'Meet the Press' transcript for Feb. 10, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  Since you started your campaign here in January of '07, I've watched it very closely, and there are a couple issues where you seem to have changed your position or evolved or sometimes flipped.  For example, back in August you were asked about this:  "If you were president in 2009, and Congress brings you a bill to outlaw smoking nationwide in public places, would you sign it?" Huckabee:  "I certainly would." And then a few months later, your offices says, "The governor believes that this issue is best addressed at the local and state" level.

And then this...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, do you want me to answer that, or--OK.

MR. RUSSERT:  Well, let me just go through a couple.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  All right.  All right.

MR. RUSSERT:  This, when you were governor, wrote a letter to President Bush about Cuba:  "U.S. policy on Cuba has not accomplished its stated goal of toppling the Castro regime and instead has provided Castro with a convenient excuse for his own failed system of government.  I urge you to join with me in working to lift the failed embargo." You then went to Florida and said no, the embargo should stay, and you said this, "What changed was I'm running for president."

And then on taxes.  I asked you specifically when you announced here, would you sign a pledge promising not to raise taxes.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  And here was your answer.

(Videotape)

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I think it's a very dangerous position to make pledges that are outside the most important pledge you make, and that is the oath you take to uphold the Constitution and protect the people of the United States.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Thirty-three days later...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...here's what I read.  "Huckabee signed the Presidential Taxpayer Protection Pledge on March 2nd" the--"2007 during the Conservative Political Action Conference."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT:  It seems that political expediency got a hold of you several times during the campaign.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Now, let me, let me go through each of those.  First, on the smoking ban, I was asked if that was presented to me, would I sign it.  I signed a similar bill in my state which said that we are not banning smoking, we are protecting clean air in the workplace.  I still believe that there is a fundamental right that people have to do damage to themselves, but they do not have a right to do damage to others in a workplace.  That's the basis on which I signed the state law and the basis upon which I would sign a federal.  When I said that I still believe that it's best handled at the state level.  It is. But if...

MR. RUSSERT:  But you would sign a federal law.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  If it were about a clean air workplace, not about banning smoking.  Because the point is, and I know it may sound trivial, but it's, it's important to me philosophically that you're not telling an individual what he or she can't do, you're saying what you cannot do is to infringe upon the right of another to have clean air.

On the second issue, which was about...

MR. RUSSERT:  Embargo.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  ...the embargo, that was specifically referenced to the rice industry in my state, number one agricultural product.  At that time we were really hurting in our rice markets.  And based on my experience as a governor, and particularly as the governor of the number one rice producer in the nation, we wanted to export our rice, including to Cuba.  The more I became familiar with the oppression of Cuba, and as I visited with many of the Cuban-American leaders in Florida, I realized that my position was, frankly, rather short-sighted, and it was based on my rather local agricultural concerns rather than the more important concerns of Cuba's oppressive regime. So I had to recognize that the embargo did have an important effect and should be kept.

The final issue was the tax pledge.

MR. RUSSERT:  "No, I will not raise taxes.  I'm not going to sign a pledge."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Right.  The reason I ended up signing the pledge, after I met with Grover Norquist for Americans for Tax Reform, realized that what I was signing was to say that we would not raise marginal tax rates, and frankly, I see no reason or no purpose ever that we need to raise marginal tax rates in this country.  In fact, I've taken a more rather dramatic position than that. I think we ought to implement the Fair Tax, which would eliminate all taxes on productivity, move us to a consumption tax instead.  That's the position that I hold.  I think it would have a dramatically positive impact on our economy, because it would stop the penalization of productivity and it would eliminate the IRS.  So my position now is probably the most conservative of any of the candidates running for president as it relates to taxes.

MR. RUSSERT:  But, but, in all candor, you did not modify your position in order to play to the conservative base?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  It wasn't a play.  It was that I realized that my position had to mature in each of these areas.  In, in the case of the rice issue, it's one thing to be the governor of Arkansas.  To be the president of the United States, I got to lead the whole country and act in the best interest of how we can best deal with a rogue regime.

