POLITICO's Glenn Thrush interviews Gary Johnson for this week's Off Message podcast. | Bridget Mulcahy/POLITICO Off Message Full transcript: POLITICO's Glenn Thrush interviews Gary Johnson

GLENN THRUSH: So let's talk about weed.

GARY JOHNSON: Yeah.


[Laughter.]

THRUSH: You are--I'm with Governor Gary Johnson here in New York, and I should say we're sitting in a conference room of a Times Square hotel that looks like it would be the transaction point for a drug deal involving something maybe a little bigger than marijuana.

MR. JOHNSON: Glenn, are we in a hotel room or are we in a sauna?

[Laughter.]

THRUSH: It is schvitzy.

MR. JOHNSON: It's just fine.

THRUSH: And as you pointed out, you're a big fan of the dry heat, because New York does not--

MR. JOHNSON: It's fine.

THRUSH: --give you the dry heat.

So let me just ask you flat out. I was reading some of the biographical stuff. It said that you smoked a bit of cannabis from 2005 to 2008, when you had this really catastrophic paragliding accident.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes.

THRUSH: Tell me a little bit about that, and have you ever, subsequent to 2008, partook of--

MR. JOHNSON: Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I've grown up using marijuana. I'm one of 100 million Americans plus that have done that. As governor of New Mexico, I never partook and I haven't had a drink of alcohol in 29 years. But from the first time I used marijuana, I found it to be such a safer alternative than everything else that's out there, and, really, starting with alcohol. Really, it just didn't seem to have a side effect. As an athlete in high school, it was just, wow.

THRUSH: So what did you do? When--

MR. JOHNSON: And the first takeaway? Gosh, the government has lied about this one. What else have they lied about?

THRUSH: So when you first--so you first started well, you are--you have--we were just talking before we came on, you summited Everest and you've done the seven--

MR. JOHNSON: Yeah, the highest mountain on each continent.

THRUSH: Amazing. So let's talk about getting high at 5,000, which is what I guess Albuquerque is, right? What--tell me, what kind of athletics did you participate in?

MR. JOHNSON: Every single sport. There wasn't a sport that I didn't participate in. I really kind of dropped out of sports when I no longer became a starter. You know, I've competed in hundreds of athletic competitions--triathlons, marathons, ultra-distance. Right now, mountain biking is a passion, road biking is a passion, skiing is a passion. I live just north of Taos. I live very close to Taos Ski Valley. Taos has as good skiing as anywhere on the planet and I've had the good fortune to ski a lot of the planet.

THRUSH: And so when you said that you started getting high as an athlete in high school, just sort of explain to me what that environment was like, what era are we talking about?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, we're talking about 1970, and as I've always said, no excuses. I mean, I was one of 100 million people that did the same, but I'm one of them.

THRUSH: How old were you when you started doing it?

MR. JOHNSON: So it would have been 17 years old, yeah.

THRUSH: And it was mellow. [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: Well, it was enlightening. I mean, you know, bottom line, smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, when you first start doing anything like that, really, you know, you become uninhibited. It really--I use the term "enlightening." Anything used in excess, though, ultimately ends up having the opposite impact and I've been able to see that too.

THRUSH: Well, I grew up on the East Coast, a harder-edge kind of place. I grew up in an urban environment and there was weed around but alcohol was much more prevalent. We were drinking Jim Beam when I was 15, 16 years old, in Brooklyn. Different place, different drug.

MR. JOHNSON: Different place, different time. Right.

THRUSH: Right? So in terms of the--and as I mentioned, you had this awful accident. Tell me--so you recreationally--you obviously are--you are the CEO of the company. Tell me a little bit about the company.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I was CEO of Cannabis Sativa. I was CEO up until January 1st of this year. I resigned to do this. But being CEO, the whole--hey, my motivation behind all of it was to make the world a better place. On the medicinal side--so legalizing marijuana, in my opinion, makes the world a better place. On the medicinal side, medical marijuana products directly compete with legal prescription drugs that statistically kill 100,000 people a year. Glenn, there's not been one documented death due to marijuana. That's the medical side. And these products, arguably, are just as effective--

THRUSH: Maureen Dowd had a really rough weekend in Denver. [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: Well, she did the marijuana thing equivalent to drinking a half a bottle of tequila. I mean, that's what she did. We were kind of trying to figure it out. She took a 400-milligram dose of marijuana when 25, I think, would've maybe been over the line, but she took 400.

Anyway, and then on the recreational side, I have always maintained that legalizing marijuana will lead to less overall substance abuse because people will find it as such a safer alternative than everything else that's out there, starting with alcohol. The campaign to legalize marijuana in Colorado was a campaign based on marijuana is safer than alcohol. All the statistics that were supposed to go south in Colorado have actually gone north.

THRUSH: Do you think--let me sort of intersect this with the current political argument. Do you think--you know, Donald Trump--one of the interesting aspects of Donald Trump is he's abstemious. He doesn't drink. He doesn't do anything. Do you think he would maybe be a more reasonable fellow if he partook from time to time? [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: Well, perhaps, and that doesn't just apply to Donald Trump. I think when it's legalized, I think here's going to be the experience of millions of Americans who have abstained because it's been illegal and because it's been such a bogeyman drug. I think the reaction is going to be similar to mine when I did it, and that is, wow, this is very pleasant and the government's been lying about this my entire life, and maybe they've been lying about other things too.

THRUSH: So it's a mellow skeptical rage.

