NBC News " Meet The Press" - Transcript : Immigration and National Security
Interview
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GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, radical Islam really is a giant one.
CHUCK TODD:
That's number one.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yeah. And, you know, I've said all along we should have a coalition. We should be there, including boots on the ground. And we need to degrade and destroy ISIS. Number one.
CHUCK TODD:
You would be sending more troops?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, I would have them in a role where they're going to be on the ground fighting. I mean, you've got the air power, but you can't solve anything just with air power. But I would be part of a coalition and I would take them down and begin to destroy a caliphate--
CHUCK TODD:
It would include U.S. troops?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yes. Yes.
CHUCK TODD:
You would send U.S. troops?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yes, I said it months ago.
CHUCK TODD:
I was just going to say I want to bring-- because every time I travel through Ohio, and I've been a part of focus groups, I've conducted that and you talk to people. It is amazing to me, Ohioans in general, and I'll see it across the spectrum, boy, they're leery of trade deals. And they still blame NAFTA--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Sure, they are.
CHUCK TODD:
You go to Ohioans, I didn't even bring up NAFTA in a bunch of interviews, and they immediately went to NAFTA and said, "Bad deal for Ohio."
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yeah. Well, you know, the interesting thing is there are now some car companies talking about moving things to Mexico, and they're citing NAFTA. And I'm going to dig into that. But by and large, open trade is good for us. It's a part--
CHUCK TODD:
And you were a NAFTA guy.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yes. It's part of our ability to--
CHUCK TODD:
Tough thing to be in Ohio, no?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Chuck, we're not in this to get elected, we're in this to do the right thing. I mean, aren't you tired of-- I mean, forget it. I'm not doing those calculations. Now, here's what I do believe. I think that we have, in some ways, been saps. I have a friend that ran a steel company. I said, "Do you think that Koreans, for example, are dumping their material and destroying our jobs?" He said, "Yes."
I said, "Why don't we do something about it?" He says, "It takes two years to get a remedy, to get a decision." That is baloney. We need to have these decisions decided quickly because we can't have people coming in here and dumping stuff and destroying our jobs in this country. That's where I grew up. I grew up with steel workers.
So what I would say to you is open trade, but we're not going to be saps. We're not going to look the other way when there's a problem. Now, there are some people actually running for president now who think that, no matter what happens, they're free traders. I'm not. I am not. I am for open trade, free trade, but I am for clamping down when the United States worker gets shafted because somebody is cheating on a trade agreement.
CHUCK TODD:
All right, you brought up Mexico so let's go to immigration. The Senate comprehensive compromise on immigration reform. What did you make of it? Would you have supported it?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
I don't know what the details are. What I support is a guest worker program expanded so people can come in and then go home. Seal the border. There are some interest groups that don't want the border to be sealed.
CHUCK TODD:
What does "seal the border" mean, though?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
It means--
CHUCK TODD:
And how do you do it? I mean--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, I mean, you do it with fencing and you do it with technology, drones and sensors. And, you know, Duncan Hunter over there in San Diego has significantly reduced the number of people coming across the border because of his initiatives on fencing. So do as best you can there.
I've been told by grownups, real experts, that, you know, most of this can be done, and can be done effectively. Guest worker program, the 12 million that are here, if they violated the law, they go out or they go to jail. But if they're hardworking, God-fearing, family people, they go to church, they work with us, let them stay. They're going to have a pay a fine--
CHUCK TODD:
It's interesting you said violating the law though. There are some people that say just being here, they violated the law.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yeah, well, that's--
CHUCK TODD:
And that should be held against them.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, they're going to have to pay a fine and pay a penalty for the fact that they violated the law. But, you know, if they're part of our culture now and society, and they're doing fine, they're hardworking, they're just like all of us, then I think they can stay.
I have learned over the course of my lifetime you need some degree of bipartisan cooperation. And just think back to Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill. I mean, they were working together when it was to serve America. And that's what I think we need, a good dose of that.
CHUCK TODD:
All right. One of the things that I do in these first interviews now with candidates is we have a deal with Facebook and we have a Facebook specific question. Let me get it right here. This comes from Grant Barwick. Simple question. "Governor Kasich, why did you give up the challenge to unions, against unions, when your governor to the north in Wisconsin did not?" How do you answer that question?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, first of all, you know, our initiatives were much different. And, secondly, when you get, you know, really beaten on something and the public speaks clearly, you've got to listen to them, okay? And frankly, in my state, we now have very good relations with organized labor.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me ask a question about Trump that you asked about Trump. This came from-- you subbed for O'Reilly back in 2004.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
I did, yeah.
CHUCK TODD:
Yeah. And here's a--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
I was really good too, wasn't I?
CHUCK TODD:
Well, okay then. You were asking a Celebrity Apprentice contestant. Your question was this: "And what about this fascination with Donald Trump? It doesn't seem to be abating. What the heck is the deal with this? I know we're a big celebrity culture. What's the deal with this guy?" That was your question to the--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
That's really good.
