Joining me now is Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a ranking
member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, a member of
the Senate Foreign Relations, Small Business and Entrepreneurship and HELP
committees.
Senator, thanks very much for being here.
You just heard that about a subpoena from Richard Blumenthal.
Should Alejandro Mayorkas be subpoenaed to start giving us some
answers on these things, which he is overseeing, not just
the wide open border where 10 million illegals have come
on his watch, but also overseeing the Secret Service where
we're getting no information on these assassination attempts?
Well, Secretary Mayorkas has a history of not being very
forthcoming.
I will say one of the most important things that
we've asked the Secret Service for was denials of security.
So the Trump security detail, Secret Service detail, as well
as the Trump campaign for months and months requested more
security and this was denied by the Secret Service.
They know it.
I've asked the director, they've looked into it, but they
haven't shared any of it with us.
We know that in Butler County was the first time
that they had counter snipers there.
Thank God if they had not had the counter snipers
there that that shooter would have continued and Donald Trump
would have surely been killed as well as many more
people.
He was taken down pretty quickly, but there was a
host of errors.
He never should have gotten on the roof.
They saw him for 90 minutes but never stopped the
proceeding in order to interview him or interdict him.
They knew he was on the roof, man on a
roof, man on a roof for three minutes.
That was broadcast to the control tent.
And yet Trump was still not taken from the stage.
So the first assassination attempt, error after error after error.
But these were errors of willpower, not manpower.
Now, like Washington, everything else, somebody fails at their job,
you give them more money.
No.
Why don't we replace the people who didn't do their
job and have better people in those positions?
With the most recent attack, what kind of security is
it that doesn't sweep a fence, that doesn't go around
and sweep the perimeter?
Now, local law enforcement, it said if he had been
president, there would be sufficient perimeter set up for him.
So it is a different type of security.
We're a big country.
The Secret Service has lots of people and lots of
money.
They can provide better service, but it requires more intelligent
analysis of what he needs for security.
But, I mean, what do you think is going on
here?
I mean, you know, it.
Shouldn't the level of protection match the level of the
threat?
After the first assassination attempt, the FBI said there will
be more.
That that was the point to say there will be
more.
We're expecting it.
We need to get ahead of it.
Yeah, without question, with two assassination attempts within about a
two-month period, he needs more protection.
Something bad is going to happen.
But while we also have to have is a discussion
in our country where networks like CNN and MSNBC are
daily saying that he's a danger to democracy and someone
has to do something about it.
These left, these left wing networks aren't saying he has
bad policy.
Hillary Clinton wasn't saying he had bad policy.
She's saying he's a danger.
The implication is we won't be able to stop him
through the election.
We must stop him otherwise.
And they are inciting every crazy or angry person in
our country.
And frankly, CNN and MSNBC need to tone down their
rhetoric because they are part of the incitement to violence.
Yeah, Hillary Clinton yesterday said she doesn't understand why the
media can't get on this narrative.
It's a consistent narrative that Trump is a threat.
This from the woman who lied and made-up a story
that Trump colluded with Russia back in 2016 and actually
paid for a Steele dossier to come up with the
just embellish polishment and and lies and and actually made
it go viral across the world.
She has some nerve calling somebody else a threat.
Yeah, Hillary Clinton was the only one I know of
who actually colluded with Russia.
Bizarre, completely bizarre how they've how they've taken this and
twisted and twisted.
But, you know, then the concern is that, you know,
the Department of Justice is supposed to be somewhat independent.
They're appointed by President Biden.
And the question is since they're using lawfare against Donald
Trump in the federal courts right now by, you know,
trying to go after, I think spurious type of charges
that are politically motivated.
Now, do we trust them to investigate and to protect
the former president?
This this is where we are where we doubt them.
Well, that that's very discouraging, unfortunately, and the politicization and
all of these agencies obviously runs deep, the DOJ included.
I want to move on to the Middle East, though.
At least nine people killed, thousands of others reportedly injured
yesterday in Lebanon by exploding pager devices in an attack
reportedly targeting Hezbollah terrorists.
The Lebanese government is blaming Israel for what appeared to
be a sophisticated remote attack.
