Return to Transcripts main page

Glenn Beck

Honest Questions with Duncan Hunter

Aired November 09, 2007 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Duncan Hunter. Been making political waves for nearly 30 years. As a Vietnam vet, he`s devoted his congressional career to making sure our military is second to none.

And now...

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let`s begin this race for the American presidency, and let`s win.

BECK: ... he`s making a run for the White House.

From securing our border to bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., his message is clear: America`s greatest strength is its freedom. Congressman and presidential contender Duncan Hunter joins me for a full hour of honest questions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Well, hello, America.

Tonight you`re going to meet a man who is running for president of the United States, and he is certainly conservative. Congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter.

How are you, sir?

HUNTER: Glenn, doing great. Great to be with you.

BECK: I had a friend, as we were talking in the makeup room, us girls were talking, but I had a friend come over to my house a couple of weeks ago and he yelled at me and he said, "You believe everything Duncan Hunter believes. How come you haven`t had him on the show?" So I wanted to get you on the show.

And I want to, I guess, start with the border. Yesterday we ran a special on this program, a full hour on the border. It is completely out of control. You have not only all the people coming across but you have the Zetas now that are involved. You have people being beheaded. You have people being fed to the lions over in -- in Mexico.

What is it going to take for this country to wake up?

HUNTER: Well, you know, Glenn, we`re so close to victory, because we passed the border fence bill last year, and that`s the bill that I wrote following the fence that I built in San Diego. You know, when we had a no- man`s-land in San Diego in the 1980s with most of the drugs, most of the people being smuggled into this country coming through that little zone between Tijuana and San Diego.

We built a double border fence with a road in between, a high-speed Border Patrol road in between, and we knocked back smuggling by more than 90 percent.

And as a result of that I wrote the law that the president signed into public law October 26 of last year, a year ago, and it said this. It said that the Department of Homeland Security shall build, not that it would be a good idea or let`s get around to it or here`s a suggestion. It said that we shall build the border fence 854 miles across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

And so far, of that double border fence -- and it specified double border fence, because when you have two fences a smuggler has to come over the first fence. He`s got to cross a high-speed Border Patrol road with Border Patrol vehicles going back and forth...

BECK: Sure.

HUNTER: ... he`s got to sit down with his welding gear at the second fence and you trap him in between the two fences. That`s why you have two fences instead of one.

So 854 miles of double fence is mandated in the public law. The Department of Homeland Security -- and I saw Mr. Chertoff two days ago at the White House. The department has $800 million cash on hand to build the fence. They`ve got a law that his president signed saying build it.

And of the 854 miles, because I saw him tap-dancing with you in the last appearance.

BECK: Oh, he`s...

HUNTER: He was tap-dancing very effectively. I had my staff check how much double border fence has Mr. Chertoff built out of 854 in one year. Here`s the answer. 5.15 miles. And he did it right there at Yuma.

In fact, when I talked to the president, he said, "Well, I went to see some double border fence they built." That`s where they did the photo op. They built just enough double border fence for the president to have a really good photo op.

So as president I`ll construct all 854, all that mileage of double border fence in six months.

BECK: All right. Congressman, you`ve been doing this for a long time. You tell me why the financing is there, why it is law, why the American people want it.

I mean, Rasmussen has got a new poll coming out next week that I don`t mean to spoil for him, but I talked to him about it. New poll coming out next week that is going to show the disconnect on this is not between the Republicans and the Democrats or even the Democrats and the Democrats or the Republicans and the Republicans. The split is between Washington and America. The people want this. So you tell me what`s going on in Washington.

HUNTER: Well, it`s not only between -- it`s not even an internal split in Washington because the House passed the bill that mandates this vote by an overwhelming vote. The Senate passed it by 80-19. And the president signed it. It`s now the law. It`s not discretionary.

BECK: But why the game? Why is Washington playing the game?

HUNTER: The administration doesn`t want to build the fence. They`re dragging their feet intentionally.

BECK: Why?

HUNTER: They`ve got 400 miles that has been planned for Texas and mandated in Texas. They haven`t built a linear inch. Because they`re listening -- in south Texas they`re listening to the land owners, to some ranchers who say they want to have an open border, and they don`t want to be fenced off from the Rio Grande.

And my answer to that is an individual land owner should not be allowed to determine the immigration policy of the United States of America.

