Ep 335 | Will the Battle Over the Big, Beautiful Bill Break the Beltway’s Babylon? | Guest: Sen. Rand Paul

Summary

Podcast Summary: Ep 335 | Will the Battle Over the Big, Beautiful Bill Break the Beltway’s Babylon? | Guest: Sen. Rand Paul

Released on June 6, 2025

Introduction

In Episode 335 of Kibbe on Liberty, host Matt Kibbe engages in a comprehensive discussion with Senator Rand Paul from Rand Paul's office. The conversation delves into the intricacies of the recently proposed budget bill, the dynamics of political discourse involving President Trump and Elon Musk, and Senator Paul's efforts to address censorship and issues stemming from the pandemic industrial complex.

The Bloated Budget Bill

The primary focus of the episode is the contentious budget bill, often referred to as the "big beautiful bill." Senator Paul provides a critical analysis of the bill's impact on the national debt and mandatory spending.

"It's over the debt of our country. Whether or not we can sustain 2 trillion dollar deficits each year... if that were to go to 7, then we're talking about a $2 trillion interest payment. And we really, it's going to squeeze out everything else and it could precipitate a crisis."
[02:10] – Rand Paul

Senator Paul expresses concerns about the government's increasing interest payments, highlighting the unsustainable trajectory of the national debt. He critiques the bill for raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion over two years, suggesting that such measures indicate the proposed budget cuts are insufficient.

"If we're cutting so much and if we're really going doing the right thing and going to balance our budget, why are we borrowing 5 trillion? It's the giveaway."
[04:42] – Rand Paul

Tax Cuts and Government Spending

The discussion transitions to the impact of tax cuts on the economy and government spending. Senator Paul defends the 2017 tax cuts, arguing they stimulate economic growth and can be paired with spending reductions to balance the budget.

"I do think that most time tax cuts actually bring back revenue, are good for the economy. I voted for these tax cuts in 2017, and I would vote to reaffirm them again and make them permanent."
[05:10] – Rand Paul

He emphasizes the necessity of lowering spending rather than raising taxes to achieve fiscal responsibility, advocating for a smaller government that allows individuals to retain more of their earnings.

Medicaid and Entitlement Spending

Senator Paul critiques the budget bill's approach to Medicaid, noting that despite promises to repeal Obamacare and reduce Medicaid enrollment, the bill fails to make substantial changes. He questions the projected savings from work requirements, expressing skepticism about their effectiveness.

"If you don't change the requirements as far as the income requirements and you don't change the split where the states are paying more, I don't know if there's enough incentive."
[09:27] – Rand Paul

He warns that the bill's overall impact on deficit reduction is minimal, as significant portions of government spending remain untouched, leading to concerns about long-term fiscal sustainability.

National Defense and Border Security

A significant portion of the conversation addresses the substantial increases in national defense and border security funding within the bill. Senator Paul argues that such expansions contradict fiscal conservatism by perpetually increasing mandatory spending.

"I don't think you can be conservative, fiscally conservative, and be for unlimited border money and unlimited military money."
[11:57] – Rand Paul

He highlights the inflated costs associated with border security projects and expresses concerns about the long-term implications of a perpetually expanding military and border control apparatus.

Foreign Policy and Tariffs

The episode also touches on foreign policy, particularly the use of tariffs as a tool for economic and political leverage. Senator Paul criticizes extreme tariff proposals, suggesting they could lead to a catastrophic shutdown of international trade.

"If you start out with that, that could be a conclusion, and you might wish to have that conclusion. It's actually be great if Iran wouldn't enrich. But if you start out with that as the absolute to get started, you never get started."
[17:10] – Rand Paul

He advocates for balanced approaches that do not undermine global trade relationships or economic stability.

Emergency Powers and Constitutional Issues

A significant portion of the dialogue examines the expansion of emergency powers, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and in current legislative efforts. Senator Paul underscores the importance of constitutional separation of powers and the dangers of centralized authority.

"Our founding fathers struggle with all that. So when we fast forward to tariffs, there's a. I think they're terrible economically, and there's a great economic argument against tariffs, but there's also a constitutional separation of powers argument that presidents shouldn't have so much authority."
[19:56] – Rand Paul

He expresses concerns about both Republican and Democratic administrations potentially abusing emergency powers, advocating for consistent and limited government intervention regardless of the ruling party.

