning a lot. And they were stopping problems and potential problems by learning what was happening. I don't want to close up mosques but things have to happen where, you have got to use strong measures or you're going to see buildings coming down all over New York City and elsewhere.
TRUMP: It did happen. I saw it. It was on television. There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as those buildings came down. It was well covered at the time.
PAUL: I'm very worried about that because I think when you have a fearful time or an angry time, that people are coached into giving up their liberty. In the United States, all phone records are still being collected all the time and we still had the attacks. And realize that in France, they have bulk collection or surveillance of their citizens a thousand fold greater than what we have with very little privacy protections. They still didn't know anything about this. So what I would argue is that you can keep giving up liberty but in the end I don't think we'll be safer, but we may have lost who we are as a people in the process.
PAUL: If you're doing surveillance on religious institutions, yes. I think surveillance, though, has lower threshold for individuals. I think the discussion should be, "will we have surveillance, will we follow people who we think are a risk?" That's even a lower threshold than getting a search warrant. So, yes, we should follow people who are a risk. Should we talk to their neighbors and friends? Should we talk to their imam? Sure, all of that is legitimate. But should we target mosques and have a database of Muslims? Absolutely not. And I think that's really disqualifying for both Donald Trump and Marco Rubio to say that we're going to close down every place that potentially has a discussion that might lead to extremism. That would require some sort of religious czar that I think isn't consistent with our freedom.
BUSH: I would listen to the military commanders and give them the mission, which is, how do we destroy ISIS? It is Islamic terrorism. It's not a law enforcement engagement. And listen to them and then develop a clear strategy. I can't tell you the force levels required to do this. I do know that it has to be done in unison with our allies. We can't do this alone, but we must lead.
TRUMP: Well, you know, we could be politically correct, if you want. But, certainly, are you trying to say we don't have a problem? We do have a problem with radical Muslims. As I have already said; I have tremendous people that I know that are Muslims.
A: One of the things I would do is fix the hospitals. What I'm going to do is make sure that they will be able to go out and use private doctors and we will pay the private doctors. We're going to do a bit of a free market thing so that veterans can get immediate service and good treatment.
A: I first of all think that we need to expand the voucher program so a veteran can get the health care they need as soon as they can possibly get it and should not be just limited to the VA hospitals. Secondly, my sense is you're going to have to decentralize the VA.
A: If you look at my record as a government official, when I was secretary of the Navy, I opened up more billets to women than any secretary of the Navy in history. And I am totally comfortable now with the military being able to make these decisions in a way that it goes to performance and I am very proud to see these two women who are West Point graduates. And the military should be able to decide how they will be used.
A: I would be working to get other countries to jump in and join us. I don't want to go alone. Let me tell you what I would do. Firstly, I would have supported the rebels in Syria that were in there to topple Assad. Secondly, I would have a coalition of other countries, including us, on the ground beginning to degrade and destroy ISIS, because, as you begin to do it, that whole caliphate beings to fall apart.
A: I don't think there's any instance in which we found that the indiscriminate bulk collection of records have helped us. Three independent commissions looked at this, every one said that no terrorist has been caught through bulk collection. So I do want more individualized investigations. The Fourth Amendment says you can collect records, you just have to name the target, have some suspicion that you present to a judge. But I don't want the blanket surveillance of all Americans. I'm not willing to give up on the Bill of Rights in order to say, "I can feel more safe". We've been doing this for ten years. Not one terrorist has been caught through this program. When you look and you say, "is it illegal?" The courts have said it's illegal. Many scholars are saying it's unconstitutional.
TRUMP: I would be inclined to be very strong, because I have no doubt that that works. I have absolutely no doubt. Waterboarding used to be such a big controversial subject, and I haven't heard that term in a year now. Because when you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn't sound very severe.
PAUL: There was a poll not too long ago in Iowa that asked, do you think we should be more involved in foreign wars, like John McCain, who wants to be everywhere all the time, or do you think we should be less involved or more judicious and only go to war when we have a threat to an American interest, like Rand Paul? And it polls equally in Iowa. So I think the party is split on some of these things. I do want to defend America. In fact, I think we are distracting ourselves from the real terrorist threat by collecting so much information that we get inundated by the information and we get distracted. I want to collect more information on terrorists, but I want to do it according to the 4th Amendment--which puts forward that suspicion should be individualized and there should be a warrant with a judge's name on it.
