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Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman on Sunday lashed out at Mitt Romney for having the nerve to criticize him for serving his country as the ambassador to China while the former Massachusetts governor was busy raising money to run for the Republican nomination for president.

"Governor, you were, the last two years, implementing the policies of this administration in China," Romney had told Huntsman during an ABC debate Saturday night. "The rest of us on this stage were doing our best to get Republicans elected across the country and stop the policies of this president from being put forward."

Huntsman had a chance to respond the next morning during a debate hosted by NBC.

"I was criticized last night by governor Romney for putting my country first," Huntsman said. "And I just want to remind the people in New Hampshire and throughout the United States that he criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in China."

"Yes, under a Democrat like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy," the former ambassador admitted. "They're not asking what political affiliation the president is. I want to be very clear with the people here in New Hampshire and this country: I will always put my country first."

NBC debate moderator David Gregory asked Romney for a response.

"I think we serve our country first by standing for people who believe in conservative principles, and doing everything in our power to promote an agenda that does not include President Obama's agenda," Romney declared. "I just think it's most likely that the person who should represent our party running against President Obama is not someone who called him a remarkable leader and went to be his ambassador in China."

Huntsman didn't wait for Gregory to prompt him for a rebuttal.

"This nation is divided, David, because of attitudes like that," he quipped.

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Of all the Republican candidates, I think Jon Huntsman is at least sane. Sane, and somewhat reasonable in his policy ideas. I don't agree with him, but I do respect him coming from a perspective that's not sheer insanity.

In Saturday night's debate, he tangles a bit with Mitt Romney. Mitt was particularly condescending at this debate. It's a miracle he even deigned to acknowledge Huntsman's existence, much less actually engage with him. Romney speaks what everyone knows: Jon Huntsman is toast in the Republican party of 2012, because he was President Obama's Ambassador to China before he was a candidate for President. But not content to stop there, Romney then goes off on a complete rant about China and how he's going to be authoritative and make them do what President Romney wants them to do.

To which Jon Huntsman says, Mitt Romney, you don't know what you're talking about. That's not really much of a retort, unless of course, it's done in Mandarin. I know Jon Huntsman is going to be done after Tuesday, but I really enjoyed him giving Romney a taste of what someone who actually understands a country thinks when Mittens spouts off with more of his silly neocon authoritarian stuff.

The most pathetic part of this exchange is how clueless Romney really is. He thinks, like most neocon Republicans, that we can just swagger around and tell China what to do. He hasn't really picked up on the fact that those days ended when his party sold us to China to pay for wars and tax cuts.

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Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman won't be puckering up for Donald Trump anytime soon.

Huntsman, along with Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), has declined to take part in a Newsmax debate moderated by Trump later this month. Appearing on NBC Monday, the notorious birther slammed Huntsman as someone who wasn't going to win the nomination anyway.

Later on Monday, Fox News host Martha MacCallum gave the GOP hopeful a chance to respond.

"I'm not going to kiss his ring, and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy," Huntsman explained. "This is exactly what is wrong with politics. It is show business over substance. If he had any courage at all, he would be running for president of the United States of America as opposed to manipulating the process from the outside."

"The presidency of the United State of America is more important than these silly game shows and reality shows."

An obviously-bitter Trump had also assailed Huntsman in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd Monday.

"By the way, Mr. Huntsman called my office a number of times trying to set up a meeting," the billionaire claimed. "I didn't have a meeting with him and then he went on the debate and said, 'I didn't meet with Mr. Trump like everybody else in the room.' So, you know, I'm sure he'll tell the truth about that because he's a Mormon."

In a statement to Think Progress, Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller didn't address the religious attack, but did dismiss the meeting claim as something that had been "litigated in the press before."

"You’ll be surprised to find out that it's Mr. Trump who is not telling the truth," Miller said. "We never requested a meeting. We are focused on issues that matter not presidential apprentice."

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Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman said Sunday that he was "not running" his past support for in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.

Both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have recently been hit with criticism for policies that could benefit immigrants.

During a September debate for the Republican nomination, Perry charged that candidates who oppose in-state tuition have "no heart." The governor later said that he chose "a poor word to explain that."

At a debate this month, Gingrich declared he was "prepared to take the heat" for supporting some form of amnesty.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney immediately pounced on Gingrich, who was leading Romney in some polls.

"We've got to stop illegal immigration," Romney said. "That means turning off the magnets of amnesty, in-state tuition for illegal aliens, employers that knowingly hire people that have come here illegally."

On Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace noted that Huntsman had also supported in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.

"That's right," Huntsman said. "That was supported by the people of my state, it was supported by the legislature, and I supported it as well. I'm not running from that at all."

The candidate added that the U.S. shouldn't decide what to do about the 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants until the border had been completely secured with "fencing and technology and boots on the ground."

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The audience at Saturday night's Republican presidential debate erupted into applause at the mention of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that is often described as torture.

The National Journal's Major Garrett asked Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain to respond to a Vietnam veteran who said he believed torture was wrong in all cases.

Cain agreed that torture was wrong, but said he would defer to the military as to what techniques constituted torture.