MR. JOHNSON: It's a mellow skeptical rage.

THRUSH: [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: The only thing in danger, when it comes to consuming marijuana, is bags of potato chips. They're susceptible to damage.

THRUSH: But if they're Trump potato chips--

MR. JOHNSON: [Laughs]

THRUSH: --then I think you've got…what if Trump--I mean, the other possibility is if Trump brands--I mean, he branded wine, right?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, maybe the marijuana consumer, maybe they're going to be a little bit more aware and won't fall for that one. I don't know. Maybe they'll be more likely to consume a product that's branded "Hi," as in small H, small I, which is one of the assets that Cannabis Sativa has.

THRUSH: Well, and there are two kinds--something I didn't really realize, there are two kinds of marijuana, right? There's cannabis and what's the other one?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, no, there's sativa--

THRUSH: Sativa. I'm sorry.

MR. JOHNSON: --and there's indica. Indica is go-to-sleep marijuana and sativa is clean-your-house marijuana with a smile.

[Laughter.]

THRUSH: And you're going to clean house.

No, the--I should just say, in full disclosure, it was not something I had done, really, at all, as a kid. I've done it in the last couple of years from time to time, to deal with whatever stress or whatever people who've got medical marijuana cards--I just want to be frank about that--and I have found it totally different than the stuff I had when I was a kid, which you had to go to Washington Square Park and the Village to get, and half the time it was oregano.

MR. JOHNSON: Right. Right. No, that--well, that's prohibition. That's overdose deaths. That's heroin overdose. That has everything to do with prohibition--quality, quantity unknown.

THRUSH: So in terms of this--and, of course, this is--marijuana is not just a trivial side note in this conversation. It is, no pun intended, sort of the seed of a larger political ideology that you represent, which is non-prohibition on things and a lack of government intervention in general on most matters.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, let me--you know, there's this talk right now about the heroin epidemic. Let me point out some fact that maybe you're not aware of, Glenn, so I'm going to give you a little quiz here.

Four hundred fifty thousand people are estimated to die every year from their use of tobacco. One hundred thousand people every year are estimated to die from their use of alcohol--not drinking and driving, not guns, but just the physical impacts of using alcohol, 100,000 people. One hundred thousand people are estimated to die every year from their use of legal prescription drugs.

Here we go with the question. This was a shock to me. How many people die every year from cocaine and heroin overdose, based on those other numbers?

THRUSH: Five to ten thousand would be my guess.

MR. JOHNSON: You're right. You're right on. And, of course, the initial knee-jerk is that--

THRUSH: But your alcohol numbers, I think are low-balling it tremendously, because there is a--I think alcohol--I totally agree with you, man. I think alcohol is the most dangerous substance this country has ever known.

MR. JOHNSON: I agree. I agree.

THRUSH: Because there's a knock-on effect that's far more profound societally than just can be quantified by deaths, you know.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes. Oh, absolutely. And so the knee-jerk is, well, of course it's that low, because--and most people don't guess that low. Most people don't make that kind of an educated guess. Most people guess 100,000, you know, 300,000. But bottom line, you could argue that if these were controlled substances, if you actually knew what you were injecting, that that number would be far lower than what it is, because what kills is quality, quantity unknown. What kills is that your dealer forever has now gotten arrested and he's off in jail, and the next day you get the same visual quantity of heroin that you've been consuming for all this time, but, hey, the quality of it is way up and so you end up overdosing.

When they talk about a heroin epidemic right now and, you know, statistics--look, if you're affected by overdose, or, you know, the death due to overdose, I'm not wanting to minimize the impact that this has on individuals. But when you're talking about statistically going from 80 overdose deaths in a state to 92, statistically that's a pretty big number, but the reality is it's not all that big a number.

THRUSH: With oxy--the oxy and prescription thing is, I think, a much larger issue, but that's American in general. It's the legalized stuff that always causes the maximal damage, right, historically.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, and that's--you know, that's back to the FDA and doctors prescribing what is legal, and it's politicians that have passed legislation that this is your only alternative.

THRUSH: Well, here's what's so interesting about you as a candidate, that I find. Everybody, in terms of the Beltway political analyst, talks about how you are a threat to Trump. I read this very interesting Cato analysis--we'll talk about that in a moment. But when--I've watched dozens of your YouTubes, I've seen your speeches, I've seen interviews that you've done--you, to me, in a visceral sense, appeal far more to the Bernie Sanders voter than you do to the Donald Trump voter.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, and speaking to that, in a very objective way, for everybody listening to this go to the website, ISideWith.com. ISideWith.com, 60 questions, really easy to get on the site, but you answer 60 questions and at the end of the 60 questions you get paired up with the presidential candidate most in line with your views. Don't you owe it to yourself to find out who you actually are compatible with?

THRUSH: Right. But do you think, like if we're doing--

MR. JOHNSON: Well, here's--

THRUSH: --like a JDate, would you--are you most compatible, in terms of the candidates in the field, with Sanders, do you think, at this point in time?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, so here are my results. My results are, of course, that I side with myself all of the time.

THRUSH: [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: But next in line of all the candidates left, running for president, I side most with Bernie Sanders, at 73 percent. Now obviously, we come to a T in the road, when it comes to economics, but on the social side we're simpatico. So Bernie Sanders supporters are going to have, in my opinion, the same results that I've got. Take that quiz and guess what? Next to Bernie, I'm going to be your guy.