Investigation into COVID and Gain of Function Research

Senator Paul shares insights into his ongoing investigations into COVID-19 origins and gain-of-function research. As chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, he has issued multiple subpoenas to various agencies and scientists to uncover connections and potential misconduct.

"We really want to get to the bottom of how this happened. And we think there are going to be some surprising findings when we put this all together."
[26:28] – Rand Paul

He discusses the complexities of defining gain-of-function research and the need for unbiased scientific oversight to prevent conflicts of interest.

Legislation and Future Reforms

The conversation touches on proposed legislation like the Risky Research Review Act, aimed at codifying definitions and oversight mechanisms for gain-of-function research. Senator Paul highlights the bipartisan support for such measures and their importance in maintaining scientific integrity.

"We want to have a group of scientists who do not receive NIH funding because we don't want them beholden to somebody else giving them money."
[28:45] – Rand Paul

Conclusion

Matt Kibbe wraps up the episode by emphasizing the challenges of dismantling entrenched government programs and the importance of maintaining fiscal responsibility. Senator Rand Paul remains optimistic about the potential for meaningful reforms, citing a collective effort within the scientific community and bipartisan legislative support.

"I'm optimistic that we are going to get something done."
[28:45] – Rand Paul

Kibbe encourages listeners to support Free the People and continue engaging in honest, principled conversations about governance and liberty.

Notable Quotes

• "It's going to squeeze out everything else and it could precipitate a crisis."
  Rand Paul [02:10]

• "If we're cutting so much and if we're really going doing the right thing and going to balance our budget, why are we borrowing 5 trillion?"
  Rand Paul [04:42]

• "I do think that most time tax cuts actually bring back revenue, are good for the economy."
  Rand Paul [05:10]

• "I don't think you can be conservative, fiscally conservative, and be for unlimited border money and unlimited military money."
  Rand Paul [11:57]

• "Our founding fathers struggled with all that... Presidents shouldn't have so much authority."
  Rand Paul [19:56]

• "I'm optimistic that we are going to get something done."
  Rand Paul [28:45]

Final Thoughts

This episode of Kibbe on Liberty offers an in-depth exploration of pressing fiscal and political issues through the lens of Senator Rand Paul. Listeners gain valuable insights into the challenges of budget reform, the complexities of tax policy, the implications of expanded government spending, and the ongoing efforts to investigate and reform pandemic-related policies.

For more detailed discussions and future episodes, visit freethepeople.org and support Kibbe on Liberty to continue fostering honest and intellectually stimulating conversations.

Transcript

[Kibbe]

Welcome to Kibbe on Liberty. I'm in Senator Rand Paul's office and I'm talking to him between votes and committee hearings and all that stuff. We're going to talk about the bloated budget bill, not the big beautiful bill. We're going to talk about the mean tweets that President Trump is sending at both Senator Paul and now Elon Musk. And we're going to talk about his efforts as the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee to finally rein in the censorship industrial complex, the pandemic industrial complex, and Anthony Fauci. Check it out. Welcome to Tibby on Liberty. Senator, good to see you.

[Rand Paul]

Glad to be with you.

[Kibbe]

Thanks for having, I really appreciate you doing this because I know you're running from votes and hearings and I feel like there's some big fight going on here in the Capitol.

[Rand Paul]

It's a big brouhaha, but it's an important one. I mean, it's over the debt of our country. Whether or not we can sustain 2 trillion dollar deficits each year, whether an interest payment of a trillion dollars is something we can sustain, but also even more immediately, you know, you've seen the bonds that the government sells, 10 year bond. There weren't as many people showing up to buy it. And consequently the interest rates going up over 5% on a 10 year bond. If our interest payment that the federal government pays would go to 5% or 6%, that'd be double what we're paying now. So for years we paid 1.7% was the overall average. For right now our Overall average is 3.5, so about twice what we used to pay. If that were to go to 7, then we're talking about a $2 trillion interest payment. And we really, it's going to squeeze out everything else and it could precipitate a crisis.

[Kibbe]

The ultimate mandatory spending.

