Discuss as americas current political and Cultural Landscape with cnn. Mr. Huckabee offers his thoughts on a range of topics from the Obama Administration and the state of the Republican Party to popular music and television. This is about an hour. Host governor huckabee i think it is worth pointing out the irony that you are sitting in new york where i used to live and die in here in washington where maybe you will live in just over a year. We will see about that. I say in my book there is only one address in all of washington that i have had any interest in moving to and i think that you probably know which one that might be. Host we will talk about 2016 but lets talk about your book, god, guns, grits, and gravy. Explain the title. Guest it isnt a recipe book so i want to put everybody to ease if you are saying i dont even know what that is relax and heres the point of the book. There are three major cultural bubbles in america. New york, washington and the other is hollywood. From those three equal total bubbles emanates passion finance, government, politics music and entertainment, movies television. Pretty much all the things that set the american cultural table. My point of the book is there is a big disconnect between the people, the values, the attitude, the lifestyles of People Living in those three bubbles and the people who lived live out in what we also called the flyover country. All of that gray area between the east and west coast if you look at the electoral map apart from a few urban centers is vastly red and in that great divide that flyover country exists of what i call god, guns, grits, and gravy and its a descriptive term of flyover country. You are not alone. Theres a lot of folks like you and youre okay. This isnt as important to us. So read the book and you will find out they are not so dumb after all. Host you describe the bubble. Obviously you dont think that everyone in the bubble is as bad. So, at what point are you trying to make in describing the country in this way . Guest you will find people in the way that they think and you will go to places like birmingham alabama and you will find some ultra liberals believe it or not so reticent that you can define any geographical area but it is generally true that the culture and life size you will see in the bubbles are very different than out here. I came to realize when i get off that plane and im in new york for two or three days a week i am in a different world than the world i live in when i get back because people always say have you moved to new york and here is what i say im not moving to new york unless they elect me. Com in central park. They cant imagine somebody out there with a 12 gauge semi automatic in central park. That would get me in the headlines for sure. But my point is to describe this completely different worldview. I didnt just go to new york im on a different planet. But this is to explain why it is that he is voting patterns and lifestyle patterns and cultural patterns if you will are so desperate between the two areas. Host if they allowed duckhunting in virginia i would be right back there with you. But talk about why the Cultural Divide is such a problem is that the two sides dont understand each other with respect to the country coming from this Cultural Divide in the disconnect. I wouldnt say that there is a threat to the existing republic because of the cultural difference but i do think that the polarization isnt necessarily healthy for the building of the strong kind of america that we are a melting pot. To have the differences in the culture and the southern culture but one im most familiar with and comfortable with. I dont want to lose that or become so homogenized that we morph into something that is unrecognizable. But there needs to be a Mutual Respect and understanding, not a melting that understanding. They look towards us with a sense of wonderment. What do you mean you believe in god or you think you want to go to church and paying a dime out of every dollar of your income and tied to the church makes sense. Thats crazy. Why would anyone own a firearm . I have had discussions even with conservative people of new york who is futile than you own firearms its almost like they want to jump under the table because they fear that your going to put out a pistol and start shooting any minute and you say you just dont really know us do you. Now let me make this observation. I think most of the people i know to understand people and heres why. Because everything that we see on television and admit in the movies is all about the bubbles. Television sitcoms but most of them are about people that live in the bubbles of new york, washington, the california lifestyle. So, we kind of know what the people live like because we see it all the time. But how many times do you think of the Television Sitcom that teaches religious people respectfully as if we really are pretty normal and airlines and engaging people we are usually presented to hustle people out of their money or people who are neanderthals who are just so backward that we havent modernized and we are highly uneducated and incredibly antiintellectual and therefore just really not up to the same level as the elite. Thats what im speaking to. Host this is what i love about our long friendship. I am a non believer and you youre a baptist minister and yet we have a deep respect for the judeochristian values this country was on hand you call people who put states and family first the new american outcasts and they think thats what you are getting at is hollywood in particular depicts people who put family first has sort of backwards. But you would have to admit i dont have to tell you that fox news does really well. They have a lot of viewers. Conservative radio, conservative online media does really well and whether hollywood wants to admit it or not are at the conservative values pretty well represented pax guest they are represented within the niche of the media that it is targeted towards them and this is what i think baffles some of the folks in the elite. They look down upon fox news and fox news viewers and how could that network be doing so well . Because