>> former arkansas governor and presidential candidate mike huckabee is the author of "god guns, grits and gravy how political and cultural divisions in america. in this "after words" interview he discusses the book and a 2016 presidential race with s.e. cupp of "cnn." this is an hour. >> host: governor huckabee i think it's worth pointing out the irony that you are sitting there in new york where he used to live and i'm here in washington where maybe you will live in just over a year? >> guest: we will see about that. i did say in my book that there is really only one address in all of washington that i have any interest in moving to and i think you probably know which one that might be. >> host: i do and we will talk about 2016 and a bit but let's talk about your book, "god

guns, grits and gravy. explain the title i of all. >> guest: first of all it is not a recipe book of southern cuisine so i want to put everybody at ease if you are saying i don't even know what a grid is relax. here's the point of the book. there are three major cultural bubbles in america, new york washington and we are into it of those on the other one is hollywood and from those three cultural bubbles emanate fashion, finance, government politics music, entertainment, movies television pretty much all the things that set the american cultural table but my point in the book is that there's a big disconnect between the people the values, the attitudes come the lifestyles of people living in those three bubbles and the people who live out of what we often call the flyover country all of that red area between east and west coast coast and if you look at an electoral map apart from a few

urban centers is vastly red and in that divide exists what i call the land of god guns, grits and gravy and it's just a descriptive term of the flyover country. the book does two things. it says to all those folks out there in the land of god guns, grits and gravy you are not alone. there are a lot of folks like you and you are okay. it says to the people living in the bubbles hey here is who we are. you don't know us. you don't know what drives us and what makes us think and what's important to us or why it's important to left sarid the book. maybe we'll find out these good good old boys aren't so after all. >> host: you'd describe the divide between the bubble builds those urban centers and the buffalo bills in the flyover states but surely you don't think everyone in the bubble is bad and not every bubble is good right so what point are you

trying to make in describing the country in this way? >> guest: clearly it's a generalization. if you go to midtown manhattan you will find people who are above us in the way they think and the way they feel and you will go to places like birmingham alabama and you will find some cultural liberals believe it or not so its not that we can define any geographic area but i think it's generally true that the culture and lifestyles that you are going to see in the bubbles are very different been out here in bubbaville and the reason it became some -- when i was traveling to new new york every weekend to do my show for foxx i realize when i get off that plan and i'm in new york for two or three days a week i'm in a different world than the world i live in when i get back to bubbaville. people always say have you moved to new york and here is what i would always say. i am not moving to new york

unless to new york unless they let me duck hunt in central park. now that would shock people in new york. they can imagine somebody out there with a 12-gauge semiautomatic blowing ducks away it jackie onassis pond in central park. i would get me in the headlines for sure but my point is to describe this worldview and soften when i would come to new york i would say i think i can just go to new york i have landed on a different planet. it's just because there is a vast disconnect and that is the word that comes to me to explain why it is that these voting patterns and lifestyle patterns and cultural patterns if you will are so disparate between the two areas. >> host: believe me if they allowed duck hunting in this central park i would leave virginia and be right back there with you. talk about why this cultural divide -- why this cultural divide is such a problem.

is it just the two sides don't understand each other or is there a real threat to the country coming from this cultural divide or disconnect as you explain it? >> guest: i wouldn't say there's a threat to the existence of this great republic because of the cultural difference but i do think polarization is not necessarily healthy to building a strong america where we are a melting pot. we are increasingly less a melting pot and we are more several simmering pots on the same stove that each maintaining its own unique recipe. i think it's healthy to have differences of culture. for example the southern culture that i'm the most comfortable with, i don't want to lose that. i don't want us to become so homogenized that we morph into something that is unrecognizable but there needs to be a respect and mutual respect, and understanding not a melting but

an understanding and that is what i feel we don't have. i have found many people look towards those of us in bubbaville with contempt and a source of bewilderment bewilderment. what do you mean you believe in god? what god? what do you mean you think you have to go to church and paying a dime out of every dollar of your income to a tithed a church makes any sense. i have had discussions even with conservative people in new york who if you tell them you own firearms they are just aghast. it's almost like you want to jump onto the table because they fear you are going to whip out a pistol and start shooting in a minute. is want to say you just don't know us. let me make this observation. most of the people that live in bubbaville understand the people in and the bubbles and here is why great everything we see on television and the movies is all about the bubbles.

