>> make the election about barack obama and his policy. it's about him. >> plus, for the first time rick santorum's wife karen and four of his children join us. >> my two younger boys said you can't run because you won't be able to coach baseball. >> this is the piers morgan interview. starts now. good evening. i'm in charleston, south carolina, 24 hours to go before the crucial south carolina primary. who better to talk to than rick santorum, a man who has just discovered he won the iowa caucuses when everybody thought mitt romney had. he's edging third in south carolina to his advantage or disadvantage rick perry has pulled out leaving four contenders left. welcome. >> thank you very much. call me rick. i'm no longer in the senate. >> you should be thrilled with life, concerned with life or ready to throw in the towel? every one of these things that happened. >> in the last 24 hours. >> it's a crazy period. how do you feel? >> you know, i'm a slow and steady kind of guy. i don't try to get too high, too low. stay focused on why you're here. that's because you believe you can bring something the country is in need of. you go out and deliver the message and try to make the case that you're the right alternative to barack obama and of course the right person to lead this country which is enough to worry about, to be honest. >> it looks like you won in iowa. if i were you i would be peeved. because of these things are about momentum. it would have made a big difference if you had been declared the winner. it would have definitely given you more momentum, more money coming in. this makes a difference. >> it would have been great had it been eight votes the other bay and confirmed. when an election is that close, the republican party of iowa did a good job, got the election certified. the vote change was only 40 votes. it was not like a lot of discrepancies in the totals. when the election is that close, these things happen. i'm just happy that before south carolina and before florida, more importantly we have this announcement that we have won and that now it's one for rick santorum. huge upset, coming from behind with no money, just grassroots and good positive message. vision for our country and mitt romney won a race where 53% of the people who voted in the primary weren't republicans in new hampshire. i feel we are coming to south carolina and florida for the next few contests and we have a chance to make the case now that the field has narrowed and eventually end up with a one on one contest with mitt romney. >> rick perry pulled out on thursday. clearly not unexpected entirely. the same way jon huntsman's retirement wasn't unexpected. i expect there is a mad dash to get hold of governor perry to try to get him to endorse you. what happened? >> there is no mad dash. >> really? >> no. i never called him. my feeling is that's a decision he's going to make. i would have absolutely appreciated his ebb endorsement. i like rick perry. have a great amount of respect for him as a person. karen and i got to know his wife anita and his son griffin. i don't know the rest of his kids but he made a decision as to who he felt comfortable with. i'm sure other people in the state will do so and hopefully make a different decision. >> i heard mitt romney called to congratulate you about winning iowa. >> he did. it was a nice call. i called him when he won new hampshire. he was kind enough to do so here. he said, you know, let's keep going. i look forward to the debate that night and saturday and look forward to working and wrestling, fighting in florida. >> people say it's insignificant really, the iowa result change. i don't think it is. mitt romney was able to claim 2 for 2. if he won in south carolina it was 3 for 3. say newt gingrich wins south carolina. as all the polls suggest he has a chance of doing. that means a different candidate has won in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina. that's never happened before in paubl race. >> yeah. >> so this gets interesting. >> as i said in new hampshire and also in iowa, game on. this is a two or three-person race at this point. going into florida i'm probably up against bigger odds because of both gingrich and romney. we are raising money. we have done a great job. we started the ad buy in florida. that's two weeks after governor romney started but we're there, competing. again, we think we can compete in florida and then we have sort of a gap between then and the big super tuesday primaries. that will be an opportunity for us to retool and go at them again. >> who would you rather be up against -- nice newt gingrich or the new nasty newt? >> that's the issue, isn't it? what are you going to get? that's what a lot of folks who worked and served with newt, as i have for 20 years. newt's a friend but what day is it? what sort of new idea or new attack or new retreat that we're going to see. that's really what i sort of sell myself in as a differentiation between the two of us? i'm not the guy you're necessarily going to be wild with any one day. i'm the steady guy. i'll be there saying the same thing, going out there and fighting for the convictions i deeply held that i practiced in my life and i practiced in what i preach and do in public life. >> if i were to categorize your opponents now for you -- and correct me if i'm wrong. mitt romney the flip-flopper. newt gingrich, temperamenttemperament unstable. rick santorum, steady eddie, the real conservative. >> that's a good analysis of the race. the interesting thing is ultimately you want a candidate who's not just steady eddie, but has a vision for the country and one that's deeply held and can be articulated. when the other side comes after us which they will. they'll come after all of us. whoever the nominee is will be the most conservative person ever to run for the presidency after president obama's people go after them. wouldn't it be someone who felt comfortable with that? >> rupert murdoch tweeted that you were the guy with the big ideas. quite a significant moment i would say that the man who owns fox news almost put his hand on your shoulder. >> i think if you look at our record, our plans, number one, they're consistent. i wasn't for something and changed my mind