CHRISTIE: I've had to review applications under the PATRIOT Act. I know what it's like to interact with the FISA court. We can do this and protect civil liberties. And, of course, we want to track terrorists' phone numbers. We're not listening to anybody's conversations. We're not looking at their emails without the type of search warrants that the court is talking about. What we're saying, though, is, if you're a known terrorist outside this country, and you're calling numbers inside this country, we'd like to know who those people are.
Q: What do you say to those that feel that their government may have them under attack?
CHRISTIE: We should engage in vigorous congressional oversight over our intelligence community, and our Justice Department should prosecute any intelligence officer who violates the law. We have those safeguards available to us.
It came out recently they have equipment that is 30 years old. They don't know if it worked. And I thought it was horrible when it was broadcast on television, because boy, does that send signals to Putin and all of the other people that look at us and they say, "That is a group of people, and that is a nation that truly has no clue. They don't know what they're doing."
"I'm not talking about being bellicose--but saying 'here are the consequences of your actions', that would deter the kind of bad outcome we don't want to see."
Bush said signaling what further sanctions Russia could face, and reassuring Poland & the Baltic states that the US would meet its NATO obligations to view an attack on one member state as an attack against the whole alliance, could halt Putin's aggression. "If he thinks we're resolute, that's the greatest possibility of restricting any kind of further aggressions." However, he said, it was essential to ensure that the US did not isolate Moscow to such an extent that it ended up in the arms of China.
Soon afterward, several GOP candidates seized the opportunity to attack Obama while touting their own foreign policy platforms. A spokesman for Ben Carson wrote that "Dr. Carson believes that ISIL presents a very clear, very real threat and the U.S. should be aggressive and committed to ISIL's destruction."
Foreign policy will likely be a key issue in the 2016 race. All of the GOP candidates, with the exception of Sen. Rand Paul, are hawks (and even the Kentucky senator has supported airstrikes against ISIS).
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is currently on a tour of Germany, Estonia, and Poland, tweeted, "In Germany, Obama admitted again what has been clear for a while, he has no ISIS strategy. A serious effort to defeat them is needed."
Many GOP candidates had criticized Obama's ISIS strategy even before the president's made his comments. Bush appeared last week on CBS's "Face the Nation" and called for a more aggressive approach to ISIS--though one that would limit American military ground support to mostly an advisory role. "We need a strategy. We don't have a strategy right now," he said.
"The threat posed by ISIL is growing exponentially, and President Obama's lack of a strategy is Commander-in-Chief malpractice," Lindsey Graham said in a statement. The South Carolina senator, who chairs several Senate subcommittees related to foreign affairs, has emphasized his credentials in an attempt to stand out from his opponents. He is a vocal advocate of a more aggressive policy in the Middle East that includes sending troops to Iraq.
SANDERS: I may well be voting for it. It doesn't go as far as I would like it to go. I voted against the original Patriot Act, and I voted against its reauthorization. Look, we have got to be vigorous in fighting terrorism and protecting the American people. But we have to do it in a way that protects the constitutional rights of the American people. And I'm very, very worried about the invasion of privacy rights that we're seeing not only from the NSA and the government but from corporate America, as well. We're losing our privacy rights. It's a huge issue.
Q: The government is going to be asking corporate America to keep this data under the USA Freedom Act. You're comfortable with that?
SANDERS: No, I'm not. But we have to look at the best of bad situations. The question is whether the NSA keeps it, the question is whether it is transferred to the phone companies, who already keep records for an extended period of time.
SANTORUM: Look, I think the Patriot Act has worked very well. I'm not aware of any abuses of the Patriot Act that cause any undue fear about invasion of privacy. But at this point, it's likely that what the House passed is really the version that has viability. And I would vote for it if I was in the U.S. Senate. As president, I would sign it. So I'm encouraging everyone to let that bill become law. And we can move forward from there and judge to whether that provides us sufficient security going forward.
A supporter of calling a vote, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), said it accommodated privacy concerns by restricting the set of records related to terrorism investigations that the government can request from telecommunications companies, while still giving the government the powers it needed to stop terrorism.
A bill opponent, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said the bill failed to require companies to maintain telecommunications records for long enough to make investigations effective. The vote was 57 yeas to 42 nays, with 3/5 majority required to call a vote.
