Senator Rand Paul, of Kentucky, joins to discuss the Big Beautiful Bill, and where his concerns lie: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the longtime Senator and conservative grassroots leader from Kentucky, told Breitbart News exclusively that he believes the Democrats are “adrift” as a party without an identity right now. But, he warns, Republicans could face major risks and consequences in the upcoming midterm elections if they too lose their identity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Toll-free, let me give you our number.
It is 800-941-Sean.
If you want to be a part of the program, we welcome back to the show Senator Ram Paul of Kentucky.
I want to talk to him about a lot of different issues.
The one big, beautiful bill, now that it is in the Senate and some of the changes that are being discussed and what it would take for him to support it.
And number two, I'd like to talk to him.
Did you see the Atlanta Fed's prediction and estimate of GDP growth over the first two months of the second quarter is now a booming 4.6%?
Because the last time we were on, we talked a lot about your concern and there should be concern about tariffs and getting some of these deals done.
And I think there's going to be more to follow.
And I absolutely understand your concern about that.
But 4.6%.
If the second quarter comes in anywhere near that number, wouldn't you say that that is a phenomenal success?
You know, I think it'd be great if we have growth over 4%.
We'll wait and see what the numbers show.
A lot of things about the tariff aren't yet set in motion.
You know, most of the people who tell me they are going to have to pay higher prices for the goods they sell say that their contracts lock them into not raising the price of the goods for a couple of months.
So many people who import things from overseas are saying that their costs will go up later on in the fall.
So there's going to be an adjustment to tariffs.
The tariffs are without question a tax.
When you tax something, you get less of it.
So you'll get less trade.
And it used to be that Republicans were for lower taxes, not higher taxes.
We thought that bringing more money into the government wasn't the goal.
Actually, the goal was leaving more money in the private sector.
Well, but you have to view this through the prism of the fact that, and you acknowledged this the last time you were on, that America is getting ripped off, that the European Union is ripping us off, that Canada is ripping us off.
All these countries, you know, friend and foe alike, China totally ripping us off.
And, you know, the question is, does America at some point stand up for itself and say that enough is enough and America go through a little bit of pain, but demand that we have either free and fair trade or reciprocal tariffs?
Now, as a consequence of the president's strong position, we also have had some incredible benefits.
I'll list them for you.
One, $10 trillion in committed monies for manufacturing in America, including semiconductors, chips, and pharmaceuticals that will be made here.
I think those two issues are good for American national security.
We did have, you know, about, on average, $25 billion that we'd never seen before in tariff money because the president has taken a stand that we're not going to be ripped off anymore.
I don't think you want America ripped off.
You know, I think it's important to kind of unpack that when we talk about whether or not a country is ripped off.
Trade is mutually beneficial or basically doesn't occur.
So most trade that you think is between America and China is really Americans going and buying something at Walmart.
So when you go and you buy a TV at Walmart, say it's made in China, you only buy that TV if you think that it's beneficial to you.
So all transactions really that are voluntary are mutually beneficial.
You want the TV more than you want your $600, and the person who made the TV wants your $600 more than the TV, and so you make a trade.
You can draw a circle around that and say, oh, my goodness, at the end of the year, a million people bought a TV at Walmart, and they were all individually happy.
But if you say that all the TVs came from China, we now have a trade deficit.
And so people say, well, we were ripped off.
But it's basically a.
No, it's not the trade deficit.
It's the tariff differential.
In other words, that they prevent American goods from going into their country, which hurts our farmers, our manufacturers, our ranchers, and other industries.
And I'm not even including intellectual property theft.
And we're giving free access to our markets at very low tariff rates.
You know, at some point, don't we have to challenge the system and say, make it free and fair?
Or if you want tariffs, it's got to be reciprocal?
I mean, that just seems fair.
That seems simply like fundamentally fair to me.
You know, we're the number one importer of goods in the world, but we're also the number two exporter of goods in the world.
So we do make a great deal off of trade.
And I think my argument is that in each individual trade, they have to be mutually beneficial.
