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tv   Politics Public Policy Today  CSPAN  August 20, 2011 1:00am-6:00am EDT

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i feel good" playing] . .
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♪ so good, so good, i got you ♪ ♪ somebody help me get out
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of louisiana, just help me get to town ♪ ♪ i have people there that care about me ♪ ♪
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♪ ♪ little less conference, a will the more action ♪ ♪ all this aggravation ♪
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>> next, remarks by former republican presidential candidate and former new mexico governor gary johnson. then remarks to mark the 50th
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anniversary of the berlin wall the [captioning performed by national captioning institute] . [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] . >> tomorrow on "washington journal," robert recollecter from the heritage foundation looks at the effectiveness of social programs. daniel serwer discusses why leaders are calling for the removal of the sirian president. and sam dillon talks about the obama administration's decision to allow states to a -- apply for waivers for a key provision on proficiency in reading and math the >> it's a country fraught with corruption, natural disasters, and islamic extremists. >> what was really shobbing to me and many people in pakistan is that these assassinations were welcomed. were congratulated by many pakistanis. these are not terrorists, not
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al qaeda, not taliban, but ordinary pakistanis who feel that their religion is threatened, that, that the country is becoming too secular, that the islamic values are under attack and that blasphemy, which is anything that insults the prophet or islam, is something to be defended with your life. >> washington post correspondent pamela constable sunday night on "q.&.a.". >> now, republican presidential candidate and former new mexico governor gary johnson speaks at the national press club in washington. mr. johnson did not participate in the iowa straw poll and did not receive any votes. this weekend, he begins a nine-day campaign tour of new hampshire which is scheduled to hold a primary in february, 2012. this is one hour.
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>> good afternoon and welcome to the national press club. i'm mark hambrick with associated press, the 104th president of the national press club. we are the leading professional organization for journalists and are committed through our programming such as this to foster a free press worldwide. >> for more information about the national press club, we invite you to visit our web site. to donate to our programs, please visit the web site at www.press.org/library. so,on behalf of our members worldwide, i would like to welcome our speaker, as well as those of you attending today's event. our head table includes guests of the speaker as well as working journalists who are club members, so if you hear applause, we would like to note that there are members of the public in attendance, and it is not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalistic integrity.
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-- objectivity. i would also like to welcome our c-span audience. our luncheons are featured an a weekly podcast from the national press club for free download on i-tunes. you can also follow the action on twitter or through our podcast. after our guest's speech concludes, we will have q&a and allow for as many questions as time permits. now it is time to introduce our head table. by way of background, a journalist's presence at the table does not imply or signify an endorsement of the speaker. so we'll get to that right now. i will ask each of you to stand up briefly as your name is announced. we begin with john hurley with the mcclendon news service. jonathan cool, public affairs and media specialist. patrick mcgrath, former national correspondent for channel 5 here in washington and a fellow member of the national press club board of governors.
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jonathan did lack is with the johnson campaign and a guest of the speaker. mike sorhan is also a member of our board of governors. kip nightly is a guest of the speaker and a colleague in the state government of our guest today. skip over the podium for a moment. melissa is our media chair and doing a fabulous job this year. thank you very much for that. skip over our speaker for just a moment. rachael ray is a culture writer for the daily telegraph of london. she was an organizer of today's lunch and did a great job. thank you, rachael. charles free-throw lineman is a guest of our speaker and also with the campaign in the state of virginia. michael coleman is the washington correspondent with the albuquerque journal. tim young is the chair of our young members committee here at the national press club and a contributor to the huffington
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post. chris murphy is the producer and host of your financial editor. it is good to have a public broadcaster here today. you can now applaud the head table. thank you. our guest today is candidate gary johnson, two-term governor of new mexico. like ron paul, our guest might be considered to be a libertarian in republican's clothing. >> our guest is for limited government, a fiscal conservative who delivered hundreds of the vetoes during his governorship. i understand that was part of your job, was to manage that within the legislature, kev. he says he will take a similar approach to governance as president. that does raise the question today, while many americans appear to be yearning for a more effective government, one that could put country above
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party, where would governor johnson fit into that division? he is an outspoken advocate of legalizing marijuana, a gay-rights, and keeping government out of the way of creating jobs. governor johnson has express the frustration and anger that his message which he believes res an -- resonates with americans in one-on-one campaigning, has not received wide news coverage. he has not been invited to participate in the c nmple n debate in june. he opted out of the iowa straw poll last weekend. the "washington times" dubbed him the rodney dangerfield of the election in that he gets no respect. my apologies to those of you who are too young to know who rodney dangerfield is. our thinking about that is that our mission is to promote transparency in government, not limit debate. we are pleased to offer him the opportunity to bring his
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perspective to this table. he condemned the marriage vow that a christian conservative group asked him to sign. handled by some candidates with kid gloves as un-american and unrepublican, stating, adds -- and we quote here, "in one concise document, they managed to condemn case, a single parents, single individuals, divorce say is, muslims, unmarried couples, women who choose to have abortions and everyone else who does not fit into a normal -- norman rockwell painting." he mocked candidate tim pawlenty's ad on his decision to send national guard troops to the u.s.-mexico border as a waste of money and mocked governor perry for doing an impression of george bush. with his own ideas on the budget, medicare and the department of education,
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governor johnson recognizes that name recognition has been an impediment to his message. with no further delay, we want to give him a chance to deliver that message today. please give a warm national press club welcome to governor johnson. >> great introduction. i am not frustrated and i am not angry. i am really not. i think this is a process, and i am a believer in the process. in that process, i have to sell myself as being capable to fill this job as president of the united states. in that context, who am i? i am an entrepreneur. i have been an entrepreneur my entire life. i started a one-man handyman business in albuquerque in 1974, and in 1994, had 1000 employees, the american dream come true.
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electrical, mechanical, pipefighting -- pipefitting. a lot of hard work, but a lot of accountability that went along with that, and really, a real success story. i sold that business in 1999. no one lost their job and that business is doing better than ever, go figure. but it gave me the financial freedom to be able to do what i want to do when i want to do it, and that has always been a goal of mine, and i have always viewed that as entrepreneurial. my venture into politics was entrepreneurial. i have run for two political office is in my life, governor of new mexico and reelection as governor of new mexico. i am also an athlete. i have been an athlete by entire life, and i think that is part of the equation, the discipline, the fitness that is part of this job -- i think you need somebody that sets goals and has the discipline to
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accomplish things. so in my lifetime, you know, i have done the hawaiian iron man triathlon four times. i have had a lot of really good adventures. i actually summitted mount everest after i was through being governor, which was a great treat. it was a terrific adventure. actually got to stand on top of the planet. people ask me, gosh, what was it like to conquer mount everest? i did not conquer mount everest. she lifted her skirt and i got in there and got a peak and it was really cool. so my venture into politics was temperature nurel. i did some things as governor that were really unique. it was fun, by the way. it was invigorating. it was really wonderful to be
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cutting edge on policy decisions, to understand what the issues were and to make decisions that in my opinion benefited the citizens of new mexico. the pledge from me was that politics would be last, issues would be first, that i would understand the issues. i had an open door after four policy as governor of new mexico. store -- for eight straight years, i saw anyone in the state on the third thursday of a month starting at 4:00 in 5 minute increments. there was no one in new mexico that could say they could not get into see the governor about this or that, and that was really, really enlightening. when i ran for governor the first time, the incumbent controlled the debate process. so i debated the incumbent two times. when i ran for reelection, we did some polling, and i was up 10 points.
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so given the fact that i was up 10 points and that i controlled the debate process, i ended up debating my opponent 28 times, which i thought was good politics, because i thought it was people really wanted. as governor of new mexico i did this trek for trash program that i still have today. i have now biked across the state of new mexico 100 days for 100 miles at a time, picking up trash across the state. i have done that for 18 straight years, which i think has also been popular. they did a poll here on all the presidential candidates and the favorability is that they have in their own states. do you know that there is only one candidate running for president that is viewed favorably in his or her own state? i teed that up, of course.
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[laughter] i thought that was great. they did a study here a couple of weeks ago on job history. what is the jobs report when it comes to each candidate running for president? i had the best jobs record, the creation of jobs in new mexico when i was governor, as opposed to anyone else running for office. now that rick perry has entered the race, he is statistically a hair ahead of me, but a couple of weeks ago i lead that. and when that came out, i said two weeks ago what i said as governor of mexico. i did not create one single job as governor of new mexico. government does not create jobs. the private sector does, but as government -- governor of new mexico, i was able to veto legislation that was going to be adverse to business. then, when it came to rules and regulation, because i controlled all of the agencies, i created an environment where
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there was real certainty, and in that environment and jobs did grow. as governor of new mexico, i was distinguished for having vetoed perhaps more legislation than the other 49 governors in the country combined. i vetoed 750 bills while i was governor of new mexico. i had thousands of line-item vetoes, and i took of that debate and discussion that went along with all of those vetoes. it made a difference when it came to billions of dollars of spending that in my opinion was not going to make a difference in any of our lives. it was just going to spend money and pay lip service, rather than address issues. every day i engaged in the whole notion of, what has johnson vetoed today and why? and that got played out in print, radio and television,
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and i would like to think that i came out on top of that debate, always arguing for smaller government, always arguing that the best thing government could do for me as an individual was to empower me as an individual to make choices that i think only i have the capability to make. right now in this country, i think we are on the verge of a financial collapse. i think it is going to be a monetary collapse, and i think it is due to the fact -- it is going to be a bond market collapse -- and it is due to the fact that there is no repaying $14 trillion in debt given the fact that we are going to add another $11 trillion to that in the next eight years. it is not going to happen. so we're not -- we're not -- we're printing money to cover this debt.
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i really want to applaud congressman ron paul and the attention he has brought to the federal reserve and monetary policy and what that is all about. we have a monetary policy in this country right now where we have zero interest rate. the value of the money we have in our savings account is going to be worth nothing if there is a monetary collapse, and i suggest to you that it is unavoidable. it is going to happen. it is written. how do you avoid it, though? that is why i am here. i think you can avoid it by balancing the federal budget. i promised to submit a balanced budget in my first year as president, and that means cutting 43% of what government is currently spending. if we are going to talk about a reduction of 43%, we have got to start by talking about medicaid, medicare, and military spending.
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when it comes to medicaid and medicare, i suggest that the federal government could block grant the spate -- the state a set amount of money and give health care to the poor and those over 65. as governor of new mexico i reformed medicaid in the state of new mexico. i had an insurance policy as governor of new mexico. we did the math. how many medicaid recipients? what if we all -- what if we gave them all the same amount of money that i spend on my insurance policy? spending the same amount of money that i spent on my insurance policy. would we really save that amount of money? yes. that's exactly what we did. so that is what we did. we set up health care networks that did not exist prior to that and saved a significant amount of money. i maintain that
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if the federal government had given me medicaid with 43% less money to deliver health care to the poor, i could have done that in new mexico if they had done away with all of the strings and mandates attached to medicaid. if i had been given medicare, i think i would have been able to do the same thing, and that would be to deliver health care to those over 65, but with no strings, no mandates. the notion of 50 laboratories of innovation, 50 laboratories of best practice, in my opinion, that is what would happen. we would have spectacular success that would get emulated because we would all be competitive, and we would have spectacular failures that would get avoided in this same way. but the notion that washington knows best and top down is the answer, that has us in the predicament we are in. if we do not fix this -- it is not a sexy message -- but if we do not fix this, we will end up with nothing.
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we will end up printing 100% of the dollar's used to buy our own debt. debt it one thing. debt is a good thing. it implies that someone is loaning you the money and that they are going to get paid back. in the last year it has been reserved -- revealed that up to 70% of the treasury purchases made were from the federal reserve printing money. the monetary collapse is going to be when we print 100 percent of that money to buy our own debt, and the result of this is going to be an absolutely devastated dollar that is getting devastated right now. a strong u.s. dollar, balance the federal budget, cut 43% of what we are currently spending, and i am promising to do that. i promised to submit that budget as president, and i
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promised to veto legislation that goes out of bounds from being able to balance that federal budget. you will argue that they will override the veto. well, i would have been elected president of the united states promising to do this, and i will do this, and i hope based on my veto history that you would believe that i would do this. i think you're going to get closer to a balanced budget electing a president who is promising to submit a balanced budget as opposed to electing a president who is going to promise to do this over 15-20 years because that is the only prudent thing to do. we can fix this. we can fix this, but we have got to do it and we have got to do it now. talk about military spending. can we cut our military spending by 43% and still provide a strong national defense for ourselves? i think the operative word is
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national defense, and yes, i think we can do this, as opposed to offense or nation-building. i was opposed to iraq before we went into iraq. i did not see a military threat from iraq. and i thought we have had the military surveillance capability to see iraq rollout any weapons of mass destruction. if they would have done that we could've gone in and dealt with that situation. i thought if we went into iraq we would find ourselves in a situation or civil war to which there would be no end. afghanistan, initially, i thought that was totally warranted. we were attacked. we attacked back. after being in afghanistan for six months, we wiped out al qaeda. that was 10 years ago. we are building roads, schools,
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bridges and highways in iraq and afghanistan, and we are borrowing $0.43 on every dollar we are spending to do that. that is crazy. libya. when libya happened i issued a paper. i am opposed to what we are doing in libya a-z. where was the military threat? where in the constitution does it say that because we do not like a foreign leader we should go in and topple that foreign leader? where was the congressional authorization? have we injected ourselves into a civil war in libya? do not five other countries qualify for that same intervention? i suggest that we get out of iraq, afghanistan and libya tomorrow. when it comes to our military spending, does anyone here think it is justified that we have 100,000 troops on the ground in europe? i cannot find anyone who believes that.
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so looking at it that we might get by with 57,000 troops as opposed to 100,000 troops? i'd have to have the case made to me that we should have any troops there at all. and all these vaunted transportation infrastructure projects that have taken place in europe over the last several decades, you know, they've been able to afford those infrastructure on top of health care for their citizens because really they haven't had to spend any money on defense of the we've subsidized that. so the rest of the world needs to share in this vigil that we should have against terrorism. there is a real threat when it comes to terrorism and we should remain vigilant to that threat, but it cannot be just us. it has to be other countries. when it comes to issues like health care and energy, in the free market guy.
