the extraordinary video the whole world's talking about. >> we fear that if we sleep at home, we can be abducted by the children. >> invisible children, the kony 2012 video already seen by 30 million people and rising fast. also, only in america, the last word on last meals. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. our big story tonight, rick santorum doubles down. if you thought the candidate would back off of his tough talk, well, just listen to what he's been saying on the campaign trail. >> what's wrong with america's government today, and what is sickening the american spirit today. and there's this noxious, oppressive, we believe we're smarter than the rest of america attitude in washington. >> tough words. in just a moment, i'll ask rick santorum if he really thinks he can overtake mitt romney and become the republican nominee. and later, the tin man behind the video that millions of people are watching around the world and their mission to put a central africa war lord out of commission, permanently. >> it's not done until joseph kony and they are disarmed permanently. >> and let's be honest, if this would happen in any other country, it would make world news. it's taken 26 years and 9 years of our work to say, this is important. these children's lives matter. but we begin tonight with our big story. rick santorum is riding high, going to the primaries in alabama and mississippi next tuesday. and he joins me now. senator, welcome back. >> thank you, piers. >> i've got to say, i've been looking at you physically in the last couple of weeks. you're looking in pretty good shape. i remember last time when i interviewed you in person, you were planning a sort of fitness regime. but you've lost a bit of weight, haven't you, and buffed up a bit? >> well, i wouldn't say that, no. no time for buffing here on the campaign trail, but i have my daughter and wife, who are traveling with me regularly, and they are, well, let's just say, they're buying the food, not me anymore. >> how grueling is it? i had cindy mccain on yesterday, talking about how incredibly, physically tiring an election campaign is, of any kind, in america, particularly these days. with all the 24-hours news media. how are you finding the pace of it? >> oh, i've got to tell you, i love it. i don't find it actually grueling at all? i feed off the opportunity to get a chance to be in front of people and, you know, find out what they're thinking. always, they hand me little messages and notes they want to pass on bits of advice, you know, pass along that they're praying for me. all of that encouragement, that to me is just energizing. i love it and i just feel like we're out here speaking for a group of people who, you know, don't necessarily have a voice in this country. >> well, talking of voices in this country, we've got a fantastic example of your new anthem, "game on," with patriotic lyrics and references to god and the constitution and ronald reagan. let's just watch a little bit of this. ♪ we finally got a man who will stand for what is right ♪ ♪ game on ♪ victory's in sight ♪ we've got a man who understands that god gave a bill of rights ♪ ♪ oh, there is hope for our nation again ♪ >> i mean, it's quite a catchy little number that, senator. >> yeah, well, it was a group of -- a family from oklahoma, and we were in tulsa, and they said, oh, look, we put this together, and literally, a 48-hour period of time after they had a chance to see me and were very excited about the message that i was delivering, so they went out and wrote a strong and produced it, you know, on a street corner, on top of a bus. it's very -- it's sort of the way the campaign is. just folks all across the country, who, you know, are getting excited about a campaign that's talking about, you know, really the meat and potatoes issues that are affecting ordinary people, and that we've got an idea and a vision of how to deal with those things. and people are connecting. >> what is extraordinary about this whole battle, so far, is that mitt romney, by any yardstick, on super tuesday, he won six out of ten states. he's got more delegates than the other three candidates put together. and yet the media coverage was still fairly down beat in saying, look, he's not the out and out front-runner, he's not the clear nominee yet. and i'm curious as to why you think that is. i mean, obviously, you're partly responsible, but why is he not getting, as he would see it, due credit for results? >> well, i think most of the "experts" have looked at the fact, which is that the states early on were fairly well stacked in his direction. he's been running for six years, he's been out there working with the states to move their primaries to where is advantageous to them. and he's very successful. he has the establishment's support, i get that, and he's had his, well, at least two or three of his home states, i don't know how many home states there are left, at least a couple more home states left. you know, i've got one home state and it doesn't come until april. some of the real states that we know we can do well in are yet to come. like on saturday in kansas, we expect to do well there. we're going to do well here in alabama and mississippi. wear going to do well, you know, when we get around to wisconsin and pennsylvania and some of