television sitcoms movies are mostly depicted whether they are crime shows, doctor shows or films. most of them are about people who live in bubbles, new york washington or california lifestyle. we kind of know what the people live like because we see it all the time. but how may times can you think of a television sitcom that treats religious people respectfully that treats us as if we really are pretty normal and balanced and engaged in people. we are usually presented as charlatans who are out to hustle people out of their money where mouth breathing knuckle digging the end of girls who are just so backward that we haven't modernized and we are highly educated incredibly anti-intellectual and therefore really just not up to the same level as the elite. that is what i'm speaking to.

>> host: this is what i love about our long friendship. i am a nonbeliever and you are a baptist minister and yet we both have a deep respect for the judeo-christian values that this country was forged on in the american faithful. you call people who put faith in family first the new american outcast and i think that is what you are getting at, that hollywood in particular to pics people of faith and people who put family first as sort of backwards as groups and i don't have to tell you this "fox news" does really well. they have a lot of viewers over at "fox news." conservative radio, concerted on line media does really well and whether hollywood wants to admit it or not conservative movies do well so our conservative values pretty well represented? >> guest: they are certainly

represented within the niche of the media that is targeted toward them and this is what i think baffles some folks in the elite. they look down upon "fox news" and "fox news" viewers and how could the network be doing so well? it is scratching where the itch is and sometimes whether it's marc burnett's magnificent drama of the bible that got more viewers than anything that had ever been on cable whether it's the extraordinary response to reality shows that are wholesome like duck dynasty were 19 and counting with my good friends who i know very well from arkansas. that's a head-scratcher to a lot of people who live in the bubbles. they just can imagine, who are the people that watch this stuff? is also true even of films. i remember when the movie the blindside came out. it was a film that those of us who lived out there in

bubbaville the watch that and we said we understand the language we get it all. there are a lot of people in hollywood who couldn't figure out how that movie was such a huge success. it was a sleeper for them and it was an obvious choice for us. look at foundries like heaven is for real or god is not dead. those are films that certainly played to a niche. we understand it in bubbaville and folks in the bubble not so much. >> host: i remember when the chronicles of narnia was coming out the c.s. lewis book being made into a movie in hollywood predicted no one would go see it. meanwhile it was somewhere near the top grossing film of the year. hollywood never seems to anticipate the curves is like to see movies but you touched on this earlier. talk about environmentalist hypocrisy in what you call environmental extremism.

but. >> guest: i give an example in "god, guns, grits and gravy in the book who is heading greenpeace. it turns out in the greenpeace shows he is flying from his home over to a think its luxembourg a couple of times a month and the output of co2 that he is expanding because of his jet travel is like 100 times that of the average person. so when confronted about it, here was his answer. he said well the train trip would take 12 hours and that would be time away from my family and a whole lot of time i wouldn't be working. in other words because it's not very efficient. i'm thinking isn't that why most of us why? here's the point. if you are going to be an environmental list and you say it's horrible to emit co2 than

live like it and i use the example, glenn reynolds who is a great blogger makes a statement about environmentalists and he says i will believe it's a serious problem when the people who say it's a serious problem act like it's a serious problem. kudos to people like ed begley junior and darrel hannah because they are environmentalist who actually practice it and live it it. i have read about it. ed begley is very smart in life. he is has a small footprint of energy output and he doesn't play often and every once in a while he may make up bicoastal trip. whether i agree with it or not to me if you have the conviction than just live it out. if it's authentic we will see it in you and if it's not don't tell me how to live. they'll be al gore and say that the oceans are about to overtake the coast and then build a 20,000-foot home on the coast.

i'm sorry, that doesn't make sense for me. if you think you're oceanfront property is about to become washed into the see sea why the heck would you build a? husker du republicans have a problem with science or is that just a perception in it's so how do you change that perception? >> guest: no problem with science at all. science is a magnificent gift. i would say that science occasionally comes to a place where they catch up with god. i wouldn't expect you to say it that way but in my own way. let me give an example. for a long time people mulled over the issue of life. as you know i am an unapologetic pro-life strong advocate that every person has intrinsic worth and value. it's not about abortion. i believe and an expendable human being.