YEAS: Scott R-SC
NAYS: Graham R-SC
A: The Constitution already provides what we should do. If you have probable cause, you go to a judge, you get a warrant, and then you listen in on his calls, now you've got the other branch of government that's constitutionally required to be a part of that process. You don't just give the executive branch unlimited power.
Q: Do you support NSA bulk collection of metadata?
Q: 225 different terrorist plots over the past years since 9/11 and so far, not one of them has been tied directly to the NSA's collection of metadata. So, if this is so effective, how come it hasn't resulted in the foiled terrorist plots? Those have been foiled by old fashion good police work, old-fashioned human intelligence. It seems like we're spending billions of dollars on whiz-bang technology and not enough money on human resources, which really is proven to be the most effective way of stopping terrorism.
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.
PAUL: No, I would actually keep the NSA. In fact, I would have the NSA target their activities, more and more, towards our enemies. I think if you're not spending so much time and money collecting the information of innocent Americans, maybe we could've spent more time knowing that one of the Tsarnaev boys, one of the Boston bombers, had gone back to Chechnya. We didn't know that, even though we'd been tipped off by the Russians. We had communicated, we had interviewed him, and still didn't know that. Same with the recent jihadist from Phoenix that traveled to Texas, and the shooting in Garland; we knew him. We had investigated him and put him in jail. I want to spend more time on people we have suspicion of, and we have probable cause of, and less time on innocent Americans. It distracts us from the job of getting terrorists.
A: Well, I don't believe the drone program ought to be run out of the CIA. The CIA is an intelligence-gathering operation. The drone program should be operated exclusively out of the Pentagon. You know, the Air Force has the capability of doing extensive targeting. You don't have those capabilities in the CIA. And I have talked to former CIA people who have told me this.
SANDERS: What I do believe is that there is enormous waste in military. The Department of Defense can't even audit itself--massive cost overruns. Of course, ISIS is a terrible organization that has to be defeated. And, of course, we need a strong military. But just as with every other agency of government, you know what, the military also has got to get rid of waste and fraud and cost overruns. So, I want a strong military. But I do not believe, among other things, that without an audit, we should be throwing tens of billions of dollars more into the Department of Defense.
PAUL: I have proposed several 5-year budgets. And for me, the most important thing of the 5-year budgets has been to balance. The last one I produced did actually increase defense spending above the military sequester. But I did it by taking money from domestic spending. My belief has always been that national defense is the most important thing we do, but we shouldn't borrow to pay for it.
Q: But by proposing an increase in military spending before you announce for president, it could look like pandering.
PAUL: Well, 3 or 4 years ago, we did the same thing. So we have been for quite some time proposing increases in military spending, but always the point is that I believe any increase in spending should be offset by decreases in spending somewhere else.
It's all part of a campaign strategy to eliminate the widespread suspicion that Paul is an isolationist. But to many foreign-policy conservatives, Paul's past expressions of skepticism about US intervention abroad and support for sweeping cuts to the defense and foreign-aid budgets speak more loudly than his words on the campaign trail.
Paul's advisers insist that his views have matured since being elected to the Senate. He has educated himself on international affairs, and he's developed a "conservative realist" vision of America's role in the world that is not isolationist but still judicious about U.S. entanglements overseas.
FIORINA: Well, I think it was part of the plan all along that the Clintons had. Look, I think it was very deliberate that they had a private server. I think it was very deliberate that she used a personal e-mail account. I think this clearly was a deliberate effort to shield her communications. We need a nominee who will bring this up in the general election. The reason Benghazi was not enough of an issue in the 2012 election is because, unfortunately, our nominee pulled his punches when he had an opportunity to remind the American people of the Benghazi tragedy and scandal.
Q: So, you won't pull your punches on Hillary?
FIORINA: Oh, I will not pull my punches--not now and not in a general election.
The move completes a stunning reversal for Paul, who in May 2011, released his own budget that would have slashed the Pentagon, a sacred cow for many Republicans. Under Paul's original proposal, defense spending would have dropped from $553 billion in 2011 to $542 billion in 2016. But under Paul's new plan, the Pentagon will see its budget authority swell by $76 billion to $696 billion in fiscal year 2016. The boost would be offset by a $106 billion cut to funding for aid to foreign governments, climate change research and reductions to the budgets of the EPA, HUD, and the departments of Commerce and Education.
