This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," June 21, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR: I'm Chris Wallace.
The massacre at a black church sparks new calls for gun control.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of violence does not happen in other advanced countries.
WALLACE: We'll get the latest on a confessed shooter in a live update from Charleston, and discuss race and gun violence with our Sunday group.
Then, politics and religion intersect as conservatives clash with Pope Francis over climate change.
JEB BUSH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't get economic policy from my -- from my bishops or my cardinals or from my pope.
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: As a Catholic, I take teachings from the pope about religion and not about other issues.
WALLACE: We'll discuss the pope's message on global warming and politics of his September visit to the U.S. with Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington.
Plus, Rick Perry retools his image for another run at the White House.
RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, it's time for a reset -- time to reset the relationship between government and citizens.
(APPLAUSE)
WALLACE: We sit down with Governor Rick Perry to talk about his presidential bid. It's a "Fox News Sunday" exclusive.
And our Power Player of the Week, a key figure in the debate over Common Core standards.
LAURA SLOVER, CEO, PARCC: As a parent, I can understand why there are concerns about testing.
WALLACE: All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Hello again, and happy Father's Day from Fox News in Washington.
On this first Sunday after the massacre at a black church, the mourning for the nine victims continues in Charleston and across the nation. The shooting has reignited old debates over race and gun control. In a few minutes we'll discuss all of that with our panel.
But first, we want to bring in Rich Edson, who has the latest from Charleston -- Rich.
RICH EDSON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Chris, worshippers are gathering here at Emanuel AME Church, as they do every Sunday for regular services, though this only four days after a gunman opens fire, killing nine in Emanuel AME Church. Since then, hundreds of thousands from those around the city and those from around country -- women, men, black, white -- have been here to pay their respects leaving cards, flowers and prayers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUCINDA MAGWOOD, CHARLESTON MOURNER: We're united as one. There's no divide right now. We like to say that there is divide when there is conflict. Right now, our differences are placed aside and we're united. We're one.
NICOLE BEALE, CHARLESTON MOURNER: I couldn't be anywhere else on a Sunday morning but right here to let these guys know their grace in such a horrific time has shown the world and everybody that, you know, hate will not win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
EDSON: And now, the focus is on the accused killer, Dylann Roof. And the FBI and the Charleston Police Department say they are looking into a Web site called "The Last Rhodesian," Rhodesia, is a nod to government in the south of Africa that was a racist regime fell in 1979. But on that Web site, there were pictures posted showing Dylann Roof, photos of him burning an American flag, posing with a Confederate flag and a number of poses of him with a gun.
It also includes these racists statements, concluding with him saying, no one is acting, and he has to -- Chris.
WALLACE: Rich Edson, reporting from Charleston, Rich, thanks for that.
We want to discuss this week's terrible events with our Sunday panel. GOP strategist Karl Rowe, Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Deneen Borelli, chief political correspondent for The Conservative Review, and former Democratic Senator Evan Bayh.
There are aspects to this tragedy, the long painful history of attacks on black churches, the racist manifesto and chilling pictures and issue of gun control.
Congresswoman Edwards, let me start with you. What are your thoughts about the massacre in Charleston?
REP. DONNA EDWARDS (D), MARYLAND: Well, it did take me back. I remember as a little girl when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed in Birmingham, and I remember being afraid of going to church.
WALLACE: And we should say 1963.
EDWARDS: In 1963.
WALLACE: And four little girls were killed in that bombing.
EDWARDS: That's right. And I think for so many of us, the pain and the history of violence that's happened in our churches, it was a reminder again that we still have a lot of work to do in this country and to see those lives lost, you know, a state senator, a pastor, a librarian, a coach, people who were part of the fabric of the community.
And I think all of us have work to do on race, and I don't think it's inappropriate for us to talk about what we need to do to get and keep guns out of the hands of people who would commit such a tragedy.
WALLACE: There was another extraordinary scene on Friday at Dylann Roof's first court hearing. Some of the relatives of the victims directly confronted him. We want to play a clip of Nadine Collier, who is the author of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, one of the people who were shot dead. Here it is.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
NADINE COLLIER, DAUGHTER OF ETHEL LANCE: I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: It breaks your heart.
Deneen, your thoughts about what happened in Charleston?
DENEEN BORELLI, CONSERVATIVE REVIEW: It is heartbreaking. My thoughts and prayers are by those directly affected and also our country as a whole affected by this.
I'm in awe of how the family members were able to come out and show forgiveness and show compassion and given what they have been up against and what they have experienced, it is amazing to me the level of the strength that these individuals have with their faith in God and I also think that their actions are rebranding the images of what the world sees of Black Americans.
