Mitt Romney in Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2013-2015

On Immigration: Executive action on immigration is only a temporary solution

ROMNEY: My advice to the Democrats--and to the President in particular--is: take a breath. The President said that he was not on the ballot in the election that was just held but that his policies were. And the American people sent a very clear message: they're not happy. The President ought to let the Republican Congress come together with legislation which relates to immigration. And he can veto it or not, as opposed to doing something unilaterally and in a way which is extra-constitutional. He's making it more difficult for there to be a permanent solution to this issue. What he's proposing to do is a temporary solution which would potentially be reversed by a Republican President. It's the wrong way to go. It doesn't help the people that are really are hurt by the lack of policy in this area. And it's going to set back the needed reforms that the American people want.

On War & Peace: Do whatever it takes to destroy ISIS-including ground troops

ROMNEY: The right course for this nation is to do whatever it takes to destroy and defeat ISIS. And it's appropriate for us to provide support to the Iraqi military & intelligence. And I think the President's wrong in saying that under no circumstances will he consider ground troops. No one wants to put their own ground troops there. But if you're going to defeat something, you don't tell the enemy exactly what you plan on doing or what you won't do. You say "we're going to defeat you regardless of the consequence."

Q: So if it comes to it that we may have to send American fighting forces, not just advisors?

ROMNEY: Well, no one wants that. But when the President says "we're going to destroy ISIS," it doesn't mean "well, we'll destroy it only in the following ways." You say instead we're going to do whatever it takes to destroy ISIS.

On War & Peace: ISIS: bad things happen as a result of inaction

MITT ROMNEY: Well, what we're fighting for is to preserve freedom in the region and to prevent the region from becoming a hotbed from which there could be attacks launched against us. But what has happened in Iraq and with ISIS is a good deal predictable by virtue of the president's failure to act appropriately and at the extraordinary time that was presented a couple of years ago in Syria. And also his failure to achieve a Status of Forces Agreement so that we could have an ongoing presence in Iraq. Bad things happen as a result of inaction. Consequences have obviously been very severe.

Q: So what would you do specifically?

ROMNEY: There's a propitious time to do things to prevent bad things from happening. to tell you precisely what's going to happen right now and what things we ought to do militarily o stop this ISIS movement from creating a terrorist state--that would require me to get the kind of intelligence briefings I no longer get.

On War & Peace: Leave 20,000 US troops in Iraq as an ongoing presence

ROMNEY: In 2012 I made it very clear that I thought we should've signed a Status of Forces Agreement, consistent with what President Bush said a long time ago, that we should have an ongoing presence. Not a massive military presence, but 10,000 or 20,000 troops to provide the training and the intelligence resources that Iraq would need to keep things like [ISIS] from happening. We have the strength to be able to get Maliki to sign a Status of Forces Agreement.

On Foreign Policy: Russia is our adversary but not our enemy

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.

On Foreign Policy: World has been losing respect for America for last 5 years

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.

On Homeland Security: No new cold war with Russia, just very different interests

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.

On Families & Children: Impact of same-sex marriage on kids won't be known for years

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

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

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

On Foreign Policy: Russia & China waster $50B on Olympics; should be $3B

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.