PR: TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW JOSE DIAZ-BALART AND SENATOR GINGRICH – Interview Jose Diaz-Balart and Senator Gingrich

Press Release:

JDB: Senator Gingrich, thank you for being with us again. Last week when we talked before the South Carolina Primary, you told me, ‘If I win South Carolina the fight in Florida will be spectacular.’ How do you see this new phase now that you won South Carolina?

NG: You know this is literally my first interview on landing out of South Carolina, out of respect for you and for Telemundo… I think we have a very real chance now to win in Florida, and as I said to you a week ago, once you win South Carolina suddenly lots of things start to move, and I think our message of solid conservatism, our concern about Castro, about Chavez, about the struggle in Mexico, all those who help consolidate, I think support in the Hispanic community, and at the same time we are gaining support with the Tea Partiers, with the military in other parts of Florida’s population.

JDB: Unemployment in the US is 8.6%, but among Latinos it’s 11%. For the future of the Hispanic community, why would a President Gingrich be better than a President Romney or a President Obama?

NG: I think part of the difference between a Romney on one side and Obama on the other side and me in the middle, is that Obama never did any work with small businesses and has no idea on how the free market works. Romney has largely been a finance guy, hundreds of millions of dollars. I founded four small businesses, where we had to find the customer, meet a payroll, worry every week about getting things done, and so I really appreciate all the, literally, I think three million Hispanic small business owners. I have been talking with the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, and it’s clear that there’s an opportunity to have a very powerful outreach in the community… Repeal Obama Care, repeal the Dodd-Frank bill that is killing small banks and loans to small businesses, cut taxes so that small businesses can hire more people and cut regulations so small business owners aren’t spending all day every day just filling out paperwork.

JDB: You are talking about Obama Care, under which 30 million people without insurance would be covered, many of them Hispanic. If you are elected President what would you do regarding the amount of people who don’t have access to health insurance?

NG: I think that’s a very important question. We have to repeal Obama Care because it’s the wrong direction and it’s too expensive, it crushes small business, it kills job creation and it puts power in the bureaucrats’ hands instead of the doctors’ hands. So we have to repeal it. But we have to recognize that we have to lower the cost of health insurance so that people can afford to buy it, so we need to have tort reform which is what really drives up the cost of medical care, we have to have a new ability for you to have exactly the same tax break whether you are self-employed or you are working for a business or you are buying it on your own, and we need to have an ability for you to become part of an association so you are not buying individual insurance, which is the most expensive, but instead you are buying into a group — much like when you are going into a Walmart, because they purchase for a hundred million people.

JDB: Let’s talk about Cuba and Venezuela, which you just mentioned. Why not improve relations with those two countries? You know that President Obama said during the past election that if he won he would have an open policy with those countries. What is your position?

NG: I believe that it has been a mistake to back off and start opening up Cuba as long as the Castro brothers are running a dictatorship. We just had a hunger strike where a young person died because he was imprisoned by Castro. I think who runs this government should be angry about this kind of tyranny right on our border. I also believe that the fact that the Chinese and Cubans are now working to draw oil right off the shores of the United States should have all of us concerned, and the fact that Chavez has an open relationship with the Iranians and the Iranians are talking about building military bases in the Western Hemisphere, something we have not tolerated since 1820, should have us bothered. I think we need a Cuban Spring. I recently wrote a letter to the Cuban exile community committing myself to a very strong position. As you know I helped pass the Helms-Burton Bill when I was Speaker, I worked very hard on issues of increasing Radio Marti and Television Marti and really working to liberate Cuba, not to accommodate Castro. And so you could expect me to have for all of Latin America a level of concern much greater than recent presidents have had.

JDB: I want to talk about the language the Republican Party is using regarding immigration and undocumented people. Other candidates have said that they would veto the Dream Act, that they would not reform immigration laws… I’m talking about Santorum, Romney… And there’s a lot of talk about ‘illegals’. That language is hurtful to many because a human being can’t be ‘illegal’, they can commit illegal acts, but he’s not an ‘illegal’ human being. Do you agree that the language being used demeaning?

