Perry: I talked about smart regulations. There's a difference between more regulation and Dodd-Frank, [the banking regulation law]. Dodd-Frank drove community banks out of business. I used to be on a small bank board back in Haskell County in Texas, and I know what these regulations are doing. I think it makes a lot of sense for us to have these big banks. You realize that the six largest banks in the country have 61% of the mortgages now. It's a stunning number. We're seeing Freddie and Fannie Mae back in the business of having small down payments to be able to get a loan.
PERRY: Tear up that agreement with Iran. That's the biggest challenge I think that we have in this country and securing that border with Mexico is incredibly important as well, and those two things can happen on the first day.
A: I think we have the laws in place; enforcement of those laws is what seems to be lacking. We see individuals who were obviously mentally impacted. These were individuals who I think that somewhere, somebody didn't do their job in the standpoint of enforcing the laws that are only on the book. I will suggest to you that these concepts of gun free zones are a bad idea. I think that you allow the citizens of this country, who have been appropriately trained, appropriately backgrounded, know how to handle and use firearms to carry them.
A: I know the cost of war. I know I've seen it on the face of these young warriors and on their families. And before we ever send our young men and women into combat, we need to use every tool that we have.
Q: Do you think we've exhausted every measure possible before doing that [in Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS]?
A: I don't have all the intelligence. I would suggest we need a coalition of those Gulf States, of Saudi, of Jordan, of the Egyptians, the Turks, the Israelis--we cannot affect ISIS without having personnel on the ground in a direct combat role
PERRY: Well, I don't think he understands the challenge, obviously. I was the governor of Texas for 14 years. The governor of that state with the 1,200 mile Mexican border. When it became abundantly clear that the president wasn't going to deal with this immigration issue, we acted last summer. We surged our law enforcement and our National Guard there. And as a result we saw a 74 percent decrease of apprehensions in that region of the border where the real challenges were.
Rick Perry continued to highlight his executive experience in his criticism of the president's ISIS policy. "Positive rhetoric alone does not solve problems, action does," he said in a statement. "If I were Commander-in-Chief, it would not take nine months to work with our military leaders to develop a complete strategy to destroy ISIS and protect American security interests and values."
One of Perry's talking points has been his record of decisive action rather than promises and speeches. In his campaign launch on June 4, he advocated for a tougher approach to Russia and Iran, declaring, "This will be a 'show-me, don't tell me' election, where voters will look past the rhetoric to the real record."
During Perry's last five years as governor, Texas led the nation in job growth. He attributed that success to his focus on keeping taxes low and slashing spending, which included curbing regulations and expediting coal-fired power plant projects.
RP: Yes, absolutely. And I would suggest to you, we've been missing a real opportunity to work with India. India could be the absolute most important country for us to have a very strong allied relationship.
HH: And Vietnam and Japan and the Philippines are with us on this flotilla as well, aren't they?
RP: Oh, absolutely. But I'm talking about a big country that has the ability both economically and militarily to weigh in heavily. And I think we've missed opportunity after opportunity with this administration, whether it was being able to sell the Indians the aircraft that they wanted in their inventory, and we didn't. They ended up going to France and buying the Mirage fighters. So the point is in that region, we're going to have to push back. We need to, China is a complex issue.
RP: Well, I think we need to be competitive. And I think we need to have a conversation about how we are more competitive by number one, changing our tax policy and changing our regulatory policy so that our companies can be more competitive. But here's what changed me. And I don't think anybody can stand up and defend the Ex-Im Bank after the corruption and fraud became.....
HH: But reform it. Don't end it, reform it.
RP: Well, and you know what? My deal is that sometimes, you've got to threaten people pretty deeply to get their attention, and doing away with them is a very powerful threat.
RP: It's good to have a contrarian voice that's thoughtfully engaging in a process like that. Now from my perspective, it is very, very important for us to be able to have a technological advantage, and use every advantage that we have to be able to identify these people that would come into our country or would put our allies in jeopardy. We've been a country that always balanced our civil liberties against protecting our citizens. But I will always err on the side of defending our citizens' safety, but again being very mindful that our civil liberties don't need to be trampled on. And if there are agencies or people that are abusing that, they need to be held accountable, and use every bit of the power of this country to punish anyone who is using the Patriot Act in a way that is not appropriate.