I don't have to remind you of what we saw in Ferguson, on the streets of Baltimore. I think what we've witnessed from what happened in Charleston, forgiveness and love and compassion these individuals have shown with this instance is help rebranding to the world that black Americans are hard working, God-fearing Americans.
WALLACE: When President Obama first spoke about the shooting, he brought up the issue of gun control but he seemed to concede that there was almost no chance Congress would do something or anything about it. Then, on Friday, he pushed back against that saying that he is not giving up on that issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We don't know it would have prevented what happened in Charleston. No reform can guarantee the elimination of violence but we might still have some more Americans with us. We might have stopped one shooter.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Senator Bayh, was it appropriate? Because there's some questioning of that. Was it appropriate for the president to bring up gun control just hours after the shooting? And do you agree with his initial assessment, whether he wants to give up or not, that there's no chance Congress is going to pass meaningful gun control?
EVAN BAYH, FORMER U.S. SENATOR (D-IN): I don't think the president was playing politics with this, Chris. I really don't. Taken in full context of his remarks, I think he was raising the issue of how do we deal with violence and residual problems with race in our society. So, I don't think it was inappropriate.
With regard to him what do we do about race and that sort of thing, I think our two panelists mentioned, I can't imagine a more powerful rebuttal to racism as in quality of the people who lost their lives and more importantly the reaction of their loved ones. It was almost unimaginable grace in the face of tragedy. And, hopefully, that will serve an important role in helping to heal some of the wounds that exist.
WALLACE: Karl, whether you agree with the president on gun control or not, you certainly have to agree with him that we see these cases of mass violence way too often and we see them more often in the United States than in other advanced countries. And I mean, you know, you are in a position to say, what do we do about it whether it's government, whether it's community, whether it's family, how do we stop the violence?
KARL ROVE, FORMER BUSH WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: Well, I wish I had an easy answer for that. I don't think there's any easy answer. We saw an act of evil, racist, bigoted evil. And to me, the amazing thing about this is it was met with grief and love.
And think about how far we've come. 1963, the whole weight of the government throughout the South was to impede finding and holding and bringing to justice the men who perpetrated the bombing and here we saw an entire state, an entire community, an entire nation come together grieving as one, united in the belief that this was an evil act.
So, we have come a long way. Now, maybe there's some magic law that will keep us from having more of these. I mean, basically, the only way to guarantee that we would dramatically reduce acts of violence involving guns is to basically remove guns from society, and until somebody gets enough oomph to repeal the Second Amendment, that's not going to happen. I don't think it's an answer.
I think there were so many warning since here. A friend who knew of what was in Dylann Roof's heart, parents who didn't pay attention, a community that had given up on him, and a loner who had fallen into the clutches of racist organizations and had come to believe in their ideology and put things up on the Internet that we didn't give any credence to whatsoever.
And so, there were a lot of warning signs here and I wish that some of those people had spoken up and said, here's somebody who is in trouble and a danger to himself and others.
WALLACE: Congresswoman Edwards, I want to pick up on both things that Karl said. One of the things that struck me and, you know, you -- all of our minds, those of us who are old enough, remember '63 and remember the bombing in Birmingham and remember there wasn't universal shock and hatred. There were parts -- not that people celebrated it, but people weren't going to join in trying to find the killers.
And, you know, the reaction in South Carolina this week, you know, from members of that congregation, to the white governor of the state, was just universal shock and horror and everybody gathered together to try to catch this young man in a very short amount of time.
So, one, isn't that progress?
And, two, you know, a lot of people knew this kid was off the track. You know, his family knew, his friends knew. Not to blame them, but how do we somehow have a circuit breaker when somebody is headed in such a wrong direction to stop him?
EDWARDS: Look, I think it is true that when you look at the response from every elected official on down to law enforcement at the national level, everyone responded in exactly the right kind of way to bring this young man to the pathway toward justice.
I think that, you know, the challenge for us is that if the only thing that can come out of this is that next week when Congress reconvenes that we engage in yet another moment of silence, I think that would be really unfortunate and so while we've come an awful long way whether it's on race or other issues, we can see played out in our streets whether it was Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina, streets of Baltimore, Ferguson and all of the rest that we have a lot of challenges to make sure that our communities are whole and that people have the kind of opportunity that doesn't allow us to feel that someone is taking something away in order for all of us as Americans to gain.
And I -- you know, and I think while -- you know, Karl has pointed out there were a lot of warning signs. You know, tons of warning signs. The question is, what do we do with those warning signs? And what can we do systemically to make certain that even if that is present, and the crazy guy is always going to be there, and person who's, you know, gone the wrong direction is always going to be there, what can we do to keep the gun out of the hand of that person?