The explosions detonated simultaneously, Israeli officials declining to comment.
Hezbollah members began carrying pagers instead of strictly using cell
phones over concerns that the Israeli government could track their
phone.
Senator, your thoughts on where we are in all of
these wars right now and what this administration has been
advising Israel to do about the attacks on Israel?
Yeah.
You know, if these were terrorists, it's hard to have
a lot of sympathy for them.
But I do think that as warfare gets to the
point where we attack people individually with drones or pagers,
we're going to live in a world where nobody's safe
anywhere, I mean, where no person can be safe giving
a speech that a drone might attack them.
We have $300.00 drones that can take out a $3,000,000
tank now.
So the next stage of warfare is this individual warfare.
The other thing about killing terrorists is in, you know,
it's hard not to justify killing terrorists, but when the
collateral damage happens, what happens is it more terrorists are
created often And so it's a never ending type of
cycle.
And there has to be a somewhere in this cycle
people who are willing to actually have some discussion.
Even even though October 7th there's absolutely no justification as
a horrific massacre, there still has to be someone talking
about a future for what happens in Gaza, whether or
not there could be some sort of international port or
a port that Israel controls to allow some economic improvement
to or into Gaza.
This isn't because I have any sympathy for Hamas, because
they don't want Hamas to continue.
You have to somehow encourage or allow some kind of
economic opportunity in these areas.
And really, frankly, the Arab countries surrounding Gaza have an
obligation to try to make it a safer place and
to have somebody to deal with other than Hamas.
Senator, Speaking of the economy here in the US, we
just spoke with one of your favorite researchers.
That was Jim Grant from Grant's Interest Rate Observer.
He was in the studio.
And I want to get your take on the $35
trillion in debt that we face.
Experts are weighing in on some of Trump and Harris's
proposals.
Trump has vowed no tax on tips, no tax on
Social Security, no tax on overtime, promising workers who clock
more than 40 hours a week tax free overtime income.
Last night, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would
lift the cap on state and local tax deductions, a
key piece of his 2017 tax law.
Actually, Harris echoed Trump's no tax on tips, but with
a few exceptions.
She's proposing a $50,000 tax deduction for small business startups,
a huge jump from the current $5000 deduction.
The Tax Foundation says Harris's small business breaks would be
drowned out by all of her plans to raise taxes.
She runs higher taxes on corporate income, higher taxes on
capital gains.
She wants to put a 25% unrealized tax in for
unrealized gains there.
As you know, Senator, how do how do you size
up these two economic plans?
Well, there if you look at all the taxes being
proposed by Kamala Harris there, it's a net new taxes
will vastly outweigh any reductions in taxes.
So it will be a tax increase.
And when you increase taxes on the economy, you take
money from the productive economy and you send it to
the non productive economy, which is the government.
Now neither party is really talking much about spending though.
And spending is the problem here.
It really isn't when we cut taxes in 2017, if
you look at revenue on two year cycles, Art Laffers
looked at this and talked about it on your network.
Revenue actually rose as we cut rates.
This happened in the 1980s with Reagan.
We still debate this, but supply side economic works.
You, you lower rates, people are more productive, they pay
more in taxes.
But really both parties need to talk about cutting spending.
So I'll introduce a budget this week and it will
be voted on because neither the Republicans or the Democrats
took the time to do a budget.
So they'll have to vote on mine and mine's called
the six penny plan, cut 6% across the board each
year for five years and balances the budget in five
years.
I think that's the least we can do.
And I promote it every year.
And I get somewhere between about 15 to 30 votes.
No Democrats.
So there's no Democrat concern for cutting spending, but I
will get about half the Republicans.
That's excellent.
Senator, We're going to be watching your budget.
Do you find it odd that the Senate refuses to
bring the SAVE Act to the floor?
They don't want to hear anything about protecting the vote.
It's hard to imagine why they would want non citizens
to vote.
What?
What kind of country is it with non citizens vote?
I, I, it's hard to it's hard to understand Democrats
being opposed to.
Senator, thank you so much for being here this morning.
Good to see you, Sir.