questioners. have a great week and we'll see you next fox news sunday. two-h presentation. stay with fox. unusu (applause) >> good evening everyone. i am mike huckabee coming to you from the beautiful theater at the college of charleston. this theater is filled with undecided voters from south carolina. the palmetto state's primary is just a week away. polls are showing a significant

number of voters here in south carolina are still undecided on which republican candidate they are going to vote for. i want to say how grateful we are today to receive the hospitality of all of the people of south carolina and especially to people of this lovely city, charleston. if you have never been to charleston, it is one of the most beautiful, charming, historic and hospitable places you will ever experience. in fact we are here today largely because we needed an excuse to come to charleston to enjoy this lovely city and this beautiful campus. i want to introduce today a special guest in the audience. very honored to have the governor of south carolina nicky haley with you wills. governor haley, welcome. thank you so much for billionbe today. (applause) well, you may know that since 1980,no gop nominee has been able to win without south carolina. how painfully i know that.

but someone who comes on this stage tonight is going to be the nominee for the republican party. for many of us we hope the next president of the united states. the format is going to be unique. because what we are going to do is let undecided voters ask questions. sometimes people say why are there so many undecided voters? that gives people some sense of pause and anxiety. let me assure you, it is not because thighs are not great candidates. i believe every last one of them are truly great candidates. have you ever been really hungry and you go to the grocery store and you walk through the isles and because you are hungry you look around and you can't decide what to get because it all looks good. to those pundits who think the reason people are undecided is because they don't find something they like, i suggest it's because they find something they like in all of the

candidates. tonight we hope they will be brought to a point of decision. each of the five candidates are going to look here individually. they will be answering questions and they are going to get exactly the same amount of time. each one of them will be given about 12 minutes. they will have the opportunity to answer questions. candidates are going to be required to focus on the questions being posed they are not to mention and not to attack the other candidates. (applause) the order in which you see them was determined a drawing prior to the event. questions are going to come from undecided south carolina voters right here in our audience. we hope today's forum will help them make a decision. the questions being asked are from the audience members themselves. each will get a minute to provide summary remarks. texas congressman ron paul declined our repete -- repeated

invitations. we would love to hear what you are thinking about this forum you can post it at facebook.com/huckabee show plus you can tweet by using the hash tag huckabee forum. our special host south carolina congressman tim scott. tell us why south carolina is so important to the process? >> they love their congressman here in charleston. congressman, tell us why south carolina is so important in this process? >> governor, you know in 2008 you were my mnom me, by the way. i want everybody to know that. the south is so important in this process because since 1980 we have not chosen the wrong

candidate. we have 48 percent still willing to change their minds because we have very good candidates running this year. we need to make the best choice. i believe america follows south carolina. >> congressman tim scott an honor to be in this tradition. the first candidate in today's forum is former massachusetts governor mitt romney. please welcome governor romney to the stage. >> great to have you here. >> great to be here. thank you very much>> so let's go to congressman tim scott out in the audience. he has the first question of the day. >> governor the first question comes from shanna shepherd. >> welcome to the great state of south carolina. i am shanna shepherd. i was a housing industry executive for 33 years. i lost that source of income due

to the lack of fundling for new home construction and the lack of the ability for consumers to get home loans without huge down payments. my question do you today is what will you do to protect americans rights own their own homes and restore the housing industry that is critical to our economy? >> well, thank you members. let me see how much i enjoy charleston. this is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. it is great to be with you today. your question about housing is a question people are concerned about. sometimes they look and say can g government do something to help. i would like to make sure they stop doing things that hurt. with the passing of the legislation, all sorts of new regulations were put upon the baipging industry and made it much more difficult for them to

be able to make the loans and mortgage provisions that would make it easy for people to buy a home. i also want to tell you i am not going to go back to the years of yetter year whe-- yester year wy were handing out where they could not possibly repay them in some cases no down payment interest only mortgages that got us into real trouble. what we are going to have to do to get the housing market back going is what america does right now is get the economy beigoing again. if we have jobs south carolina can't buy a home we have to get back to work then we have to get our regulatory system. my view is i don't want to see us go back to cheap mortgages guaranteeed by the government which gets prices out of line i want to get the government out of housing business let the

