Episode Transcript
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You know what news right Awa fortywhs US Senator Ran Paul representing Kentucky,
of course joins us again, Senator, go to have you back on glad
to be with you, Terry,thanks for having you. Are no hero
in the radio industry today. Ohcome on, now, that's not fair.
It's not fair. I'm trying tosave AM radio. Didn't you hear
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no? I The way it wasall reported in our trade magazines today is
that Senators made an unsuccessful attempt topass the AM Bill for Every Vehicle Act,
and then one guy said, no, I object, and Terry,
this is what's wrong with America.Nobody's really reporting the news anymore. So
they did. They wanted to forceall the car manufacturers to have AM radio.
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I'm not big into force, I'mnot big into mandates, but I
said, you know what, youwant to keep AM radio, and you
don't want all these electric cars thatdon't have AM radio. Why don't we
quit subsidize using electric cars? SoI proposed an alternative consistent with the Republican
philosophy. I do not for mandatingand telling ford they have to have,
you know, in every electric carthey got to have AM radio. But
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I am for saying, well,gosh, you know, why subsidize people
who don't want to put AM radioin the cars? And so there's two
ways to skin a cat on this, and I've actually been it's sort of
been intriguing to me to see howmany people that have conservative talk show and
they talk about limited government, theyhate government mandates, they don't like picking
winners and losers, until all ofa sudden it's their bread and butter,
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and they're like, well, yeah, we should force the car manufacturers have
AM radio because we're on AM radio. So I think the better way is
actually just to get rid of thesubsidy, and it has the same effect.
But I think it's interesting that noneof the trade magazines reported that I
offered an alternative which actually was rejectedby the other side. So the other
side actually rejected my proposal, andI rejected their proposal, and so now
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we're sort of at odds. Theywere wanting to have unanimous consent, which
means everybody does it with no vote. Well, basically, yeah, there's
no vote. It just it unanimouslypasses. Very few things that are of
substantive legislation passed that way, exceptthat it is a hugely bipartisan situation where
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it looks like there's a lot ofpeople that are for this, and it
only took one Senator to say,I objected, That senator is you.
And what a lot of people inour business feel likes, especially the mom
and pop stations, feel like youare taking them off Main Street. You're
you're ripping away their storefronts and tellingthem good luck. Yeah, what people
should think about is whether or notsomeone's viewpoint or someone's preference should be forced
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on another, or whether or notin the marketplace, if people want AM
radio and they want in their cars, they buy cars that have AM radio
in them. The only cars thatdon't have them that are electric cars.
So if you want AM radio,don't buy electric cars. And the government
shouldn't subsidize electric cars. So thereis way to do this consistent with our
philosophy. But we've never been someonewho says, well, gosh, movie
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theaters are indispensable and nobody's going tothe movie anymore, why don't we mandate
that every mall have a movie theaterbecause they're the movie theaters are not in
the malls anymore. So we've justnever been that way. We didn't mandate
that you keep eight track radio.We didn't mandate that you keep cassette players.
You know, so we have tobe for freedom if we're not for
freedom. But do do I likeam radio? I love am radio?
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You know, there's so much goodconservative talk radio. Even Terry Miners is
great. I mean so, Imean now, I love AM radio.
I love the ability to have longerconversations. But I don't love it enough
to give up on our principles andjust say, oh, I'm going to
force car manufacturers to carry AM radio. Let's find another way to skin the
cat and another Really, the cruxof the problem is electric cars wouldn't be
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sold that don't have AM radio ifyou didn't subsidize them. You know,
radio is not an eight track player, is not a cassette player. It's
a communications device used in emergency situationsin so many ways for people who don't
have access to other things. Youknow that this radio station in particular is
fifty thousand Watch Clear channels because ithas a massive footprint, and there's somebody
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up the dial all the way downthere who has that massive footprint so that
we can cover the terrestrial United Statesin case that's our communications device. We
learned that on nine to eleven,Senator, So don't discount us or compare
us to an eight track player.What I would say is that the essential
argument is about freedom, and it'sabout whether consumers decide things or whether the
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government's going to tell manufacturers what theyhave to have. The bottom line is
there's a technological problem with an electriccars, the electric car and the battery.
It's so powerful that it interferes withthe AM signal. Yeah, there's
a remedy you can keep right,and it costs money, but the bill
also says that you can't charge forit. So if I'm make an elect
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electric car and it costs one hundredand fifty dollars a car, I'm not
allowed to pass along the charge.The bill says I'm not allowed to charge
the one hundred and fifty dollars tothe person who buys the car. We
think ultimately it is going to besqueezed along because it's kind of hard to
enforce something like that, but it'sreally yet another mandate. And so I
guess my point of view is isthere's two ways to skin a cat.
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I'm all for AM radio. Iam honestly and sincerely a great advocate of
the medium. I've been on themedium everywhere for a long time, and
I like AM radio. Yeah.But the thing is is, the thing
is is we can do it bystopping the subsidies. Okay, it's a
life saving service. There's only one. We'll just leave it. Are the
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people on one side of remedy,and there's no other remedy. The other
remedies. Get rid of the electriccars. This is a life saving service.
And I don't want to argue withyou by anymore. We have other
things to get to the issue nowabout Ukraine funding versus bolstering the border.
Where are we how's this going tomove forward? You know, we don't
have any money to send to Ukraine. We don't have anybody to send to
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any of these countries. We haveto borrow it. So basically about a
third of all the spending we doevery year in government is borrowed already.
So any of this hundred billion dollarswill be borrowed, and it's just not
good for our country and doesn't makeus stronger. I have said that I
will support the aid to Israel,but only if it's paid for him so
initially the Speaker of the House cameforward and said, we'll do Israel alone.