WALLACE: All right. Thank you, panel. We'll see you all a little later in the program.
Up next, Pope Francis calls for dramatic action on climate change. But some politicians in this country push back against his message. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Pope Francis delivered a message for the world this week, arguing -- we're in the process of destroying our planet, and calling for dramatic changes in our politics, economy and lifestyle.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, has joined us to discuss the pope's message and the criticism it has received.
Your Eminence, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."
CARDINAL DONALD WUERL, ARCHBISHOP OF WASHINGTON: Thank you. It's good to be here with you, Chris.
WALLACE: Pope Francis puts this in the starkest terms. He says we're turning our precious earth into, quote, "an immense pile of filth" and he says that much of it is because of human activity. And he basically says it's a moral issue now.
WUERL: And it really is. And I think one of the really strong parts of this is he starts with what we're all aware of and what's going on around the world: the diminishment of water, the desertification, the fact that we're destroying the rain forest, all of those terrible, terrible things -- we're all aware of that -- and the suffering of poor people because of this.
But then he goes on to say: I invite everybody, I invite people in every walk of life, those who have authority over so many areas of life, to come together and talk about how we resolve, how we face, how we address it. And then he says, and we bring a moral dimension, that's what the church brings. That's what he brings to this discussion.
WALLACE: The pope frames this as part of his -- I think it's fair to say -- continuing critique of the global market economy. And he writes this, he writes, "Whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interest of the deified market, which become the only rule."
WUERL: And isn't that a fact that if you don't have a moral frame of reference, then you only are driven by your own self-interest -- whether it's economics, whether it's politics, whether it's finance -- everything has a moral dimension to it because it's human.
And what the pope is holding up for us is we can't just close in on ourselves, our own personal interests, our economic or financial interests or political interests. We have to look at this through the moral dimension of, how does this affect everybody on the planet?
WALLACE: Now, not surprisingly, some political figures are pushing back. Here is former governor and devout Catholic Jeb Bush.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: But I love -- first of all, Pope Francis is an extraordinary leader. But I don't get economic policy from my -- from my bishops or my cardinals or from my pope.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Cardinal, your response?
WUERL: Well, I think that's a legitimate position to say I don't get policy from the church, from the pope. I don't -- I would hope that no politician gets policy from his faith committee, his faith community. But what we get is the moral frame of reference by which we arrive at those policy positions.
The pope is talking about, what should we be doing, not here is a political agenda that you must accept. I think that's the richness of his contribution to all of this. There is a human dimension to everything we do and that, therefore, carries with it a moral and ethical dimension.
And the pope is simply saying, whether you're a politician, a financier, an economist, an industrialist, whatever you are, look at the consequences of what you're doing through the lens of humanity and through the moral obligation to include everyone in the effort to have a truly good and just society.
WALLACE: Now, while the pope has bigger things on his mind than American politics, some American conservatives say he is choosing sides.
Cardinal, forgive me because this is going to get a little salty.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Essentially, what this papal encyclical is suggesting is that every Catholic should vote for the Democrat Party. Well, no, that's what -- how in the hell else do you interpret it when the pope comes out and sounds like Al Gore on global warming and climate change?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: I never thought I'd ask you this. How do you respond to Rush Limbaugh?
WUERL: Well, this is one of the great -- one of the great blessings of America, isn't it? We're all allowed to speak our mind even if we don't have all of the facts, even if we don't have a clear view of what the other person is saying. We're all allowed to speak our mind and that's what he's doing.
I think what the pope is doing is something very, very different from that. He's saying, why don't we all discuss this? Why don't we all come to the table and before we start eliminating other people from the discussion, before denouncing them or even ridiculing them, why don't we listen to them and see what they're saying, and see where we ought to be going as a human family?
WALLACE: Let's discuss some of the substantive questions or even criticism of the pope's message. While the Holy Father says a number of scientific studies hold the world is warming and human activity is a major role, there are certainly experts on the other side who question, really, whether there is a consistent pattern of warming, as opposed to just sort of the variations of climate over the ages, and how much human activity plays a role.
What does the pope say to those people?
WUERL: Well, I think what he is saying in the encyclical is we have to -- we have to realize that there are these terrible results. He's not indicating what is the cause of every single disaster around the world, ecological disaster, but he's saying we need to start looking at this.
I come from western Pennsylvania. I can tell you that strip mining left a disastrous wake. And I think these are the type of things the Holy Father is lifting up for us and saying, we need to look at this because there are human factors in all of these ecological disasters.
