:00:00. > :00:00.contracted the disease last year while treating patients in Sierra
:00:00. > :00:16.Leone. Welcome to HARDtalk. Other
:00:17. > :00:23.Republicans are serious about winning back the White House in
:00:24. > :00:26.2016? Sometimes it is hard to tell, the front-runner to win the party's
:00:27. > :00:32.presidential nomination is Donald Trump. A billionaire businessman
:00:33. > :00:37.come celebrity who despises the Republican establishment. My guest
:00:38. > :00:40.has long been a pillar of that establishment. Eric Cantor was the
:00:41. > :00:44.number two Republican in the House of Representatives before he got
:00:45. > :00:47.sensationally dumped in a primary contest. What on earth is going on
:00:48. > :01:22.inside the Republican Party? Eric Cantor, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:23. > :01:26.Let us begin by going back to last summer. You were unceremoniously
:01:27. > :01:33.dumped by voters inside Iran party in a primary. It was an historic
:01:34. > :01:38.loss, it was brutal. Have you come to terms with it? Yes, I don't think
:01:39. > :01:42.anyone is going to enjoy a moment like that, but there were teaching
:01:43. > :01:45.moments. There were a lot of misconceptions about what happened
:01:46. > :01:50.then to me and what is happening now with the Republican conference on
:01:51. > :01:54.Capitol Hill. In my particular instance, there was a situation
:01:55. > :02:00.where in Virginia, the state I am from, we have something called open
:02:01. > :02:05.primary is, where the parties can mix. It doesn't happen very often,
:02:06. > :02:12.most pundits didn't believe it would happen. I actually won the majority
:02:13. > :02:16.of republicans, it was just 23,000 Democrats crossed over and voted in
:02:17. > :02:20.my primary, because they didn't have one in the Democratic party. You
:02:21. > :02:26.have a war chest of over $5 million to your campaign, you lost to a
:02:27. > :02:31.little-known conservative professor of economics who had $300,000 to
:02:32. > :02:36.spend. You should not have lost. No one of your seniority ought in your
:02:37. > :02:40.position had lost before. There was also not a situation where there was
:02:41. > :02:48.a crossover sabotage folk like that. Malfeasance on the heart of my
:02:49. > :02:52.campaign team was that we were playing to the Republican voters,
:02:53. > :02:56.which we won. We will talk a bit about what is going on in Capitol
:02:57. > :03:00.Hill, and the Speaker of the house race and the tea party. There is a
:03:01. > :03:05.lot of misconception about what is going on. You are sort of blaming
:03:06. > :03:11.the Democrats who cheated and voted in your race, but many insiders
:03:12. > :03:21.say, I am quoting from Ron Christie, a former adviser to Bush
:03:22. > :03:24.and Cheney: he spends more time with their bobbies in Washington and
:03:25. > :03:27.special interest groups rather than being on Main Street in his own
:03:28. > :03:36.district. That is fodder for the press. It is what he said. If you
:03:37. > :03:40.know Virginia, and you know what happened, there are a lot of
:03:41. > :03:44.misconceptions. The forces at work and what is going on in the
:03:45. > :03:50.Republican Party today, there is a very small and vocal minority, the
:03:51. > :03:56.so-called tea party. If you look at how the tea party arose, it arose
:03:57. > :04:00.because after Barack Obama was elected, and he had majorities in
:04:01. > :04:13.the Senate, a big strong majority in their House. For two years, 09 and
:04:14. > :04:17.ten, he was able to put through his stimulus bill, his health-care bill,
:04:18. > :04:24.and several other pieces of legislation, and what happened was
:04:25. > :04:28.that the country, and the tea party rose up and said enough is enough.
