Rick Santorum sat down with Fox News host Glenn Beck for a long interview yesterday. Here’s some highlights, text from the rush transcript provided by Fox:
On whether to raise the debt ceiling:
Under certain — under circumstances where we get things like dramatically reducing the deficit and getting — I like the dollar for dollar. That makes a lot of sense to me. And as long as it’s over a relatively short window. It’s not, you know, a dollar debt ceiling raised over 20 years of budget savings but a short window. I think that makes some sense.
On President Obama’s actions in Afghanistan:
If you look at whether it’s Gitmo or Iraq or Osama bin Laden, he basically followed what the — and the original surge in Afghanistan – he [Obama] went along with his generals. But now, it’s the second half of his presidential term and — his first term — and now we’re focused on politics. … The bottom line is he has an obligation to go to the American people and say, why are we doing this? What is our — what are we trying to accomplish? What is our mission? What are the definable goals? And he hasn’t done any of that.
On whether he would pull of Libya if he were to become president right now:
Well, it’s a hard thing for me to say, but I would say it would be difficult right now to stop given the relationships we have with NATO, given the commitments we’ve made to NATO. So the president has put us behind the eight ball in my opinion. He’s made us — he’s put us in a situation that if we pulled out, we could very well threaten and destabilize NATO which is already threatened to destabilize by the way. So I mean, it’s a complex … I would say I don’t think we have an interest there. I think we should get out there. But I don’t think we can immediately pull the plug.
On global warming:
There is no such thing as global warming. It is, in my opinion, you have hundreds of factors that cause the earth to warm and cool …
On the role of the Federal Reserve:
[T]he Federal Reserve has to be focused on one thing that is inflation, period, and keeping our money sound.