The photograph of you confronting the
president has become quite famous. If you could do it over again, would you
avoid wagging your finger?
He’s the one that chose to make a brief encounter about something petty that showed his thin skin. I agree it was unfortunate, but it happened, and I moved on.
He didn’t like what you wrote about your White
House meeting to discuss Arizona’s
immigration law. Is that the gist of it?
I said that I would like to talk about the advances we’ve made here. That’s when he said that he didn’t like the way he was portrayed in my book, and that took me aback. He walked away in the middle of my sentence.
When you signed Arizona’s immigration law in
2010, you cited concerns about growing border violence. But according to the
F.B.I., violent crime dropped in Arizona almost 14 percent the previous
year.
As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Fifty thousand people in Mexico have been murdered. Puerto Peñasco, 60 miles south of our border, just had five people and a police officer killed. That is like part of Arizona, and it is spilling over into our state.
Critics have called it the “Breathing While
Brown” law.
I don’t think Americans would tolerate profiling. That’s just a red herring.
I’m curious if you approve of the job
performance of the controversial Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio.
I think he’s been very successful.
One study found Hispanics in one part of
Maricopa County were nine times as likely to be pulled over for the same traffic
infraction as non-Latinos.
You’d have to talk to Sheriff Joe Arpaio about that. That’s not in the realm of my responsibility.
You have been strongly against gun regulation.
In light of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting outside Tucson and massacres in
Colorado and Wisconsin, have you revised your position?
Not in regards to regulation. Those things would have happened whether guns were regulated or not. These madmen are going to find some way, somehow to create whatever it is they want to create.
You signed a law that entitles people to carry
concealed guns in bars as long as they don’t drink. I wouldn’t trust myself in a
bar with access to a gun.
I think a bartender knows who’s drinking and who isn’t.
But a bartender wouldn’t know who’s carrying a
concealed weapon.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of
the people that are gun owners are very responsible.
Your first experience in politics was on the
school board for your three sons. Your son John died of cancer in 2007. That
must have been extraordinarily difficult.
Very difficult.
And your son Ronald has been institutionalized
since 1984.
We’ve tried to be very, very supportive of him and love him unconditionally.
He was found not guilty by reason of insanity
for a sexual assault. In the Arizona Legislature, you supported a bill that
changed the designation on cases like this from “not guilty by reason of
insanity” to “guilty but insane.”
A couple of people in Arizona had committed things that were questionable whether they were mentally ill or not. Anyone that’s been exposed to any type of mental illness sees signs ahead of time. I’ve been dealing with mental-health issues with Ron since he was about 16. He had been on a conditional release when this incident happened.
A lot of people, even some of your supporters,
hire low-paid undocumented workers. Do you think they would be willing to pay
minimum wage?
There are plenty of people to mow your lawns and clean your houses at a reduced rate.
When you said “plenty of people” did you mean
plenty —
Plenty of citizens of the United States.
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