State of the Union: Interview with Asa Hutchinson
Interview
"Well, I was surprised. It was a very clear question as to whether we would support Donald Trump if he's convicted of serious felonies.
And I was the only one that -- that said very clearly that I would not support him. And so I was surprised at that. That doesn't seem to be a difficult question to me.
And I stood out at that moment. And whether I get booed in the audience is not really the relevant factor. The relevant factor is our country. It's our party. It's about standing on the principles that you believe in. And I stood out at that moment, and I'm proud of that decision. And it was the right call. And I hope more people identify with what I said.
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Well, what you recited is true.
I have seen white supremacy in action. I have prosecuted them when they turned violent, and we put them in jail. And that's important for our society. And any time there is hate actions, like it appears to be in Jacksonville yesterday, we have to make sure that that's not something we're going to tolerate in America.
And that's one of the reasons, as governor, I signed a law that was our first hate crime law in Arkansas, making sure there was extra penalties for those that committed crimes in the name of racial hatred.
And so, whenever I hear Mr. Ramaswamy talk about this issue, he's not really looking at real life in America. Now, we can move beyond that. And the other thing that I'm concerned about -- it was Dr. King's 60th anniversary of his speech, and he was about expanding the voting base.
Mr. Ramaswamy wants to shrink the voting base and say those that are 18 years of age until 25 can't vote. And, to me, that was totally the wrong direction to bring young people in our party and set an example of where we need to move in our democracy and participation.
So, I think those are really important points to make today at -- near this anniversary of Dr. King's speech.
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Well, and I tried to make this point in the debate, when Governor DeSantis raised that issue to begin with, as well as others.
And there's a strategy that works in going after the cartel. I did that as head of the DEA when I worked with the Mexican government to go after the cartels. And we were successful, to a certain extent, at that time.
But that's the kind of cooperation that you need to build. You don't invade another friendly country that has historically been a commerce partner with us, an ally with us. And so you don't invade them. You work in cooperation with them. Sure, we need to put economic pressure on Mexico to cooperate to a greater extent in enforcing the rule of law.
These are all points that I made in the debate. And you have got to not just say what sounds great at the time, that you need to invade or you need to drop bombs. Sure, we need to utilize the military for intelligence-gathering purposes, but, obviously, we got to work in cooperation with Mexico.
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Well, in some ways, it's not a surprise.
Whenever you look at the way Donald Trump has misled his supporters from day one and continues to do so, he's depending upon those donations, and everything that he does is designed to raise more money to support his defense.
And, right now, whenever you look at the state of the Republican race, I think what everybody saw in the debate was that there are good alternatives to Donald Trump in leading our party and our country that will take us a different direction than Joe Biden.
But, secondly, it's going to take the base to be able to change, actually, those numbers. I think that will happen over time, but it takes people standing up, like I did on the debate stage. It takes people with courage that will tell the truth, in terms of where we are as a party and how this is defining moment for our country. And we can't be a party of grievance that Donald Trump wants to lead
us into or the past. It has to be the future and problem-solving. And that's what I want to bring, because that's what America needs right now.
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Outstanding.
And, actually, we did go over the 40,000 mark. It was after two weeks of getting about 20,000 new donors, and even on the debate night itself, we had almost 4,000 new donors that were added because of my debate appearance. And so momentum builds momentum, and very optimistic about being on the next debate stage, which will be in Simi Valley, California, at the Reagan Library, obviously an important occasion.
And I expect to be there.
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Well, it's up to all your listeners.
And, obviously, Asa2024.com, donation helps. And we will get there. The 3 percent, we actually made that in a recent poll. It hasn't been recorded in RealClearPolitics yet, but we have made that 3 percent. I just hope that pattern continues.
So we're going to continue with this message that's true, that is defining, that separates me apart, and I believe that will garner enough support to bring us to the next debate.
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Thank you, Dana.
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