it is scratching where the h. Is and sometimes further it is Mark Burnetts magnificent drama of the bible. Fullstop more viewers than anything that has ever been on cable whether its the extraordinary response to reality shows that are wholesome like duct dynasty dynasty or 19 and counting with my good friends the duggars who i know very well from arkansas arkansas as he had to scratch her. They just cant imagine who are the people that watch this stuff. But its also true even of the films. I remember when the movie the blindside came out. It was a film of those of us that lived out there we watched that and we said yes we get that, we relate to it and and understand the language and the whole love of football. There were a lot of people who just couldnt figure out how this movie was such a huge success. It was a sleeper for them an obvious choice for us. Look at films recently like having is for real or gods not dead. Those are films that play to the niche and we understand it. Other folks not so much. Host i remember when the chronicle of narnia was coming out of being made into a movie in hollywood predicted no one would go see it and meanwhile it was somewhere near the top of growing. Hollywood never seems to anticipate the conservative likes to go see movies. But you touched on this just earlier. Talk about environmentalist hypocrisy and what you call environmental extremism. Guest i give an example of this in god, guns, grits, and gravy. He thought about wanting to reduce co2 emissions but it turns out that in the shows he is flying from his home over two walks under a couple of times a month and the output of co2 that he is expanding because of his jet travel is like 100 times that of the average person. So when confronted about it here was his answer. He said while it would take 12 hours and that would be time away from my family and a whole lot of time i went into the working. In other words because it isnt very efficient and im thinking is in that way most of us like life i use the example of key makes a statement about Environmental Issues into into survival believe it is a serious problem when the people who say its a serious problem act like it is. Now kudos to people like this because they are environmentalists who actually practice and live it. Ive read about it. He has a small footprint of energy output. Once in a file he might make a trip that i respect that whether i agree with it or not. To me if you have a conviction you just let it out and and if its authentic we will see it in you and if not dont tell me how to live. Dont be al gore and say that the oceans are about to you know, overtake the coast and then build a 20000foot home right there on the coast. I am sorry that just doesnt make sense to me if you think your oceanfront property is about to become washed into the sea why would you build it lacks host do republicans have a problem with science or is that just a perception and if so how do we change that perception . Guest no problem with science at all it is a magnificent gift i would say that science occasionally comes to the place a kind of catch up with god. I wouldnt expect you to say it that way but in my own way i would probably come at it. Let me give you an example. For a long time people mulled over the issue of life. As you know im an unapologetic prolife strong advocate that every person has an intrinsic organ intrinsic organa to value and its not about abortion. People miss it completely. Theres no such thing as an expendable human being. I dont think any person is disposable. I value each person whether it is a kid with down syndrome or the captain of the Football Team to begin having said that when we say we dont know when life begins actually we do biologically we know now of whats more about it and we did 30 or 40 years ago because of our mapping of the genome and because of the fact we now realize that india may 23 male and 23 female come together creating unique ena schedules that never existed before. That pattern will never exist again. Its unique to that individual and it happens at the moment of conception. And in that particular moment, everything in that persons dna schedule has formed. Now it will change obviously size, shape, dimensions because thats what happens as that new dna schedule forms, but we know when it happens and it is life at that moment, it is human life. That dna schedule whenever b. Buckley, a dolphin a puppy tony, it is only going to be a human being. And so i played is that now we look at science and we say science has given us a real affirmation of when life begins. Look at a sonogram. People who a few years ago didnt think that it was a real baby until, you know maybe that bb was four months. Now at 12 weeks you see a sonogram and say my gosh i see a baby. I see a human form. Its not just an animated glob of protoplasm so i think that science is a great thing. Whether it is a sex duration which i support or medical innovation i strongly support and we should be doing a lot more of it. Its an incredible misperception to think those of us that are conservative and those of us that are faith oriented are somehow against science, not at all. Host i have a six week old at home, so i can attest to seeing a sonogram is indeed lifechanging. You talk about guns another hot button issue. It is right there in the title of your book and you write quote, City Slickers that are more than the criminals who might use them as a serious mental condition rendering them incapable of critical thinking. Now you know i am a gun gun owner and a gun rights advocate and in all seriousness, i always think we have the facts and statistics on our side and on the other side, there is fear and emotion which is equally powerful. But when do you think the two sides are going to finally come together and have a real conversation about say lowering gun crime because all we ever seemed to do was shout at each other from our porches. Guest i think that happens in large measure because if we are going to have a serious conversation, it has to be built around facts not feelings, and one of the major themes of the book is that you can to build a culture based on i think, i feel, i