:04:29. > :04:30.They don't believe that people like you, the Republican establishment in
:04:31. > :04:39.Washington, were fighting their corner. They saw you as part of the
:04:40. > :04:46.problem, and they saw you as part of politics as usual. Initially we were
:04:47. > :05:03.thrust into the majority, I became the majority leader in 2010, from
:05:04. > :05:08.with a leader, -- whip. You promised that he would take Barack Obama on,
:05:09. > :05:13.tear down his health-care bill, you are taking on in a number of areas,
:05:14. > :05:18.but you talked big and delivered little. Somewhere along the line the
:05:19. > :05:23.expectation shifted from blocking Barack Obama to trying to reverse
:05:24. > :05:29.what he had done and enact a Conservative vision, all while the
:05:30. > :05:32.President was still in office. If you look at our Constitution, if you
:05:33. > :05:38.don't have the White House unique two thirds of Congress to override a
:05:39. > :05:40.White House veto, neither of which did the Republican Party have.
:05:41. > :05:43.Somewhere along the way the expectations got to a point where it
:05:44. > :05:48.was just unreasonable, and what is going on now... You are using words
:05:49. > :05:52.like reasonable, pragmatic, practical. Conservatives in the tea
:05:53. > :05:57.party and many of the activists who drive the Republican movement at the
:05:58. > :06:02.moment have said those words have become a code for a copout. That is
:06:03. > :06:06.just untrue, what so many in the tea party, I wouldn't even call them
:06:07. > :06:14.conservative, they are more radical populist... The chairman of the
:06:15. > :06:19.group called For America, the message from Eric Cantor and his
:06:20. > :06:27.failure is that without a majority, the GOP collapses. You couldn't
:06:28. > :06:31.carry them with you. I did, this is a misnomer and misconception. I won
:06:32. > :06:35.the Republican majority, I would not and could not overcome the influx of
:06:36. > :06:41.as many Democrats who came into my primary race. If you look at what is
:06:42. > :06:43.going on Capitol Hill, the overwhelming majority of republicans
:06:44. > :06:48.in the house would have liked to have seen John Boehner stay. The
:06:49. > :06:53.majority would have wanted Kevin McCarthy to be Speaker. The problem
:06:54. > :06:58.is, there are 30 to 40 members who have now decided they can block a
:06:59. > :07:03.speaker from being elected on the floor of the house, because you have
:07:04. > :07:08.to have 218, and the Republican margin is only 27 or 28. Would you
:07:09. > :07:12.accept that right now the Republican Party looks dysfunctional? There is
:07:13. > :07:17.no question, because there is a very vocal minority who is able to seize
:07:18. > :07:21.opportunities to use procedural tools, or sometimes work with the
:07:22. > :07:28.Democrats, to disrupt the process from working the way it usually
:07:29. > :07:32.does. How galling is that, and you have just talked about the search
:07:33. > :07:36.for a new Speaker, that if you hadn't frankly screwed up in the
:07:37. > :07:42.summer of 2014, you would almost certainly be the next Speaker of the
:07:43. > :07:47.house? We haven't... I want to know how personally galling it is. Things
:07:48. > :07:52.happen, I am someone who looks forward, not back. I have landed in
:07:53. > :07:57.a great place... You are making an awful lot of money as a banker, but
:07:58. > :08:00.that is part of the problem. A lot of people see you, we talked about
:08:01. > :08:09.the Washington insider thing, but people see US too tired street. The
:08:10. > :08:12.American way is a way of entrepreneurialism, it is everybody,
:08:13. > :08:16.not just those who have, to have an opportunity to move up. This is part
:08:17. > :08:21.of what is fuelling a lot of the anger across our country today, and
:08:22. > :08:25.I know here in the UK and elsewhere. Let us talk about how the anger is
:08:26. > :08:29.playing out on the national stage. Let's talk about the choice facing
:08:30. > :08:35.Republicans for the nomination for the presidency, the race for the
:08:36. > :08:39.White House. The front-runner, four months, despite all the predictions,
:08:40. > :08:46.is Donald Trump. He is a celebrity, a businessman, but he sure is not a
:08:47. > :08:51.reliable Republican. Do you think that Donald Trump has turned himself
:08:52. > :08:55.into a credible candidate for the White House? Absolutely not, and
:08:56. > :08:59.here is where I think a lot of the anger and fury is coming from. I
:09:00. > :09:04.said before that somewhere along the line expectations became Republicans
:09:05. > :09:09.with a majority in the house could somehow change the law without
:09:10. > :09:13.having the president agree to their demands. It was instead of the fact
:09:14. > :09:21.that we had a Democratic President, and didn't have 60 votes in the
:09:22. > :09:25.Senate, this is when the so-called radicals went out there demanding a
:09:26. > :09:30.sharp downpour at fault in the federal debt. If Republicans are
:09:31. > :09:34.seen and per trade to not have delivered on what they said they
:09:35. > :09:38.would, which is again an untrue statement, then Donald Trump as an
:09:39. > :09:43.outsider, along with Kali fearing and Ben Carson, they are outsiders.