market work. >> thank you very much. we will go now to our next question. >> i have a follow up. would you continue to support mortgage interest being a tax deduction? >> i do continue to support that. i think at this stage for us to state we are going to eliminate the home fomortgage troin dux ud have a can iing can't de preesing effect. >> thank you very much. next question state your name and present your question to governor romney. >> i have a question of presence of power. in a historical sense of combination of things like the dream act the expansion of regulatory power at epa and labor the consumer financial protection regulatory agency against the froess of congress as well as the recessed

appointments made while the congress really isn't in recess it's done under the slogan if we can't wait seems like an assumption of power that isn't granted in the constitution. would you comment on your view of this. if you were president how would your administration behave differently? >> the president is extra constitutional action. he is taking his friends and bringing them into a decision of power. this is where we are paying bag organized union labor by taking unions and putting them into the national relations board so they will do the bidding and follow this policy. it is in south carolina it's pro worker right to work state is simply wrong. if i am president of the united states, i would make sure the

mlrb and other institutions aren't interfering with the will of the nation. i think one of the things the president has great failure in his first term and by the way his only term, is he came into office with a democrat house and democrat senate he didn't think he needed to work across the aisle to build relationships with republicans. he pushed his agenda without the feelings of the american people now that you have a republican house he doesn't like it any more. he wants to jam it through whatever you want to do without reference to the will of the american people. i learned a lesson of being a governor in a state where there are a few democrats. it was 85 percent democrat. i learned i had to get along with other guys and work with them. i will follow the constitution

and respect the people of america. >> we are going to continue with governor romney and he will take the remainder of the time. stay with us.

>> i am a ron paul supporter and there are a whole lot of us out there in the political process. if you win the nomination there's no guarantee you will have our support in november. but you are going to need it in order to beat barack obama. after romney cawe have question about your free market principles. how will you get us on board with you and you and obama aren't just different sides of the point. >> he has a different direction in america. he and i would take america very different places. my view is we have to have the strongest military in the world to protect us from the threats around the world. his view is we should continue to cut the military. he is going to cut the spending by about a trillion dollars and that would make america a far weaker nation militarilmilitari.

we should continue to spend more than we take in. like ron paul and every republican i want to cap federal spending and balance the budget. where we head is very different. >> i understand how the economy works. i understand how jobs come and they go. i would do our best to keep the economy growing and the government guides the economy. they have making their dreams the help of the earth. thank you. >> i am a family practice physician my income there are p

who's income is dependent on medicaid. i am facing a threat of stopping medicare opting out of medicare is a reasonable choice other physicians have chosen that pathway for retirement. governor romney, what changes in med terry em burrsment formula do you propose that would prevent physicians from opting out of medicare so they continue to provide healthcare to seniors and families. >> you understand president obama and people of his parties have a different view about healthcare than we have. their view is to hold down the cost of healthcare as well as medicaid and medicare the government needs to put in constant tofold and tell doctor what they resist. we the heist healthcare in the world.

my idea is we have to get healthcare. what i do is ultimately rehap medicare for retirees in the future. it's more of a medicare a advantage where they were able to choose and bring in support and decide which is the best for them. that i believe is the right way protect medicare for future generations and to allow doctors to compete with one another. hospitals to repeat. i think the best way to keep quality up and costs down to have competition rather than jam those down across you and others. yeks up, your question for governor romney? >> my name is charlotte. i am disturbed there is anti

christian sentiment. the government will make no restrictions regarding religion yet they are spending me more restrictions against repliing gone all of the time. this is the opposite of constitution in my opinion. as president of the united states what would you do to protect the freedom of religion in this country? >> thank you, charlotte. the answer is at every turn at every issue that would reach my desk i would stand up to the ability mother americans to choose. i do not proceed around this path which is try to sec as you -- sec ue lar. we are a believing people. the declaration of independence started it buy saying they are not created guy governor but the creator. i will fight to defsh america's tradition as a religious nation.