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as governor of new mexico, i vetoed all sorts of legislation that i felt unfairly advantaged individuals, groups, corporations that were connected politically, as opposed to legislation that would affect everyone equally. what do we need to do in this country? balance the federal budget first and foremost, and then we need to scrap our entire tax system in this country and replace it with a fair tax. if you have not looked at the fair tax, is fairtax.org, but basically it does away with all federal taxes and replaces it with one federal consumption tax. it is what it says. by all free market economists' reckoning, it is fair. those that make more money will
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pay more. no one is going to be able to avoid paying it. those who consume more will pay more. those under the poverty level will not have to pay. you will of us will be given a check from the government to pay our tax up to the poverty level. so it is what it is. simple, make it easy, it does away with income tax. does away with the i.r.s. it does away with corporate taxes, business to business. when you talk about creating jobs in this country, why would you start a job anywhere on the planet other than the united states given an environment where there is no tax? suggest tens of millions of jobs will be created in this country when you create an environment that a fair tax would bring about. free-market approaches to the
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solutions that we face. i believe in free markets. i think there is a magic to free markets, and the criticism of free markets really, is that it is manipulated, that it is not free, that is anything but free. when it comes to health care, when it comes to energy, free-market approaches to health care, to energy, looking at the immigration issue. i think immigration is a hot-button issue. i think it starts with our mexicans coming across the border and taking entry-level jobs from americans. absolutely not, because we and americans can collect welfare checks which is a little bit less money or the same amount of money for doing nothing. we need to reform welfare in this country. i think we should make it as easy as possible for someone who wants to come into this country to get a work visa, not a green card, not citizenship,
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but a work visa that would entail a background check and applicable taxes would be paid, and if we enact a fair tax, nobody would avoid paying taxes because of the one federal consumption tax. regarding the 11 million illegal immigrants that are in this country now, i think we set up a grace period where they can get a work visa. building a fence across 2,000 miles of border, putting the national guard arm and arm in -- arm in arm across 2,000 miles of border, in my opinion, is a whole lot of money spent with very little benefit whatsoever. and then, do not discount the problems with drugs at the border and border violence. this is prohibition played out.
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i have advocated the legalization of marijuana since 1999. legalize marijuana and arguably 75% of the border violence with mexico goes away, that being the essence of the drug -- estimate of the drug cartel's activities that are engaged in the marijuana trade. legalize marijuana. control it. regulated. tax it. it is never going to be illegal to smoke pot and be impaired and drive b -- be legal to smoke pot and be impaired and drive behind the wheel of a car. it is never going to be legal to smoke pot and do harm to someone. it is never going to be legal to sell pots to kids, but which is going to be the easier situation to control? the one where kids buy drugs illegally and then by harder drugs, or the one where you have to show an i.d. like you
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do with alcohol? based on the experience in holland and portugal, i think it would get better, not worse. 28,000 deaths south of the border over the last four years. if we can not connect the dots between prohibition and violence, i do not think we ever will. these disputes are being played out in with guns rather than in the courts. this is a contest right now on the republican side to go up against president obama in the general election. i really think that if republicans do not concentrate on pocketbook issues they are not going to find themselves in a position to be able to make the change needed. i want to say the republicans should not be focused on social issues. i will tell you, when i ran for governor of new mexico, i did not get the social conservative vote in the primary.
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it was not something that i was going to get. i did not get it, but i got that vote in the general election, because then the focus was on the pocketbook and the pocketbook issues. i think republicans really need to concentrate on pocketbook issues, and if republicans are going to be talking about abortion, if they are going to be talking about gays, gays in the military, gay unions -- and by the way, i support gay unions. i fundamentally support as human beings right to make decisions that only they should make. i fundamentally believe a woman should have the right to make the decision when it comes to an abortion. i happen to believe, and this is, you know, these are social issues to a degree, i happen to believe in evolution. i happen to believe that global warming is happening and that it is man caused, but that
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said, what should we do about global warning -- warning? i do not think we should implement cap and trade -- for the millions of dollars or trill yops of dollars we're looking at that dosh -- to tax carbon emission i don't think it's going to make a difference long term and those resources could be redirected in many more effective ways. this is my pitch to all of you. i would not be standing here if i did not think i could do this job. i would not be standing here if i did not think this needs to be fixed, and based on my experience, good government was easy. it was not difficult. it was easy. it just took the willingness to go out and do this. and this -- there is nothing in
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my resume to suggest that i am not able to go out and pursue this. i guess we will now open this up to questions and any insults' that you all may have. >> hopefully not. thank you very much. we'll go ahead and ask questions and we have had a good flow of them since you began speaking. that's a good sign. here is one that says, it is a growing opinion that it is not just congress that cannot compromise, but the american people themselves. everyone wants to live in communities where they do not have to listen to opposing views. what makes you the consensus candidate? >> i would not have raised the debt ceiling. i think for all of the trials and tribulations that would have gone on by not raising the debt ceiling, that we would have stopped printing money, and that is what we need to do.
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stop printing money. and that we could have addressed this now. it would be extremely difficult to deal with it now, but i suggest dealing with it now will pale in comparison to what looms in the not too distant future. we need to deal with that. look, i attend events where people are screaming, "balance the budget, balance the budget, cut spending," and they're holding a sign that says "don't touch my med i caire." -- med i quear. medicare. there has to be a consensus here built on reality. as president of the united states, as governor of new mexico, i know the power of the bully pulpit, the ability to talk about issues. as governor of new mexico, advocating school choice,
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advocating bringing competition to public education, you can make a difference. you can make a huge difference. that is the role the president has and should be carrying out to its greatest degree. >> so you mentioned the debt ceiling at the outset there. would default have been ok in your view. >> i don't see a defaut -- default. i didn't see that happening the we would not default on debt payments or payments that were important. military personnel, whenever that might have bent. but this was, in my opinion, an opportunity to deal with this now. i do not want to discount how painful the process would be right now if congress and the president were to have engaged in this, i just suggest it is going to pale in comparison to a monetary collapse where we are not going to be in control at all.
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>> so, when you say you did not see a default happening, are using a default would have been avoided or it would have been pemisible under the way you would have managed the situation? >> well, i wouldn't be the dictator. i would be the president of the united states and i respect the three branches of government, but if i had been a dictator, yes, i would have made all the interest payments and all of the payments that would have kept this country going forward, and i would put a stop to spending in areas that we have to put an end to. back to being the dictator, i would have waved that magic wand and i would have block-granted the states medicaid and medicare. we would have had 50 different ways of dealing with the delivery of health care to the poor and those over 65, but we would work it out. we would be working it out right now. as opposed to not working it out, and there is no magic in this. there is a day of reckoning here.
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>> so your proposal is to cut 43% of the budget. in a town where people at the end of the day ultimately have to get along or they do not accomplish anything, there was no agreement to cut -- the to cut $4 billion, right? in other words, the maximum solution was not the one they agreed to. >> exactly. >> so ultimately, how would you have covered more effectively in that situation? >> what you are pointing out is the impossibility of balancing the budget. it is impossible. you cannot do it. well, if i get elected president of the united states, and this is what i say i am going to do, is to submit a balanced budget and not expect anything short of a balanced budget, what message does that send to congress? i think that sends the message that we really as the american people want this issue addressed. i just argue that
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if you're going to elect a president who you may view as pragmatic because we need to do this over 15-20 years, it is not going to happen. we are going to find ourselves with nothing. that is the un-sexy message about all of this. we are going to find ourselves with nothing at the end of the day, as opposed to fixing it. there is a lot to be said for fixing this, and we can do it. we went to the man. -- the moon. we can balance the federal budget. >> some people would like you to differentiate yourself from ron paul, who as we know finished second in the iowa straw poll. there do seem to be some points of difference. you referenced him in your speech. to the extent that he in some ways might be seen as having views that are similar to yours, how are you different? >> it gets back to resume , and i think that dr. paul has had many, many principled no votes in congress.
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the only no votes in congress. i would like to think that if i were in congress i would have done and would do the same thing. but as governor of new mexico, out of those 750 vetoes -- new mexico is two-one democrat. the legislature was 2-1 democrat. out of those 750 vitos, one-third were republican bills because republicans grew government just like democrats, in my opinion, and that legislation needed to be vetoed. unofficially, i vetoed 100 bills where the vote was 117-0. and i vetoed 9 legislation and only two of them were overridden, so it stood up. at the end of the day, dr. paul, and again, i applaud his principled position as a congressperson, but my experience was different.
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i could not go home at the end of the day rendering my veto. i had to explain it. i had to debated. i had to discuss it. and that went on all the time. and i would like to think that the perfect -- a verdict on that was that i ended up getting reelected the second time by a larger margin than the first time in a state that is majority democrats. i'd like to think that spoke to the fact that people really appreciate good stewardship of tax dollars. >> but under your vision of for example, cutting the budget 43%, you veto, veto, veto. when does the budget get passed? >> if congress does not balance, they are going to have to override, and if they override, then it becomes the choice of the american public. do we stick with a president that we've elected promising to submit a balanced budget? or do we overturn
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congress, and if congress overrides, i suggest to you that the end product will still come a lot closer to being balanced than if you elect a president vowing to do this over a 15-20 year time. it will be business as usual and these problems are not going to get addressed. >> some people have sent up questions about the electoral process so far. can you talk about why you did not want to participate in the iowa straw poll and that you were not invited to participate in some of the debates? first of all, how do you see yourself, you know, getting to the finish line with those challenges so far? >> there are 184 candidates declared running for president. it so happens that i am like the guy right on the bubble. it is where it works out. i am like ninth out of those 184. you could say, wow, what do i need to break through, or you could say, in ninth.
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i am due to break through here. it is well known that i am not well known. staxly i'm the least known republican candidate. >> well known that you are not well known? >> exactly. it's well known that i'm not well known. thank you. if you are known by 100% of republicans and you're pulling at about the same level that i am -- which, by the way, 1%-2%, what does that say? really, not anything. what a 17% say for the front runner when the 17% does not move? it says that this is wide open. i am putting my chips on the table in new hampshire, a state that i think has a terrific political environment. people say come in, sit down, tell me what you think. let's talk. let's discuss. let's cuss about this.
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iowa. my decision to forgo iowa is that my running for president is very entrepreneurial. it is reflective of the times. we are doing this on a shoestring compared to others. in iowa, it was $35,000 for a booth. it was $30 per ticket to bring in supporters, of which i guess it was reported that michele bachmann bought 6000 tickets. do the math. and that did not include the barbeque or the entertainment. i could not afford it. i could not afford it. >> fair enough. as this continues on, do you feel you have the resources to mount a campaign in new hampshire? you said you're going there essentially after this. >> yes, we have an office in new hampshire. we have four full-time people
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in new hampshire. they are terrific. they are all young and they are ideologues and they are terrific. we're fighting for a cause, if you will, so it is fun. if you're not spending a whole lot of money, and i am not, i can last through this. i might end up winning california. that is how this will all work. >> rick perry seems to have toned down some of his words going from iowa to new hampshire. how do you think what you are presenting plays in new hampshire relative to the rest of the country from what you have seen so far? >> i experienced this when i ran for governor the new mexico. >> when i ran for the governor of new mexico, the primary was in june. in february, they did a poll, five months before the primary in new mexico, they did a poll,
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who would you vote for on the republican side of the ticket? i was at 2% of the republican vote. we were ecstatic, because i was on the list, but we had not spent any money when it came to trying to actually sell a message. what is it that i am saying? i had worked harder than anybody at that point. i had addressed more people. i had built up a great base in new mexico, and it worked out that way. when we started spending money on what it was i was saying, i went from 2%-24% in a couple of weeks. in understand how it works. i understand that you can do well in new hampshire. you can go from obscurity to prominence overnight with a good showing in new hampshire, and that goes back to eugene mccarthy. this is the card that i am playing. >> someone asked why you did not just run as an independent, in light of the way you have been treated by the
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establishment? why seek the republican nomination at all given the differences you may have with members of that party? >> first of all, i have no problem with the republican party. the republican party has been great to me my entire career. the republican party has been, "come on in, this is a big tent." i have no complaints with the republican party, none whatsoever. and i really do not have any complaints with the press either. this is a process and you grind it out. you grind it out, and i think it is a process where you have to say the right things, espouse the things i really need to get done, and then you have a resume that under the light of day says wow, this is somebody that actually is going to try to do what he says he's going to do.
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>> somebody asks, have you been asked to participate in any upcoming debates so far? >> yes. i have been in one and been excluded from two so far. i'm the guy on the bubble. they are pretty darn up front about it, where i was relative to where i needed to be. it is what it is. i guess i could not participate in another debate, and if i do well in new hampshire, maybe people will decide to go and hear what i have to say in south carolina. because of his showing in new hampshire. maybe as a result of talking to you here today, you will walk out of here and say, he does not stand a chance, but i like what he has to say. >> you have been described as holding political positions while governor that are similar to tea party recommendations. how you view yourself with respect to the tea party? >> the tea party is a mixed bag.
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this is my opinion. i think this is what the tea party stands for, the federal checkbook. if that is true, great. i am a tea party year. -- partier, period. you know, talking about dollars and cents and how we spend our money and balancing the amount of money we spend, let's save our country and actually become fiscally sound. but i have seen tea party eslents that don't have that as their basis, that have a social agenda as their basis and in my opinion if republicans are going to lead or nominate a candidate that first and foremost has a social agenda, i don't see republicans in a position to actually address the problems that this country faces because i don't see this country electing a president that's going to lead with a social agenda.
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>> of all of the gop contenders, who do you see as the toughest challenger right now and how do you tailor your strategy to target that person? >> i am not going to tailor my strategy to target an opponent. i ran two campaigns for governor where i did not mention my opponent in prince -- print, radio, or television thei do not know any other candidate can claim that. mitt romney has raised a lot of money. 300 times as much money as i have. you know, that's formidable. i do not think i have to say anything about it romney that isn't going to get that it out in the process -- about mitt romney that isn't going to get vetted out in the process. again i just say i believe in this process. i believe in this whole vetting out, and if i didn't, i wouldn't be here. >> our friend from the "houston
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chronicle" says you were new mexico governor when rick perry was starting out as texas governor. what do you think of him as a person and as a governor. do you think he is suited to be president either professionally or temperamentally? and what in your eight years as governor of new mexico better qualifies you than him for example who sent 10 years at the helm? >> i did like him. he took over for george bush. i served with him for two years. i thought he was a likable character, very charismatic. back to the job. in making the pitch that it is me, nobody else. if nothing else, i think you will all leave here being hammered by that pitch that i am giving you. that is the only thing i can control is my pitch. i love the fact that texas has such a great economic environment. i think that economic environment has existed for a long time, and that starts with no income tax. it is something i talk about in new mexico all the time, that
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this is the direction we need to move. it did not make reduction of taxes happen because of a legislature that was two-one democrat, but in the environment that i had to deal with, statistically, before rick perry entered into this race, i had the best record when it came to jobs. now that he is entered, statistically, it is kind of like the polls and trying to get into the debates. it is really close. >> what do you think of his suggestion that the fed chair has committed treason? >> i think the fed share is the messenger here. i think the fed has kept interest rates artificially low. in my opinion, the federal reserve should be pursuing policies for a strong u.s. dollar not a weak u.s. dollar. if we were to abolish the federal reserve, the treasury could still print money. that would happen. if we were to abolish the federal reserve, we would have
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to make up a lot of the functions that the federal reserve does carry out with regional banks, and we could make that happen. transparency within the federal reserve, that is what i think is really key, and we should work to see that more transparency comes out of the federal reserve, but no, bernanke is the messenger here. he is having to deal with the situation that i am arguing is a situation that puts us on the verge of a monetary collapse, and if interest rates are not at zero, which he, the federal reserve controls, that interest rate, if they weren't at zero we could be in that financial collapse, monetary collapse right now. it would be evident to the world and all of us as citizens. >> someone asked, we have the 9/11 anniversary coming up.