i don't think any person is disposable. i value each person whether it's a kid with down syndrome or the captain of the football team. having said that we say we don't know when life begins. actually we do. biologically we know more about it than we did 30 or 40 years ago because of our mapping of the genome and effectively realize dna 23 male, 23 female chromosomes come together. that pattern will never exist again. it's unique to that individual and it happens at the moment of conception. in that particular moment everything in that person's dna schedule has formed. it will change obviously size shape, dimensions because that is what happens. but we know when it happens and it is life at that moment. it's human life. that dna schedule will never be

broccoli. it can't be a puppy or a pony. it's only going to be human being so my point is that now we look at science and we say wow science has given us a real affirmation of when life begins. look at a sonogram. people who a few years ago didn't think that it was a real baby until maybe the baby was four months in the womb. now at 12 weeks you see a sonogram and you say oh my gosh i see a baby. i see a human form there. it's not just an animated blob of protoplasm. i think science is a great thing and whether it's space declaration which i strongly support her medical observation which i strongly support it's an incredible misperception to think those of us who our faith oriented or somehow against science, not at all. >> host: i can attest to

seeing that sonogram is indeed life-changing. >> host: another hot button issue in the title of your book and you're right quote clearly city slickers who are more afraid of guns and the criminals who might use them out the serious mental condition rendering them incapable of quick -- critical thinking. you know i am a gun owner and a gun rights advocate and in all seriousness i always think we have the facts and the statistics on our side and on the other side there is fear and emotion because it's equally powerful. but when do you think of her two sides are going to finally come together and have a real conversation about say lowering gun crime. all we ever seem to do is to shout at each other.

guess who i think that happens in large measure because if we are going to have a serious conversation it has to be built around facts not feelings and one of the major themes of the book is you can't build a culture based on i think i feel i believe. let's build it from subjective truth and let's talk about the issue of gun violence. it's a horrible problem. i'm not suggesting that everybody in america go out and buy about a gun and be armed to the teeth and go out waving it. i think some people should never run again but it's not because the government tells me they can't. probably because the mayor of the city decides they can protect themselves. maybe they just don't want to go through the training to be competent and proficient with it.

i think for many of us that grew up and again "after words" i got a pellet gun at seven and a single shot springfield at age nine and graduated up to a 20-gauge shotgun. here is what i learned as a kid. first of all i have such a respect for firearms because it was drilled into me that you never ever consider a gun unloaded even if you notice. if you look in down the barrel and see daylight you treat the gun as though it's loaded. you always tube learn to be behave that way you will never misuse it. he will be so mindful. secondly never pointed at something you are not going to shoot and never shoot at something you don't plan to kill

and don't kill anything you don't plan to eat unless it's a criminal. those are fundamental things about gun ownership. it never occurred to me and all my life of owning firearms that i would think to use it to go into my place of work or into a school and murder a bunch of people. in fact as a kid growing up i knew exactly where guns were in our house. i have could have gotten to them because we didn't have the wherewithal and we weren't fortunate enough and will wealthy enough to have a gun safes of the guns were accessible. the reason i never touched those without my father's permission and supervision was simple. i knew what a gun could do what i was absolutely certain of what my dad would do to me if he ever caught me messing with those guns. the gun might hurt me and my dad might've killed me. >> host: so what d.c. has the biggest threat to our 2nd amendment rights right now?