If you draw a circle around them, you can show that we have a trade deficit.
The problem with fairness arguments, and they do make sense.
So when you tell me it's not fair that a certain country has a 20% tariff on ours and we don't have a tariff on that, it does sort of resound, and you say, oh, my goodness, it doesn't sound fair.
But what if I told you that teachers...
It doesn't sound fair, but in reality, it isn't fair.
Let me finish the point.
So what if I tell you, though, that teachers making $60,000 a year and a rap star making $6 million a year isn't fair because a teacher really is more of a service to the country and we should pay a teacher more than a rap star?
But those are arguments from the left, and we usually don't accept fairness arguments because we let the market decide how much your value is worth.
How much should a you know a television personality make how much should an athlete make how much should a teacher make and a fireman?
We don't go by sort of a TV personality does not make enough.
No, I'm kidding.
But I'm really having a hard time understanding this.
Why would China prevent our goods?
For example, why has Canada put massive tariffs or the European Union, for example?
They put a 10% tariff on our automobiles going into Europe, and we only put a 2.5% tariff on theirs, and then they have a 20% VAT tax, so that's a 30% increase in our sticker price, and we sell very few American cars in the European Union, and they sell a ton of cars in America.
As a result of the president's threat of tariffs, now BMW and Mercedes and all these foreign countries are now going to build their facilities here, and that'll create jobs for Americans, which I'm fine with, and those will not be subject to tariffs.
No, I think that's a good, and that's a great result.
If we get to lower reciprocal tariffs, I think that's a great result.
If we wind up with greater tariffs, though, it'll be basically the effects of taxing something.
You'll have more revenue for the government, but less revenue for the private marketplace.
And so people have to realize, see, many people who are for the tariffs say, we're going to just punish those foreigners, and those foreigners are going to pay these.
Well, no American companies pay these.
I was with a company today that imports things from Southeast Asia and then sells them to Americans, but 6,000 Americans work for the company.
And so the thing is, is that the people who are punished by this are Americans.
If we punish Apple and say you can't make phones in China and you can't make them in India, you've got to make them in the U.S., it will mean higher prices here.
And people have to decide.
Or these countries realize that they have taken advantage of it, of us, and we've allowed them to take advantage of us, and they change their policies as a result, which I think ultimately is going to happen.
My understanding is we're close to a deal with India.
We had a deal with China.
Apparently, they're violating it, so that has to be rectified.
I could imagine a trade deal with the European Union probably forthcoming, a trade deal with Australia probably coming.
But yet, if the president didn't take a stand and say, wait a minute, you're treating our country unfairly, our manufacturers, our farmers, our ranchers unfairly, and you need to allow access to our markets the way we're allowing access to yours.
I think we have a certain power in as much as China, all these countries that I mentioned, they all need access to our markets.
They want our money.
In the midst of all this, though, you have Lindsey Graham offering up a bill to have 500% tariffs on India.
So if you have 500% tariffs, if people think, oh, my goodness, tariffs are so great, why don't we do a 500% tariff on India until they quit buying oil from Russia?
I'm not going to have a 500%.
Well, it's just not going to happen.
You're talking about this Putin sanction bill with 82 senators now signing on to?
You've got 82 senators that are beguiled somehow into thinking that tariffs don't mean anything and tariffs are not a problem.
But the bill offers 500% tariffs on anybody buying oil or gas from Russia, directly or indirectly.
So high on that list is India.
I'm not positive what happens, but as a country, I would be somewhat offended by another country telling me I can't buy oil from one country or another.
But it may not even be logistically possible because India buys a lot of oil from Russia.
It may not be logistically possible for them to decouple, but there is a chance that they also react to this in a nationalistic way and say, go take a hike.
We're going to buy oil from where we want.
But then what we're talking about is a trade war that would end up in a worldwide embargo.
36 countries buy oil and gas from Russia.
So there is a danger to thinking that tariffs are benign and tariff wars are benign.
Lindsey Grant's bill is perhaps the most ill-conceived bill that's ever come before Congress.
