‘Meet the Press’ transcript for Dec. 30, 2007

MR. RUSSERT:  Let me ask you about immigration because it is your consistency on that issue, I think, that is going to be talked about.  The debate in November, you were active--talked about shipping, sending illegal immigrants home, and you made this impassioned plea.  Let's watch.

(Videotape)

GOV. HUCKABEE:  In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did.  We're a better country than that.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  "We're a better country than punishing children for what their"...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  ..."parents did."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I still believe that, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  But a week later, after that comment, you came out with this: "The Secure America Plan."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  "Propose to provide all illegal immigrants a 120-day window to register with the Bureau of Citizenship" "Immigration Services and leave the country.  Those who register" "return to their home country will face no penalty if they later apply," "those who do not return home will be, when caught, barred from future re-entry for a period of 10 years." Children born here are American citizens.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  And you were saying that.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  "Don't punish those kids." A week later, you said, "No, no, no, send the parents home," and what happens to the kids?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  They go with their parents.  I mean, I can't imagine a parent not taking their children...

MR. RUSSERT:  But they're American citizens.  Why do they have to leave the country?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Because they're--first, before they're American citizens, they're the children of their parents.

MR. RUSSERT:  But aren't we a "better country," to quote someone, than that?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Let me be very clear.  I stand beside my statement, but here's what we have to do to fix the immigration problem.  We've got to seal our border, something our government has been dysfunctional and failed to do. It's also very clear the American people are not going to tolerate people who have gotten here illegally to get in the front of the line.  The only way they can get into the back of the line is to go back to the point of origin, to get behind that line, and then modernize that line so it shouldn't take eight years to process a piece of paper to get people the necessary paperwork to be able to do that.

MR. RUSSERT:  But, Governor, this is, this is important, because this is what you said back in 2005.  "Responding to a question about illegal aliens, Huckabee said `our economy would collapse' without them."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you believe that?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I think it would be very, very difficult to do construction and agriculture without them.  That's why we need a policy that puts everyone in this country in a legal position.  And, Tim, let me, let me go further.

MR. RUSSERT:  But, this, this is...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Let me explain why.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...important, because your plan says send them all home.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  No, I did not send them home.  They will go home within 120-day window, and then they have the process of starting to return.

MR. RUSSERT:  But that's 15 million people.  You're saying to do that would collapse the American economy, and now that's exactly what you're proposing.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  No, I don't think it would collapse the American economy if people went back and did their process of becoming legal.  And all of them aren't going to go back on the same day.  There's going to be a window of time.  How long it's going to take for them to come back, I don't know.  But part of the process, the first process, if you read my entire plan, is seal the border.  Seal the border.  If you don't do that, then you don't have any control of who's here, why they're here and what they're doing.  This process has to be modernized.  It's our government that's been dysfunctional.

Tim, I stand by many of the state--all of the statements I've made, and one of them has been, let's thank God we live in a country people are trying to break into, not one they're trying to break out of.  But let's have a rule of law. Let's make everyone live by it.  And let me tell you why I believe my plan is not only a plan that respects the rule of law, but I think it's the most humane plan.  Because nobody living in this country ought to live with his head down, ought to live in the shadows, ought to live in fear, ought to live every day looking if there's a police car or a border patrol, running and hiding.  I want people to live in this country with their heads up.  I want them to be able to, if they're going to work here, to work legally.  I want them to be able to pay the same taxes, live under the same laws, and also to be able to have the kind of sense of liberty that this country is bound by. That's what we're trying to achieve.  Let's not forget that our federal government has made a mess of this.  As a governor, I had to deal with their mess, and I believe, as president, one of the highest priorities is to fix the problem.

MR. RUSSERT:  I want to talk about your past as a Baptist minister and your faith.  You've talked about your faith being your life.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  You went to the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, and were asked about your political success, and you said, "There's only one explanation for it.  It's not a human one," suggesting divine intervention. Then, here in Iowa, you have two ads are on the air.  Let's just watch excerpts of both of those.

(Videotape)

GOV. HUCKABEE:  (From ad) Faith doesn't just influence me, it really defines me.  I don't have to wake up every day wondering, "What do I need to believe?"

(From ad) At this time of year, sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration and the birth of Christ.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  And you, you cut--you take that speech, Governor, suggesting divine intervention on your half in a political campaign, an ad where you describe yourself as a Christian leader, an ad where many thought a cross was imposed, superimposed behind your...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Which it is was not, it was a bookshelf.  I wish we were so smart.  I really do.

MR. RUSSERT:  And then, and then this comment.  "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ." Where does...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Which was, by the way, that phrase was one I think was 1998, is that when it was?  The 1998 speech?

MR. RUSSERT:  Yeah.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  To the Southern Baptist Convention.  So it was a speech made to a Christian gathering, and, and certainly that would be appropriate to be said to a gathering of Southern Baptists.