:09:44. > :09:46.They say, I had nothing to do with what happened, if people are worried
:09:47. > :09:51.about stagnant wages in the direction of the country, and
:09:52. > :09:57.America's shrinking on the international scene, someone might
:09:58. > :10:02.Donald Trump, he will say, it wasn't me! They go in and benefit. They
:10:03. > :10:05.love the idea of the outsider who is not sullied by everything that has
:10:06. > :10:09.happened over the past decade and more in Washington. Matt Latimer,
:10:10. > :10:15.former speechwriter for George W Bush, he looks at the Trump campaign
:10:16. > :10:19.and he says, Donald Trump has shown the creativity that Republicans, to
:10:20. > :10:25.the great dismay of the people who elected them, not only lack but are
:10:26. > :10:28.actively avoiding. Here's an unbelievable marketer, he is a
:10:29. > :10:30.salesman, it is what he does. But if you look at what he
:10:31. > :10:36.will sit here and promise he will build a wall across the thousands of
:10:37. > :10:40.miles of the southern border with Mexico. And he said he would get the
:10:41. > :10:43.Mexican government to pay for it. You know that is hogwash, it is not
:10:44. > :10:49.going to happen, but people like to hear it. This is what he is
:10:50. > :10:52.selling... What does that say about the rest of the Republican Party and
:10:53. > :10:57.those who are fighting for the nomination with him that he is still
:10:58. > :11:04.at 37% in the polls, way ahead of anyone else. The Republican Party
:11:05. > :11:11.has been outside the White House for almost eight years, and you have an
:11:12. > :11:14.open seat, there is no Democrat incumbent, when you have
:11:15. > :11:21.situation voters tend to be angry. They are super angry because of all
:11:22. > :11:24.the things we talked about now, but history has shown that as we
:11:25. > :11:29.actually get closer to when people go into the ballot booth, which is
:11:30. > :11:37.not until the end of January /February, in Iowa, four months
:11:38. > :11:42.away, if voters to take it among -- upon themselves when they go about
:11:43. > :11:53.deciding who they want to be president. It is not an early city
:11:54. > :11:57.-- silly season, it is quite far along. You need to calculate how
:11:58. > :12:02.much damage Donald Trump may be doing further damage in the long
:12:03. > :12:08.run. -- damage he may be doing to the party in the long run. You talk
:12:09. > :12:12.about the massive wall he claims to be going to build. He also says that
:12:13. > :12:18.Mexico rescinding its drug dealers, criminals and rapists. You know the
:12:19. > :12:24.impact that is having on the Latino population. How much damage is he
:12:25. > :12:30.doing to the Republican brand? I know candidates like Jeb Bush have
:12:31. > :12:35.come out stridently opposing such ugly language. I have said it is
:12:36. > :12:38.divisive, and I don't think it is befitting of someone with a profit
:12:39. > :12:42.temperament to be the president of the US. But he is still the
:12:43. > :12:48.front-runner, what does it say? It says there is a small vocal
:12:49. > :12:55.minority. Come on! He has 27% in the polls and Jeb Bush has 6%. How come
:12:56. > :13:01.Jeb Bush is at 6% and Donald Trump, the guy you have just said is
:13:02. > :13:06.frankly, to use a euphemism, a clown who is divisive, he is a 27%? This
:13:07. > :13:09.is a time where voters are angry. There is no question there is a lot
:13:10. > :13:14.to be angry about, and things should be better. There is no solution
:13:15. > :13:17.Donald Trump is offering, he is just running as an outsider saying, I had
:13:18. > :13:25.nothing to do with anything going on, I will just the better. He has
:13:26. > :13:28.no substance behind that claim. People want to believe that because
:13:29. > :13:35.we have to do things better, but I do believe, as we get closer to the
:13:36. > :13:40.primary season, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina out early,
:13:41. > :13:45.and many others in the south-east will have the super Tuesday, then we
:13:46. > :13:50.will get to Florida. At the time we are at the end 60% of delegates...