[Rand Paul]

Yeah, you can't get away from your interest payment.

[Kibbe]

Yeah, yeah. So it seems like, you know, to take a step back and look at the hopes that we all had, you know, fiscal conservatives, people that actually want to drain the swamp, put America first. This, this beltway legislation seems like a massive missed opportunity to do something really big and bold.

[Rand Paul]

Well, I think it's, it's fairly typical that people want to cut spending and they want a balanced budget until you start asking them what they want to cut. And this has been the mainstream media's criticism of conservatives for many years, that they weren't really conservative because they actually weren't willing to do the work. And that's kind of true. Of what's going on right now. So I've done a penny plan budget for years. Started out maybe 10 years ago, and you could cut 1% across the board and balance the budget. And it was always fascinating to people, like, oh, it's so easy, one penny. But it's one penny of everything, not one penny of a small sliver of the government. And that's why they're having such trouble now making meaningful cuts is they have taken probably half to 75% of the government off limits. So there's no changes to Social Security, there's no changes to. And then they've really minimized what they're going to do to Medicaid. Some of the estimates of savings are from a work requirement, which I'm for a work requirement, but I'm uncertain exactly how much savings that leads to. They might have overestimate how much savings they get from a work requirement. And they really have piddled a little bit with food stamps, but they really aren't going to change the direction of things. Think about it this way. Even if what they tell us is honest, they're saying 1.5 trillion. Well, gosh, it sounds like a big number, but it's over 10 years. So it's 150 billion a year. And you think, well, what's the deficit supposed to be right now? Well, this year it's supposed to be 2.2 trillion. So if you cut 150 billion, it's still over 2 trillion. And have you really changed the course of things now? If you did it every year and it got smaller by 200 billion every year, it'd be great. But all the projections have it going to 3 trillion over 10 years. So my fear is that we really haven't changed the course of things. And one indicator that we have it is that in the bill, it raises the debt ceiling $5 trillion over the next two years. And it's like, well, if we're cutting so much and if we're really going doing the right thing and going to balance our budget, why are we borrowing 5 trillion? It's the giveaway. It's the, the secret being released that really the cuts aren't that meaningful.

[Kibbe]

Yeah. The President's advisor, Stephen Miller, has been mean tweeting at you, and, you know, he says that the tax cuts don't cost anything and that this has huge budget savings.

[Rand Paul]

But the good news about him sending mean tweets at me is this means he doesn't have enough time to tweet about getting rid of habeas Corpus. So, I mean, if we've distracted him from getting rid of fundamental constitutional rights, oh my goodness, maybe we're doing a service to.

[Kibbe]

Strategy is working.

[Rand Paul]

Yeah. But on the tax cuts, it's actually, we're speaking past each other. I actually don't disagree with the President. I do think that most time tax cuts actually bring back revenue, are good for the economy. I voted for these tax cuts in 2017, and I would vote to reaffirm them again and make them permanent. I'll even vote for the extra tax cuts that the president wants to do because, you know, I want to make government smaller. And there's two ways you can make budgets balanced. You can raise taxes to balance budgets, or you can lower spending. I'm in the lower spending category. I don't really want, you know, I remember my dad used to always say, well, you know, we could balance the budget, but if that's our end goal and you balance a $7 trillion budget, have you really done something good for the individual? So you really want. Your goal should be not just balancing the budget, but balancing a much smaller budget. And the only way you do that is by cutting spending. And so by and large, I've been very open to letting people keep more of their money. You know, you earned it. It's your money to they steal a certain portion of it, but we should limit their stealing.

[Kibbe]

Yeah. I mean, the two successful times in my lifetime that Republicans have actually cut spending were in 95, 96, and you know, the Tea Party battles that you were so instrumental to from 2010 to 2013. And it was always a combination of, you know, we needed pro growth policies, we needed to unleash the pro private sector. And that does help lift the revenue stream. But you can't do it without spending restraint. And both of those efforts were focused on spending restraint.

