Fox News "Your World" - Transcript
Interview
Fox News "Your World" - Transcript
FOX NEWS CHANNEL "YOUR WORLD" INTERVIEW WITH TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY (R) INTERVIEWER: NEIL CAVUTO
SUBJECT: STATES AND STIMULUS MONEY; MEXICO BORDER VIOLENCE
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MR. CAVUTO: All right. Fox on top of a Texas governor now on a mission, maybe even a controversial one. Rick Perry is rejecting $555 million worth of stimulus from the federal government. The Texas governor is here now to discuss.
Governor, why?
GOV. PERRY: Well, Neil, Texans know how to take care of Texans and particularly when there's as many strings attached as what Washington was sending down with this money. We looked at it and made a judgment call and said, no, thank you. We have an unemployment insurance program in place that is funded, that we will continue to keep funded and take care of those Texans who have lost jobs, no fault of their own, and continue to help them and not burden the real job creators, and that's the business men and women all across the state of Texas, with this program that the government would send down that would cost them substantial dollars way out into the future. So this was pretty simple for us. Keep things going like they're going in Texas. We can take care of ourselves, and we don't need anymore strings from Washington attached to programs.
MR. CAVUTO: All right. Now, Joe Biden was speaking a little earlier today, Governor, effectively saying, if I can so paraphrase, that those who don't take the stimulus dough have essentially only themselves to blame and not Washington if things don't improve. In other words, it's your pot, you're boiling in it.
GOV. PERRY: Well, if the message is, we're not going to help you anymore, I hope I can hold him to that. My issue that we understand how to take care of an economy. We're the number one job-creating state in the nation. We've got more Fortune 500 companies. We're the number one exporting state in the nation, and it certainly wasn't because Washington has been helping us. We've done it in spite of Washington. And these strings that are attached are I think why governors are standing up and saying, listen, we know how to run our economies. As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you if Washington had kind of followed the play book we've got here in Texas, the federal economy would be better. But that's another day for another debate, I suppose.
MR. CAVUTO: But you're in a bit of a bind, too, right, because you're also very savvy on this stuff. You wouldn't be governor if you weren't. And there is this sort of quasi threat you got from the vice president. That's me saying that, but that's certainly how I interpreted it. And I'm wondering then when you want to address a lot of the border violence and federal help in that front if they just say no.
GOV. PERRY: Well, I think that's certainly going to be biting your nose off to spite your face if that's the tack they take. Obviously, all Americans are concerned about this border violence. It doesn't just spill into the state of Texas. It will go all the way through. All these drugs that are being transported into this country aren't just stopping at Texas. They go to all the other 49 states, I would suggest to you. So I think it's really important for Washington to understand that we can work together. Just because Texas has said no to these strings-attached dollars, that we can't take care of ourselves and we can't work together, I certainly hope that's not the message that the vice president is sending is to threaten us that if we don't take it we can't expect anything else out of Washington, D.C., we can't expect to work with them.
MR. CAVUTO: To be fair now, Governor, I'm -- (inaudible) -- ugly needlessly. That's my interpretation, and I could very wrong. And I'm often wrong. But I don't admit it.
But let me ask you this, Governor. You mentioned the violence in Mexico, and both your state senators have talked about it as well and to the Obama administration that it's better to be aware of what situation is going from bad to ugly to worse fast. How bad do you think this gets for us, for your state, for Americans?
GOV. PERRY: Well, this is a real deal. I met with our delegation in Washington yesterday, Chet Edwards, with Solomon Ortiz, with Silvestre Reyes, the Democrat members of Congress who know exactly how intense this battle is along whether it's in Juarez or Nuevo Laredo or down in Ruidosa. It's the real deal. We need to be working with Mexico to find the ways to support Mexico and to defend our border. Washington has been an abject failure of defending our border. I mean, I don't think anybody who is knowledgeable of the border knows that Washington has not done their job. We're spending our taxpayer dollars in Texas to defend the border. That's not our role, that's the federal government's role. But I'm not going to sit back while the feds don't do their job and not defend that border. I hope Secretary Napolitano, being a border governor, understands those issues, will be very supportive. I hope Obama understands, although his message yesterday --
MR. CAVUTO: Didn't her office also say, though, Governor, that this is not a situation for troops right now? You and other border governors have been saying, if it keeps up like this, yeah, it is. So that looks like a fight.
GOV. PERRY: Obama made, I think, a mistake yesterday in saying that we don't need additional troops on the border. I do think -- I think we need additional law enforcement. I tell people, I said, I really don't care, as long as they're properly trained, whether they're United States military forces. Our request would be more Border Patrol supporting local law enforcement with more dollars. They're the guys who really know how to do it. If you want a blueprint of how to secure the border, we can show you in Texas. We have a program here where we've surged in --
MR. CAVUTO: Beyond securing the border, though, Governor, is part of this also making sure that a new wave of illegal immigrants who would then be claiming, we're not here just for your economic opportunity, we're now claiming asylum to get away from this violence, to get away from a government in Mexico that's incapable of dealing with this violence, that you're going to even have an even bigger program on your hands and maybe many thousands more than you've ever dealt with in the past, in short order?
GOV. PERRY: And I hope that the administration realizes that if that happens, those individuals aren't just going to stop in Texas. They're going to end up in New Mexico and Oklahoma and Arkansas and states that have Democrat governors in them as well. So this is a national issue. This is a national problem that the federal government needs to engage in to be proactive. If they will take some of those billions of dollars that they're passing around out there and defend the southern border of the United States with Mexico, I think they would be substantially better served than some of these other programs that they're going to spend our dollars on.
MR. CAVUTO: Let me ask you this while I've got you, Governor, addressing Mexico. I had an analyst on on Fox Business Network the other night. By the way, Governor, I hope you get Fox Business Network. If you don't, you really should demand it. But you're a governor, but I digress. And this guy was telling me, you know, Neil, it isn't out of the question that Mexico falls into anarchy, obviously can't handle these drug lords, it can't handle the gang violence, and there's very little confidence in the government that it will going forward. What do you make of that?
GOV. PERRY: I think that's a little overstated. They're our number one trading partner. We've worked with Mexico through the years. I think they need some assistance in fighting these multinational gangs and these drug cartels. And if we can spend the billions of dollars to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, certainly we can also fight the terrorists that are along the Mexico border because that's exactly what they are. These are murderers, extortionists, people who will use any tactic to be able to control that border. And we need to be engaged with that. So the idea that Mexico somehow is fixing to fall into anarchy, I think, is a little bit of an overstatement. But the fact is there is one way that it could happen, and that is for us to take a hands-off approach and not help a neighbor that needs some help.
MR. CAVUTO: Governor Rick Perry, always enjoy having you on the show.
GOV. PERRY: Thank you, Neil, it's good to be with you, sir.
END.
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