BECK: Are you telling me that in this country, where they can take your house to build a casino on eminent domain, in this country where our - - where our Supreme Court has ruled against property owners we can`t build a fence? I mean, that...

HUNTER: No, we can -- no, we can build it.

BECK: No, no, no. But do you buy that that`s what`s really happening?

HUNTER: No. That`s obviously -- we can build the fence, and there`s no more -- there`s no higher priority than to have enforceable borders in the post-9/11 world.

BECK: So then please, Congressman, you`ve been doing this for so long. You have to know in your heart of hearts, at night when you`re laying in bed, you have to say to yourself, this is what`s really going on. What`s really stopping people?

HUNTER: Well, here`s what`s stopping the administration. First, a few people who own property on the border are talking to the White House, ranchers saying, "We don`t want to be fenced off." That`s not a -- that`s not a legitimate reason.

Mexico is pressing to have an open border. That`s not a legitimate reason. The environmentalists are pressing to have an open border. That`s not a legitimate reason.

In fact, the House and Senate passed a law that the president signed that said the Endangered Species Act was waived for the entire border. All Chertoff has to do is sign his name and that law does not stop us from building the fence. That`s because Democrats and Republicans realized how important it is.

So the Department of Homeland Security does not want to build the border fence anytime soon. So I read Mr. Chertoff`s speech. He`s built 70 miles of single-layered fence, but he`s only built five miles of double fence.

And in the bill that I wrote he`s got to have the first big piece, which is all the way from Calexico, California, to Douglas, Arizona. That basically fences the entire state of Arizona. He`s got to have that finished by May 30th of `08.

BECK: Or?

HUNTER: Well, we`re not going to be able to drag him out and handcuff him and force him to do it or tie a brick to him and put him in the Potomac. You can`t -- that`s the law.

BECK: Isn`t that -- isn`t that the problem, though, in America right now? We don`t have a respect for the law anymore. Nobody is respecting the law. Government`s not respecting the law.

HUNTER: They`re not respecting the law.

BECK: We don`t need -- we don`t need more laws. We need people to enforce the law.

HUNTER: That`s exactly right, Glenn. But listen, that`s why I`m running for president. And let me tell you another reason to build the border fence, incidentally. For people that say that Mexico has an interest in not having a border fence and that somehow this has racial overtones.

We have about 150 people this year during the hot season were smuggled into Arizona. And they were told by the coyote, by the smuggler, when you go in he may say the road a mile to the north after he`s got your 200 or 300 bucks. In some cases, it`s 20 miles to the north.

So in June and July the temperature in South Arizona is 110 degrees in the shade. So we lose about 120 to 150 people a year dying of heat stroke and dehydration, illegal aliens coming across that southern border in the low desert areas.

That`s why I had the fence being finished in Arizona by May 30, which is start of the hot season, next year. Now, Mr. Chertoff hasn`t built any of the double border fence. So he`s not going to make the deadline.

BECK: Are you -- are you...

HUNTER: So there`s a humanitarian reason for building this thing.

BECK: Are you shocked that somehow or another people who say, you know, I want a fence for security reasons but also for, I believe, anyone who tries to make the claim, "Well, our businesses need this cheap labor," good God almighty, this is modern-day slavery.

How is it people who are in your position or my position are labeled hate mongers?

HUNTER: Listen, I had a -- I had a great Hispanic citizen come up to me in San Diego. He said, "Do not let the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill pass." He said this. He said it took him 20 years to get to the point where he was making 35 bucks an hour as a master craftsman. He said, "You open the floodgates to Mexico, and my wages will go down to 15 bucks. And I`m not going to be able to send my kids to college."

Now, you know, I talked to a guy who`s a drywall contractor the other day. He hires American citizens. So the contractors who hire illegal aliens and don`t pay that $27 a loaded hour for wages undercut this guy on bids constantly.

So this is not fair to the people that are playing by the rules, to allow people to come in and work illegally and work for these low wages and undercut folks that are doing everything right.

You know one other thing? You`re going to have high unemployment and have it right now in the construction area. There are lots of good jobs that are being taken right now by folks that are coming in illegally. Lots of good jobs.

BECK: All right. We`re going to continue our conversation with a man who`s running for president, Congressman Duncan Hunter. Back in a second.