THRUSH: I'll give you one fundamental difference, that is that you are against--I don't know if this is currently your position, but for a long time you were against student loans because you believe it hikes overall tuition, that it creates an inflated--

MR. JOHNSON: Absolutely.

THRUSH: --an inflated market.

MR. JOHNSON: That's the reason for the high cost of college tuition.

THRUSH: He's for student loan amnesty all together, and that's--by the way, that is a huge element of his appeal, when you look at the polling. Do you think he's just wrong about that?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, what he's right about is that students have been sold a bill of goods, so as president of the United States, at the end of the day, I get to either sign or veto legislation that Congress sends me, I would really take a hard look at how students might, I don't know, receive some sort of benefit or reduced interest rate. I mean, if we can--if the Federal Reserve can bail out all the big banks, it seems to me that we might arrange lower interest rates for these loans to get paid back.

But students have been sold a bill of goods, and the bill of goods is that, you know, there's no excuse for you not to go to college because of guaranteed government student loans, and because of that, in my opinion, college tuition costs twice as much as it would have cost if there would have been no government guaranteed student loans.

THRUSH: Do you feel the same way about the mortgage tax deduction and federal subsidies for housing?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I'd like to scrap the entire tax code. I'd like to eliminate income tax. I would like to eliminate corporate tax. If we do that we can also abolish the IRS.

Look, I think there's a possibility Congress could do that, but at the end of the day they're going to replace it with something. Well, I think a national consumption tax is a really fair way to move forward in this country. It would be easy to administrate. Nobody's going to avoid a consumption tax. Hey, bottom line, you make more money, you're going to consume more. So I suggest--

THRUSH: Well, I make one counter-argument on that, and that is having covered poverty for a while, the highest percentage consumers tend to be on the lowest end of the economic scale, and one of the issues you're dealing with when you're dealing with very wealthy people is they tend to create what used to historically be called stagnant pools of capital, where they hoard. So oftentimes the very wealthy do not consume; they hoard, so it's hard to sort of tax them when they're not consuming.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, and there's also a justified rap that a consumption tax is regressive to those on the lowest end of the scale. Well, what I was going to say is, look at the fair tax as a template for how to dot the I's and cross the T's in accomplishing one federal consumption tax. The way that the fair tax deals with that is they issue everyone a prebate check, every month, through the Social Security Administration, that allows everyone to pay the fair tax up to the point of the poverty level.

THRUSH: It's funny that Donald Trump would call you a fringe candidate, because--

MR. JOHNSON: By the way, I think he just nailed it.

THRUSH: [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: I am totally a fringe candidate, and so is Bill Weld, you know, two Republican governors serving in heavily blue states, outspoken, small government guys, outspoken on the social liberal side. We're fringe, totally. We're fringe. Come on.

THRUSH: Well, you're fringe insofar as you're conversant with issues. I mean, you're speaking with a level of granularity in understanding these issues that seem to be absent from the larger public discourse. To some extent, Hillary--no, Hillary speaks the language of policy as well. I know you don't agree with her. Bernie, perhaps, less so.

To some extent, do you think your utility is to get people to talk about actual shit in the terms that they're supposed to be talked about?

MR. JOHNSON: I do. I think when 50 percent of Americans right now, when they go to register to vote, are declaring themselves as independent, well, where's the representation? At the end of the day, Democrats go out and appeal to 30 percent of the far left, Republicans go out and appeal to 30 percent of the far right. Hey, there's a big middle ground here that's not represented. I think that Bill Weld and myself, I think the Libertarian Party really occupies that ground.

THRUSH: So you're polling right now, and it could be a high water mark, though if you look at '68, Wallace did 14 percent nationally, and was polling this early around that same rate and held it. If that was, in fact, the case, you would be a disruptive force. Do you think--we just talked about your affinity with Sanders' ideology, to some extent--do you believe you pose more of a danger to Trump or more of a danger to Sanders?

MR. JOHNSON: I think it really is 50-50. It's down the middle. I think the majority of Republicans--

THRUSH: I meant Clinton, not Sanders. I'm sorry.

MR. JOHNSON: Yeah, I got it. But at the end of the day I think most Republicans are about smaller government, and, hey, I think Bill Weld and I have smaller government in spades. And at the end of the day, aren't Democrats supposed to be about freedom of choice? You know, bottom line. Let people make their own choices in their own lives. Well, I don't know if they've done so good with that. And then, at the end of the day, how about these military interventions that I'm going to argue make the world less safe, not more safe? How about a couple of skeptics at the table when it comes to military policy and the fact that Congress is not involved at all? They've abdicated the responsibility to the executive.

THRUSH: Oh, they absolutely have with the Syria vote, for example. But before we get on that--

MR. JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah.

THRUSH: --let's get back to the politics. I do want to get to the military stuff because I do think it's important.

But back to kind of the state-by-state thing. Cato did this analysis--I'm sure you saw it in USA Today--where they looked at your potential to sort of--to tie things up to the point where no one gets to 270, and in that instance they went wildly predictive and said you, Gary Johnson, will make Paul Ryan king of the world.

First of all, what do you think of that scenario, and secondly, what is your ideal scenario? What is Governor Johnson's scenario?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, ideal scenario, I would not be doing this if there weren't the opportunity to actually win. But the only opportunity to win is to be in the presidential debates, and to be in the presidential debates you have to be at 15 percent in the polls. Well, you know what? My name has appeared in three national polls--10 percent, 10 percent, 11 percent--but in the meantime, having appeared in those three polls, there have been another 45 national polls where my name has not appeared.

