FOX "Hannity"- Transcript: Dropping Out of Race
Interview
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Governor, welcome back. Good to see you.
PERRY: Good to be with you, Sean.
HANNITY: I will say this. I always thought you were a great candidate. I thought your record in Texas was as appealing -- and I just - - I'm really surprised, to be honest. Are you surprised?
PERRY: Well, we think we have a great record, as well. And I think when people take a look at it -- but we knew this was going to be a tough race. There was what, upwards of 17 people in it.
But we knew early on that there were two things that we had to take care of, two things that needed to go away, if you will, and another thing that needed to happen. One of those was the indictment, this indictment by the Travis County district attorney's office, this drunk DA that had used this office, we think, for political purposes, and did the same thing to Tom Delay, lasted 10 years and had a real corrosive effect on our ability to raise money.
The other thing that we knew had to happen was we needed to be on the main debate stage on August the 6th. We missed it by just a few percentages of one point. So when those two things didn't happen, it had a very negative impact on our fund-raising through the summer. And it's kind of like flying an aircraft when you run into unexpected headwinds, you better find a safe place to land. And that's exactly what we did last Friday.
HANNITY: A lot of other candidates, though, have billionaire backers. You didn't have a billionaire backer?
PERRY: Well, the bottom line is that these campaigns, you have to have the dollars to be able to run a staff. You have to be able to keep your offices open and pay for the travel that you do. And either you're a billionaire or you have a billionaire backer.
And you know, the real issue for us was that we ran into those headwinds with this indictment and not being on that main debate stage. Those are two very powerful impacts that we had to deal with.
HANNITY: It's very dangerous because, you're right, I watched Tom Delay's case very closely, 10 years, nearly bankrupted him. If it didn't - - I don't know the status of his personal finances. But we seem to be criminalizing political differences here. And I thought the indictment was unfair. What's the status of it now?
PERRY: Well, one of the charges was thrown out and the other one's, you know, kind of hanging around. We full well expect for these things to go away. But the political opponents, they did their damage. They let that be a very corrosive effect on the process.
And I agree with you, I think that the American people, and certainly the people of the state of Texas, need to be very, very concerned when a governor doing their constitutional duty of vetoing gets criminalized for that. You know, people don't understand that. People shouldn't understand that. And we, as Americans, need to get back to -- government needs to be fearing the people, not the other way around.
HANNITY: Well, there's a Washington Post/ABC News poll out today, and it shows that 72 percent of Americans think the politicians cannot be trusted. Fully two-thirds think that Washington, D.C., government is dysfunctional. I agree on both points.
You talked about a grass roots conservative candidate. Are you willing to step out and say who might fit into that category at this point?
PERRY: It's way too early. We've got a lot of vetting to do. And we've got to get away from all of this hot rhetoric. We got to get into talking about solutions. And that's one of my great concerns is that, you know, this has become reality TV, rather than really serious.
When you look at our party, the party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan -- these were people who were great individuals, but their ideas are what live. Their ideas are what we grasp as Republicans.
And we've got to get back to that and have our candidates talking about really big ideas, big ideas like race and poverty that I talked about, big ideas about how to secure the border, and not just rhetoric. And all too often, we hear rhetoric. We don't hear real solutions.
HANNITY: The two leading candidates for the Republican nomination now, both have no political experience, Donald Trump and Ben Carson. I know that Donald Trump and you had a back and forth a little bit during this campaign. He then tweeted out, when you got out, he said that you're a terrific guy. "I wish him well. I know he'll have a great future."
What does that tell you when over 50 percent of Republican voters are going for an outsider right now?
PERRY: Well, it tells me that Donald Trump got that right when he talked about...
HANNITY: You being a terrific guy.
PERRY: ... when he talked about Rick Perry...
(LAUGHTER)
PERRY: Yes, sir, I agree with him.
HANNITY: The fight's over, right? Well, you also...
PERRY: Well, listen...
HANNITY: But you talked about...
PERRY: ... this never was a fight. This was about -- this was about issues. This was about tone. This was about -- I just think it's really not in the Republican Party's best interests for us to be using rhetoric that is so inflammatory, so hot --
HANNITY: Are you talking about Trump, though? I mean, it sounds like you're talking about --
PERRY: I am.
HANNITY: Do you think he's bad for the party? You don't think he's a conservative? What is your criticism?
PERRY: I laid it out I think very clearly is that the conservative principles is what the Republican Party has been about, those conservative principles that allowed minorities in Texas, whether you're African- American or Hispanic, to get ahead because you got to keep more of what you worked for. We went to the second highest high school graduation rates in the country over the last decade. We put regulatory and legal policies in place that allowed for the most dynamic job creation environment in America. That's what I'm talking about. We need to have conservative principles, not hot rhetoric.
And all too often we heard this rhetoric out of Donald Trump that was very offensive to individuals. We need to be bringing people to the Republican Party who believe that there our principles. One of the things, I've been in politics for 30 years, but I will give you my read on that and a lot of people in the state of Texas unquestionably, we've pushed back on Washington, D.C. Nobody fought Washington any harder than I did. But Donald Trump's bullets going through Washington went through and hit people like myself, hit people like all of the governors that are on the stage, for instance. I don't believe this is the only profession in the world that your experience ought to be held against you. I think it matters to have really good, qualified individuals who have a record of success. Now Washington, that's a different deal.
HANNITY: I agree with you.
PERRY: We do need to blow that place up figuratively.
HANNITY: I have said many times there's a difference between the Republican conservative governors and what these Republicans in D.C. are doing by capitulating and afraid of their own shadows that they'll be blamed for a government shutdown.
As you leave this part of the race, I assume we'll hear from you as the process unfolds. You do have a lot to be proud of, including the best job creation record in the country during the Obama years in Texas. And we wish you well, governor. Hope you come on often.
PERRY: We will, Sean. God bless you and thank you for what you do for the Republicans and for the conservative effort out there.
HANNITY: I appreciate it, governor, thank you.
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