$18 billion for her russia and the current government certainly relied on support and financial support both from the european union and the united states. that is where the hope lies that they appeal to turn around the economy. i like western money much more than money because western money comes with strings attached and with control. after dealing in post-soviet base for 20 years, the lending institutions now have much more acts or tease and know how to handle this money and how to control it and how to see what the result are. but that is basically the ukrainian society as a result of lost territories in this war,

sent the ashes mobilize support for economic reform. and second is the support of the western community. if these two things, one of them does that work, ukraine will really be, a year from now, in a difficult situation. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thanks for the questions. [applause] . ..

>> host: senator santorum, thanks for joining us. some of the thesis of the book if you would. >> guest: the thesis is there's a whole group of people in america, a big slap -- swath of america that is being ignored, left behind, not included in the discussion i think for either party. particularly though i would argue the republican party and that's, i call them blue-collar conservatives. of folks out there that are working people, most of them don't have college degrees, folks that really still understand the valley of work and the importance of work and the responsibility, and people understand the importance of family and faith believe in freedom and limited government. so you say those are conservative republican voters, and in many cases they are not. in fact, a lot of them aren't

voting at all because they don't really see either party talking to them about the concerns they have in trying to create an opportunity for them to live the american dream. if you look at the democratic party, they talk about these voters a lot and, in fact, talk about how they can give them certain things, whether it's free health care or subsidized health care or increasing their wages with government minimum wages increases, a whole laundry list of things government benefits that there can't help but but, of course, most of these folks don't want to be in a government program. they want to work. they want to have jobs that are well-paying jobs that great an opportunity for them to support themselves and their families, and that sounds like more of a republican voter but, unfortunately, republicans, our economic message, you see this over the years, we talk like economies. we are sort of wrapped up in the

ripeness of her position. we talk about balancing the budget, talk about cutting taxes for high income individuals to create jobs. and then cutting government, in particularly a lot of benefits. if you're the average american listening to this economic plan you say where am i in that plan? what are you doing for me, the people who are seeing their wages stagnating, not getting increases, not seeing inflation either way. that's who this book is written for, and for republicans to understand why they are not succeeding in getting these votes. >> host: it's perplexing because some of these voters seemed winnable by republicans so why wouldn't the republican party be talking to and about working-class voters? >> guest: because it really requires you cannot think of macro but micro. that's a very difficult thing for republicans. the republican they did on economics is a rising tide lifts all boats. i agree a rising tide lives all boats and less your boat has a

hole in it. a rising tide is a very dangerous thing because when the tide rises your boat sinks and you are not in a good situation, particularly debate on hide the tide is. you have a lot of folks who have holes in the boats, everything from not having skills to get jobs that are well-paying jobs to sustain the family, not having education, maybe having a drug or substance abuse problem, having problems at home or difficult family. there's a family. there's all longer list of things, all have relative, all of us have some holes in our boats but there's a lot of americans who don't see this rising tide really necessarily helping them. what i've done in this book and what i try to do in the campaign to specifically address areas where, when blue-collar america, where average americans and see some direct economic benefits, some opportunity for them, and that's what i've talked about that specific sectors of the

economy where large portions of these types of workers will find employment that's actually going to be family sustained employment. the area of energy, manufacturing and related spinoff from service industries related to those. and then focus on the other side because it's not just economics. it's one of problems of culture and the family is breaking down, and so we talk a lot about the important of marriage and family and building that healthier american dream. >> host: president obama's talked about income inequality and its rise. easy right? should republicans be echoing those concerns? >> guest: the numbers don't bear out the rhetoric. the fact of the matter is things haven't changed that they haven't gotten better. i think that's really the issue. in fact, relative to europe and canada the opportunity of mobility in america is not as

good as it is in some of those countries. and so while the idea that there's this exploding out of income inequality, it's minnesota born out by the facts. the fact is that there are series problems in america that need to be addressed, and that the our people in america who are not getting ahead. i think instead of arguing the data as to whether we're better or worse or things -- lets focus on the fact that there are millions of americans who are not seeing the code of life improve, and what do we do to address those? that are things we can do, everything from what i mentioned from the get the economy, the culture, looking at education. one of the things i talk about in the book is providing vocational education, career track other than tracks that lead to college. 70% of americans don't have college degrees and that number isn't going to change much. what are we doing to provide the necessary skills in high school as well as technical schools

after high school to provide the skills necessary for people to work with her hands as well as their head. >> host: how did this all happen? what happened to working-class america, rural america? why hasn't -- the stockmarket is on fire but it has no a lot of people in the entry of the country. something is change. what is it translates a variety of different things. obviously, the economy has changed. we have much more globalization, open markets. when that happens there's competition that comes from overseas, and overall i think the argument is i think there's probably a legitimate argument to be made that overall america does better when we have that competition from overseas that drives down prices. those prices are lower for everybody. the competition as we all know is a good thing. globalization is a positive but it also can be a negative if you are the person thus losing their job because of all the competition. i make the argument look, i'm