GRAPHIC: How many friends does Rep. Duncan Hunter have on his MySpace page? A, 500; B, 10,000; C, 7,000; D, 2,000.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRAPHIC: How many friends does Rep. Duncan Hunter have on his MySpace page? C, 7,000

BECK: Do you spend a lot of time on MySpace?

Which one was that?

Let me -- we`re back with Duncan Hunter. Let me -- let me ask you a really tough question on Mexico.

HUNTER: Yes.

BECK: They`re sending their people over here. They are printing ways to get into America in little cartoon books. They are saying wherever there`s a Mexican there is Mexico. They`re not -- they`re not respecting our laws. They`re not really helping us. The Zetas are on the border.

Massive drug problems. We`ve got 70 people who have been kidnapped in Laredo, Texas. Americans. That`s more than what we had in Iran.

HUNTER: Sure.

BECK: And yet I keep hearing that Mexico is a good neighbor. Besides oil, help me out. Is this a good neighbor?

HUNTER: Well, I`ll tell you one thing. You know, President Bush did everything he could for President Vicente Fox. He really helped him politically. And yet, when we went to Iraq, Mexico was against us in that operation. In fact, of course, on the other hand Canada was against us, also. So our two neighbors that we did lots of stuff with.

And what that reinforces is this, Glenn. Every nation has to act in its own interest, and in it`s our interest to have a real border on the southwest portion of the United States. We have to do that.

And incidentally, if we had the greatest deal in the world with Mexico -- in 2005 we caught 155,000 people coming across from Mexico who were not citizens of Mexico. They came from virtually every country in the world. Eleven hundred of them came from communist China. A couple of them came from Iran and North Korea.

So everybody in the world with a TV set says they know that the way you get into the U.S. illegally is no longer through the airports, because we`ve got the airports pretty well plugged up. You go to Mexico, and you walk across the land border.

BECK: What about walking across the land border in Canada?

HUNTER: You know, I had a hearing in August. And the reports from those guys is they can handle the -- they have very low traffic right now, but they said, "If you -- when you close down Mexico, close down the border in Mexico and you enforce that border, we may in fact have a more severe problem in Canada."

And you know what my answer is? Then you have to do what it takes. If you`ve got to put sensors in, if you`ve got to put fences on the Canadian border to keep people who would hurt Americans from coming across.

The point is in this post-9/11 world we`ve got to know two things. We`ve got to know who`s coming into the United States, and we have to know what they`re bringing with them. And that means that they`re going to have to knock on the front door...

BECK: Right.

HUNTER: ... if they want to come into this country. And you know, Mexico has troops on its own border to the south.

BECK: I know.

HUNTER: They understand that.

BECK: But God forbid we put -- God forbid we put troops down -- I mean, God forbid we put troops down with loaded guns.

HUNTER: Yes.

BECK: I mean, why can`t -- why don`t we have troops down there? We`re almost at a border war.

HUNTER: We`ve got a good Border Patrol. We just need to have about a doubling of the Border Patrol that we have.

But let me tell but the fence. When we pulled the double border fence in San Diego we were able to pull about 50 percent of our Border Patrol people off the fence. Because the fence is an impediment and once you have that impediment up, you can use -- you can do the job with fewer people.

So we put the fence up across the southwest, and we increase our surveillance. We`re going to sew that border up.

And we can build the border fence in six months. You take contractors, and you have them building in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, all at the same time. The General Contractors Association testified that they can do this. We`ve got lots of folks who can put it up. It`s a matter of will. And right now this administration doesn`t want to build it.

BECK: I`ve got to tell you, that`s a job a lot of Americans would do. What is the -- give me your take on Mexamericanada: the merging of Canada and Mexico. And does that play a role to you? Robert Pastor, that stuff. Does that play a role to you?

HUNTER: Well, I think this idea of blurring -- blurring our boundary lines and especially -- I think NAFTA was one of the biggest disasters for the United States in history.

BECK: Wait, wait. Hang on just a second. No. Understand my question. I`m not asking you if you think it`s a good idea. I`m asking you if you believe there is a real movement afoot to actually get that done.

HUNTER: Yes, I think that -- I think that there`s people in the administration that think that the European model of melding Europe together...

BECK: Right.

HUNTER: ... economically is a model that the United States should follow. I think that would be disastrous for our country.