So really, the crux to this whole thing is just getting my name in the polls. I think that the scrutiny that would go along with 10 percent-plus showing--my record, Bill Weld's record as governor--I think it holds up under the light of day.

THRUSH: So you want these--so your message is Quinnipiac, Monmouth, NBC--

MR. JOHNSON: Come on. Put us--put our names in the poll. We're on MSNBC last night, Lawrence O'Donnell, and across the screen all night long is running a new poll, by MSNBC, Trump and Clinton, and he's saying, "You guys should be included in the polls." Well, come on, Lawrence. How about your own network including us in your poll, if this is what you're saying?

THRUSH: So you get on the debate stage--let's play this all the way out--you get on the debate stage, you're going to be making these arguments, and presumably, you know, I heard a couple of Libertarian folks say that you were not a great speaker. I think my experience with you today is somewhat contrary to that. When you get on that stage, and let's say you get these ideas across, and let's say they resonate, where do you go from there?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, that would be inauguration in January of next year.

THRUSH: What states--if we're sort of looking at individual states, because, as you know, national polls are meaningless, apart from the fact that they get you in a debate, right? State-by-state polls are fundamental. Identify for me four to six states where you can make a real difference.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, Bill Weld would be able to list those four to six states here on the East, which I think makes us also a really dream ticket, and Bill Weld--having Bill Weld as a running mate, beyond my wildest dreams, Bill Weld was a role model to me. I wanted to grow up and be like Bill Weld. So having him is just terrific.

But four to six states in the West. I mean, you know, you've got Wyoming, you've got Montana, you've got Alaska, you've got Idaho, you know, arguably New Mexico, Nevada. I mean, there's--you know, this is up for grabs.

THRUSH: Smaller population states where you can have a bigger impact.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, and if I'm in the presidential debates, I mean, anything is possible. I'm not saying I end up--I mean, there's a win being in the presidential debates. If you're in the presidential debates, mathematically you're going to be representing 25 million people.

THRUSH: Right.

MR. JOHNSON: Look, the eventual winner, whether it's either Trump or Clinton, they're going to have to do more than just pay lip service to me if I'm onstage, because they're going to want to garner that support going forward.

THRUSH: It would be very interesting to think of a dynamic with you in that mix between them, because it is you know, because the dynamic that we're all sort of anticipating is this, like, global thermonuclear rhetorical war. And having a third voice in this would entirely change the dynamic.

MR. JOHNSON: And we're not going to throw rocks at either Clinton or Trump.

THRUSH: Tell me about this kissing thing. This was--this amused me to no end. Tell me what you did and what you planned to do, if you were on the debate stage.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, just the notion of being the adult voice on the stage. Let's talk about issues.

THRUSH: Right.

MR. JOHNSON: I mean, issues are up for grabs, but, you know, name-calling and, you know, back and forth, back and forth, come on. Hillary Clinton--is she guilty of her e-mail whatever? Well, was there criminal intent? I don't think so. Donald Trump occasionally says something that makes sense. I don't want to say everything that he says doesn't make sense but occasionally he does say something. Maybe you can tweak my memory as to what that might be. But, like I say, occasionally.

THRUSH: Non-intervention in the Middle East.

MR. JOHNSON: Yeah, there you go. There you go.

THRUSH: But you have been pretty--I was listening to an interview that you gave with Reason magazine in, I guess, late last year, in which you just said he--flat out, you just said he is a racist. He represents a racist strand in American politics. Do you think that's still true?

MR. JOHNSON: Look, I come from New Mexico. Fifty percent of New Mexico population is Hispanic. We're one of four states in the country that is minority-majority, Native American, Hispanic. The things that he is saying relative to the borders are absolutely incendiary and they are wrong. They are just flat wrong. And in the 2012 cycle, it was my voice out there saying, look, building a fence across the border is--really, it's not a good idea. There's no common sense associated with building a fence across the border, and the deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants? This, really, at the basis of that belief is just a misunderstanding of what that really represents. That represents a lot of hard-working people that can't get across the border to legally work, so they cross illegally, something that you would probably do if the situation was reversed, to look after your family.

THRUSH: Well, he described these people as, you know--

MR. JOHNSON: --murderers and rapists--

THRUSH: Right.

MR. JOHNSON: --when, in fact, statistically, they commit far less crime than U.S. citizens. Why wouldn't they commit far less crime? And they are absolutely the cream of the crop when it comes to workers. Let's make it as easy as possible. Let's look across the border--

THRUSH: I interviewed Jeff Sessions about--who claimed ignorance of his own state's law. Let's look at what happened in Alabama to the farmers, when they cracked down on immigration before it was rolled back by the Justice Department. They saw a mass exodus of their farm workers. They couldn't get anybody to replace them to do those jobs.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, that's exactly the case. They're not taking jobs that U.S. citizens want, and it's not an issue of lower pay, unless it's an issue of language. And they're the first ones that recognize that so they--not unlike immigration throughout the history of this country. We are a nation of immigrants, and if the truth be known, don't we need a whole lot of immigrants to be buying homes, and to drive our economy, and to take jobs that U.S. citizens don't want?

THRUSH: It's so interesting. New Mexico is next door to Arizona, which is the crucible of quite the opposite opinion, with Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, they made a name for themselves. I'd say they've created a political bogeyman that really doesn't exist. Now, don't get me wrong. There's petty crime that exists around the border--I get it--but it's not heads lying--it's not cut-off heads lying in the desert.