not against globalization. i understand the global economy, but we have to be understanding of the impact case-by-case of those free trade agreement another grievance we have to the american worker. i voted for a lot of free trade agreements. i didn't vote for nafta, the north american free trade agreement, because i thought that would be devastating more than it would be helpful. in my opinion that's been borne out, at least it certainly hasn't improved the situation for america. but we need to look at free trade agreements. we have to look at the fact that america has not been competitive because our taxes are high. we are the highest corporate tax rate in orbit we have a hostage regular invited in this country. multiples worse under this administration to look at the litigation environment. you look at the educational gaps that we have with worker training for manufacturing of those types of jobs. so the government, the world of

government is playing in making us uncompetitive i think it's pretty unfound. that's what one of the reasons i wrote the book is i think american manufacturers can be competitive in a global economy if the government creates a level playing field, vis-à-vis our competitors. so i have a longer list of things i go through in the book that talk about how they can do just that. >> host: the trade gap with china, cheaper products for everybody and that's a good thing. it certainly hasn't helped american manufacturing. you almost never hear anybody complain about that. why? >> guest: while because most people aren't in manufacturing. most people have lost their jobs or getting lower paid jobs. a very small percentage -- with a small percentage of americans are persisting in manufacturing. certainly substantially less than it was before. if you're a professional or someone who works in the service industry and you're looking at

getting something for substantially lower price because it's been manufactured overseas come you're happy to go to wal-mart. as you know, tucker, wal-mart is now very focused. an ad campaign for the last year almost all about how they're trying to move things accurate to america to try to encourage manufacturing here in this country. i think even those have benefited greatly, like wal-mart, from this globalization and having these products made overseas, see the benefits of having these products made here. i think there's a famous conversation that occurred between henry ford and walter luther who was the head of the union that ford had to deal with, the auto workers union, and he was walking to the plant and showed luther a machine. he said this machine is going to place, i forget how many of the workers, and reuther responded well, that's great but how make ours is this machine going to buy? so that drew the attention is

that yes, we can replace workers with foreign competition or with automation, but you've got to have wages to survive these parts in america. there is an understanding now by wal-mart and many others that we need to look to how we can be competitive. i'm not looking to read again. if you look at the proposals that we put in the book, they are very i think conservative. they are not subsidies. they are tax cuts, regulatory reforms, education, of which government is involved in. so the things that we can do all consistent with what i would call conservative politics, give us the opportunity to be competitive. >> host: why not rig the game? why wouldn't the u.s. government do all it can to help americans? >> guest: first off you've got trade rules that you've got to do with. we do deal globally and so when it comes to trade laws, for

example, this one area that we really don't get into that much because when you start working with trade laws then you have retaliatory efforts on the part of the of the country, particularly china, not encouraging a trade war with china or any other of our major trading partners picks i think you have to be very careful that you structure it as a level playing field and you do it consistent with the trade laws that are in place and the limitations of what countries can do you favor manufacturing one country over and other. >> host: you don't mention immigration really in the book. if you are persistently high unemployment you don't have a labor shortage. why would you import, say, as we do 1 million low-wage workers from other countries into our country every year? how does that help? >> guest: i do talk about the importance of having a trained

labor force, but you're right. certainly with illegal immigration, illegal immigration is, anything that we did in my opinion that would quote solve the problem of illegal immigration by granting a kind of form of amnesty to these workers will flood labor markets in this country with more low-wage workers. we have an immigration policy that is today a fairly generous immigration policy, and we need to examine that immigration policy, see how it impacts the american worker, where are we bringing people and from, what are the skill levels of the people we are bringing in, and certainly factor that in when it comes to labor markets of this country. i don't think we do that candidly. we've done in the past. this is something immigration policy has dealt with throughout the course of american history, and so it's not something that a think we should be afraid to do. we should look at it from the standpoint of people here in this country and making sure

that they have the opportunity, but my focus was not on immigration policy per se, although i think there's a point to be made. but i specifically didn't want to deal with the whole concept of the illegal immigration because to me, look, barack obama had two years as president of the united states with complete control, super majority control in the house and senate, couldn't has any illegal immigration law that he wanted, and he never proposed a bill. to me that says that this issue is not a substantive political issue. this is an issue, a substantive policy issue. this is a political issue. this is an issue the democrats and present of all at once used to drive a wedge between republicans and hispanics. so my suggestion is we do not play that game. we do not get thrown into that briar patch. we actually say simply this, if this is what my position has been on immigration, which is first and foremost let's secure