CHUCK TODD:
Answer your own question. What do you make of this?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
No, no. I asked somebody. I don't remember their--
CHUCK TODD:
I know.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
What was their answer? Because I'm not getting into that.
CHUCK TODD:
He's larger than life, is what he said. He's just fascinating. What is your--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Chuck, let me--
CHUCK TODD:
--read on this?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
I don't really pay any attention to it. Now--
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that, and I know you've--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, I don't have a read on it. I'm not talking about him.
CHUCK TODD:
The pre-announcement video for you from New Day for America, your super PAC, on July 19th, it went out. And there was a line in here that sort of made me raise my eyebrow, describing your bio. And it said, "Kasich then worked in the real world as a commentator at Fox and in finance here in Ohio." Do you think most Americans would say--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
No.
CHUCK TODD:
--your experience on Fox--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Yeah, somebody else pointed out-- it was a great experience, yeah. It was the real world--
CHUCK TODD:
But that's not the--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
But, Chuck, let me tell you--
CHUCK TODD:
But this is not what Americans would consider the real world.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
--what the real world is. You get bad ratings and you're not going to be doing Meet the Press. And when I was at Fox--
CHUCK TODD:
There's no doubt.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Okay. So it's part of it. But the real world for me was I had about five different jobs. You know, I worked at Lehman Brothers where I traveled the country meeting with entrepreneurs and business leaders. I served on a few boards. I taught. You know, people don't know this. I taught at three universities on very part-time basis. I was out there. And, look, you know, my dad was a mailman and at McKees Rocks--
CHUCK TODD:
A lot of people think that's the real world.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, it is. It's a real world. Look, in my mind's eye, it's the people I grew up with, working in the steel mills, working--
CHUCK TODD:
Welcome back. There are now a sweet 16 set of candidates officially in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. And if you could name them all in ten seconds or less, well, kudos for you for being on the ball this Sunday morning. The latest candidate to enter the race is Ohio Governor John Kasich. I sat down with him yesterday in Michigan, where he was campaigning. And started by asking him whether it's harder for him to break through in the polls because he refrains from using hot rhetoric.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Oh, I think a chunk of it is hot rhetoric. And the other part of it is I'm a problem solver, you know? And I'm not going to just make statements just to make them. Do you ever notice, when people run for president, they never keep their word? They never keep their promises.
And the reason is they make promises that are ridiculous. They don't know what they're talking about. So, you know, running Ohio, look, this is a big, big state. This is an important state. I have to solve problems. But I'm balancing budgets and cutting taxes and promoting school choice and reforming everything and deregulating so much of the silly laws that we have in our state.
CHUCK TODD:
You're also doing another counterintuitive thing. You spend a lot of time talking up your experience in Congress. Lot of people, when they run for president, I don't care if they're a Democrat, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, all were talking about they're going to come in there and they're going to clean up the mess that's Washington. You're running on a, "No, I've got the experience to make Washington work." How are you gonna sell that to voters who don't like Congress, who think congressional experience isn't worth a darn?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
I think we have to be careful about what we think that voters think. I think voters want the system to work. I think they want us to balance budgets, fix defense, you know, solve the immigration problem. They want us to do many, many things. Reform the health care system. So they know that there is great anger and antipathy between the parties, and I don't think they want that to be the case.
And secondly, I can run on it because I spent ten years of my life to try to balance the federal budget. Now when I say that I was an architect, I feel like I'm talking about some sort of a fiction movie, you know, because people have a hard time believing it can be done. And then when it comes to the Pentagon and the reform things that we did, I'm very proud of what I was able to do there.
And, Chuck, now being a governor and executive, I know what the problem is down there. And part of the reason I'm running is because I have the experience to know how to fix it. And you can't fix it with hot rhetoric, one party. It has to be, look, either we're in this to fix America or we're in this to get elected. Somebody said to me, you know, "Is it about elect--"
CHUCK TODD:
Can you do both anymore?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, Chuck, they say--
CHUCK TODD:
Is that what we're going to find out?
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
--it's about electability. You know, I said, no, it's about capability. And part of capability is electability. But if we're running for these offices just to get elected, I mean, we're not running for class president. We're running to be the commander-in-chief and the leader of the United States of America. Grow up.
CHUCK TODD:
Biggest, toughest foreign policy challenge for the next president?
CHUCK TODD:
What you're saying--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
--in the chemical plants. So--
CHUCK TODD:
It isn't being a political pundit on Fox.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
Well, it's part of the world. But--
CHUCK TODD:
It's part of the world.
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
--I wouldn't really say that I understand--
CHUCK TODD:
You kind of wish you wouldn't have--
GOV. JOHN KASICH:
--working people. Yeah.
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