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the 10th anniversary. you taked a little bit, referred to that earlier. what do you think about the federal government's reaction to that in general? you thought that moving into afghanistan could of been a little more concise. what about the department of homeland security, tsa, etc.? >> i would have never established the department of homeland security. i think it is duplicative. i would never have established tsa. i would have left airline security to the airlines, and i daresay that today getting on an airplane would be as safe and less intrusive if the airlines were in charge as opposed to tsa. right after 9/11, we secured the cockpit doors. well, that prevents an airplane ever being used as a missile again. more important than anything, passengers are not standing by for an asian managers -- for any shenanigans. and that is more important than
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anything right now. so after 9/11 in mexico, what i did in new mexico was i stood back and said no, no, we do not need to barricade the f.a.a. building on louisiana. it is not going to happen. we are not going to divert 30 years of traffic because of 9/11. no, i'm not going to post sentries on the dam in las cruces of the rio grande because someone is going to blow up the dam. on and on and on. on and on in the name of security, in the name of safety, we're giving up our civil liberties one step at a time, and i am not back by. i am not that guy to give up civil liberties. personal responsibility really starts with, can we spend more money than what government takes in and then hand that bill over to our kids?
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i don't think so. >> someone says if the u.s. pulled out of iraq and afghanistan tomorrow as you propose, would you have any concerns about al qaeda filling the vacuum that would be left. >> if we pull out of iraq and afghanistan tomorrow, these are the questions we are going to be faced with. what is going to happen? that debate and that discussion is going to be totally warranted. it is going to have bases in fact, and it would be something that would concern us all. i just argue we're going to have this same debate and discussion 25 years from now if that's when we finally decide to get out, and i hope that's not the case. i hope to get elected president of the united states and begin an immediate pullout from iraq, afghanistan and libya. >> you said you support the notion of gay unions. does that translate to gay marriage? >> i think government should get out of the marriage
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business. i think government can be in the civil union business. get out of the marriage business. leave that to the churches. >> could you talk a little bit more about how you view the issue of climate change and what should the government's role be in mitigating that? >> well, climate change. i think the world is getting warmer. i think that this man -- i think that it is man-caused. that said, should we be engaged in cap and trade taxation? i do not think we should. we should lend certainty to the energy field. we should be building new coal-fired plants. when you look at the trends, i
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just think the result is completely inconsequential to the amount of money we could end up sending. the long-term view, should we take the long-term view when it comes to global warming? i think we should and in billions of years the sun is going to actually grow an encompass the earth, right? so global warming is in our future. >> census projections indicate that the u.s. will soon become a majority minority country, the largest minority being hispanics. some say because the gpgop has taken a hard line on immigration policies, they are ailyenating those people -- alien ating those people. >> it's a fair statement.
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i'm talking now about legal immigration. illegal immigration, bad thing. i gave you some suggestions on how we deal with illegal immigration effectively. but legal immigration is a good thing. we're geath -- getting the cream of the crop of workers when it comes to motorcycle. that's a fact. so the think that the republican party has vilified hispanics and that it's not necessary to do that and i've never done that and i don't intend to do that in the future. i view immigration as something positive. enact the fair tax, make this country the only place so -- to start up, grow, nurture a business, for those business in this country that are going to want to rely on low-cost labor, maybe that's a legal immigrant that can get a work visa to
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come in and work. so i think we should view all this as positive. new mexico for what it's worth has the highest per capita percentage of hispanics of any state in the country. about 47%. i'm oftentimes asked what did you do to attract the hispanic vote? because obviously i had to have hispanics vote for me to get elected much the answer is nothing. i didn't do a thing. i took the job from the standpoint of government should provide a level playing field for everybody. government should take this position of look, make it equal access for everybody and that means the american dream. you can go from having nothing to having everything if you are willing to work hard and innovate. i just argue that this government, our government, really gens -- benefits those that are well collect -- well connected politically as opposed to the latter, which is what this country is about.
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>> you talked in your speech about having an open door after 4:00 policy. would that extend to the white house? would you then be favoring additional funding for the secret service? [laughter] >> no, i'm looking at a 43% reduction in what the executive spends to be able to live from day to day. air force one needs to be grounded. that's symbolic, i realize, but it's not really. it's dollars and cents and that should take place the i would like to establish an open door after 4:00 for waste, fraud, and abuse. i think there could be some parameters set up that the third thursday of every month i would meet with anybody in government that has, that can tell me about the notion of waste, fraud, and abuse. i got to tell you based on my experience as governor of new mexico you can get right in the middle of this stuff and fix stuff immediately. yeah, you might say well, go,
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that's just peanuts compared to the whole. you know what? you fix the peanuts, i always said in open door after 4:00, i fix it for this one individual, i fix it for 40 others that have been subject to the same treatment but that haven't come in here. >> we're almost out of time. just like to take care of a couple housekeeping matters. we have upcoming luncheon speaks -- speakers on august 30. i'll conduct the questions with our labor secretary, hilda solis. september 6, rudy giuliani will be our guest. and we'd like to present you as a token of our appreciateiation our national press club coffee mug. >> thank you very much. >> one last question. there have been a couple of president johnsons about. one was the first president impeached, that was president
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andrew johnson. he was the 17th president of the united states. the second was president lyndon johnson, who last was in office in 09 -- 1969. how would you be different from them? >> i don't think there could be a bigger difference between lyndon johnson and myself as president of the united states. lyndon did give us medicaid and medicare and i think he set the course for where we're at right now financially. it's just taken this long to get there. so i'm good -- about as opposite i think -- i know lyndon johnson when he took office, new mexico voters didn't vote for him. roswell was an air force base at that time and because roswell didn't vote for him, he shut down that air force base. that's not me. that's not me. my thing is issues first, politics last. and that's what i would be as president of the united states. >> we'd like to thank you for
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being here today. >> thank you. thank you very much. [applause] like to think all of you in the audience as well as our television and radio arenas -- audiences listening today and we're adjourned. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]
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>> next, ceremonies in germany to mark the 50th anniversary of the berlin wall the then a conversation with a former defibrillator profiler. after that, a talk about the future of unmanned systems. >> on newsmakers, as kids head back to school, education secretary arne duncan talks about the state of the u.s. education system as well as waivers from the no child left behind law and other issues.
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sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. watch more video of the candidates. see what political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions with c-span's web site for campaign 201 it. easy to use, it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds, candidate bios, and polling data. all at c-span.org/campaign2012. now from berlin, a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the start of construction of the berlin wall. the german president and the mayor of berlin are among the speakers who remember those who died trying to escape east germany between 1941 and 191sh
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1961 and 1981 when the wall came down. this is about 50 minutes. >> representatives of all the associations of victims and dear friends and family members, relatives of all those who died at the wall, ladies and gentlemen, i would like to welcome you here at the memorial for our commemoration of the -- on the occasion of the anniversary which was built, the wall which was built 50 years ago. your presence underlines the
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importance of this date for european history as well as you are commemorating the victims of the wall and barbed wire and after our remarks we will be able to dedicate the memorial and for that reason we will have an inner city memorial which was possible only because of the mass dimension -- dimensions of all the east germans and others in leipzig and others in fall 1989. the wall is a site of individual greervings but at the same time it is symbolic of our collective memory of the victory over communism. a foremost symbol of the division germany and europe into a free party and a
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dictatorial part. and you can only guess the stept of the suffering -- extent of the suffering related to this wall. based on state order, families were torn apart. desperate individuals jumped out of their windows or jumped above barbed wire in august 1961. others tried to escape through underground tunnels or they perished and today they are among the at least 136 victims of the berlin wall. last night we memorialized their biographies in the chapel of conciliation and made sure that they would never be forgotten. more than 2,000 inhabitants of this street were evacuated by force. their houses were torn down and then the strip was built and you are actually sitting right on it.
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the strip even crossed semteries. eventually the chapel of conciliation was destroyed. today the former site of the berlin wall is actually a site to learn about the importance of freedom, the principles of democracy. as far as the certainty that these important goods are not self-evidence -- self-evident but it is important to remember that those who built the wall as a political solution were only buying themselves time so it is also a site that gives us hope that freedom is possible in this world where we still have crises worldwide and where people are not free. i would like to thank those individuals and associations that allowed us to plan and build this unusual memorial. without your dedication and support we would not have
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succeeded. i would also like to include in my gratitude of course my wonderful collaborators and i would like to thank you for your dedication to this unique project. i will now give the floor to the govering mayor of berlin. [applause] >> federal president, miss wolf, representatives of the constitutional bodies, honorable citizens of berlin, dear representatives of the associations of victims and
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ladies and gentlemen and in particular dear friends of germany, of berlin and germany and the rest of the world, today we are commemorating the saddest day in the more recent history of berlin. the bern aur -- bernauer street has become the foremost symbol of the tragedy of our city. after august 13, 1961, nothing was the same again. the construction of the wall hit us to the core. we, the berl iners, were helpless watching how the fed cemented the spravegs our city. we were shocked and desperate. many individuals at the last second tried to escape to the west. .
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it was the bankruptcy debt correlation of a system that people try to take -- get away from. today we memorializing commemorate the victims of the regime, but we also remember those sites of horrors, prisons where people were treated unjustly only because they wanted to be freed. remembering the dedication of so many people who maintain their faith in the future of perlin and did everything for them. also willy brandt and his successor who actually achieved all of us, they remind us all
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today of everyone who supported us and john f. kennedy who said, here ich bin ein berliner. he encouraged us to persevere. we are thankful for those in the civil-rights movement. the peaceful revolution and the victims of the european freedom movement, hungary and czechoslovakia, their desire to overcome communist dictators. they were to opening for us. and we're particularly grateful to one of our honorary citizens, because gorbachev. on the no. 9, 1989, the wall fell. and their lenders were overjoyed.
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he celebrated the end of a very bad era of having been locked and and havingwhatsoever. the entire world celebrated the occasion with us. that was about 22 years ago. berlin has changed very quickly, and today it is considered one of the major and most interesting capitals of the war. we can be proud of all of this. on the other hand there are still individuals in eastern germany whose lives went off track. they deserve our solidarity and what ever they achieved, we must be very respectful of. but we do not understand those who still feel nostalgic toward the wall. the law was part of a dictatorial system. this was not based on the rule of law. [applause]
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still some field that it had good reasons for blocking the east berliners in. no, there is no justification for the violation of human rights, for killing for barbwire, there is absolutely no justification for any of it. the wall has become history. we may not forget it. whoever study said becomes very sensitive toward injustice and totalitarian ideologies. this is a focal point of what happened in 1961. we are recalling and memorializing the history of the wall, and we are adding an additional memorial. we have more than 500,000
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visitors here at our museum, and polls showed time and again that there is an increasing of knowledge with the construction -- of what the wall men. the time has come that this important era of our more recent history should be taught more to school children and parents need to discuss this with their children, and we need to talk to contemporaries that are still among us. on august 14, one day after a vote construction of a wall, they wrote that we will never forget the state. that this is unforgivable for us. this is 60 years later, and it is our joint responsibility to preserve them memory and pass it on to the next-generation. freedom and democracy must
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preserve in we have to do everything in order to prevent such injustice from every occurring. -- reoccurring. >> ladies and gentlemen, in particular, their fellow citizen. on august 13, 1961, it was a sunday morning. a couple living in their student apartment in west berlin, they heard on the radio that a wall was being built. they were very careful and one
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went immediately to east berlin where her small child, her son was staying with her parents, and her husband remained in the western part of berlin. the family had been torn again. many months later, they were both arrested after separately they had tried to come together through an underground tunnel. both were arrested. the small son was taken over by the state. whererents didn't know their child was. and under what conditions she was held. only two years later, they were reunited and only since 1970, they were finally given the permission to leave the gdr, 12 years later after they left their student apartment in west berlin. this is an individual case, and
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overwhelmingly sad face, hundreds of thousands of examples of this. today we are assembled in memory on that fateful day in our history, and at the same time, we're very fortunate the keynote today that there was a happy ending to it. that was not necessarily something we were able to expect. there was a time that we almost ceased to expect that. please remember the highly armed blocks the world was divided into. right on the border between a divided world. here in the center of east germany, we had our land, a symbol of freedom, but at the same time, a symbol of the
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failure of a dictatorial regime. today we remember the suffering and used by the wall to innumerable individuals, but also the unjust state run by the communist party. it is a portrait of individuals specifically and emotionally and prevented them from even having basic rights. we remember crimes that recital hall also very brash -- that were subtle but also very crash. those who are fleeing were killed, and at the same time there was the emotional distress, negligently and intentionally induced, and the families were destroyed and torn apart. there were many human faces on both sides. families, partnerships torn apart, friendships torn apart. neighborhoods were cut in half,
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and even villages were cut in half. hopes were lost, lives were destroyed, between two confronting political systems. at least 136 individuals died, according to my knowledge, because no one knows the real number. the first victim was edith sigmund. she wanted to escape from her apartment at the bernauer strasse. she threw mattresses and betting on the ground in order to have a softer landing. this was useless. she died one day before her 59th birthday.
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two days later, the second victim, an apprentice taylor tried to find a gap between the harbor and they station. he swam through the canal and port and was shot in the head and killed. we were also -- we will never forget another apprentice who on august 17 was near checkpoint charlie. he cried out for help but he bled to death on the steps. i would also like to remind you of he who died on that you ever since, 1989. -- february 6, 1989. he tried to overcome that can now, but he was discovered, he was shot, and he was completely paralyzed, and that he was killed by a shot to the head.
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i am very grateful that you, his mother and sister, that you have joined us today, and we are expressing our grief, but also our grief and regret to all the victims of the wall. we are palin before all those who were killed at the wall, -- bowing before all those who were killed but cola and at the border dividing germany in general. we will observe a minute of silence at noon and we want to remember them in particular. but there were other victims of the wall, millions behind the wall and other countries also were not able, they were not
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able to pursue an improvement in their lives, and they were prevented from even participating in what was happening in the world. the suffering was manyfold and in spite of the fact that there were a few rare escapes, but we are grateful for all of those who made that possible, but there were tunnels built underneath, many escape, but there was also a hot air balloon that was used, and 48 commoners were actually swam by someone across the baltics it -- 48 kilometers was actually swung by someone across the baltic sea. it was billed against its own people. it was an expression of the fear against the east german people. many people trot that nothing
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would ever change, but we saw once again freedom is invincible. no wall will be able to resist the will to freedom and the violence and oppression -- repression. on the evening of august 13, as willy brandt always called out, no one could ever retain anyone in slavery. the citizens of the gdr during the revolution in 1989 or heroically courageous. the determination for the security forces was unconscionable, but the love of freedom, of the individuals triumphed.