the border, let's take this problem of let's say 12 million illegal immigrants in this country and let's make it a finite problem, a resolvable problem but if you don't secure the border to the point where you know that you're not have another flood of immigrants, depending on what you do on illegal immigrants, then you've created another problem because you will now have 12 million more immigrants in this country because you granted amnesty to the existing crypt. so from my perspective let's have a discussion, and as a just did on illegal immigration and it would match that of to make sure this is good for the country, but leave the other immigration issues aside. >> host: nobody admits to liking illegal immigration. some do, but let's take the legal sector democrats are for because a lot of these people become citizens and become democratic voters. republicans are for because they get rich with cheap labor, but why is it good for the average american citizen working at wal-mart in the middle of the country, western pennsylvania, why is a good for him to have to

compete with someone from another country who just got here who will work for much lower wages? why is that good for you? >> guest: i would say this. one of the reasons illegal immigration -- one of the reasons illegal immigration is a good thing is because our country isn't going. we now have, now below replacement rate of a population of this country. so i think there is something to be said. legal immigrants do bring a vitality and energy to this country, and so i think legal immigration still is a positive thing. i think the fact but for immigration we would not be growing. i think america, still lots of room in america. we want to be a country that continues to be growing and expanding but i think that's a positive thing, a positive thing for markets. so yes, are these people competing? yes, but they're also concerned. if they're working and buying products, so i don't see that necessarily as a zero-sum game if you have people coming illegal and you do so in a way that makes sure you're getting a

variety of different workers from a variety of different skill levels to be competitive. you are also concerned and don't think that's necessary passing. >> host: if i hire someone, an immigrant or not, and i'm paying minimum wage, no one can live on that, so the slack is taken up by taxpayers and housing subsidies, food stands and all the different social welfare programs win. the taxpayer pays for that person and affect to be able to live. why should employers get what is in reality subsidies from taxpayers to hire cheap labor? >> guest: i mean, cheap labor is labor based upon what the valley of that labor brings. and so i don't think, subsidy is a decision that policymakers have made but it's not businesses that have made them. so we have made the decision that if someone is make a certain amount of money, then we're going to provide support for them, income support. we're going to provide food

stamps or whatever the case. that's a decision that i think is separate from the business decision but i do favor subsidizing cheap labor. we are saying this is the valley that businesses have said that this labor brings to the enterprise, and if we are driving up the cost of that by higher minimum wage laws, which about president obama is proposing which i oppose, then what we're doing is driving the cost of labor up which, of course, will result in unemployment and loss of jobs. >> host: there was a study that came out this weekend that showed the top 25 hedge fund managers made in personal income for themselves, not their investors, for themselves about $29 billion last year. 25 people may $29 billion. when you hear that what is your reaction? >> guest: my reaction is that the capitalist system works very, very well for people who have resources, and, in fact, present obama's world of

economics is one that encourages that. why? because he put forward all of this policy that favors to big to fail, that provides backstops for people who take big risks and get those risks don't, true, then the federal government backs them up. we've created a tremendous opportunity for wall street to do very, very well under this administration. and not a particularly strong effort to help main street or small town and rural america. so i'm not surprised if those numbers. that's part of the american dream. i have concerns though that when you look at the tax on capital versus the tax on labor, what ronald reagan attended to do in the 1986 tax act was to say really back of one of the things is very famous essay, if you want less of something, tax it. he got more of something, subsidize. we subsidize, vis-à-vis labor,

we subsidize capital. we subsidize people of exactly what you're suggesting by having low capital gains tax rates. one of the concerns of republicans is we need to eliminate capital gains tax. what you will do then is please keep investing in capital, please investing things because you will get a huge subsidy for doing so but if you invest in labor, if you employ people, to a college the same purpose, to get a return on your money, then you get taxed heavily, all sorts of regulations, very costly for you. so what reagan did in 86 was lower the income tax rate to 28%, capital gains tax rate to 25%. unit labor and capital being priced at the same thing from the standpoint of taxes, which encourages investment and labor and employment. today we have a tax structure that would 40% top rate and regulatory environment that the obama administration has created, you have an economy that greatly favors capital over

labor, and that's why you are seeing high unemployment rates persisting. >> host: it also am a dozen is in the message to the tax code that we don't value were? you're a sucker if you work. why would you work when you are paying twice the tax rate if someone is investing money transferred warren buffett secretary, here's all the time, warren buffett is making billions and paste 15% tax on the. he secretary is working, sure she gets a nice salary, and so with that nice salary she is paying 40% at the top rate. it doesn't make any sense. i'm someone who has been very blessed. i love to work. i work hard and i have very, very little in way of investment. i get member the last time i paid a capital gains, again on a piece of capital investment. but i have a fair amount of income coming in for labor, and guess what? i get taxed to the hilt.

