FOX "Your World with Neil Cavuto" - Transcript:
Interview
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.: Now we have a humanitarian crisis on our border, a humanitarian crisis of incredible proportion, where thousands of young people, while they're being transported by these coyotes, young women are being raped, they're falling off trains, terrible things are happening.
And what are we presented in the United States Senate? I say shame on you. I say shame on you for not allowing those of us who represent the states that are most affected by this to have an amendment, an amendment voted on.
I mean, that -- that is unbelievable to me. We put together -- and -- and I say with great respect to the senator from Maryland, saying that we don't legislate on appropriations.
Excuse me. Excuse me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Wow. Don't get on his wrong side.
Fired up, but think there is any chance that John McCain is backing down?
Senator, still feel the same way?
MCCAIN: Absolutely, Neil.
And the fact that we didn't act in the United States Senate, at least the House acted today. If we had had amendments and debate and votes, we could have produced a product and gone to conference with the House and gotten a bill to the Senate -- to the desk of the president of the United States.
It is shameful that we now are going out of town, and leaving this humanitarian crisis alone, without the -- it's supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative property. If you believe that, I have got beachfront property for you in Arizona.
But the point is that we are supposed to -- and most of the time I have been in the Senate, we would bring an issue before the Senate, we would debate it, we would vote, we would amend, and then we would pass it on to the House of Representatives, and then tot -- after a conference, to the desk of the president of the United States.
We don't do that. It's not an accident this is the least productive Congress in history. You think I'm proud of that, Neil?
CAVUTO: Now, what happened here, Senator? How did this fall apart? I mean, even in the House, they bickered back and forth as how to handle and it, and then John Boehner had to deal within his own ranks with a revolt. What happened?
MCCAIN: Well, on the House side, I'm not exactly sure because I wasn't in on it. But, apparently, some of the members of the Republican Conference in the House wanted stiffer provisions than were originally proposed. And I think at least they sorted some of that out.
CAVUTO: Right.
MCCAIN: In the Senate here, we viewed the critical item, the critical item if we're going to stop this flood of children coming to our border is to amend or repeal the law that was passed in 2008 which allows them to get -- to be here and go through all the rigmarole of the judicial system and stay and all that, whereas they would be treated -- if it were amended, they would be treated as children who come from Mexico are treated.
And that is they're immediately returned. Neil, the only way this is going to stop is if planeloads of children return to the countries from which they came from, their parents, who spent maybe a year's salary paying these coyotes, who are also the drug cartels, to bring their children up through to the border of the United States of America. That's the only way it's going to stop.
CAVUTO: The president more or less said today in a press conference, you called -- you called his hand. This is from the president earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: On the -- the border supplemental?
(CROSSTALK)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, I'm going to have to act alone, because we don't have enough resources. We have already been very clear. We have run out of money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAVUTO: What do you think of that?
MCCAIN: Well, I think that -- that if the president...
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAIN: We would have money to spend if the president would enforce the law, and not -- and -- and also a declaration he made some time ago, and that is that is -- and send the message that if you arrive here, you are returned to -- at our border, you're going to be sent home.
Now, if you have a case for asylum or abuses or the danger which exists in those countries, we will set up in our consulates and in our embassies places for you to come and make a case. And if you make a compelling case, then, as we have many times all over the world, we will let you come and reside in our country, but not by coming up and showing up at our borders. That's not the way.
CAVUTO: Senator, Governor Rick Perry with those 3,000 National Guardsmen he sent to the Texas border, wants the White House to pay for that. And no luck yet.
What do you think?
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAIN: I -- I -- knowing this White House, I think it will be hard to do.
But I would also point out that the Guard presence does have a good effect, when the coyotes see these Guard -- Guard people on the other side of the border. But the real answer, too, Neil, is to use the technology we developed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We have radar now, my friend, and drones, but particularly radar, that cannot only show people trying to cross our border, but it can show back where they came from. We can have situational -- situational awareness of 100 percent across our border if we use the technology.
CAVUTO: Real quickly, I'm switching gears, but Mitt Romney has been polling well in New Hampshire. There's this underground movement among some who say, go for the hat trick. It worked for Ronald Reagan. What do you think of that?
MCCAIN: I -- all I can say is that that's -- those are decisions that Mitt Romney and his family make.
I'm a great admirer of Mitt Romney's. And, by the way, I'm pale, rested and ready.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Well, you could make -- both make a third run at it. Right?
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Is that to say -- have you ruled that out yourself?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAIN: That will be a cold day in Gila Bend, my friend.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: OK. I will take that as a no for the time being.
MCCAIN: Thank you.
CAVUTO: Senator McCain, it's always an honor. Thank you, sir.
MCCAIN: Thank you.
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