Sen. Rand Paul on with Brian Thomas this morning

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Todd KRS the talk station seven thirty fifty five krc
DE Talk station. Have e Friday. Even Brian Thomas here,
welcoming back. I've got some favorites in elected office in DC.
One of them Congress from Thomas mass You can get
the podcast in my conversation with Thomas Massey from yesterday
at my podcast page fifty five cars dot com. And yes,
my next guest, Senator Ran Paul. Thank you to the

(00:21):
residents of the Commonwealth Kentucky for both of those men.
Welcome back, Senator Paul. It's a pleasure having you on
the show today.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning, Brian, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Another bite at the Apple. Another resolution shot down. Senate
said fifty four to forty five no, rejecting the proposal
to continuing resolution funding levels at biden Era level, which
passed in the House. You were one. I think you
were the only the lone Republican to vote against yesterday's measure.
My listeners are aware that this is all revolving around
the Democrats desire to continue COVID era tax credits, which

(00:54):
COVID's over This comes to a very expensive cost of
the American taxpayer and also allows illegal immigrants to get
hooked up to Obamacare. Now, with that in mind, explain
to my listeners your rationale for saying no yesterday and previously.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
You know I'm against the Obamacare subsidies. I've voted against
every addition to Obamacare since the very beginning, and we'll
continue to oppose that. What we had before us, though,
is two different spending proposals. One is a Democrat proposal.
It has the Obamacare subsidies in it, and it also
has about a trillion dollars more in spending for a
three trillion dollar deficit. So I'm imposed to that package

(01:30):
as well. Now. The Republican alternative, though, isn't a lot better.
The Republican alternative continues the Biden spending levels from last December,
and it will lead to about a two trillion dollar deficit.
So basically, the Republicans we have this two trillion in deficit,
the Democrats three. And I'm not for either of those.
But I've put forward an alternative. My alternative is called

(01:52):
the Penny Plan, and they voted on it about two
weeks ago, and we had thirty six Republicans, which is
the most we've ever had before. Thirty six Republicans supported
the Penny Plan, which balances the budget within five years
dramatically reduces the deficit in the first year, and we
lost sixteen big government Republicans you can probably guess who

(02:12):
they are, and then we lost all the Democrats. So
there aren't the numbers yet to do the right thing.
But there still has to be somebody up here who
is trying to do the right thing and votes against deficits,
whether they're Republican or Democrat.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
How do you see this playing out? Because Wall Street
Journal reported that some Republicans are saying, Eh, you might
want to watch what you're doing, Donald Trump, because you're
talking about laying off chunks of employees permanently and closing
certain offices of the government through the OMB reduction thing
that he's mentioned before. I guess I'm wondering what's your

(02:47):
take on that. Do you see Republicans capitulating at all?
I know there's one proposal out there that you would
never vote for, which extends these supplements for one year,
kicking the can down the road, But what of moving
forward with this quote unquote pain Donald Trump is planning
on inflicting via the OMB and the layoffs and firings.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, well, when you look at this and you look
at the logic of how people are voting on this,
get every Democrat vote in December of last year for
these same spending levels, that's when they first became known
as the Biden spending levels.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Every Democrat supported them. This is the exact same bill.
This is no different than what they voted for, absolutely
no difference. I think really the pain is going to
be on Democrats to explain why they were for these
spending levels before they were against these spending levels, and
so I think Republicans should stay the course. I do
think eventually the Republicans will capitulate, not me, but the

(03:44):
rest of them will probably capitulate and give them the
Obamacare subsidies. People have to realize though, also these are
not the original subsidies from when Obamacare passed. These were
add on subsidies for richer people. So basically a lot
of people who don't live in poverty are now having
Obamacare subsidies, significant subsidies only since twenty twenty three. The

(04:05):
reason they're expiring now is not because Republicans are making
them expire. The Democrats designed them to expire because of
the way the rules are written. The Democrats were spending
so much money they had to eventually let these things expire.
But now they're playing a game basically trying to blame
it on Republicans, when in back, the Democrats actually wrote
the rules such that these subsidies would expire.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Now it's such a clear concept, you know, the idea
that the concern about Donald Trump maybe moving forward with
omb reductions is going to provide the Democrats with an
argument that, aha, this is why the government shut down
because Donald Trump merely wanted to use it as an
opportunity to reduce the size and the scope of government.
I think that's kind of laughable. They're going to argue

(04:47):
about who wins the declaration of who's responsible for the
government shutdown, something that really doesn't impact most Americans. I
think that's kind of childish to even focus on that
one issue, the winner law.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, I think the Democrats have trouble overcoming the fact
that they've already voted for these spending levels and now
they're going to vote against the same spending levels. Essentially,
they've moved the goalpost. So these Obamacare subsidies are not
part of the annual spending proposals. They're separate, So they're
trying to drag something in that's expiring. That's expiring because
they wrote the legislation to expire, and they're trying to