And you know, incidentally, there are major wars in -- between the legislature and the governor in Texas with respect to the condemnation laws that would -- that would allow the construction of this massive highway that is proposed, is real in that sense.

I offered an amendment on the House floor that said you can`t use any transportation money to plan the NAFTA highway. My amendment passed by about 360-60. And the administration said we don`t plan anything.

I said, "You`re in luck, then. You don`t have anything to worry about."

BECK: OK. You have, at least for me, my problem is not necessarily with all the -- I want to know who`s here in our country. My problem is not, you know -- how do you sort out the people who have been here since they were young and everything else, et cetera, et cetera? I`m not sure that we send everybody back, but I don`t want to put them at the front of the line.

My point has been fix -- turn off the water first.

HUNTER: Yes.

BECK: Fix the border first. Let`s say that we had the fences built, we had security, we knew who was here. You`re still against amnesty at that point? Would you -- would you consider any kind of -- or do you say just ship them all back?

HUNTER: Here`s what you`ve got to do. You know, we had amnesty in 19 -- I think it was `83 or...

BECK: Eighty-six.

HUNTER: Or `86, when we passed amnesty.

BECK: Right.

HUNTER: And we said, we wrote into the fine print: now, this is it, this time we really mean it; nobody else can come over. The U.S. Senate held a stop sign up, and the folks left tire tracks on that stop sign.

So the 12 million or plus people who`ve come in since then came in because they didn`t believe that we really meant it. You have to enforce the law.

And you know, I think there`s an equity argument here, too. We`ve lost 619,000 Americans: dead, killed on battlefields around the world in the last 100 years, mainly to protect American interests but also to give freedom to people around the world.

There is no Nazi Germany anymore because we took care of them. There is no imperial Japan because we took care of them. We brought freedom to Central America. I think there`s an equity argument, that this country has paid a lot in blood and lots of money, lots of loans, lots of plans, to revitalize the economy of the rest of the world.

There`s nothing wrong with telling a citizen of another country, you know, "You`ve got a country with lots of natural resources; you`ve got lots of opportunity. Americans left their blood on your land to free you. Make a go of it."

There`s nothing wrong with that.

BECK: Back in just a minute with Congressman Duncan Hunter. We`re going to talk about his conservative credentials. We`re going to talk about the Second Amendment, a little bit of Iran, a little bit of Pakistan, our economy, and so much more.

Back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: We`re back with Congressman Duncan Hunter, the national security candidate. That`s what you`re going for? National security candidate?

HUNTER: Well, you know, I think I`ve got pretty good credentials. You know, I`ve chaired the armed services committee for the last four years in the House and oversaw a budget of 500-plus billion dollars. And I`ve been on that committee for 26 years.

BECK: Also the most conservative in Congress, right?

HUNTER: No, I don`t think I`m the most conservative. I think I`m pretty close, but I think you`ve got a lot of guys that have got as good of records as mine or...

BECK: I don`t want to get you talking about other candidates, but I do want to ask you, the Ron Paul phenomenon. He -- he raised $4.5 million on one day, and it was the day -- it was the anniversary of Guy Fawkes, the guy who, you know, blew up in 16 -- whatever it was, blew up Parliament. Kind of a revolutionary statement. And $4.5 million on that day raised.

There is a feeling in this country of disenfranchisement, that we can`t trust our leaders anymore. We can`t trust our parties anymore. I`ve had more calls on the Second Amendment than I`ve ever had before. Can they take away my guns? They`re going to come for my guns. Do you sense that at all?

HUNTER: You know, I think Americans see the disconnect between Washington, D.C., and what they stand for. But I think -- I think what Americans are going to have to do in this race is to look at the -- look at the candidates and look at what they stand for.

And for example, on the Second Amendment it`s a funny thing. You`ve got guys in South Carolina, very conservative people, who have no idea that Rudy Giuliani will reach into that pickup truck and pull that 30-30 out of the gun rack because he`s a very, very pro-gun control guy. And he was as mayor in New York. And so people haven`t looked at the issues. And a lot of the race right now is name identification.

But I think that Americans are going to look pretty careful at the issues. And I think Americans are always sensitive about having their rights taken away, because that`s a business that government`s in, taking rights.

BECK: I want to get back to the taking rights here in just a second.