Well, isn't it certainly better than the policy of 200-plus billion taxpayer dollars in a proxy war of America between Ukraine and Vladimir Putin?
I mean, ostensibly, we became the proxy.
Yeah, no, I'm not for funding the war in Ukraine and have voted against and opposed all of that, but I'm certainly not for having a worldwide embargo for people who do trade with Russia.
So I don't think that's a good way to end the war, but I think it's a good way to have an economic catastrophe above and beyond anything.
But let me ask you.
Well, I mean, they're getting reduced rates.
They're paying about 70 cents on the dollar for oil and gas from Russia in the European Union, Western European nations.
Aren't they funding the war machine of Vladimir Putin by allowing him to profit?
Just like, for example, when Joe Biden turned a blind eye to the sanctions with Iran, didn't that enrich them to the point where they can foment terror in the entire region?
I think we can have opinions about what's in our national interest and other countries can.
But if we think we can force the entire world to do as we say and to not deal with Russia, I don't know.
I think it's a naive notion, and it's a kind of this idea that George Bush was for.
We're going to make the world safer democracy.
We're going to go everywhere and tell everyone what to do.
No, I don't want to change countries.
I don't even want to push regime change.
However, I don't think Iran could ever have a nuclear weapon.
And I don't, you know, I look at Vladimir Putin as a murdering dictator thug that never should have amassed troops on the border with Ukraine and military equipment the way he did in Joe Biden's a sit idly by and let him do it and then basically use American money to fight that war.
But the question is whether or not we would embrace a worldwide embargo of 36 countries, including many members of the EU, India, and others who buy oil and gas from Russia.
And what a disaster this would be for the world.
I mean, I think that this really is the most ill-conceived bill I've ever seen come before Congress.
It would lead to a disaster.
Well, then how do you put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children?
Because like you, I don't support American involvement in Europe.
This is a European problem.
This is not an American problem.
But, you know, when you see, you know, I mean, there comes a point where American involvement, we saw this in World War II, you know, became a necessity, you know, to beat back the forces of Nazism and fascism and imperial Japan.
We were forced into that.
You know, one of the countries that buys oil and gas is Israel.
So are we going to have a 500% tariff on Israel in the midst of the unending crisis that they have with their enemies surrounding them?
No, we're going to tell all these countries to buy their oil and gas from us.
That's what I would do.
Well, the thing is, is, you know, I guess that sounds pretty imperialistic to me that we're going to make the decisions for the whole world where they can buy their oil and gas.
Israel's already made a decision.
Israel imports 13, looks like million barrels a year from Russia, but Germany does.
Egypt does.
India does.
Thailand does.
italy poland colombia and it's like aren't they funding his war machine Well, yeah, I know, but the thing is, you're right.
Yeah, we have an opinion.
We don't like it.
We can tell them that.
But a 500% tariff in double every 90 days is a recipe for complete.
You think there's been some chaos when $6.6 trillion was lost in the stock market on Liberation Day, on the threat of tariffs with all these countries?
Most of those tariffs weren't 500%.
They were anywhere between 20, 30% and 150%.
We're done with it.
But would you deny the $10 trillion in committed investment was a result of Donald Trump showing some strength and a willingness to go where no other person went before, or the fact that the Atlanta Fed is predicting 4.6% GDP growth.
That's their estimate for the second quarter as a result of all this?
That all the fear-mongering about tariffs didn't pan out?
No, there's many good things, but I think the story is not yet finished.
I think we're just getting started.
I agree with you.
I agree.
I think, you know, there's still.
And my hope is they get deal after deal after deal, and then we move on with freer and fairer trade.
I'm a free trader.
Our purpose isn't to simply say that the president's not doing any well.
I'm a huge supporter of the president's cabinet.
I voted for the nominations, been a supporter of the tax cuts.
I was part of getting the tax cuts due in 2017.
Would like to know.
No, you agree.
We agree on a lot of things, and I don't want involvement in foreign conflicts either.
But I do want the killing to stop.
I mean, we saw the onslaught that killed innocent men, women, and children.
