Mitt Hit on Newt Judge Bit

Frontrunner tells Bill O'Reilly "the solution to judges out of control is not to tear up the Constitution and say that the Congress of the United States becomes the now ultimate power in this country."

Also hits Newt again for sitting "on the sofa with Nancy Pelosi" and calling the Ryan plan "right-wing social engineering."

Read highlights on North Korea, Iran, a second Obama term and more from the interview below.

On whether he knows enough about North Korea to be able to handle the situation if elected, now that Kim Jong Il is dead:

“I could avail myself of the best thinking of people from around me and around the nation, and look at all the options we have, evaluate those, analyze that…I know a great deal about North Korea, but before I would take a step with regards to North Korea, I’d bring in a lot of people, get a lot of opinions, analyze them thoroughly and then take action…Very dangerous nation. With North Korea now, there’s the potential that Kim Jong Un will do something provocative. When change occurs, a setting is more fragile. But there’s also an opportunity in North Korea. And if we’re wise there, we might be able to encourage a greater degree of openness and see the kind of change there we’d hope to realize.”

On what would happen if President Obama is re-elected in 2012:

“I think we hit a Greece-like wall. I think before the end of his second term, if he were reelected, there’s a very high risk that we would hit a financial crisis that Greece or Italy have faced. I think it’s also very possible that we would continue to see very high levels of unemployment. I think you’d see industry in this country, entrepreneurs, big and small, decide to go elsewhere, to take their investment dollars to other nations.”

“This President has put together the most anti-investment, anti-growth and anti-job series of policies I’ve seen since Jimmy Carter.”

On his past references that he was wrong on abortion during his times in Massachusetts:

“My view was that the Supreme Court had made their decision, that Roe v. Wade had been settled for 25 years, that I was not going to re-litigate that, instead that I would just say I would support the laws that existed and preserve the rights that existed under the decision of the court. And what I found was that I could not do that, that…I could not live with it. When I was faced with signing a piece of legislation that would authorize the creation and killing of human life, I could not possibly go along with that.”

On whether he considers himself a conservative thinker:

“I am conservative. I’ve become more conservative over time.”

On what President Obama is missing in his leadership:

“Well, one, he’s never been a leader before. And so a few of us looked at him and said, what do you think about selecting a man as president who’s never led anything? It’s wonderful to be able to be an author and an editor, but I’m talking about leading an organization, leading a group of people, growing something, hiring people, firing people, all the process of leadership. He’s never had that experience.”

“He didn’t recognize that part of leadership is finding allies and friends across the aisle, and building relationships of trust and respect with them, working to find common ground.”

On whether he would call President Obama a “socialist”:

“You know, I prefer to use the term that he’s just over his head… I consider him a big government liberal Democrat. I think, as you look at his policies, you conclude that he thinks Europe got it right and we got it wrong. I think Europe got it wrong. I think Europe is not working in Europe, and I’ll battle him on that day in and day out. But I’m probably not going to be calling him names so much as calling him a failure.”

On Iran and the consequences of taking military action against it:

“Then there’s the other side of the story, which is not taking action, with crippling sanctions and treating them as the pariah they are, and preparing military options, is, if you don’t do those things, that Iran has a nuclear weapon, that nuclear material will ultimately be used…We have a number of things we can do, short of military action that we have to prepare now. We have to prepare as well for military action.”

On how he would cut down the nation’s debt:

“Three basic steps: one, eliminate a lot of programs that we don’t have to have. ObamaCare’s the easiest, but then there are others. Number two, take a lot of programs that are growing at an uncontrolled rate, like Medicaid, turn it back to the states and say that’s going to grow now at the CPI plus 1 percent. That saves $100 billion a year. And number three, we cut workforce by 10 percent through attrition. We link federal pay with the pay that exists in the private sector. That’s worth $47 billion a year. And then reform Social Security and Medicare, not for current retirees, but for the next retirees.”