How much time do we have? About a minute and a half?

I want to get into that. Because I think our rights are being taken away, quite honestly, by the Senate. I think the Senate with these treaties, we`ve got a couple of cases -- we`ve got a case now in front of the Supreme Court with, what`s his name, Medellin, that is -- he was a brutal killer.

The international court of justice -- you know the story -- comes in and says, "Hey, you`ve got to release this guy. You didn`t get a chance to talk to the Mexican consulate."

And the Senate passed this treaty. George Bush is standing with Mexico on it. If the Supreme Court rules with Mexico, we`re in trouble, aren`t we?

HUNTER: Yes. I think so, Glenn.

Listen, there`s two things I`d like to see. I`d like to see a tenure in the White House in which the day I walk out of the White House the American people are more independent of government than the day I walked in.

And I`d like to see an America that`s more independent as a nation than the day that I walked in.

And I think there`s a tendency, especially in the Senate, to latch on to whatever globalist international association is moving down the line. I mean, if you can have the worst operation in the world and if you call it the international association to do such and such, it perks up senators` ears. For some reason they like that.

BECK: I want to talk to you about why we`ve gone down this path and what it means to be really independent and the difference between that and isolationism.

We`ll be back in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTER: The Hunter Bill, which was signed by the president on the 26th of October, mandating 854 miles of double fence, not that scraggly little fence you show on CNN all the time, Wolf, that people get across so easily. If they get across my fence, we sign them up for the Olympics immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Back with Duncan Hunter. You were just saying that you want an America that is more independent when you walk in -- when you leave than when you walked in. That`s going against the grain in today`s world. We seem to be just handing ourselves up to slavery. But what is the difference between independence and isolationism?

HUNTER: Well, you know, there`s a big difference because I do believe in having a strong American military that engages around the world, and I believe in trade deals. But trade deals are business deals between nations. And there`s a difference between a good deal and a bad deal. And so I think the difference is it`s the difference between being a dependent of somebody where the actions that particular person takes can ruin you or being a partner. I believe in lots of partnerships but not dependents.

And if you look at what China`s done, the news today is that China is thinking of leaving the dollar and going to the euro or other currencies, and it is shaking American financial markets. And you know we`ve let China cheat on trade .

BECK: You know and I know if they do that our dollar is dead. You know and I know they have so much of our debt .

HUNTER: Three-hundred-fifty billion.

BECK: Thomas Jefferson said we`re going to be led around by chains of other countries if we ever get into debt. We`re so into debt, they control us, they`re poisoning our children with toxic toys, and yet we can`t say anything. So how do you say to China, you know what, China, you need to sit down? When they said in August to the president, when we talked to them about toys, they said we may just have to dump all of your currency and collapse your dollar. And how do you deal with it?

HUNTER: And they also had a general who said, when we were standing up for Taiwan, he said I hope you value L.A., Los Angeles, more than you do Taiwan. Thinly veiled threat to use nukes on us. And he was only mildly reprimanded.

But here`s what I would do. The Hunter-Ryan Bill is a bill that stops China from cheating on trade by using countervailing duties. Right now they`ve devalued their currency by 40 percent. That means that every product that they sell that we buy in dollars is 40 percent cheaper than it should be. They`ve undercut American products around the world. They`ve wiped American products off the shelves. And because of that they`re enjoying a $200 billion per year trade surplus over the U.S. and as a former chairman of the Armed Services Committee I would get my briefings on China and still do on what they`re doing with American trade dollars. They`re buying ships, planes, and missiles. They`ve got a ton of submarines under production. They`ve got a new road mobile ballistic missile system.

They shot a satellite out of space earlier this year. So they are arming. They`re stepping into the shoes that have been left by the Soviet Union. And tragically, Glenn, they`re doing it with the American trade dollar. So I will stop that. I`ll stand up to the Chinese.

And for the rest of the world with tariffs against our goods, they don`t call them tariffs, they call them VAT taxes. I`m for mirror trade. You know what that is? I hold a mirror up. We bring these guys back to the table. Just like Ronald Reagan brought people to the table when we thought we had a bad arms control deal, he said we`re going to get a better one. We hold a mirror up.

If you charge us a 20 percent tariff when we export our product to you, you`re going to see your own tariff reflected back at you when you try to sell your product in the United States. The days of the one-way street in trade will be over. And we have an $800 billion trade loss this year. We`ve got to stop that.

