‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Dec. 16, 2007

MR. TIM RUSSERT:  Our issues this Sunday, our Meet the Candidates 2008 series continues.  An exclusive interview with Republican Mitt Romney.  In 1984 he founded the Boston-based venture capital investment firm Bain Capital.  In 1999 he headed to Utah to take over the scandal-plagued Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.  He was elected governor of Massachusetts in November of 2002.  This morning, Mitt Romney joins us for the full hour on MEET THE PRESS.

Governor Romney, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.

FMR. GOV. MITT ROMNEY:  Thanks, Tim.  Good to be with you.

MR. RUSSERT:  You gave a speech about the Mormon faith, religion and politics recently, and I want to ask you about a sentence in that speech that caused some discussion around the country.  Let's watch.

(Videotape)

GOV. ROMNEY:  Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  "Freedom requires religion." Can you have freedom without organized religion?

GOV. ROMNEY:  Well, I was paraphrasing and underlining, if you will, a quote that I'd just read from John Adams, who said that our constitutional form of government in this nation would require morality and freedom to be able to survive.  And, of course, George Washington said virtually the same thing, that we were a nation that required a level of morality and religion in order to be a great nation and survive.  And I think there's truth to that, that the--that the great experiment of democracy, the experiment of America's freedom has, as its basis, a sense of morality and a recognition that religious foundations are part of that, that morality.

And so I believe that long-term for America to remain a great nation and to lead the world, we must have a recognition of our religious base.  Now, that's, of course, not a particular denomination.  But the, the founders of the nation, coming from different faiths and different persuasions, nonetheless all believed that the, the creator was an instrumental part of the founding of this nation.  And I believe that that part of history should be taught, I believe that we should recognize the divine with everything from celebrations in the town square, with menorahs and nativity scenes, as well as in our history books, talking about the fact that the creators did believe in a fundamental sense of, of the divine.  And, and recognizing that that gives us a moral code, a suggestion of what is right and wrong, that is--that is, in many respects, unique in the world.

We, we believe, as a nation, from the founding of this nation, that God gave the individual certain inalienable rights.  That's not a constitutional guarantee, that's not a policy guarantee, it's a guarantee from our creator. And, of course, the corollary is that, that if we're all children of the same God, that we have a duty to one another, to care for one another, Americans first and the people of the world second.  And, and finally, that freedom is something which is--which is of a, an eternal nature.  And so all of these things, I think, are part of what makes America unique and part of what gives us confidence that freedom can ring forever in, in this--in this land.

MR. RUSSERT:  But when you say freedom requires religion, can you be a moral person and be an atheist?

GOV. ROMNEY:  Oh, oh, of course.  Oh, of course.

MR. RUSSERT:  And participate in freedom?

GOV. ROMNEY:  Oh, of course.  Yes, this...

MR. RUSSERT:  So freedom doesn't require religion?

GOV. ROMNEY:  Well, this--the, the context was talking about the, the founding of the nation and the, the sense in this case of John Adams describing the fact that our constitutional form of government and this American experiment required morality, which in turn required religion.  And, and yet, of course, on an individual basis, you have many individuals of great morality and--that, that don't have any particular faith.

MR. RUSSERT:  So if you determined that the most qualified person for the Supreme Court or for attorney general or secretary of education happened to be an atheist or an agnostic, that wouldn't prevent you from appointing them?

GOV. ROMNEY:  Of course not.  You, you, you look at individuals based upon their skills and their ability, their values, their intelligence.  And there are many who are agnostic or atheist or who have very different beliefs about the nature of the divine than I do, and, and you evaluate them based on their skills.  But I, I can tell you that I, I myself am a person of faith and, and respect the, the sense of the common bond of humanity that comes from that, that fundamental belief.

MR. RUSSERT:  But there'd be no litmus test?

GOV. ROMNEY:  No, no.  There's no litmus test of, of that nature.

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