come and state your name and your question please. >> my name is ann ford. can you convince me as a true conservative why we should vote for you oh moderate republican against any of the other candidates? when you flip flop if you are elected and break campaign promises like obama has. >> you get to know me best buy looking at my record as governor. i served for four years. in that responsibility i had a number of issues that came to my desk. i served as a conservative governor. we balanced the budget every year for four years. at the end of the term we put in place the $2 billion rainy day fund even though we started with a budget gap. we cut taxes 19 times i empowered state police to

enforce immigration law. i was able to implement english immersion in our schools. we drove the schools to go number one in our nation. i actually did cut our budget in ch by the way all of the departments and agencies in massachusetts by the time i defendant office were viewer than where i could convince you. describe by shoe how to make america strong. i am con strinsed t -- convincee principles of americanism will keep the small beak con on the spill hill. thank you so much we are going to see you at the close of the

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>> south carolina undecided our next presidential candidate former utah governor john huntsman. please welcome governor huntsman. (applause) >> hello, john. >> thank you very much. >> once again we are going to do what we did before. we are going to go to congressman tim scott who has our first question for governor huntsman. >> ingrid sullivan. >> in the first 30-days as president of the united states what could you do to have any positive impact on america and people like me that may vote for you? >> thank you for the question. let me say first and foremost it's an honor to be with governor huckabee. the last time we were on a stage together we were playing with a rock band called reo speed

wagon. >> it was fun. >> thank you for the question. the answer is very simple. that is, i would lead. today we have no leadership. we have no one who is doing what needs to be done on capitol hill and driving forward the work of the people. i understand that there is a certain rhythm to politics. i found this out when i was governor. if you don't strike right after you are put into office and well articulate your priorities two or three things you want to get done and sit down with your legislature or leaders of congress you are never going to get it done. i would be very clear on the three things that i want to get done starting my first day in office. that would be tax reform we are driving a 1955 chevy we wonder why we have to complete. cleaning up the regulatory mess.

third is taking steps toward energy independence. i sit down with members of congress they have a road map laid out knowing full well that they can't get that done first in office and it closes the rules of the people. that's a bad place to be. next question, please? >> good evening, governor. this is a three-part question for you. so many americans out of work would you continue to sanction almost a million people coming to this country and taking the high-tech jobs high paying jobs. what about our college children that are graduating without jobs? >> well, your first question was

about brain power coming into this country? >> yeah. people from outside of this country coming in legally and taking the high-tech jobs and best paying jobs we have currently in the country. >> let me say to that, we need to fix our immigration system. it is absolutely broken. number one, we owe it to the people of this country in order to have any intellectual honesty at all to secure the southern border. i look forward to working with the governors in making sure we got that done. while doing that we also need to remember do we have a problem in the movement of people. for those who are coming into our country studying at our universities i would like to incentivize them to stay behind and use the brain power to help expand and develop our economic base to help create jobs. this is the way the economy has always benefited. i would say while we are at it this country has lost a huge

amount of market share in the area of travel and tourism. i would say right here in charleston a very significant impact to this economy. we have 17 percent of inbound travel in tourism to about 10 percent this year. you know how many billions of dollars we lost and how many jobs that have been completelier rad cat i h-- eradicated becaus policies are completely broken. that starts with a leader who can fix the homeland security which is overly regulated and bureaucratic and hindered our ability to get ahead. >> we have a couple more minutes before we take a second segment. next question, please. >> you are adamantly pro-life but you place stipulations on cases of rape and harm to the mother. if it is created god how can we put stipulations on life.