those other states. and hopefully we'll have an opportunity where there aren't a whole bunch of conservatives in the race after a short period of time, and then we'll have a one-on-one chance against him, and once that happens, all bets are off. i think we have the possibility of getting on a roll. and no matter what the money they're going to throw at me, we've got the people excited, we've got the best message, we've got the best contrast with barack obama, and i think that's going to win the day in the end. >> you had what i would describe as a tricky week leading up to super tuesday. sort of a triple whammy of what people perceived to be not great moments for the santorum campaign. one was a sort of reasonably disappointing debate by your standards. and then the jfk speech made me throw up. and then the snob college comment. what was your feeling at the end of that week? a lot who haat people like abouu is the plain speaking. the removing the normal shackles of political talk. but there is a downside, which is if you get it slightly wrong, boom! >> sure. yeah, you know, look, i don't have a speechwriter, i don't have anybody giving me talking points. i go out there and i think when you're running for president, you're running for a position of leadership. it's not your voting record that's the most important thing, it's your judgment. it's your passion. it's your integrity, it's your character. you know, it's your honesty. it's all of those very, very important things that, well, if someone's -- if you're reading off someone else's words on a teleprompter, you're having a hard time communicating that message. and that's why i just felt like i was going to go out and maybe do something that i know presidential candidates simply don't do anymore, and just try to be who you are and you know, you've known in the few interviews we've had and certainly people have read, i'm a pretty passionate guy. can i can get pretty wrapped up about how important this country is to not just providing a great future for our children, but also for the world. and sometimes i get a little, you know, say the wrong word. and as you know, you know my bride very, very well, usually the phone rings very quickly if she isn't there in person to say, you know, rick, you shouldn't have said that. >> am i right in assuming that she rang you a few times that week? >> oh, yeah, the snob comment did not go over very well. and she reminded me, you know, it's snobbish. you can say it was a snobbish thing to say, but don't call him a snob. and i said, you know, i -- i made a mistake. i'm sorry. i just got all wrapped up and said it. and look, i understand that that's going to happen, and, you know, obviously the media, who complains that candidates are pre-packaged, but then when they get one that isn't, they just have a field day, of any little mistake that's made. so i just got to live wit. >> let's turn to rush limbaugh's comments, which caused such a fury in the last week. because you said at the time that he's being absurd, but that's what an entertainer can do. entertainers can be absurd. i thought that was rather like mitt romney's, i wouldn't use that language, a sort of weasely way out of attacking. because what he said wasn't entertaining, it was just incredibly offensive. and whether you guys like i or not, he is a very big figure in the republican movement in america, isn't he? now that you've had time to reflect on what he said, do you want to go a little further? >> to be honest with you, i haven't really paid much attention to it. i really mean that. i don't think i've even heard all of the comments. i just -- i would just say that i'm not going to be in a position as a presidential candidate as commenting on every commentator's, you know, actions. i'm going to focus -- if it was one of my on thepponents, i'll absolutely comment on it. but beyond that, i'm going to focus on my message and what i believe is best for the country. >> i had cindy mccain on last night, who was pretty outspoken about it. i'll play a little clip of what she said. >> nobody will criticize rush limbaugh because he runs the party. >> he does not run the party. >> he doesn't? >> he does not run the party. he is an entertainer. so he said that, and obviously, it's had a huge backlash. now, whether or not, you know, i know he's sent an apology out, but i think he was kind of forced to. >> i suppose -- look, i don't want to flog a dead horse on this one, but given that you aren't completely up to speed with it, rush limbaugh did call a law student a slut and a prostitute for wanting to have insurance covered for her contraception. and i presume you wouldn't view that as either absurd or entertaining. you would view that as pretty offensive? >> well, of course not, no. well, of course. as i've said before, i'm not going to spend -- i want to spend my time talking about how we can grow the economy. what i'd like to talk about, which is offensive, which is governor romney out there for almost a year telling the people in the republican primary that he never advocated that romney care would be a federal model. that he never advocated for an individual mandate, that government at the federal level require people to buy insurance, and now we find on several occasions, just in the past week, article after article, interview