CNN "The Situation Room"- Transcript: Taxes

Interview

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Let's talk about the race for the White House with one of the Republican candidates. The former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is joining us right now.

Governor, thanks very much for joining us.

MIKE HUCKABEE (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Great to be with you, Wolf. Thank you.

BLITZER: Have you taken a close look at Donald Trump's tax proposal?

HUCKABEE: There are some fascinating things about it.

It certainly simplifies the rates, the number of rates, has some incentives for growth. Look, this is part of what we do. We all put some ideas out there. I still personally think that we need something bolder than some of the tinkering tax plans that we have seen.

It's why I still believe that we need to get rid of the entire tax code, replace it with the best-researched tax plan that is out there, which is the FairTax, which would put the tax on our consumption and we would eliminate tax on productivity, because what we do now, Wolf, is, we punish the producers, we punish workers, who -- whether they are working in a factory or whether they're people saving for retirement. We punish them for doing the things that make for a strong economy.

[18:30:18} BLITZER: Well, what would your tax proposal, your so- called far tax, wind up costing, if Trump's is estimated to cost taxpayers some $10 trillion over the next decade in lost revenue, shall we say, to the U.S. Treasury? What would yours cost?

HUCKABEE: Well, that's just it. The fair tax is based on the assumption that it wouldn't cost. It would replace. It doesn't raise or lower taxes. It brings in the revenue that we currently bring in.

But what it would do is stimulate manufacturing, job creation. It would address some of the serious reasons we have illegal immigration growing at such a clip. And it puts the country on a whole new track, in which people who are working are not going to be penalized for working; and people who are making bad decisions aren't going to be subsidized for it. I mean, this goes -- again, the current tax code goes against

common sense, which says if you have good behavior, well, that's behavior you ought to reward. If you have bad behavior, that's behavior you ought to consequence. And what we're doing is the opposite of that. We reward bad behavior, whether it's a bad investment decision or not working, and we punish good behavior: savings, making good investments, working, the things that we ought to encourage people to do and the thing that makes America very strong and capable.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the battle over federal funding of Planned Parenthood that's under way in Washington today. Right now, the president of Planned Parenthood, she defended her organization before a congressional committee. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CECILE RICHARDS, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: The latest smear campaign is based on efforts by our opponents to entrap our doctors and clinicians into breaking the law and, once again, our opponents failed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: I understand, Governor, that you think Planned Parenthood does immoral things. But do you have any evidence that Planned Parenthood broke the law?

HUCKABEE: You know, only what my lying eyes tell me when I watch the videos.

I mean, when you see, with your own eyes and hear with your own ears, someone talking about the selling of baby parts, I don't know how somehow that's, you know, unfair to Planned Parenthood. I think Planned Parenthood has been pretty unfair to unborn children. Planned Parenthood has been pretty unfair to those mothers who thought they were going in for a very traumatic decision to have an abortion, and what they didn't know was behind the scenes, parts of their unborn baby were being auctioned off like they were parts to a car.

I don't know how Cecile Richards can sit there in front of that committee and defend the actions of Planned Parenthood, except that, look, I'm kind of given to the point that people who are on that side and push this, clearly don't have much sense of perspective about why many of us find that it is savage and uncivilized behavior to sell baby parts.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about the funding, though. Would you, if you were a member of the Senate or the House, vote to continue government spending right now, even though there's a half a billion dollars, $500 million in there for continued funding of Planned Parenthood?

HUCKABEE: The thing that amazes me most is that President Obama considers the funding of Planned Parenthood a hill to die on. If there is a government shutdown, it's not because Republicans are somehow stubborn. It's because the president is so obstinate that he would protect an agency that's not even a government agency. This isn't protecting the V.A. He's not protecting the EPA. He's not protecting Social Security. He's protecting a private entity with taxpayer funds that have been caught, red-handed, hacking up baby parts and selling them.

And if that's his hill to die on and if this Congress doesn't have any ability to either stop the funding or to exercise its congressional capacity to get rid of it, then we really do have a dictatorship in this country.

What else is the purpose of Congress other than to control the power of the purse, which is their constitutional authority? And for the president to say, "I will not discuss this. I will not negotiate it," if this is his hill to die on and he's willing to shut the government down, it won't be the Republicans who do it. It's going to be a very stubborn, obstinate president who shuts the government down.

BLITZER: The legislation, the temporary measure, the continuing resolution has passed the Senate, expected to pass the House. Tomorrow, the president will sign it. At least the federal government will have money for three months, and that money will include, at least for three months, the federal funding of Planned Parenthood.

