One man who has experienced a sudden surge in Iowa the past few days has been Rick Santorum, a candidate that Glenn has praised in the past. In fact, Glenn said that the two candidates he would vote for today would be Santorum and Bachmann, with Bachmann narrowly ahead of Santorum. Apparently others are realizing the value of a Rick Santorum as he is currently in the top three contenders in the polls alongside Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.
Read the transcript below:
GLENN: Today live from Dallas, Texas, the Lone Star state, tonight we begin our broadcast from GBTV on our brand new sound stage. We will show it to you. But today all eyes are on Iowa. That's why new frontrunner or the guy surging, Rick Santorum is on with us, now.
VOICE: Things are going back in a very healthy direction.
GLENN: Rick Santorum in Iowa, I think he could win tonight. I think it's because we didn't endorse him.
STU: (Laughing).
GLENN: Whenever that happens, they surge ahead. It is Rick Santorum, a good friend, a good friend of the program and a guy who is probably the strongest on the Middle East out there. Rick, how are you, sir?
SANTORUM: I'm doing great, Glenn. Thanks so much for having me on and thanks for all of the help that you've given me by giving me the opportunity to come on your program and for saying the kind things you have about me. I appreciate it very much.
GLENN: I will tell you this: We gave the opportunity to Newt Gingrich and it's really what you do with the time.
PAT: (Laughing).
GLENN: Rick, I want to ask
SANTORUM: Okay. I'll leave it at that.
GLENN: Yeah. I want to ask you a couple of a couple of tough questions because and you know that I'm your friend and I hope we're friends forever, but we're not electing a friend. We're electing the president of the United States and if you can't handle the Glenn Beck program, you know, what are you going to do. You shouldn't be the president of the United States. So let me ask you some tough questions. You supported Pat Toomey
PAT: No. Other way around.
GLENN: No, no.
SANTORUM: No. Other way around.
GLENN: Yeah, Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey. What the hell is wrong with you?
PAT: (Laughing.) That's about as direct as it gets right there.
SANTORUM: I like you know, when I was right after that happened in Pennsylvania, the question I got more than "how are you today" was "Why are you support Specter." And the answer to that question is it's a little complex but it's I did it because I thought it was in the best interest of the cause I believed in. As you know, Glenn, the most powerful branch of government unfortunately today is the is the judiciary and the Supreme Court and we were the 51/49 majority at the time in the United States Senate and President Bush was running for reelection and we believed there would be two and maybe even three Supreme Court nominees and Arlen Specter was slated to be chairman of the judiciary committee. Specter as you know from the days of Bork and Thomas was really the decider. If Specter supported the candidate for the court, he would pass. If he didn't, they wouldn't. That's because moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats basically followed his lead. And he came to me at the end of the campaign and asked for help. I had not been active in the campaign at all and he asked for help and I said, you know, Arlen, I've got concerns. I said, you're going to be chairman of the judiciary committee. He said I said, I'm not comfortable. He said, well, he says, I'll support whatever nominee the president puts up as long as I'm properly consulted as chairman of the committee and I'll make sure those nominations get through. And for me two to three Supreme Court justices for 30 years on the court was probably the most important thing we could have gotten out of that election. We had a 51 49 majority. Specter would hold onto the seat and guarantee the Supreme Court. We got Roberts, and I all the folks listening, go and read the reports. Read the news stories when Justice Alito's confirmation. There were repeated series of attacks on Alito. Every single time those attacks were waged, Arlen Specter was the first guy to jump up and knock them down. And I can say without question that Alito would not be on the court. It was a close vote. He would not have been on the court and we would not have a 5 4, well well, at least four and a half strong conservatives on that court right now and Alito being one of the best of them. So I
GLENN: Okay. All right. You're pissing me off because I really
SANTORUM: I made a decision which I felt was best. And let me just say this, Glenn. I knew it would cost I knew people would question me saying, oh, you're selling out, you're being for the liberal guy. No, I was being for what I thought was in the best interest of our country and I was willing to take the heat and continue to take the heat for doing so.
GLENN: Okay.
PAT: But it was based solely on Supreme Court decisions? Because the guy is not a conservative like you are.
SANTORUM: No, he's no, look, he's not a conservative.
PAT: No.