[Rand Paul]

Yeah. And even going back to the Reagan era, Reagan did a great job lowering rates. And we unleashed a huge economic boom. Probably went on for 20 years. We had to get through a recession, but then we had economic boom because we lowered economic rates, but the debt went up because they didn't address spending. It's really been a spending problem. And you know, the idea that Art Laffer had of lowering rates and getting more revenue is true. It was true in the 1980s, it was true in 2017 when we did it, and it'd be true again. So I don't have a problem with the tax cuts. And a lot of people have misinterpreted this whole sort of running battle with the President and administration thinking that I'm accepting the CBO score. I actually don't. I think the tax cuts in 2017 essentially did pay for themselves. And even if they didn't, if we have less government revenue, I'm actually for that. But it has to have commensurate or more reductions in spending as well.

[Kibbe]

Yeah, I want to dig into the big beautiful bill because I think there's a lot more devils in the details there. And start with the Medicaid savings over 10 years that you referenced. I'm old enough to remember when every Republican promised to repeal Obamacare and the focus on these specific Medicaid recipients. That's all Obamacare expansion.

[Rand Paul]

It's funny you bring that up and how far away we are from that now. We were going to repeal Obamacare and Obamacare expanded Medicaid population, 10, 15 million people. They're still all on Medicaid. And the way we trick the states into doing is we said, it'll be free, the federal government will pay for it. We have this great thing, you've heard the Federal Reserve. We just print up the money and it's 100% paid for. They did that for about two years, and since then it's been 90% paid for. And so no longer is it the goal to actually reduce Medicaid size and put those people back into the private marketplace. With private insurance, the goal has been to shift the cost a little bit to the states without getting rid of anybody. But even that was shot down. So now our goal is to have some work requirements, which some people have critiqued and said, said, well, you're going to make them fill out paperwork. They're going to fill out paperwork, but it doesn't always mean savings. So it's a big. It's an assumption. We don't know what happens, but they're assuming a large amount, maybe 300 billion of the savings will come from that, from people being incentivized, I guess, to not like the headache of filling out all the paperwork to actually go and get a real job. But if you don't change the requirements as far as the income requirements and you don't change the split where the states are paying more, I don't know if there's enough incentive. There's a possibility, there's a possibility that we get these work requirements and they don't actually lead to the savings.

[Kibbe]

So the lesson, which you know so well, is that once a program is passed, even if every Republican opposed it and promised to get rid of it, but once a program is passed. It's virtually impossible to roll that back. My read on the spending increases in the big new bill, there's 300, 350 billion. I can't get an exact number. Those must be expansions of entitlements in order to qualify for reconciliation. So you have a huge increase in national defense of 150 billion, which now becomes mandatory spending. You have a huge increase in border security. And obviously, everybody that voted for Trump supports border security, but at the same time, the Trump administration is claiming they've already stopped 95%.

[Rand Paul]

You make a good point. There's at least $300 billion, $150 million for military, $150 billion for border. But there's also somehow scattered in there. We haven't categorized it all. At least another hundred billion. So we think it's 400 billion. And we're starting to see there were indications, and we're still going through the bill. There may be as much as $50 billion in agriculture, either subsidies or men. But you're right, it's supposed to all be mandatory. What's worse about mandatory, it's perpetual. You hire people. So you remember when our founding fathers talked about they were worried about a standing army. We now have a standing army and a standing border control, you know, Border Patrol army. So they're plusing this up to the tune of tens of thousands of people, very high incomes, $10,000 signing bonuses. In fact, there's so many signing bonuses in there that they got worried with all the new people getting them. They're giving them to some of the old people, too, because they were worried that, you know, all of a sudden the new people would be making more than somebody's been there four or five years. So they're giving signing bonuses to the people who've been there several years as well. But it's an enormous amount of money. Won't be easy. You know, are we going to go back on it and be against those great Border patrol agents in five years and six? We need 5,000 less of them or 10,000. And really, you're right. They're controlling the border. Maybe we ought to wait a few months and see whether we need more money. Same with the wall. The wall's $46.5 billion. If you look at the Border Patrol website, it really should cost about 6.5 billion. So where's the extra 40 billion going? Who knows? And we've actually seen articles in the last few days that Palmer Lucky's group, Anduril, is doing surveillance towers that already patrol 35% of the border without a fence. There's a lot of the border. You're never going to get offense anyway because it's not really buildable. But everything seems to be inflated. And that spending is for certain. And to kind of put it in contrast, how much that is, let's say it's 300 billion. Well, the Doge cuts are somewhere between 150 and 200 billion. So we've now increased spending at the get go more than all the Doge cuts. So I think Elon Musk did an amazing job, found all this stuff and then we're dwarfing it with new spending. We shouldn't be doing that. This has always been to me, from the very beginning, a bill that was hijacked and conceived of by Lindsey Graham to explode the military caps. Explode military spending. They gleefully say, oh, we're getting it without having to give the Democrats anything. We're doing. It's Republican only. So we're going to get more military money. But Military already went up 3% this year and then they're going to pad it with another 150 billion. I don't think you can be conservative, fiscally conservative, and be for unlimited border money and unlimited military money.