:13:51. > :13:54.You are an incredible optimist. There may be some being a bit more
:13:55. > :13:58.realistic inside your party. Collison Pete King from New York who
:13:59. > :14:03.has worried aloud that your party is no longer serious about governance.
:14:04. > :14:07.He says the kind of people coming to the top in the party are those who
:14:08. > :14:10.talk about shutting down the government, defaulting the
:14:11. > :14:15.government budget. This is not a serious proposition for governance.
:14:16. > :14:18.I couldn't agree more, and a lot of my battles when I was in Congress
:14:19. > :14:21.was to fight against the nonsense, to say somehow that the US
:14:22. > :14:23.government should default on its debt or that we should go into
:14:24. > :14:32.shutdown. Maybe it need to look different
:14:33. > :14:35.party. There is a difference between the Democratic Party and the
:14:36. > :14:42.Republican Party and I wouldn't say Donald Trump is reflective of the
:14:43. > :14:46.party. He is not conservative. A lot of the Tea Party issues out there
:14:47. > :14:50.and the agenda they are pursuing, they are populist radicals more than
:14:51. > :14:53.conservatives. Real conservatives are conservatives who believe in
:14:54. > :14:59.progress through incremental progress and a temperament that is
:15:00. > :15:02.befitting of a conservative, not a revolutionary. That is the
:15:03. > :15:06.foundation upon which the US was built and the Constitution we have,
:15:07. > :15:11.and again, I think a lot of this provides for tremendous amounts of
:15:12. > :15:15.fodder. But I do think as we get closer you will see a lot of
:15:16. > :15:18.seriousness from voters. We will get to the issues in a moment but one
:15:19. > :15:23.more thought about your guide Jeb Bush. Jeb Bush is seen as a moderate
:15:24. > :15:27.inside the Republican Party. He is not seen as one who will be tough on
:15:28. > :15:33.government spending. He seems a guy who will reach out to the Democrats
:15:34. > :15:36.and work on them with healthcare and immigration reform, meet in the
:15:37. > :15:39.middle ground, and that I would put it to you is a message the activist
:15:40. > :15:44.in your party absolutely don't want to hear. He has eight years of
:15:45. > :15:48.record as governor for Florida where the state ranked out of seven of
:15:49. > :15:53.eight of those years as number one in terms of job creation. He has a
:15:54. > :15:56.record of slashing spending and reducing the size of government,
:15:57. > :16:01.reforming schools in a state that was near the bottom. Now that state
:16:02. > :16:05.I know is now that top of the south-east and I don't know the
:16:06. > :16:10.exact percentile nationally but he has done a tremendous amount to help
:16:11. > :16:13.those who need their help most. If Jeb Bush came to you and said I know
:16:14. > :16:17.you are supporting me and you will raise some money but my god I need
:16:18. > :16:21.your help, I am 6% in the polls, how can I change the dynamic in the
:16:22. > :16:27.race, what would you say? There has to be a commitment. He and the
:16:28. > :16:30.campaign are committed to, a strategy to go out and make sure
:16:31. > :16:36.that the folks who are in place on the ground in the early states and
:16:37. > :16:39.who would recruit the other leaders to understand the challenges in the
:16:40. > :16:42.states are facing, that is what he is doing. If you look at where the
:16:43. > :16:46.endorsement are coming from in the early states and then some, Jeb Bush
:16:47. > :16:49.has a disproportionate number. Again, we've got to get out from
:16:50. > :16:55.under their sort of silly season we are in and begin to get more
:16:56. > :16:59.serious. Let's get serious, you and me, let's talk about a couple of
:17:00. > :17:03.difficult issues, which you frankly have hedged around yourself. One is
:17:04. > :17:07.immigration. There is a fundamental split here between the Democrats and
:17:08. > :17:13.Republicans. The Obama democratic plan is to find a pathway to
:17:14. > :17:15.residency, long-term citizenship, for a substantial number of the many
:17:16. > :17:19.millions of illegal immigrants in the US today. The Republican message