after interview, where governor romney did just that in 2009. now, to me, that's offensive. for someone to go out and deliberately misrepresent his record, what he did at a very critical time, when people were making decisions on the issue of health care, for him to go out and recommend that to president obama and then tell the voters on debate after debate that he never did any such thing, not only is his policy bad, not only did he recommend the wrong policy for the country, that he didn't tell the truth about what he did. and to me, that's something that should be a much bigger issue on, supposedly, the leading candidate in this race, on the most important issue that we're going to be dealing with in this election. >> is he a liar, then? >> well, this goes to the snob, snobbish, issue. which is, you know, he clearly did not tell the truth, that you don't necessarily go and, you know, accuse the person of -- on a personal level. you describe the action. i did and i accurately described governor romney did not tell the truth to the republicans at the debates, serially telling people that he did not do what we now know he did repeatedly. >> unless i'm mistaken, i think not telling the truth repeatedly is lying, isn't it? >> well, i'll let you frame that one and take responsibility for it. i said all i'm going to say on this. >> you're becoming such an accomplished politician, senator. that's half the problem. >> uh, well, no, i'm heeding my wife's advice, piers. come on! you want to -- i'm going to have karen call you on this. you're trying to bait me into being -- into the behavior that my wife has rightly curbed me in the right direction. >> i will happily talk to your wife at any time, you know that. i'm a huge fan of your wife. >> the feeling is mutual. i hate to say it, piers, but the feeling is mutual. she likes you a lot too. >> let's take a short break and come back and talk iran, israel, and afghanistan. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? 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>> well, they've actually admitted, and inspectors have already certified, that they've, you know, have a number of centrifuges, they're enriching uranium, already far beyond what is necessary for nuclear power. 5% is necessary for nuclear power. they're at 20%. it's far beyond what is necessary in volume for, quote, medical research, is what they're saying. you know, it's just hard to have any reasonable person look at what's going on in iran. look at the sanctions that they're taking. look at the isolation that's going on, the threat to the stability of the government that some of that sanctions is causing. the problems to the people of the country that the sanctions are country. and have a country that has 200 years of oil and gas to power their country for as long as the eye can see. and yet they're building nuclear facilities? you know, it's like, you know, casablanca. you know, when a guy walks into the cafe and says, oh, there's gambling going on here. i mean, we know what's happening. the question is, how far along are they? >> turning to syria, obviously, john mccain came out yesterday and said, quite induststridentls time to launch air strikes against the leadership there. what's your view on that? is it time that america got involved in some kind of military action? >> well, this is a related issue to iran, because syria is just a puppet state anymore of iran. assad completely relies on the iranians for his military support. there are iranians that are there, actively supporting the syrian military and the regime. and so syria becomes a very important flashpoint. iran, without syria, is a much diminished country from the standpoint of their ability to spread their reign of terror, particularly into israel and throughout the middle east. so iran is going to work hard to make sure that syria is stabilized. it's one of the reasons i believe assad has been able to stay in power. this is syria's part of a bigger picture. so we have to be very, very careful of how we act, because we're not just talking about a singular country, like we would have with libya, where the consequences were fairly contained. syria is a very, very difficult situation. while i have a lot of respect for john mccain and his military acumen and his understanding of the situation on the ground, and i do support the united states in directly helping the rebels on the streets, i think right now, i'm a little concerned about whether a military strike would be the absolute right thing to do at this time. >> a funny sentence there. i had a bit of a fury on the show last friday when kirk cameron, the "growing pains" young heartthrob of the '80s came on, and he's an ardent christian now. and he got into hot water by being fairly, as many people saw it, homophobic in the language he used when talking about homosexuality and gay marriage. you and i have discussed this several times on the show. and i know your position, i know your biblical, religious beliefs and so on. the one thing that struck me about it all is that kirk cameron's real problem wasn't that he wanted to stay true to his religious beliefs, but it was the language and rhetoric he used appeared to be quite hateful and derogatory. and i suppose my question for you would be that given the way the gay marriage debate is going