and so you just have to work, for me i've got to work that much harder. seven kids, no choice. for a lot of people they said what's the point? why am i doing this? so it's a disgorgement for a lot of people. >> host: at a certain point don't you risk social instability? >> guest: well, the point that you're making is that when you have people who are making huge amounts of money, like these hedge fund operators these hedge fund operators, and they're all get taxed at 15%. for the quote work that they did. if you're working for the hedge fund operator and you're the secretary, administrator or whatever, you are paying 25, 30, 35, 40% on income. you say, how is that fair? i would make the argument, ronald reagan made the argument, that really isn't fair, that we shouldn't be rewarding this one over the other, and part of what, at least i approach in the book, i don't really get into it

in detail with the confidence of tax policy, what i approach in the book is lowering marginal rates, very important aspect of increasing the demand for labor. a big part of what i suggested is making the tax code simpler but lowering those marginal rates is very important. >> host: you are famous as a social conservative, also described that way and get this book doesn't really tackle abortion or gay marriage, neither one is in the index. why is that? >> guest: i'm not just a social conservative because i'm one of the few conservatives that would be willing to talk about these issues. most conservatives when those issues come up they dive under the table. and so it's sort of funny that you are sort of known as a social conservative because you're one of the few folks who answers questions on the subject and is willing to articulate a vision.

we do talk about th the cultured idea as mentioned earlier i talked about the importance of the family and marriage as an economic good for society. the word economy comes from the greek word which means home, home is the first economy, the first hospital, the first school, it's the first everything in a child's life and it is the central foundational building block of society. and so i do talk about marriage and the family as an important part of the economic well being of our country, and that we as americans are losing this foundation. 40% of children are being born outside of marriage. you know, if you look at the numbers, i'm sure you know this, but you go into a prison in america and you find 85% of the men in the prison were raised in homes without a dad. we know the social consequences of large segments of society where children don't have dads

in the home, where marriage is impossible anymore, and it's not a positive thing. economically for this families or for the country generally. and so the real question which i address in the book is what do we do about that? is there anything that the government or public policy can do? the answer is clearly yes. there's lots of things we can do. they are important for us to be. if you look at the left who, in their i would argue sincere compassion to help people who are struggling, particularly single moms, they structured all these programs that depend on you not being married. i'm sure that's not the way they designed it but the net effect is that they use this example in the book in wisconsin, if you're a single mother with two children and you earn $15,000 a year working part-time, you get $38,000 in welfare benefits. if you get married, you lose them all.

so to get married your husband have to make 50 grand post a year in order to get married. i'm sure that's possible but it's not highly likely. so what happens is we've created marriage traps. we've created barriers to marriage for the very people who it's important and i'm sure for many of them to have a stable and solid relationship with a man who can help in the raising of the children. but instead what we do is encourage that mother economically even not to get involved, or if she does, have a very dangerous relationship with having a man living in the home and, of course, you know that's the most dangers relationship for both the mother and the children of that mother. so we are doing things that are destructive of families, all in the name of helping people when, in fact, we have to change these incentives to create incentives for people or at least stop the barriers from marriage. >> host: one of president clinton's most reliable

political constituencies is single women. so he never called for people to get married as a solution to poverty but why don't republicans talk about this? i get member the last time i heard a republican candidate talk specifically about the importance of tailoring policy to encourage marriage. >> guest: idea. and i did. i did in the last election. i talked about it in fact i have this chart because us talk about the woman from wisconsin. i found out about that so i actually used that on the stump repeatedly. you may remember when i wrote about back in 2005, called it takes a family. it was in direct response to hillary clinton, it takes a village. because i do believe the family is the building block of society and marriage is an essential public good. if you look at the work that's been done by arthur brooks and others who talk about the issue of happiness and looked at

studies of time about what makes people happy. i address this in the book, but it's not even close t. married people are by far happier than single people. may have better economic prospects. their children have the the betr as you, most drugs, less crime. also is a societal benefits. you're right, tucker, republicans have been reticent, not reticent, downright hostile to embracing that and talk about it because he don't want to be seen as moral life. you want to seen as telling about a live the life. nobody is telling him how to live their lives. what we are saying is any more than we are saying you shouldn't smoke, the government all the time has sorts of messages coming out saying that smoking is bad for you, or texting and driving is bad for you, or hiring veterans is a good thing to do. we recognize certain public goods, and as a government and as a society we get behind the.