SANTORUM: That, you know, he did support some things and changed his opinion. He supported the partial birth abortion ban which he know he hadn't in the past and, you know, I will say that when I asked him for his help and support on key issues, most of the time he did help us out. But look, I understand this was going to be a he's not a conservative. I mean, I agree with that. I mean, he eventually switched to become a Democrat.
GLENN: He was a Democrat in the beginning.
PAT: But
PAT: I didn't leave the Republican Party, Glenn. The Republican Party left me.
STU: Rick, this is interesting because I think I understand your point on the Supreme Court and I think it's valid and Bush was fantastic
GLENN: It is.
STU: with Supreme Court justices. But isn't the point that isn't your point for endorsing Specter there because you believe he was more electable than Toomey who is the conservative, which is the same point people make against you with Romney now?
GLENN: No. No, he's not making that.
SANTORUM: No, I'm not saying that. Look, I don't know, Pat Toomey might have been able to won, he might not have been. Certainly would have been harder. You know, Bush lost the State of Pennsylvania that year in 2004. He lost it by 2 or 3 points. You know, Pat Toomey didn't get elected to the Senate. But I was got elected in the Senate, a pretty good year for Republican which 2004 was not. And the gubernatorial candidates for Pennsylvania, our candidate for governor who led the ticket like Bush would have won by 10 and Pat won by 1. So, you know, I don't know whether he would have won or not but it would have been certainly a much harder race. I don't think there's any question about that. And with a one seat majority, I was looking for something where I could, if I could say, look, by supporting Specter, we could guarantee Supreme Court nominees, that's a pretty good that's a pretty good reason to support someone in my opinion.
GLENN: Okay. Rick, earmarks.
SANTORUM: Yeah.
GLENN: You've defended Rick Perry brought this up and you defended earmarks. How can you possibly
SANTORUM: Yeah, what I said was that for 200 plus years in American history, if you look at the Constitution, Glenn, the Constitution says that the congress shall appropriate money. The congress is supposed to spend money, not the president. The congress spends this money. What happened was there was abuse. And there was abuse that led to higher spending. And when and people justifiably got upset. But the idea that congress shouldn't allocate money is against what the Constitution, in fact, requires the congress to do. What happened is that congress were using earmarks to get folks to vote for higher spending, which is what exploded this deficit in the last few years after I left the United States Senate. And so what I've said is
GLENN: No, no, no, no. No, no, no.
SANTORUM: That when that happened and Pat Toomey tied together what?
GLENN: No, no. No, no. I'm not going to let you get away I'm not going to let you get away with, "And then I left the Senate and spending was..." spending has been out of control for 20, 30 years.
SANTORUM: I would agree, but it's look at the rates of spending in discretionary accounts in Washington over the past 15 years and you will see, you know, low single digit increases in discretionary spending up until the time Obama came in and they exploded. And that's when people got all bent out of shape about earmarks and there was a rally, legitimately so to end it because they were being used to get people to vote for that higher spending. So look, I've said I'll support a ban of earmarks, and I do support a ban of earmarks. I will say that Jim DeMint who led this charge also supported earmarks. Ron Paul supported earmarks. Because, in fact, I don't know of too many people who didn't do earmarks because all of us thought it was our responsibility under the Constitution and representing our several states to make sure that when federal dollars were spent, they were allocated equally among the states as our job was to do.
GLENN: All right. You are and I've said this for years. You're probably the only guy that really I can't say that. You're one of the leaders on really understanding what is happening in the Middle East, what we face, the threat from Iran. We've talked about this, Rick, for what? Five years, seven years?
SANTORUM: Oh, more than that, Glenn. We've been talking about it since, I remember at least 2005 and maybe before.
GLENN: Yeah. So we I mean, we've been talking about this for a very long time. You knew who the twelfth imam was before anybody knew who it was. However, let me go here: I saw that you which I agree with. I saw that you said this weekend that you would launch a strike against Iran if they have nuclear weapons. They're in the straits of
SANTORUM: Well, no, I said I would launch a
GLENN: Make sure they don't.
SANTORUM: Look, I laid out a variety of things that I would do. And I said if all those things failed, then you have to set an ultimatum and say that, you know, we can't have a policy, Glenn, that says Iran shouldn't get a nuclear weapon and then don't do anything to stop them from getting it.
GLENN: Correct.
SANTORUM: That is the paper tiger and weakness because as you know, as you know the Middle East, the weak course is not one that's particularly well respected.
GLENN: No.