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during the decades of division, this love remained. there were many individuals who wanted freedom. they dared to risk their lives to escape. there were many individuals who got together for changes, and many times they were christians call or not willing to accept the conditions. there were ministers and congregations that protected them. they allow them to cry for freedom. let me remind you how many think that religion is something of a private nature, time and again, there were revolutions against the repression and tanks came and destroyed that. in 1953 there was a revolution, 1956 in hungary, 1968 ended then-check clause of pocket, and
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1970 and 1980 and 1981, we observed in poland. the part of the truth is all so that too many expected the division and the wall. the east germans faced with the alternative, and wherever was possible, individuals withdrew into their private lives, lives often very impressive and to the conditions of a criminal state. at the same time, what was shameful was an increase seen in difference in west germany. there was an intellectual and personal complacency and injustice committed on the left. it was more acceptable than in justice from the right. there was more of a focus for the west germans, the sandinistas were more of a focus
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for the west germans then the law. -- and all. some demanded even that the mandate of unification should be an elitist -- deleted from our constitution, even in 1989. the german question had been closed for many politicians. the subject single nation became a cause of many, and whenever august 13 was commemorated, fewer and fewer individuals listened. even the media turned away. whoever said that there is injustice here, barbwire walls, that individual actually was not recognized and called an intruder and someone who was forever wedded to yesterday. our country owes so much to the
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citizens of the former gdr for their efforts in order to reestablish freedom and you have germany reunited. they said we are one people. [applause] eal gorbachev was the beginning, there was churches and hungary, and everyone cooperated to bring down the division of the continent and demonstrated what can happen when one individual wanting freedom assembles with others. to have fought for freedom oneself and achieved freedom in our country and unification, that is the gift that are east germans gave us.
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the injustice of the wall still appeals to all of us, not just those of my own to fight for freedom and democracy and human rights. and civil rights. that means we have the obligation to make sure that history will not repeat itself. we have to remember and we have to enlighten and teach especially as site senseless. the bernauer strasse museum represents many organizations that were very committed to this memorial. such dedication was absolutely necessary because on the other side of the wall, it was a totalitarian state cream many germans had for denver get that, especially in the schools we have to make sure that history not be falsified and that it can be prevented. i would like to thank all of the teachers who are very committed in this direction, and i like to
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appeal to you, please use the opportunity to educate their students when you come to a site such as this. i am convinced that it is just not possible that we have never had an east german class visiting the memorial which memorialize the victims of the wall. that state was dictatorial, and to emphasize this, the citizens there did not leave a worthwhile life. there was injustice before 1945, and such suffering was continued and transferred onto the east germans who also lived in the totalitarian state. their desire to become free is very impressive, especially when you look it individual by our office. the state-committed crimes,
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millions remained morally strong and accomplished very much in cooperation with neighbors and friends. we need to talk about our recent history and we also really need to ask for the perpetrators adequately punished. many victims say no. they're very bitter about this. what we wanted was justice but what we received was the rule of law. those who suffered in the gdr, please let me say to you, try to recognize the value of this sentence. it does have a value. just to only punish when a punishable act was committed, and at that point in time, there was a lot that declared that to be a punishable law, in the state under the rule of law we also have to look at the
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perpetrator as a victim and that everything that is morally wrong can actually decriminalize. the gdr system was done just. after 1990, statutes of limitations were extended, and under that law, also penalties and punishment was meted. but there was a signal to the entire world that crimes committed against human rights have to be punished. the constitutional state is not necessarily always just, but it is a major achievement of civilization that it is not emotion that judges prefer the reason we should be proud of our constitution. for the reason we should wonder today what can we learn from the wall and what can we transfer to our future. metaphorically we now are
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beginning to talk about walls in the minds and walls and a heart and walls and our society. i like to refrain from even addressing that for defining and, because that really means minimizing the horror of this real wall. yes, we have problems today, but it is not even close to the suffering that we are memorializing today. weakened as all of these problems because we have the freedom to act. and that is what matters. our future is up to us. and democracy, of course, it takes effort and energy. the in the off-the-wall is an encouraging invent -- the end of the wall is an encouraging event. so we can make changes. for that reason we're working toward more freedom in our
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reunited country. today that means in particular that everyone has the opportunity to self actualize. those are coming to us must be integrated more successfully, and everyone in our society must be given more opportunity to self actualize, to strive to develop one cell. that must be open to everyone. that is the demand of justice. that was also something and continues to be something that east germans are asking corporate we have individuals of different origins who have come to us and say that this is a could country. we want to defend it and work for because we see opportunities here. and when individual say that, that we are successful in terms of integration and better education. our national community which is freedom -- which is free and based on the principle of solidarity should meet with such acceptance.
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it is the citizens themselves that matter. this is a community, and national community, and when we make in our own, we make ourselves responsible for our common cause for serving our society, whether as volunteers, if what they're volunteering for the volunteer army or simply a human being helping another one. remembering the wall that up exceeded lives, it reminds us how imported is to free and remember something that is different when it requires energy. the willingness and the ability of chinese origin of society to change will even reward those who were not willing to change. it requires courage, of course. but we have no reason to be afraid of it. we germans have been courageous since 1945 on numerous
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occasions, and east and west we have rebuilt our country. millions of displaced individuals and refugees were integrated successfully. we took down of a tory or shame and what we have achieved now is to make this country had joint project. we have a cheap to make our own rigid achieved to make our own. german reunification was surprisingly successful. observers abroad see a more clearly than we do ourselves. i hear on a day-to-day basis that germany is a fantastic country. citizens are still contributing to unity on so many new initiatives taken, especially on the part of east germans, since the wall was toppled.
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we are facing worldwide competition and weak actually survived the fiscal and economic crisis better than other countries. we have shown that we are courageous to change things and we will have to continue to do that. our society is growing older. there are steps that we have to limit. with a view to future generations. unity, rights, laws, and freedom -- those of the terms of our national anthem and have been for many years. we have only achieve this over the past 20 years. it is my desire that being free in unified and living under the rule of law, we truly appreciate that and they are united germany continues to develop and flourish as inscribed in our
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national anthem, embedded in a strong unified europe, which will serve to the continued freedom as the preamble of our constitution demands. to appreciate in to protect freedom, that is something that we need to do and it is something that we have finally achieved here in germany. [applause] >> in 1988, i was imprisoned by
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the stasi, the state police. there was a young architectural student who share the cell with me. she tried to flee, she was captured, and she had just been investigated. together with a couple and their young son, she had tried to flee to hesse. there was a two-, turk underground concrete tunnel -- a 2 kilometer underground concrete home. the plans have been transmitted to the student by telephone. he was already in hesse on the western side.
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the telephone was not bugged. his girlfriend susan was following him toward the west but it was very difficult to overcome the border. for that reason, the architectural student approach someone his own a car. he knew this couple had enough of the tdr. they traveled with a rubber boots and clothes, a compass, a torch, and a row. the 8-year-old child was accompanying them. they said it was a secret venture that was very exciting. so he maintains his spirits. pedro to the village in the middle of the night -- they drove through the village in the middle of the night. park the car and walked across frozen fields and silently along
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for us. they try to locate the sounds of the undergone river and could not find the man appeared that todd was tired. they felt last adventuress. they have lost their orientation. a man hold is difficult to file in a grassy field. so they called back to the car and tried toward the north. this would be the last attempt. you ask me to speak louder but i am unable to. they could not find a man hall and then they would go back and spend the night in a village and try again during the next night. when they came back to the
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farce, the herd motors. they heard the barking of dogs. and there were spotlights. in habitants of the village had called the police. this is something that in the future touched me deeply. when you're standing there, the dogs are barking, the handcuffs are clicking, you are fingerprinted, that was familiar to me. i was thinking about the inhabitants of the village, two actually calling the border police, and the car was very quiet, but at the same time, in the village somebody heard it and i saw that id did not have a local license plate. -- and they sought it did not have a local license plate. individualsmaginine
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looking out the window and picking up the phone and making a call to actually stop those who wanted to leave the gdr. i imagine them going back to bed and expecting accolades for their denunciation. so many denunciations' happened. they've become a part of the history of germany. and we do not know what happened to the child. when i was 18, i myself tried to flee. i was under a lot of emotional press. my brother had already been committed to a penitentiary for political reasons. i want to leave for the baltics on a swedish boat, and i was in my cabin. but one of the east german employees denounced me. the gdr will never forget the history of our flight, never, for the rest of our lives. we remember the worst times of
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our imprisonment. we remember being humiliated continuously by the cards. they could act freely and brutally under this regime. and that was reflected on the stasi as well. on a summer day we were transported as a group of prisoners to a railroad station at dresden. there were mostly men but a few women, and we had been told before we got out of the bus, do not look anywhere except that the bulk of the person in front of you. only out of the corner of my eye, i saw people very close. those by chance waiting on a platform for a train, they looked at the criminals. they lifted us who were all the sudden escorted by police, buy stocks, and in handcuffs, and we
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walked along the tracks. people were shocked. some of them turned away. some of them tried to figure out what happened. all the sudden there was a young girl waving at us. she moved her hands almost invisibly in front of her chest. i took this waving with me has a bunch of flowers. i was not expecting to survive the flight. i have a friend who had stepped on a landmine from strasbourg, who in 1970 was captured and then shot by a special command of the secret come -- police. he shared a cell with someone who is very disabled. this man had tried to fully with
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a free. both were discovered and his friend was mowed down with guns. he was able to drop to the ground, but he stepped on a landmine and he lost his legs. in addition, he was sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. it was a horrible system, and still so many think it was a good system. we may never forget the fate of our fellow citizens. [applause] i repeat -- we may never forget the fate of our fellow citizens, whether there were killed apple wall berlin, where they drowned in the baltic, " whether they were killed at the outer perimeter of the socialist
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state. i recently completed a documentary about two young individuals who tried to flee across the border of bulgaria. they wanted to avoid being drafted into the gdr army. and there were captured in the border area. they had already left their hands in the fate when there were killed their automatic weapons. who has the right to kill someone else? then their dead bodies were brought to a village on the border and they were shown on the central market square in order to deter anyone who might ever consider of wanting to flee. it does not have a german phase only. our thoughts to not go out to those who were injured and
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killed only, but also the remaining siblings and parents that were then repressed by the state. children left behind in the state home of their parents were imprisoned. while their parents were imprisoned. [applause] >> fellow president, speaker of the upper chamber, speaker of the parliament, chancellor, dear colleagues from the different parliaments, ladies and gentlemen -- especially here, where we formerly had the wall
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and we can still see part of it, in our immediate impression of the moving remarks are clear that we are becoming very sad and angry at the same time, that today still those who have political responsibility are minimizing the impact of the political system of the gdr. without any doubt, it was a state contemptuous of the roadblocks -- of the rule of law by taking its own people and imprisoning them. those who have the courage not to adjust, those who are courageous enough to began the bloodless revolution, we are grateful to them but we are also grateful to george bush, to gorbachev, and also the german politicians and chancellor kohl.
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we're we're very grateful to them but we are also calling a spade a spade and speak the truth. at the same time, there are a number of frustrating studies published, indicating that fewer and fewer individuals know what the gdr man. for that reason, that part of our history is increasingly minimize. we have to educate. we have to educate our young individual so that they can learn that no matter what extremist regime it is, whether on the left or the right, it leads to nothing but oppression. this is mainly a task of the individual states and their school systems, but the federal government also considers this a task on a national level. for the reason the governing parties have agreed that additional measures will be
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taken in order to teach children about recent history, including about the gdr retain. the federal government supports a number of more of the remind all of us of the brutality of not only the berlin wall but the entire border dividing germany. and here in berlin, we have the bernauer strasse morrill but we have morals elsewhere. we have several museums, one right on the border. we also have establishments that demonstrate the injustice of the gdr state, in different contexts. for example, the memorial today in the secret police prison, or for example the association for historical research, and we also have the former stasi archive is
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being researched. what would like to see is in cooperation with berlin to main tent -- to maintain this memorial. we considered this financially to its realization. we in particular want to memorialize those who had to die. two years ago, we published research on who died at the wall. 136 biographies are found in this book. 136 lives were terminated. they have a place now and this book and their dignity has been restored which did gdr regime tried to rob them of the.
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crime and punishment. this will be the final day of our series looking at the fbi. host: the national crime and punishment museum holds five unique the galleries looking at criminal intent, profiles, serial killers, victims, crime prevention and more. today we are inside the crime solving gallery, which you can learn al about forensic technology, cause of dth,
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fingerprinting, a ballistics and many more items. we are joined by gregg mccrary, former fbi profiler. that is our topic this morning as we wrap up this week's series looking at the fbi. what is profiling? guest: good morning, and thanks for having me in. the narrow definition of priling is the description of the characteristics and traits of the unknown offender. the type of profiling pioneered by the fbi is the retrospective look at crime. in other words, crime has occurred. we are now examining the crime, the crime scene, all of the todence related to theat draw logical inferences about who might have committed this crime. host: the difference between prospective profiling in retrospective profiling. >> those are often confused.
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perspective profiling is trying to -- prospective a profiling is trying to identify common characteristics to determine who might commit a particular crime, who might be a terrorist or a drug courier. that is far more problematic, because you are going to get a lot of false positives, people who "fit the profile" who really are not a terrorist or card career- host: what type of agencies are doing that work? guest: certainly tsa, homeland security, and the bureau is looking at this to see what logically we can see aut that. obviously, the idea iso prevent this before -- a lot of agencies are taking that on. host: retrospective profiling? guest: retrospective profiling is after the crime has occurred. that is the difference. rather that figuring out who was going to commit a crime, we look
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at who committed this crime o series of crimes. there is a methodology to this. it is a scientific approach, where we look at base rates, up homology, where we it study the victim, often very important, and too often given short shrift in investigations. at the risk of oversimplifying, if you can think of it as what plus why = who? what happened, and the etymology is -- victimology is why gwe look at life styles and variables and put them on a risk to continuum from a low to high. we can understand why victims may have been elevated risks for being victims of violence, that focuses in on who.
