UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I’m just curious, besides climate change, what do you think is the most important issue to our generation? And I want to know your stance on that issue.

MCCAIN: Keeping the nation secure, obviously. I mean, we have to always face that as our...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

MCCAIN: ... as our first priority.

I think there’s one other aspect here that—and it may not be as specific as you want. But, as you know, there’s a dramatic loss of confident and trust in government. When you look at the approval ratings of the government, all parts of it, the last approval rating I saw of Congress, I think, was 19 percent.

You get down that low, you get down to paid staffers and blood relatives.

(LAUGHTER)

And we have—we have got to do business in Washington, so that we really carry out the agenda the American people have, not our own, not catering to special interests...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

... not doing, not—and—and one of those areas where we Republicans have failed as much or more, in my view, than the other party is in spending.

We let spending get completely out of control, to the point...

(APPLAUSE)

... where we have lost the confidence of the American people.

We—we once spent $3 million not long ago to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue.

(LAUGHTER)
Video
McCain talks politics
April 15: April 15: Sen. John McCain answer students’ questions about foreign policy and the most important issue facing the government.
Hardball
But—and it gets—and you laugh and you joke about it when you read about these pork-barrel projects. People talk about them all the time on Chris’ show. But, after a while, it runs into real money.

In the last two years, the president signed into law two big spending bills that had 35 billion—billion—worth of earmark projects on it. That could have been a $1,000 tax credit for every child in America, I’m told.

(APPLAUSE)

But the point is, it’s got to stop.

It’s your money. It’s not ours.

(APPLAUSE)

And we begin to believe that it’s ours and not yours.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

And that—and I—and I believe that being careful stewards of Americans’ tax dollars is one of the most important ways of restoring trust and confidence on the part of the American people in their government.

Then, we will take on fixing Medicare, Social Security, and the other serious challenges that we cannot hand off to your generation.

(APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: Next question, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Senator. My name is Allie Flukes (ph). And I would like to thank you for being with us.

In the past, you have talked about enforcing a rogue state rollback foreign policy. Do you stand by that today? And, if so, how will you implement it?

MCCAIN: I think we have a lot of challenges in the world. I think the overriding challenge is radical Islamic extremism.

As I said, I think it’s an ideological struggle, at the end of the day, not that much different in some ways than our ideological struggle with communism and—and the Soviet Union.

But I also think that, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, we have to do what’s necessary to try to prevent those countries from acquiring those weapons which could destroy us.

In the Iranian situation, as we all know, overwhelming evidence is that they are developing nuclear weapons. I think, at the end of the day, we can’t allow them to have nuclear weapons. But I think that we should join together with other nations, the French, the British.

By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, we now have a pro-American president of France, which shows, if you live long enough, anything can happen in this world, as you know.

(LAUGHTER)

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We can...

(APPLAUSE)

We can exercise and effectively act together with other nations, diplomatically, trade, economic, and other ways.

In other words, I wasn’t saying that we go around and declare war. I am saying we nations of like values, principles and the belief in democracy and freedom should make efforts to modify the behavior of those countries.

Does that help?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

MCCAIN: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about Iran, because you said, let’s not go back and argue about the roots of the Iraq war and the rights and wrongs.

There’s a lot of stories floating around D.C., as you may know, true or false...

MCCAIN: Yes.

MATTHEWS: ... that we are very intent on stopping the Quds Force in Iran, the radicals, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, et cetera, that are helping arm and supply and train people coming in and killing our guys in Iraq.

Some people think the war with Iran has already begun, in proxy, in Iraq, and that we will go across the border, under this administration, and take a shot at those camps. That will cause a retaliation from Ahmadinejad, and then we will go after his nuclear facilities.

Would you be for that kind of escalatory move on our part that could yield that kind of ultimate result?

MCCAIN: I think, first of all, your statement about the Iranians arming and training and equipping elements that are in southern Iraq, particularly, but in Baghdad is—

MATTHEWS: Call them special groups.

