Former Sen. Rick Santorum said in April that "Colorado is violating the federal law. And if we have controlled substances, they're controlled substances for a reason. The federal law is there for a reason, and the states shouldn't have the option to violate federal law. As Abraham Lincoln said, you know, states don't have the right to wrong."
SANTORUM: Well, of course I'd fight it. Roe vs. Wade was decided 30 some years ago, and I continue to fight that, because I think the court got it wrong. And I think if the court decides this case in error, I will continue to fight, as we have on the issue of life. And that's the role of the citizenry. Q We're not bound by what nine people say in perpetuity. We have an obligation and a right in a free society to push back and get our Congress and our president and rally the American public to overturn what the court wants to do
Q: But you're not advocating states ignore the law, ignore the ruling?
SANTORUM: I don't advocate civil disobedience. I do advocate the role of an informed citizen to try to overturn when a court makes a mistake and gets an issue wrong.
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.
SANTORUM: I was hoping he wouldn't. I think that the language they had is better language. This is acceptable language. I voted for this language, so I certainly can't say that it's a bad bill. It's a good bill, but it is a pretty limited view of what religious liberty is in the workplace. And we need to look at as religious liberty as now being pushed harder to provide more religious protections. And that bill doesn't do that.
Q: What now do you think with this new language changes?
SANTORUM: I think what we need to look at is, we aren't for discrimination against any person. I think that no business should discriminate because of who you are. But it should have the ability to say, we're not going to participate in certain activities that we disagree with from a religious point of view.
SANTORUM: Is the climate warming? Clearly over the past 15 or 20 years the answer is yes. The question is, number one, "does man having a significant impact on that?" And number two, and this is even more important than the first, "is there anything the United States can do about it?" And the answer is clearly, no. Even folks who accept all of the science by the alarmists on the other side, recognize that everything that's being considered by the US will have almost--well, not almost, will have zero--impact on it given what's going on in the rest of the world.
Q: So, is your answer do nothing?
SANTORUM: Well, if it has no impact, of course do nothing. Why would you do something and with people admitting that even if you do something, it won't make a difference?
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.
SANTORUM: Immigration can be, if immigration is done the right way. Immigration policy in America has to put America and American workers first. The focus of immigration policies [should be] on where we need people with certain skills to come to this country to help gin up and encourage our economy. But, unfortunately, the current legal immigration system is not that. We bring a little over a million people a year into this country on average over the past 20 years. And the overwhelming majority are folks who are lower-skilled or unskilled. And as a result of that, they are filling up a labor pool where there's not a booming growth of unskilled labor jobs in this country. And we're bringing people in who will compete against a lot of American workers. In fact, since 2000, the number of native-born Americans working in the workplace has gone down. There are fewer Americans working today who were born in America than there were 15 years ago.
SANTORUM: What the president did was open up Pandora's box for every president in the future to say, "you know, Congress, if you're not going to work with me, then I'm not going to enforce the law, and beyond that, I'm going to actually create new law."
Q: So if it sets that terrible of a precedent and is unconstitutional, why not impeach?
SANTORUM: I believe that the Republicans--and I hope Democrats--would do something very strong in response.
Q: Like what?
SANTORUM: Well, they're suing the president. And they should go to the Supreme Court immediately.
Q: Court suits take a long time.
SANTORUM: Well, hopefully, you can get an expedited hearing on something of this significance. Secondly, I think they should try to defund this. They have the power in the Congress.
Q: But you're not talking impeachment?
SANTORUM: I know some people have talked about censure.
SANTORUM: I'm concerned about the working men & women of this country. We have wages stagnating. And who are the vast majority of [those being granted amnesty]? Unskilled workers. The president is putting close to 5 million more unskilled workers in the workplace, plus an additional 1.1 million every year legally coming into this country.
Q: But what's the Republican plan?
SANTORUM: We need immigration control in this country.
Q: Everyone agrees on securing the border. But what about the 11 million here?
SANTORUM: I'm talking about people here and people that are scheduled to come. The bottom line is, the last 20 years have been the largest wave of immigration in the history of this country. There are more people living in this country who were not born here than at any other time in the history of the country. And what the president is saying is, "we need more." And working men and women are saying, "Hold on. How about us?"
SANTORUM: I think it's still among Republicans. We have half-a-billion dollars wasted by the federal government on setting up four exchanges that have failed on the state level, with more that are going to fail. I mean, this still is a big problem for our country. And so what Republicans need to do is talk about what they would do. Whether you want to call it fixing it, whether you want to call replacing it, I don't think that's as important as saying, "here is the vision for how we can create a better health care system."
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.
SANTORUM: I'm not in favor of President Obama's increase. When I was in the Senate and when I was in the House, I did vote for minimum wage increases that were incremental, that were not inflationary, that did not cost jobs. If you look at the CBO report, half-a-million people would lose their job as a result of the Obama minimum wage increase. I'm talking more in the range of a dollar, phasing that in. I think that will create a minimum wage. Only about 2% of workers are covered by the minimum wage. Historically, it's between 5% and 7%.
Q: Some in the GOP think there shouldn't be a minimum wage at all. Does this add to Republicans' problems with working people?
SANTORUM: I think it does. I think you don't see too many Republicans arguing against a minimum wage. I know a few have. But I don't think too many do. if you're going to have a minimum wage, we just need to be reasonable about it and offer an alternative.
RICK SANTORUM: Well, it was the issue in 2010 that caused us to have the Tea Party revolution. It was all around the issue of health care. And this election is going to be all around the issue of health care. And they are two great elections for Republicans. 2012 was not about health care.
Q: Missed opportunity now getting back politically?
SANTORUM: You know, that's the area that really was my strength. I was the first person that introduced health savings accounts, and the Congress worked on Medicare and Medicaid reform when I was there. I felt like we had the opportunity to really focus on that: Look at what ObamaCare is really doing. It's driving up costs right now. I think you're going to see these numbers not be as encouraging as the administration has pointed out.
SANTORUM: That's a very tall order. I've never seen that done in Congress. I mean you get these big bills and that's how these things pass. And it's very, very hard to get all those component parts together and get a consensus, particularly when you have a president who has been as, uh, vindictive as this president has been in attacking his Republicans on a variety of issues.
SANTORUM: Well, look, the larger point to this book, in my opinion, was the fact that the president puts domestic politics before international concerns. Everything is seen through the lens of domestic politics.
Q: Gates does give Obama credit for bucking not just the politics, but the political advice that he was given.
SANTORUM: Well, I would just say that the president, when he ran first time, said that, "The war we need to win is Afghanistan," right?
Q: Right, that was thought of as "the good war."
SANTORUM: Right. And the problems I have with this administration are less Afghanistan than they are what we did in Iraq when we pulled out of Iraq. Because it was politically popular to pull out of Iraq.
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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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