>> i have been clear on pro-life. i always will be. i have a daughter sitting right there in front of you. her name is grace see may. she is from china. she was born in a country where life wasn't always abandvalue l. she was abandoned and left at a vegetable market. i thank her mother every day for giving her life. i have stipulations with rape and incest and health -- life of the mother. that is the conclusion that i have drawn after being looked at it, investigated it and thought through it very carefully. that's where i am that's where i always have been and i hope it's good enough for you. thank you. >> one more question from this section then we will take a break and come back. your name and your question for governor huntsman. >> good evening. my name is jack frose. the ultimate candidate for the highest of offices could face

the possibility of a billion dollars worth of dirty tricks. do you anticipate in that respect, sir, the creation of an under current of religious prejudice, if so how do you plan on defending your faith and your beliefs? >> thank you, jack. i intend to defend who i am, my faith, my beliefs and my family by being who i am. because in the end the good voters and the good people of this country are going to come to know the nominee of the republican party in every way, shape and form. they are going to come to know the family of the nominee of this party. all you can do is to be your best and when you are your best and when you radiate whatever values you have, the good people of this country are going to come to know you. i think they are going to come to appreciate that. whether it's a billion dollars 2 billion, $5 billion it won't penetrate the goodness that i think a leader can project if

done right. >> we are going to continue with governor huntsman right after the break. stay with us. remember to post your thoughts. facebook/come huckabee show. acre

>> welcome back to charleston, south carolina. we are going to continue with john huntsman. we are going to go to the audience. state your name and your question. >> good afternoon. i am dave rid tilla. the nation that put a man on the moon is unable to put a man into space without buying a ride from russia. china launched their own space station and announced their intention to go to the moon. what role do you see us in the future and what would you do to expedite a new development of a system. >> i have two boys beginning their journey in the united states navy. they were inspired the early space tore -- stories they heard about. there are two important things to come from the space program that we must support. won the inspiration it gives to the next generation. i was part of the early moon landing generation, 9 years old when that happened and i was inspired.

i know the next generation is similar lay inspired. there's the economic benefit the technology that is arrived this week. i will not subcontract a space agency. >> i want to make sure we have an economy that allows us to have the best space program we can bring together as a people. it is one inspirational and i think it carries huge economic development benefits as well. >> next question, please. >> my name is ryan smith. my question is in 1979 the department of education had a $14.5 billion budget with staff under 100 people. we have a $2 billion budget

staffed at 100 people. with that growth in man power in budget we have paid since then over $500 billion in taxes. my question is where do you stand as sushgs department of education being inside a classroom or should they step out unless the mrn people ta-- t the american people take care of the education. >> it's an important question. so long to the department of education. (applause) >> here is why i say that. because our family has conducted the most extensive clinical trial i have seen in the area of education. i have raised 7 kids. we have seen public, private. my daughter was home schooled. we have seen international schools. i walk away from that experience

with certain beliefs. one i can't find the value added in if department of education. number two, we need to get education policy as close to the decision makers as possible. families, parents, teachers local election officials they don't want to pro veil. number three i led the class movement every child enters the classroom it is a one-size fits all model it is never going to cut it in this country. the most important thing we need for learning regardless of the point of origin or socioeconomic background we need to focus on people for early child hooz

development. my 6 or 7 you will have given the gift of literacy. they are going to go through their educational careers doing better than those who fall short in which case you have remediation kids falling through the cracks and less productive work force. those are my biases on education they are derived from having been tested in an area -- in a state that really did focus on education what is best for our family and best for our kids. >> we have less than 90 seconds remaining with governor huntsman. we go to the next question in the audience. >> governor huntsman my name is kathy mcduffie. my question is about foreign aid. our state department is spending millions of dollars rebuilding or repairing am in egypt and cyprus. in cairo $774 million was spent

on improving their sewer system while our infrastructure goes wanting for lack of funding. we have a trade deficit with china of over $600 billion yet we gave that country 7 million by air pollution. it is for our domestic loans. how would you as president strive to change this picture or would you defend these practices? >> governor we are short on time. if our invested dollar doesn't have a way of expanding by creating jobs i don't want anything to do with it. my foreign policy will be to get our house in order. you understand what i am saying? because when we are broken at

home which we are, we can't protect the v-- scombroekt the s of free market and right now our home is broken we have to get it fixed. >> governor huntsman thank you very much. great to be with you. when we come back more with our candidates. we will see governor huntsman and all of the candidates at the end. still ahead rick santorum newt giriri

