Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
I sat down with Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky, the loan Republican who has consistently voted against both Republican and Democratic spending bills that would reopen the government.
He's still a no.
I started by asking him if he thinks he's the last fiscal hawk in his party.
Listen feels that way sometimes, Yeah. You know, the way I look at the spending proposals is what amount of debt will it add up to? So the Republican plan this year, the Continuing Resolution led to about a two trillion dollar deficit, and I look forward to see what will it do if we do the same thing next year.
It's about a two point one trillion dollar deficit, so it's actually worse. Now.
The Democrats are offering an alternative, but their alternative would be three trillion dollars in debt. So I think neither plan is a very good plan, and so I've offered an alternative called the Penny Plan budget, which would taken across the board, cut and the budget over about a five year period. It would still add some debt, but in the first year it would probably be half of what they're looking at now.
I saw the penny plan that you posted on Twitter. What happens when you walk in the cloakroom and talk to your Republican colleagues, then, Senator, what do they tell you when you try to make your case?
Well, I think they know where I'm coming from. When we had to vote two weeks ago, thirty six Republicans voted with me, So it's not like it's a minority.
Over half of my call is voted with me.
Now there's still sixteen big government Republicans who don't want to cut any spending, and typically they work with the big government Democrats and it is a bipartist spending problem that we have here. But most of them, I think, wish that they could be better and stronger. But I think a lot of them think, well, I can't stake out this position.
But when I get home, I get nothing but encouragement.
People at home are like, thank you for standing your ground, thank you for standing up for what you said you were running on, which was balancing the budget.
Yeah, are people at home, I'm talking to you about healthcare as well, the extent to which there's concern about Obamacare subsidies expiring at the end of the year. This is the talk, and the President says that he's in discussions with Democrats about this. Is that the off ramp.
Most of our conversations at home have been with people affected by tariffs. So the number one issue I get wherever I go in the state is tariffs are killing the family farm. Tariffs are killing the bourbon industry. Tariff is killing the cargo transport industry. So there's all kinds of talk, but mostly of tariffs. On the idea of healthcare, I hear mostly from small businesses that are not in the Obamacare exchange but feel like they don't have the
leverage to get a good price. So what I've been offering for years for people who are worried about the price of healthcare is I'd like to let people buy it through an entity like Costco, which has forty four million members. I'd like to make it legal for you just to go Costco, and then somebody from Costco would negotiate for forty four million members and have the leverage to drive prices down. It's that individual a market of small business men and women who have trouble with the
health insurance. Then there's a whole government subsidy part. But the reason you can't just give everybody money to is we don't have the money to give to them.
We have to borrow it from China. That leads to inflation and poor people.
Think they're getting something free on one hand, but the other hands in their pocket stealing their paycheck with inflation.
Well, of course, you know that's what Chuck Schumer is calling for, and Democrats that they want to have a negotiation over these subsidies. When you hear Schumer shutdown, it's almost a drinking game around here at this point, Senator, we hear that every day from Republicans who join us. Is that a disingenuous line when it comes to describing this situation? Is it more complicated than that? Or actually how you see it from the other side of the aisle.
I would say a lot of people are at fault for devolving this debate down to maybe a third grade level and not really thinking it through. The vote isn't on shutting government down or keeping government open. The vote is on what level of.
Spending can you tolerate? What level of debt can you tolerate? And I think there can be.
Valid reasons now The reason why I think the Democrats are less valid at this point are because forty eight of them voted or forty seven of them voted in December of last year for the identical bill. See, we're still living under the Biden spending levels. That's why I'm opposed to it. I voted against the Bidens spending levels when they came from Democrats and when they're coming from Republicans. But these Democrats voted for the identical bill in December
of twenty four. They're faced with the exact same vote now and they've changed. Why because they've moved the goalpost. This whole idea of Obamacare subsidies has never been a part of the continuing resolution debate. It's something the Democrats put forward is expiring because the Democrats allowed it to expire in their own legislation. So there's a bit of disingenuousness on their part.
Well, it is interesting as well, you didn't mention AOC which usually comes with the talking points on this, and it is Rich Irony the Senator that Republicans are now urging Democrats to vote on this bill that they once found toxic. And I guess this is why a lot of people have trouble understanding Washington here. What's your gut? Just before we move on, I'd like to ask you about a couple of other things. Does the government set
a new record for shutdowns here? And is the President applying pressure on you?
No? I think it lasts a few more days.
The Democrats are have to put on a show for their left wing, so the social swing of the party is hitting them. They saying they don't stand up for you know, government subsidies for government welfare strong enough.
So I think there's a rally this weekend in Washington.
The rumor is the Democrats have to put on a show through the rally. Once they've made it through the rally and the left wing doesn't come after their and eat their own, then they'll capitulate and say that they want a deal and they'll open the government. You're still a no though, right, Yeah, I'm an know because I've been a no against the spending levels. But I'm gonna know for different reasons, not for partisan reasons, not for
anything to do with the Obamacare substitutes. I'm gonna know because both the Republican and Democrat plan offer us too much debt.
