Rand Paul: Trump Just Had His “Tear Down This Wall” Moment

President Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East was historic for many reasons. But Glenn and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) agree that perhaps the biggest moment was when he denounced “western intervention” and “so-called nation builders.” Gone are the days of a system that led to endless wars and destroyed nations. Instead, Trump is aiming to let nations develop themselves through good trade relations. Sen. Paul also comments on Boeing’s Air Force One delays, Qatar’s plane offer, why he can’t support Congress’ current version of Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” and what might be in store for Dr. Fauci regarding COVID investigations.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: We welcome to the program Rand Paul, senator from the great state of Kentucky.

Rand, I want to play something for you. And in yesterday's speech, which I think should have been like a Libertarian's dream. It was mine.

Listen to this.

DONALD: And it's crucial for the wider world to know, this great transformation is not coming from Western interventionalists, or flying people in beautiful planes. Giving you lectures on how to live. And how to govern your own affairs. No. The gleaming marbles of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, was not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spend trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal, Baghdad, so many other cities.

Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves. The people that are right here. The people who have lived here all their lives, developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies and your own way.

It's really incredible what you've done. In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies.

That they did not even understand themselves. They told you, you had to do it. But they had no idea how to do it themselves.

Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather, from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage, that you love.

So dearly.

GLENN: Rand Paul, what did you think of that?

RAND: Pretty amazing. You know, there have been so many times, when I've heard President Trump speak, or seen his actions on foreign policy, that have been -- oh, my goodness. This is the best president we've had in my lifetime.

GLENN: I know. I thought he sounded almost like Washington at that point.

Just like, do it yourself. We're not here to tell you what to do. I haven't heard that ever, from any president.

RAND: And this is why the Bush wing hates Donald Trump so much as an establishment. Because these are the people who wanted to spend freedom at the point of a gun everywhere, they thought they were going to shape the world for democracy, which is a sort of leftover Woodrow Wilson idea. But, no. This is the part of Donald Trump I completely embrace, encourage, and will defend, and defend on a daily basis.

GLENN: So I said earlier today. That part of that speech was as significant as the Gorbachev tear down this wall speech. Agree or disagree?

RAND: I agree. It's incredibly significant to say, you know, we've helped these relationships, not by bossing around the world. Not by intervening. But by basically, you know, trading, and he didn't use the word trade. He could have.

But basically, having trade and good relations with these countries that had to develop themselves.

GLENN: So while we're there, why don't we talk about -- why don't we talk about, I don't know, trading nothing for 400 million-dollar airplane.

Where do you stand on this gift from Qatar?

RAND: You know, you can't take gifts, unless they're approved by Congress. I think Jefferson was offered something. And Congress actually voted against Thomas Jefferson being allowed to keep it. But you can't do it. I mean, it just -- and it's going to set up the appearance of impropriety whether Congress will protect him or not.

Possibly. But the other thing is, we're the world's largest arms merchant. We sell arms by the billions, everywhere throughout the Middle East. We populate the heads of every war on the planet.

And so Qatar is a big recipient of arms from us, and so we make these decisions. And the president pretty much makes them on his own.

Congress has the chance to object, and I've objected in the past with arms, when I felt like -- particularly when the Journalist Khashoggi was killed by the Saudis. I thought we should have laid off arms for a while, and somebody should have had to pay some penance over that.

GLENN: Great.

RAND: And so I've tried to block different arms sales before, but there's a potential that the administration's protectiveness will be codified over a million dollar plane. There are also practical concerns as well.

One of them is, is where are we on the one that they have ordered? And it's already made. And they're just upgrading it, you know, putting the electronics, defensive weapons on Air Force One, and they're within six months of being completed.

Qatar's plane would have to be completely outfitted. It will probably have to be stripped down on the inside, completely reconfigured. And has to have the special stuff, the way it's classified.

GLENN: Yeah, it's two to five years just to finish it.

RAND: It may be that the other plane is actually closer to being finished.

Boeing is disappointing on so many fronts. But they haven't had this plane, since I think it was commissioned by the first President Trump. And four years later, still not there. It's really a disappointment. But we have to know more about it. The thing is, if he really wants this plane, and it's a great plane.

The Qataris can sell it, or give it back to Boeing. And Boeing can work with us, and we could pay a price. And then we would mediate all of this.

If he takes every family transaction that they have had in the Middle East for the last ten years or the next ten years, it will be heavily scrutinized. And I think it doesn't come to any good.

GLENN: Yes. So what do you think about the possibility -- and this may be giving him too much benefit of the tout.

But the guy is playing 15-dimensional chess it seems, in so many ways.

He -- I spoke to him about the Boeing plane a few weeks ago, and he was smoked.

And, you know, we -- we began our participation in and ended World War II in a quicker time than we have ordered that plane in 2018, to today.