BECK: Let me ask you, as a man, I mean, you fought in Vietnam, you won a Bronze Star, you .

HUNTER: I had a very easy tour in Vietnam. My son in Fallujah took more incoming fire in 30 seconds than I did in a year.

BECK: OK. You`ve seen a lot. You`ve seen this country from the inside for a very long time. I have been describing this for the last few years on the air as the perfect storm. There are storm clouds that are gathering from our economy to China to Islamic extremists to Iran to the border to -- you name it.

As a man, as a dad, as a grandfather, how do you feel about the future of America if we don`t pay attention and wake up pretty soon?

HUNTER: You know, I think God loves this country. And I think that many times if you look at many of the difficult situations that we`ve been in, we`ve always been -- we`ve always had that hand laid on this country, and we`ve always been able to climb out of the problem. We`ve been able to regain our optimism, regain our spirit, regain our principles.

I think we can do that. I think America can be great again. I think we`ve got to be strong. I think that we have to allow American -- the American people, while the rest of the country or the rest of the world are moving toward more and more socialism, especially our European allies, I think the worst tragedy in the world would be having brought down the Soviet Socialist Republic, we ourselves slide into what I would call a swamp of socialism.

I think we need more independence. We need more people who are independently able to pay for their own health insurance rather than saying the government is going to take the place of the father and the mother. And that`s essentially what we`re doing in many, many areas. We`re making government the father in terms of -- and the breadwinner in terms of providing health care, at least if the trend continues, we continue to socialize medicine.

We`re trying to make the government the raiser of our children, the father figure in terms of raising our children with respect to the curriculums that they`re now seeing in schools. I want to see more independence. And I want to see more principle. Now, half of that -- part of that you can do with legislation. We can stop socialized medicine with legislation.

I think part of it you do just by using that bully pulpit that Teddy Roosevelt talked about and reminding the American people that the individual is the key in this country, not the state, not this giant -- this giant organism in Washington, DC. Which disperses knowledge and wisdom out to the people of America, but rather it`s supposed to serve the people of America. And the knowledge and the wisdom comes from them and allows them to live their lives independently.

BECK: OK. So how do you -- how do you get there? Because it`s not just - - it`s not just Washington. It`s also -- I mean, look, the American people know the answers. They know the answers. They know. They know we`re in trouble on oil. I mean, here we are at $100 a barrel of oil. And yet we can`t get anybody to build nuke plants, we can`t -- they`ll build them, but the government will stop them. We`re talking about global warming right now.

You`ve got NBC, which is wholly owned by General Electric, which by the way is one of the largest producers of wind farms and wind technology, going green for the week. Everybody knows.

You`ve got China off the coast of Florida drilling for oil, and we can`t drill in our own forest? We can`t do coal to oil? We can`t do anything? We`re being strapped.

HUNTER: Well, you`ve got to talk to people, and you`ve got to make them realize where the American interest is. Now, in this case the American interest in having energy independence is here. Every one of us who`s got a young man or young woman in uniform knows that even if you don`t have an Iraq or an Afghanistan we have marine expeditionary units that are out there on the float al the time in those bad parts of the world because for one reason we have that oil lifeline that goes from the Straits of Hormuz, that brings in all that foreign oil that runs our hospitals and our schools and our neighborhoods that we`re dependent on.

So we need to be able to tell the American people, you know, it`s important to take care of endangered species. On the other hand, one endangered specie is the American fighting man or woman, who may be placed in an extreme position in some remote and inconvenient part of the world, in a dangerous place, because we`re seeing that lifeline cut off at some point.

BECK: What`s the most important thing we can do for energy? What would be the first thing in energy you would do?

HUNTER: Harness the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people. I would take taxes down to zero for Americans who build in this country innovative energy systems. And that means I would hook up business, all of our universities and our colleges, all of our government paid for laboratories, which incidentally develop enormously creative, innovative systems, and then they`re farmed out to other countries to build.

I would bring those people together with the spirit of let`s get it done. And go to the array of alternative energy sources. But that would include building nuclear power plants. It would include building a refinery in less time than it takes to win World War II. Right now it takes you about eight years to get a refinery permitted.