RP: No, it's not. When you start looking at what she's doing from the standpoint of this Clinton Foundation, there is a clear quid pro quo about speeches her husband has given. I mean, $30 million dollars in the last year and a half for speeches? Then when you look back at when she was Secretary of State, the places that Bill Clinton went to give speeches, I just think this thing is getting so smelly.
HH: Hillary appears to have forgotten that she used a lot of different emails on her private server.
RP: The fact is this is not a lapse of one's memory. This is a lapse of one's ethics. There are real ethical questions that must be answered by the Clintons from the Foundation through the Secretary of State. And we haven't even gotten into this entire Benghazi issue. And as we peel back the layers of the onion, if you will, this becomes more and more rotten.
RP: Well, listen, I think that Snowden verged on absolute treachery, if not absolutely so. There, if you've got a problem with this country, there are ways of dealing with it. Taking that information and putting it out the way he did put American citizens and American allies in jeopardy. I don't consider that to be anything close to patriotic. I consider it to be treasonous, as a matter of fact.
Asked about the measles vaccine controversy, a spokesman for Perry affirmed his commitment to "protecting life" and pointed to efforts by his administration to increase immunization rates.
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is considering a run for president, has noted that the link between autism and vaccines was discredited. As governor, he received his flu shot at the State Capitol and encouraged all Arkansans to get vaccinated.
"President Obama's call to saddle 21st century technology with outdated, unnecessary regulations from the era of the Great Depression is alarming and will stifle innovation and growth," Perry said, attributing Texas' prosperity to "regulatory certainty and major private investments in critical technology infrastructure. Instead, we should embrace a business and regulatory climate that encourages competition and empowers consumers with greater choice and access to high-speed Internet," he said
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."
Previously, Perry had called for stepped-up screenings at points of entry to the United States. Perry had shied away from calling for a full-on travel ban, though that was something other Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, have been urging.
Perry and Obama spoke on the phone on Thursday. Obama has told reporters that he still wasn't supporting a travel ban at this point, though he didn't have a "philosophical objection" to it and could change his mind.
This Ebola briefing comes after Obama tapped a "czar" to spearhead a response to the outbreak of the disease, at least three cases of which have appeared in Texas.
If ISIS is not stopped in the Middle East, Perry said, its terrorists could end up coming across what he called an "unsecured" Southwest border. In fact, Perry asserted, "there is a very real possibility" they could already be coming, although he said there is "no clear evidence" that they are. "There's the obvious great concern that, because of the position of the border from the standpoint of it not being secure, and us not knowing who is penetrating across, that individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states could be," Perry said.
In response to a question about whether he advocates sending U.S. ground troops back into Iraq, the governor said that all options should be kept open. "They (ISIS) need to be eliminated, and they need to be eliminated now," Perry said.
The governor said he understands that President Obama is being warned by advisers and fellow Democrats about the danger of "mission creep" by sending U.S. military forces back into Iraq. But Perry said Obama should be more worried about ISIS' definition of "mission creep"--an attack against the United States.
PERRY: The D.A., the highest ranking prosecutor in Travis County--this individual was stopped driving while drunk. She had almost three times the legal limit of alcohol. When you look at the video when she was being booked into the county jail, she was kicking on the door. She was abusing the law officials. She had to be restrained. You have to make a decision on whether or not $7.5 million of Texas taxpayer money is going to go to the unit that she oversees; I very publicly said as long as that individual is going to be running that agency, I had lost confidence in her. The public had lost confidence in her, so I made a decision on the proper use of state money to go to that agency, and I vetoed it.
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: Well, here's what I know is happening. Almost six weeks ago, we surged into that area of operation with our Department of Public Safety, our Texas Ranger Recon Teams, our Parks and Wildlife. We brought real attention to the issue. We're sending messages back to Central America that you should not send your children hereby. They're not going to be able to walk across the border. We talked powerfully about surging the National Guard into that area as well. So, I would suggest to you that the issue here really goes back to that rule of law, if you will. We're not securing the border as the Constitution calls for us to.
(VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: If, in fact, House Republicans are concerned about me acting independently of Congress, despite the fact that I have taken fewer executive actions than my [predecessors], then the easiest way to solve it is pass some legislation. Get things done.
Q: So, is that the solution?
PERRY: Well, here's what I think is very important for Washington to understand: You're not going to have comprehensive immigration reform until the border is secure. The American people do not trust Washington to do these two things at the same time. They expect the border to be safe & secured. They want to be able to live in their communities and feel like they're safe. And if this president does not do what's required to secure the border first, I will suggest to you: whatever he does is going to be a failure.
