CBS News/NJ debate transcript, part 1

The following is a transcript of the first hour of the CBS News/National Journal debate held in Spartanburg, S.C., on foreign policy and national security.

CBS News/NJ debate transcript, part 2

Scott Pelley: Good evening from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I'm Scott Pelley with CBS News along with my colleague Major Garrett of National Journal. In just under a year now, Americans will go to the polls to choose a president. Tonight, CBS News and National Journal are pleased to bring you a discussion of the issues by the Republican candidates for their party's nomination.

The focus will be foreign policy and national security, the president's role as commander in chief. Consider this, the 9/11 attacks came in the eighth month of a new presidency, the Bay of Pigs in the 13th week, and the Civil War on the 40th day of a new presidency. Reminders from history that a president must be prepared to deal with a crisis from day one.

The ground rules for tonight's debate are simple. A candidate who is asked a question will have one minute to respond and then at a discretion of the moderators, there can be a 30-second follow-up or a 30-second rebuttle from another candidate. The debate will run a total of 90 minutes. The first hour will be broadcast right here on the CBS television network, the entire 90 minutes will be streamed on CBSNews.com and NationalJournal.com. And we invite you to submit questions during the debate to either w-- website. Joining me now in asking the questions, Major Garrett.

Major Garrett: Scott, thank you very much. One more piece of housekeeping. Let's introduce the candidates. Former Utah Governor, Jon Huntsman. Representing the 6th District of Minnesota, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Representing the 14th District of Texas, Congressman Ron Paul.

From Atlanta, Georgia, businessman Herman Cain. Former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney. Former House speaker, Newt Gingrich. Current Texas governor, Rick Perry. And former Pennsylvania senator, Rick Santorum. Mr. Cain, I'd like to begin this evening with you, sir.

Herman Cain: Yes.

Major Garrett: This week, a U.N. nuclear watchdog agency provided additional credible evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. If you were president right now, what would you do specifically that this administration is not doing to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon?

Herman Cain: The first thing that I would do is to assist the opposition movement in Iran, that's tryin' to overthrow the regime. Our enemies are not the people of Iran, it's the regime. And a regime change is what they are trying to achieve. Secondly, we need to put economic pressure on Iran, by way of our own energy independence strategy. By having our own energy independence strategy, we will impact the price of oil in the world markets, because Iran uses oil not only as a-- means of currency, but they use it as a weapon.

One of the reasons that they are able to afford that nuclear weapons program, is because of oil. Secondly, we would then work to increase sanctions on Iran, along with our friends and our allies. So whereas we will not be-- so that's why I do believe that they have a nuclear weapons program and they are closer to having nuclear weapon, stopping them-- the only we can stop them is through economic means.

Major Garrett: A quick follow up, Mr. Cain. You say assisting the opposition, would you entertain military assistance and opposition?

Herman Cain: I would not entertain-- military opposition. I'm talkin' about to help the opposition movement within the country. And then there's one other thing that we could do. We could deploy our ballistic missile defense capable (UNINTEL) war ships strategically in that part of the world. We have the biggest fleet of those warships in the world. And we could use them strategically in the event that they were able to fire a ballistic missile.

Scott Pelley: Governor Romney, would it be worth goin' to war to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon?

Mitt Romney: Well, let's-- let's start back from there and let's talk about where we are. This is, of course, President Obama's greatest failing, from a foreign policy standpoint, which is he recognized the gravest threat that America and the world faces-- and faced was a nuclear Iran and he did not do what was necessary to get Iran to be dissuaded from their nuclear folly. What he should have done is speak out when dissidents took the streets and say, "America is with you." And work on a covert basis to encourage the dissidents.

Number two, he should have put-- put in place crippling sanctions against Iran. But instead of getting Russia, for instance, to-- what-- what he gave in our-- our missile defense system to agree to-- to stand with those crippling sanctions, he gave Russia what they wanted, their number one foreign policy objective, and got nothing in return.

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1/11

[dclogang]

Why didn't you give all candidates EQUAL TIME?? Ron Paul was giving a total of what 90 seconds???? UNFAIR AND UNBALANCED NEWS! Come on CBS!

[gdpreston1]

dreadful CBS you should be ashamed of yourselves! Ron Paul IS the People's choice!!

[kaycris1128]

This debate was a disappointment for me, I feel I got way to much Perry, Romney, and Cain, while all I really wanted was to know where the other candidates stood on the issues. I wish these debates were set up so that everyone was given the same amount of time to speak, the media bias for certain candidates is painfully obvious by now and it makes me wonder if I should even continue to follow the GOP debates at all. I certainly have lost all respect for CBS, and will no longer be tuning into their programming. Oh and water boarding is defiantly torture. I think if Cain and Bachmann were to fall victim to these "interrogation techniques" their stance would be quite different. Ron Paul was the only one up there making any since and he was given the least amount of time even though he has been constantly polling in the double digits, I wanted to hear more from that guy!

[JavaMcPhearson]

CBS Nov 12 poll results -
Olivepolitics(com) created the realtime one-person, one-vote system used by CBS Nov 12 which received over 100,000 votes before crashing due to legitimate server overload. ?
The results as of 97,529 votes were Paul 28%, Perry 19%, Huntsman 13%, Gingrich 13%, Cain 13%, Romney 8%, Bachmann 3%, and Santorum 2%.
While previous network polls have relied on as little as 54 votes, the CBS Nov 12 poll results may be the first to represent truly significant voter participation.

[Johnstone39]

Oh. so now CBS is finally putting up the entire, unedited transcripts? Where were they last evening? I searched all over this website and National Journal and the full, unedited debate was not available. And we know the entire debate wasn't available for recording on TV.

CBS should be ashamed of not having the entire debate on TV, and when cutting that off, not having the entire debate on the CBS and National Journal websites for replay immediately. It is sickening that most people ended up reading the headlines from CBS spinmeisters to get their information on the debate rather than listening themselves.

[cmart6]

"An email from a CBS producer who predicted that Bachmann would not receive many questions from moderators Scott Pelley and Major Garrett."
The email is not a "supposed smoking gun" It proves that CBS intended their anti-Bachmann bias to do what they in fact did: ask Bachmann fewer (60%) questions than asked of Romney and Gingrich.
When you predict what in fact you do, then it shows intent, in this case intent of bias.
A recent SmartPolitics analysis found that former Massachusetts governor and front-runner for the nomination Mitt Romney has spoken for over 73 minutes in the last 5 debates, more than any other candidate. Texas Governor Rick Perry came in second in terms of speaking time at 54 minutes, followed by Bachmann at 41.

[cottagestreetgirl]

I love the way Newt handles the msm when they try to corner him with their 'gotcha' questions. He puts them in their place, not with personal attacks, but with his well thought out ideas which are supported by facts. Scott Pelley should not feel too bad about the verbal ***** slapping Newt delivered...he wasn't the first to be pounded by The Speaker, and he won't be the last.

Intellectually, Mr Gingrich is a giant among the pipsqueaks of the press.

[Docfreeman]

The debate would have been really good had Scott Pelly allowed everyone to finish their sentence. Also had all the candidates been allowed to speak it would have made for a more informative debate. As it was Bachmann was not given much of a chance to answer or comment on anything. It was not really a good debate, since you had lousy moderators.