And I would try to harness, again, that feeling of let`s get it done, we`re all in this together. And that requires leadership. And it`s not necessarily something you can simply legislate. You`ve got to get the American people to feel like we`re all walking in the same direction.

BECK: Right. Do you believe in global warming?

HUNTER: I think that -- I know that the earth has risen, what is it, a degree and a half .

BECK: Yeah.

HUNTER: . or so in the last .

BECK: Did man do it?

HUNTER: But I would say this. I would say there is no definitive science on how much of that is attributable to people or to the natural recovery out of the last -- the last cold cycle that we had. Because as we know, glaciers have advanced and retreated a long time before there was an automobile around. But here`s what I would say. I don`t think you`ve got to have that big debate, Glenn, because we do want to become energy independent. And if we can have alternative energy sources that can contribute to that independence so we`re not pulling oil through the Straits of Hormuz, that`s good. And if somebody has a great machine that utilizes geothermal or ethanol or something else, let`s use it.

BECK: Yeah. I don`t know why we can`t unite on that one. I mean, we have different goals. You know, I want to get off oil. They want to stop global warming. But if we would solve it, just the energy thing, we would solve both of those. All right. Coming up in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTER: You know, the genius of the founding fathers was that they could - - they could put together a government with ordinary people. And I`m a very ordinary guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: We`re back with Duncan hunter. Which I -- any relation to Duncan Heinz or Dunkin Donuts? Any of that money running through your .

HUNTER: No.

BECK: OK. You actually -- first of all, let me ask you .

HUNTER: I think Ron Paul`s a guy everybody wants to be related to now, right?

BECK: Really. Not so much.

HUNTER: After the $4 million day.

BECK: First of all, on a personal note, you lost your house in the fire.

HUNTER: Well, four years ago we lost our house.

BECK: OK.

HUNTER: In the last fire we .

BECK: But didn`t you evacuate again?

HUNTER: Yeah. We just rebuilt it. And we haven`t lived a day in. And my wife called up and said I`ve got good news and bad news. She said I`ve just got the permit to move back in, but then we got the evacuation notice. But it went by on the north. It did hit a lot of places in San Diego County, took out a lot of homes. But you know something? I`m really proud of the way that Californians and San Diegans worked together, Glenn. You know, neighbors helped neighbors. We had almost no instances of looting even though you had huge communities uncovered.

BECK: One at the -- one at the dome. I`m trying to remember the name at the park.

HUNTER: Yeah. Just one or two.

BECK: But it was -- what was it, four illegal aliens? Did you hear this story?

HUNTER: No.

BECK: Four illegal aliens were loading up trucks of the relief. They left one, came back. One of the San Diego people came and said to the cop that`s that truck, they just came back. It happened to be four illegal aliens. That`s the only real looting that had I heard about.

HUNTER: Oh, and one quick commercial, too. The National Guard under General Steven Blom (ph) actually sent out C-130 firefighting aircraft from Colorado, North Carolina and Wyoming before they got the formal request from California. He said, I`m going to send them out on a training mission, they`ll be needed by the time they get there. So he sent out those planes early. That helped us a lot. We owe him some thanks.

BECK: What do you think of Schwarzenegger? You know he was -.

HUNTER: He was in there working hard in this thing. He was down there, and he hooked up every state organization he could to get this thing done.

BECK: He was on the most powerful -- or most influential liberal list. I happened to be I think number 18 on the most influential conservative list and he was like number eight on most influential liberal list. And he`s a Republican.

HUNTER: He`s a republican, but he`s one of our favorite liberal Republicans. Let me tell you. In the fire he did a great job.

BECK: Yeah. OK. Let`s just go through some real quick things. Fair tax. I have to know when the top one percent is taking 20 percent of the income but they`re paying 40 percent of the income tax, what is their fair share?

HUNTER: Well, I think you`re going to see that manifested in what people buy. Because a guy that buys a car for 40 grand is going to pay a higher tax if you have a fair tax, which is a consumption tax. He`s going to end up paying I think about the same proportion as if you just took his income tax. But what you get rid of with the fair tax, and I like the fair tax, is you get rid of that $250 billion per year basically cost of bureaucracy, of administering taxes, defending your taxes.