SANTORUM: And so when you say that you have a policy, which we do, which every presidential candidate does except Ron Paul that says that Iran should not get a nuclear weapon, then you better have a policy that, you know, actually tactical things that you're going to do to make sure that doesn't happen.
GLENN: Okay.
SANTORUM: And I laid them out in sequence. The last of the sequence was if all else fails, then we have to be very public that we will work with the State of Israel and that we will use whatever force is necessary, air strikes, to degrade those facilities.
GLENN: Okay.
SANTORUM: Before they get a nuclear weapon.
GLENN: Here's the here's the thing. We are stretched so thin financially.
SANTORUM: We will be stretched even more thin if Iran has a nuclear weapon, Glenn, and starts launching attacks in the Middle East, against the State of Israel, in this country. You think the economy's struggling now, just wait until we have a series of terrorist attacks because Iran will feel impervious to being attacked because they have a nuclear weapon.
GLENN: I know.
SANTORUM: That is something that
GLENN: You and I, Rick, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I cannot there is a strong part of me that says enough of the wars. Enough of the wars. What are we fighting? Five wars right now?
SANTORUM: We're trying to prevent a war here. We're trying to prevent one of the most nefarious the most nefarious regime in the entire world from you know, this is the equivalent as you know, Glenn, you know this. This is the equivalent of Al Qaeda or maybe even worse than Al Qaeda being in control of a country with enormous resources and capability.
GLENN: No, this is Hitler.
SANTORUM: We're trying to prevent them from having the failsafe so they can go out and reign terror around the world.
GLENN: The the idea that Iran is in the Straits of Hormuz right now firing missiles
SANTORUM: They think we're weak. They think we won't do anything. They're testing. They continue to prod, poke and test the will of the American president and he continues to show that he is going to be complacent and allow them to have their way. That's what this president has shown from the attempted attacks here in this country on a Saudi ambassador, the improvised explosive devices that have been used for years now to kill our troops that are manufactured in Iran. Iran as you saw on the front page of the Washington Post yesterday with and you've talked about this on your program with its influence now growing in Central and South America, we can sit on the sidelines and say, well, we'll just, you know, we'll let them go ahead and do this because we're tired of war. And then we will really be tired of war because it will be on our shores.
PAT: For so long now we've been asking you how you turn this thing around from the 1 to 2% that you were receiving and now here you are suddenly surging. This has got to feel pretty good. You are at 15% according to the latest poll. You have a real legitimate shot at winning this. This would really give you a shot in the arm if you finish in, I'd say the top three, wouldn't it?
SANTORUM: Yeah, I think the top three is what we're shooting for. I mean, obviously 10, 12 days ago we were in last place and we were getting the question that we got here on the program last time I was on: What's wrong with you, Rick? I mean, you're not doing anything, it's not happening. I'd like to support you, but... and I've always said, you know, I'm going to go out and do what I've done here, Glenn. I mean, I love you, I really do. I love you as a brother and I agree with you on 90 plus percent of the things but, you know, what, Glenn, when we disagree, I'm not going to sugar coat it to you. I'm going to tell you exactly what I believe and I respect the fact that, you know, you have a different opinion on things but I also respect you enough to be able to tell you, you know, that I what I think and lay it all out there. And the people of Iowa, I've heard this repeatedly. They said, you know what, I don't agree with you on everything but I think you are an honest guy, you actually are saying what you believe is the right thing to do, and I trust you. And nobody I mean, we can't all run for president. Therefore there's no perfect candidate. And so you take what you think is the best and when you disagree, you at least understand that they are doing it for the reasons they believe in their heart is the right thing to do. And that's what I'm trying to lay out here in Iowa, and the people of Iowa have responded to it.
GLENN: Good luck tonight, Rick. Good luck.
SANTORUM: Thank you, my friend, and I really appreciate it. By the way, I do appreciate, I mean this all sincerity. I appreciate you asking me the tough questions and the things that we disagree on because, you know, if you don't put those out there, then people can go and think what they want. And there are disagreements but I hope you believe as I hope you know this
GLENN: I wouldn't
SANTORUM: I'm doing it because I do believe it's the best thing for the country.
GLENN: I wouldn't lose a second of time worrying about what you were doing behind anybody's back or behind closed doors. Not one second of time would I worry about that.
SANTORUM: Thank you, my friend.
GLENN: God bless you.
SANTORUM: And if you go to RickSantorum.com and help us out, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images
David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images
Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images