Rick Perry was emotionless last week when faced with the 234 executions Texas has carried out on his watch. But he told reporters in Florida Tuesday that the audience cheer in support of the idea of letting the uninsured die at the CNN/Tea Party Express debate freaked even him out a little.
“I was a bit taken aback by that myself,” Perry said to reporters from NBC News and the Miami Herald in Tampa Tuesday.
“We’re the party of life,” Perry said. “We ought to be coming up with ways to save lives.”
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Perry distinguished from that the issue of “justice,” reiterating his strong support and “respect” for the death penalty on a state-by-state basis. “But the Republican party ought to be about life and protecting, particularly, innocent life,” he added.
He responded to several other moments from the debate last night, including the battle over Gardisil and his support for letting the children of illegal immigrants attend college at in-state rates in Texas.
On that last topic — which led to booing from the crowd at the debate — Perry said the tea party will come around.
“When people really think about it, I think they’ll understand what we did in Texas was the right thing for Texas,” he told the reporters.
Read the report from NBC’s Carrie Dann here.