"I worried about this from day one. I'm sick to my stomach. And here is the first thing I would do if I were President of the United States: I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We're not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We're not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts. Killing terrorists is the only option other than capturing them, because they're not deterred by death."
The military line was "not to be taken literally," according to a Graham spokesman. But [many newspapers] covered the Graham joke as a serious proposal; [one wrote]: "If taken literally, Graham is basically announcing his plan to stage a coup."
Walker sought to convince [his audience] that if he were elected president, "I would listen to the chain of command. I would listen to the generals in the field, not just those in the joint chiefs. I would listen to the secretary of state, to the secretary of defense and to the national security adviser."
GRAHAM: Yeah, we should be doing more. But Boko Haram doesn't represent the threat to the homeland in my view that ISIL does and Al Nusra and other groups in Syria and Iraq. But this problem is spreading throughout the world. The next stage of the fight I think is Africa. But if we could show some resolve in Syria and Iraq and reset the table and go after these guys in Syria and Iraq with success, I think it would change the landscape throughout the world. Success anywhere breeds success everywhere. Failure in any one spot hurts you everywhere. But you're right, 2,000 people were killed in one weekend in Nigeria and the world basically ignored the story.
GRAHAM: I didn't say impeachment. I said there would be a constitutional crisis. And it is coming. Senator Kelly Ayotte will introduce legislation in 2015 to put a moratorium on all releases from Guantanamo Bay because of a 30 percent recidivism rate. There are all kind of restrictions on transferring prisoners that the president is ignoring. Rather than closing Guantanamo Bay, he should be filling up the place because terrorism on the march. I, along with Senator McCain, want to outlaw water-boarding. But this president takes every terrorist, reads them the Miranda rights, gives them a lawyer, and holds them for a few days and puts them in a federal court. We can't gather intelligence. There will be one hell of a fight between the president and Republicans and Democrats in 2015 over Guantanamo Bay.
Like Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio weighed in with one of the strongest responses, in a joint statement with Idaho's Sen. Jim Risch, calling the release of the report "reckless and irresponsible" and demanding a more current detention and interrogation policy: "As a nation at war, we need a coherent detention and interrogation policy in order to extract valuable intelligence about terrorist networks from captured operatives. The Obama Administration has no detention policy, and it has hindered U.S. efforts to fight terrorism globally," they said. Rubio later told reporters he didn't support brutal interrogation methods, however.
Florida's Sen. Marco Rubio weighed in with one of the strongest responses, in a joint statement with Idaho's Sen. Jim Risch, calling the release of the report "reckless and irresponsible" and demanding a more current detention and interrogation policy. Sen. Ted Cruz said "Senate Democrats have endangered Americans" by releasing the report.
Like Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio weighed in with one of the strongest responses, in a joint statement with Idaho's Sen. Jim Risch, calling the release of the report "reckless and irresponsible" and demanding a more current detention and interrogation policy.
A high-stakes vote over the future of the NSA further tested Republicans' relationships in the Valley. Paul and others had supported a major overhaul of the agency's authorities to collect Americans' communications in bulk--but the senator shocked tech giants and civil-liberties groups when he pulled support at the last minute, as the USA Freedom Act reached the Senate floor for a key procedural vote. Rubio long had stated his opposition, citing emerging terrorist threats and the need for more intelligence.
Paul defended his vote on surveillance reform, stressing in an interview he "couldn't vote for it because it reauthorized the PATRIOT Act"--a law he described as "heinous."
A high-stakes vote over the future of the NSA further tested Republicans' relationships in the Valley. Paul and others had supported a major overhaul of the agency's authorities to collect Americans' communications in bulk--but the senator shocked tech giants and civil-liberties groups when he pulled support at the last minute, as the USA Freedom Act reached the Senate floor for a key procedural vote. Rubio long had stated his opposition, citing emerging terrorist threats and the need for more intelligence.
Paul defended his vote on surveillance reform, stressing in an interview he "couldn't vote for it because it reauthorized the PATRIOT Act"--a law he described as "heinous."
GRAHAM: In my view, Rep. Trey Gowdy and Rep. Elijah Cummings are doing a good job at looking at Benghazi as a whole, [alongside] DOD, the intel community, and the State Department...
Q: But yes or no?
GRAHAM: No. I think the report is full of crap, quite frankly.
Q: Why?
GRAHAM: The question was not how you gathered intel. Who changed the talking points? It went through several changes. Who came out with the version most politically beneficial to the administration? The people who have been looking at Benghazi in a stovepipe fashion have not come up with a reasonable explanation for all the shenanigans and the lack of being prepared.