>> guest: the biggest threat is the lack of understanding that the second amendment was never intended to protect people to go hunting. i ate deer hunt, duck hunt and turkey hunts, occasionally known to pheasant hunt. i know in the year 2015 this is going to sound almost bizarre that the founding fathers wrote the second amendment so they we would always be able to protect the first amendment the right of our basic fundamental aspects of liberty and they knew the one thing that would always provide people with the dignity of their liberty and the ability to keep it as if they could fend off an attack. if we go back to mr. the 2nd amendment and the purpose for which it was there were so people would be able to protect their families their property themselves and their liberty from anyone who would ever try

to take it. we should respect it and treat it with a great sense of reference. >> host: in "god, guns, grits and gravy yukos through rules for reformers and i want to walk through a couple of those four viewers pretty suggest we need term limits. why is that important to you? >> guest: because some people get into public office if they think that they can make a career out of this than every decision they make is based on how this will affect my next election. if they knew when they win when they went in there was a terminal departure point for their tenure in office they will make different decisions. let me say to you i was for term limits before i was for -- first elected to office. most people who say that before they get elected as soon as they get elected they say we don't

need term limits. we would lose all this great experience. i'm one of those guys who 25 years after the leading term limits was a great idea and i have served in office a long time as governor, 10 and a half years, three years as lieutenant governor being involved in politics believe in it more now than i ever have. i think we ought to have term limits which we are to do for the executive branch i think we have to have them for the legislative branch and one of the things i suggested in the book is we often have them for the judicial branch. people going on the judicial bench should not believe this will be this lifetime appointment that released them from having to worry about the decisions they make. i'm not suggesting we elect the judges. an appointment is fine but appointment for life is absurd and people should not feel anything they do in the service of their country is a career for

something they can live for the rest of their lives off of. >> host: next to his campaign financing. you say prohibit nothing disclose everything. what kind of changes would be making campaign financing? >> guest: everything we have done to improve campaign finance is a disaster. they will find ways to do it but it's within the context of the law from another mechanisms to look at the presidential process now. it's out of control. if you are candidate the raise money at $2700 a pop. that's the most you can take. that sounds like a lot of money to people but when you're talking about a campaign that has to raise upwards of a billion dollars that's a lot of phonecalls and a lot of events. now enter the world of the super

pac. in a super pac, super pac and take an unlimited amount of money from corporations often an individual which by the way the candidate can only take from an individual. if someone wants to give the super pac 15, 30 $50 million they can do it one person. that's super pac is totally disconnected from the candidate which means the message the super pac puts out may be hurtful to the candidate it's trying to help at the candidate can't say stop running that ad. then both of them go to jail. that's insane. what we should say is if you want to give $50 million to the person running for president write the check but we will know about it within 10 minutes of your gift because it will be posted on the internet for the world to see. you are not prohibited that we will disclose everything. we know exactly where the money came from. one of the things killing politics today and in the super

pac there is disclosure but there are a lot of other forms in some of the mechanisms like c. fours and other organizations that don't have to disclose donors. i could run millions of ads attacking somebody and that donors who gave that money we will never know who they are. i think those people here's what i say the book, they are cowards. they don't have the guts to run for office but they will write a check and attack somebody through some dark operation. we need to end it all and say we are going to disclose everything. have the guts to stand up and be accounting for it. >> host: the next issue you talk about is poverty and you say poverty is a quote quote career for those who administer the programs and who would be put out of business if they were successful at eradicating

poverty. president obama and republicans looking ahead at 2016 are finally talking about poverty. what would you do to end poverty or reduce poverty in this country? >> guest: one of the things that would shock most americans is if he took the amount of money that a person and poverty could maybe accumulate as a result of the many different programs everything from food stamps to rent assistance to educational assistance to medicaid on and on and it is not completely out of the realm of reason that a mother with two or three children would have the equivalent of 50 or $60,000 a year in income benefits. it would be much simpler to simply write her a check for that amount of money rather than have all these programs that hire all these these bureaucrats and render all these different processes.

the foursome of your viewers go apoplectic i'm not suggesting we write everybody and poverty a check for $60,000 but a lot of this is cut out the middleman. let's do the things that will help people. i don't begrudge helping people who are poor and in fact i saw first-hand some of these programs are vital but here's how that top rate. instead of putting people on them and punishing them for getting off meaning there's an earning threshold threshold and once you cross that threshold the loose all the benefits it out to be administer so you get the benefits as a temporary stopgap to help you make the next rung on the ladder. she make it rather than penalize you and take it completely off medicaid leaving your children exposed with no coverage or leaving you with no capacity to pay your rent make it so every step you take lets you move ahead rather than behind. don't cut off all the benefits.