WALLACE: The pope also and very much puts this in the frame of the fact that all of this environmental despoliation hurts the poor most of all. Some -- they pay the biggest price. Some skeptics say, look, you're going to spend, you're asking us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to take actions which may cause jobs to be lost, which are going to have a minute effect on the environment. It may lower it a tenth of 1 percent, and you could be spending that money instead on malaria nets, on vaccination, on crop improvement.
What does the pope say to that?
WUERL: I think he's looking long-term. While he's saying there's an urgency to this issue, the urgency is that we begin to talk about it, address it, put our minds together to resolve it. He's not saying that we have to resolve this tomorrow by doing specific things.
And I think the starting point is for us to remember any time you address a worldwide problem, it's going to take time to resolve. I think back to the days of the encyclical on human labor in 1891. There were those who rejected it outright saying, if we start treating workers the way the church is asking us, our profits will be cut, our ability to compete will be cut.
But we learned over years and over decades, when people thrive, the whole planet thrives.
WALLACE: The pope visits the United States in September. He's going to speak to Congress. He's going to speak to the United Nations.
And while liberals are generally celebrating his comments on the environment, conservatives note that in this encyclical, he also wrote this, "Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature -- I'm having a little trouble reading this -- concern for the protection for nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion."
WALLACE: Does the pope worry that his trip is becoming too political, that people are going to pick and choose, I like this part of what he says, I like this part of what he says, or, in fact, does he embrace the opportunity to spread his message?
WUERL: I think he probably recognizes, as popes have always had to recognize, certainly as we bishops have to recognize, there are those who take part of what we say and there are others that take another part of what we say. But we have to keep saying the whole package. We have to keep delivering the entire package.
I think that's what the pope does. And he takes joy in it when you see him delivering a talk, a homily, you see him in the midst of people, he takes great joy in representing the whole faith, the whole package.
But there will always be some discussion among people what part they like best and for some, what part they're going to accept.
But the obligation on all of us, if we're true members of the church and true followers of the Lord, then we take the Lord's message even when there are parts of it we're uncomfortable with.
WALLACE: In that sense, and in the sense of embracing controversy and pushing boundaries, he's a different kind of pope, isn't he, with a different sense of his mission?
WUERL: That's how this encyclical opens, doesn't it? An invitation. He said, this is an invitation to talk about all of these problems.
And he invites everybody. He says everybody of goodwill, I invite to sit and let's talk about how we're going to resolve this, as opposed to here are some things we all ought to do to resolve that. It's very invitational.
But don't you think that's the reason he's so popular? People feel they're being invited back into a discussion of the Lord, of discipleship, of what it means to embrace the gospel and live it.
WALLACE: Cardinal Wuerl, thank you. Thanks for coming in today, sir.
WUERL: You're very welcome. Thank you, Chris.
WALLACE: We'll stay on top of this very important debate.
WUERL: Thank you.
WALLACE: Up next, Rick Perry 2.0. Can the presidential candidate undo the mistakes of his 2012 campaign? The former Texas governor joins us, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: When Rick Perry ran for president in 2012, he shot to the top of the polls. But that ended quickly after a series of gaffes, especially forgetting in a debate one of three government agencies he wanted to eliminate.
Well, now, the former Texas governor is running again and says he learned from all that.
Governor Perry, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."
RICK PERRY (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to be with you. Thank you.
WALLACE: Let's start with the elephant in the room, I think you'd agree, your embarrassing run for president in 2012.
What happened?
PERRY: Obviously we weren't healthy. I highly recommend anybody running for the presidency, make sure you're healthy. I had major back surgery. And I didn't prepare properly. I think the real issue there was I thought being governor of the state of Texas for 12 years was enough preparation to run for the presidency, and the fact of the matter is, there is nothing like it. Until you've done it, you don't even realize what a challenge it is. These broad array of issues that you have to have more than just passing knowledge of.
WALLACE: What did you learn from it?
PERRY: Well, I learned, number one, you have to be healthy, and secondly, you have got to prepare. And it takes years of preparation, I will suggest to you, whether it's sitting down with real experts on foreign policy, people like Richard Fisher (ph) to James Ricards (ph) on the monetary side of things. Sitting with George Shultz and Henry Kissinger and Brian Hook (ph) at the Hay (ph) Initiative. Individuals who have deep knowledge of what's going on in the world, absorbing it, studying it, and keeping this up for some lengthy period of time. I feel very comfortable now sitting on the stage that I can have those conversations, and regurgitate that information that I know and that I've absorbed in a way that the American people are going to see a very different candidate than they did four years ago.