NG: Well, first of all you remember that we face a crisis in the mid-90s, involving Nicaragua and others who have been trapped by our own government’s failure to act correctly –I stepped in to work very hard, with your brother actually, to pass a law that enabled us to save thousands of people from being deported–it was a very, very important moment. So I think my commitment to a humane approach is very clear in this historically, something that people in Miami remember. I have been very surprised both with Governor Romney and Senator Santorum that they wouldn’t even conceive the possibility that when you are dealing with grandfathers and grandmothers, people who have children and grandchildren that we should have a different approach. I believe that it is very important for us to get to control the border, I think it is very important for us to recognize that frankly we should improve legal visas, because if you look at Disneyworld, if you look at tourism, if you look at the major source of jobs and income for Florida we want to make it easy for them to come to Florida legally and hard to come illegally. We have done just the opposite. Then you get to a guest-worker program which I totally support, although I would outsource it to American Express, Visa or MasterCard. And finally I think you have to look at what do you do about people who have been here a long time? People who have been here a short time, who don’t have family, who don’t have any roots, they are going to go home and apply for a guest-worker cut. But there are people who have been here 25 years, who have been working, paying their bills, they have families, they have children, they have grandchildren, they may belong to your church. Where I disagree with Governor Romney and Senator Santorum, I don’t believe the American people are going to send the police in to pick up a grandmother or a grandfather, I do think it’s wrong. So I said what we have to do is have a Citizen Review Board. You can prove you have been here, you can prove you have been paying your bills and earning you way, you can prove you have family, and if you can get an American family to sponsor you; you should be able to get a Residency Permit which allows you to live your life with dignity within the law. Now if you want to apply for citizenship you have to go back home and file for the application and be in line with everybody else. I think that is a much more humane way to approach the challenge what to do with people who are undocumented.

JDB: If you get to be the Republican nominee, who would you choose for Vice-president. There’s talk about Marco Rubio. What do you think about that?

NG: Well, I don’t want to get too deep into picking a particular person yet, but if you said to me, Gee we could find you a really intelligent, really conservative, very articulate person who has been an effective Speaker of the House back home, who has already made a national mark and who by the way could campaign across the whole country and potentially really help the vote in the party and bring in people, not just Spanish but people of all backgrounds who are interested… Asian-Americans for example, who have a very real interest if the Republican Party opens or is it closed… Marco Rubio has to be on anybody’s shortlist of people you would look at as a potential candidate.

JDB: Would he be in your short list?

NG: Well, I haven’t started a list yet, that would be presumptuous, I have to win the nomination… But if I start a list Marco Rubio’s name would be on it.

JDB: It’s interesting because Senator Rubio is extremely dogmatic in his opposition to the Dream Act, to a comprehensive immigration reform…

NG: But I think the way I have described it, you could probably support what I have just said – that is, very tough on the border, guest-worker programs very enforced, tougher penalties of employers who hire illegal immigrants, but recognizing that there is a group that has been here so long that you would be tearing apart their families if you acted without some level of humanity… I think… Of course you know, I would be a part of it, I am not going to pick someone who can’t agree with me… But I knew Marco back before he was Speaker of the House, and he is a brilliant guy, and I’ve always had great respect for him… Again, there are a number of very smart people… Susana Martinez, the Governor of New Mexico, very intriguing, very accomplished… Bobby Jindal is a very competent person… So there is a number of first class people you could look at… But I first have to win the Florida primary and win the nomination before any of that matter.

JDB: One last question and thank you for your time… The debate between you, Romney and Santorum grows in intensity day by day. You call him ‘the Massachusetts moderate’ which is a horrible insult for many in the Republican Party. Romney is saying now that you are a lobbyist who used your access to the government. Whoever wins the nomination, do you think you could make amends after this fight?

NG: Well, I think we are all fighting to be the nominee and there are some very sharp elbows, it’s like hockey – occasionally you hit somebody pretty hard. Part of the difference is that I’m not a lobbyist, I have never been a lobbyist, he is a Massachusetts moderate and so there is a difference in the way there, you see… But any of us, compared to Obama, we are going to be one team, I mean we all are going to come together– Pawlenty is going to come together, Bachman is going to come together, all of us are going to come together compared to Barack Obama.

JDB:From now to the new Florida primary millions of dollars will be spent against you portray you as a lobbyist… The term ‘corrupt’ has been used.

NG: It is explicitly untrue. I have never lobbied, I have never offered access , I have offered my opinion, I have offered strategic consulting, but one of the things we have said to anybody ever came to me was I would do no lobby, I will not approach the Congress for anything on behalf of somebody. Ironically in terms of the famous Freddie Mac story the only time I talked to Congress about it I said to the Republicans vote no, do not give them money, so it is the opposite of these various ads.

JDB: You told me, ‘If I win South Carolina, Florida will be fascinating’… If you win Florida, tell me about Nevada and the future…

NG: Well we think if we can win Florida, Nevada is the next big fight because Romney has a pretty big base in Nevada, and a lot of folks identify there with him. Well I think we have a chance to win Nevada too, much closer, it would not be like South Carolina, which was the landslide, but we are going to fight in Nevada, and then we are going to go on to Colorado and Minnesota. It’s a huge country… and as huge as Florida is, and it’s very big, the country is much bigger. It’s a daunting challenge to get all over this place.

JDB: Thank you very much for being with us again.

From: www.nbcumv.com

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