so what i suggested in the book is that the popular culture, talk about hollywood, the news media, entertainment industry, the edge of -- educational entity, public schools as well as private and colleges, businesses, labor. they should be something we should all agree with that we want to develop a positive marriage culture in america. >> host: so it's a fear of seeming unfashionable? do you think that's what prevents republicans come anyone who has google knows what the neighbors on you think they just don't want to seem uncool? >> guest: they don't want to be seen as moralizers. when i talk about this, that's the pushback i get. what are you telling people? using single moms are bad. i'm not saying anybody is bad. i'm saying that we're in a situation where marriage is failing, and failing as an institution. one of the reasons we're seeing an attempt to redefine it is because we sort of lost what it

is. it's important for us to reclaim marriage for what it is, which is not just a romantic relationship between two people, though certainly a big part of that and not just a contract for people receive benefits because of that relationship, but marriage is unique in that it provides a very unique benefit to society which is the joining of a man and woman together who are of all other options, the only two that can have children that are their children and have the natural mother and natural father raise those children, and any home that is supportive. and so it does bring something unique and it is a good for the public of children raised in that if either. is also a very important good for men and women. not just for happiness but for a whole host of other reasons where that relationship has benefits for men and women. so i do think there's any reason

for us to shot away from it and, in fact, doctor, what i'm hearing and what i'm seeing for many of the left are recognizing this, what i'm seeing this statistic that came out just the last six months we have all this talk about income inequality, and every single study to talk about income inequality came to the same conclusion, the number one factor that overcomes income inequality is marriage. and that if people get married before they have children, if people who are married stay married, that is, in fact, result in better economic conditions and someone who is either a single mother or single dad or divorced. >> host: you say we are attempting to redefine marriage. from my perspective maybe that is over. do you think that 20 years from now there's any chance that gay marriage won't be the law of the land pretty much everywhere transferred i sort of see this debate as different civil debate that went on with abortion. -- similar debate. 40 years ago the supreme court came down and decided abortion was right, abortion was legal,

it was for the public good. something that should be pervasive and accepted. if you look at this generation of young people, according to most of the polls i've seen, young people, youngest cohort in the poll are usually the most pro-life right now. now i think you are recognizing that just because the court said that so, just because that was something that was affirmed or approved of by the supreme court doesn't mean that society is going to accept it. because it's not a lease in the case of abortion, it's not true. you are taking a human life and more and more people are recognizing the or of taking that innocent life, and i think pushing back. i think the same thing will happen in the issue of marriage. as i said we've lost the definition of marriage because we've lost what marriages. i think it's going to take may

be losing something and seeing the consequence of the losing it and saying consequence of not just losing marriage but the consequence of low to liberty and whole host of other issues for people to sort of recognize that maybe we made a mistake and we need to pull it back. >> host: it seems like you have a real problem with libertarians. i remember a couple of years ago you on fox, called ron paul disgusting. in the book you take a shot at libertarians. what objection to have a? >> guest: i didn't call and disgusting. it was his attacks on me saying things that were ridiculous, outright lies about me and my record but i just all that disgusting, i don't think ron paul personally is disgusting but what he was doing was. no, i do not concerned about the impact and influence of libertarianism of the conservative movement because i think it's -- i don't think it's consistent with conservative

thought. i think the idea that libertarian -- on a tight about libertarian conservatives because there are conservatives who have a libertarian bent to it to our little strong on some of these issues, particularly the issue of constitutional protections and limitations. and so i respect that. very healthy debate within the republican party and to the role of government, how much government does to the issues of privacy. i think those are very important issues, and so libertarian conservatives not as big a concern the libertarians and i think some of the folks who pretend to be libertarians conservatives are not necessarily though. they are more libertarians try to change what conservatism is. they are i have a lot more problem, everything from the isolationist view of how we approach national security. i think we've seen over the last five years of the obama administration what isolationism

and america taking a backseat will mean to the world and to our own security, and probably the best example of why it won't work is the last five years, yet they maintain. the other areas that i'm concerned about is just the fundamental idea of what the return is based upon. i think it's based on a flawed view of man. ultimately the libertarian view is that if people are free to do whatever they want to do and the government is removed and people just have this freedom to exercise their own will in the world, that the world will be a better place. i don't buy that. i don't understand why we see anything in human history that would suggest that that would result in a good and decent and virtuous society. but they believed i think the fundamental understanding is that humans are essentially good and if left to their own, things

would be fun. fine. i believe that man is basically fallen and needs to have both the families civic institutions and the government to have laws in place and conventions in place to shape and mold the individual. >> host: interesting. everyone agrees that there were problems with the occupation of iraq in the last decade, but the original decision to invade iraq in spring of 2003, was that a good idea to? >> guest: i go back, i guess i can answer this in two ways. at the time i made the decision that i thought it was the right decision. i look back and knowing what i knew at the time, i would have made the same decision. knowing now what happened and how the occupation and having involvement in the area of the world and the complexities of dealing with the radical islamists and just frankly the