I have a big business interest, hotel interest, in Tempe, Arizona, and after Jan Brewer came out on this issue, business just absolutely dried up.

THRUSH: Really?

MR. JOHNSON: The entire nation boycotted Arizona from holding any of their conventions.

THRUSH: What is this strain? What does it represent to you? You're clearly wanting to institutionalize your movement into something that is a real third party in the next election, something that's going to be durable and grow and capture this third of Americans or more who identify themselves as independent.

How would you describe this movement that you're seeing--the Trumps, the Arpaio, the Sessions? Give me a sense, historically, where that movement sits?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, just the discontent over Democrats and their spending, and bigger government, and higher taxes, and then the discontent over Republicans and this social conservative dogma that just vilifies anybody that has any notion of living life differently than social conservatives. Look, live and let live, as long as personal decisions don't adversely affect others.

Libertarians, broadly speaking, fiscally conservative, socially liberal. Isn't that where most of us fall down? And even if you're not socially liberal, if you're socially conservative, I think the majority of social conservatives really don't care that their number one issue is smaller government.

THRUSH: Do you think Trump represents those values--smaller government--or can you just not tell?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, no, I don't think it represents smaller government. I mean, just what he's talking about when it comes to immigration, in a state that's 50 percent Hispanic, are doors not going to be knocked on in New Mexico, my door included? But when they get to my door, gee, I'm white, so--well, but maybe we'd better check your basement or your attic to make sure that you're not harboring any illegal immigrants. I mean, this is really incendiary, and if you're Hispanic, 50 percent of the population of New Mexico is going to be subject to getting their doors knocked on?

THRUSH: Do you still think it's racist? I mean

MR. JOHNSON: Yes. Absolutely it's racist. When he calls Mexicans murderers and rapists, that is incendiary. That is misinformed.

THRUSH: This passion that you have about this, this notion of people coming and knocking on your doors, this unfairness that you view, where does that come from? Is there a formative experience in your life? Was there a book you read? Because it really animates you.

MR. JOHNSON: It's living in New Mexico. It's living in New Mexico. It's my friends on the Arizona border, not the New Mexico border because we haven't gone bonkers over this, but it's my friends that are Hispanic, on the Arizona border, that have just resigned themselves to having to carry their papers with them.

THRUSH: You know folks.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I do.

THRUSH: Could you give me an idea--like, without getting too specific, can you give me an example of somebody who's told you their story?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, just that they've got a sticker on their back of their window of their car, "I'm an American." And, you know, and they've resigned--like I say, they have resigned themselves to carry their papers. It's just the way it is, is what they say.

THRUSH: And to you that is personally deeply offensive, as an American.

MR. JOHNSON: To me that is deeply offensive to me, as an American, that an Iraqi war veteran who is Hispanic, is out for a job, and he doesn't have his papers, and he's close to the border, and somehow he's going to get rounded up.

THRUSH: So you were telling me your mother worked in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for the Department of the Interior. Correct?

MR. JOHNSON: That's right. That’s how we got in that's how we arrived in New Mexico.

THRUSH: How--did you--so obviously you grew up around Native Americans, to some extent, right?

MR. JOHNSON: Not really. She was--you know, she was in the office. She balanced the books for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and that's a whole other story. My mom actually single-handedly balanced the books for the Bureau of Indian Affairs--

THRUSH: Really?

MR. JOHNSON: --and the day she left was the multi-billion-dollar imbalance in those books.

THRUSH: So she was a real inspiration in terms of this notion of, like, a smaller, more competent federal government, like a personal inspiration to you?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, sure. And then there was the Indian Preference hiring policy, which was really locked her out of any advancement, so she got early retirement. The day she left, the Bureau of Indian Affairs books went out of balance.

THRUSH: Is she still around?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes. She's alive and so is my dad.

THRUSH: Great to hear. What did your dad do?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, my dad was a schoolteacher. He's now 96 years old. And my dad, actually, was in the 101st Airborne Division. He paratrooped into Normandy before D-Day.

THRUSH: Are you kidding me? What town? Like Saint-Mere-Eglise?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, it was--you know, the Band of Brothers?

THRUSH: Yeah.

MR. JOHNSON: That was my father.

THRUSH: I had no idea.

MR. JOHNSON: Saving Private Ryan. That was the 101st. I mean, my father got bayoneted in the back at the Battle of the Bulge.

THRUSH: So he went through all of that stuff.

MR. JOHNSON: He went through all of it. He was Band of Brothers. That was the story of the 101st, all the way through the war.

THRUSH: So how did you feel when you heard Trump, for instance, talk about--well, Trump talks about veterans now. But how did you feel when he talked about your neighbor, John McCain, about folks getting captured and all that stuff?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, just one page after another, that if any other person running for public office would have made of the 100 comments that he has made, one of them being about John McCain, they would be disqualified from holding office. And yet, turn the page, and tomorrow he'll have another comment, that he keeps on going, unscathed.

THRUSH: Is he fit--intellectually, morally, otherwise--to be president of the United States?

MR. JOHNSON: You know, that's something I don't really engage in. I really believe, at the end of the day, that the American people will make that judgment, and given that I'm in the race, I think I've got a real--

THRUSH: Let me flip it. Are you animated by your personal belief that you want to disrupt that from happening?

MR. JOHNSON: Am I animated? I'm animated by the fact that I happen to have that opportunity.