for something else. i have a solid understanding of american first principles, how 'america works well and how to solve our problems from the bottom up. i put forward plans and ideas that are based on that. i count to articulate those things. i would say it would be refreshing to have someone who can stand up and without equivocation, full throatedly voice convictions contrary to barack obama. i think with a rick santorum as the nominee, you have a clear contrast but you make the election about barack obama and his policies and not about my inconsistencies, my problems, my statements of this and that. it's about him. i think that's where republicans want to with when it's said and done. a referendum on the president. i have the best opportunity to do that. >> what's interesting to the neutral observer is the way the tea party faction of the race has all but disappeared here. you're the last man standing that would even be in their wavelength, i would argue. why has that happened? why has such an aggressive, fast-moving, seemingly formidable movement dissipated to the extent that it has? >> it's confounding. the tea party is scattered all over with respect to candidates which i find stunning in the sense that if you look at the two leading candidates, gingrich and romney, there are three issues that started the tea party. obamacare, the government takeover of cap and trade and global warming. of course the wall street bailouts in 2008. those are three things that got conservatives concerned about the encroachment of government into the lives of people in such a major way. and the two candidatings -- romney and gingrich -- were on the wrong side of the issue for individual mandates, romneycare, for the wall street bailout, sitting on the couch with nancy pelosi on global warming and cap and trade with mitt romney. it is a little bit -- you know, you query whether the movement will stay alive and stand by their principles. >> do you think your trump card is that you have flip-flopped the least and that you are -- whether people agree with you or not, you have been the most true to your principles? >> i certainly make that case that they are borne out of real convictions. i have tried to reflect those convictions in my life. i have been unabashed and courageous, if i can say so, in fighting for those convictions on everything from national security to more cultural issues to economic to spending and size and scale of government. i have been passionate and been a leader on all of these fronts for a long time. you know, i'm hopeful that, again, as people continue to look at the race and start to focus on the candidates and maybe not on the glib lines or nasty commercials and look at who's the best person from the character point of view and policy point of view that they will come in our direction. >> let's take a break, come back and talk about your character, personality, where you came from. want to get deep down and personal with you, senator santorum. >> you can do that. when you have diabetes... your doctor will say get smart about your weight. i tried weight loss plans... but their shakes aren't always made for people with diabetes. that's why there's new glucerna hunger smart shakes. they have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. and they have 6 grams of sugars. with 15 grams of protein to help manage hunger... look who's getting smart about her weight. 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[ male announcer ] the epa estimated 42 mpg highway chevy cruze eco. from spending time together, to spending your lives together, chevy runs deep. i will never forget the first time i saw someone who had died. it was my grandfather. i knelt next to his coffin and all i could do is eye level look at his hands. they were enormous hands. and all i could think was those hands dug freedom for me. >> back with my special guest senator rick santorum. incredibly powerful speech uh you made that night. it was supposed to be the loser's speech. it's now the winner's speech. >> winner. >> tell me about your grandfather. i was moved never having known the man. >> he was a pioneer. everyone has the patriarch or matriarch who blazed the trail. very different from me politically. he was a union member, progressive, i would suggest, democrat. head of the -- treasurer of the union. fought for workers rights. when he came to this country in 1925, worked in the auto factories for a couple years. as he lost his job, ended up in the coal mines in southwestern pennsylvania. he dug coal until he was 72 years old. retired, left the mines in 1958 when i was born. he always talked about the importance of that freedom he wanted to come to america. he was anti-fascist when he left italy. wanted to come here, fight for values. i didn't tell this story. he served -- that part of italy was part of austria and the austrian emperor, he fought on the russian front. >> really? >> in world war 1. i will never forget the story. it was my 40th birthday party which when you're in plix is a wonderful opportunity for a fund-raiser. we had a fund-raiser on my 40th birthday party. a gentleman walked in and said his name to me. he looks at you like you should know me. he said, you don't know the name. i said, no, i'm sorry, sir, where did i meet you before. he said, you have never met me. i said, what's the name? he said it. he said, is your dad here? yeah, he's here. he walked over, said his name. immediately my dad lights up. gives him a big hug and tells me the story i had never been told before. this man's father was my grandfather's best friend. went off to war with him. one day they came out of the frenchs on the russian front and advanced across the trench lines. when this man's father came back, my grandfather didn't. he sat there until it got dark, crawled out to where they were and found my grandfather, half dead, with a huge chest wound and dragged him back into the fox hole. >> wow. >> and saved his life. >> what an amazing story. >> yeah, pretty cool. >> they were an extraordinary generation, weren't they? >> it inspires you to realize the sacrifice that people made and make today. it's why when i think of that story and i think about the men and women today out there fighting and