muslim culture, you know, i certainly going forward would be a lot more cautious about engaging in those types of activities in the future. i think we need to learn a lesson that the long-term prospects of doing what we attempted to do when going into iraq is not, is not, i'm not optimistic about positive results about going and taking that type of approach against. >> host: do you think he would have learned that lesson? no one has been ostracized. >> guest: i think it's different to suggest that what we attempted -- again this has not been done. america had never done this before. and so the idea of these people were wrong and they should be ostracized, i think a lot of them, i've talked to many of

them, are i think a little chastened in venturing again into something like that. i think everyone has looked at what has happened, look at the fact that, like it or not, the people who were involved in the initial invasion and managing that war aren't necessarily people who will finish it. i think when you look at the fact that there may be other administrations have less of a stomach for finishing the job and doing it right, you have to take that into consideration when you engage in the first place. >> host: you've raised seven children, and it seems like you've done a good job at it. don't you think attrition and policy played a role? you make a mistake even if you do with the best of intentions but if you really screw something up should you apologize? shouldn't there be a role for public innovation and sanctioned? isn't at all part of improving the future? shouldn't they apologize?

>> guest: now i don't think he k you should apologize. i think they should be candid about the failures that took place. certainly, look, i don't know how you look at iraq today and say that's a success. so that doesn't mean you need to say, you need to take out the whips and start flogging your back in the public square. the decisions that were made at the time were under very different set of facts and circumstances, and limited understanding of how that interaction with american in that area of the world would work. i don't think contrition is necessary but i think honesty at this point, and what we should do going forward is a much better and more appropriate attack host of one of the assumptions at the time was democracy is the best system for ever and democratic countries tend to be more peaceful, but to attack one another. do you still believe that? >> guest: i still believe that, but the question is how

applicable is it in various cultures and i think we have to recognize that there are certain cultures where this type of idea is more difficult to plan and sustained and in other areas of the world. so i think we just have to be realistic and where we apply that. i think the idea is still the right idea and i think it's true. the question is, is it possible and to what extent are we willing to sacrifice to sustain a presence in an area to finish the job. i think we found that is not even possible in that area of the world. >> host: if the id is true then, shouldn't we be pushing, educating? we have some authority in this area, for example, saudi arabia to become a democratic country, or jordan. if they did become democratic countries as egypt did briefly, would that be better or worse for us to? >> guest: i think the question is not whether this is better for us or not.

i think the ideal and the goal is a good one. the question is how do you get there and how long do you take and what measures do you take? you mentioned egypt. egypt was ready for elections. you look at a lot of these countries and to make the section, look at the trendy. were we ready for an election with the united states was formed to everybody in the united states about? our founders didn't think so. they limited the people who could vote in an election. you say that's horrible, terrible. maybe it was, maybe it wasn't but it was a decision that was made to make sure that there was some continuity and stability within the government that was consistent with the values because the government was founded on. we can't go out and say the objective is a free election. that should have never been the objective. democracy is something that comes when it's appropriate to come. we have to work with individual situations to ultimately, it may

take 100 years to get there, but the idea of rushing into these types of freedoms and elections i think was not the right approach. >> host: what do you think we are to do in afghanistan now? >> guest: i think maintain some sort of presence there. i think we certainly learned our lesson from iraq that leaving is the worst of all possible situations. because now we have chaos again and a potential dangerous alliance between -- not potential. dangerous alliance between iran and iraq. civil unrest, terrorism, terrorist groups active. so it's not a positive situation, and so to the extent that we can continue to support the afghan military, and again it's the stomach for the long haul and having involvement that provide some sort of possibility for stability in the future.

but when we say it's hopeless, let's leave, then you get back to the situation that caused you to get there in the first place. >> host: this book makes me assume that you are running again because it lays out a pretty coherent worldview, agree or disagree. this book describes your philosophy or part of it anyway. that suggested to me that you're reentering public life. are you running again? >> guest: well, you know, entering public life doesn't necessary mean you are running but i mean, i'm out there in the public. >> host: i mean running for president again ass i've been very clear that that's something i'm actively considering trying to gauge both the level of support that's out there but also trying to figure out being a father of seven kids, four of whom are still at home, config is conscious finished up two years ago. it takes a toll, so you have too much all of those things both politically and personally.