WALLACE: Let me talk to you about that, because on Friday you were talking about the shooting in Charleston, and you said accident when you meant incident. It was clearly a slip of the tongue. But social media went nuts, which raises the question, which I thought for some time, don't you have to run almost a perfect campaign? Because if you make any mistake that any other candidate, it would be ignored, people will say, whoops, that's Rick Perry again.
PERRY: I don't think they are going to ignore anybody, whether it's Hillary Clinton calling a reporter by the wrong name within the last 24 hours or me calling you Mike instead of Chris. People are going to make mistakes and people know that.
But what people want to see is someone who truly has a vision for this country. Who has a record. And I will lay my record out, 14 years as the chief executive of the 12th largest economy in the world, that economic record. My military history, not only of wearing the uniform of this country but having been the commander in chief of the Texas military forces, the Texas National Guard. My dealing with things like the border, like Ebola, with massive hurricanes. All of that is a record that the people are going to look at. Are they going to say, hey, listen, you said one word when you meant another one? Social media can do what they want to do with that. But when you really get down to it, record is what's going to matter in this election.
WALLACE: One more campaign question, and we'll get into the issues. You're focusing on Iowa, where you have already spent since 2012, 31 days. But in the latest RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, you are now running 11th in Iowa after 31 days at 3 percent, which raises the question, Governor, realistically, do you have a chance to win, or is this campaign more about personal redemption, showing people that you're not the Rick Perry of 2012?
PERRY: Well, I will tell you what the Terry Branstad, the governor of Iowa, said as late as 72 hours ago, when he was asked about who was spending time in Iowa. He said let me compliment Rick Perry. Rick Perry has got a powerful organization, and he has spent the time in this state.
WALLACE: So why are you at 3 percent?
PERRY: This is a process. Rudy Giuliani led through '07 and '08. I just try to remind people don't get hung up on today's poll. Let's see what it looks like in January. We're going to spend a lot of time there. We're going to talk about a vision for this country that's positive, that's I think very forward leaning and looking, and people are going to -- people I think are going to get behind that and like that.
WALLACE: You are running on a strong populist message this time. Here's a clip from your announcement statement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PERRY: The American people, they see this rigged game where the insiders get rich, the middle class pays the tab. There is something wrong when the Dow is near record highs, and businesses on Main Street can't even get a loan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Governor, you sound like Bernie Sanders.
PERRY: I sound like a young man that grew up on a dry land cotton form that understands what it's like to have to really work hard. In today's world, a lot of Americans are out there, and they are going, hey, wait a minute, what are these people on Wall Street getting rich for? Who is going to bail me out?
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: -- class warfare, isn't that what Republicans always --
PERRY: No. That's common sense. What is wrong is Washington bailing out companies that make bad decisions. That's a reason we have bankruptcy laws. And I think the American people want to see fairness in that. They don't want to see somebody that's on Wall Street, somebody that's got connections in that Capitol building over there, be the only ones that have protection in this country. I think they're looking for an individual who grew up in a house that used an outhouse. My mom bathed me on a back porch in a No. 2 wash tub. Someone that's actually had to really work to get to somewhere in life, and it wasn't given to him on a silver platter.
Americans are ready for a great success story, and to know that their kids -- we've got a social compact with one generation to the next. And Americans don't believe that's possible today. And I want to give them hope that it really is possible again by leveling that playing field.
WALLACE: But is it right or fair to bash the rich? Do you want to limit what people on Wall Street make? Do you want to tax them more? Are you saying that we want to somehow limit the gains in the Dow? You talk about the Dow being at an all-time high. There are a lot of working folks who have their retirement investments, their savings in the stock market.
PERRY: I think people want to see fairness. When you see the rules that are in place nowadays, when you see all the exemptions, I think people want to see a fair tax rate, they want to be able to keep more of what they work for. In the 12th largest economy in the world, state of Texas that I had the privilege to be the chief executive of for the last 14 years, we made a state that allowed people to have jobs, an environment that allowed them to keep more of what they worked for. And that's what Americans want. They would like to see the same thing, and they don't see that today. They see Wall Street getting bailed out. They see General Motors getting bailed out.
WALLACE: You keep saying Wall Street is getting bailed out. They got bailed out during a specific time when we had this huge financial crisis.
PERRY: Let me explain --
WALLACE: Would you have let all of Wall Street collapse? People say the financial system would have collapsed.
PERRY: Let me explain to you where people really feel that what's happening in Washington is hurting them out in middle America. Dodd-Frank regulations. We got 41 percent fewer community banks today than we had in 2007. There are people all over this country, middle Americans, farmers in Iowa, who use those community banks. And you see these regulations that are strangling their ability to get a loan. That's what I'm talking about. That's what people see as Washington being disconnected with what's really going on out there on Main Street.