>> from the beautiful city of south carolina this mag nif sevenlt campus of the college we welcome back the huckabee forum to south carolina undecided. our next presidential candidate former house speaker newt gingrich. please welcome speaker gingrich. >> thanks for being here today. >> mr. speaker, i am going to turn it over to congressman tim scott. going to introduce our first segment. >> thank you mr. speaker on behalf of south carolina voters for traveling here to answer our questions. i am currently 6 months pregnant with twins and recently laid off from my job in corporate america. we hear a lot about jobs. unemployment is coming close to 10 percent in this state.

what exactly is your plan to help create jobs on a national scale that more specifically in light of our environment here in south carolina so i don't have to worry about my future and my family's future? >> first of all congratulations on the twins. i hope that turns out to be a wonderful, wonderful thing. at the national level, i worked with president reagan on a job creating program of lower taxes less regulation. we created 16 million jobs in his two terms. as speaker i worked with clinton on lower taxes less regulation more energy. we created 11 million in four years. i would start with -- if you go to newt.org you will see tax cuts regulatory changes designed to create jobs starting with the repeal of obama care and which

kill jobs. but specifically, here in south carolina i would say three things. we should be actively developing the natural gas offshore. you have $29 billion plus of natural gas. those jobs in louisiana 80,000 a year and create a tremendous industry. we should be taking part of the royalties from developing offshore natural gas finish out both in charleston and in georgetown modernizing the harbors, the panama canal will be widened in 2014. dramatically want to widen the harbor so this is the most modern port for export purposes even more than import. third by using the right tax policies we want to rebuild manufacturing in south carolina. i want to be the president who is here with tim watching the first container ship of south carolina manufactured goods going to china from the united states.

>> thank you very much. we will go to our next question. your name and the question for the speaker. >> mr. speaker my name is ted mcknight. the founding fathers were opposed to a national bank. who do you think has the better grasp of what is best for our country. you or the founding fathers? >> well, since i have a historian and written books about the founding fathers i would think they have the better breadth consistently. i would reduce the power of the federal reserve, i would audit it annually. i would call for bernanke resign or ask that he would be fired the first week i am president. i would insist on releasing all of the decision memos of the last three years so we the american people can understand how the money -- our money was distributed and i deeply oppose the federal reserve propping up

the euro and helping germans trying to sustain their financial domination of europe. thank you very much. next question, please. >> mr. speaker, my name is dave. participants in the private economy understand that creative destruction is a fact of life. how dowdy fend the bill ficcation of companies that are willing to put capital at risk in order to save failing companies? >> i don't. i have never done that. let me answer you. we are going to go to georgetown tomorrow. georgetown has a steel mill which was closed. capital wasn't put at risk. capital was drained out of that company. governor romney ran saying he created 100,000 jobs in the private sector. >> we said we would not allow -- >> i am trying to answer his question. let me say it differently. i believe that it is fair to ask

the records be clear and the people reveal what happened. my total record is clear. i helped found 4 small companies. in every case we did exactly what you talked about. i think to ask questions about a particular company is not the same as attacking capitalism. i don't see how you can expect us to have a presidential campaign in which an entire sector is avoided. i guarantee you if we republicans avoid it, our nominee in the fall is not going to find that obama avoids it at all. we have to be prepared to answer every question. every single candidate has to be prepared to answer the questions before the nomination. so that we know whoever we nominate is capable of surviving the fall campaign. (applause) >> let's go quickly to our next question. your name please and your question for mr. speaker? >> hi mr. speaker. i am rebecca dau connolconnolly. my question is i voted for president obama the first time

as a lifetime republican voting for a democratic president. my question is, when the entire -- appeared the entire population of this country is sick of gridlock why would you use bipartisan cooperation as a weapon against your opponents when it seems counter productive to making real progress come across the aisle? (applause) >> well, when i worked with president reagan we had to get one-third of the democrats in the house to vote for his program. hill was still speaker. we had a bipartisan approach of creating jobs and taxes. when i was speaker we were faced with the fact that bill clinton was president. so if i was going to get well they're reform signed into the law i had to find a way for bill

clinton do sign it. if we were going to get four straight balanced budgets. i agree with you, you look at the total mess in washington you are not going to fix the country's problem just with speeches you have to find a way to get the parties together but it has to be principle. i work to bring them together on our values and our terms of lower taxes welfare reform and balanced budget. i didn't move to the left to get this support i got the country to move them to the right to get their support. >> thank you very much. you voted for obama the last time, i am tempted to ask how is that working out for you, but i won't do that. >> we will do the remainder of your time right after this