but i have a concern about the future of this country. i think i bring something different to the table, and so we're going to actively consider whether this is something we should do and will make a decision sometime next year. >> host: unlike most people who run for president you have little kids at home. >> guest: our children, we have a little girl who is going to be six in may, and so that's our youngest. and we have a 23 year-old is her oldest. still relatively young, sort of still need their dad around and that's my challenge and something that karen and i think about and worry about, discern what the right thing to do for them and for our country. >> host: how hard is it on your family to run for president that they it's just absence. you are just not there. and for long streets of time. you can bring kids out on the campaign trial good and we did, our two older kids, john and elizabeth, what's wrong with is this quite a bit. now some of the other kids, the

two next in line would be in position to do more of that. we still have younger kids. as you know, our youngest, our six-year-old has a disability and requires constant care. those are the things i know people look at politicians and say, that's all political and it's a political conclusion, any talk about the from is an excuse not to because the politics aren't there. it may be the case in some but not in mine. >> host: how physically grueling is a two-run? >> guest: i loved it. look, i'm somewhat, i was asked a question the other day at one of these forums i did at university, are you a night owl or early riser? and my answer was both. i run pretty hard. i like the pace of the campaign. i love doing seven to nine town

meetings a day in iowa, probably country and talk about things that i think are important. that energizes me. it's not really as much a toll on me as it is the toll on the family and what comes with the. it's not, you know, the physical going to be is not the big problem. the problem is the attacks, the cruelty that comes from exposing yourself to the american public, at least a very unfortunate small segment of the american public that not because of social media has the ability to speak much more loudly than what they should. >> host: i know that candidates or potential candidates i was hesitant to critique other candidates, but who are you impressed by, anybody? >> guest: i thought the 2012, we had a bunch of really good people. >> host: you did? >> guest: i thought we did. good folks. running for president is hard, tucker. you look at folks who say this person didn't do very well, that

person do very well. it's hard. i with you don't try this at home. you look at candidates who sort of dropped in, some like rick perry last time sort of dropped in and found out wow, we are not in texas anymore. this is a very tough environment and its day in day out you've got to be mentally and physically and emotionally prepared for it. you know, i guarantee you that two years from now when you're looking at the republican field use energy, that was quite a good estimate as we thought it was going to be. because it's a hard thing to do and everybody, everybody has faults, everybody has weaknesses and vacation very clear in a presidential race. >> host: i'm sure you will say this isn't true but my perception after reading this book was that you had some measure of contempt for mitt romney. there's talk now his aides, a

couple of his aides happen to know where talk about the possibility of yet another run by him for president. what do you think of that traffic i don't think i was unkind to mitt romney in the book at all. i said a lot of very positive things about him. i thought he was the wrong candidate. i support him in 2008. it was a different election but in the 2012 election he was just not the right candidate. it was the 99 versus 1%, we did not need to nominate a wall street multimillionaire 1% to unfortunately never was able to even start the primary never able to get comfortable with his wealth and how to explain that, and his success. you throw on top without the whole issue of obamacare and the fact that we had a candidate who took the most important issue that helped us win the 2010 election, probably will help us when the 2014 election, but when the election was up for the

personal institute of obamacare, we never talked about it. we just had in my opinion and it's the reason i was so passionate about running and got engaged in the campaign, we needed someone who is but on those two fronts. and i thought maybe a guy who grew up in a steel town, and immigrant, the son of an immigrant, if it wasn't for the wall street bailouts and had put forth a lot of good free market private sector ideas and health care would be a better choice. >> host: what do you think of jeb bush? >> guest: i don't know him that well. i look at his record as governor of florida. seems like a pretty solid record. i think, you know, he's a good and decent men. i don't really know that much more. >> host: now, as you know romney won, of the seven big states he won only one, texas and if the republicans do when texas i don't think that's medically they can get the required number of electoral votes.

so a lot of people are watching this carefully but texas could ease of -- could pretty easily go blue and become a democratic state over the next 10 years. at that point with the republican party need to be a national party tragedy i think that's why it's important we expand the base of the republican party. to look at what ronald reagan did in 1980 and 1984 winning all these days, you could say that's not possible. it's not possible given were the republican party has positioned itself but it's very possible to position ourselves in favor and identify with the great middle of america who's looking for someone who has a plan to make life better for them. it's really the reason i wrote the book, to speak from the people across america, those of us who have these sets of values, it also speak to the republican establishment. we have to stop, focus on i

think extremist issues but the idea that somehow or another wicked band abandoned family and abandon life. for the people i'm talking about happen to share our values on those and they are willing to vote for us if we can show them that we actually care about the. eyesight this in the book that any exit polls there was 23, i think 23% of the population on the exit polls said that the number one issue for them was to secure the people like me? barack obama got 81% of the votes and they were by large bye people in the lower, middle income area. it's not that his policies were helping to but, in fact, they were destroying a lot of their opportunities and the chance at the american dream. but they don't think we care. i think it was teddy roosevelt people say they don't care what you know it until they know you care. so if the policy, not just rhetoric but policies that connect. i think we can reestablish an entirely new map that puts states of pennsylvania and ohio