make sure whatever you are weaned off of leaves you a little bit of progress as you move forward because then you have an incentive. you have an incentive to achieve more to be better educated and learn new job skills. we should never punish people for productivity. we ought to reward them for productivity. instead we punish them. >> all of these reforms are starting to sound a little like a campaign platform so let's talk about 2016. where are you on your decision for running for president? >> guest: obviously i am very serious about it. i have been amused a little bit. i have read pundits who said i left "fox news" just just like it so my book. are you that stupid to think that i would leave an incredibly good job that paid me generously than that i love just so i could push a few books because i

could've done that and stayed at fox and it would have been a much more comfortable atmosphere. i walked away from a wonderful position and a terrific place to be with great people because i am seriously looking at running for president. so i couldn't continue doing the television show and have the kind of genuine authentic forthright conversations that i have to do is have the people and say if iran were you help me and please support me? that is why the severance and over the next couple months i will make the final decision but obviously the decisions i have already made or not made anticipating that i would forego the presidential race in 2016. how is that for being evasive? >> host: solo check in and a couple of months? >> guest: i've always had my timeframe is sometime in the spring later than earlier.

it won't be before april i'm pretty positive about. beyond then when it is i don't know. that has always been my timeframe and i've never change that. >> host: lifted soon that you do run and walk through some of the issues you will confront as a candidate and later as a president. when the biggest issues all the candidates will face this year and next year will be the threat of islamic extremism which we are seeing unfold in europe and unfortunately we have seen here in the united states. what would you do about al qaeda and isis and the growing threat of islamic extremism around the world? >> guest: the first thing you have to do is identify what the problem is. we have an administration that refuses to call it islamic terrorism. when you called the fort hood shooting workplace violence that who many say what happened in little rock at the army recruiting station with private and a long who was killed by an islamic jihad is trained in yemen when you say that's just a state crime and murder that has

nothing to do with terrorism is hard to defeat the enemy if you don't know who it is. the first thing is recognized that radical islamic jihad-ism islam all fascism is religious fanaticism that has resulted in people who truly believe their purpose on gods earth is to kill everybody who doesn't agree with them that you cannot negotiate with that. this is unlike any war we have ever fought before because in a traditional where you are fighting a geopolitical foresight has boundaries that may want to extend those boundaries of the war may be over piece of real estate. you can negotiate real estate and you may come to conclusion. you may have to defeat the enemy. you may have to tell them they can't have anything beyond the borders and you may have to take the borders away but the point is you know what the endgame is. when you have a force and their endgame is the annihilation of everyone they consider to be a

religious infidel there is no negotiation. there's nothing to negotiate. their view is -- so our view has to be nell you die. >> host: would you suggest that we have boots on the ground in places like syria and yemen and parts of my grad and what is your solution from a foreign-policy standpoint? >> guest: boots on the ground in some places may be necessary if we have a specific target that we are going to attack but just saying we are going to put boots on the ground all over the world they can do that. first of all we are not equipped for it. we don't have the stamina and the will for that but we have to say to many of the people in the rest of the world we are tired of our boots being the only one making a footprint. often we are making footprints in your part of the world and frankly we are not going to keep

spilling american blood for the lives of saudi's and the uae. if you want to keep your kingdoms you will have to fight for it. you will have to fight and call them what they are and if you're not willing to do that when the dark clouds come upon you good luck you are on your own. we need to find people in the middle east who are chew allies. we have one in israel. we treated them dismally. i'm ashamed and embarrassed at the manner we treated the one sure ally we have that we have an allied and president of the city of egypt but we have insulted him and pushed him into the arms of vladimir putin. i think that's a relationship that can be restored with a president who understood the value of a president like president al-sisi. the king of jordan is another ally. we have the opportunity to build something different but you

can't do it when you're showing disrespect to your friends like israel and egypt and kissing up and bringing hugs and kisses to the iranians which we can never trust. >> host: let's talk about some social issues. you have said before that if republicans want to lose a guy like you they can abdicate the issue of marriage. i can make a conservative case for marriage that marriage is a stabilizing institution but i can also make a political case for marriage. not that conservatives need to support marriage but maybe loosen their opposition and the reason our millennials. 80 million potential voters, the biggest generation in history and they are largely in support of. is that a problem for you both in terms of running for president and in terms of holding firm on to this issue that i know you are very