:17:20. > :17:24.seems to be those people ultimately have to go. Now what is your
:17:25. > :17:28.position? Should those people who have lived long-term in the US but
:17:29. > :17:33.are still illegal immigrants, should they be given a pathway to
:17:34. > :17:37.citizenship? I think I am going to disagree with your assumption. The
:17:38. > :17:41.real problem is we are a country of laws in the US and we are also
:17:42. > :17:47.country of immigrants. You think our unique it is the US began by people
:17:48. > :17:51.going there -- howl. Other than if you are an American Indian you came
:17:52. > :17:54.here from another place. Some in a dark part of history were forced to
:17:55. > :17:58.come here. We didn't always get it right. We are a country of
:17:59. > :18:01.immigrants and laws and some of the reasons why we continue to have so
:18:02. > :18:06.many people who want to come, it is because we do have a legal system
:18:07. > :18:11.that affords, hopefully, people to have more opportunity if they come
:18:12. > :18:16.to the US. The problem has been there is a continuous amount of
:18:17. > :18:19.illegal immigration. First and foremost that has to be addressed.
:18:20. > :18:22.That is the easy bit. Any Cabinet and win applause by saying we will
:18:23. > :18:26.be Feby border defences -- candidate. That is a given. I want
:18:27. > :18:32.to know. Obama has a plan to give a pathway to citizenship for millions
:18:33. > :18:36.of illegals. The Republican Party on the whole thing is it is outrageous.
:18:37. > :18:41.No they don't. Practical politicians know that you can't import millions
:18:42. > :18:45.and millions of people so what would you do? No they don't. Republicans
:18:46. > :18:51.overwhelmingly as a party across the country support immigration reform
:18:52. > :18:56.to try to resolve the issue. Now my position has always been, I did not
:18:57. > :19:02.like what Barack Obama came up with, but instead I believed let's work
:19:03. > :19:06.towards resolving the situation by starting with the easy win. Let's
:19:07. > :19:10.start with the kids and so-called dreamers. And I tried to push on
:19:11. > :19:16.that measure. And your party didn't like it because they thought you
:19:17. > :19:19.were being too cosy. I believe that no one and certainly in the US we
:19:20. > :19:24.have no history whatsoever of holding kids liable for their
:19:25. > :19:28.parents' Mr Heath or illegal acts. So if a child was brought there is a
:19:29. > :19:33.minor and knows no other place as home, of course we should welcome
:19:34. > :19:36.them in and give them citizenship -- misdeeds. But again when I said it
:19:37. > :19:40.the President said no we won't do it because we've got to do it all. Well
:19:41. > :19:43.I told the President, I said look we have to start where we can agree and
:19:44. > :19:48.I believe we can start with the kids. Another place we can start his
:19:49. > :19:52.high skilled workers. You know there was a bipartisan agreement on that.
:19:53. > :19:55.I want to move on but all I would say is your language isn't the
:19:56. > :19:59.language of many in your party right now in immigration but let us go to
:20:00. > :20:02.guns because it is important and we don't have much time. Do you support
:20:03. > :20:08.tougher gun laws at the federal level? Tougher background checks and
:20:09. > :20:12.rules to ensure that mentally ill people have no access to guns, yes
:20:13. > :20:15.or no? Let me give you a personal experience I have had with a gun
:20:16. > :20:22.issue and Lenny premise it by saying that look I know that the rest of
:20:23. > :20:24.the world, the UK and elsewhere, really cannot identify with the cold
:20:25. > :20:31.for Mormons we have in the US and a number of handguns that exist. We
:20:32. > :20:34.come from a different standpoint. You won't change. We have a second
:20:35. > :20:40.amendment to the Constitution that is well reported on, well researched
:20:41. > :20:44.and actually well considered by our US... Written in the late 18th
:20:45. > :20:48.century and you are in an era of assault rifles and automatic
:20:49. > :20:51.weapons. You are happy for that constitutional right established in
:20:52. > :20:55.the 18th century to be the way in which America does its business.