THRUSH: I'm not going to get you on this one, am I?

[Laughter.]

THRUSH: Let me--one more bite at that apple. Have you, in your experience--you ran in 2012, and obviously you had Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, and you've participated in electoral politics for a really long time. Have you seen a candidate like Donald Trump before, and have you seen a candidate that you perceived as much as a threat as Donald Trump is? Just historically.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, no, no. This is amazing. And you could put Hillary Clinton, arguably, in that same camp. These are arguably the two most polarizing figures in American politics today, and these are our choices? No, they're not your choices. Actually, the Libertarian Party has a choice for you.

THRUSH: Tell me why you think Hillary is equivalent to Trump in this regard.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, not equivalent to Trump, but Democrats. The answer to everything is just bigger government. The answer to everything is growing government, because government has the solution to everything, so at the end of the day it's more taxes, at the end of the day. At the end of the day, hasn't Hillary Clinton been the architect of our foreign policy, and how has that worked out?

THRUSH: Okay. In the couple of minutes we have left, let's talk a little bit about foreign policy. Tell me if I'm getting my numbers right. A while ago you proposed, I believe in 2012, a 43 percent across-the-board cut in federal discretionary spending.

MR. JOHNSON: Which had to do with balancing the federal budget.

THRUSH: Do you--

MR. JOHNSON: At that time it was 43 cents out of every dollar that we were borrowing, printing money. Today that number is 20 percent, so today that's the target number, is 20 percent.

THRUSH: Okay. Well, let me just throw that out. Then don't you give Obama some credit for having cut the deficit down a bit, Obama and the Republican Congress that did some of these budget cuts?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, not really. I mean, cutting the--it is a factor--it's a factor of reduced government spending, it's a factor of economic growth, and we've had government grow, though. So, no, he hasn't contributed to the equation like he--like I thought I heard him say, going back all the way to 2008. I mean, he said all the right things. He said that the deficit really is horrible and that we need to reduce it when the reality is--like I say, he's--he has control over one segment of that equation, and in that segment that he has control over, or some--much control over--government spending--he's--it hasn't happened.

THRUSH: And discretionary is becoming a tinier what people don't realize, and as a governor you knew it, but even back then it wasn't this way. On the federal level and even to a greater extent on the local level, discretionary is getting smaller and smaller and smaller, being crowded out by pensions and entitlements, right?

MR. JOHNSON: And another great untold story is, okay, no legislation passes whatsoever, you're the executive. You get to run federal government. So don't discount the power that lies to achieve smaller government if you've got somebody in the Oval Office that's bent on making that happen.

THRUSH: Okay, but that's a fascinating duality there, because you are a small government Libertarian who sounds like to me like you are advocating a muscular executive in order to--

MR. JOHNSON: Not so much muscular--well, first of all, I want to involve Congress when it comes to foreign affairs, but it's the reality. You run--you know, as governor I got to run state government. So that's the appointment of the heads of all these agencies and if the heads of all these agencies are bent on making government more efficient, guess what, Glenn? It happens.

THRUSH: How about Obama's executive order, which was decried as being a great constitutional violation by the Republicans, Obama's executive order on immigration. Did you consider that to be a violation or did you consider that a reasonable use of targeted executive power?

MR. JOHNSON: I saw it as a reasonable use, challenging Congress to action. And an untold story with regard to Obama and immigration is he's broken up 3 million families. He has deported 3 million heads of households that have gone back to Mexico and their families have remained in the United States.

THRUSH: Huge issue.

MR. JOHNSON: Huge issue. Huge issue.

THRUSH: And something that he--only recently Hillary Clinton criticized him on. In fact, I believe it was only brought up in one debate between he and Sanders.

So back to the foreign policy thing. You hear both Hillary and Trump talk about the threat that ISIS poses. No question that ISIS poses--

MR. JOHNSON: No question.

THRUSH: --an existential threat. How do you do that, cutting 20 percent of the federal defense budget, and how would you go after ISIS? Would you go after ISIS?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, first of all, involve Congress. We've got treaties with 69 countries in the world, to defend their borders, that were not congressionally authorized treaties. They were executive treaties along with the military. Our decisions with regard to the military are executive and they're the military. Involve Congress. Let's get an open debate and discussion and declaration of war, if that's the way that we want to treat ISIS.

But how about a skeptic at the table? Skeptics--Bill Weld and myself--we're planning to do this as a partnership. I mean, I think there's a real symbiotic relationship between the two of us.

THRUSH: And the presidency. By the way, having covered the White House for three years, I can tell you the presidency is sufficiently demanding now that the vice presidential role has expanded. I mean, Cheney was a bellwether in that regard. Biden has followed through.

MR. JOHNSON: Now Cheney, was he the president or the vice president? I'm trying to remember.

THRUSH: [Laughs] Read Bart Gellman's book.

But I interrupted you. You were talking about sort of the skeptics at the table. Would you--

MR. JOHNSON: With skeptics at the table, boots on the ground, dropping bombs.

THRUSH: Would you order--

MR. JOHNSON: Flying drones.

THRUSH: --would you, for instance, if you had reasonable intel--would you have done the bin Laden raid?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes. Yes, that was our goal. That was our goal from day one. Get bin Laden. He was responsible for this. Going into Afghanistan, initially, that was bin Laden. Yes. You attack the United States, we're going to attack back, and let's not label Libertarians as isolationists. Let's label them as diplomacy to the hilt, just smart about this.