passionate about? >> guest: i think there's a big difference between and marriage. rights would say no person should be penalized because they are gay from a job being able to visit where they want, live where they want great i have no problem with making the accommodations that used to be the centerpiece of the discussion of visitation and making sure there are visitation rights and all sorts of aspects that used to be the focus around civil unions. marriage either means something or it doesn't and historically it has meant that a man and a woman form a relationship in which they are going to be committed to each other as partners for life and then monogamous relationship and from that partnership they would would biologically produce the next next generation and train a

generation to be their replacements. that's the simplest explanation. of course we have adoption and all kinds of ways in which the next generation can be trained but married to a size meant that. my position on marriage by the way is the exact position that barack obama had in 2008 and when he was talking to rick warren at saddleback church in august of 2008 and rick warren asked him about same-sex marriage here is what barack obama said. he said i believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and i don't believe it should be other things and use this term, because it's as a christian i believe god is in the mix. barack obama believed that in 2008 as did hillary clinton asked to joe biden as did every i think democratic presidential candidate that i know of. here's my point, if barack obama

said i believe marriage is between a man and a woman because that's what we were capable of doing a society than i would have granted him license to change his mind. but that's not what he said. so tell me what other option is there? that's my point. i don't feel like my view is all that crazy. it's the same view that has been held and the view the president himself has held. >> host: we have seen a lot changed since 2008. now you can be a democrat. you can no longer be a democrat who does not support it. they'll seem to have evolved on that issue and even some republicans have come out in support of gay marriage.

it do you think you can become president of the united states without agreeing on that issue considering how large a voting group the millennial generation will be? >> guest: i think people will vote for the next president based on the sea going to bring jobs, is he going to bring a new sense of optimism about america, will he make this country safer? will he understand the threat we face international and globally and do a better job of protecting us? will he understand what it is to be a struggling class and to try to build an economy that works for people like that? i just don't believe the deal killer is going to be the position on marriage and i will give a couple of examples. ronald reagan ran as a pro-life candidate when it was very unpopular to be pro-life and people said he can never be elected.

people didn't elect him because organs than i believe this. ultimately what voters look for its authenticity. voters are going to know that i'm a person who believes in a biblical definition of marriage. i believe what mother teresa believed, billy graham, the pope and barack obama circa 2008 so i'm not really way out there. i believe marriage up to be -- so i don't have some crazy -- crazy view of marriage. i have a view that has a long and notch his religious tradition but social and political tradition. so i don't think that is the deal killer. i think people will say i don't agree with my party on marriage but mike huckabee believes that. >> host: chopard was recently discussed throwing his hat back in the ring is that rummy.

should he throw his hat back in the third time? >> guest: if he wants to as a free country so i wouldn't say hey you have had your shot and that's it. if he thinks he can make another go of it and be successful this time after two other times when he wasn't then he has every right to give it his best shot. i will be focused upon whether i should run rather than rather -- whether mitt romney should run. >> host: if jeb bush ones you think america is ready for another bush in the white house? >> guest: i guess the voters will make that decision. jeb is a good friend of mine. we served together a good bit of the time. i came and two and a half years before he came into office that they been served at least eight of my 10 and half years as

governor. he was a very good governor and a good guy. and away it's like saying it's unfair that he has this great platform but then he might argue that it's unfair that he is being penalized because of his last name and his background because he can't help it that he was biologically born into the bush family. >> host: you also have a number folks in the house and senate, rand paul, marco rubio and maybe ted cruz who are discussed as possible candidates. you'd think someone coming out of this congress which is much maligned in washington is so dysfunctional as you know do you think someone coming out this congress could get elected president right now? >> guest: if someone is seriously contemplating running i certainly hope so because that would eliminate a lot of the competition wooden it? >> host: do you think the governor has a better chance?