And frankly, I was glad the Ukrainians took out all those, you know, the 42 bombers of Russia.
I think they have every right to defend themselves at this point, but it should be European money, not American.
Listen, do you got a few more seconds or you have to run?
I got a few more seconds.
All right, quick break.
We'll come back more with Ram Paul on the other side.
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What I told people I was making a podcast about Benghazi, nine times out of ten, they called me a masochist, rolled their eyes, or just asked, why?
Benghazi, the truth became a web of lies.
It's almost a dirty word, one that connotes conspiracy theory.
Will we ever get the truth about the Benghazi massacre?
Bad faith, political warfare, and frankly, bullshit.
We kill the ambassador just to cover something up.
You put two and two together.
Was it an overblown distraction or a sinister conspiracy?
Benghazi is a Rosetta Stone for everything that's been going on for the last 20 years.
I'm Leon Navok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
This is Fiasco, Benghazi.
What difference at this point does it make?
Yes, that's right.
Lock her up.
Listen to Fiasco, Benghazi, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we continue now and shift gears with Kentucky Senator Ram Paul's with us.
You know, there's a lot we agree on.
I don't want American in these long-drawn out foreign conflicts, but I don't want America being ripped off.
I think the president is negotiating, and I've known this guy for 30 years.
I think I have a pretty good understanding about how his mind works.
I think we have already reaped a lot of benefits.
And I'm hoping the result is freer and fairer trade at the end of the day.
Let me move on to the issue of the reconciliation bill, the one big, beautiful bill.
You have been pretty outspoken about it and about the House version, which was not easy to come by.
And I don't want you to think by any means I think it's perfect because I know it's not.
And I know you've got a lot of minefields that you've got to navigate here, especially over you have some Republican senators concerned about Medicaid provisions in the House pass bill.
You know, Josh Hawley, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, they're, you know, Republicans from states with large rural populations are concerned about losing benefits.
I know the SNAP issue is a big issue of Charles Grassley's clean energy tax credits is a big one, whether or not we're actually cutting enough out of this bill.
And then you've got to get it by this one person, the Senate parliamentarian, and make sure that it passes the Byrd rule without getting too complicated in the Senate.
If you want to overcome cloture, which needs 60 votes for passage, reconciliation is a means to do it.
It's how Obamacare was passed.
The Inflation Reduction Act was passed.
But there are very rigid, you know, arcane rules in the Senate that have to be approved by one person, quote, the Senate parliamentarian.
And they must all have to do with spending.
And I know it sounds complicated because it is, and it's unnecessarily so.
But Rand Paul is with us.
I really want your thoughts on this and what would get Rand Paul to a yes on this one big, beautiful bill, knowing that you're not going to get everything you want.
Nobody's going to get everything they want here because of those rules.
Well, I think you're right.
And the main thrust of the bill is to make the tax cuts that I've supported and have voted for from 2017 to make a lot of them permanent, to add in some new tax cuts.
I have always been in favor of letting the money remain in the hands of those who earned it, you know, try to keep it in the private marketplace, keep government small and not increase taxes.
So that I'm for.
There is some spending cuts.
I wish there were more.
But even though they're imperfect and I won't get everything I want in the spending cuts, I will support what spending cuts.
the deal killer for me and the heartburn and the heartache comes from increasing the debt ceiling $5 trillion.
And I've told the president this, but I've also told the leadership for months and months now, I won't support raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion because once I'm gone, once there is no me or anybody else like me supporting, uh, where, where, where are you going?
You're a young man.
Well, no, what I'm saying is that once there are no more conservatives left, if everybody votes to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion, the conservative movement's gone.
It's done for.
See, in the past, this has always been a Democrat process.
We've never, ever raised the debt ceiling without all the Democrats and the big government Republicans voting for it.
Conservatives have never voted to raise the debt ceiling ever.
This will be the first time that the conservative movement gets behind raising the debt ceiling.
To me, it means that from now on, the debt will be owned by the Republicans.
It will no longer be a wedge issue where we say the big spenders, you know, we have some bad ones on our side.