MR. RUSSERT:  You want to be vice president?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  No, I really don't.  If I'd wanted to be...

MR. RUSSERT:  If asked, if asked, would you accept?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I'm, I'm not going to be asked.  I think it's pretty evident that there would be a whole lot of people on the list long, long before me, and one of them would say yes.  So there's no point in my speculating it. It's...

MR. RUSSERT:  No, but this, this is what--I asked you that in October, you said this:  "I'm not even running for vice president," but, "I will only say this:  It is the job nobody wants and nobody turns down."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  That's exactly right.  I'd say the same thing.

MR. RUSSERT:  You wouldn't turn it down?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  And I say that tongue-in-cheek because that's the whole point.  Everybody says "No, no, no, wouldn't ever touch it." But then when someone is offered, they say, "Yes, yes, please.  Let me come up there." But look...

MR. RUSSERT:  No, no!  But you wouldn't turn it down.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I wouldn't think about it right now.  Because until John McCain has 1191 delegates, I still think I can get there.

MR. RUSSERT:  But nobody turns it down.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Nobody turns it down that I know of.

MR. RUSSERT:  Including Mike Huckabee?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, haven't been offered it.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you're a somebody.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  To a lot of people I'm not.  To a lot of people I shouldn't even be sitting here today.  That's the amazing thing.  That is the miracle, Tim.  So the miracles are still happening.  I'm still believing in them.

MR. RUSSERT:  But if asked...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  How many ways you going to ask this?

MR. RUSSERT:  You're from Hope, Arkansas.  John...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Sure I am.

MR. RUSSERT:  Governor John McCain says, "Governor Huckabee, I need you to run with me.  Would you be my vice president?"

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Again, I, I see no scenario in which he asks.  The question you ought to be asking me is would I ask John McCain to be my running mate?

MR. RUSSERT:  Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  There you go.

MR. RUSSERT:  All right.  Before you go, I have to ask you about this comment on...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  All right.

MR. RUSSERT:  "Morning Joe"'s program back in January.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  OK.

MR. RUSSERT:  "When I was in college, we used to take a popcorn popper--because that was the only thing" many of us--"they would let us use in the dorms"...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  ..."and we would fry squirrel in the popcorn poppers in the dorm room."

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Yeah.  Yeah.  We really did that.  We really did.

MR. RUSSERT:  Did you eat them?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Well, of course you--we ate them.

MR. RUSSERT:  What does it taste like?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I should say it tastes a lot like chicken, but it doesn't.

MR. RUSSERT:  What's it taste like?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  It, it tastes like squirrel.  It's not the best thing in the world but, you know, when you go squirrel hunting, you got to do something with those things.  And part of it was just to say we could do it.  I mean, it was a college thing.  I mean, but fried squirrel is a Southern delicacy.  You got to know that.

MR. RUSSERT:  But you're off the squirrel now?

GOV. HUCKABEE:  I haven't eaten fried squirrel I think since college.  Thank the Lord.  I don't...

MR. RUSSERT:  This may help you in Virginia.

GOV. HUCKABEE:  It may kill me up--in other states, however.

MR. RUSSERT:  Governor Mike Huckabee, we thank you for joining us this...

GOV. HUCKABEE:  Thank you, Tim.  Great to be here.

MR. RUSSERT:  Coming next, this Tuesday, the Chesapeake primary:  Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland.  Obama and Clinton fighting for every delegate possible.  Our roundtable is next, coming up right here, with David Broder, David Brody, Gwen Ifill, Chuck Todd, only on MEET THE PRESS.

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MR. RUSSERT:  Obama vs.  Clinton, the delegate hunt.  David Broder, David Brody, Gwen Ifill, Chuck Todd after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

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