>> guest: i think it would be a president but if he has a better chance or not i don't know and here's why. if you had been a governor you have managed a microcosm of the federal government and you have actually led it. you have been responsible for it. you have served in executive position and every agency that exists at the federal level you have a corresponding agency at the state level and you understand the whole field of play. by the way unlike what some people think governors have a great understanding of domestic policy and they don't know much about the world i would challenge that because as a governor one travels all over the world and trade deals and partnerships. we have a global economy and guess what? governors who have multinational companies with in their state do business all over the world. you can't find a governor that has been traveling around the globe and he is dealing man to man or man to woman with ceos

and heads of state not just in having a conversation or being part of a study group but actually making deals and negotiating. i think that a great level of experience to take to the presidency. >> host: i think the fact that there are so many potential contenders here speaks volumes about the idea of running against someone like hillary clinton. doesn't seem like anyone is all that intimidated by her. do you find her intimidating as a potential opponent if you run? >> guest: i think everyone would be an intimidating opponent. the only way to run his unopposed or scared. those are the two options you have as a candidate. i don't expect any republicans will run unopposed. we have got to run scared and if i were fortunate enough to get the nomination i would have great respect for the force of

nature hillary clinton's candidacy. i don't think she has the connective quality that her husband has. she is more of a policy wonk the ideologue loves that incredible connect with people that bill is. i don't think there's anybody on the republican side who might run for for president he would have a better understanding of the clintons than i would and maybe understand the background and so on. even having said that hillary clinton is a rock star within the democratic party but it's interesting that while all the democrats expect her to run in and most of them say they will support her i'm not convinced. first of all i'm not convinced that she will pull the trigger when she had dashes us to run. probably will but maybe not an issue does i don't think it's a foregone conclusion that she's the nominee were certainly not

elected president. i don't think she will be elected president and let me say why. when people say it's inevitable, it was inevitable for hillary clinton to be the nominee in 2008 and is relatively unknown upstart junior senator who sponsored zero legislation in the senate career brief as it was named barack obama came up and beat her. so let's let recent history guide with the future may hold. >> host: who might that be this time click for you thinking elizabeth warren or who are you thinking on the left would maybe surpass hillary in the democratic primary? >> guest: i don't really think it's elizabeth warren. she may get in it. she has an interesting voice for the left. it's not a voice i would agree with but she does touch the nerve of a lot of people on the left maybe the very far left. i think it would be somebody we hadn't thought about.

a person who has been an effective democratic governor somebody who has managed and govern and lead and is a good communicator. i am hard-pressed to tell you who that is i'm not trying to build somebody's career and puff them up here in the next thing you know i'm going to announce because mike huckabee said that i would be a great president, wow. so i i i will forego that temptation. >> host: let's hope jerry brown and andrew cuomo aren't listening right now to this. let's say you win the republican nomination in let's say hillary clinton wins the democratic nomination for the sake of argument what kind of campaign would you run against? what are her weakness is? you know her very well. what weaknesses would you exploit if you are the republican nominee? >> guest: i can't tell you all what i would do because then i would be giving it all away.

i think heller's clinton's challenge is she will be tied more to this next election to the policies of barack obama than the policies of her husband bill clinton. as first lady she didn't have an official policy role in the white house. in the obama white house she ran the state department. she was secretary of state. she set the table for our relationships with other countries and i asked mike was democratic friends and yes i have a few. i've asked him this question they can answer. i say name a country on this planet with whom we have a better relationship now than we did when the obama administration took office in january 2009 and guess what? nobody can give me a name of one country, none. i think that's going to be a problem for her and even though the left goes when you mention things like ben gowdy i still think that is heartburn for

hillary clinton. >> host: and what do you expect democrats to do with a war on women especially if hillary clinton is the nominee? how would you handle that inevitability from the last? >> guest: i hope that's the best weapon the left has because of it is we might as well go ahead and start measuring drapes and getting the inaugural ball planned. that has proven to fall so short. the colorado senate race is its great example of how this message ring so hollow. intelligent, thoughtful strong women know they are not helpless creatures of their gender. lord knows my wife knows that. my daughter knows that. my daughter in law knows that. all the women that i have surrounded myself with my chief of staff for 10 half years as a female and many of my cabinet