MCCAIN: We call them special groups. Some say they were—a lot of them were responsible for the shelling in the green zone. More importantly for carrying out some of the acts they have carried out—they are also, the Iranians, exporting some of the most lethal explosive devices, these copper—parts of them are copper that are most lethal.

I don’t think there’s any doubt about Iranian ambitions in the region. There’s been a Persian ambition for a long time. I don’t think there’s any doubt about the nature of this regime. It’s oppressive and repressive and extremist, as you know.

I think it’s a threat, but I do believe that we can exercise a lot of options before we consider that one seriously. As I said just a second ago, I don’t think we can allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. Also, by the way, they’re dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel. That should alarm us when a country is dedicated to the extinction of its neighbor and is progressing towards the acquisition of the means of doing that, the capability of doing that.

MATTHEWS: What’s the red line, senator?

MCCAIN: I don’t know what the red line is, Chris, except to say that I believe that we can act with nations of values and principles that we hold dear, and exercise enormous pressure, diplomatic, trade, financial—there are financial institutions in Europe right now that are extending unlimited lines of credit to the Iranians. Of course, why not? They’ve got their oil.

I think they’re a shaky government. Their economy is poor despite their oil revenues, because of their lousy government. And I think we have to exercise those options long before we consider a military one, because, as you just described it, I think the consequences of military escalation are very severe.

I also think Russian—excuse me, Iranian—the Russians are blocking some of the progress we want to make through the United Nations Security Council, as you know. The Iranians are close to, in the view of many people, reaching a, quote, tipping point at least in the technology. They’ve reached such a point in developing it that it is inevitable that they do develop a nuclear weapon.

MATTHEWS: And a delivery capacity. They could create a missile.

MCCAIN: Yes, that’s their intelligence, published intelligence that says that. The other affect would be that every other nation in the region would then—they would feel compelled to develop nuclear weapons. How do you think the Saudis would—

MATTHEWS: The concern a lot of people have is we’re fighting a war that’s not done by any means in Afghanistan, as you know. You’ve been over there. The Baghdad situation is very unstable for a while now, at least. Can we take on a third Islamic war?

MCCAIN: I think it would be incredibly difficult. But here’s one of the things I would do as president: I would be calling in the leaders of Congress and the Intelligence Committee and I would say, look, my friends, here’s a situation that’s unfolding. I think it’s pretty much as you describe it. Let’s examine our options.

If god forbid, and I say that with all sincerity, we have to put Americans in harm’s way ago, I want you to be in on the takeoff, as well as the landing. I would intensely and extensively consult with members of Congress. And I can’t say that we will never use that option of military involvement, and there’s all kinds of military involvement, ranging from air strikes to all out war.

I think there’s so many options we have to explore. If we ever have to go to the American people and send these young people in harm’s way, we’re going to have to make an even more convincing argument that it was necessary to do so because of our failure to find weapons of mass destruction. I think that’s straight talk.

MATTHEWS: That’s why the red line is so important. Is it weaponization or is it prior to that capability to develop a weapon? What you call the tipping point, once they go beyond the tipping point, their ability to create these weapons, is that the point, or is it the weaponization itself of nuclear weaponry?

MCCAIN: I can’t answer that.

MATTHEWS: You don’t want to?

MCCAIN: I don’t know exactly what the technology would be, how many weapons it would be. That’s a scenario that I can’t envision all the details of. But it would have to be made clear to the overwhelming majority of Americans that there was a clear and present danger, not just that it’s going to be developing, OK, because there is a credit—getting a little straight talk, there’s a credibility gap.

MATTHEWS: It’s not preemptive, not preventive? Preemptive? Remember the Six-Day War? The Israelis stopped the Arabs from coming at them. That was preemptive. It wasn’t preventive. It wasn’t thinking about they might do it. It’s that they were doing it. Is that the point we stop the enemy, when they’re doing it or when they might be able to do it?

MCCAIN: Rather than using either one of those words, I think you would have to say, you can go to the American people and say, our very security and the lives of Americans are at risk. Wherever they are in that process, you—

MATTHEWS: -- strategic threat to our economy.

MCCAIN: To the United States of America.

MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Senator John McCain. We’ll be back at Villanova in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CONTINUED

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