WALLACE: One more question about Main Street or looking out for the little guy. When you were governor of Texas, your state had the highest uninsured rate in the country. One in five, more than one in five Texans didn't have health coverage, and yet you refused to set up a state exchange under Obamacare. You refused to expand Medicaid. Is that looking out for the little guy when 21 percent of Texans didn't have health insurance?
PERRY: If how you keep score is how many people you force to buy insurance, then I would say that that's how you keep score. That's not how we --
WALLACE: But the flip side of it, how many people don't have health insurance.
PERRY: Let me explain what we do in Texas. This is a state by state decision. We make access to healthcare the real issue. We passed the most sweeping tort reform in the nation. We got 35,000 more positions licensed to practice medicine in 2013 than we did a decade before that. This is an issue for me, it's about access to healthcare. And it's not about whether you force somebody to buy insurance. It's whether Texans have access to good healthcare.
We have got the Texas Medical Center, and physicians are showing up in places that literally we didn't have physicians to do those subspecialties ten years ago that we do today.
WALLACE: I understand that, sir, but don't you, as the governor for 14 years, don't you feel some responsibility when 21 percent of the people in your state didn't have health insurance?
PERRY: That's not how we keep score. I think it's a fallacy to say access to healthcare is all about insurance. What we happen to say in the state of Texas is we're going to try to make as assessable as we can good, quality healthcare. And that's what we've done in the state of Texas.
Do you think all those people moved to the state of Texas because somehow know they couldn't get healthcare? 5.6 million people added to the population rolls, oh and by the way, 1.5 million jobs created between 2007 and 2014. That's what people care about. They know they can come to the state of Texas and have access to really good healthcare, and government was not going to force them to buy insurance.
WALLACE: Finally, at the end of these interviews, we try to get off the issues and try to get some personal insight into the person, man or woman I'm talking to. At your announcement a couple of weeks ago, Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor was there alongside you. I bet a lot of people don't know that long before the book or the movie and all of his fame, that he showed up on your door at the governor's mansion in 2007 and he was in trouble.
PERRY: He was. He had separated from the service. He had some real challenges physically, mentally. And he was looking for a safe harbor. He found it with Rick and Anita Perry.
WALLACE: What did you do for him?
PERRY: We brought him. We intervened. He had been separated, but not given full medical discharge. He wasn't eligible for Tricare. I intervened all the way up to the secretary of the Navy. Secretary Mabus, and Secretary Mabus, to his credit, engaged in this process, and we were able to get him eligible for Tricare so he could have the surgeries, he could have the intervention that he needed.
WALLACE: But if I may, because we're running out of time here, more than that, you said in your announcement he's a second son.
PERRY: We became and still are incredibly close to him. We brought him in. My wife is a nurse. So we worked very closely with him. I mean, he literally lived with us for two plus years, and we took care of him, and we've seen him now become a very healthy, very successful dad and a great American.
WALLACE: Governor Perry, thank you. Good to talk with you again.
PERRY: Always a good interview with you, sir.
WALLACE: Thank you. We'll see you on the campaign trail.
PERRY: Lord willing.
WALLACE: Up next, the GOP field got even more crowded this week with Jeb Bush and Donald Trump getting into the race. We'll bring our Sunday group back to discuss where the campaign stands now. And what would you like to ask the panel about Donald Trump actually running for president? Just go to Facebook or Twitter @foxnewssunday, and we may use your question on the air.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: Not one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family or family narrative. It's nobody's turn. It's everybody's test and it's wide open. Exactly as the contest for president should be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Jeb Bush this week formally getting into the presidential race and pushing back at criticism he's running on his family name. We're back now with the panel.
Karl, Bush clearly hasn't scared other candidates out of the race. We're going to end up with about 15 or 16. He clearly hasn't broken away in the polls. What does he need to do and what are his biggest challenges?
ROVE: First of all, nobody should expect someone to break away in the polls. If you look at the last nine Republican presidential primary contests going back to 1964, they take two different shapes. In four of them, somebody led by double digits at this point, and in five of them someone led by single digits. We're in the single digit territory and we'll remain in the single digit territory throughout I think a lot of this contest until people actually start going to vote.