So it's -- I mean, it -- what is Boeing doing?

And he's saying, and others are saying, that it may be five years from now. May be even ten!

What about the idea that he is just trying to push the pressure on Boeing, and like, get it done!

VOICE: Boeing has become an extension of the government. They're a government bureaucracy. And they behave like it.

Now, look, I think the Empire State Building was build in a year. China right now is, what's that?

GLENN: Ten months.

RAND: Yeah. Ten months. China can erect a 30-story building in a matter of 2 or 3 months. I mean, it's amazing how fast things can be done. And Boeing can't make a plane in four years, and some other planes don't fly. And so that is a problem. If you're a plane manufacturer and they don't fly. It's because Boeing is such a slow ponderous corporation. It's been, you know, had a monopoly on sort of government planes for so long. That near being outcompeted internationally.

And just slow. And so I see them more as an extension of government bureaucracy, than I do as a real capitalism. But no company could get away with being this poor, this slow moving, if there was a real marketplace.

GLENN: So what do you do to solve it? Because I think that is the real solution.

I feel like the former Soviet Union, when Gorbachev or anybody else would get into a ZiL. You're like, oh, that's nice.

That will break down halfway to the airport.

You know, what do we do?

Boeing, you can't sue Boeing. The president can't sue Boeing. The country can. How do you fix this?

RAND: Here's the interesting thing. This intersects with the discussion over trade. Some would say, that's what we do.

We protect Boeing. Protect them from international trade.

What if we did this? What if we got rid of the trade barriers, and we let all the international companies compete with Boeing? Boeing would have to get better or go bankrupt.

So they're inefficient because they are protected. Some would say that that's what happened to US steel over many generations. What if we do protect US steel. We've had steel import quotas for generations. We've tried to do whatever we can to block international steel from coming here. And yet, all it did was it led to a large behemoth of US steel that was about like Boeing was. And it would react to the marketplace.

GLENN: Let me talk to you about government aircraft. Military aircraft.

We have to have an aircraft company.

RAND: I agree.

GLENN: What can we do?

Because honestly, the right thing for the president to do is sue Boeing. Look, you violated our entire contract.

It means nothing. I'm going elsewhere.

He can't sue Boeing. Because that would be very bad. The second thing, he has no choice, but to buy American.

So how do we solve this know.

RAND: The other thing, I guess you could do, you could reduce what they're paid.

For example, if the government said, we're giving them a billion. 500 million. Whatever it is.

That should be in every contract too.

And, you know, I think Elon Musk was a big promoter of this. When he started building rockets to take satellites into space.

He said, you know, the problem you guys have is its cost, plus. So everybody just keeps inflating their costs, and they always get the same profit or bigger profit, if they have cost overrun. Make competitive bidding, and put penalties in your contracts. So Boeing should have penalties in the contract.

If you want another airline or another company to make planes in the US, I'm perfectly happy to vote for no corporate taxes on some of the planes in competition with Boeing.

Just no corporate taxes, period. Ten years, 20 years. It would take a lot. It takes a lot of money to get started in that field.

Look, Elon Musk started from scratch. Maybe ten years ago. Building rockets. So you think somebody couldn't. Like Elon Musk, start building planes. I guarantee you, if Elon weren't so tied up with other things, if you said, Elon, why don't you start a plane company to compete with Boeing, I bet he would have it started within a year.

GLENN: Yeah, he would. Quickly, do you have time? Because I want to talk to you about the big, beautiful bill, and also Fauci. Do you have a second to hold on for one minute?

RAND: Absolutely.

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All right. Ten-second station ID. Back to Rand Paul.

I know you're giving us extra time. And I really appreciate that, Rand. But let's talk about the one big, beautiful bill. How do you feel about it?

RAND: Well, you know, the tax cuts from 2017, I supported. I support making them permanent. And really, I'm very supportive of the president's program on the tax plan.

That's a big part of the bill. The second part of the bill is there's supposed to be spending cuts. So far, I think they're pretty wimpy and not going to amount to much.

That's bothersome. But I would still vote for it.

Even if I got some spending cuts and that's confirmed. The reason I can't vote for it is because they will raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion.

And the reason I can't vote for that, is that it belies. It really contradicts everything about what would be in the hearing. We hear about Elon Musk and DOGE and all these cuts.

And we're all jumping up and down from our seats for Donald Trump. And then the deficit is going to be 2.2 trillion at the end of September. And then it's another 2.8 billion -- 2.8 trillion the next year. They're planning on adding $5 trillion in eight years. Which means there's going to be no reform. And conservatives are going to wake up at some point in this administration, going wow. Where did all these cuts go? What happened? We haven't seen them in a while.