RUBIO: I want to hear what he should have said months ago: clearly explain to the American people what our national security interests are in the region, especially in what is happening in Syria and Iraq; accurately describe to the American people the risk that ISIL poses for us short-term and long-term and why they matter. This is a group that has made very clear they want to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and the only way they're going to be able to do that is to drive us from the region. Second, he needs to clearly outline what we're going to do about it, and I hope that will include a sustained air campaign.
RUBIO: I do. I believe they do. And I'll tell you why I believe that. First and foremost because they are replete with both European and American fighters who have passports that allow them immediate access into the United States. Second, because I think it's important not to overestimate the amount of intelligence that we have on these groups. They have become increasingly capable at evading detection. So for us to simply sit back and say we don't think they pose a threat because we haven't seen one I think would be shortsighted. The fact of the matter is this group has, among their ranks, hundreds if not thousands of people with the capability of entering the United States quickly and easily and we should not take that lightly.
RYAN: I don't think I am hearing enough from the president. What I want to hear from our commander in chief is that he has a strategy to finish ISIS off, to defeat ISIS. Let's not forget that there are reportedly thousands of terrorists with foreign passports. If we don't deal with this threat now, thoroughly and convincingly, it is going to come home to roost. And so, no, I don't think the president has given us the kind of strategy we need. That is number one. Number two, I think we should let the generals determine the strategy, I don't want to be an armchair general and tell you how this needs to be done, but I would reference the fact that General Dempsey did say to do this correctly that Syria is going to have to be a part of this equation.
People want to get back to the rule of law and knowing with certainty that our border is going to be secure, that the IRS is not going to come knocking down their door looking for things, and that the NSA is not listening in on our phone conversations.
PERRY: The fact is, you have Hamas that are using their children to protect their missiles, and I think Prime Minister Netanyahu was very specific when he said that Israel uses their missiles to protect their children. There is a very different perspective, and a very different result in those two statements, and, frankly, in the two organizations.
Q: Governor, you have long been a staunch supporter of Israel. But when you look at the 1,700-plus Palestinian deaths in Gaza, the large majority of which are civilians, what is your reaction?
PERRY: War is a horrible thing. There are individuals who lose their lives. But when Hamas is actually using their citizens as shields, at that particular point in time, it loses a lot of the power, if you will, from my perspective.
RUBIO: Certainly potentially more dangerous today than al Qaeda. They are an extremely radical group with increasing capabilities, and a very clear design. They want to establish an Islamic caliphate in sections of both Syria and Iraq, and other places. Potentially, Jordan is next. And then they want to launch attacks in the exterior, external operations, including targeting our homeland. This is an extremely serious national security risk for the country if they were to establish that safe haven of operation. The reason why al Qaeda was able to carry out the 9/11 attacks is because they had a safe operating space in Afghanistan that the Taliban had given them. And now history is trying to repeat itself here. ISIS is trying to establish the exact same thing in the Iraq-Syria region. And from this caliphate that they're setting up, they will continue to recruit and train and plot and plan and eventually carry out external operations.
PAUL: I think if you want to be Commander-in-Chief the bar you have to cross is will you defend the country--will you provide adequate security--and that's why Benghazi is not a political question for me. To me it's not the talking points--that's never been the most important part of Benghazi--it's the six months leading up to Benghazi where there were multiple requests for more security--and it never came. This was under Hillary Clinton's watch. She will have to overcome that--and we will make her answer for Benghazi.
PAUL: She will have to explain how she can be commander and chief when she was not responsive to multiple requests for more security in the six months leading up. She wouldn't approve a 16-person personnel team and she would not approve an airplane to help them get around the country. In the last 24 hours, a plane was very important and it was not available. These are really serious questions beyond talking points that occurred under her watch.
Q: Benghazi is disqualifying for her?
PAUL: I think so. The American people want a commander-in-chief that will send reinforcements, that will defend the country, and that will provide the adequate security. And I think in the moment of need--a long moment, a six-month moment--she wasn't there.
CLINTON: Well, that's going to be up to the people running the hearing.
Q: If they ask you, you'll go?
CLINTON: Well, we'll see what they decide to do, how they conduct themselves, whether or not this is one more travesty about the loss of four Americans or whether this is in the best tradition of the Congress, an effort to try to figure out what we can do better.