But if you look underneath the surface, there's a brand new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll out. If you take a look at the people who say I can see myself voting for that person, five people have done well since this question began to be asked in March. Jeb Bush has gone up 26 points from 49 percent saying they could support him to 75. Marco Rubio has gone from 56 to 24. Mike Huckabee from 52 to 65. Carly Fiorina from 18 to 31. And Ted Cruz from 40 to 51. Those are the five winners among the 16 people who were in the poll. So obviously something is going on underneath there. And I think that clip captured it for Jeb Bush. He has got to show people that first of all, has to earn this. He went on to say, I have to earn it, and second of all, he's got to lay out a concrete, optimistic, conservative agenda, demonstrate he's willing to go in places Republicans don't normally go, and he's got to be able to show that he's got the chops to be the candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.
WALLACE: Senator Bayh, let me pick up on that. How do you assess Jeb Bush if he were to win the Republican nomination? Would he be the strongest candidate the GOP could put up against Clinton?
BAYH: If he runs as a successful former governor, a reform conservative, he's got a pretty good narrative, Chris. But my guess is that really their strongest candidate would be somebody who embodies the future, something different, something new. What I sense is that is what people are really looking for. So that may be a Scott Walker. It may be a Marco Rubio if he can project the kind of gravitas people are looking for.
But I think a Clinton/Bush race would be very, very close. But I think Hillary would have an advantage in that because it will be tough for Jeb to stand for the future, something dynamic, something different.
WALLACE: Then there's Donald Trump, who also got into the race this week and almost immediately started taking off after some of his Republican rivals. Starting with Jeb Bush. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He looks very unhappy to me. He doesn't look like a person that wants to be doing this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scott Walker?
TRUMP: The problem is, Wisconsin is having a lot of problems. They are doing not well. And there's a tremendous amount of debt being piled up and they're having a lot of difficulty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: We asked you for questions for the panel, and we got this on Facebook from Richard Wellman, who writes, "why should anyone care about Trump running other than the damage he causes stirring up the GOP fringe?" Deneen, how do you answer Richard, and speak to this question, how much trouble do you think Trump is going to cause the GOP?
BORELLI: I look at Trump as like the Uber of today. You know, how Uber has disrupted the taxi cab industry. So we'll see what happens as this all unfolds. But I think Trump -- and I'm not endorsing anyone -- he's someone that could be viewed as a problem solver. When you look at someone like Jeb Bush, for example, he's someone that's been out of the game for a while. The polls are a reflection of who he is. And I think Bush will have a problem trying to really fire up the conservative base because of his views on common core and immigration, which is something that Donald Trump can come after Bush against. So I think that's something that will be of concern. But again, Donald Trump, who knows what's going to happen. With politics, anything is possible.
WALLACE: But do you worry at all as a conservative, as a Republican, when Trump in his announcement speech talks about Mexicans coming over the border are they are rapists and criminals, and I assume some good people, I think that's a rough quote of what he said. Is that helpful in reaching out to Hispanics?
BORELLI: No, no, absolutely not. Some of his comments are not helpful at all. But again, as I said before, we'll see how this plays out. We'll see if he dials it back from what he said before. Who knows.
WALLACE: Who knows. Isn't that the truth.
On the Democratic side, the big story this week is what people are calling Bernie-mentum. And that is the fact that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an avowed Democratic Socialist, is running around the country, attracting huge crowds. In the latest New Hampshire poll, only ten points behind Hillary Clinton. Congresswoman Edwards, how do you explain Bernie-mentum?
EDWARDS: I think right now we're in an environment where the Democratic activist base is really paying attention to politics. I think it's important that the message that Bernie Sanders has is one that is challenging for Hillary Clinton to respond to and to define herself if she wants to get our nomination. And so I am actually glad that we're having this play out right now, because I think it will make our nominee at the end of the day, and I believe it will make our nominee a stronger one.
WALLACE: Do you think it shows concern on the left side of the Democratic Party with whether Clinton is too centrist, too cozy with big business, too cozy with Wall Street??
EDWARDS: I think that's an important concern, but I think part of what we've heard from Hillary Clinton, especially in the last couple of weeks, is her defining her candidacy, which is not her husband's presidency. And I think we're hearing that. We are hearing concern for families and children and working people, concerns around inequality, around race and criminal justice, and I think it's important that the left and all of our party hear that message so that we can rally behind a nominee so that we can retake the White House.
WALLACE: Karl, let me ask you a couple of questions. How should Republicans handle Donald Trump?
ROVE: Ignore him. He's completely off the base. I'm going to negotiate with ISIS? I have a secret plan to deal with ISIS but I can't tell you about it because of my enemies? As president I have unilateral authority to levy a 35 percent tax on any company that opens plants abroad? This guy is not a serious candidate. As of Friday at 5:00, he had yet to file a one-page declaration of his candidacy with the FEC. The reason he's not is because once he does that, that triggers a 30-day period during which he has to lay out in excruciating detail the range of his liabilities and his assets. He gets to have two 45-day extensions. He will delay filing that piece of paper, and mark my words, he will delay and ask for extensions as long as possible.