I want to ask you about what's going on in the Caribbean, Senator Ran Paul, and specifically when it comes to Venezuela, and you've been outspoken about this. You commented around fears of extraditional killings following the first boat. We've now had four. Your concern about the president's actions here? Is he looking for regime change in Venezuela?
You know, I don't know, but we did discover today that the Coastguard, when they interdict boats, it's a common thing off the coast of Miami in California, about twenty five percent of the time, the boat that they bored doesn't have drugs on it, so they've made an error, but they.
Don't kill them.
But we've blown up four boats now, and if the percentage is hold true, did one of those four boats not have drug dealers on it? If they all had drug dealers on it? You know, the first eleven they killed, what were their names? What was the evidence linking them to being part of a gang? So I think there's a lot of unknowns here, and I don't think you can have a universal Coast Guard policy of just blowing up boats before their interdiction. There's decades long history of
how we board votes. We say halt stop, we will board your boat. If they don't halt and stop, there's an escalation of use of force. But we don't just blow ships up. So there is a real problem.
And yes, I think it might lead to regime change.
And some of the more skeptical among us think that maybe this is a provocation to lead to real regime change, of provocation to get the Venezuelans to react so we can then insert the military.
I hope that's not true.
Well, I know you're very familiar with these rules as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and there's been a question more recently about whether there's a congressional answer to this. Would you support a War Powers Act with eyes on Venezuela.
Yes, I will cosponsor the War Powers Act later this week and we will be discussing this on the floor. I think it's one of the most important debates we have, and the idea that you can kill someone who you don't know their name and has had no process at all. People say, oh, you're going to give due process to fentanyl killers and.
All of this.
Even in our country, twenty thousand people commit murders, and as angry as we are, if it or my family, I would want to shoot them. But we still have trials because occasionally the accused is found innocent and not guilty. Occasionally we make mistakes, but we can't have a policy where we just blow up ships where we don't even know the people's names. It can't be the policy for drug interdiction, either in the country or outside the country.
So I will support a war resolution to say the government shouldn't be doing this.
Well, that's really that's news, Senator, really interesting that you're going to put your name on this. Do you have other Republicans that we'll support that legislation.
There will be people quietly who will say it's the right thing to do, and will respect me for doing the right thing. I think most will be afraid of the response from the White House.
President just announced a stake in Trilogy Medals. Now this is the fourth company by my count with a true a government equity stake. There is also the Golden Share when it comes to US steel. Is there any position in which you would support these moves as MP materials, for instance, an exemption in the name of national security. Are we going down the wrong road here. You've called this a step towards socialism. Now that we have more companies, are we ever closer?
You know, I wrote a book called The Case against Socialism, and so I'm not for government ownership of the means of production. But I'm also not for the government owning ten percent of the means of production.
There are all.
Various forms and degrees of socialism. I do think that the law, also the statute that gave money to these companies. I was against it because I'm against subsidies, particularly when we have to borrow them. But the law didn't indicate any power or transfer any power to the president to say, instead of a grant we're going to give you, we're going to have stock in your company, and that's the only way you get it. Those conditions weren't contemplated in
the law. So I suspect eventually this will go to court. I've been surprised how quickly the companies have acquiesced in it, but I guess it is free money from their perspective, and when you get free money, it's hard to turn away from that. But now I don't like it. I don't like the government sort of saying to Navidia. Hey, hey guys, yeah, you can sell in China this year, but we want fifteen percent. You know, we wont fifteen percent. There is no legal authority to do things like that.
And you know, my problem is, imagine what this would be like if you had Mondami as president or as president.
There's my talking point. It came back in if AOC were president.
Can you imagine what would it mean for her to own the companies?
What if she owned ten percent of Exon? What if she owned ten percent of the oil companies? Oh my goodness.
So I don't want reveuvements order democrats to own the companies.
It's a terrible idea.
Duly noted when you think about what we're discussing here, though, socialism with regard to government stakes in publicly traded companies. In the case of Intel, you've got Trilogy Metals. Now we can talk about TikTok and the integrity of Congress authoritarianism when it comes to extra digital killings off Venezuela. We've all done this in just ten minutes, Senator. So is Donald Trump an autocrat?
But the interesting thing is, despite my complaints, despite my pushback, I still think he's the best president of our lifetime. Frankly, I would vote him a million times over a socialist like Aaron's or a president like Biden who is unable to really perform the functions of the job. But yeah, on so many things, he's for lower taxes, less regulation, he's war pro business.
Doesn't mean I agree with everything.
But just because I have disagreements, and some of the things are big disagreements, doesn't mean that I actually, frankly, don't think he's a great president.
You think federal workers should get back pay when the sents.
They always do. It's not a matter of will they they always do, and it'll be part of the deal. The Democrats will fold within a week. But part of the deal is that all the union workers that work for the federal government we'll get back.
Bay Republican Senator Ran Paul of Kentucky talking with US earlier today. He remains a no vote on this day seven of the government shutdown.