GOP Sen. Rand Paul On Why He Hasn’t Endorsed Trump

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, after the recent presidential debate in the United States, still undecided Americans are weighing who to vote for in November. And while our next guest far prefers the Former President Trump, Senator Rand Paul still isn’t ready to give him his endorsement. And he’s joining Walter Isaacson to explain why.

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WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Senator Rand Paul, welcome to the show.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Thanks for having me.

ISAACSON: So, the debate this week, give me your take on how each of the candidates did and what struck you.

PAUL: You know, I think candidates are looking to try to influence people in the middle. And so, about 40, 45 percent of people in the U.S. are Republican, and about 40, 45 percent of people are Democrat. There’s about 5 or 10 percent that are up for grabs. And so, I always look at a presidential debate as, you know, how do you do with those people in the middle? I think one common attribute, not everyone, but a lot of people in the middle don’t like controversy. They don’t like conflict. They’re the kind of people at the dinner party who say we shouldn’t talk about politics or religion. They don’t really like too much engagement. So, I think that makes it difficult for Donald Trump because he is, I think, at least bombastic at times, and I think it’s harder for him to engage the independent vote. That being said, there are a lot of practical things that affect everybody, whether you’re a partisan or a nonpartisan, and that are things like, you know, the price of groceries, the price of gasoline. If you’re an average American citizen, can you — do you have enough money to afford gas to go on a vacation by car? And I think those are real things happening in America right now that many in the middle class are struggling because they’re losing the value of their paycheck, their paycheck is not going as far. And so, with inflation, the average working families lost about $1,000 or two. I don’t know if he necessarily drilled in on that enough to be effective. I would call the debate a draw.

ISAACSON: One of the things that they talked about at the beginning is an issue that you care a lot about, which is deficits. And he cited the Wharton School and all of its professors saying he had the greatest economics plans. But the Wharton School said he would add more than $5 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. And you’ve even mentioned that Trump, while president, added $8 trillion to the deficit. That’s been your biggest dispute with him. Is that why even though you say you’re in favor of Trump, you haven’t given a full-throated endorsement of Trump?

PAUL: Well, the dispute isn’t just with Donald Trump. The dispute is also with Kamala Harris. I mean, the Trump administration added $8 trillion in debt. The Harris-Biden administration will add another $8 trillion. So, I think both parties are terrible with spending and with debt. And I don’t think there’s enough concern with this. I’ve been proposing for years we should look at all spending. Most people up here say, well, we can never talk about entitlements. Well, entitlements are two-thirds of the spending. I consider anybody who takes entitlements off the table for discussion to be a non-serious person. Harris has definitely taken that off the table, but so has Trump now. So, both of them have taken two-thirds of spending and say, we’re not going to do anything. Well, then the remaining spending, which is about $2 trillion, half is military and half is nonmilitary, most Republicans take the military off of the consideration as well, and military gets automatically increased as well. You’re left with a tiny sliver of government, and most of that government is government that Democrats support as well. So, there really is a constituency for all the spending, but there seems to be nobody or very few of us have up here are worried about the ramifications that one day America may wake up, have a bond sale, and have nobody show up to buy our bonds or have to pay exorbitant interest. Even now with the slight tick up in interest to paying, I think the Fed — you know, we’re paying a little over 3 percent on our interest for our debt now, interest is now bigger than the military budget in our — it’s a — it’s one of the largest items in our budgets now, interest, squeezing out other spending. So, I think the debt needs to be discussed. It’s part of the reason I haven’t enthusiastically endorsed Trump, but it doesn’t mean I think Harris is better. I think Harris is actually worse on spending and has shown no concern for the deficit.

ISAACSON: What about the tax cuts? Should they be allowed to expire in order to bring down the deficit?

PAUL: The interesting thing about tax cuts is we’ve debated these since the time of Reagan. People still say when Reagan cut taxes or cut tax rates it caused the deficit to go up. No, it was spending. Spending went up. Reagan was not very good with spending and neither were the Republicans or the Democrats back then. When you look at cutting rates, revenue typically goes up. So, if you look at the 2017 tax cut, there’s a slight dip in revenue, but if you look at in two-year cycles, 2017 to 2019, 2019 to 2021, what you find is in every two- year cycle tax revenue has gone up since the tax cuts. So, the revenue, cutting tax rates, having the government take less of your check expands the economy, you get more growth and you actually get more tax revenue coming in. So, I don’t think letting the tax cuts would — expire would do great things for the deficit, but I think it would be very destructive to the economy.

ISAACSON: You talk about the need to rein in entitlements, that anybody who isn’t willing to say, let’s focus some on entitlements, is being, I think your word was unserious. I think you, another doctor in the Senate, Senator Bill Cassidy, are among the few to say, let’s look at what we can do. But let me get specific. Are you talking about Social Security and Medicaid, Medicare, and are you talking about raising the age? What would you do?