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that basically is the idea that. host: at what point in the investigation does the profiler come in? guest: they can come in at any phase during the investigation. the first phase is to determine whether or not the crime has been committed. sometimes at is easy, a no- brainer. other times is much more difficult. years ago you might recall twa flight 800 took off from kennedy and blow up. it took years of investigation by the bureau and agencies determined it was an accident, it wasn't a crime. sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is not. weave someone that died, maybe under suspicious circumstances. is it natural causes, accident, suicide, homicide? we can get involved in the very early stages, and along the line, say, after the crime has been committed and we know is a crime, we're looking for who did it. sometimes it is to figure out
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what crime hit many times the crime you think you are investigating is not what occurred. susan smith in south carolina if you use ago reported her two kids had been carjacked, and you probably recall that she in fact killed her children. host: and so does the fbi profiler stop at just the profile of the offender? do you come up with a strategy to go after the possible offender? guest: probably the most important things we do, the investigative strategy and/or interview interrogations strategy. profiling is the sexier aspect, the glitzy thing that gets everyone's attention to it if i go out and tell an investigator that we are looking for a white guy in his 30's, whatever, the proper response is well, that is interesting, but how do i catch the guy? that is the right question to ask. investigative strategy becomes
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very important in cases where they are trying to solve it. if you're up suspects interviewed in interrogation strategy, it also becomes important, because we're trying to eliminate suspects, identify suspects. we also get involved on the road with prosecution strategy and sometimes expertitness testimony. host: the profiler then comes up with this strategy. how to you make a profile? we are in the crime solving part of the gallery. how does forensics help you? ballistics? toxicology? etc? forensics are foundational. we have to depend on that. we are allowed to come back with results, the autopsy, for example, if it is homicide. those things become quickly important. how is the victim -- if we are talking, hypothetically, a
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homicide, how is the victim killed? were they stabbed, shot? how many times? so forth. obviously, any other evidence -- fingerprint evidence, dna. certainly blood or semen or anything that is important to us. that is foundational for us, to understand what happened. we can move forward from there. host: gregg mccrary is our guest, worked at the bureau from 1969 to 1995. still involved in forensic science and profiling. we are at the national meum of crime and punishment as we wrap up this week pause to look at the fbi. we showed all of you when we first started this the inside of the crimes of the gallery. i'm just curious, what is the forensic lab at quantico look like compared to where we are today? guest: certainly is not open to the public. [laughter] there are different things being done at the lab did the dna unit
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is its own unit. to avoid contamination and so forth, folks are not just going to stroll in and out of that. each section would have its own equipment, its own examiner's. they have their own scientific background, their own a degree of expertise. it would be sorted out that way. given the case, they may tap into any one of those areas of expertise. host: how many agents are profilers? guest:ust a few. profiling -- there are, like, three units in behaviorial analysis that are operational. those are the folks that do the work and offer operational support. altogether, with agents and support personnel, there is about 40 people involved in that totally. out of 14,000, that is not very many. when i first got involved in the mid-1980's, there were 12 of us
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at any one time in the operational wing. it has grown because demand has grown. host: that is our topic this morning, profiling and forensics. richd, independent in georgia. caller: yes, good morning. on profiling, i am a little confused with homeland security. recently, they put a message out that is maybe a white male, evangecal, pro-life, may be a member of the nra, pro-second amendment. my idea of profiling is someone who belongs to a radical group or someone who goes around it to a university or school preaching revolution by violence, or someone who belongs to a radical organization, like
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the kkk. host: gregg mccrary. guest: thanks for that question, richard. what you're talking about is prospective profiling, someone who might commit a crime afterwards. the plans he made are good, because -- the points he made a good, because it points out how we can get false positives. what department of homeland security is concerned about is the lone wolf offender, someone who is out there -- we just had that in norway. i was in norway last week, not related to that mass murder, but on another case there, but where the lone wolf killed 77 people based on some political beliefs and so forth. those are the things we are concerned about, as well as organized tourists like al qaeda and so forth. we are also concerned about the lone wolf, a little more difficult to identify because they d't talk to anybody, they don't communicate.
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they develop the ideas and carry them out themselves. host: nikk is a democrat -- nicky is a democrat and a convicted. -- democrat in connecticut. caller: hi, gregg. does the fbi sometimes get their information wrong, with a wrongfully accuse someone of something? i will bring the case up, i don't know if you have anything to do with it or anything. [unintelligible] the that's not familiar? guest: does not sound familiar, but go ahead. caller: he was in chicago, and basically they said he had something to do with the brothers -- they did a movie called "casino" that had the same idea. his wife convicted him. he swore he did not do it, but basically, was doing 200 years,
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and john gotti followed with him later. there are not connected, i don't think -- host: are right -- caller: i would like to vindicate him, because they went after hand, and maybe he got -- maybe he was responsible for, like, tax evasion and those things that those guys do, but they got him for killing a mother, and one of the brothers is on trial -- killing a brother, and one of the brothers is on trial -- ho: we will take your point about wrongful information. guest: certainly we can get wrongful information. i was not on the case so i do not want to comment on that . but the bureau of arrested an attorney in oregon, i believe, because ms. identification of a fingerprint. he was released.
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certainly, we are human beings and we try as best we can to get it right. human beings will make mistakes along the way. the important thing is to correct those errors. host: 1 upper father goes to testify, how much weight do you -- have when a profiler goes to testify, and how much weight you have with your testimony? guest: profiling testimony per se is not allowed. it is too prejudicial. we do not get up and say, here is a profile of let serial killer, a child molester. that is not allowed, nor should it be allowed. we testify as to crime scene analysis. we educate the jury about things they might not be familiar with, staging and those sorts of things. host: to stay off -- is there a formula as to how they do the job, steps that they go through? guest: there is a methodology. we start with a victimology --
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who or what is the victim, why is that target being targeted for some rson? like i say, we can understand that, then we can get a focus on where we go to find the offender. it is all very case-specific. it depends on the individual facts and things we have at each particular case. host: paul is an independent in georgia. paul, are you there? caller: who? host: in georgia. what is your question or comment? caller: i held -- yes, i am here. host: and we are listening to you, go ahead. caller: my question to mr. gregg, hoare you doing today? guest: doing well, thank you. caller: i remove my shoes on the airport, my baggage is checked. how come all of these drugs, to this country? guest: how, drugs, into the
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country is that the question? -- how come drugs come into the country? is that the question? certainly we are trying to enforce the laws and keep those things out of here it we can see the problem when it goes and control in mexic the extraordinary violence with a narcoterrorism. we're not perfect and crimes are committed every day, but we are doing our best to prevent those things and solve the ones that we can prevent. host: how does the fbi choose a special agent to be profiler? there is not many of their special qualifications, even more criteria needed? guest: typically draw from the pool of agents. we want at least 10 years or re of investigative experience. i was in the field 15 years before i got involved. we want seasoned investigators.
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people ideally with advanced degrees, behavioral sciences or social sciences, or some science related -- host: psychology you are referring to? psychiatry? guest: absolutely did any of those behavioral sciences would be a good academic background. the important thing is to have a skilled investigators who knows how to apply these this to investigations, because it is timately the investigative techniques or tools that is used to help solve crimes. host: how to be other agents and whitby road you profilers? -- how did the oer agents in the beirut and you profilers? -- in the bureau view prilers? guest: i had a guy bring it is diembered corpse, and it was actually a grizzly bear attack. we get some harassment, but it is respected. host: timmy, democrat in west
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virginia. are you with us? you are on the air, sir. caller: my question relates to the prior caller. i wonder if ey are doing and he refers profiling of law enforcement agencies -- doing reverse profiling of law- enforcement agencies. i had been watching tv quite often, i notice they and getting a lot of drug money -- they have been getting a lot of drug money. vice versa. in other states. but they are not seizing drugs -- host: ok, we will leave it there. we got two phone calls about drug crimes, versus terrorists, rders, serial killers. how does a poor father go about distinguishing between all of
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those three -- how does a profiler go about distinguishing between all of those three? guest: that combine these things. if we ha a dead victim, and the person is a drug dealer, where does that dieguide the investigation? clearly to drug dealing, and retribution and some sort of for market dominance, some of drug dealer killing another drug dealer to eliminate competition. it works the same in all of these areas. victimology, all of these things. host: we are in the national crime and punishment museum. you see ballistics and fingerprinting, and etc. how does ballistics help, for example? guest: if it is enough, we can
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only get back to a specific weapon, or we -- can at least -- we can link it back to a specific whether or at least narrow it down to the type of weapon we looking for. whether it is the blood around, the shell casing -- the bullet around, the shell casing. when the bullet is fired, there are groups inside the barrel. every what is unique. pon is unique. they can be compared to give us general characteristics,r if it is detailed enough, we can get to a specific web. host: what about fingerprting? guest: same thing. depending on the quality of the prince, they can be helpful. new techniques are being developed all the time in. it has been a around for awhile, but the technique of using
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super glue is technique that has not been about years ago, but it has been around for years. it can be effective. host: and a fingerprint database in west virginia is one of the largest in the world and holds the most fingerprints. guest: what we're doing is computerized testing. it would have taken hours or years, maybe, it to go card by card by card. depends on the individual examiner to make the call, but they -- that is very good. it was helpful in the d.c. sniper case years ago, where we had a fingerprint in case they were bragging about in montgomery, alabama. sent in with the dna -- the same thing with the dna bit
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technology is very, very effective. host: how often do you hear from state and local law enforcement saying, hey, i need help, a profile on this case? guest: keep in mind, murder is -- typically murder, even a serial murderer, is a local or state violation. we don't come in and take over case. we don't take over a serial murder case or investigation. we are there to support the authorities who have the primary jurisdiction, there to work behind the scenes and provide any expertise we have to the investigators to hopefully move forward and solve the case. host: what is a new technology or area of our forensic science that is groundbreaking for the fbi, for profilers in the fbi? guest: stuff we talked about continues to grow.
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with dna, this stuff came on the scene in the 1980's and we needed a big splotch of blood or semen before they could do any sort of analysis. now it is microscopic or sub- microscopic. ng things, you cannot even see it but it is a their bread is refining the techniques and being more discriminating in our ability to find these things. host: we are showing our viewers toxicology. what does that mean, and how does that help? guest: is used in an autopsy. i took the case last year. a woman died of unexplained causes in cleveland, ohio. she got sick. when the investigation developed, nothing was determined to be the cause of death. there the normal toxicology screen that was run and nothing came up. information developed that she may have been poisoned by potassium cyanide.
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we did a cycle -- we did it talks logical testing and we found out she had nine times the lethal amount of cyanide in her system. she had been poisoned. that led to her husband as the suspect. is a long sto, but he is serving eight long prison ntence f murdering his wife. toxicology was key in the murder and manner of death. host: all this week on "washington journal," looking inside the fbi. our guest, gregg mccrary. alex is an independent in new york. caller: good morning, gregg. two quick questions and then i will hang up and listen to the answer. i wonder if you could comment on the fbi 's citizens' academy, about that program. the second one is, what do retired profilers das far as where they move on? thank you for being on, i will
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listen to the answers. guest: thank you, alex. two good questions did the fbi citizens' academy exists in every liaison field office. we worked for citizens, we represent their interests in the crimes, and we want them to get to know us. i would encourage anyone interested to call your local field office and inquire about that. we give tours of the bureau and we want to demystify as much of this as we can to help people understand better what we do so they can help us. law enforcement, at the end of the day -- we are only as good as the citizens want us to be. we depend on them to provide information and report crimes. it is important that we have a good relationship. host: how smallhe detail is too small? guest: no detail is toomall.
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that could be the one you are looking for, absolutely. you have to evaluate each piece of evidence as it comes in. things that may not seem important first become a very important later as the investigation terms. -- turns. it is a revolving sort of relationship, symbiotic relationship, as investigation goes on. host: does the witness also get guest:? -- does the witness also get a profile? guest: not usually. we talk about doing crime scenes and francine analysis. we have to think of the mind at a crime scene. our crime scene as a location that holds at least potential evidence of a crime. a victim's-certainly has evidence, as -- victim's mind certainly has evidence. how you surge that crime scene? how do you do the cognitive
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crime searching. same time, we want to be careful not to contaminate a crime scene with that interviewing or interrogation strategy. host: queens, new york. democratic caller. caller: you started when a j. edgar hoover was in charge of the fbi. i am wondering about the changes after his death affected your work. guest: very dramatic changes. i came in 1969 under hoover -- old school, if you will -- where this idea of profiling did not even exist. host: did that change under hoover? guest: not really. he died in early 1970's, 1972, if i recall. but to be fair, to be honest, up profiling has been in existence ever since there was crime in an informal way because
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investigators show up and say, gee, who would do this? what we are trying to do is formalizthis program, make a scientific, do research, and see how tit and discriminating a program which can develop. host: neil in fort lauderdale. caller: good morning, agent mccrary. i find wt you do to be not only fascinating but absolutely essential to our well-being. your many years of experience, it begs the question -- when evidence is grossly lacking or sparse at best, how many times have you relied upon at a visceral, intuitive, gut feeling that lead you down the path to success? guest: well, this certainly is an issue that comes up. a lotf it depends on experience. when you look at a crime scene and you know something is wrong.