>> we continue with former speaker newt gingrich. we go right back to the audience for the next question. >> good evening speaker gingrich. my name is heather mcdonna. how do you enforce the attack mode of the obama campaign especially if the media is supporting most of it. >> that's a great question. working with governor reagan since 74 and president reagan was a big advantage. he was faced with the same challenge. i want to pose to the american people the simple question. over here you have a policy which with reagan and me as speaker created millions of jobs. it is called paychecks. over here you have the most successful food stamp president in american huss barack obama.

i don't believe in 99 percent or 1 percent. i believe in 100 percent of americans working together to create jobs. (applause) >> every time the president starts down the class warfare road i will say you mean businesses that have cost us jobs let people be unemployed and put mourn americans on food stamps than in history. i would rather follow tradition of bringing all americans to encourage entrepreneur ship to give every american the opportunity to pursue happiness by earning their own paycheck. that is the right answer. >> thank you very much. next question. >> hi my name is kimberly williams. i have been a federal employee over 20-years which is not a popular job to have right now. i want to thank you for coming. there's been a lot of talk among the candidates about the increase in federal jobs with the ee bam ma adm-- obama administration and average

salary of 120,000 dollars which i don't make nor does anybody make that i work with. my question is how are you going to cut the federal deficit without cutting federal jobs. >> let me start by pointing out, to be fair to everybody. we talk about federal employees but we like to control the border. we talk about federal employees but we are proud of the young men and women in uniform serving this country and people in our intelligence community and state department people who risk their lives. we need to think about the custom agent at the port makes sure trade goes in and out of south carolina is a federal employees. the agricultural agency who brings new products is a federal employee. i think an intelligent conservative wants the right federal employees delivering the right services in a highly ee spi sufficient way and once we get rid of those folks that are

wasteful or idea logically so far to the left or fraipgly want to dictate the rest of us. i would like to protect the environmental agency because the current u -- i would apply the concept of lean signal. i believe we could have a dramatically more productive federal government. i know federal employees would like to break out of the rules and regulations and not be trapped in bureaucracy. >> thank you very much. go to our next question former speaker. >> my federal taxes increased the beginning of the new year and my employer formed me that beginning in 2013 my healthcare insurance premium would increase. if you are elected president how fast would you be able to reverse these increases? (laughter) >> if i am elected president and don't have a team in the house

and senate the answer is not. that's why the election this fall has to be a team election. we have to try to win senate seats shlgs we have to win house seats. now if we could run a campaign and the american people come along and say yes we want to go in the direction con servetism i would ask the congress to stay in session january 3rd and repeal obama carry peel frank and repeal before i am sworn in. -- i would like on the day i am inaugurated to sign the repeal of all three. the gentlemen would give you a report on the same day i won't you to abolish all of the white house czars at that moment.

(applause) >> mr. speaker we have about 30 seconds left. i am going to ask you a quick question to close out the segment. if there is anything about the election laws that you could change if you had the power, universally to do it what would it be? >> i would get rid of the mickey mouse bureaucracy all of the limits any one can give after tax income to the campaign if they report it every night. if they got rid of the super pacts and negativity and the candidates would be in control and the candidates would be responsible. it would be a dramatically better system and honorable system. >> mr. speaker thank you very much. great to have you here. you can also see the speaker at the end of this. still ahead rick i wouldn't do that. get married? no, i wouldn't use that single miles credit card. nice ring. knock it off. ignore him. with the capital one venture card you earn... double miles on every purchase.