Senator, Good morning, hope you're well today.
Good morning. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely always like having you here. Hey.
First of all, look, I don't want to get into you know, are your feelings hurt, whatever the case might be, but I do want to ask you about not being invited to the lunch yesterday with other senators at the White House with President Trump. I mean, it seems to me that you can have disagreements inside of a party. It's one thing to disagree with the other party, but you can have disagreements inside your own party yet still let all the voices be heard. I thought that was
a mistake on his part. I assume maybe you feel the same way or no.
Well, I try not to take it too seriously there. You know, people can be petty here and there, and you know, I could care less whether I'm invited in the lunch or not. But what I do think is that I'm on their mind, and that's a good thing because the things that I represent are basically balancing the budget, reduce spending, making government small and constitutional, and I stick to my guns on that. So when Republicans propose a spending bill, it will be two trillion in debt, which
is going on right now. I oppose it. Democrats have proposed a spending bill it would be three trillion in debt. I pose that also. But there needs to be some part of the Republican Party that is still fiscally conservative, consistent and sticks to its principles. And so the thing is is I am on their mind. And the President, you know, may have thought it was kind of funny that I wasn't invited. But the other thing is is
he's having to think about me. And when we posted that Thomas Massey and I were having lunch instead, we had two million people view that posting. So there is a constituency still out there for fiscal conservatism and I'm going to continue to try to represent that.
Okay, But I got to ask you, knowing what you just said that the Democrats spending would be three million. The Republicans, I think you said two million, Why did you vote again, I'm sorry, why did you vote against just a clean CR on this deal?
The clean CR are the Biden spending levels basically, so last December, the CR levels continuing resolution spending levels were set and these were the Biden levels, and you remember Republicans complaining I Evan in the election about biden Omics, Biden inflation, Biden spending. Most Conservatives voted against these spending levels last December. Come March, Republicans were in charge, Trump was in the White House. Then the Republicans, most of
them other than me, flipped and voted for it. The interesting thing now is the Biden spending levels are now the Republican CR. All the Democrats voted for this in December of twenty four also, but now they've flipped. So it's kind of only in Washington. Can you imagine that all the Republicans now support other than me, support the Biden spending levels, and all the Democrats are opposed to the Biden spending levels. So it's a crazy topsy turvy world.
But there has to be someone who's consistent in all this mess. So I voted against the Republican plan because they're at the Biden spending levels and it will lead to a two trillion dollars deficit this year and that's just untenable.
Well, with that in mind, though, with the CR and look, you've forgotten more of this stuff than I'll ever know. But wouldn't a CR though. Senator rand Paul wouldn't at least give you the chance to negotiate through some of this stuff.
Well, now is the time to negotiate. And the thing is is I put forward a proposal. They voted on my proposal two weeks ago, not because they wanted to, but because I forced them to, because it's a privileged vot vehicle, because neither party put forward a budget. So I put forward mind the Penny Plan about two weeks ago, and we did get a vote, and we got about thirty six Republicans, So that's not bad. We've got no Democrats,
but it illustrates that there is a solution. My Penny Plan would balance the budget over about a five year period. That's what we need to be doing, and that's what I'm going to continue to be. And I just don't feel like, you know, taking a backstop of two trillion dollars in new debt next year. I mean, the interest payment now alone is a trillion dollars, and I think it's untenable and I think our country is at risk
because of this. So I don't treat this lightly. I don't treat this as, oh, you know, I'm going to be petulant and vote against both I treat this as sort of life and death with the nation that we just cannot keep adding two trillion dollars every year in debt.
Is there any resolution in sight for this government shut down?
I think it's going to eventually, and either this week or next. And here's the reasoning the Democrats. These are Democrats spending levels. These are the Biden spending levels, now called the Republicans z R. They all voted for it last year in December. They're eventually all going to vote for it this time. What happened is their base, their left wing base, the socialist base of the Democrat Party, decided they wanted more. They didn't want just the Biden
spending levels. They a to one of these add on Obamacare subsidies. It's important that your listeners know what the Democrats are asking for. The add on Obamacare subsidies give one thousand dollars to somebody who makes two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. So if you make two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year, the Obamacare subsidise, the add on subsease give you one thousand dollars a year if you make one hundred and seventy thousand dollars
a year. The Obamacare add on gives you thirty six hundred dollars a year. So this is insane. We're two trillion dollars short, and I think you're pretty well off if you make one hundred and seventy thousand, if you make two hundred twenty five thousand dollars, and you shouldn't get any government money. So I really think we're gonna end up winning this argument because giving rich people money for health insurance that passes on to billion dollar you know,
multi billion dollar insurance companies. The only people that have gotten rich off. You know, the rich get richer and the insurance companies get rich. Yell. So it's a terrible situation. I think the Democrats will eventually fold.