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We'll pay for it by taking awaysome extra irs money. They spent
billions of dollars on the irs,and so I supported that, and I'm
at least open to thinking about someof the other age. If it were
paid for them unpaid for, I'mabsolutely opposed to all of it. I
don't care if you're giving it toyour grandmother. I'm just not for it
if there is no pay for them, because I think it makes our country
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weaker. Right now, the Houseis standing by the guns that ISRAELID should
be separate and paid for. Overhere, Cenator McConnell and President Biden and
Schumer don't care whether it's paid for, and they want one hundred billion dollars.
Now. The question is whether ornot they'll put some border security on
it. The question is whether ornot that is adequate enough to get you
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to vote for something that really isn'tgood for our country. And to me,
even border security, if it weregood, wouldn't be enough to get
me to vote for the package.But I also suspect that what they put
on there that will pass as bordersecurity really won't end up controlling the border.
What did you take away from thepresidents of those three universities yesterday,
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Harvard and Penn and MIT. Ithink it was about free speech on campus
as it pertains to the Israel,Palestine, or Gaza or hamas War.
I didn't see their remarks. Whatdid they say was there? Well,
they were pressed by members of theHouse on why they're allowing so many people
to amplify the words that are essentiallysaying genocide of Jewish people and calling it
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free speech unless they actually take someaction, you know. I think that
if the speech or the groups aresubsidized by the university, that's sort of
a different story. And it's onereason why I think universities shouldn't subsidize these
groups. If it's simply speech andyou're saying things that are objectionable, I
think speech has to be countered bymore speech, and I don't think that
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regulations on speech are a good idea. The question out of university, though,
is whether or not the speech orthe group is being subsidized by the
university, and a lot of thesegroups are, so I wouldn't subsidize groups
that you know, have hateful speechor speech like that. But at the
same time we have to be reallycareful about any kind of controls or allowing
the government to control speech. Universitiesaren't government, so I think it's a
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little bit different situation, and youknow, they need to be aware.
I mean, the human cry thathas struck out has been real and has
been sincere about you know, peoplewho think somehow what Hamas did to civilians
in the desert was justified. Andso I have great sympathy for those who
think that students that are doing thatare not just misguided but just clearly wrong
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and hateful that they need to bedenounced. Does the US have a stake
in the Israel Hamas conflict war rightnow? Or should we step back and
let them work it out? Ithink ultimately the decisions on you know,
what Israel does to try to ensurethe safety of their citizens. You know,
those decisions they're going to have tomake. I don't know that we
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can, you know, make thosedecisions if we do send AID, though
I think that four and AID canhave conditions with it. You know,
we seem to have done that inthe past. It's one of my complaints
about the Ukrainian AID. I thinkyou shouldn't send any more money to Ukraine
if they don't have elections there.You know, they've canceled the presidential election,
they've canceled opposing political parties, they'vecanceled certain members of the Orthodox Church,
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and so I think there should bepreconditions and conditions on AID. But
no, We've been a long standingally of Israel and I have nothing but
sympathy for them, wanting to tryto live in peace. And you can't
live in peace with people coming acrossyour border and killing civilians, no doubt.
And I know that you're going toforce a vote on your Syria War
Powers Resolution. Yeah, our founderswere sticklers for having Congress vote on where
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we have our troops. I thinkit's the least we owe our young men
and women. You know, nota lot have died in Syria, but
nine of our soldiers have died inSyria. I think their parents feel,
or how do you think their lovedones feel that nobody voted to send them
there. They just sort of showedup. And initially there was a little
more of a clearcut mission. Themission was Isis, But even then it
should have been voted on by Congress, but never was. But right now
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we've had about nine hundred troops inabout five or six different locations, no
clearcut mission, and to me,they're targets and they have been targets for
Iranian proxies firing missiles at them,and so far we haven't lost laws.
But you know, I think thesepeople should have to vote for it.
If you're for having nine hundred troopsin five different locations, that's like fifty
sixty eighty people in a location,maybe over one hundred. Those people aren't
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fighting any war they can win.They're sitting ducks as a as a trip
wire to a greater war. Ithink they just shouldn't be there. But
if you want to be there,put your name on the line. Vote
that way, and you can givecondolences to the parents if that's what you
support. But I think if wedon't vote, it's unconscionable to send soldiers
into harm's way without a vote onhaving them in a war. And they've
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been there for four years. Imean, Isis has been completely gone for
four years. We just can't goeverywhere and stay forever, and I think
it's untenable. We have fifteen hundredtroops in Nazer. I mean, God,
God forbid your your son or daughterdies in Najera, and you try
to explain people the heroics of whatwe were doing in Nazer. You know,
we managed a drone base and wekill people. Sure, some of
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these people are bad, but eightyfive people died in a drone attack yesterday
in Nigeria at some kind of weddingor something for goodness sake. And I
don't think we administered that drone,but I'm asking questions as to whether or
not our intelligence was used in thedropping of that drone. And so,
No, I think all wars shouldbe voted on. War should be a
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last resort. Warshiuld be in defenseof our country when we were attacked,
But I just don't think we shouldbe everywhere around the world. All right,
Senator ram Paul, appreciate the comments, the clarification, and now that
I can't afford any Christmas gifts,I'll be asking you to help. No,
I'm just playing with it. No, I appreciate it, discussion on
it. We'll keep it, we'llkeep it up going. But let let
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let it be known that I amtrying to help see you, Senator.
Thanks all right, Senator ram Paullive in Washington, back in a minute
on news radio eight forty WHA s