He'll be a serious candidate. We ought to treat him as a serious candidate when he finally files that declaration and commits himself to unveiling all of his assets and liabilities.
WALLACE: Are you suggesting that he may not actually run?
ROVE: I'm surprised. He got into the race on Tuesday, and by Friday he still couldn't file a one-page piece of paper that required his name and his address and a signature on it.
WALLACE: What does the excitement over Bernie Sanders tell you about Hillary Clinton?
ROVE: I'm in agreement with the congresswoman. It might surprise her. But Hillary Clinton understands that the left of the Democratic Party does not trust her, and she made an announcement speech this week in which she basically said I'm not going to be Bill. I'm going to be more like Barack Obama. In fact, I'm going to be to the left of Barack Obama. And that's going to be great opportunity for the Republicans in the general election, because there's no way to climb back from being on the left wing of the Democratic Party by the time of the general election.
WALLACE: Thank you, panel. See you all next Sunday. Up next, our Power Player of the Week, testing and defending common core education standards.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: A look at the Oakland Bay Bridge across the way from San Francisco.
Common Core was started by governors and state education officials as a way to set standards for our children's education. But it's become a hot political issue with concerns over federal interference and whether it's the best way to teach kids. We went to see one group that's testing how common core works. Here's our Power Player of the Week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAURA SLOVER, CEO, PARCC: I think it's vital that we set a high standard for kids because if we build it, they will come. If we expect a lot of kids, they rise to the occasion.
WALLACE: Laura Slover is the CEO of PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College And careers. PARCC is one of two nonprofits set up by states to test how students are measuring up to common core education standards.
SLOVER: These are different kinds of tests. They measure critical thinking, problem solving, writing, and they actually ask kids to do more than fill in bubbles.
WALLACE: Five million kids in 12 states from third grade through high school took the test for the first time this spring. Slover had me answer some of the third grade reading questions, which I found a little challenging.
SLOVER: Put the events in order --
WALLACE: You're kidding me. Drag this down?
SLOVER: Drag and drop.
WALLACE: A number of Republicans running for president have already weighed in on common core and the tests, and given them a flunking grade.
GOV. BOBBY JINDAL, R-LA.: I'm still for high standards. Common core was never supposed to be a top down government run approach.
SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS: I think the federal government has no business dictating the curriculum of schools.
WALLACE: The main complaint is that this is all part of a federal takeover of local schools.
SLOVER: This is a state-driven program, and states make all the decisions, from design to development to administration.
WALLACE: But it's more complicated than that. Because President Obama's Race to the Top program gives states grants based on their adopting standards like common core. Another issue, tens of thousands of parents and students across the country are refusing to take the tests.
SLOVER: As a parent I can understand why there are concerns about testing.
WALLACE: But Slover says she wants her child taking the tests, which lasts more than eight hours over several days, for a third grader.
SLOVER: I want to be sure she's learning. I want to be sure she's reading on grade level and I want to be sure she knows how to do math and is prepared for the next grade.
WALLACE: There is also criticism from teacher unions. They worry the test will be used to evaluate their performance.
So what's your reaction when you're taking heat from both the right and from the left?
SLOVER: We know we're doing something right. Keep on going.
WALLACE: Slover says they will keep adjusting. For instance, next year, the tests will be 90 minutes shorter. But she says the basic principle is sound.
SLOVER: For too long in this country, success has been really a function of what income level parents have and where kids grow up. We think it's critical that kids all have opportunities, whether they live in Mississippi or Massachusetts or Colorado or Ohio. They should all have access to an excellent education, and this is a step in the right direction.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Whether it's a step in the right direction is of course debatable. You can expect common core to continue as a big issue in the Republican presidential campaign.
You may recall, last season we declared ourselves the official Sunday show of the Washington Nationals. Well, yesterday star pitcher Max Scherzer was one strike away from a perfect game when he clipped a Pittsburgh Pirate batter. Then this happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An 0-2 pitch. And a ball hit deep to the left. Taylor going back. And Max Scherzer has a no-hitter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Scherzer pitched the second no-hitter in Nats history. In his last start, Scherzer pitched a one hitter. Congratulations to Max and go Nats.
And that's it for today. To all of you dads out there, happy Father's Day. To my kids, be sure to call your dad. Have a great week. We'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."
Content and Programming Copyright 2015 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2015 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox