Jon Huntsman - Republican Presidential Candidate 2011 HARDtalk

torture. Those are the latest headlines. It

The US Republican Party is in a mess. Badly beaten in the race for

the White House, seemingly out of touch with mainstream opinion on

issues from immigration to gun- control and in danger of being

outmanoeuvred by President Obama in the continued stand-off over the

federal budget. Like yesterday's former Republican candidate for

President Jon Huntsman. A moderate frequently at odds with his own

party. Is the American right on the Jon Huntsman, in Washington, DC,

welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you, Stephen, a pleasure to be with you.

Are you in any meaningful sense a Republican right now? Of course I

Abraham Lincoln, our very first Republican. He believed that

individual dignity and the quality under the law. I am a Teddy

Roosevelt Republican, who believed in a strong presence around the

creating new alliances. He believed to a strong commitment to the

environment. I am an Eisenhower Republican, he dealt our

infrastructure system. I am not sure how we would be without that

today. I am a Ronald Reagan Republican, who believed in the

importance of freedom. He also brought about the most significant

chapter in American history during my lifetime. That's all sorts of

different from publicans that to claim to be. But you're also a

Republican who said in the recent past that Europe party is

leaderless and devoid of soul. He also promised never to go to

another Republican Party convention until the party had embraced

problem-solving and inclusiveness. I would stand by that. That is

exactly where the party needs to be. We are without a leader today. It

becomes difficult to punched through with a real proposals that

resonate with the American people until you win an election. We need

a party that speaks to electability. We need to bring on board some lost

constituencies. We have to recast our view of the issues and freshen

them up and put a 21st century spin on them. We need to discuss the

issues that matter most to people in ways that we have not

traditionally. When you stop to think, we have lost to the popular

vote. All at once since 1988. Look at the Mac. -- all but once. We

have a proud tradition going back what we have done historically to

move history. I want to talk about the issues, all of them, and how

that s that will reach out to mainstream

Americans. The party clearly did not in the 2012 presidential

election. I want to cast your mind back to that raced for one moment.

You gave the impression of being a the re of

the Republican race for the White House nomination. Is that true?

There was a sense of frivolity in a good part of the primary phases of

the campaign. To some extent, you they covered it and would highlight

frivolous issues. The way they would take what should have been

legitimate debates and conversations with the American

people. I canter to get away with that. You cannot blame the media

for the nature of the field. You debates looking deeply

uncomfortable. After you had been humiliated by the party, your

the scale, you said the quality of the field was poor. You said the

threshold for entry into the race was, in your words, pretty low.

This is a problem in the politics of the United States. The barriers

to entry are such that most people, in whatever part of life, are not

willing to enter the arena. The pain is significant. The issues

with respect to the way in which it is look that and you have to

disconnect with the rest of what you have do you have do

professionally. A lot of people consider that a price too high to

pay. I encourage young people to get involved in politics. It is in

a sense shameful that a country of 315-320 million people,

terrifically creative and innovative, that we do not have

more people willing to step into the arena. Let us now look front

and centre at the problems facing the Republican Party today and

methods which to think the party should get out of those problems.

First of all, a proposition. Do you accept that the centre of gravity

in the Republican Party is too far to the right? I would say that

those most involved in the early primary organising faces of the

Republican Party told to the right. When you give to the general

election you find a much more mainstream base. Most Republicans

do not know where they belong. A lot of independence are Republicans

unaffiliated categoric. If you stop and breakdown the demographics, the

fastest growing party in America is the UN affiliated party. It is

people who buy in tonight decide. - - into neither side. I am

interested in the fact to focus on the difference between grassroots

Republicans and mainstream American voters. Is it true that you

actually think a lot of people involved in the nomination process,

the very active grassroots, are in one way or another crazy? I do not

think they are crazy. I think they care passionately about the issues.

I would like to see the primary process opened up so more people

can participate. Let me quote to you this sarcastic Twitter post to

put. I believe in evolution and trust the scientists on global

warming, call me crazy. There can be no clearer signal that to think

a lot of people who cannot believe what you just alluded to recite

inside the Republican Party today. I wanted to set down a marker as I

did in a debate at the Royal Drayton Library that was consistent

with that. You cannot be a party that has a significant enough

foundation, enough of a demographic appeal, if you're not willing to

embrace mainstream science. If you are running from science, you are

running from the American mainstream. That is not a place

where the Republican party can go. I wanted to make sure there were

people out there who knew that Titian or publicans still do

believe we have a strong scientific foundation. -- Republicans. That

has been a tenant of the Republican Party all along. Is that what the

governor of North Carolina was talking about when he said that

Republicans have to stop being the stupid party. It is time for us to

talk like adults. It seems to me that there are some senior figures

inside the party who are really out of sync and feeling alienated with

what they see in the grassroots and you are one of them. Elections are

clarifying experiences. You look back on the Mostar demographics. We

lost the use for it. We lost the Hispanic vote. We lost the Asian-

American vote. If you start putting the pieces together, we are not

addressing core issues in a way that resonates with people. Maybe

we need to create a new hierarchy of priorities. Maybe we need to

communicate about these issues differently. But we will always

remain the party of freedom and opportunity. That is not getting

through at all. We can now go through some specific issues. We

have to start with economy and the management of the economy. The

stand-off between Republicans, the leadership in Congress and

President Obama over the federal budget continues. We had not really

gone over the fiscal cliff. And now we have the budget deal by 1st

March. Sequestration will kick in and over ten years more than one

trillion dollars will be sliced off the federal budget. $85 billion

over the first year. The Obama Teamsters this deal has to involve

not just cuts in spending, but also revenue-raising measures. That his

tax measures as well. Do you agree? To there is a deal to be had.

back to the original comment. We need to be the party of problem-

solving. There is a deal to be had. When people with common sense get

together, you can find enough cuts. You have got to address Medicare.

And you can talk about the phasing out of loopholes and deductions in

the tax code. There is enough there that needs to be cleaned out.

me stop you there. You have made the crucial point. You say that we

have to address closing those loopholes and tax codes. You know

that your own colleagues in the Republican Party at the top of the

party in the Congress are adamantly opposed to tax reform right now.

am a Republican. An elected Republican governor. This is what I

did to my own tax code in my state. We delivered a flat tax. Probably

the only one in the entire country. I was attacked by the left and

right. We phased out loopholes. That is what needs to be happen.

This is a perfect opportunity to begin and make steps towards that

reality. These things always kind of collapse at the 11th hour. That

is legitimate. We need to clean out of the new polls. Fascinating. You

call it a Republican principle. But it seems you are lining up more on

the Obama side of the argument. I just want to continue this with one

thought. We had grew from request on. He has been one of the most

influential figures in the Republican leadership insisting

that every Republican in public life sign a pledge saying they will

never in their political career sign on to raising any form of

taxation. Do you believe it is time the Republicans abandoned that sort

of pledge? As I said during the campaign, the only place we should

be taking is a pledge of allegiance to our country. I did not sign that

pledge. I did not sign any other pledges. I think Republicans give

themselves awful entanglements when they begin to sign pledges. That's

all part of the primary process we talked about earlier. Tax reform

from 1986 under President Ronald Reagan did exactly well. A lot of

Republicans would like to see that done. That would be phasing out the

loopholes and deductions. It desperately needs to be done. We

are carrying one trillion $100 billion worth of nonsense in the

tax code. We have a perfect opportunity before us to fix it.

final point on this budget argument if we could, and keep it brief.

Right now, do you agree with me or the perception that I see in the

United States that Obama and the Democrats a winning the argument?

He says the Republican position is jeopardising the jobs of first

responders, teachers and huge amounts of military spending. He

says Republicans risk, with the current stance on the budget,

jeopardising American national security. Is it time for the

Republicans to take away that It was put on the table by the

President himself because we could not figure out how to deal with the

debt ceiling. They wanted to make it so onerous, they put in over a

trillion dollars for defence and funding. Here we are, confronting

the same problem we had a couple of years ago. The reason the President

is winning this debate is because our party is divided on the message.

If our message spoke to economic growth and greater opportunity

through taking cuts that our t of

our budget, you can't compete when you get a debt to GDP ratio that we

have today. And beginning to move more towards entitlement reforms,

which everybody knows needs to get down. And in exchange for that,

dealing with some of the loopholes, including cuts out of the

Department of Defence, we could have a deal. Those are the elements

the American people would hear about and they would resonate with

them and allow the Republican Party to take some higher ground. But we

have many voices speaking for the party now. He has one voice and it

is easier to control the debate out of the White House will you have a

single voice. He is using it to all of that. Let's look at a couple of

other issues. Starting with immigration. You have talked about

the terrible demographics for the Republican Republican the last

election. The Latino for it -- vote, you were decimated. He now is

adamant that there must be a new immigration legislation, which

gives illegal immigrants, around 11 million in the US today, a clear

path to citizenship. The game, that has deeply split the Republican

Party. -- again. What is your advice to the Republicans on what

they must do on the immigration question? The immigration question

has to be seen as an economic opportunity, as it's a security

concern. Our party needs to talk about this issue as much as an

economic opportunity as just a security concern. There must be a

pathway for those 11-12 million people. There's no other way you

can deal with it. In exchange for that, we need several things on the

border to be in effect that would speak to our overall security. I

suspect many of those things are under way. But just as importantly,

our nation and the Republican party should be putting forward ideas to

actively recruit people, immigrants, into this country that will

revitalise our competitive base, Brain Power in an innovative spirit.

We don't talk about that and we are losing the losing the re

talking more about security than we are the economic impact of good

immigration policy. You are dead right on that. For we should be

actively recruiting people to come to this country. You say

Republicans focus too much on security. I wonder what you feel

when you hear Republicans like Herman Cain, the man you ran

against in the early days of the primaries, do you know what he said

when it came to immigration? He says it is about fences. We need to

build an ideal for Defence, 20 feet be electrified and there will be a

sign on the other side saying, it will kill you. That is the mindset

that so many Republicans still have. Here is the opening that we have as

a Republican Party. If you look at the numbers on the border, we are

saying more go south then come to us. The numbers are as low as they

have been in four years. Why? There are no jobs attracting people. More

are popping up in Mexico. Because the border is flat, in terms of

migration, it's a perfect opportunity to put our passion

aside and a look pragmatically at how we begin to fix this thing. We

will not fix it unless we address the 11-12 million people here. I

did it as a governor and took a lot of ribbing because I was an early

proponent of the dream Act, part of the peaks in the state, and it

helped make the economy function. That is what my constituency has

cared about. You talk about fixing and the suggest Republicans need to

be more pragmatic but nobody in your party seems to be listening.

One other specific issue, gun control. After the terrible tragedy

at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Obama is pushing hard for

serious gun control reform. He says it has to be about not just beefed

up background checks but a ban on assault weapons, as was previously

the case in the US, and new control on magazine clips to make sure you

can't fire off so many bullets in one go. Most of that won't happen

because Republicans in Congress went back it. I think we have

plenty of Democrats, particularly those in western states, who will

not back it either. -- went back it. This is as much driven by geography

as anything else. Particularly with a name like Jon Huntsman, we have

certain biases when we approach this issue. Hang on, let's not be

flippant. This is serious business. Of course. By a two-thirds majority,

Americans want serious gun control legislation. OK. What constitutes

that? Americans will always have access to guns, we have always had

that and it is written into the constitution, but they will be no

fix on this issue unless it is complete with some way to address

mental health, because right now the local budgets are being cut

like never before. The first to go is usually mental health services

and facilities. That needs to be fixed. No. Two, we need to have a

conversation with Hollywood about the glorification of violence. One

generation after another. That is having an impact. And the whole

magazine conversation, those banana clips, 30-40 round magazines, this

is a sensible thing that Republicans should be talking about.

One more specific point. Then we are running out of time. Not so

much on the part as an arena, more to tap into your insight as a

former ambassador in Beijing. And man who knows more about the US-

China relationship than anyone in the country. Press reports suggest

China has used the internet and cyber warfare to spy on so many

different important American institutions. We now see cause for

retaliation from the US. Are we close to a new and dangerous phase,

do you believe, in the relationship between Washington and Beijing?

This has been building up for some time. We are where we are today. Of

all of the side the threads that we look at as a country, probably 80%

come from China. -- cyber threat. thieves, some from the military and

some from the government. -- crooks. The way we combat this going

forward, there is only one way. We have to have cyber security of

sufficient weight in our conversations with China, where

they know it's a top three priority in the issues that matter to us.

I may, I am fascinated by your words. I want to quote you these

words, he is a security commentator, we can't play tit-for-tat and let

the Chinese escalate. You have to hit their military and intelligence,

computer networks, with shocking force. That seems to be an

increasingly influential view in Washington. Do you worry about

good at this kind of technology as well. As are many other countries.

Before it escalates to the point where it is out of hand, this has

to be top -- talked about in ways that speak to allowing us to

develop counter-measures, a technology development and an

economic development opportunity, we should always be a step ahead in

terms of our own capabilities. No. Two, we should talk about a stint

red lines that should not be crossed. If they are crossed, there

is a penalty or punishment. But in order to have this conversation...

What penalty? Listen, I am coach tearing a security task force that

will take 2-3 months and we will roll out thinking along these lines.

I will not prevent that by throwing anything out right now. Suffice to

say we will provide a comprehensive report on the options available to

the US and what we should think about. -- pre-empt that. This will

be a centrepiece issue going forward. You talk about going

forward, a final question, I knew committed to running again, despite

your bruising experience at the hands of your own party last year?

Will you run again in 2016 and as a Republican or third-party

candidate? I am a committed Republican and I always have been.

My view on many of the issues, evidenced by how many are beginning

to refocus on exactly what we talked about before the election,

now that we have been beaten badly again, I think we are at the sweet

spot where many Republicans want to be. -- where many Republicans. As

for us, we will be willing to give it serious consideration at the

right time. Now is not the right time. You sound like a man who has

decided to run. Don't tell my family. There will be an