Darrell Castle spoke with Glenn Beck associates Pat and Stu today. Here are his words, unfiltered.

On Trade

Stu: I like free trade. You are talking a lot about tariffs, but you’re combining that with something that I really like, which is getting rid of the IRS and a lot of taxes. So could you kind of explain how you want to work that?

I don’t talk a lot about tariffs…it’s part of our platform, it was part of the original intent of the Founders as to how they wanted to raise revenue. But whether we like it or not, this is a global world right now, and it’s a pretty tough sale to tell people that everything they buy is going to cost more, although without an income tax, they might find it quite refreshing. But I don’t have a problem with free trade; I have a problem with free trade agreements, because they surrender the sovereignty of the United States to international corporations and bureaucrats unaccountable to the American people.

If we want to work out a deal with Mexico, for example, where we can trade with each other without tariffs, that’s fine with me.

Answering smears

Pat: We’re trying to get to know you, and we came across this very unflattering article about you. It talks about conspiracy theories…. Do you think Angela Merkel is Adolf Hitler’s secret daughter?

Castle: Well, I don’t. Regardless of what that article says, I’m not mentally ill; I’m not insane. The writer of it might be called into question, but I did a podcast a few months ago concerning Muslim immigration into Germany and Europe itself, and in that podcast I said that Mrs. Merkel is so concerned about being a descendant of Adolf Hitler—and by that I meant that he’s chancellor of Germany and she’s chancellor of Germany and she’s very conscious of that and she acts in a manner that she’s trying to live that down by total acceptance of immigration into Germany. That’s all I meant.

Stu: Are you a birther, do you think Ted Cruz is not able to be president? Give me the birthpl..(unintelligible) of Barack Obama and Ted Cruz.

Castle: You know, when you can’t refute a person’s ideas, when you can’t argue with his principles, you have to attack him personally. When you argue in favor of constitutional government you’re going to be attacked personally. That’s the way it is. If you want to use those labels, I don’t accept them. I’m not a birther; I don’t know where Barack Obama was born…I think Senator Cruz—as I’ve said many times—is highly qualified and if I had been a Republican, which I’m not, I would’ve voted for him in the primaries.

Pat: How long have you been a member of the Constitution Party?

Castle: I was a founding member; the party was founded in 1992.

Social issues

Stu: One of your selling points is your position on social issues. Trump is all over the board, Clinton is obviously very liberal and Johnson, he seems to be very liberal on many social issues, as well.…Can you kind of walk us through your platform as far as social issues?

Castle: I assume you mean things like abortion. I’m very pro-life; I make no apologies for that. I think the Constitution is quite clear that no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. The government gets around that by just redefining what a person is. And saying those living inside their mothers are not persons.

Well, we’ve done that before. When you concede to the government the right to decide what a person is, you’re in very dangerous territory, so we’re pro-life. That’s number one.

If you want to talk about the other social issues, same-sex marriage and things of that nature, I’m a Christian, so I’m opposed to same-sex marriage, in fact, I don’t think it exists. I think God defines what marriage is; but if a same sex couple came to me, and I were president of the United States, and [they] said, “Look, we’re married, here’s a Catholic priest a Protestant Minister, and a civil magistrate who’ll testify to that, I’d say, “I don’t care what those people say, to me you’re not married, because God defines what marriage is.” To me, that’s irrelevant, I don’t care, it has nothing to do with the government. (crosstalk)

You require a license to do everything, including to get married, and who you’re going to sleep with.

On ISIS and national defense

Pat: What would you do if you were president of the United States to contain or destroy ISIS, or would you do anything about that?

Castle: You may have noticed that I’m the only of the candidates, of a legitimately qualified party, who is qualified as a military veteran, so I would treat their lives very dearly. What would I do about ISIS? Well this country has sixteen different intelligence agencies, and without a briefing from them on what the threats to this country really are, that’s a hard question to answer, but I will say that I would do whatever was necessary and within my power as president to defend this country, whatever it took.

Why is it so difficult for a third party to break through?

Stu: Can you kind of walk me through how you get on the ballot, and how the two parties pretty much screw your guys, …and why it’s hard for a third party to make a dent in an election?

Castle: All 50 states have control of their own access to the ballot, and all 50 state legislatures are controlled by Democrats and Republicans. So they make access to their ballots difficult to obtain. You either have to have a lot of money or a lot of people, and those are difficult to obtain in a short period of time.

A lot of times, the requirement to gather signatures, sometimes thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, has to be done within a short period of time like three months. That makes it very very difficult, so that the third parties have to expend all their money just getting on the ballot, so they have nothing left to attack the other two parties.

Comparison to Donald Trump

Stu: What is your rundown on the other candidates. What are your main areas of disagreement, starting with Donald Trump?

Castle: Well, as I said the Constitution is very important, and Mr. Trump doesn’t even know what it is. If I said observe the law, he would say, “What law?” He’s a businessman, he thinks the government can be run like a business, he just tells people what to do and they do it. In government we have limits, and that limit is the Constitution. It tells the president what his power is and what his power is not, so that’s a very big difference.

Pat: If people want to help out or find out more, what can they do?

Castle: Well, they could go to our website, which is Castle2016.com, and they’ll find a button on there, where they can donate money, which I’ll admit we desperately need. And if they wanted to reach the campaign to volunteer, they could just e-mail my campaign manager, that would be [email protected]

Pat: And you also have pretty much your platform there, and where you stand on issues?

Castle: We’re the only conservative candidate, so if you lean in that direction, you might want to think about it.

Pat: Thanks, for coming on.

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