From Brody File Executive Producer Dana Ritter on site at Liberty University
GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney gave what could be considered the biggest speech of his political career Saturday at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. Liberty University is the biggest evangelical Christian university in the world and the crowd was 34,000 people.
After his big speech, Romney sat down with Jennifer Wishon, White House Correspondent for CBN News. David Brody was planning to do the interview but a last second family emergency made that impossible.
She asked him what he would say if he could speak directly to American Christians. Video and transcription below.
MANDATORY COURTESY: CBN News/The Brody File
Jennifer Wishon: I just wonder what you want Christian viewers of this broadcast, and Christians in America in general to know about you that maybe you feel like they don’t know. Or maybe what they can expect from you going forward? Anything that you would like to say directly to American Christians?
Mitt Romney: My view is that this is not a time for us to do what the president says, which is to transform America. I want to restore to America the values and principles that made us the greatest nation in the history of the earth. These values include some of our foundational elements.
I believe that we should respect our first liberty, which is religious liberty. I believe we should protect the family. I stand for traditional marriage. I stand for the sanctity of life. These things I think people understand about me.
At the same time, I believe that when the Declaration of Independence was crafted, the Founders were very careful in saying that we were endowed by our Creator with our rights. Not the state, not the king, but our Creator. And among those rights were life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Our nation’s economy is driven by free people pursuing happiness as they choose, not as government directs. And as government becomes larger and larger and more intrusive in the lives of citizens and their enterprises, it makes it harder for America’s economy to work.
I want to bring the values of the Founders, adapted to a 21st century world to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities that we have in trade, energy, and productivity. We can lead the world again in a very powerful way as a beacon of hope, as a powerful economic engine, making sure that our kids know that the future is brighter than the past.
This is what my campaign presents. It’s what I’m going to campaign on, and I believe that people across the nation will warm to my campaign as they understand those principles.