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how do you know is wrong? you have looked at thousands of crimes scenes. this one is staged. the perpetrator does it to avoid detection. host: the person is organized. guest: we put them on a continuum from organized to disorganize. organized would be thoughtful, intellectual, trying to avoid apprehension, more evidence- conscious. the disorganized offender reacts start up spontaneously. those crime scenes look more frenzied, anhave a chaotic sense to them. i guess the answer to the question is, to agree, that does play a role after you have look at thousands of times scenes and you look at one and you know this is not right, something is wrong with this scene. you begin to drill down, and at the end of the date, hopefully, we find evidence we need. host: which type of criminal, it
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is organized or unorganized, is more of a threat, causes more concerned? guest: organize the offeers are better at avoiding apprehension so they can have a lot of corporate disorgani -- have a longer career. disorganized offenders, we can catch them more quickly. host: what are some examples of an organized criminal, one that would stick out in people's minds in history? guest: ted bundy is somebody everybody has some familiarization with. he killed for a number of years and had numerous victims. he was very good overtime at avoiding detection and apprehension, actually escaping from prison at different points and so forth. that is the sort of offender who was more highly organized, more
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thoughtful, more devious, more creative, more intellectual, can pose more of a challenge. host: we are live this morning from the national museum of common punishment. eric is a republican in illinois. caller: yes, hello. i was calling to ask mr. mccrary, how do you guys provocativendividuals -- how do you guys profile corrupt individuals, such as in law enforcement, people who manipulate records? my name is aaron, and i was born in illinois, and at two months ago, i got out profile report from the west virginia said saying that i am a born in texas. i am not born in texas. the police department has manipulated two of my it rests
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in 2008. how would i go about changing these, knowing that these are corrupt individuals anin the police department? i need some help. these are corrupt individuals. i am not born in texas. guest: the fbi does investigate police corruption and civil rights violations. what i would suggest is he contacted local fbi office and make his concerns known. that would be the best way for him to proceed at this point. host: let me dig down a little bit in the training of our profiler. forensic pathology. what is it? guest: that is the study of the science of dead bodies, looking for causes of death. when i went through profiling training, i took courses in basic and advanced forensic pathology at the institute in bethesda, maryland. that does not make me a forensic
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pathologist by any stretch of the imagination, but it allows profilers to read autopsy reports with a better understanding of what is being discussed in their. what i would also add is that the buau has outside expes, people on contract, a forensic pathologist on contract. when we have specific questions, as we had in a number of cases, i could pick up the phone and call one of these pathologists and say, here is what i am reading, i am not understanding this, is this what they mean? sometimes we get the contract pathologist and a touch with the pathologist who did the exam. host: a total of 400 hours looking at behavioral-type sizes, psychology, psychiatry. how much time did you spend a studying psychology and psychiatry? guest: again, i have a master's degree in psychological services. that component, the academic
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component. what we are looking at at the bureau is how it psychopathology is expressed in crimes and crimes scenes. that is what we want to look at. that is a unique area. you can get a ph.d. in psychology, a forensic psychology, and never see a crime scene or look at it. what we're doings taking what we know about menl disorder, mental illness, and looking at how that manifests itself in criminal behavior. host: jack is a democrat in montana. caller: yes, hi. i heard you mention montana, i was wondering if you could tell the audience about the fact that the field office in butte, montana, was noted to be the worst assignment for an fbi agent, andeople were sent there to be punished. is that right? host: how you know that? caller: newspaper articles have
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been written in the local press. guest: there is some truth and falsehood to that, jack. host: [laughter] guest: the joke in the hoover days is that if you screwed up, you would get transferred to butte. some folks love butte. a good friend of mine is from the area. host: what did he do to get back there? guest: he got an office transfer so he wanted to go there. there are obviously disciinary procedures for agencies whose go things out. -- it was sort -- for agent who screw things up. it was sort of a standing joke back and the days, that if you scwed things up, you end up in butte. salaries.filers'
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taxpayers are paying for the bureau. how salaries changed over the years? est: you can go to the website and look at the scale. field agents top off at 13, and then you go up to 14. most are 14. whatever that salary is today -- host: is that the highest, gs14? guest: yes, if you stay as a profiling. if you state administratively, you get salary increases. the profiler, the title would be supervisory special agent, a grade 14. host: gregg mccrary is the author of a book, "unknown darkness." diane is a republican in minnesota. caller: tha you.
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thank you for having all this week all year discussions on what the fbi does. i am curious to find out, because we have been to so many major cities and we have had the opportunity to see what major cities look like, i'm wondering how you could triple the amount of fbi, cia employees. each city we go to, including minneapolis, it seems like they are destroyed, but destroyed by gangs. why not spend more time -- i guess my question is -- host: diane, we will take your question about field offices. guest: certainly any field office with a gang problem has a gang task forceut the local agency would be responsible.
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that is an area we have an interest in. their task forces and a place to do with that. granted, it is like other crime problems. we have not solved it totally. it still exists, but it certainly is not being ignored. host: are profilers in all 56 field offices -- -- of them guest: what we have in every field of this is at least one isrdinator -- f ielield office at least one coordinator. some training, and knows what we need, whate want. they can call the field office and say we need a profile. they know the materials we need to look at and so forth. we have the middle man, if you will, sometimes more than one in the field, trained as coordinators and can coordinate with local authorities.
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we do go out. sometimes they come out to us and it is anngoing case, and we triage these -- if it is an on going serial murder or rape case and where there is a realistic threat of harm, many times we go out. this become our no. 1 priority, to stop the violence as quickly as we can. if it is an old cold case, homicide from 10 years ago, we will look at, but not today. host: triage -- what you mean by that? guest: sort of like medical triage, the most dramatic casualties a first. whose life is really hanging in the balance? the ones that can hang on for awhile, we will get to later. we look at the ones with the most accident circumstances that need the quickest response -- most exigent circumstances that the quickest response. host: georgetown, massachusetts, independent.
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caller: hello? host: we are listening, ben. go ahead. caller: i'm wondering if you apply your expertise -- i know you are not in the f at the time -- during the 9/11 attacks. i spent some time looking into it and the forensic evidence of it. you can even look, if you were to do it toxicology report on these people dying from this abnormal lung disease, i think what you find inside the lungs are these nano-size particles of dust that can only be manufactured at a highly controlled facility. i guess -- sorry, i'm just a little nervous, it is kind of a big issu-- host: are you wondering if he has looked into this? caller: well, personally, it is my understanding that the fbi
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was involved in the 9/11 envestigation, but fema had lead on this, which seemed odd to me to begin with, because they are under direct control of the president -- host: ok, all right, we will take it from there. let's talk about the investigation into fema -- tell us what you now. est: first of all, i was not involved in the 9/11 investigation -- host: right, right, right. guest: the fbi would have the lead it is a terrorist attack, said the fbi would have lead jurisdiction -- host: because it is domestic. guest: even overseas,hen there are attacks on embassies overseas, at the bureau's investigative and jurisdiction and we fly -- the bureau has investigated the jurisdiction and we fight over i think whe
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he was going with this is that it is something that could be manufactured in labs. we still have a lot of conspiracy theories about the 11 attacks, that it was an inside job good people believe what they want to believe, but i think the evidence shows that is was done by the terrorists who hijacked those airplanes. i don't know any evidence of any sort of particle -- the only thing i could think of is that right after 9/11, the anthrax attacks. those were inhalational deaths of the anthrax particles that were suspended in white powder and all of that. that is separate from the 9/11 attacks. host: what has been difficult in your career, the most difficult of all to put together, and why? -- most typicalrofile to put together, and why? -- most difficult profile to
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put together, and why? guest: there was a serial murder case where the murderer was killing in europe and the united states. if you say it is fiction, people are not going to believe it, but this was a member of the media who was covering his own murders for the media. he was reporting on it, running for the newspaper, going on tv and doing interviews, covering his own murders, meanwhile going out and killing of these women and reporting on it, into giving detectives and the people in charge of the -- interviewing detectives and the people charge of the investigation. it was an intruing case. host: did your profile include that aspect? guest: i was testify in austria about this trial over there. he went into los angeles to kill people. this is why criminals don't think like you and i think,
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necessarily. if he went into los angeles to kill, would you avoid at all costs? probably it the police department you would not want them to know you are in town to kill people. this guy, the narcissism that there, the first thing he does is go to the lapd and introduce himself as a foreign journalist. they give him a ride-along and shows him with the prostitutes work. he comes back and tells them while he is in town. -- and kills them while he is in town. host: george is an independent in missouri. caller: t fbi -- do they study cyber-crime? that is miscible question -- my
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simple question -- host: earlier this week, you and others may be interested, we will respond to cyber-threats -- we focused on cyber-threats -- yesterday, actually, on "whington journal." they can all be found on c- span.org. guest: i would defer to the program, but that is certainly something profilers are looking at. you read the newspaper and the fbi does make arrests on the attacking -- these hacking cases and so forth. host: trent, independent in st. paul, minnesota. caller: good morning. hello? host: we are listening. caller: i want to ask the gentleman, how much time does the fbi have to investigate
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corruption within the department of justice? guest: well, again, but certainly that would be something the bureau would be interested in, and corruption within the department of justice itself. we have as much time as we needed to do that, depending upon the nature of the allegation and a little -- nature of the allegation and the validity of the allegation. i am sure we would not be opposed to doing -- politics would not get involved at all. it would be a professional investigation into that. host: what is your training like for interrogation techniques? guest: interview at an interrogation, thehole idea is to elicit the truth from an individual. it can be dicier than you might think initially, because of the psychological issues many times. who is the person we are interviewing? other psychological issues that come to bear? it could be mental illness, personality disorders.
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all that has to be evaluated when you are constructing and shaping an interview or interrogation strategy. the basic thing, like i say, think of it as a crime scene that we want to search very carefully. we want to be sure we don't contaminate it. don't ask any leading questions. i will not ask you if you saw a red car. i will say, "tell me what you saw," because i don't want to give you the idea that there was a red car involved in this thing. it can be more nuanced, dealing with particular mental issues of the person you are interrogating. host: so what kind of training do you go through? guest: it takes practice, not something you can just learn in a classroom. being a field agent, 10 years or more of experience, you have conducted hundreds of thousands of interviews and you have an idea of how it goes. that gives you crebility when
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you go out to interview detectives did you have to have something more than just academic training. you have got to have a real-life experience doing thato get credible advice. host: on the republican line -- dulce,s that your name? -- in california. caller: yes. thank you for taking my question bridge for the last five years, i worked with severely disorganized and mentally ill people who committed serious crimes. at the same time, i get people who are coming out of prison who look like they are severely disorganized in the mental health, but what we come to see is that they have been on drugs for several years. once they a clean up, what happens is that we realize, ok, this is probably drug-induced psychosis. i want to know, is there a way
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for you to tell in the crime scene between somebody who is severely ill or somebody who is on drugs, who looked like ey are severely mentally ill? guest: t short answer is no. it will be a disorganized crime scene and whether it is a result of mental illness or a drug- induced issue. it will have the same characteristics. it will be frenzied, look chaotic. that is one of the things we say, there could be contribute in factors. youth could be a contributing factor, mental illness, drug abuse. all those things by themselves or in combination with one another can have a disorganized crime scene. host: i wonderow the bureau agents iview policymakers in washington, d.c., the guys who
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write the checks and give the resources you need. guest: probably not surprising to sehear that we never get the resources we need. truthfully, i am not with the fbi now, but a lot of good liaison goes between headquarters and the folks on the hill who make decisions, and we try to explain what we're doing, why we are doing it, and why we need support on this. it is a continuing - i would not say battle, but discussion that goes on. host: how have you seen the bureau change? guest: it has changed dramatically. the biggest sea change after 9/11, the shifin to terrorism was a big shift. it was part of what have done before, but there was a big sea change it around and. everything has changed. no femalent in, a
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agents. was more of a paramilitary thing. two guys to a locker, eight guys to a room. we will b -- we would be shuttled around in these trucks. host: more like you were in the military. guest: now it is more like a college campus, and we have a female agents, and it is great. it has changed dramatically over the years, far for the better. host: you are still involved in profiling. what do you do? guest: i think it was alex who asked before -- i am a retired now, but i still do work in crime cases, the testimony in criminal cases, prosecution and defense cases -- depends on teh he facts -- and i teach part- time at a couple of universities. i will be doing in law enforcement presentation later
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this month, presentations for different agencies. i will be talking to the canadian association of psychiatry and the law later this year. still involved in cre and crime scene anysis and providing expert testimonyn cases. host: gregg mccrary, former fbi profiler, 1969 to 1995, author of a book, "unknown darkness." eileen is joining us, connecticut, independent. caller: i am wondering about the software that bill and linda hamilton had stolen by the justice department, and that edwin meese and earl bryan were linked to, and the judge concluded that indeed, the federal government had stolen their proprietary software and remade it to have a back door in it. he gave them my judgment, and
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the federal government has never paid that judgment. i'm wondering where you stand on that, since you deal in criminal activity and investigate it. guest: again, i don't know anything about that particular case, so i really don't want to comment on the case i am not familiar with. it would just be wrong for me to do that. sorry i cannot answer the question, but i just don't know this is a mix of the case and it would be wrong for me to speculate as to what that might be. host:oes hollywood get it right? you see a lot of shows -- guest: dramatic shows, fun things to watch. "criminal minds" is a popular show. the bottom line is no. we don't fly around on a private jets like the guys on "criminal minds" do. a guy asked me, "to you
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watch ' criminal minds'? you kept to the jet plane hit in fro-- hidden from me." host: [laughter] guest: we don't get an issue dots or fly on private jets. we solve crimes. -- we don't get in shootouts are fly on private jets. we solve crimes. local and state police -- we are just a resource for them to use. host: would surprise -- what would surprise you is about -- surprise viewers about the work? ness,: the tedious reading a report after report after report. i was in ohio, 6000 pages of
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documents to work through. the tediousness is what people might be surprised about. host: profiling, is that tedious work? guest: oh, yes, you have to review all these documents before you can offer any sort of opinion. you do not want to jump out and get ahead of yourself and start offering opinions when you have not really seen all the evidence. it takes a lot of time sometimes. host: gregg mccrary, i want to
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[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] i was going to understand the issues. i had han open door after 4:00 policy as governor of new mexico for eight straight years, i saw anyone in the state on the third thursday of every month starting at 4:00? the afternoon on five-minute increments. there was no one in the state of new mexico that couldn't say
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they could not get into -- in to see the governor. that was really enlightening. years ago, the incumbent controlled the debate process. when i was the incumbent we did some polling and given the fact that i was up 10 points and that i controlled the debate process, i debated my opponent 28 times which i think is good politics and what people really want. as governor of new mexico, i did this trek for trash program, which i still have today. i have now biked across the state of new mexico 100 days for 100 miles at a time picking up trash across the state. i've done that for 18 straight years, which i think has been
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very popular. they did a poll here a couple of months ago on all the presidential candidates and the favorabilities that they have this their own states, do you know that there is only one candidate that is viewed favorably in his or her own state? i thought that was great. and then they did a study here a couple of weeks ago on job history. what is the job report when it comes to each candidate running for president? i had the best job record, the creation of jobs in new mexico while i was governor opposed to anyone else running for the office. rick perry has entered into the race and he is just a hair ahead of me but as of a coum weeks ago, i led that. when that came out, i said two weeks ago what said as governor of new mexico, did not create one single job as governor of
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new mexico. government does not create jobs. the private sector does, but as governor of new mexico, really, i was able to veto legislation that was going to be adverse to government or to business and then when it cames to rules and regulations because i controlled all of the agencies, really, i created an environment where there was real certainty and in that environment, jobs did grow. as governor of new mexico, i was distinguished for having vetoed perhaps more legislation than other 49 governors in the country combined. i had thousands of line-item vetos as governor of new mexico and i took on that debate and discussion that went along with all of these vetos. in my opinion it wasn't going
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to make a difference in any of our lives. it was just going to spend money and lend lip service rather than actually address the issues. so everyday i engaged in the whole notion of what has johnson vetoed today and why? that got played out in print, radio and television and i like to think i came out on top of that debate, always arguing for smaller government. always arguing that the best thing that government could do for me as an individual, was to empower me as an individual to make choices that i think only i have the capability to make. right now this country, i think we are on the verge of a financial collapse. i think it is going to be a monetary collapse. and i think it is due to the fact that it is going to be a bond market collapse due to the fact that there is no repaying
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$14 trillion in debt given that we're going to add another $11 artillery cron to that in -- really the to that in the next eight years? it is not going to happen. we're printing money to cover this debt. i really want to applaud congressman paul and the attention that he has brought to the federal reserve and monetary policy and what that is all about. we have a monetary policy in this country right now where we have zero interest rates. the value of the money that we have in our savings accounts is going to be worth nothing if there is a monetary collapse and i suggest to you that it is unavoidable. it is going to happen. it is written. how do you avoid it, though? that is why i'm here. i think you can avoid it by balancing the federal budget. and so i am promising to submit
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a balanced budget in my first year as president and to balance the budget, that means cutting 43% of what government is currently spending. if you're going to talk about reduction of 43% and what we're currently spending, you have to start off by talking about medicaid and medicare and military spending. when it comes to medicaid and medicare, i suggest that the federal government could block grant the states a fixed amount of money, 43% less than what we are currently spending and deliver health care to the poor and those over 65 to the states. i had an insurance policy as governor of new mexico. we did the math. how many medicaid recipients and what if we gave they will all my insurance policy as governor of new mexico spending the same amount of money that i
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spent on my insurance policy. would we really save that amount of money? yes. that's exactly what we did. so we set up health care networks that didn't exist prior to doing that. saved a significant amount of money. i maintained that if the federal government would have given me medicaid with 43% less money to deliver health care to the poor, then i could done that in new mexico if they would have done away with all the strings and the mandates attached to medicaid. if i were given medicare, i think i could do -- would have been able to do the same thing. and that would be to deliver health care to those over 65. by no strings. no mandates. the notion of 50 laboratories of innovation. the notion of 50 laboratories of best practice, in my opinion, that's what would happen. we would have spectacular success that would get emulated because we're all really competitive, and we would have
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spectacular failure that would get avoided in the same way. but the notion of washington knows best, the notion that washington top down is the answer, that's what has us in the predicament that we're in. if we don't fix this, it is not a very sexy message. but if we don't fix this we're going to find ourselves with nothing. in the last year, it has been revealed that the federal reserve -- that on% of -- up to 70% of the treasury purchases that were made were basically from the federal reserve. just printing money. the monetary collapse is going to be when we print up 100% of that money to buy up our own debt.