PAUL: So, there’s $6 trillion we spend, $4 trillion is entitlements. So, that’s Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps occupy about $4 trillion worth. They all need to be reformed. One of the big reforms is raising the age. And people say, well, you know, what do you want? You want to punish old people and make them wait longer to get their things? And I say, no, look, I aspire to be an old person. I’m on my way to being there. I want it to be there for me when I get there. And the only way there’s enough money is to gradually raise the age. We’re living longer. I didn’t do that. Republicans didn’t do that. But we’re living longer and we can’t — you know, Social Security worked in the beginning because the age cutoff was 65 and the average life expectancy in 1937 was 65. It worked because half the people died and didn’t receive any. It was a very fiscally sound program It ran surpluses for a long time. But now, that we’re living longer, it has to be moved. In 1983, we moved it from 65, very gradually to 67. In most of Europe, they have attached the age to longevity index, and it goes up gradually based on longevity. And that’s what we need to do here. How fast we do it can be debated and figured out. But the age of Social Security and Medicare has to gradually go up, and we have to figure a way to distribute our health care in a more competitive fashion so we don’t waste so much money. And I’m not opposed to some of the things that Democrats do. I think that Democrats and some Republicans have been for competitive pricing for Medicare and using the bulk purchasing to bring down the prices without question. I think we should also look at the people who are ever greening their patents. Basically, you have a patent for 15 years. They come and tweak the patent a little bit and they want another five years. They tweak it again. They want another five years. And so, this idea that patents can go on 20, 25 years is something that ought to be stopped. There are ways of trying to fix some of these problems, but I’ve been here 12 years. I’ve introduced a bill to raise the age. There’s never been a vote on the full Senate floor on any reform of Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security other than to maybe expand them. And really what we have to do is control the cost of them so these programs can remain for the next generation.

ISAACSON: You said a little earlier that Former President Trump’s tone was belligerent and sort of aggressive, and you thought it probably didn’t serve him that well in the debate. To me, watching the debate, one of the main things was tone. There was a sense of anger and resentment that I think Trump has pushed, and I don’t mean that in a partisan way. But — and that Vice President Harris is trying to do a future looking thing. Do you think Trump, by talking about, you know, immigrants eating dogs and the resentment, and saying at the end of the debate that the country is in great decline, do you agree with that strategy?

PAUL: I think that in trying to appeal to people in the middle, you have to try to meet them where they are. And a lot of it’s about personality and the way you present yourself and not so much about policy. But I meet people every day who will say, well, you know, I’m not a big fan of Donald Trump’s decorum, but I love his policies. That’s what I hear every day from Republicans who lean towards voting for him. And I think there are many people in that camp, I think there are people even in the independent camp that may not always like his presentation may not always like the way he presents himself, but are conservative in the sense that, you know, for example, Kamala Harris wants to give everybody $25,000 to buy a house. Well, that’s a ridiculous economic notion. There is no money to give them. Where would she get it? Is she going to take it from someone else? Is she going to print the money? So, most economists have said that’s a bad idea. The idea that you would set price caps on things being sold and charge people with — you know, that make goods with charging too much or price gouging. Even on CNN, the economists came forward, not typically conservative and said they ought to, you know, rethink that and think about what’s happening in Venezuela with price controls. So, I think Trump can win on the policies because I think Harris’ policies are so bad. It’s still, though, a challenge for him to get to people in the middle because there’s a long history, he has a long public history with the folks, and he has to convince the people in the middle that maybe there’s a softer side, or maybe there’s a side this less bombastic. And I’m not saying — I support Donald Trump versus Harris. I’m more supportive. I haven’t endorsed him, but I still think his policies are a million times better than Harris’. But to get to people in the middle, he has still more work to do

ISAACSON: You say you haven’t endorsed him in a full-throated way. Have you talked to him?

PAUL: Not in a while. You know, during his presidencies, I was pretty close and talked fairly frequently with him, and I assume they’ll need to talk to me about my vote if he were president again. And I think that relationship will begin again. There hasn’t been so much in the last year because I haven’t been that involved with just endorsing. And I haven’t said I wouldn’t endorse, but I have said that things like, you know, the debt are important to me. The lockdown, I think, was a mistake. And I think there needs to be a promise that there won’t be a lockdown again. I think the lockdown was a horrible mistake. I think also that we need to investigate the U.S. funding of the lab in Wuhan and make sure that doesn’t happen again. Not only just in Wuhan, I’m concerned that we are funding research to create super viruses, basically gain of function viruses that don’t exist in nature. We’re doing that in the United States, and I’m concerned that an accident here could have a death toll, not a 0.3 percent, which is what COVID was, but I worry about a death toll of 5 percent of the public or 10 or even 50 percent of the public. There are viruses they’re creating that could kill 50 percent of all America. That should be more strictly regulated. And I’m putting forward a bill to regulate gain of function. And I’m hoping to have a bipartisan bill. I’m hoping to have this within the next month or so, maybe pass the Senate. This will be a big step forward. But I want assurances from Donald Trump that he will assist in the investigation and be supportive of this type of legislation.