THRUSH: So you're with Rand Paul--the sort of second iteration of Rand Paul's foreign policy of skepticism but in instances where--and you do believe ISIS is an existential threat to the country?

MR. JOHNSON: Right, but how is it best--how is it best dealt with? Clearly, we cut off the head of Al Qaeda. Now we have ISIS. We go in, we take out Saddam Hussein. He's really the check when it comes to Iran. Now we're having to deal with Iran, where prior to that Iran's only concern was Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Unintended consequences relative to everything we do.

THRUSH: Well, remember, billion-dollar-a-month check, the Clinton administration had that no-fly zone in Iraq, and that seemed to stabilize things for a period of time.

So the other thing I find fascinating about you, the other wildfire that's really striking in terms of the Trump thing is the free trade stuff. You have been on the record as saying you thought NAFTA was good for New Mexico. Do you support the TPP, and do you think that this backlash against trade is bullshit?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, first of all, NAFTA. Would I have signed it or not? My skepticism says that maybe I wouldn't have signed it, because these trade agreements are just laden with crony capitalism. Would I have signed or implemented the Trans-Pacific Partnership? I've got to tell you, I think it's laden with crony capitalism. Free market really is the answer. It's the answer to unifying the whole planet, in my opinion, and if China wants to subsidize the goods that it sells to the United States, who benefits from that? Well, we do. And at the end of the day, who pays for any sort of tariffs? We do.

So free trade, genuine free trade, that's another one of Trump's--you know, hey, he says "I'm all for free trade" but then, in the next sentence, he says, "I'm going to force Apple to make their iPads and their iPhones in the United States." Hm, that sounds really free trade to me.

THRUSH: Well, in the couple of minutes I have left I just want to talk to you about some other sort of general stuff. Again, kind of getting back to the kinds of things that you did. You started off as a--this is, like, kind of your story, right. You started off as a handyman and then you started to run a construction business over time.

First of all, tell me about this handyman thing that got your way through school. What did you major in and have you always been sort of good at that kind of thing?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, I majored in political science and English, but starting from the age of 17 I've paid for everything that I've had in my life. It was a personal choice. My parents would have helped me in any way whatsoever, but for me, you know what? I can make my own way.

THRUSH: Do you have brothers and sisters?

MR. JOHNSON: I do. My brother is the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the world, and I know that for a fact because he tells me that all the time.

THRUSH: Where does he--

MR. JOHNSON: He's actually the head of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a big, big medical center. And my sister, a schoolteacher, and she's now very active in retirement, and she's way too young to be retired.

THRUSH: Are they Libertarians as well?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, you know, my entire family, growing up, was very nonpolitical, very nonpolitical, everybody.

THRUSH: But informed.

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, yeah, informed.

THRUSH: But tell me a little bit, again, about sort of the doing the jobs. Are you naturally handy? Are you a good mechanical--

MR. JOHNSON: I'm the handiest guy you've ever met.

THRUSH: [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: So I took construction jobs starting at 17, because they were the highest-paid jobs, and then along comes the fact that I'm 21 years old, and the contractor I was working for ran out of work, so I had my brother, my cardiothoracic brother, hand out circulars door to door, at two cents a circular. He'd hand out 100 circulars. I'd end up getting six jobs. And it's amazing what happens when you show up on time, when you do what you say you'll do.

THRUSH: What was--okay, what was the most--what is your proudest achievement in terms of bringing something back to life?

MR. JOHNSON: Bringing something back--

THRUSH: Fixing something?

MR. JOHNSON: I--

THRUSH: What's the craziest thing you've ever fixed?

MR. JOHNSON: There were so many. I mean, I remember one particular electrical problem in an addition that we'd done, and the electrician just throws up his hands and goes, "Man, I just don't know what's wrong." And I crawled up in the attic, and I can't even remember what the specific was, but after a couple of minutes I found out what the problem was and fixed it, and, you know, he's just eating away at himself that he didn't see it or recognize it.

THRUSH: Did you ever screw anything up? [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: Oh, are you kidding? Are you kidding? But the key to screwing up is, you know, admitting it and fixing it.

THRUSH: My father was a contractor. He wasn't so good at the second part of that.

Okay. One last thing.

MR. JOHNSON: That was another one of my mantras, was, “guaranteed, we'll screw it up but we'll fix it.”

THRUSH: You'll come back and fix it. Not a bad one for a president, though you'd need a second term.

Books. It seems to me you are--I'm just imputing that you are a reader.

MR. JOHNSON: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love a good book. I love a good book.

THRUSH: What do you read?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, the last book I read was Flash Crash, which I thought was just fascinating, you know, looking at front-running the numbers on Wall Street. I just found it fascinating, and what a rigged game. And the notion of any of these brokerage firms that would have their own dark pools that, you know, you, as the consumer, you lose a couple of cents on every share of stock that you trade because it's being front run by someone else? I mean, wow!

Back to legislation. As governor of New Mexico, people that have money rig the system, and government can play a role in leveling the playing field.

THRUSH: Well, that's my--exactly. That's my question. You're obviously critical of TARP. Would you have repeated Glass-Steagall? Do you think that there needs to be re-imposition of those sorts of regulations?

MR. JOHNSON: Yeah, and just count on me to--as president of the United States, count on me--and this is what I did as governor. You know, we did an analysis of every single bill, and at the end of the day was the bill going to make things better? Was the average citizen's life going to be improved by the legislation or, at the end of the day, was it just going to add time and money and really not accomplish anything?