And how come the deficit is going up at just an alarming rate? In the past, conservatives have never voted to raise the debt ceiling. It's always been all Democrats and the big government Republicans, and we know who they are. And we've always derided them. And it was a day of shame. The day of shame, you walked down to the well of the Senate or the House, and you vote for all the spending that you put forward. But most of the conservatives. Particularly myself and others. We haven't voted for the spending. And we don't want to vote for the debt.

Now, I have said I will vote for some increase in the debt.

I will give you three months' worth.

So I introduced an amendment about two weeks ago, increase the debt ceiling, three months' worth.

You know how much that is? $500 billion.

GLENN: Jeez.

RAND: That's an enormous increase. And it hurt me to even put it forward, but I did say this: We will give you three months. You're all promising me, we will cut some spending. We have a balanced budget.

We will do all these great things. I tell you what, proof is in the pudding. I'll give you three months for the borrowing power, then you come back and ask me again for four months.

So I would do the opposite. I would have a debt ceiling vote every three months, and it would be a lever. And we would only give you an increase in the debt ceiling if you were actually cutting spending. And people say, what about default? Default should never be on the table.

GLENN: That's -- that's fake. We're never going to default.

RAND: Yeah, well, we bring in 400 billion a month in revenue. And the interest payment is 80 billion. Why would you ever default? We should announce to the markets that we have plenty of money. And if we have to cut spending elsewhere, we will. But we won't default on our interest payment. There's no reason ever to. And this is a game they play, just to get everybody to vote for them. To scare the market to death. And scare everybody to death. And they will say, we will default and there will be chaos. There's no reason to default. We will just cut spending elsewhere. And we will take the first dollars we get, and towards the interest payment.

GLENN: This is the thing. I'm so mad at Congress right now.

I mean, they won't even go through with the DOGE cuts. They are -- they're arguing about those. And honestly, the DOGE cuts in the end, seem a little disappointing.

You know, they're not taking the steps that I thought we all voted for.

RAND: Well, the DOGE cuts are some of the lowest hanging fruit. I'm all for them.

They went to the foreign aid budget. And they found crazy stuff.

You know, 2 million for sex change operations in Guatemala.

GLENN: Right.

RAND: Hundreds of thousands for a trans comic book, a trans opera in Colombia.

And, you know what, they have it in the rescission package.

The White House has had this rescission package about four weeks now. It's only 9 billion.

So it's not enough to amount to anything, but it's still worth cutting. They're afraid to send it to the Capitol.

Because the feedback they're getting from Senate and House leadership is we don't have the votes to cut 9 billion.

And if that's true, these people need to -- the reason we sent the vote, so everybody knows who these people are.

Who are the people that can't cut out 2 million for sex changes in Guatemala?

You can't do that. They need to be ridden out of town on a rail.

GLENN: Can you give us some indication of how long we have?

I mean, people have been saying, it's going to get bad. It's going to get bad.

We are really, truly at the end. If we don't cut our spending.

How much time do we have to cut our spending before we're just overwhelmed by interest payments?

RAND: I think it depends on what the interest rate is. For many, many years, we have gotten away with this. The George W. Bush, we went 5 -- 5 trillion in debt to 10 trillion. Our interest payment went from four to two, and then everybody was gleeful, even the Dick Cheney conservatives. Like, oh, that doesn't matter.

Well, if you keep cutting your interest rate now, and doubling your debt, you can get away with it.

But now we're stuck at the opposite end. We're 36 trillion in debt. And the interest rate is going up.

Now, it stabilized a little bit. But interest rates went where they were in 1990. When I bought my first house, it was 11 percent.

Probably pay a little less than that. Maybe nine. Maybe eight. We couldn't pay it. We couldn't pay it today. So it depends on the interest rate. The interest rates now, we're struggling. Interest payments is the largest item in the budget, and it's crowding out other spending. So we are struggling. We bring in 5 trillion in revenue, and we spend 7 trillion.

The entire budget that Congress votes on, which is almost 2 trillion, is all borrowed. So the discretionary spending, what government votes on, military and non-military discretionary, it's all borrowed.

The entitlements soak up every dollar of revenue. We are in a bad way. I can't tell you when it ends, but I can tell you, if interest rates spike, we will be in a serious problem.

GLENN: Yeah. I now only have about 40 seconds.

I would love to have you back. Can you just tell me, is anyone going to pay for the COVID thing? Is that ever going to happen?

RAND: We're not done, and I will bring Anthony Fauci back in. We finally discovered the records, as to who determined that the money went to Wuhan. They have resisted me for three years. Robert Kennedy has helped me get the records. So was Jay Bhattacharya. This week or next week, we will begin interviewing the people who are on that committee. We are going to find out what was the debate?

What was the discussion. What were the arguments for sending it to Wuhan? What were the arguments against it?

Who made the arguments?

And then who ultimately had to sign off on this.

It was our belief that Anthony Fauci had to sign the document. We haven't found the document yet.

GLENN: Yeah. Thank you. Rand. Rand Paul.