Perry said, "As the Border Patrol is spread even thinner and thinner with this high influx of the illegal aliens, the gaps in the border have become bigger and you now are the tip of the spear protecting Americans from these cartels and gangs. They are spreading their tentacles of crime and fear, so your message and your mission is very clear: To be that visible presence, to deter the criminal activity, contribute those additional eyes and ears to assist law enforcement and Border Patrol agents along the border." Perry said more than 2,000 soldiers had volunteered for the assignment even though he only requested 1,000.
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
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.
PERRY: What we are concerned about are the 80%-plus of individuals who don't get talked about enough that are coming into the US illegally, and committing substantial crimes. Since 2008, we have seen 203,000 individuals who have illegally come into Texas, booked into Texas county jails. And these individuals are responsible for over 3,000 homicides and almost 8,000 sexual assaults. That's the reason that we are deploying 1,000 National Guard troops, to try to make communities safer, and that is my goal.
Q: Governor, a number of fact-checkers have said that that 3,000-homicide figure is wildly off.
PERRY: Let me go back to those numbers. I do stand by them, by the way, but what are the number of homicides that are acceptable to those individuals? How many sexual assaults do we have to have before Washington DC acts to keep our citizens safe? That border is not secure. It's time for us to secure that border.
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.
PERRY: Well, I think there's plenty of blame to spread around, but when you're the President, you are at the tip of the spear. I go back multiple years in the past: we've drawn attention to the problems on the border. We've asked for 1,000 National Guard troops for over four years from this administration. As a matter of fact, in May of 2012, I gave the President a heads-up on what was happening with these unaccompanied children, these alien children who were coming in on the tops of trains. And we laid out exactly what we felt was going to happen if we didn't address that, and now we're seeing that become reality. It could have been stopped years ago, had the administration listened, had the administration been focused on the border with Texas.
PERRY: It is a problem of monumental humanitarian impact. This is like a triage, if you will. If you have a patient that is bleeding profusely, the first thing you have to do is stop the bleeding, and that's the reason we have been so adamant about securing the border. Very quickly, that message will be sent to those Central American countries that you cannot send your children up here; you cannot catch a train or a bus or be coyoted up here, as you will, to walk across the border and you're freely going to be able to stay in the US. That was the message for years and months from this administration, that's what they saw and that was the message that went back.
PERRY: They could help push forward a show the force, if you will. The president was not even aware that his border patrol was 40 miles away from the border. They need to be right on the river. They need to be there as a show of force, because that's the message that gets sent back very quickly to Central America.
Q: But national guards are not allowed to apprehend any of these children that are crossing, are they?
PERRY: Well, the issue is with being able to send that message, because it's the visual that I think is the most important. Their conversations are being monitored with calls back to the Central America, and the message is, "hey, come on up here, everything is great, they're taking care of us." My point is, you bring boots on the ground to send that message clearly, both visually and otherwise. At that particular point in time, I think this flow from Central America gets staunched by a substantial margin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PERRY: The federal government is just absolutely failing. We either have an incredibly inept administration, or they're in on this somehow or another. I mean I hate to be conspiratorial, but I mean how do you move that many people from Central America across Mexico and then into the US without there being a fairly coordinated effort?
(END VIDEO CLIP) Q: Governor, do you really believe there's some sort of conspiracy?
PERRY: I have written a letter that is dated May of 2012, and I have yet to have a response from this administration, I will tell you they either are inept or don't care, and that is my position. We have been bringing to the attention of President Obama and his administration since 2010, [about the] huge problem on our southern border--I have to believe that when you do not respond in any way, that you are either inept, or you have some ulterior motive of which you are functioning from.
GOV. RICK PERRY: Well, state by state those decisions are made about how you're going to punish those who commit the most heinous crimes against your citizens. And in Texas, for a substantially long period of time, our citizens have decided that if you kill our children, if you kill our police officers, for those very heinous crimes, that the appropriate punishment is the death penalty. I think we have an appropriate process in place, from the standpoint of the appeals process, to make sure that due process is addressed. And the process of the actual execution I would suggest to you is very different from Oklahoma. We only use one drug. But I'm confident that the way that the executions are taken care of in the state of Texas are appropriate.
PERRY: I don't know whether it was inhumane or not, but it was botched.
Q: But you don't even want to see the government held responsible for forcing a heart attack because they couldn't inject the proper lethal drugs?