ISAACSON: Government funding could be running out soon. Speaker Mike Johnson’s got a juggling act to do, but eventually, the Senate will have to deal with it. Do you think there’s a way to do a continuing resolution, keep the government funded or the things that you would want to see insisted upon in your plans if you came to the Senate?

PAUL: One of the things that I’ve promoted forever, which would make the situation better and allow for a cleaner debate, is a legislation to keep the essential part of government open when we have a dispute. And so, what would happen is we have a lot of revenue coming in. We have $4 trillion in revenue coming in, that would pay for most of basic government. Why don’t we just agree not to shut the government down when revenue is coming in while we have a dispute and figure it out? The other thing we could do is we could try to divide up the spending. So, instead of having all the spending in one bill, where if it doesn’t pass, everything shuts down, the parks shut down, and it’s disruptive. If we pass the bills individually — you know, our founding fathers in the history of the Congress was, you had 12 appropriation bills. And then, if you had a dispute over one, and let’s say with the IRS, the Democrats wanted $80 billion to collect more taxes, Republicans thought that was too much money and was going to be too aggressive tactics on honest working people. And so, we have a dispute over that. If we had only that item to dispute and maybe the Department of Treasury or whatever shut down for a few days, but everything else stayed open, then we can have a debate over it. But from a fiscal hawk’s point of view, we have this discussion. We have a debate. Sometimes government shuts down, but we never reduce the cost of spending. We never win. Those who want less spending never win. We always lose because everybody finally folds and says, we don’t want to be blamed for shutting the government down, which is disruptive. But also keeping it open and not reforming it is bad, I think, ultimately for the country and for the future of the country. To run a $2 trillion deficit is just not good.

ISAACSON: You’ve been generally critical of America’s over involvement in military actions around the world. Would you put — let’s start with Israel and Gaza — more restrictions now on our military aid to Israel given the way it’s been since almost a year now, since the October 7th massacres?

PAUL: I think all foreign aid should have conditions on it, and it’s our money. We — you know, we — for example, throughout the Cold War, we gave billions of dollars to Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He was a terrible dictator, tortured his people, and we should have put conditions on it. So, unconditional aid is a terrible idea. The issue in Gaza is a difficult one. And for the most part, I’ve stayed out of directly telling Israel what to do because it’s hard. I mean, they lost 1,200 people at a concert, you know, innocent people killed, murdered, raped, and their response largely has to be their own. I would say that when I’ve been to Israel, there’s much more of a plurality or a discussion and openness to different point of views over there than there is over here. If you say something over here, you’re often accused of being anti-Semitic, if you disagree with anything that the Likud Party puts forward. But frankly, ultimately, they have to make the decision. I did not vote to give him another $26 billion. So, I voted in the past, the $3 billion that we give Israel every year should gradually be phased out. Netanyahu said in ’96 that it was not to be permanent and that it was to be a temporary and it was to be phased out over time. Israel is a very rich nation. So, one way of not telling Israel what to do would be to gradually quit giving them the money and then we wouldn’t interfere in their decisions. But it also wouldn’t be our money. But the same goes for everything else. If we want to give $100 billion a year to Ukraine, Ukraine’s now saying they’re going to want $60 billion a year for the next 10 years. That’s not counting rebuilding everything. They’re going to ask us to rebuild it as well. Should we have any say? And people say, well, they have to decide when they’re done fighting. They have to decide when they’re going to have peace. Well, if we’re finding the whole war, shouldn’t we have some say in what it would be? And the one thing that needs to be discussed — and people will not from the right and left are both adamant they will not discuss this is the one thing that you can give to Russia in exchange for peace, if there’s going to be any negotiation, would be the idea that Ukraine would be a neutral country. That doesn’t involve them giving up territory. In fact, part of the deal could be — and it could have been early on before the war went on so long, could have been Russia retreats within its own border in exchange for Ukraine agreeing to be a neutral country. Now, I don’t know that they would have accepted that, but it’s never offered. In fact, the opposite is offered. All the bellicose European countries, as well as the bellicose NATO defenders in our country are like beating their shoe on the desk that they absolutely must and will be members of NATO. Well, that’s been the biggest complaint Russia has had, that there being a military alliance on their border from a former province of the Soviet Union that that was objectionable to them. Same goes for Georgia on their border, once a former Soviet satellite as well. So, I think we have to look through these things, and there needs to be somebody outside the box talking about it. One of the most galling things I’ve seen is McConnell and Schumer and others who come forward and say, well, we’re not giving this to Ukraine. The money — most of the money is going to our defense contractors. And I find that just disgusting. The idea that 100,000 people, maybe 200,000 people have died in Ukraine and you’re justifying it because it enriches arms merchants in our country, I find that absolutely despicable and distasteful. And, you know, war should not be something that’s glorified by profit. There’s going to be profit. I’m a capitalist. I’m for profit. But I’m never for advocating for more war and an endless war simply for the profit of arms merchants.

ISAACSON: Senator Rand Paul, thank you for joining us.

PAUL: Thank you.