BERNIE SANDERS: I suspect that if you ask Bergdahl's feelings about what happened, they will feel very, very good. I think we need to have more information about the long-term consequences, and do everything that we can to make sure that these terrorists do not get back onto the battlefield.
WEBB: Obviously everyone should be happy that our soldier is out of harm's way. But about the exercise of presidential authority: When the President, on his own initiative, without coming to the congress--
Q: You see questions about an overreach of administration that did not seek out congress?
WEBB: That's what I'm saying. We're going to have to see a much more vigorous discussion from the Congress on presidential authority. What we've seen in the past is that Republicans don't particularly want this discussion because they're more aggressive in terms of this use of force in that part of the world. The Democrats don't want it because they don't want to be disloyal to the presidency, but we have to have that discussion.
SANDERS: Clearly, there are incompetent administrators. But I think one point that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. If you speak to veterans organizations, they will tell you that, by and large, the quality of care that veterans receive in VA hospitals around this country is good to excellent.
Q: Sure, but, if you can't get in, it doesn't do any good that it's great care.
SANDERS: That is quite right. The VA has established a self-imposed goal of getting people into the system in 14 days. That's pretty ambitious. That's more ambitious in general than the private sector. And I think there are places around the country where they simply do not have the resources to accommodate the fact that two million more people have come into the system in recent years. And I think some people may be cooking the books to make it look like they're accommodating people in 14 days.
RUBIO: Yes. No one has been accountable. I mean, who has been accountable for what happened in Benghazi? This administration has a tendency on foreign policy issues in particular, not to worry nearly as much about what to do, and to worry more about what to say. And they decided not just to mislead the American public, but to mislead the families of these victims as to exactly what had happened.
Q: But you have the Republican Party raising money off this investigation. Is that appropriate?
RUBIO: I would prefer that we would focus not on the fundraising elements or the political elements of it, because I think it takes away from the reality of how serious a situation this is.
Q: How big a problem is this going to be for Hillary Clinton?
RUBIO: She's going to have to be held accountable for the State Department's failures.
SANTORUM: I think it's important for the Benghazi committee to look at the information, try to do so as nonpartisan as possible. I know that sounds like, well, this is a whole partisan exercise. It doesn't have to be. I have a lot of faith in Trey Gowdy [House member, R-SC-4]. I think he's a serious prosecutor. If he does his job, and just get to the facts and if more credible evidence comes out as a result of this, I think it will be a successful event.
(VIDEO CLIP) PAUL: Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton, makes hundreds of millions of dollars as CEO. Next thing you know, he's back in government it's a good idea to go to Iraq. (END VIDEO CLIP)
Q: Do you really think that Cheney was motivated by his financial ties to Halliburton?
PAUL: I'm not questioning his motives. I don't think Dick Cheney did it out of malevolence, I think he loves his country as much as I love the country.
Q: But you said we don't want our defense to be defined by people who make money off the weapons.
PAUL: There's a chance for a conflict of interest. At one point in time, he was opposed going into Baghdad. Then he was out of office and involved in the defense industry and then he became for going into Baghdad.
PAUL: I think that's an incorrect conclusion, you know. I would say my foreign policy is right there with what came out of Ronald Reagan.
Q: But Reagan went through a huge defense buildup. One of the first things you did when you got elected was propose a nearly $50 billion cut to the Pentagon, bigger than the sequester.
PAUL: The sequester actually didn't cut spending; the sequester cut the rate of growth of spending over 10 years.
Q: But the point is you proposed curbing defense spending more than the sequester.
PAUL: Even though I believe national defense is the most important thing we do, but it isn't a blank check. Some conservatives think, oh, give them whatever they want and that everything is for our soldiers and they play up this patriotism that--oh, we don't have to control defense spending. We can't be a trillion dollars in the hole every year.
ROMNEY: No, we haven't entered that level of, if you will, cold conflict. But we certainly recognize that Russia has very different interests than ours. That Russia is going to push against us in every possible way. They have been doing it. Look, they blocked for many years the toughest sanctions against Iran. They stand with Assad and Syria. They stand with Kim Jong-un in North Korea. They link with some of the world's worst actors. They've sent a battleship into the Caribbean and to Cuba. They harbor Edward Snowden. All these things are designed to say, "hey look, we're pushing against the US." They are our geo-political adversary. And this is a playing field where we're going to determine whether the world is going to see freedom and economic opportunity or whether the world is going to see authoritarianism and Russia and Putin wants to be an authoritarian and that's not something that the world needs or wants.