PERRY: There is an appropriate way to deal with this. And obviously, something went terribly wrong.
Q: Is it appropriate for a pause in our national discussion and application of the death penalty, the president talking about bias, uneven application, soul-searching questions that he'd like the country to take. Do you agree with that?
PERRY: It may be appropriate for a pause in Oklahoma. But the president all too often, whether it's on health care or whether it's on education or whether it's on this issue of how states deal with the death penalty, he looks for a one-size-fits-all solution centric to Washington D.C. And I will suggest, that's one of the problems we have in this country. We're a very diverse country.
A: Are the politics shifting in your party on that?
PERRY: Well, we focus on the maximum wage rather than the minimum wage. 95% of all the jobs that are created in my home state were above the minimum wage. So the idea that you should be focused on the minimum wage when in fact you ought to be focused on policies that create this environment where jobs can be created. You know, this discussion about minimum wage, when there are no jobs available. Most of us didn't start in the corner office, I mean, you worked your way up. I think it's an easy political line to pitch out to say, "I'm for raising the minimum wage," when we're looking past that in Texas from the standpoint of how do we create the maximum wage available? How do we put more people into the workforce? And that's where the focus should be.
In his letter, Perry said restoring the former interpretation of the Wire Act and reinstating the federal ban on online gambling would bolster state rights. "When gambling occurs in the virtual world, the ability of states to determine whether the activity should be available to its citizens and under what conditions is left subject to the vagaries of the technological marketplace," he said. He urged Congress to "carefully examine the short- and long-term social and economic consequences before Internet gambling spread."
These arguments [did not] sway Perry, who on previous occasions refused to halt the executions of Mexican nationals whose consular rights were denied. Perry positions himself as a defender of Texas law against international law, and he has US Supreme Court decisions on his side, notably a 2008 ruling that treaties cannot be enforced in state courts without a specific federal law implementing them.
A tiny agency, TDRA frittered away money on administrative costs and got little accomplished.
By 2011, Texas had spent less than 3% of the $1.7 billion earmarked for housing. Statewide, just 36 new homes had been built. By 2013, after much racially-charged political upheaval, not a single public housing unit has been rebuilt, despite legally binding agreements to replace all 569 units destroyed.
PERRY: I don't agree with her premise and I don't agree with her numbers. This gets back to the issue of should the states be able to make these decisions or should we allow this big cumbersome federal government to decide? I believe that the federal government should allow the states to make these decisions. We put some substantial amount of money into women's health programs over the last two years. Partly because the Obama administration pulled our funding because they disagreed with Texas restrictions on these abortions. And most people in Texas certainly believe that six months is too late to be deciding whether or not these babies should be aborted or not and we put the limit at 5 months in this bill.
PERRY: Without a doubt, a tragic event. The jury made the decision. And although there maybe people on either side of this that don't agree with how it came out, the fact is that we have the best judicial system in the world and we respect it. A very thoughtful case was made by each side, the jurors made the decision, and we will live with that.
Q: Critics have said that the justice system is innately racist, is unfair to African-Americans. Do you think that?
PERRY: I don't. I think our justice system is color blind, and I think that you don't find people that always agree with the jury's decision. The system may not be foolproof; you have that appellate process, but in this case, I will suggest that two very capable teams laid out the issues and that jury made the right decision from their standpoint.
PERRY: I disagree that the idea that there's one piece of legislation is going to decide--that's a little bit out of the realm of reality. Let's secure the border. We have talked about this for a long time. It's interesting. I have been the governor for over 12 years now, [with a] 1200 mile border with Mexico. We have a great deal of experience of dealing with border security and Washington in any form has not come to Texas and sat down with us. I don't think the will is in Washington D.C. to secure the border. So until that happens I'm not sure the American people are going to trust Washington to come up with some immigration bill until they secure the border.
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."
According to Perry, Vice President Biden's recommendations on gun control in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings "have nothing to do with what happened" at Sandy Hook Elementary. Moreover, Obama's "executive actions" betray "a pre-existing political agenda" that is markedly anti-gun.
Wrote Perry: "The piling on the by the political left and their cohorts in the media, to use the massacre of little children to advance a pre-existing political agenda that would not have saved those children, disgusts me, personally. The Second Amendment to the Constitution is a basic right and cannot nor will not be abridged by the executive power of this or any other president."
"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."
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The above quotations are from Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2013-2015, interviewing presidential hopefuls for 2016.
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