Rep. Ron Paul to Explore Presidential Bid
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, says a nation without secure borders is no nation at all. Immigration is one of his top issues as he considers a run for the White House.

Lou Dobbs Tonight
February 26th, 2007

KITTY PILGRIM: The field for candidates for the 2008 presidential race continues to grow. Now this past weekend, Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas announced that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee, and Congressman Paul hopes his strong opposition to illegal immigration and the war in Iraq will set him apart from other Republican candidates. And he joins us now from Houston, Texas.

Thanks for taking the time, sir.

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): Thank you, it’s nice to be with you.

PILGRIM: You are one of only six Republicans who voted against the war. You also stood against sending 21,000 more troops to Iraq. What should the Iraq strategy be, now that you are declaring yourself in the race?

PAUL: I think we should come home as quickly as possible. There were a lot of — a lot of false information on the reasons we went in there, and there’s no good reason to stay right now.

They say that the main reason for staying now, after given numerous reasons, we’re supposed to stay now, because if we leave there will be chaos. My argument is there’s plenty of chaos right there now, and a lot of Americans are being killed. And it was never in our national security interest to go over there.

Besides, one of the reasons that was given for us going there was to enforce U.N. resolutions. And I’m a stickler for the Constitution. I was annoyed because they wouldn’t declare war. They thought it was important to go to war. The people’s representatives should declare war, and they should fight it and get it over with and win. So I didn’t like the way they went, and I didn’t think we were ever threatened by Iraq.

PILGRIM: Let me — let me just play for you, President Bush said something today. So let’s listen to that for a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we leave before that country can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself there, will be chaos. And out of chaos will come vacuums, and out of vacuums will become an emboldened enemy that would like to do us harm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PILGRIM: Sir, that is a real worry. What do you say about that?

PAUL: Well, I think he’s very sincere, and he believes it. But he believes it just as sincerely as I do, that the al Qaeda is there now, and it is a problem. But they weren’t there before.

And it’s our foreign policy that I object to. We used to be allies with Osama bin Laden. Now he’s our enemy. We used to be allies with Saddam Hussein. Now he’s our enemy. This on again/off again thing is what bothers me.

You know, 9/11 was not — had nothing to do with Iraq. 15 of the 19 came from Saudi Arabia. So there are our bosom buddies, and we’re their best friends. Pakistan is probably where Osama bin Laden is. We have essentially forgotten about him. So it’s the foreign policy overall.

But yes, there’s going to be problems and chaos. But my argument is that it’s time that American soldiers quit being killed, and it’s time for us to quit killing a lot of other people that have not attacked us.

PILGRIM: Your Iraq policy is very clearly defined. Let’s move to the domestic front. You ran for president in 1988 on the libertarian line. And you now say there are two parties in Congress right now: big government conservatives and big government liberals. And the only difference is what they want to spend money on.

Now are you running because you think that there are, of the declared candidates, the true conservatives are not coming out of this pack?

PAUL: Well, certainly the Republican leadership in the last six, eight, even 10 years, and especially in these last six years, we have been the big party, a big spender party. We have spent more money on subsidies than ever before. We have — we’ve doubled the size of the Department of Education.

We brought in one of the biggest new entitlement programs, the prescription drug programs, big, huge highway expenditures. So I would say that in some ways, yes, they have some differences. But in other ways, I think Republicans have grown to act just like Democrats.

In the foreign policy, certainly, we can’t afford $700 billion in protecting an empire. That has to come to an end, because the truth is as we’re flat out broke and we have to borrow every single penny to fight that war from the Chinese.

PILGRIM: Yes.

Sir, I really can’t — we’re almost out of time but I want to get to your immigration platform. You’re calling for action and not talk. And here’s a couple of points for our viewers that you want.

You want to physically secure our borders and coastlines, enforce visa rules. No amnesty. No welfare for illegal aliens. You want to end the birthright citizenship and pass true immigration reform. Would true immigration reform include a guest worker program, in your judgment?

PAUL: Well, you know, those words are tricky, because some times if you say you’re for a guest worker program, all of a sudden they construe that now, the conventional wisdom is that there will be amnesty.

You know, we’ve always had workers come to this country, but they have to be legal.

And we have to deal with the welfare state. We can’t allow the illegal immigrants to qualify for Social Security after working here for 18 months. We just can’t flat out afford it.

PILGRIM: All right, thank you very much, for laying it out so clearly for us, Representative Ron Paul. Thank you, sir.

PAUL: Thank you, thank you.

 
Source: CNN Transcript

 
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Unofficial Ron Paul for President blog

Official Elect Ron Paul for President in 2008 Website

Alex Jones Interviews Rep. Ron Paul!, (or here)