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the result of this is going to be an absolutely devastated dollar that is getting devastated right now. strong u.s. dollar. balance the federal budget. cut 43% of what we're currently spending and i'm promising to do that. i'm promising to submit that budget as president of the united states and i'm promising to veto legislation that goes out of bounds from being able to balance that federal budget. you would argue well, they will just override your veto. well, i would have been elected president of the united states promising to do this and i will do this and base ond my veto history i hope you would believe that i would do this but i think you're going to get closer to a balanced budget elected a president who is promising to submit a balanced budget opposed to electing a president who is going to promise to do this over a 15-20 year period because that is the
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only prudent thing to do. we can fix this but we have to do it and we have to do it now. talking about military spending. military spending. can we cut our military spend big 43% and still provide a strong national defense for ourselves? i think the operative word here is national defense. and yes, i think we can do that. opposed to offense. as opposed to nation-building. i was opposed to iraq before we went into iraq. i did not see a military threat from iraq. and i thought we had the military surveillance capability to see iraq roll out any weapons of mass destruction and if they would have done that we could have gone in and dealt with that situation. i thought if went into iraq, we would find ourselfs in a situation or civil war to which
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there would be no end. afghanistan initially, i thought that was totally warranted. that we were attacked. we attacked back. and after being in iraq -- after being in afghanistan for six months, we wiped out al qaeda. that was 10 years ago. we're building roads, schools, brings, highways and hospitals in iraq and afghanistan and we're borrowing 43 cents of every dollar that we're spending to do that. this is crazy. libya. where does it say if we don't like a leader we should go in and topple that leader? where is the congressional authorization? don't five other countries qualify for that same
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intervention? i suggest that we get out of iraq, afghanistan and libya tomorrow. when it comes to the rest of our military spending, does anyone think it is justified that we have 120,000 troops on the ground in europe? i have never found anybody that believes it. we might get by with 57,000 troops, i would have to have the case made to me that we should have any troops there at all. all of these transportation infrastructure projects that have taken place the europe, they have been able to afford those infrastructure projects on top of health care for their citizens because really they have not had to spend any money on defense. we have subsidized that. so the rest of the world needs to share in this vigil that we should have against terrorism.
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and i think we -- there is a real threat when it comes to terrorism. and we should remain vigilant to that threat but it can't be just us. it has to be other countries. when it comes to when it comes to issues like health care and energy, i'm the free market guy. as governor of new mexico, i vetoed all sorts of legislation that i felt unfairly advantaged individuals, groups, corporations that were connected politically as opposed to legislation that would affect everyone equally. so what do we need to do in this country? we need to balance the federal budget first and foremost and scrap our entire tax system in this country and replace it with the fair tax. and if you haven't looked at the fair tax, it is fairtax.org
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but basically it does away with all current federal taxes and replaces it with one federal consumption tax. it is what it says. by all free market economists reckonning, it is fair. those that make more money will pay more under a fair tax. no one is going to avoid being able to pay the fair tax. there is a prebate involved in the fair tax so that those turned poverty level, that all of us will be given a check from the government to pay our fair tax up to the point of the poverty level so it is what it says it is. simple. make it easy. it does away with income tax. it does away with the i.r.s. does away with corporate income tax, business-to-business tax. when you talk about creating jobs in this country, enacting the fair tax, why would you start up a business anywhere on the planet other than the united states, given an
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environment where there is no tax? i suggest tens of millions of jobs get created in this country? a very short amount of time by the private sector when you create an environment that the free tax would bring about. free market approaches to the solutions that we face. i believe in free markets. i think there is a magic to free markets. the criticism of free markets really is that there is -- that it gets manipulated. that it is not free markets. that it is anything but free markets. so when it comes to health care, energy, free market approaches to health care, to energy, looking at the immigration issue in this country, i think immigration is really a hot-button issue. i think it starts with mexicans
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coming across the border and taking jobs from americanings. absolutely not. we can sit at home and collect a welfare check that is less money or the same amount of money for doing nothing. we need to redesign welfare if this country. a work visa that would entail a background check and a social security card so that taxes could get paid. if we enact the fair tax, no one avoids the tax. regarding the 11 million illegal immigrants in this country now, i think we need to set up a grace period where we can document them. that's how we can secure the border. set up a grace period where they can get a work visa. billing a fence across the,000 miles of border, putting the
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national guard arm in arm across the,000 miles of border in my opinion would be a whole lot of money spent with very little benefit whatsoever. and then don't discount the problems with drugs and the border and the border violence. this is drugs. this is prohib i guess played out. i have advocated the legalization of marijuana since 1999. legalize it and 75% of the border violence with mexico going away. legalized marijuana. tax it. it is never going to become legal to smoke pot and get impaired and get behind the wheel of a car and it is never going to be legal for kids to smoke pot or buy pot.
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under which scenario is it going to be easier for kids to smoke pot or buy pot? the situation that is today, the person that sells marijuana, sells harder drugs or a situation where you have to present an idea -- i.d. in a controlled environment like alcohol to buy marijuana, i think you can make the case that it would be more difficult, based on holland's experience and portugal's experience, it suggests that things would get better, not worse. 28,000 deaths south of the border over the last four years. if we can't connect the dots between prohibition and violence, i don't know if we ever will. these are disputes being played out with guns rather than the courts. right now, this is a contest now on the republican side to obviously go up against president obama in the general election. i really think that if republicans don't concentrate
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on pocketbook issues, that they are not going to find themselves in a position to be able to make the change needed. so i want to say that republicans should not be focused on social issues. i will tell you i ran for governor of new mexico did not get the social conservative vote in the primary. it was not something that i was going to get. i didn't get it. but i got that vote in the general election. because then the focus was on the pocketbook and pocketbook issues. i think republicans really need to concentrate on pocket book issues. if republicans are going to be talking about borgs, if they are going to be talking -- abortion, if they are going to be talking about gays in the military, gay unions. by the way i support gay unions. i fundamentally support a human being's right to make decisions that i think only they should make.
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i fundamentally believe that a woman should have the right the make the decision when it comes to an abortion. i happen to believe -- and this is -- these are social issues to a degree. i happen to believe in evolution. i happen to believe that global warming is happening. i don't think we should implement cap and trade legislation and for the millions of dollars, trillions of dollars that we're looking to tax carbon emission i don't think it is going to make a difference at all long-term and that those resources could be directed in many more effective ways. so this is my pitch to all of you. i would not be standing here if number one, i didn't think i could do this job. i would not be standing here if i didn't think this needs to be fixed and based on my experience, a good government
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was easy. it was not difficult. it was easy. it just took the willingness to go out and do this. and there is nothing in my resume, nothing in my resume to suggest that the things that i'm talking about here to you right now, i am not going to actually go out and pursue to this degree that it is going to take to make these things hap -- happen in this country. thank you all very much for allowing know speak to you. i guess we're going to openette up for questions, comments, maybe any insults that any of you have. >> hopefully none. hopefully none. thank you very much. we'll go ahead and ask questions. we have had a good flow of them since you began speaking which is a good sign. here's one that says the growing opinion is that it's not just the congress that can't compromise but also the american people themselves. everyone wants to live in like-minded communities in which they don't have to consider differing view points and behaviors. what makes you the consensus candidate that can bring americans together again,
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particularly in respect to the not zone during the not so effective debt debate recently? >> i would not have raised the debt ceiling. i think that for all of the trials and tribulations that would have gone on by not raising the debt ceiling that we would have stopped printing money. that's really what we need to do is stop printing money. we could have addressed this now. it would have been extremely difficult to deal with it now, but i just suggest dealing with it now will be pale in comparison to what looms in the not too distant future. we need to deal with that. look, i attend events where people are screaming, balance the budget! balance the budget! cut spending and they're holding a sign that says don't touch my medicare. you talk about consensus. well, there's consensus here
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that has to be built on facts. there has to be a consensus built on reality. as president of the united states, as governor of new mexico, i know the power of the bully poll to be able to talk about issues. as governor of new mexico talking about school choice, advocating school choice, advocating bringing competition to public education. you can make a difference. you can make a huge difference. that's the role that president has and should be carrying out to its greatest degree. >> so you mention the debt ceiling at the outset there. would default be ok in your view? >> well, i don't see a default. i did not see it, and don't see us defaulting on obligations like debt payments. i didn't see that happening. i didn't see us defaulting on payments that were important. military personnel, whatever that might have been.
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but this was in my opinion an opportunity to deal with it now. i don't want to discount how painful the process would be right now if congress and the president were to have engaged in this. i just suggest it is going to be pale in compareston a monetary collapse where we're not going to be in control at all. >> when you say you didn't see a default happening would you say they would have been avoided or permissible under the way you would manage the situation? >> i wouldn't be the dictator i would be the president of the united states and i respect the three branches of government. if i would have been the dictator, yeah i would have made all the interest payments, the payments that would have kept this country going forward. i would have put a stop to spending in areas we have to put an end to. back to being a dictator i would have waved that magic
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wand and blocked the states grant of medicare and medicaid and we would have had 50 different ways of dealing with the delivery of health care to the poor and those over 65. we would have worked it out. we would be working out out right now opposed to not working it out. there is no magic in this. there is a day of reckonning here. >> so your proposal is to cut 43% of the budget. in a town where people at the end of the day ultimately have to get along or they don't accomplish anything, there was no agreement to cut $4 billion right? in other words, the maximum solution was not the one -- >> exactly. >> so ultimately, how would you have governed more effectively in that situation? >> well, what you're pointing out is the impossibility of balancing the budget. that it's impossible. you can't do it. if i get elected president of the united states and this is what i say i'm going to do which is submit a balance
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budget and not accept anything short of a balanced budget, what message does that send to congress? i think that sends a message that we really as american people want this issue addressed. i just argue that if you're going to elect a president who you may view as pragmatic because we need to do this over a 15 or 20 year period because that's the only real prudent way to go about it, it's not going to happen. and that we are going to find ourselves with nothing. that's the unsexy message about all this. we're going to find ourselves with nothing at the end of the day, as opposed to fixing it, which there's a lot to be said for fixing this. and we can do it! we went to the moon! we can certainly balance the federal budget! >> some people would like for you to differentiate yourself with ron paul, who, as we know finished second in the iowa straw poll in a sense that
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there do seem to be some points and you reference him in your speech where you hold agreement. in some ways he might be seen as having some views similar to yours, how are you different? >> well, it gets back to resume. i think dr. paul has had many, many principle no votes in congress. the only no vote in congress. he registers his no vote, it's very principled. i would like to they if i were in congress i would have done and would do the same thing. but as governor as new mexico out of those 750 vetoes, new mexico is 2-1 democrat. the legislature was 2-1 democrat. out of those 750 vetoes, a third of them were republican bills because republicans drew governments just like democrats in my opinion. and that legislation needed to be vetoed. unofficially i vetoed 100 bills
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in the new mexico legislator where the vote was 117-0. i vetoed the legislation and only two of them were overridden so it stood up. so at the end of the day dr. paul, and again this is -- i applaud his principled position as a congress person, but my experience was different. i couldn't go home at the end of the day rendering my veto. i had to explain it. i had to debate it, i had to discuss it. and that went on all the time and i would like to think the verdict on that was i get re-elected by a bigger margin the second time than the first time. in a state that is 2-1 democrat. i like to think that spoke to the fact that people really appreciate a good stewardship of tax dollars. >> under your vision, for example, cutting the 43%, you veto, veto, veto, when does the budget get passed? >> well, if congress doesn't balance, they're going to have to override. if they override then it
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becomes a choice of the american public. do we stick with the president that we've elected? promising to submit a balanced budget? or do we overturn congress? and if congress overrides, i just suggest to you that that end product, that that product that they sent up in the very first place will come a lot closer to being balanced than if you're going to elect a president vowing to do this over a 15 or 20 year period. it's just going to be business as usual and these problems are not going to get addressed. >> some people have sent up questions talking about the electoral process so far. can you talk about why they you didn't want to participate in the iowa straw poll and why you weren't invited to participate in some of the debates. first of all. how do you see yourself getting to the finish line with those challenges so far? >> well, there are 184
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candidates declared running for president. it so happens that i'm like the guy right on the bubble. it's just where it works out. that i'm like ninth out of those 184. you know, you could say wow, what do i need to break through? or you could say wow i'm like ninth, i'm due to break through here. if you're a candidate that's known, i'm the least known republican candidate. that's a well known statistic. if you were known by -- >> well known that you're not well known. >> exactly. it's well known that i'm not well known. thank you. [laughter] if you're known by 100% of republican, of republicans and you're polling at about the same level that i am, which by the way, 1%-2%, what does that say? it doesn't say anything. what does 17% for the front runners say when the 17%
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doesn't move? what it says is that this is absolutely wide open. and so i'm putting my chips on the table in new hampshire. a state that i think has a terrific political environment, that terrific political environment is people come on in, sit down, tell me what you think, let's talk, let's discuss, let's cuss about this. iowa, iowa, my decision to forego iowa, my decision for running for president of the united states right now is very entrepreneurial. it's kind of reflective of the times. we're doing this on a shoestring compared to others. in area, it was $35,000 for a booth. it was $35 a ticket to bring in supporters, of which i guess it was reported that michele bachmann bought 6,000 tickets. you do the math here. that didn't include the barbecue and that didn't include the entertainment.