and illinois, even illinois and wisconsin and michigan back in electoral play again post mad ta huge percentage of working-class voters are receiving government aid in one form or another. is it a tough sell for republicans to say to those voters with and much of the cultural identity on guns or abortion or gay marriage or whatever but to say to them, elect me and i will, for example, cartridges ability payment. elect me and i will create an optinupdate for you that better paying jobs and opportunity to take better care of your family, work one job instead of two. have maybe your spouse don't have to work a job so that if she wants to be listed in home, staying home, or if you want to stay at home and have your wife work, either way, what ever does. but to give options for your family because the jobs that you are now better paying jobs so you don't need those government benefits. part of it is as you know there's a reason for some people

-- 47% people are receiving benefits. it's the economy that's driving up these benefits and getting more and more people involved in getting government benefits. so we can grow the economy, i would say we need a pro-growth, pro-worker agenda. that's what we try to lay out in "blue collar conservatives." >> host: sure, but some point you'll have to cut benefits somewhere sometime, right? or the numbers just don't work. people don't want to give a if it's. why would he want to give up benefits? >> guest: i talk about this in the book. there's certain things we can and must do with a lot of the programs that are in place that are fiscally unsustainable. it's just you'r don't not be abo be continued, social security is on its way to bankruptcy. medicaid and medicare is not sustainable. so we have to begin to address those issues. my feeling is we can create a healthy economy and we can begin

to great economic opportunities for people who would be affected by these changes, then i think it's a pretty good trade off and hopefully we can make that argument. you say well, they don't want to give them up. i will say i have a lot of faith in the american public that if you actually lead, lay out a vision for america and jamaica-based to america and you're given the opportunity to do so as a leader, you call upon america to step forward and do their part to make america viable enterprise going forward, that's a lot of confidence to. and people that second at the. >> host: i think he came to d.c. this in your i did, 1991, and i wonder if you noticed for all those 23 years you've had conservatives around the country sending money to politicians in d.c. but also all the conservative nonprofits in the hope they would help make america more conservative. but over that time at least my perspective the country has become anything but, by any other measure mentioned today, the welfare rate, out of birth

wedlock. what happened all those billions? was that wasted translate i think republicans have focused on the wrong place. one of the things i've done since i left the political race, the race for president is i became ceo of a movie production county. one of the reasons you seen a change in america that your toddler is because of the popular culture. you look at the attitudes, talk about attitudes towards marriage. has been driven completely by a popular culture media, television news, all of is just pounding away, pounding away, pounding away on this is what you're supposed to think and if you don't think that way you're and intolerant bigots. that has a huge impact. he give money to a think tank. that's great. it's great for public policy and the give money to republican national committee, whatever, that's great. elections are downstream from

popular culture these days. and so i would make the argument and i think you are seeing this now, that conservatives need to engage in the culture. i've done so with this movie company, and i think you're seeing a lot of other people say, we have to start going after and battling for the hearts and souls of america. that's not just in the popular culture but particularly church group or got to energize the church again, get off your butt and start fighting back in a way that created positive look at pope francis combined encouraged by what is he from him because he's captured the imagination of young people in a lot of cases. he's out there preaching a positive uplifting to this. look at the preachers were doing well on television. positive upbeat. we have to be warriors. we can't back away from what we believe in. this is way to go out and presented in a way that is true and beautiful that will change hearts and minds. >> host: so you want to clear assessment of your opponents but use of popular culture has

worked differently to undermine the family. why is that? what's the motivation behind that kept? >> guest: well, it's always the lead. you go back to the days of william wilberforce. go to any elite culture, go back to roman empire. elites always want to do whatever they want to do, don't want any constraints because they always say every problem in the world always comes down to a problem with the first commandment. you put a false god before god and the false god is you that you are the god so you do things for you and you don't really care about any of the consequence. just whatever makes me happy at the moment. that's sort of materialism and egoism is unfortunately rampant among elites, in every culture and history of man. and so this is not something we should be surprised at. it happens everywhere. and so you see that point of view being expressed by those elites and the culture that they treat.

none of this should be shocking and surprising that every civilization in history of man has gone through this. wilberforce back in england, that was his fight, was to go after the elites and the problems that were occurring an example that they were setting for society. so you look at the examples of the celebrity culture exhibits to society, it's not one tha ths all about living good, decent and moral lives. and so people tend to imitate that, particularly young people. >> host: senator rick santorum it. the book is "blue collar conservatives: recommitting to an america that works." thanks a lot for joining us, senator. that was really interesting. >> that was "after words," booktv's signature program to which authors of the best nonfiction books are indeed by journalists, public policy makers, legislators and others familiar with the material. "after words" airs every weekend

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