(05:22):
drag that into the spending debate.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
But the spending.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Debate is pretty clear cut. These are the Biden spending levels,
and the Democrats have all voted for them. The rumor
is that the Democrats are worried to death about their
their left flank. They're worried about the socialist flank and
the party and the Socialists are are hot and heavy,
you know, for some of these incumbitents. So like there's
rumors that AOC wants to run against Chuck Schumer. Chuck

(05:47):
Schumer is afraid of his own shadow now and that
he will basically do whatever it takes to show them
how strong he is. And a lot of people think
that there's a big rally with the Socialist on the
mall this we can Yeah, I think the Democrats have
to get through that rally, show the people all they
stood up to Republicans. Then they'll have to sort of
put forward something saying, oh, Republicans have agreed to negotiate

(06:10):
on these Obamacare subsidies, and I think the Republicans are
going to negotiate with them. I think they'll declare victory,
and then the Democrats saw allow the government to open back.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Up fair enough and pivoting over to you perhaps being
spied on. You weren't among the senators who identified that.
Jack Smith launched an inquiry a couple three years after
the January first drunken fraternity parties. I like to refer
to it, but in twenty twenty three, he subpoened phone
records from eight senators and one House member with no

(06:41):
reason to believe any of them were involved in criminal activity.
I mean, this is a profound civil rights violation from
my perspective. What's your reaction to this happening, Senator Paul?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Absolutely, and I think there's going to be repercussions in
the court system against his doing this. So there's a
famous couple. Famous case is Riley versus California and Carpenter
versus the US. The Supreme Court decided and in these
cases they decided that certain of your records deserve for
the Amendment protections. So subpoenas have a lower standard. You

(07:14):
can get a subpoena of people's banking records and phone
records without saying probable cause. What the Supreme Court said
was that some of your records are so private that
you should have for the Amendment protections. And among those
records that are private or your geolocation. So if I
call the phone company and I want to where's Brian

(07:35):
Thomas every moment of the last week, I can tell
a lot about your life that's really none of my
business or none of the government's business. And I shouldn't
be allowed to do that unless I say you're committing
a crime, and that's why, you know, we present evidence
that you're committing a crime. And so I think that
he did this illegally. I think he did it through
a grand jury subpoena. But the Carpenter case, Supreme Court

(07:57):
Justice Roberts actually wrote that the subpoenas will still be
able to get records, but there will be certain records
that have privacy interests where they'll have to have probable
calls and a Fourth Amendment warrant to do it. And
so I think that absolutely he did something that the
courts are going to rule against. And I think these
representatives actually standing against the phone company because the phone

(08:20):
company basically unfortunately the phone company doesn't do a very
good job of defending your liberty for your records they want,
and they just give them to the government. In fact,
the government can wink at the phone company and they'll
give you all your records. I mean, it's just disgusting.
So I hope they do sue their phone companies. I
love business. I love successful business. I don't like a business.

(08:41):
It's turning over my private records to the government without
a fight.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
No, and they can fight. I mean, they've got lawyers
in their massive companies and legal teams that could say, no,
we can't give you this because of the aforementioned case,
and we're not going to do it because we used
to have these battles when I was in house over
at Anthem, Blue Cross and Blue Shield all the time
he gets a penis. So you have an obligation, I think,
to perfect protect the interests of those individuals who are

(09:05):
working with your company in this case to get phone service.
Senator Rampaul in the remaining moments of our time together,
and I sure appreciate our time together. Your reaction to
the phase one of the Gaza deal. It looks like
Hamas has agreed to release the prisoners. Israel has agreed
to pull back its forces. It looks like we might
have some cease fire unfolding here. Devil's into details that

(09:26):
need to be ironed out, but I viewed this as
a really positive step. Your reaction.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Absolutely, And if it's true and the hostages are free
in the next few days or a few hours, I
think everybody will rejoice. If the killing can be discontinued
in Gaza, people will rejoice. And I think this is
something that Donald Trump deserves, if it's successful, deserves a
lot of credit for because the one thing you can't
discount about Donald Trump is is this force of presence,

(09:54):
This this ability to be you know, this sometimes a
bully and a child a shop, but sometimes one that
will stand up even into our allies like Israel and
say it's time to make a deal. And I think
he has gotten his will to make a deal, whereas
I think that Yahoo Uh struggles to make a deal
because he struggles against criticism at home for being too soft,

(10:15):
which I can't imagine how they could describe him as
too soft. But the thing is, I think Trump inserting
himself in this, I think has hopefully pushed it on
and you got to wonder, why, Howmas wouldn't you settle?

Speaker 3 (10:29):
I mean, they've been decimated.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Most of their leaders have been killed. Probably three fourths
of their soldiers or not soldiers, terrorists have been killed.
And my goodness is they could give up the hostages.
You know, they're, like I say, will rejoice and hopefully
they will work and end well.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? And wow, all in
Trump's first term, so much progress.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
In his first year.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
It's amazing, it really is. This has been a whirlwind
of activity. I've never seen the one which in my
entire life. Senator Ram Paul, thank you again for your
time today. Keep up the great work and I'll look
forward to having you back on the show real soon.
Thanks bron Take care seven forty two to fifty five
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