We've got the Democrats.
But now it's going to be passed by the Republicans, and it would be $5 trillion.
The deficit this year is going to be $2.2 trillion.
And in March, most of the Republicans, not me, but they all.
In fairness, though, the deficit this year is really Biden and Harris's economy.
You would agree with that.
It's actually both, because in March, the Republicans voted to continue the Biden spending level.
So I voted no in March, but the Republicans all voted yes, most of them, and they continued the Biden spending levels to the end of the year.
So the first six months belonged to Biden.
The second six months belonged to the Republicans.
And come the end of September 30th, the Biden spending levels, which became the Republican spending levels halfway through the year, will end up with a $2.2 trillion deficit that the Republicans who voted for this are now responsible for.
Well, what's even more worth it.
Are you factoring in this?
Let's go back to the Reagan years because I think we both are admirers of Reagan.
The Reagan tax cuts, and these tax cuts are way bigger than the Reagan tax cuts.
This will be the largest tax cut in American history.
It resulted in a doubling of revenues to the federal government, and it resulted in the creation of 21 million new jobs.
And it resulted in the longest period of peacetime economic growth up in history up until that point.
And we saw with the first Trump term, the tax cuts, again, putting aside COVID and the debt deficits that took place as a result of that.
Take those years, extrapolate out those years, 2020, 2021.
And if you extrapolate that out, I mean, we had incredible massive growth, but you're right about spending.
Now, isn't this about reducing baseline budgeting, eliminating baseline budgeting, and reducing the rate of growth of government?
Like, for example, every new dollar that Reagan brought in, he doubled revenues.
Congress spent $1.25 at the time.
Didn't seem like a lot.
We're talking about $500 million to over a billion dollars.
I mean, Trump change compared to what we spend today.
But don't you think that if the economy is going to have an infusion of $10 trillion in investment, lower tax cuts, more Americans working, work fair versus free benefits, that there's going to be massive cost savings associated with that and an increase in revenues that hopefully can compensate and bring us to a balanced budget?
Because that's what I'm hoping for.
You're exactly right about the Reagan years.
During the Reagan years, taxes were cut significantly and revenue rose.
When you let people keep more of their money and they paid a lower rate, they worked harder and more revenue came in.
But the debt went up dramatically under Reagan because they weren't able to control spending, and it was a bipartisan problem.
It's the exact same problem we face now.
I'm for the tax cuts.
I think the CBO is wrong.
I think they will bring in more revenue.
But the spending has gone on without any lessening.
And so in March of this year, the Republicans all voted to continue the Biden spending levels.
They get a continuous.
You're talking about the CR the pest.
Yeah, well, they continued the same spending level.
Well, what was the option if you didn't continue to fund the government?
And I'm not one that fears government shutdowns, but at some point you would have needed a resolution.
The same option as we always have.
Somebody needs to have the courage to stand up and say we're not going to do it and that the deficit's going to consume the country and we have to reduce spending.
But they didn't do that.
They voted for the Biden spending levels, so now the debt belongs to the Republicans.
But if they vote for the debt ceiling to go up $5 trillion, it means that not only will the deficit be $2.2 trillion this year, they're anticipating $2.8 trillion for next year.
So they're borrowing $5 trillion, and we've never, ever borrowed this much.
And every time we've set a limit, we always reach it.
So if you set a limit that high, it just means that, you know, the roller coaster, you know, the descent into this debt, it continues apace.
And I'm worried about it.
I'm looking at the bond market.
I'm looking at interest rates.
We used to pay 1.7% on average for the U.S. debt.
Now it's 3.5.
But that hasn't figured in the latest interest rates.
When they get figured into all the Treasury bills, if we're paying it 5%, if it goes from 3.5 to 5%, it's going to devastate.
The whole entire government's going to be up.
But don't you blame Fed Chair Powell?
You know, what has been there?
Inflation is running at 2.1% right now.
Okay.
And the Fed's target is 2%.
The Atlanta Fed has just put out an estimate yesterday.
