The following is a rush transcript of the December 18, 2011, edition of "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace." This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace.

Mitt Romney sits down for his first Sunday show interview in almost two years.

With just 16 days until the Iowa caucuses, we continue our 2012 one-on-one series of interviews. We'll ask Governor Romney about his strategy for beating back the Gingrich surge.

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WALLACE: You now say he's zany. He's an unreliable leader in the conservative world.

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WALLACE: Charges he's not a consistent conservative.

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WALLACE: At a time when Republican voters want dramatic change, that you are offering fine-tuning.

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WALLACE: And his campaign's secret weapon.

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WALLACE: Your campaign has now put your wife Ann out on the trail, some say to humanize you.

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WALLACE: Then with the 2011 debates now in the books, we'll ask our Sunday panel to handicap the fast-changing Republican race as we enter the homestretch in Iowa.

All right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

The Iowa caucuses are now just over two weeks away. But despite months of campaigning and 13 debates, the Republican race for president is still wide open.

We've conducted a series of 2012 one-on-one interviews to help you get to know the candidates better. And today, we round out the field with Mitt Romney, who sits down for his first Sunday show interview in almost two years.

Yesterday, we caught up with him on the campaign trail in South Carolina where he had just won the endorsement of that state's popular, Governor Nikki Haley.

In a wide-ranging interview, we talked about the challenges he faces winning the GOP nomination and possibly running against President Obama.

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WALLACE: Governor Romney, at long last, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

FORMER GOV. MITT ROMNEY, R-MASS., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks, Chris. Good to be with you.

WALLACE: I saw the other day that President Obama has not met with Republican congressional leaders in five months while he is at the same time made 34 campaign speeches. What's your basic argument running against him? What's the choice for voters?

ROMNEY: Well, well, as you described in that introduction, the choices that relates to that style is leaders don't do that. Leaders actually spend time meeting with people on the other side of the aisle, understand their needs, understand their concerns, get their input and look for some way to find common ground. Not to violate their own principles or to insist that the opposition violates its principles, but instead, finding places where there's common ground upon which to build.

And this president instead has gone to the people and attacked. It's been a constant attack either against Republicans or against people in the business world or whatever group he somehow feels is opposed to his agenda.

The right course for any leader is to work with other people. Good Democrats love America. Good Republicans love America. We need a leader who understands not just the words of unity, but the practice of building unity.

WALLACE: On the other hand, the president says he rescued the country from the great -- another Great Depression. He killed Usama bin Laden and he says you and your party would restore policies that caused the financial meltdown in the first place.

ROMNEY: It's great rhetoric. But again, it's just -- it's hollow. First of all, he was not the reason that the economy hit bottom and then begins to recover.

We have gone through recessions before. He made this one worse. And he made the recovery more tepid.

I get the chance to speak with business leaders of big and small businesses, largely small. And I say to them -- do any of you believe that the policies of this administration have helped you be more successful in your enterprise and hire more people? I don't see a single hand go up when I ask that to an audience. His policies have hurt, not helped.

With regards to Usama bin Laden, we're delighted that he gave the order to take out Usama bin Laden, any president would have done that. But this one did and that's a good thing.

I'm not going to say everything he's done is wrong. But with regards to the economy, almost anything he's done made it more difficult for this economy to reboot.

WALLACE: Before you face the president, of course, you have to win the Republican nomination and you have in recent days been escalating your attacks against your main competitor in the polls, Speaker Gingrich. You now say he's zany, he's an unreliable leader in the conservative world, he lacks the temperament.

What's your basic argument against Newt Gingrich?

ROMNEY: Well, we're different and the campaign is about pointing out differences.

I mean, for instance, the great issue that has been brought before this Congress with a new Republican Congress is, are we going to deal with entitlement reform or not? And Republicans came together and proposed a program to make sure that Medicare is sustainable. Paul Ryan was the author of the plan but almost every single Republican in Congress voted for it and the world watched to see, OK, are we going to have progress?