KING: The FBI was not asked in. The pilot and co-pilot should have been the focus from the start. That would be ordinary law enforcement, investigatory procedures. But my understanding is that Malaysia is not really cooperating at all, are very reluctant to lay what they have out on the table.
Q: The focus IS on the pilots. Basically, everyone else on the plane has been looked at. No terrorist connections.
KING: There's nothing out there indicating it's terrorists. Doesn't mean it's not, but so far nothing has been picked up. I still have questions about the two Iranians who were on the plane. But again that could be a side issue.
Q: So what is the next step now for US authorities?
KING: I wish there was more FAA, NTSB, FBI involvement. This has to focus on the pilot and the copilot.
Paul's remarks were at least a change in tone from last month, when he said that, "Some on our side are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the time and I don't think that is a good idea."
"I don't agree with him on foreign policy," Cruz said then. "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 abroad. But I think there is a vital role, just as Ronald Reagan did."
Paul went on to defend his foreign policy, which tends to be less interventionist than other Republicans': "I think on a lot of these issues, yes, that I'm well within the Republican tradition," Paul said.
GRAHAM: Well, my goal is to deter war. Read the report as to what's going on in North Korea. Do you think the person running North Korea is rational? It is a gulag. It is Nazi type tactics being practiced in 2014. What if the leader of North Korea woke up tomorrow and said it's time now to take the south. 440,000 members of the United States army is a gutted army. We do have a lot of technology available to our troops. Every soldier goes into battle with an array of technology and equipment not possessed in World War II. But you still need trigger pullers. So this budget by President Obama guts our defense. It is the smallest army since 1940. The smallest Navy since 1915 and the smallest air force in modern history. So if you're going to modernize your military for future conflicts, this budget will not allow you to do it.
GINGRICH: Obama's a guy whose bias would be for civil libertarians, but after five years in the White House has said, "You know, the world is really dangerous and we really need these tools to be safe." It's very hard to imagine fundamental changes in the program against President Obama's wishes.
Q: This country has been through Watergate, been through Hoover at the FBI. We know the kinds of excesses that can happen.
GINGRICH: The power of the government is enormous. And that's why, as a conservative, I like smaller government. But the question is if you draw a sharp line and say for the purpose of defending America--none of them can migrate over to the criminal justice system. And then, you should make it a felony. This is why Snowden has to be tried. It should be a felony for any of that stuff coming over to the criminal justice system.
KING: First of all, I think Edward Snowden is a defector and a traitor. And the fact is there is no agency that is more monitored and more watched than the NSA. It's monitored by the courts, by the Justice Department, by the intelligence committees in the Senate and the House. I think it's absolutely indispensable to our national security. There have been no abuses.
Q: But the American people had no idea what it was doing.
KING: I don't think everyone has to know what a spy agency is doing. By their nature, a spy agency, it's kept secret. That's the purpose of it.
Q: But is it collapsing? Is it going to exist in the future?
KING: If it doesn't, it's going to be calamitous for the country.
PAUL: I don't know whether any information has been distributed to foreign powers, and that would be a great deal of concern. But I'm also concerned that the national defense director lied to Congress. He's seriously damaged out standing in the world. Now, we're seen to be spying not only on foreign leaders, but there's an accusation that we spied on the pope, as well.
Q: Do you think the NSA should get out ahead of all of this and put out everything they knew Snowden to have?
PAUL: Maybe. But I think the fundamental question about whether or not this is constitutional or not should not be decided by the administration, nor by a secret FISA court. It needs to get into the Supreme Court. I've introduced a FISA bill that would allow cases like this to be challenged in open court. And we should determine once and all whether or not a single warrant can apply to every American. I don't think it does and I think the Supreme Court will side with us.
KING: First of all, I think the president should stop apologizing, stop being defensive. The reality is the NSA has saved thousands of lives, not just in the US but also in France and Germany and throughout Europe. And, you know, the French have carried out spying operations against the US, both the government and industry. Germany is where the Hamburg plot began which led to 9/11
Q: But we were apparently bugging [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel's phone since 2002.
