REPORTER: Mr. President, can you explain why you've approved of and expanded the practice of what's called rendition, of transferring individuals out of U.S. custody to countries where human rights groups and your own State Department say torture is common for people under custody?
DUBYA: The post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack. That was the charge we have been given. And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured. That's the promise we receive. This country does not believe in torture. We do believe in protecting ourselves. We don't believe in torture.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you feel that this is a point in the debate where it's incumbent upon you, and nobody else, to lay out a plan to the American people for how you actually keep Social Security solvent for the long-term?
DUBYA: First of all, Dave, let me, if I might correct you, be so bold as to correct you, I have not laid out a plan yet, intentionally.

I'm lookin' forward to meeting these uhh — very brave souls. They've, uhh, committed themselves to a peaceful solution, and hopefully, their loved one'd will not have died in vain. I mean, out of this — hopefully, some good will come out of the evil perpetuated on this family.

I repeat, personal accounts do not permanently fix the solution. They make the solution more attractive for the individual worker. And that's important for people for understand, John, and that's why it's very important for Congress to discuss this issue.

I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's — I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table.

We can compete with anybody — at least, I think so.

Heck, we're 5 percent of the world's population, which means there's 95 percent of the people ready for products that say, "Made in the USA."

That's what we're here to discuss. It's an economic lesson. But we're not using PhD's. Well, we're using PhD's in the sense that we're talking to entrepreneurs who are on the front lines of making capital decisions every day.

If an insurance carrier can spread risk across a variety of people or a variety of firms, it makes it more likely his health care goes down.

Now, the advantage of this plan is — the tax-free is an advantage, by the way.

By the way, Patty is a 7-Eleven franchisee, owner. Pays taxes, by the way, business taxes at the individual income tax rate. So when you hear them talking about, going to run up these — tax the rich, that's what you're talking about, right there.

We need less regulations. I suspect — we met with a homeowner — home builder yesterday, Congressman. Remember the guy? He was upset that he had to fill out forms at the federal, state, and local level in order to build a house.

A small business owner's outlook is improved when there's a new product available that says, gosh, I'm meeting the needs of my employees and also being able to better control costs.

I was the guy that said they [the U.N.] ought to vote. And one country voted — at least showed their cards, I believe. It's an old Texas expression, show your cards, when you're playing poker. France showed their cards.

All of us need to step back and try to figure out how to make the U.N. work better as we head into the 21st century. Perhaps one way will be, if we use military force, in the post-Saddam Iraq the U.N. will definitely need to have a role. And that way it can begin to get its legs, legs of responsibility back.

The way I like to put it is this. There's no bigger issue for the President to remind the moms and dads of America, if you happen to have a child, be fortunate to have a child, your biggest priority is going to be to love your children.

We need to change that attitude about how prolific we can be with the people's money.