officers would be livid if i said to them while we are going to give you these jobs. you are not really able to do them because you are woman and you are helpless to your gender and if you don't have some help from the government you will never be able to make it. i would have my face slapped into the next county for saying something like that. women are capable of doing anything they wish to do and women know that intuitively and instinctively and strong women are insulted when someone tells them that they can't make it without the government coming around to bail them out and let them up. >> host: we have talked about milenials and talk about women. what about minorities? what can the republican nominee whether you or someone else do to bring more minorities into the fold for 2016? we have lost a good amount in the past two elections. >> guest: probably the only republican on the remote list of

people who can say he had 49% of the african-american vote in the state which i did when i ran for election as governor my vote among hispanics was in the high 40s as well. as somebody for whom this is not an abstract, this is something that i have actually done and i want to tell you something i'm very frustrated because i try to tell republicans we shouldn't be giving up on minority votes. these are folks about to be with us and they would be if we worked at it and not by pandering, we worked at it by building relationships and showing her policies lift up all the people whatever color, whatever gender whatever their ethnicity. the reason i got the votive as governors i built relationships with people in the minority community. i give them positions they had never held before. this would surprise people.

minorities got more major executive level appointments in my administration a republican administration than in bill clinton administration. by the way more women held high-level executive positions in my administration than bill clinton's. maybe the republicans ought to pick somebody who has a real history of getting women and minorities to vote for them. who could that be? think about that. >> host: do you think republicans have in many cases given up the minority vote? >> guest: of course they have and it's absurd. why would they do that? minorities want the same thing that anyone wants. let's talk about giving them the power to choose the schools for their kids. let's talk about making sure they have access to a decent education for their kids and a safe place for their kids to play and to give them an opportunity to one day live in a neighbor they want to rather

than some housing project that the government exiles them to. there are a number of ways. let's talk about the fact we want exactly what i want the ability to be fairly -- treated fairly and justly and make sure the criminal justice system does not unfairly punish them with the sentence that is distinctly different than if they were upper middle class white kid with a good attorney. those are things we can talk about. >> host: in "god, guns, grits and gravy you write quote i would rather eat barbecue with you albrighton châteaubriand at the wall street banker. i've rather sit in church with nancy that make up artist and author with european royalty bearing more comfortable at walmart than tiffany's so what do you want people to know about you? why are you letting it out this way?

>> guest: i think sometimes people believe if you are in politics you are living in a world so unlike bears that your life, your values are so different than theirs and you can't possibly understand them. over the past five or six years i have been blessed to make a better income than i ever have but let me tell you something. even to this day i'm still the person that i was as a kid growing up -- rundown house on second street whose parents between the two of them worked three jobs and barely made made the rent on that little house. i'm still a kid who had to make my choice because we couldn't afford the cool stuff and i had to use my imagination. i've often said i've learned how to sit at the head table but i always have more in common with the people who are working in the kitchen than the one sitting at the head table. i think people want someone to lead them to understand them

who respects them who understands how hard they work and sometimes for how little they have to show for it. people don't want people at the top to necessarily be torn down. they just want the people at the top to know how hard the struggle is and to make a pathway so they can get to the next rung on the ladder. i'm convinced that is missing in a lot of the messaging. not just for republicans but i think it's missing in the message from democrats as well. >> host: do you think that 2016 is going to be one of those presidential years that's about personality or is it going to mostly be that pendulum swing away from what we had had with barack obama and maybe more towards a caretaker figure? at the scene for me in 2016. >> guest: i think ultimately comes down to vision and leadership. i'm convinced when people elect

a president it's not all ideological it's personal. if they feel like they can connect to the person they don't necessarily agree with the person on every issue but they want to know does this person know people like me? does this person care about people like me? do i like this person? what i'd invite them into my home? when you say is a personality, it always is. a person may be brilliant and have all the right pedigree but if he is unlikable he is not going to be elected in america. so i'm convinced that it's a combination but ultimately it's the messaging. part of the theme that i want to convey even as i wrote the book was to say to people if you are that person out there living in the heartland of america and you think nobody