KING: We've saved many lives in Germany because of the intelligence we've given them. And we're not doing this to hurt Germany, but the fact is, there can be information that's being transmitted that can be useful to us, and then ultimately useful to Germany. Quite frankly, the NSA has done so much for our country. We have to have strong spying.
Rep. KING: What I mean is, I fully support the NSA program. It's been effective. It's done an outstanding job. I am very critical of the president for basically being silent for the last two months. He's allowed the Edward Snowdens and the others of the world to dominate the media and that now we have so many people who actually think the NSA is spying on people, is listening to our phone calls, is reading our e-mails. We're in war. We're in a very desperate war with al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates and the President of the United States as commander-in-chief had the obligation to be aggressively and effectively defending his program and he really didn't do it. [Snowden] spread a paranoia in the country. The President should have been out there sooner.
RYAN: No, I do think we need to reauthorize and reform this program. A lot of us have learned much more about it since it was revealed. We do have to do more, I believe, to protect our liberties without sacrificing our national security. And I think that can be done. There was a vote to defund the entire program. I didn't support that vote, because I think the smarter way to go about it is rewrite the law.
Q: Are you convinced that the NSA is violating our privacy or sort of has the capability to do that?
RYAN: I think they have the capability. I can't speak to whether or not they are doing that, but there are more controls that we can put in place.
PAUL: I was pleased with his words, However, there still is a question in my mind of what he thinks due process is? You know, due process to most of us is a court of law, it's a trial by a jury. For example, last year we passed legislation that I voted against, and that's detaining citizens indefinitely without a trial, and sending them to Guantanamo Bay.
Q: The president did speak about closing Guantanamo. Do you think it should be closed?
PAUL: No. I think it's become a symbol of something though, and I think things should change. For example, I think the people being held there are bad people. What I would do though is accuse them, charge them, and try them in military tribunals, or trials. And I think that would go a long way toward showing the world that we're not going to hold them without charge forever.
GIULIANI: Well, you have to go where the evidence takes you. This whole idea of profiling is perfectly legal and perfectly legitimate if you're following leads, if you're following objective evidence. Somebody tells you that the person who committed the crime is 6'4" and he's white, you don't go look for a 5'4" Asian. So the reality is profiling is perfectly appropriate if it relates to objective facts, and not to some attempt to just smear someone. And reality is, unfortunately, a significant number, not all, but a significant number of these attacks come about from this distorted Islamic extremist ideology. So you can't ignore it. You've got to go after it. We don't have to sacrifice privacy to do it. But we also shouldn't sacrifice common sense. I think it makes a lot of people in the bureaucracy afraid to really call it as it is.
PAUL: If people are attacking the Twin Towers with planes, I never argued you wouldn't use drones or F-16s to repel that kind of attack. The problem is, a lot of the drone attacks are killing people not actively engaged in combat. If you are accused of being associated with terrorism, which could mean you are an Arab-American and you've sent e-mails to a relative in the Middle East, you should get your day in court. Did the president completely slam the door on not using drones? No, I think there's wiggle room in there, but we did force him to at least narrow what his power is and that was my goal.
GINGRICH (videotape): If combat means living in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections.
Q: Have you evolved on that?
GINGRICH: Well, I don't know that I've evolved. I think we've all learned a lot more. Women have been in combat for at least the last 20 years: If you're serving in the American military and you're in Iraq or you're in Afghanistan, you're in combat, [even if in] Intelligence. You do have to make different arrangements under different circumstances. But the fact is that anyone who is going to serve the country is going to be at risk, and it is a lot better to have them combat- trained when they're at risk than it is to have them be helpless.
Q: So you would now favor women in combat? GINGRICH: We've had 20 years of experience, and, objectively, they are in combat already. This is simply recognizing a reality that exists.
PAUL: I am concerned about one person deciding the life or death of not only foreigners but US citizens around the world. And the chance that one person could make a mistake is a possibility. So having the president decide who he's going to kill concerns me. I would rather it go through the FISA court. They make the decision over weeks and months. They target people and go after them. I see no reason why there couldn't be some sort of court preceding, even a secret court preceding, to allow some protection. I mean, even in the US where we have the best due process probably in the world, we have probably executed people wrongfully for the death penalty. They have found out through DNA testing, many people on death row are there inaccurately. So I think when we decide to kill someone, that's obviously the ultimate punishment. We need to be very, very certain that what we're doing is not in error.
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| 2020 Presidential contenders on Homeland Security: | |||
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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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