believe. Those are wonderful subjective i guess motivations but at some point you need to see what objectively is true and what to build it from the object of truth rather than subjective i think and feel and beliefs and the leave so lets drop the issue of gun violence. It is a horrible problem and im not suggesting everybody in america ought to run out and buy a gun and walk around waving it. I think some people probably should never own a gun but its not that the government tells them they cant but a mayor in the city decides they cant protect themselves maybe they just dont want to go through the training to become proficient with it. My point is that for many of us that grew up and again i used this land of god, guns, grits, and gravy, guns were a part of our lifestyle. I had my first bb gun when i was 5yearsold. I got a single shot 22 at age nine then graduated up to a 20 gauge shotgun. In each of those things here is what i learned. First of all i had such a respect for firearms because it was drilled into me that you never, ever consider a gun unloaded even if you know it is if you can look down the barrel and see daylight you still treat it as it is loaded. If you learn to behave that way you wont miss use it or played it at someone even unintentionally. You will be so mindful. Second never point out something youre never going to shoot and dont shoot anything you dont plan to kill or eat unless it is a criminal that is about to kill you. Those are fundamental things about gun ownership. It never occurred to me in all my life of owning a firearm that i would ever think to use it to go into my place of work or school and murder a bunch of people. In fact as a kid growing up i knew exactly where the guns were in our house and i could have got into them because we didnt really have the wherewithal and we were not fortunate enough and i guess ill see him if you own a gun safe, so they were accessible. But the reason i never touched them without my fathers permission and supervision is real simple. I knew what a gun could do and i was absolutely certain of what my dad would do to me if he ever called me messing with them. But i might hurt me but my dad would have killed me. Thats just simple. Host what do you see is the biggest threat as the biggest threat to the Second Amendment rights but no clicks guest the biggest threat is the lack of understanding that the Second Amendment was never intended to protect people. Im a hunter. Is occasionally been known to send on to but the purpose of the Second Amendment wasnt the recreation and sport. And i know that in that year 2015 this is almost going to sound bizarre but the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment so that we would always be able to protect the first amendment, the right of our basic fundamental aspects of liberty and they knew that the one thing that would always provide people with the dignity of the liberty and ability to keep it is if they could fend off an attack against you so if we go back to the history of the Second Amendment and the purpose for which it was. Its so people would be able to protect their families, their property, their selves and their liberty from anyone who ever tried to take it. Thats why we have it. We should respect it and treat it with a great sense of reverence. Host in god, guns, grits and gravy, you go through some rules of reformers and i want to walk through a couple of those for the viewers. You suggested suggest that we need term limits. Why is that important to you clicks a guest because when people get into Public Office if they think that they can make a career out of it than every decision they then every decision they make is based on how would this affect my next election or career backs if they knew when they go in that there was a terminal departure point for their tenure in office they are going to make very different decisions. But they say to you i would support term limits before i was first elected to office. I ran to be banging the term limits proposing it and most people who say that before they get elected after they have been in office a few years then they say we dont need term limits we would lose this great experience. I am one of those guys 25 years after the leaving term limits was a great idea and having served in office, a long time as governor, ten and a half years being involved in politics at both ends of that tenure believe in it more now than i ever have and i think we ought to have term limits which we already do for the executive branch i think we ought to have them for the legislative branch and one of the things i suggest in i suggest in the book we ought to have them for the Judicial Branch. People going onto the Judicial Branch should into the leave is as big a lifetime appointment of relieves them from having to worry about the decisions they make. Im not suggesting that we even asked the judge is appointed. The appointment for life is absurd and people shouldnt feel that anything they do in the service of their country is a career, something they can live for the rest of their lives. Host next Issue Campaign financing you say prohibit nothing and disclose everything. What changes can you make for the candidate financing . Guest anything we have done has become worse. Its a total disaster because heres the thing. Once you start trying to restrict and tell people what they cant do they will find other ways to do it thats within the context of the law from another mechanism. So look at the president ial process now. Its out of control. If you are a candidate you raise money at 2,700 a pop. Thats the most you can take from somebody 2700. That sounds like a lot of money to some people. But when you are talking about a campaign that has to raise upwards of a billion dollars thats a lot of phone calls and events. Now enter entered the world of the super pack. It can take an unlimited amount of money from a corporation or an individual which paid which paid with federal candidates can only take to an individual. If somebody wants to give ten 20 to 30, 50 million they can do it. It is totally disconnected from the candidate which means the message they put out may be hurtful t