O'Reilly: What is the biggest thing you have been wrong about?
Romney: It's probably about the issue of abortion and life. I have always opposed abortion, but when I ran for office I thought, well, I can understand the idea of leaving the law the way it is. The Supreme Court has made its decision, and I'm just going to say I support the law. That was somewhat naïve because when I became governor a piece of legislation came to my desk that would redefine when life begins and authorize the creation of embryos for the purpose of experimentation. So I said, look, I am pro-life and I will defend the sanctity of life. I vetoed that bill ... When I was faced with signing a piece of legislation that would authorize the creation and killing of human life I could not possibly go along with that.
O'Reilly: Do you consider yourself a conservative thinker?
Romney: I am conservative and I've become more conservative over time.
O'Reilly: You weren't conservative when you were running Massachusetts, you were a moderate. What changed you?
Romney: Actually, I think my record as governor was a conservative record.
O'Reilly: 'Romneycare' is not a conservative thing - the thought behind it is that government should get involved with people's health care. That's not a conservative position.
Romney: Actually, the idea came from conservatives at the Heritage Foundation and Newt Gingrich. The idea was that people who don't have insurance are given free care by government. I said, gosh, this is a problem - the premise that government owes these people doesn't make sense, personal responsibility makes more sense. People should take responsibility for getting their own insurance rather than showing up at the emergency room and expecting government to pay for them.
O'Reilly: A lot of conservatives don't trust you, they think you're a phony and you're just doing this to win the primary, then you'll go back to being that Massachusetts guy.
Romney: I had the same posture and the same views in my last presidential campaign four years ago and you can go back and look at my record as governor. I cut taxes 19 times, balanced the budget, and insisted on English immersion in our schools.

O'Reilly: What's the matter with President Obama's leadership? What is he missing in the leadership component?
Romney: One, he's never been a leader before ... It's wonderful to be an author and editor, but I'm talking about leading an organization, growing something, hiring and firing people. He never had that experience and he never recognized that part of leadership is finding friends and allies across the aisle.
O'Reilly: Is he a socialist?
Romney: I prefer to use the term that he's just over his head.
O'Reilly: But you have to look at his economic plan, which is top down federal leadership. People say, listen, the guy's a socialist and he's going to wage class warfare against you if you get the nomination. Is he a socialist?
Romney: I consider him a big government liberal Democrat who thinks Europe got it right and we got it wrong. I think Europe got it wrong and I'll battle him on that day in and day out. I'm probably not going to be calling him names, I'll be calling him a failure.
O'Reilly: What happens if he wins again?
Romney: I think we hit a Greece-like wall. Before the end of his second term there's a very high risk that we would hit a financial crisis. It's also very possible that we would continue to see very high levels of unemployment. You would see industry and entrepreneurs decide to take their investment dollars to other nations. This President has put together the most anti-investment, anti-growth, and anti-job policies I've seen since Jimmy Carter.
O'Reilly: To me the most serious problem facing the country is the $15 trillion debt. The pinheads in Congress can't even get together to cut $1.2 trillion; how are you going to cut this debt?
Romney: One, eliminate a lot of programs that we don't have to have. 'Obamacare' is the easiest and there are others. Two, take a lot of programs like Medicaid that are growing at an uncontrolled rate and turn them back to the states. And number three, we cut the federal workforce by 10% through attrition and we link federal pay with the pay in the private sector. We also reform Social Security and Medicare, not for current retirees but for the next retirees.