But the other thing is, you know, the rest of the world is subsidizing by giving their taxes back to their exporters. We are double taxing our guys. You pay income tax here if you sell this table and it goes overseas, you pay income tax here in your table-building business. When you send it overseas, they hit with you a tariff when this table gets to their shores.

So we pay two taxes. They`re getting by in many cases with no taxes. The fair tax, by taking the income tax off our exporters, would help to level the playing field for manufacturers. So that`s another reason why I like it.

BECK: The bottom 50 percent of this country pays no tax whatsoever.

HUNTER: Yeah.

BECK: In fact, I think it`s -- I can`t remember the exact number. But a lot of that gets more back than they even would pay in. So they`re living of the government teat, if you will. How do you ever change any real taxes when you`ve got the top 20 percent paying almost al of the taxes? There`s no desire for anybody to change the tax code anymore. Most people aren`t paying the taxes.

HUNTER: Well, that`s one reason I`d like to -- I think the fair tax would be an excellent thing. I think it would also move people to save more. They`d get their paychecks back, they wouldn`t have as big a withholding. I think this would be healthy for the country, but especially that $800 billion trade deficit, which is going to have a massive effect on our ability to fund Social Security, Medicare, and all the rest. You take a guy who`s making 75,000 bucks a year in a manufacturing job, you send his job to China, you retrain him and he`s now making 20 grand a year. The amount of money as he just said that he pays into the general fund or Social Security or pays for Medicare falls off the table. He goes from paying a lot to paying almost nothing.

So trade is a massive driver in our ability to balance the budget and also our ability to have a secure country for future generations.

BECK: We are darn near out of time. I`m going to use this extra 30 seconds on the other side. I`ve got to ask you real quick about Iran and then some rapid fire stuff. Coming back in just a second with Duncan Hunter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: OK. Back with rapid-fire with Duncan Hunter. I know this is going to be really tough. But war with Iran. Are we going to go to war with Iran?

HUNTER: We can`t let them have a nuclear device. And of course we like the Iranian people. In fact, a lot of the Iranian people love America.

BECK: Yeah.

HUNTER: But we can`t let them have a nuclear device. As they develop these centrifuges that refine nuclear-grade material to the point where it could ultimately be used for some type of a weapon, we`re going to have to stop them, either by economic sanctions or perhaps by military intervention. It wouldn`t be war against Iran. It would a surgical strike.

BECK: If you were a betting man, do you see that in the cards?

HUNTER: I think they`re going to pursue this system. I think they see North Korea as a model, and I think they feel they can build and talk, build and talk.

BECK: They might. OK. Rapid-fire, yes or no. Let`s see. G.I. Joe, marine or blue helmet?

HUNTER: No. Never put an American -- and I`ve worked on this in the armed services. You never put an American under the command of a -- of an international agency.

BECK: Hillary .

HUNTER: Always an American.

BECK: Hillary or Barack?

HUNTER: Boy, that`s a -- neither. None of the above.

BECK: Have you ever seen a UFO?

HUNTER: No.

BECK: You`re sure? What`s your campaign song?

HUNTER: I don`t have a campaign song. But you know something?

BECK: A guy who doesn`t have a campaign song. This is like good stuff.

HUNTER: My dad played "Red River Balley." and that`s kind of my favorite song.

BECK: Favorite founding father.

HUNTER: Washington.

BECK: Why?

HUNTER: You know, he had a -- he was a guy that really established -- he wrote that great - that great prayer for the United States of America, and he prayed in Jesus` name, but then he also sent a great letter to the Jewish congregation in Savannah, Georgia of hospitality and welcome and tolerance. And I think in doing that he established that we can have strong religious principles and strong Christian principles and yet be tolerant of all other faiths.

BECK: Should teachers have guns on campus?

HUNTER: Also, Washington was the only president who didn`t blame all of his problems on the previous administration. I like that, too.

BECK: Right. Teachers have guns on campus. Yes or no?

HUNTER: Sure. That would have -- by having a few people who were trained and could do that, that would have prevented that -- perhaps prevented some of the killings at Virginia Tech.

BECK: Will your grandkids be safer or less safe in this country than when you were growing up?

HUNTER: Well, hopefully, if I can win this -- win the White House, they`ll be safer.

BECK: Duncan Hunter, thank you very much, sir.

HUNTER: Many thanks. Thank you.

BECK: We will see you again on Monday. Until then, good night, America.

END