"Mr. Cain, of course you are familiar with the long-running debate we've had about whether waterboarding constitutes torture or is an enhanced interrogation technique," Garrett noted. "In the last campaign, Republican nominee John McCain and Barack Obama agreed that it was torture and should not be allowed legally."

"I don't see it as torture. I see it as an enhanced interrogation technique," Cain replied as the audience expressed approval.

Garrett then turned to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann for her response.

"If I were president, I would be willing to use waterboarding," she explained as the crowd cheered wildly. "It was very effective. It gained information for our country."

But two of the candidates actually agreed with the veteran who said waterboarding should not be used under any circumstance. Both Rep. Ron Paul and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said waterboarding amounted to torture.

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At Tuesday's The Washington Post/Bloomberg Republican presidential debate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum declared that he actually wanted "to go to war with China."

Fellow candidate Mitt Romney promised that if elected, he would immediately label China as a currency manipulator, but added, "I don't want a trade war with anybody."

"You know, Mitt, I don't want to go to a trade war," Santorum remarked. "I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business."

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Sunday that she was "open" to implementing Sarah Palin's suggestion that all corporate income taxes be abolished.

"I propose to eliminate all federal corporate income tax," Palin had said in a speech to the tea party in Iowa Saturday. "This is how we create millions of high-paying jobs... To eliminate any loss of federal revenues from this tax cut, we eliminate corporate welfare and all the loopholes, and we eliminate all the bailouts."

"We could go that route," Bachmann told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday. "If we went that route then we'd have to have a fundamental restructuring of the tax code. I'm open to having that debate... What we do know is that the current corporate tax rate is killing job creation."

"So you could see a way to do that?" Schieffer pressed.

"It would be possible if we have a fundamental restructuring of the tax code," Bachmann insisted. "But immediately what we could do is repatriation of bringing this money in from American companies that are earning the money overseas. But second, I do believe that the president at minimum should lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent so that businesses can see that they will have a more competitive rate. We certainly could get down to a 0 percent corporate tax rate but it would mean a fundamental restructuring of the tax code."

Later on CBS, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman suggested that Palin's idea just wasn't realistic.

"That's a great political bromide," he said.

"How do you do it? How do you make the numbers work? All I'm telling you is I have been there and I have done that... I know how difficult it is to make the numbers work. You have got to find the revenue somewhere that you can reinvest back in the tax code to bring down the rate for everybody."

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As our friend Jed Lewinson pointed out over at the Daily Kos, GOP candidate and so-called "moderate" Jon Huntsman called for some "shared sacrifice" from the rich on the PBS Newshour this Thursday, but of course that "sacrifice" should not come in the form of a tax increase. I agree completely with this assessment of that statement by Huntsman during the interview:

Excuse me, but isn't punting on that question pretty much the definition of hesitating? And how can you be taken seriously if you simultaneously rule out tax increases?

Sure, Huntsman talks a good game, and he's great at delivering "adult in the room" soundbites, but when comes down to it, on the most important issues, he's every bit as big a baby as every other Republican in the field.

What Lewinson left out was some of the claptrap we heard leading up to that. This guy is supposed to be what's considered a "moderate" candidate in the GOP presidential primary field, but what was he touting here? The same old tired talking points we've heard out of the rest of them. Flatten our tax structure and raise taxes on lower income earners, meaning the poor and the middle class. Qualified with weasel words like we could take a "progressive approach" to raising income taxes on those who don't make enough money to be paying them now.

During this interview he also promoted means testing Social Security which would turn it into a welfare program, which of course is just one step in getting rid of it altogether. He also promoted lowering taxes on corporations to make us "more competitive" and to "attract investment" which just equals another race to the bottom on wages and rewarding our under taxed corporations who still would have no incentive to put Americans back to work if we don't do something to fix our trade laws and our tax structure which rewards companies for offshore tax havens and for hiring slave labor overseas.

I don't know how much worse things are going to have to get before we move both parties back over to the left instead of what passes for the "center" these days and either party starts enacting policies where they do the right thing and help the unemployment problem we've got here before we end up as some third world country with nothing but rich and poor. Sadly the only group of politicians I've seen that from who look like they genuinely have the interests of the American worker at heart is the Progressive Caucus in the House.

All I heard from this supposedly "moderate" Republican candidate was more of the same promoting the policies that got us to where we are now with our economy being in horrible shape, more tax cuts for those that don't need them, and more dismantling of our social safety nets.

Transcript via PBS below the fold:

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Jon Huntsman announces his presidential candidacy, and Stephen finds the perfect generic Republican presidential candidate.

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Former Republican Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman said last week that Barack Obama had "failed" as president.

But Obama's chief campaign strategist says that Huntsman praised the president in private while serving as the ambassador to China.

"It was a little surprising to me because when we were in Shanghai we got a chance to talk," David Axelrod told CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday. "And he was very effusive, this was in the fall of 2009, about what the president was doing. He was encouraging on health care, he was encouraging on a whole range of issues. He was a little quizzical about what he was going on in his own party. And you got the strong sense that he was going to wait until 2016 for the storm to blow over."

"I understand that's politics. He's a politician. And he sees an opportunity. But it is -- it's a stark contrast to what he said when he wasn't on your program."