GLENN BECK PROGRAM
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

GLENN: Last night the debate happened on CNN and I've got to play a question and an answer from Anderson Cooper. It's bizarre that I happened to ask him the question yesterday on this program: How do you know who these people are, and if you have an operative from another campaign, do you let them through? And his answer is phenomenal and I think says it all about him and we'll get into that coming up, and I've got to tell you that I think these youtube debates are over because of what happened on the debate last night but maybe, maybe it's just me. I don't know. Maybe we'll ask Governor Romney. Is he on yet? Governor Romney, welcome to the program.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: I'm great, thanks.

GLENN: Great debate last night. Happy with your performance?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: I'm very pleased with what I got done and as some other people got revealed.

Mitt Romney

GLENN: Let me start here. The news today, you know, the, I guess the media news today is that the person who asked the question about abortion is a declared Edwards supporter. The Log Cabin Republican question I are is a declared Obama supporter. The lead toy questioner was a prominent union activist for the Edwards campaign and then the general works for the Hillary Clinton campaign. So my question to you is how unfair was Tim Russert a couple of weeks ago to Hillary Clinton?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: (Laughter.) You make a darn good point. Tim Russert asked very legitimate questions and I must admit on the scene of the youtube questions, it reminds me a bit about being in Massachusetts. It was not particularly a change of pace for me. I'm used to getting hostile questions, used to having liberals go after me and, you know, you've got to be able to take it. And I sort of liked the debate last night because it gave us a good chance to really go after one another

GLENN: You did go after Rudy Giuliani and he came back after you on immigration. You clearly won the sparring match there, but I do have to ask you this because I do want to understand. When you hired the illegals, I mean, I have -- and I haven't always done this, but I have people that work in my house and I make sure that they have, you know, documents. I go to the company and say I don't hire anybody that hires illegal aliens; can you provide documentation for everybody. Why didn't you do that, or do you do that now?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: As a matter of fact just to make it clear, I did not hire any of these individuals myself. These were not people that I hired. These were not my employees. I had a contractor who was providing a service and I have told that contractor, or Ann has, and we have told other contractors, hey, look, we're in the very public spotlight; your employees need to be legal. Now, what I can't do, because it's literally against the law, is for me to go to his employees and ask to see their identification papers.

GLENN: Yeah. You'd be called racist if you did.

GLENN: Pardon?

GLENN: You'd be called a racist if you did

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Yeah. I mean, we're not going to look for an America where you hire a company let's say to paint your house or, you know, replace a window and you're going to go out and ask for documents if somebody doesn't speak English, you're used to it. That's just not America. What we need in this country is an employment verification system so contractors know who's here legally and who's here illegally and you sanction them if they hire illegals. That's what we need. That's what congress passed years ago. It's time to finally enforce that law. And look, the key thing, of course, is that on the issues that count, Mayor Giuliani said he was in favor of sanctuary cities and Mike Huckabee gave or fought for a tuition break for illegal aliens. That's a key point. And if I was governor I said, look, no driver's licenses for illegal aliens, no tuition breaks for illegal aliens and I actually authorized the state police to enforce federal immigration law.

GLENN: Yeah, I'm surprised by the surge with Mike Huckabee in some ways. I mean, I think he's an honest, decent man. I really like Mike Huckabee. However, he's dead wrong on immigration. We have news reports today. We have the highest immigration, illegal and legal since the 1920s. It's the largest influx in the history of the United States. We have 30% of Florida now being called illegal aliens. How does this country survive if we don't get this under control?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, and, you know, Glenn, this is one of the easiest challenges we have to deal with. This is not hard to do. All you have to do is to give to legal aliens a card identifying them as such and say to employers, you can't hire people that aren't U.S. citizens unless they have the card. It's very, very simple. If that happens, people will start returning home because they can't get work here. That's the way it ought to work but instead we debate and we debate and we point fingers and it's time to finally get the job done in Washington. They're just, there's at least one too many politicians in Washington. And I want to go there and get somebody from the private sector who will finally put in place an employment verification system and secure our borders.

GLENN: Okay. How do you do that when you know and I know these corporations that now look at America not as their homeland but as just another market, the unions want it, the politicians want it, there's too much money, there's a, I believe a growing dark force that wants to take our sovereignty away and unite all of these, this hemisphere for trade reasons. How do you as one man stop this? How do you stop the companies alone and the special interest groups?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, first of all, the American people have extraordinary power and you can't forget it. You've got to have a leader that's able to tap that power. And that was demonstrated not long ago when we had the issue of illegal immigration and, you know, the Senate was going to pass a bill saying that everybody here illegally would get to stay here for the rest much their life and the American people started screaming, we started sending e-mails to our congressmen and our senators and they had to turn around and take a different course and that's what has to happen on illegal immigration. You've got to put out a simple plan explaining to the American people and if some senator or some congressman oppose it, it will be the death politically of that individual because the American people want action on this.