MR. RUSSERT:  But where does this leave non-Christians?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Oh, it leaves them right in the middle of America.  I think the Judeo-Christian background of this country is one that respects people not only of faith, but it respects people who don't have faith.  The, the key issue of real faith is that it never can be forced on someone.  And never would I want to use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else's faith or to restrict.  I think the First Amendment, Tim, is explicitly clear.  Government should be restricted, not faith, government.  And government's restriction is on two fronts:  one, it's not to prefer one faith over another; and the second, it's not to prohibit the practice of somebody's religion, period.

MR. RUSSERT:  So you'd have no problem appointing atheists to your Cabinet?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  No, I wouldn't have any problem at all appointing atheists. I probably had some working for me as governor.  You know, I think you got to realize if people want--say, "Well, you were a pastor," but I was a governor 10 1/2 years.  I have more executive experience running a government.  I was actually in a government position longer than I was a pastor.  And if people want to know how I would blend these issues, the best way to look at it is how I served as a governor.  I didn't ever propose a bill that we would remove the capitol dome of Arkansas and replace it with a steeple.  You know, we didn't do tent revivals on the grounds of the capitol.  But my faith is important to me.  I try to be more descriptive of it.  I just don't want to run from it and act like it's not important.  It drives my views on everything from the environment to poverty to disease to hunger.  Issues, frankly, I think the Republicans need to take a greater leadership role in.  And as a Republican, but as a Christian, I would want to make sure that we're speaking out on some of these issues that I think we've been lacking in as a party and as, as a nation.

MR. RUSSERT:  Peggy Noonan, a woman of faith who writes for The Wall Street Journal, said that sometimes it appears your philosophy is "This is what God wants," and that doesn't encourage discussion, it squelches it.  And, and this is what you wrote in your book, "Kids Who Kill," in 1998:  "It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations--from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia." Why would you link homosexuality with sadomasochism, pedophilia and necrophilia?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, what I was pointing out is all of these are deviations from what has been the traditional concept of sexual behavior and men and women having children, raising those children in the context of a, of a traditional marriage and family.  And, again, taken out of the larger context of that book, speaking about how so many of our social institutions have been broken down.

MR. RUSSERT:  But do you think homosexuality is equivalent to pedophilia...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Oh, of course not.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...or sadomasochism?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  No, of course not.  I didn't say...

MR. RUSSERT:  But this is what concerns people.  This, this is what you did say about homosexuality:  "I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle." That's millions of Americans.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Tim, understand, when a Christian speaks of sin, a Christian says all of us are sinners.  I'm a sinner, everybody's a sinner.  What one's sin is, means it's missing the mark.  It's missing the bull's eye, the perfect point.  I miss it every day; we all do.  The perfection of God is seen in a marriage in which one man, one woman live together as a couple committed to each other as life partners.  Now, even married couples don't do that perfectly, so sin is not some act of equating people with being murderers or rapists...

MR. RUSSERT:  But when you say aberrant or unnatural, do you believe you're born gay or you choose to be gay?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I don't know whether people are born that way.  People who are gay say that they're born that way.  But one thing I know, that the behavior one practices is a choice.  We may have certain tendencies, but how we behave and how we carry out our behavior--but the important issue that I want to address, because I think when you bring up the faith question, Tim, I've been asked more about my faith than any person running for president. I'm OK with that.  I hope I've answered these questions very candidly and very honestly.  I think it's important for us to talk about it.  But the most important thing is to find out, does our faith influence our public policy and how?  I've never tried to rewrite science textbooks.  I've never tried to come out with some way of imposing a doctrinaire Christian perspective in a way that is really against the Constitution.  I've never done that.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you said you would ban all abortions.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, that's not just because I'm a Christian, that's because I'm an American.  Our founding fathers said that we're all created equal.  I think every person has intrinsic worth and value...

MR. RUSSERT:  But many Americans believe that that would be, that would be you imposing your faith belief...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  But, no.  It's not a faith belief.  It's deeper than that. It's a human belief.  It goes to the heart of who we are as a civilization. If I believe that your intrinsic worth is not changed by your ancestry, your last name, by your IQ, by your abilities or disabilities, if I value your life and respect it with dignity and worth because it is human, then that's what draws me to the inescapable conclusion that I should be for the sanctity of every and each human life.  That's why we go after that 12-year-old boy in the woods of North Carolina when he's lost, not because he has greater worth than someone else, but because we believe he has equal worth as everyone else.  I like it that in this country we treat each other--at least we should--with that sense of equality.  Our founding fathers penned that in the Declaration of Independence when they declared...

MR. RUSSERT:  Some Americans believe that life does not begin at conception, and that it's...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, scientifically I think that's almost...

MR. RUSSERT:  But...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  ...a point that you couldn't argue.  How, how could you say that life doesn't begin at conception...

MR. RUSSERT:  Right.  Do you respect that view?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  ...biologically?

MR. RUSSERT:  Do you respect that view?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I respect it as a view, but I don't think it has biological credibility.

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