:20:56. > :21:00.Lesson. It is what it is. The Supreme Court said it is in
:21:01. > :21:03.individual right on firearms -- listen. That stipulate that and
:21:04. > :21:05.let's stipulate that it is different from elsewhere in the world. But if
:21:06. > :21:11.we are really concerned about reducing lives, I was going to tell
:21:12. > :21:15.you my personal experience is there was a terrible mass shooting at
:21:16. > :21:17.Virginia Tech. Obviously I am from Virginia. When I served in Congress
:21:18. > :21:24.I had constituents children when they were killed in
:21:25. > :21:28.this mass shooting. And while Virginia did in response was it
:21:29. > :21:35.toughened up its laws requiring those in the mental health area to
:21:36. > :21:37.report incidents is that good cause some concern into the database, the
:21:38. > :21:44.federal database and what had happened was the information,
:21:45. > :21:52.good as the information you put into it, so in Virginia
:21:53. > :21:54.taken steps to make this states have not done that. The bottom line is
:21:55. > :22:03.you post you get an a rating from politician in the US might be proud
:22:04. > :22:11.to say I don't get an a rating from the
:22:12. > :22:13.different culture, we have a constitution, second Amendment,
:22:14. > :22:19.speaking to the issue in a different way than other places, I would then
:22:20. > :22:22.asked the question if it is smart that there are rights to gun
:22:23. > :22:25.ownership, is it smart to just allow the illegals to get the guns and not
:22:26. > :22:30.allow those law-abiding citizens to have the right to those guns? That
:22:31. > :22:32.is the issue and that is the context within which US policymakers are
:22:33. > :22:38.working. It is different. I will hand it to you. Different than
:22:39. > :22:43.anywhere else in the world. Most places in the world. But it is what
:22:44. > :22:46.America is about. A final thought. I happen to be in that event the other
:22:47. > :22:51.day where Donald Trump addressed us and he talked about respect. Respect
:22:52. > :22:54.for the United States. He said Vladimir Putin right now looks at
:22:55. > :22:56.the United States and has zero respect for Arrow leadership. Do you
:22:57. > :23:02.looking at the party people in your party that leaders
:23:03. > :23:04.like Vladimir Putin will respect if they win the White House? -- our.
:23:05. > :23:11.Yes I do. And as you rightly said am behind Jeb Bush who would be a
:23:12. > :23:15.tremendous world leader. Here that 6% and Donald Trump is that over 20.
:23:16. > :23:18.Are you worried, what I am getting out, are you worried you don't
:23:19. > :23:22.command the respect of the outside world? I am worried that Barack
:23:23. > :23:27.Obama through his policies have promoted have put America in a
:23:28. > :23:31.position that we have withdrawn from the international stage, that we
:23:32. > :23:35.don't have the kind of respect from our allies nor do we instil the fear
:23:36. > :23:38.that we should in our enemies. I am looking forward to the fact that in
:23:39. > :23:43.a year from now we will have an election, a Republican, Jeb Bush,
:23:44. > :23:49.will be elected as president and we will want once again go and say that
:23:50. > :23:51.allies can trust us and believe our word, which hasn't been the case in
:23:52. > :23:55.the red line in Syria incident which has brought on so much of what
:23:56. > :23:59.Vladimir Putin has been about over the last two years. We will have a
:24:00. > :24:03.president who can finally instil the fear in our foes. We will have to
:24:04. > :24:07.revisit this conversation when the election is done because we are out
:24:08. > :24:22.of time but Eric Cantor, thank you for being on HARDtalk. My pleasure.