the sacrifices people make every day for their country. in this case my grandfather made it for an emperor. he never wanted to be ruled by an emperor again. wasn't worth the sacrifice. i don't want to be ruled by an emperor in name, in deed. we need to have people who want to fight for our country because we're fighting for them. and their families. >> if you'd been president at 9/11 would you have gone to war in iraq knowing everything you know now? >> it would have been a very hard decision. i said at the time that my greater concern was what was going on in iran, not iraq. iran was a radical militant theocracy like al qaeda was. saddam hussein is not an islamist, radical hi jihadist. he professed to be a good muslim. while there were certainly threats from iraq, they were threats not from the same basis. based on the information i had at the time i think we made the right condition. >> what about everything since? >> it's hard to go back and monday morning quarterback. >> i'm going to keep pushing i. think we are headed toward it. >> all right. [oinking] [hissing] [ding] announcer: cook foods to the right temperature using a food thermometer. 3,000 americans will die from food poisoning this year. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. back with senator rick santorum. we left with a cliffhanger there where you were mulling over the nuances of -- with all the evidence we now have, would you have gone to war in iraq? >> no question that knowing what we know, i think uh i did the right thing. i'm not rethinking and i want to make it clear. i'm not rethinking my vote on iraq. i stand by that vote. i think it was the right thing to do at the time. >> knowing what we know now -- >> because of iraq. >> you agree with pulling troops out of iraq. >> well, no. you have to finish the mission to success. >> do you think the mission was finished? >> the mission was partially finished. >> if you become president in november would you put troops back in? >> you can't reintroduce troops into a country where we have left and abandoned the mission. i'm not going to invade iraq again with american troops. >> so the genie is out of the bottle. >> you have to deal with the situation as it is. >> would you be prepared to put boots on the ground in iraq? >> no. >> how you would you do it? >> i have laid out a clear road map and stopped short of putting boots on the ground. i don't think that would be wise for the united states to put it on the table. >> but you wouldn't hesitate to bomb iran if you had to? >> absolutely not hesitate. >> what would it take to trigger it? >> if they were on the precipice of, you know, actually being in a position to produce that nuclear weapon. >> just being on the cusp of being able to produce it you think would be enough to trigger an attack? >> it would because once that weapon is weaponized and completed and exploded then we have a situation where the world has changed. iran is now -- >> that would be a preemptive strike. >> it would be indeed. with a country that's a radical theocracy. they have attacked our embassies, our ships, tried to plan an attack in this country on the saud ambassador. the list is long. killing bin laden. >> i would have approved the mission. >> gadhafi taken out? >> again, my feeling on that is that we, number one, acted indecisive uhly, unwisely, at the behest of international bodies without a national security interest and i would not engaged. >> it worked, didn't it? >> did it? certainly gadhafi is gone. but mubarak is gone. are we happy with egypt now? the imposition already in sharia law and potentially a muslim brotherhood-type operation in libya which would be hostile to the united states more than gadhafi. >> isn't it hard to criticize an american president who didn't lose any american military lives and got rid of gadhafi, by common consent one of the worst dictators of 40 years? is. >> well, no, no, no. absolutely not. there are a lot of horrible dictators around the world. we could go to myanmar, central africa. >> am i right in saying -- >> there are horrible dictators. we shouldn't participate unless there is a national security interest at stake. i don't believe there was at the time a national security interest. >> by the process of elimination you would have kept gadhafi in power? >> i would only act using the american military if there is a national security interest to our country threatened. as horrible as dictators are, fidel castro is a horrible dictator. i'm not getting involved in a military mission to take him out even though i would like to see him go. >> the role of america has become a global policeman. >> i don't see it that way. >> it's been seen that way. >> but it's not. >> it's not always to america's benefit. if you're the british you think, thank god. >> no one else wants to do it. >> the role is clearly changing. would you like to see america become more insular, stop interfering, as some would argue? >> i just suggested i wouldn't interfere. >> that's what i mean. would you be happy for china to start doing some of the dirty work of being the global police force? >> i'm not sure the dirty work wouldn't be dirty which is opposed to what we do, standing up for liberty, human rights and for the opportunity of people to have political and economic freedoms. >> do you like barack obama personally? >> i served with him for two years. we had a cordial relationship. we worked on a project together when i was in the senate. we worked on ethics reform. i can't say i was particularly pleased with the way he conducted himself during that from a professional point of view. >> why? >> personally it was cordial. >> what's your main criticism of him as president? >> i think he has a fundamental different view of what makes america a great country. >> what do you think his view is? >> the stronger the government is and the more it can do for people the stronger the country will be. >> what's your view? >> the less government does and the more free people, free enterprise that america has built the greatest country in the world. >> we'll take a break and come back to imagine life under president santorum. sounds interesting. >> i hope. promising. when you have diabetes... your doctor will say get sma