Well, for the most part, time and money got added, and at the end of the day I stood up and said, "I don't think this is going to make a difference in any of our lives. Sounds good. Looks good. It's a problem that we have. But government solving it with this piece of legislation? Uh-uh."

THRUSH: What is it about the physical, because you seem to really crave, I wouldn't say the adventure. No, there is an adventure element in it. What is it about this physicality that appeals to you? What kind of state do you get in when you're doing these things?

MR. JOHNSON: I think that everybody is in search of Zen, being in the state of Zen, and very simply, Zen is just being in the moment. So whatever gets you there, whether that's music, whether that's golf, whether that's reading, writing, you name it, find out what it is--your job, ideally, that you would find yourself in the moment in your job, liking what it is that you do.

For me, athletics puts me in the moment. Mountaineering. Hey, when all you've got to think about is shitting and pissing and drinking and sleeping and breathing, you know what? That's a wonderful state to be in.

THRUSH: And you like the reduction of those distraction.

MR. JOHNSON: The in-the-moment, in-the-moment. So that's athletics for me. Marathons, Iron Man, mountaineering, mountain biking.

THRUSH: Is there--again, no pun intended, but was there an apex? Was there a moment in your life you felt where you had achieved--how close have you gotten to that ideal?

MR. JOHNSON: You know what? That's my life, every day. Like today is the best day of my life, except for tomorrow. That's my life.

Getting back to business, money, for me, has always represented freedom. That's what money has represented for me, not things. I have enough money. I don't owe a cent to anybody. No mortgage on anything. So-

THRUSH: That is such a duality with you. I'm sorry to just harp on this. That's a really significant differentiation between you and Trump in the way that you view money.

MR. JOHNSON: It is. Well, Donald Trump is the antithesis of what I think I would do with money. If I had all the money in the world, would I have a jet aircraft? Absolutely, and I've had an airplane and I'm a pilot. But at the end of the day, I don't want gold-plated seat belts on my jet. That's just--

THRUSH: This validation--do you think he's using money as sort of a validation--for validation, not for freedom, in the way that you kind of view it?

MR. JOHNSON: I do. I absolutely do. And for all the money that he has he's never going to get--well, maybe he'll try and charter a helicopter, which would be an illegal landing on Everest, but he's not going to get to the top of Everest.

THRUSH: And you've got that.

MR. JOHNSON: I do, and that doesn't involve money. I mean, it involves a certain amount of money, but I put myself in that position. That was my goal.

THRUSH: So you don't think this man is happy, fulfilled person, in general.

MR. JOHNSON: No. I won't make that--I won't make that judgment. I just want you to know that I am a happy, fulfilled individual.

THRUSH: I guess the nature of Zen is not to say "Fuck you. I've got Zen you don't," right?

MR. JOHNSON: No, it's not.

THRUSH: [Laughs]

MR. JOHNSON: No, no. If this is his living in the moment, which--I--that's--anyway--

THRUSH: I think his living in the moment is giving a speech.

MR. JOHNSON: Maybe.

THRUSH: I really do. I mean, I think the man is completely--he is totally at peace when he's in front of a crowd. I really do.

MR. JOHNSON: Hey, so he's got it. He's got it and I've got it.

THRUSH: Okay. So the final thing is here, you're embarking on this. You said--the other thing that I heard you say in a couple of interviews was that you were really kind of miserable in 2012 when you did this, and you got 1 percent, essentially, of the vote in '99. And the process of doing it really wasn't fun. Tell me why it wasn't fun and how it's going to be different this time.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, it's completely--so, in retrospect, 90 percent of what I did in 2012--and I don't want to take away from all the people that worked so hard, but here it is now. We worked so hard and here it is, we are where we're at. But 90 percent of what I did in 2012 ended up to be wasted time. Well, I'm not repeating any of the 90 percent right now because that would be expecting different results.

THRUSH: What was the wasted time?

MR. JOHNSON: Oh, gosh, Internet radio. I must have spent 3 months on Internet radio, I mean, as in 24/7, where the person conducting the interview I envisioned as somebody in their mid-40s, underwear, basement, and the only audience was their parents the next floor up.

THRUSH: I am wearing pants.

MR. JOHNSON: You know, there are exceptions to everything, and, you know, you pick the best.

Showing up to events where thousands of people were guaranteed that if I would just show up I'd get to address thousands of people--I'm not making this up--and there would be nine people.

THRUSH: Right.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, okay. So now pay my expenses. Just pay my expenses, which aren't--which--you know, we're not talking about a whole lot of expenses. I never fly first class, ever. I'm as frugal as anybody that you've met. Cheap and frugal are two different things. I'm not cheap but I'm very frugal.

But anyway, when people have skin in the game, amazingly the event turns out closer to what was promised.

THRUSH: It feels like this is a different--this is--I think this is a totally different dynamic than 2012 for you. Don't you think?

MR. JOHNSON: Well, totally, and here's another factor. Here was my trajectory line in 2012. When you from 0 to 1.3 million votes, people don't realize that this is the trajectory line. Well, that has never stopped. And now that it's at 10 percent, whenever it gets measured, well, now that--you know, that momentum has not--it's been straight line up, really. It's just that now it's gotten noticed.

THRUSH: Well, if that's going to be the case you're going to really make a factor in this election.

Listen, Gary Johnson, thanks again for taking the time.

MR. JOHNSON: Oh, Glenn, it was fun. Thank you.