The GDP growth over the first two months of the second quarter is now 4.6%.
If you look at other indicators, consumer confidence is up to a four-year high.
Employment is now growing dramatically.
Now, we're going to have massive amounts of increases in revenue, I believe, because the president opening up energy in this country to become energy dominant.
I think that will help.
The $10 trillion that I refer to, I think that will help.
The tax cuts, I believe that will help.
I also believe the Republican Party now becomes the party of working men and women, and the Democrats are the party of woke coastal elites.
Job openings, by the way, showed another unexpected increase in April.
It's always unexpected when it's Trump.
When you factor in all of that, and I agree in principle with you, I would have adopted the penny plan, Connie Max Penny Plan and your plan years ago, but they didn't do it.
And I would actually think about bringing some, maybe we call it the nickel plan at this point, but we also have extenuating circumstances.
We have to secure our borders.
We've got to expel illegal immigrants.
We need the next generation of weaponry because we're behind.
We don't even have hypersonics, but China and Russia do.
So I'm worried about all those factors as well.
There's a lot going on here and a lot to consider.
I think the cautionary tale is that they went to sell 10-year bonds this last week, and there were many less offers for the bonds than there have been in recent times.
And the interest they had to pay is, and this is the market determining it, not foul.
The market determined they had to pay over 5% for 10-year bonds.
And so as those interest rates rise, it means that people are getting skittish, and investors are getting skittish about buying American debt.
I don't want our country to go into insolvency.
I don't want the country, and we could wake up one day and this happens.
It might happen gradually, but it might happen in a week or in six months.
You can have dramatic upheavals where people lose confidence.
And I think when both parties are blithely spending money, no one's willing to touch the entitlement.
We've taken Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security off of the table.
There is a great deal of concern that we get to a point and there's going to be a catastrophe.
And there has to be somebody out there, you know, some kind of canary in the coal mine saying, we've got a real problem, and somebody's got to do something about spending.
Listen, I'm in favor of all of it.
And I was actually sad to see Elon Musk go, and I'm sad to see what he went through because it's not a small thing that he was able to identify over $200 billion in waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption.
And I'd like to see that Doge mission continue in every aspect and every crevice and corner of the federal government.
And I'd like you to return to constitutional order.
My take is if the House and Senate can go into conference and come out with a bill, that's a good start considering the tax cuts that are the largest in history and all the things that we've discussed.
But then I think the next level is a return to constitutional order, and that means putting forward budgets and getting them done by September 30th for the next fiscal year, October 1st.
And that's where I'd like to see maybe the process of definitely reducing rates of increase and eliminating baseline budgeting and more Doge cuts across the board in every department.
I think there's a long way we can go.
I think there's still a ton of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Well, I've told the President I'm supportive of the tax cuts.
I can support the bill if we separate out the debt ceiling from the bill.
So they need my vote.
I'm very much available.
I've supported the president's cabinet.
I've supported the president's nomination.
So I was probably his biggest defender on the fake impeachment, the partisan impeachment.
So it doesn't mean we're going to agree on everything, but on this, you know, I can't be true to the things that I've run for and the things that, you know, we say we're going to represent, and that is the deficit is too large and we have to do something about it.
And so I just have to be honest that I'm very worried about not being more having more significant spending cuts and about borrowing so much.
I just think there's got to be a way to limit it.
I mean, back in the day, didn't you support the penny plan?
Yep.
Yeah, I mean, you were in the Senate and Connie Mack was in the House, right?
Yeah, and I've had it for almost a decade now.
It actually is the sixth penny plan because the COVID spending went up so much that they, you know, it now takes a 6% cut to get the balance in five years.
But it only works if you look at all the entitlements.
See, the current plan has taken all the entitlements off the table.
Even the Medicaid so-called reforms may or may not say what they say they're going to say, but we're really not going to have significant Medicaid savings.
And the Medicaid spending has exploded.
Senator, we appreciate the extra time.
Thank you, sir.
We appreciate it.
Ram Paul.
800-941-Sean is our number.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
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