Let me get your quick reaction to this latest NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" poll. It has you only at 2 percent right now. Donald Trump still at 21. Ben Carson -- what happened, Governor? Why are you only at 2 percent among Republicans nationwide?

[18:35:13] HUCKABEE: Well, gee, the CNN poll that you guys did had me much better. So I'll take your poll and dismiss the one from NBC.

Every day or two, a new poll comes out. Every day or two, the rankings are usually different. We don't get all panicked about it. I've been through this before. At this stage of the game, what we've got to do is stay on our feet, keep the message out there. And one outlier poll that comes out is no cause for a great sense of alarm.

BLITZER: If in the next Republican presidential debate, you were included in the undercard, the earlier debate, would you accept that?

HUCKABEE: Well, I wouldn't be real happy about it, but, you know, quite frankly, those guys who were on the undercard last time got a whole lot more time than I did. So maybe there's a hidden benefit in it. We'll see.

BLITZER: I want you to stand by, Governor, because we have a lot more to talk about.

We also had an opportunity to hear from Bill Clinton today, another Arkansan. He spoke to our own Erin Burnett. We're going to show you what he told Erin. We're going to get reaction from the governor. Much more with Mike Huckabee when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [18:41:00] BLITZER: We're back with Republican presidential

candidate, Mike Huckabee.

Governor, I want you to listen to Bill Clinton, your fellow Arkansan, coming to his wife's defense against attacks by Donald Trump, the former president accusing the Republican presidential frontrunner of blatantly ignoring the facts. Clinton sat down with CNN's Erin Burnett only hours after she also interviewed Donald Trump. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: You say you can't insult your way to the White House. You say Donald Trump could be the nominee. So I have to play this for you. This is something he said in the interview yesterday about your wife. And I want to play it for you and get your reaction. Here's Donald Trump in my interview yesterday.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I always respected him. I've actually liked him over the years. But when we look at what's going on in the world, when we look at the job that Hillary did as secretary of state, she goes down as the worst secretary of state in history.

And when I run against her evenly in the polls, I'm doing very well against Hillary and beating her. Erin, if you look throughout the world, during her reign, and the reign of Obama, the whole world is blowing up. We've lost our friendships; we've lost everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATE: Well, the thing about branding is you don't have to be -- you can be fact free. And I think -- so even the Republicans admit that the sanctions on Iran were well done and that it was a major achievement to get Russia and China to agree to sign off on these sanctions and to enforce them. She did that. That's what made the talks possible. So even people that don't like the Iran deal like the sanctions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: All right, Governor, your react to what former President Clinton said about Donald Trump, "fact free."

HUCKABEE: One of the things you've got to love about Bill Clinton is he always has a great rejoinder. And there's a good example of why he was so successful politically, all those years. No matter what was going on around him, he was able to rise to the occasion and speak to the point.

I think he's right that the sanctions on Iran worked. I think the problem is, is that Hillary supported the Iranian deal, which I think is a disaster. And she's going to have a hard time defending that. And people will forget about any sanctions. What they're going to remember is that we essentially surrendered to the Iranians and gave them everything they wanted, and we got nothing. We got nothing.

BLITZER: Are you surprised to hear Bill Clinton say that Trump, potentially, could be the Republican nominee? Do you agree with him?

HUCKABEE: Well, I mean we don't know who it's going to be. I still hope it's me. But we're so far away from picking, we haven't even had a vote cast yet.

And I know that, in every election, when we are at this stage, in September, the person who is leading is never the person who ends up becoming the nominee.

So, if I were to be overly panicked, if I were one of the candidates, it would be one of the people at the very front because, typically, whoever is the summer blockbuster is not the Oscar winner in the spring. And I would be very surprised if this were the first time that didn't happen again.

BLITZER: You're devoting your energies largely right now to Iowa, not necessarily New Hampshire; but then you're looking forward to South Carolina, some of those other southern states. Is that right?

HUCKABEE: Well, it is, because this is like March Madness in the NCAA. You may be unbeaten in Kentucky, but you're not going to be in the Final Four in the tournament if you don't win early games.

And so, for all the talk about who's doing well nationally and what the polls are, it comes down to are you going to be able to win some of the early contests? If you do, you keep going. If you don't, it doesn't matter how much money you have, who you are. You're done.

And Rudy Giuliani, who was on fire, had $60 million, never got a delegate, because by the time we got to the place where he first wanted to play, which was Florida, the race had been set; he wasn't in it.

BLITZER: Governor Huckabee, thanks very much for joining us.

HUCKABEE: Thank you, Wolf. Great to be with you.

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