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so i just -- i couldn't afford it. i couldn't afford it. [laughter] >> fair enough, as this continues on you feel like you have the resources to mount an effective campaign in new hampshire. you said you're going there essentially after this. >> yeah, we have got an office in nanch. we have four full-time people in new hampshire. they are terrific. they're all young and they're terrific. and we're fighting for a cause, if you will. and so it's fun. and so if you don't, if you're not spending a whole lot of money, which i'm not, i can last through this. i might end up winning california. that's how this could all work. >> rick perry appears to have toned down some of his words having gone from iowa to new hampshire. how do you think what you're presenting plays in new hampshire relative to the rest of the country for what you've seen so far?
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>> well, i experienced this as governor of new mexico. when i ran for governor -- by the way, this is the only vantage i've ever known politically. when i ran for governor of new mexico, the primary was in june. in february they did a poll, this was five months before the primary in new mexico? they did a poll, who would you vote for on the republican side of the ticket. i was at 2% of the republican vote. we were ecstatic because i was on the list. but hadn't spent any money when it came to trying to actually sell the message. what is it i'm saying? i had worked harder than anybody to that point? i had addressed more people, i built up a great base, so i thought in new mexico and it actually worked out that way. when we started spending money on what is it i'm saying, what is it that i'm saying, i went from 2% to 24% in a couple of weeks. so i understand politics, i
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understand how it works. i understand that you can do well in new mexico. you can go from obscurity and prominence over a good something to new hampshire. that goes back to eugene macarthur. this is a card that i'm playing. >> someone asked why did you not just run as an independent, particularly as they phrase it, in light of the way that you've been treated by what they call the establishment? i mean, why seek a republican nomination at all given some of the differences you may have with many members of that party? >> well, first of all i have no problem with the republican party. the republican party has been great to me. my entire career, the republican party has been come on in, this is a big tent. so i have no complaints with the republican party. none whatsoever. and i really don't have any complaints with the press either. this is a process. this is a process, you grind it out and you grind it out. i think it's a process where you've got to say the right
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things, where you have to espouse the things a need to get done and then you to have a resume that under the light of day says whoa, this is somebody who'll probably actually try and dop what it is he says he is going to do. >> someone asked have you been asked to participate in any upcoming debates so far? >> yes, but so far i've been in one debate. i've been excluded from two. for what it's worth i'm the guy on the bubble. they were pretty darn up front about it where i was relative to where i needed to be. so it is what it is. i guess i could not participate in another debate. maybe it's a must have to go listen to what gary has to say in south korea because of his
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-- in south carolina, because of his showing in new hampshire. maybe you would walk out of here and go, well i heard this before, well he doesn't stand a chance but i really like what he has to say. >> you've been described holding political positions that are similar to some of the tea party recommendations. how do you view yourself with respect to the tea party, first of all? >> the tea party is a mixed bag, this is my opinion. if the tea party, and i think this is what the tea party stands for is the checkbook, the federal checkbook. great. i'm a tea partyier, period. talking about dollars and cents, let's save our country and actually become fiscally sound. but, i have seen tea party events that don't have that as their basis, that have a social agenda as their basis. in my opinion, if republicans
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are going to lead, or nominate a candidate that first and foremost has a social agenda, i don't see republicans in a position to actually address the problems this country faces because i don't see this country little bitting a president that is going to lead with a social agenda. >> someone asked of all the current g.o.p. contenders, who do you think is the toughest challenger right now and how do you tailor your strooge target that person? -- your strategy to target that person? >> well, my strategy is i'm not going to tailor my strategy for any of my opponents. i ran two campaigns for governor where i did not mention my opponent in print, radio or television. i don't know if anybody can lay claim to that. but i think clearly, when you look at contenders here, that it's mitt romney, he's raised a lot of money. mathematically, what has he raised? 300 times as much money as i have. that's formidable.
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i don't think i have to say anything about mitt romney that isn't going to get vetted out in this process. again i just say i believe in this process. i believe in this whole vetting out. if i didn't, i wouldn't be here. >> well our friend from the houston chronicle says you were new mexico governor when governor perry was starting out as texas governor. what do you think of him as a person and as a governor? do you think he is suited to be president of the united states, either professionally or temperamentally. what in your eight years as governor better qualifies for him, for example, who spent 10 years at the helm? >> well, first of all i really did like him. he took over from george bush so i served with him for two years. i thought he was a likable character, very charismatic. back to the job. look, i'm making the pitch that it's me, it's nobody else. if nothing else, i think you'll all leave here having been hammered by that pitch i'm
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giving you. that's the only thing i can control, is my pitch. i love the fact that texas has such a great economic environment. i think that economic environment has existed for a long time. and that starts with no income tax. and it's something i talked about in new mexico all the time. this is the direction we need to move in new mexico. really didn't make reduction of taxes happen, because of a legislator that was 2-1 democrat. but in the environment that i had to deal with, statistically before rick perry entered into this race i had the best record when it came to jobs. now that he's entered into the race, statistically it's kind of like the polls and trying to get into the debates. it's really close. >> what do you think of his suggestion that perhaps the fed chair committed treason? >> i think the fed chair is the
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messinger here. and that he, the fed have kept interest rates artificially low. in my opinion, federal reserves should be pursuing policies of strong u.s. dollar, not weak u.s. dollar. if we were to abolish the federal reserve, the treasury could still print money. that would happen, if we were to abolish the federal reserve, we would have to make up a lot of the functions that the federal reserve does carry out with regional banks and we could make that happen. transparency within the federal reserve, that's what's really key. we should work to see more comes out of the federal reserve. no, bernanke is the messinger here. he is having to deal with a situation that i'm arguing is a situation that puts us on the verge of a monetary collapse, and if interest rates are not at zero, which he, the federal
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reserve controls, that interest rate, if they were not at zero, we would be in that financial collapse, that monetary collapse right now. it would be evident to the world and all of us as citizens. >> someone asked, we have the 9/11 anniversary coming up, the 10th anniversary, talked a little bit, referred to that earlier. what do you think about the federal government's reaction to that in general? you said you thought moving into afghanistan could have been a little more concise. what about the department of homeland security, t.s.a., etc.? >> i would have never established the department of homeland security. i think it is very dupolice cartive. i think that's it very i would have never established the t.s.a. i would have left airline security to the airlines and i dare say today getting on air planes would be as safe and less intrusive if the airlines were in charge as opposed to t.s.a.
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right after 9/11 we secure the cockpit doors. well, you know what? that really prevents for the most part an airplane being used as a missile again. and more important than anything passengers are not standing by for any shenanigans. and that is more important than anything right now. so after 9/11 in new mexico, what i did is i just stood back and said no! no! we don't need to barricade the f.a.a. building on louisiana. it is not going to happen. no, we're not going to divert 30 years of traffic because of 9/11. no, i'm not going to post entries on the dam in las cruces of the rio grande because somebody is going to blow up the dam, on and on and on and on and on in the name of security nshes name of safety, we're giving up our sole liberties in this country, just one step at a time and i'm not that guy. i'm not that guy to give up
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civil liberties. i think this country is about liberty and freedom and a personal responsibility that goes with that and that personal responsibility really starts with can we spend more money? can you and i spend more money than what government takes in and then hand that bill over to our kids? i don't think so. >> someone said that if the u.s. pulled out of iraq and afghanistan tomorrow as you propose, would you have any concerns about al qaeda and taliban extremists pulling the vacuum left by the exit? does the u.s. have any responsibility to continue providing security for locals there? >> so, if we pull out of iraq and afghanistan tomorrow, these are the questions that we're going to be faced with. what's going to happen? that debate and that discussion is going to be totally warranted. it's going to have a basis in fact, and it would be something that would concern us all. i just argue we're going to have this same debate and discussion 25 years from now if that's when we finally decide
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to get out. i hope that's not the case. i hope to get elected president of the united states and begin an immediate pull out from iraq and afghanistan and libya. >> you stayed gay -- you believe -- you support the notion of gay unions. does that translate into gay marriage as well? >> i think government should get out of the marriage business. i think government can be in the civil union business. get out of the marriage business, leave the marriages to the churches. could you talk a little bit more about how you view the issue of climate change? what should the government's role be in mitigating that? >> well, climate change. i think -- i think the world is getting warmer. i think that it is man-caused. that said, should we be engaged in cap and trade?
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>> no, i don't think we should. we should lend stornte the energy field. we should be building new coal-fired plants. when you're looking at the amount of money we are planning to spend on global warming, the trillions, and look at the results, i just argue that the result is completely inconsequential to the money we would end up spending and we would direct those moneys in other ways it would be much more beneficial to mankind. the long-term view -- should we take the long-term view when it comes to global warming? i think that we should. and the long-term view is that in billions of years, the sun is going to actually grow and encompass the earth, right? so global warming is in our future. >> census projections in the case of the u.s. will soon become a majority-minority
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country. largest minority group being hispanics. some people say because the g.o.p. has taken a hard line on immigration, they are alienating those people and will diminish the party's chances of winning the white house in the future. how do you manage that coming from a border state? >> i think that's a fair statement. i think mexicans and i'm talking about legal immigration. illegal immigration, bad thing. i gave you some suggestions how we deal with illegal immigration, in my opinion, effectively. legal immigration is a good thing. we're getting the cream of the crop when it comes to workers from mexico. that is a fact. so i think that the republican party has vilified hispanics and that it is not necessary to do that and i've never done that and i don't intend to do that in the future. i view immigration as something positive. enact the fair tax.
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make this country the only place to start up -- nurture business, for those businesses in this country that are going to want to rely on low-cost labor, maybe that is what did you do to attract the hispanic vote? i had to have the spanish vote for me to get elected. the reason is nothing. i didn't do a thing. i took the job from the standpoint of government that should apply a level playing field for everybody. government should take this position of look, make it equal access for everybody. and that means the american dream.
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you can go from having nothing to having everything if you're willing to work hard and ino vate. i just argue that this government, our government really benefits those that are well-connected politically as opposed to the latter, which is what this country is about. >> you taubts about in your -- talked about in your speech about having an open door policy. would that extend to the white house and would you then be for giving additional funding for the secret service? >> no, i'm looking at a 43% reduction in what the executive spends to be able to live from day-to-day. i think air force one needs to be grounded. that's symbolic, i realize, but not really. it's dollars and cents. that should take place. i would like to establish an open door after 4:00 for waste, fraud and abuse. i think there could be some program they ares set up.
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-- parameters set up. the third thursday of every month i would meet with anybody in government that has, that can tell me about the notion of waste, fraud and abuse and i got to tell you based on my experience as governor of new mexico, you can get right in the middle of this stuff and fix stuff immediately. yeah, you might say gosh, that is just peanuts compared to the hole. well you know what? you fixed the peanuts. i fix it for this one individual, i fix it for 40 others that have had, that have been subject to the same treatment that have come in here and done this. that being past and looking future. >> we're almost out of time. i would like to take care of a couple of housekeeping matters. i would like to remind them that we have an upcoming luncheon on september 30. ahead over labor day.
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september 6, the former mayor rudy giuliani will be our guest. now as we always do before they absolutely ask last question, like to present you as a token our national press club cup. >> thank you very much. >> one final question. one looks at the history books and reminds there have been a couple of president johnsons before. one was the first president impeached. that was president andrew johnson who was the 17th president of the united states. the second was president lyndon johnson who last was in office in 1969. how would you be different from them? [laughter] >> i don't think there could be a bigger difference between lyndon johnson and myself as president of the united states. i mean, lyndon did give us medicaid and medicare. i think he set the course for where we're at right now financially. it's just taken this long to get there. i'm about as opposite as i think. i know that lyndon johnson when he took office that new mexico voters didn't vote for him or
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the roswell -- it was an air force base at that time. because roswell didn't vote for him, he shut down the other one. that's not me. that's what i would be as president of the united states. >> we would like to thank you for being here today. [applause] >> we would like to thank all of you in our audience for listening today. we're adjourned. thank you very much.
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>> as kids head back to school, education secretary arnie duncan talks about the state of the education system as well as waivers for the no child left behind law and other education issues. news makers 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. watch more video on the candidates. see what political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions on c-span's website cap 2012. candidate bios and the latest polling data plus links to c-span media partners in the earlier campaign caucus states. august 16 marked the 34th
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anniversary of elvis presley's death. this weekend on c-span 3, elvis aide and confidente jerry schilling talks about the king and his meeting at the white house with president nixon. we'll talk about mount vernon and shedding new light on george washington. get complete we could schedule at c-span.org/history. >> now presidential account michele bachmann holds a town hall event in meriting beach, south carolina. last weekend she won the iowa republican straw poll with 28%
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of the vote. this is just over an hour. >> ♪ [applause]
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>> ladies and gentlemen, i want to make one comment about our previous introduction. there is no doubt that anyone here today would have any problems in january 2013 one michelle left the white house and another one arrived as the president to occupy it. ladies and gentlemen, michele bachmann! [applause] >> thank you. >> ♪ >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you for coming. thank you. thank you. thank you.
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hey, everybody. meriting beach, south carolina. you would think we were all on vacation. [applause] let's give a big cheer for mirting beach. -- myrtle beach 378 you would think this was an election victory party. you are all invited. who is ready to make barack obama a one-term president? [applause] we've got our mission. we've got our marching orders. now all we have to do is make it happen. [applause] >> that's what we're going to do. we have wonderful people with us here today. please go ahead and have a seat. i know it is warp. thank you for your patience. we have some great dignitaries with us today. if i don't mention your names,
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please raise your hands. we have state representative nelson hardwick. >> you, nelson? let's see. where are you, nelson? there he is. right over there. hi, nelson. we see you. getter done. al allen. where is al? we know he is here. ok. and north myrtle beach congresswoman doris. there is doris. good to see you. glad that you're here. we have myrtle beach councilman randall wallace. hey, randall. there he is. hey, randall. i'm glad that you're here today. we also have myrtle beach tea party chairman joe dugan. where is joe? there he is. [applause] you're the man, joe. we're glad that you're here.
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were there any other local dignitaries? you're all dignitaries as far as i'm concerned. goodness, we are glad that you're here. >> carolina patriots, conservative group. [applause] >> yay! we have got royalty in our midst as far as i'm concerned. anyone else 1234 we have my next door neighbor who is drove all the way from minnesota right here. thank you guys. applause yes, ma'am. the school board. thank you, i'm glad that you're here. we have my former law school classmate. lenore is here. lenore is here. good to see you.

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