GLENN: Let me kind of change gears. There's a special interest group in California and Los Angeles now that is actually making videotapes that show illegals how to not answer questions, exactly what to do to be able to stay here illegally. If you saw a special interest group making this kind of DVD, what would you do to stop them?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: By, you know, the best way to stop the whole process is to make sure that again we have some way of identifying who's here legally and, you know, they can make all the tapes they want to but if somebody doesn't have a card that can be instantly verified, then you are not going to give them a job. And if an employer tries to hire somebody who doesn't have that kind of a card, that hasn't been verified, then you sanction the employer. You sanction them just like you do for not paying their taxes. That's why we have a visa program and we adjust our visa program from time to time up or down depending upon the needs of our economy. We're going to have legal immigration but it's illegal immigration that's going to stop it. And there's going to be no way around it as soon as we have this system in place.

GLENN: You know, Governor Romney, as you know I'm a fan of yours and especially when it comes to the economy and I'm very concerned about the economy. There's two branches out there. One says, oh, no, we're fine; the other says, good God almighty, run for your life. I tend to believe a little of both of them that right now the economy is doing well, people aren't hurting right now as much as the media would have you believe. That's not to say there isn't struggle out there but there always is. But at the same time that's going on, there are fundamental problems with our massive debt that we continue to pile up, with 2012 coming around the corner and Social Security and honestly I don't think we're getting the truth on things like our banking system and the credit crisis. You can't tell me that we have Citigroup, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, making an eleventh hour overnight flight to the Middle East to have hat in hand and beg Middle Eastern oil people, "Can we have some money." We're in real danger with the economy, or am I reading this wrong?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: No, we are in danger. Hopefully we'll not fall into a recession, a severe recession and hopefully we'll be able to weather this sub prime mortgage crisis but, you know, it happens time and time again that there are these speculative booms that take people to do things that are absolutely nonsensical, particularly in the light of history, and you look, you know, the tulip sensation back, you know, in Europe centuries ago, at the boom we had in this country, the Internet boom where the prices of Internet stocks became absurd. And the same thing happened with our financial institutions. They started making loans to people that were not in any way capable of repaying those loans but they made them anyway and put these products together and thought they were getting rich. And now we're suffering and it's a massive, massive hit to our economy and hopefully the economy will be able to weather it and continue to move along but, you know, you ask yourself at a stage like this we've got to be doing more at the federal government level to keep this from spreading into our economy. I appreciate what the Fed has done but there's got to be an effort to get our various institutions that hold this paper to instead of closing down and foreclosing all these homes, instead to provide a mechanism for workout so that people can stay in their homes and we don't have a collapse of our housing sector.

GLENN: Well, you said a minute ago that the financial institutions, you know, just started, you know, making loans to people who couldn't pay it back. How long before the people who are loaning us money as a country start saying, these people don't have any way to pay this all back, as every politician is saying, hey, we need bigger programs, we need healthcare, we need this, we need that. I mean, at what point does the rest of the world say, this is bad credit; we can't give these guys anymore money?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, there's no question but that countries are weighing that and it's not just because of the sub prime mortgage crisis, as you know. It's also because they watch us spending vastly more than we take in every year with no apparent ability to rein in that kind of gross appetite. They also see our entitlements programs looking larger and larger, looming up on us. And again no willingness on the part of people in Washington to actually deal with those problems. And they recognize that America's future is looking a little shakier. Look, I'm convinced that America's going to rise to the occasion here but it's only going to happen if we have a leader that's willing to tell the American people the truth and actually lead and, you know, it also helps to have somebody who knows something about the private sector. I spent 25 years in business and I worked in some 20 countries around the world. That experience will help me get our economy on track again. And with that kind of strength, why, we can, of course, be strong in our military. But we're going to have to have people that know how to get this solved and the whole mortgage crisis is a part of it. I put together a cooperative and have institutions that have bought this mortgage paper, contribute their mortgages into this cooperative and have this cooperative helping people work out their loans. There are ways we can reduce dramatically the impact of this sub prime mortgage crisis.

GLENN: I know you've got to run. So let me just ask you one last question, and it's the question that is most asked of me as I meet people across the country. They say, Glenn, I get the problem, I get it, but nobody's listening to me anymore. What do I do? How does -- what is your advice to the one person who's in their car right now that feels like, yeah, yeah, another politician. "You know, I voted for the Republicans and then I didn't vote for the Republicans because they betrayed me. Then the Democrats got in; they're doing the same thing, if not worse. What do I do," Governor Romney?

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Well, you know, I know it sounds self-serving, and it is, but what you ought to do is vote for somebody that's not a politician. I've only been in politics four years, not long enough to become badly infected. I'm in this race because I have experience through having been in the private sector and then having run the Olympics and being a father and a husband, I've experienced what it takes to bring America back on track. I heard from a friend in New York who said what concerns me about America today is that politics has become a profession, not a duty. And for me this is not my profession. It is my duty. And I'm in this to get America right for my kids and my grandkids and that is precisely what I'll do. So, you know, that's the best thing I think we can do. Plus, of course, buy your new book. Congratulations, by the way. I understand it's doing real well.

GLENN: Thank you. Just found out last night it was number one which, God bless America, man. I felt like Kate Smith last night. If I can do it, anybody can do it. It's a great country.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Congratulations, Glenn. Terrific day.

GLENN: Governor Romney, thank you very much. We'll talk to you again, sir.

GOVERNOR ROMNEY: Thanks. Bye-bye.

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