On this another topic, I'm kind of curious. Bear with me for a second, why I try at least to draw this sort of comparison. You have come out, you have come out sternly against some of these bombings, for lack of a better term, of some of these boats that are blowing getting blown up by our military that
are trying to bring drugs into the country. You know, I was singing about this last night, tell me if I'm just completely mad about this, right, I look at this kind of like, Okay, what if somebody is trying to bring something deadly into my house and to hurt my family. I don't care what their rights are if they come in to try to bring something that would be deadly to my family, I'm going to do everything I can to protect my family from being hurt by
whatever it is they're bringing in. What is the difference between that and again, if you tell me I'm crazy, I get it. What's the difference between that and these boats bringing drugs into our country that we know are going to kill people in this country?
Why are we worried about their rights?
The main difference is this, When someone comes into your house or tries to break into your house, they're not alleged to be doing it. You actually see them when you shoot them. They come in the door trying to kill you. So the difference is that these boats is there's a word called alleged. You don't know who these people are. We don't know their name, we don't have any evidence they're presenting, no evidence even have drugs. They're not all Venezuela, and some of them are Colombian, some
are Equadorian. Think about this. We bombed a boat the other day, killed a bunch of them, found two of them swinging in the water. Did we pick up the debris and put it into a court case against SIMP drugs now that we found them floating in the water. Nope, we just send them back to Colombia Ecuador. Doesn't it seem bizarre if they really are in the drug trade that we wouldn't prosecute the very people that we blow up with these missiles. So the thing is there is
a difference in our country. So if someone breaks into your house, you have the right to shoot them. But if someone you know committed an assault and you think that they live across you know, three streets over, you can't go over there and just shoot them or blow their house up. That's the difference. I mean. So if you're at sea, if the coastguard is at sea and they say to a boat, halt stop, we're going to
search you for contraband or for drugs. If they don't they run away, the coastguard has the right to pursue them, has the right to shoot at them to disable them, and if they fire deadly shots of the Coastguard. The coastguard can sink them. This has been the rules of engagement for probably a couple of hundred years. The Coastguard can use deadly forced but there's an escalation of the
rules on this. The reasoning is this, when the coast Guard finally boards the ships off of Miami, twenty five percent of those suspective of having drugs have no drugs on board. So if we're wrong twenty five percent of the time, would it be okay to blow people up? These are human beings for goodness egs. I mean, if it's you know, an eighteen year old fisherman who they've kidnapped his sister and that he's being made to do this or his sister's going to be raped or killed.
So there's a lot of if sam's or butts about this that should be explored. And none of these drugs are at all likelihood even coming to America. This is an outboard boat two thousand miles away. These drugs, if there are drugs, because it's still alleged, are going to Trinidad and Tobago. This is a drug trade to the Lower Antilles, the Lesser Antilles. These boats have no means. It would take twenty tanks of gas. You'd have to stop and fill up twenty times on an outboard motor
to get all the way United States from there. So they're not even presenting evidence of who the people are, whether they have drugs. But they're also not presenting evidence of these boats two thousand miles away have any intention of coming to America.
Hey, last thing I want to ask you about, and this is way off topic here, but you know, depending on what happens here in the next couple of weeks, there is chance that the largest city in America is going to basically vote in certainly a socialist, if not an outright communist, to be the mayor of New York City. In your wildest dreams, could you have ever imagined that might happen in this country.
No, and it's hard to believe it is, and it does happen. There's been a huge exodus from New York and particularly New York City. A lot of the means in capital, you know, it was the greatest financial city in the world, have been leaving for years. But I think there'll be a mass exodus and what you'll be left with is no financial engine and just a poverty and what comes from socialism. So no, it's a disaster that's unfolding in slow motion hopefully that people will see.
But you know, there's not a whole lot of choices. I mean, you can vote for the corrupt Cuomo or mom Domi, but there also is another choice. I'd vote frankly for the Republican. I think Curtis Lee what would bring law in order to the place and would be great. He's just not polling high enough because there's not enough Republicans right now, but he's the best choice, all right.
Senator Ran Paul.
Can't thank you enough for your time as always, and we'll look forward to catching up with you again sometime soon. Thank you, all right, Senator Ran Paul from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.