FOX "Hannity"- Transcript: Debate Recap

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Senator, how are you?

RUBIO: I'm good.

HANNITY: Did you have a good time out there?

RUBIO: I did, did. I really did. It was a great opportunity.

HANNITY: You actually -- you looked relaxed from the opening answer. I thought some guys may have been nervous and you didn't seem at all..

RUBIO: Well, I wasn't nervous, I was anxious. I mean, I wanted to do it. And obviously, you know, that's a big audience, a lot of people watching. You can't say you don't have a little bit of butterflies or something like this.

HANNITY: That's probably a good thing.

RUBIO: But these were a good group of guys that were up on that stage tonight. I get along with everybody on the stage. As I said, I meant it. I think we're very blessed as a party to have so many good candidates. The Democrats are struggling to come up with one.

HANNITY: Big time they're struggling, in a lot of ways. You talked about your experience; early in the debate it was brought up about Jeb Bush, your relationship with him, but you also talk about your experience. It goes beyond being a first term senator from Florida.

The speaker of the House, you worked with...

RUBIO: I actually started in the local government, in a small city, which is pretty intense. I mean, you want to help people, you help them at local government.

Small city, 5,000 people, West Miami. Then I joined the state legislature; I was there for eight and a half years. The last two years, I was the speaker of the Florida House, the third largest state in the country and the most diverse state.

Then I left politics, I was out when I decided to run for the Senate against Charlie Crist. And I'm proud of my service the last four and a half years in the Senate. In my time, I've become convinced that we can't turn this country to what it should belong, its full potential, unless we have a president that understands what that means. That's why I close to run.

HANNITY: One of the big issues that has been going on throughout the whole campaign, immigration. You tried it, comprehensive reform. But one of the times in the interview, you said the American people don't trust us.

RUBIO: They don't.

HANNITY: All right, and so you said, all right, so we have to build a wall for them first.

RUBIO: And not just build a wall, as I tried to make the point. It's 40 percent of the people who are here illegally came legally, and they overstay a visa. In Florida, it's like 70 or 80 percent, and you have to have a system to prevent that as well.

And that is an entry-exit tracking system, so you know who has overstayed, but you also need to e-verify. You have to make it almost impossible to find a job, and that will slow it down and stop it. And -- so we need all three things; we do need a fence ,but we also need more security at the airport and more security of course, when it come to jobs.

HANNITY: On the minds of everybody, and it came up on the debate is this horrible deal that the president is making with Iran. How bad is it? What do people need to know that we can stop it from actually taking place?

RUBIO: Well, I can tell you a couple things that make it really bad. Virtually, it guarantees Iran gets nuclear weapon in a less than a decade, and not just a nuclear weapon, but a long range rocket capable of reaching the United States.

Just think about it. Do we want a radical Shia cleric, the Ayatollah of Iran, to have in his possession the ability to attack the continental United States? And that's what he will have if this deal continues moving forward. Because we are not just making all sorts of money available to them by lifting sanctions, the rockets, that they're developing, the long range missiles, they're not even a part of the sanctions. They can continue to develop that.

And Iran, this deal isn't even over two weeks old and they're already cheating. They're already sending Soleimani, the head of the Al Quds force to Russia. And this notion that it's going to be enforced at the Security Council is ridiculous, because Russia is a member of the Security Council. They invited them to come.

HANNITY: What is also unbelievable about it is the amount of money. The equivalent of $8 trillion in the U.S. economy, 24 days notice before an inspection, they get to build inter -- continental ballistic missiles, and they get conventional weapons.

Last question. The economy. So many people are suffering. We have debt out of control. We have unfunded liabilities to the tune of a $128 billion. You know, what are the three big steps you would take to get this economy going again?

RUBIO: Well, to begin, we have to understand the economy is a dramatically different one; we now have to compete with dozens of other countries. And the very nature of the economy has changed. As I pointed out tonight, the largest retailer, Amazon, doesn't even own a store.

So, No. 1 we have to become competitive again. That's why we have to lower the corporate tax rate, that's why we have to allow businesses to immediately expense, so the more people we hire, the less they pay in taxes. That's we have to have a territorial system of taxation. So people bring money from abroad -- American money that now they're keeping overseas.

Second, we need regulatory reform. Basically, a regulatory budget that limits how much regulation can cost our economy. We need to fully utilize our energy resources. We do have to reform Social Security and Medicare so we can balance our budget.

And something we didn't talk about tonight, we must modernize higher education. Why need more vocational training -- why don't we teach people to be welders anymore in America? These are good jobs.

HANNITY: Good professions that pay a lot of money.

RUBIO: Fix airplanes and so forth. We also need to give people the ability to go to college without taking out all these loans. You know, I owed over 100,000 in student loans. And it's just crazy that we are -- graduating people with degrees that don't lead to jobs, and tens of thousands in loans, because these universities have no competition. We have to change that, too.

HANNITY: Senator Rubio, good job tonight. Thank you.

RUBIO: Thanks, Sean. Thank you, good to see you.

HANNITY: Thanks for stopping by.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source