[Kibbe]

You really can't like. And I talk about this specifically on national defense. If you actually want the government to perform that fundamental function that it has, there has to be conflict constraints. You actually need a Department of Defense that can pass an audit.

[Rand Paul]

That would be nice.

[Kibbe]

You need setting priorities like in the private sector, you're running a business, you don't get everything you want, you'd go out of business immediately. And yet we just keep expand like government fails and we just keep expanding the programs. And I got to believe that the net result of that is another forever war, because that's how you keep the gravy train growing.

[Rand Paul]

It was part of the debate, you know, as libertarianism sort of began the debate between Rothbard and Buckley and that Rothbard worried that if you were, you know, national defense is important, but if you become consumed with that and you're no longer fiscally conservative with it, it grows and grows and your actual individual liberties and your personal liberties will suffer from your opposing communism. But you're building your army up so much that you're actually going to become like the people, people you oppose and you'll, you'll face the same problems that you're, you're spending money counteracting, you'll actually face at home. And that that rift sort of still exists between conservatives and libertarians. Unfortunately, there's more of the William Buckley descendants than there are the Murray Rothbard descendants. And so we fight that battle, but there are more coming around. And I think, look, I live in a state with two big military bases, and yet I say, look, we need to take care of our soldiers, we need to take care of their retirement, but we can't, like, double the size of the army. There's not really a need to do it.

[Kibbe]

Thank you for joining me today on Kibbe on Liberty and for being part of our fiercely independent audience. Every week, my organization, Free the People, partners with Blaze TV to bring you this show. My guests bring smart perspectives on everything from current events to timeless philosophical debates. If you like what you hear, go to freethepeople.org and support Kibbe on Liberty so we can continue to produce these honest conversations with interesting people. Now, let's get back to. Does seem like the neocons have sort of captured the budget process here and that fundamentally undermines President Trump's America first foreign policy. Something that I have.

[Rand Paul]

Oh, every day they're doing something to undermine him. And it is. It's a Cold War mentality. Many of them lived through the Cold War and haven't realized we've kind of moved on to a new generation of things. But every day they're doing something. And many of the president's instincts are actually good on trying to find peace and actually be willing to negotiate with people. He's been more open to negotiating with Russia than anybody else. I would say Putin's not really showing much openness on his side right now. He's been more open to talking with China than other people, people, North Korea, even Iran, all those are good instincts. But he has many people around here meddling. You know, Tom Cott and Lindsey Graham are saying, you know, tell the president he, they can have no enrichment in Iran. Well, if you start out with that, that could be a conclusion, and you might wish to have that conclusion. It's actually be great if Iran wouldn't enrich. But if you start out with that as the absolute to get started, you never get started because that's been a big stumbling bloc in the past. Same sort of with Russia. If you start out with the sort of the opposite. If you start with the peace agreement, you say Zelensky must admit that Crimea is part of Russia to begin. Well, you're not going to begin because national pride in this and they feel like Russia was the aggressor and Russia was the aggressor. But at the same time, they're not going to just. They're not getting Crimea back unless they can take it back by force. I don't think they're ever getting it back. But it is too difficult for them, from a national pride point of view, to start from that perspective. But we have all kinds of things trying now. We have Lindsey Graham wanting to put 500% tariffs on virtually the whole world if they do business with Russia, not really understanding that if they continue to do business and they get a 500% tariff, it'll be a worldwide embargo, it'll be a shutdown of trade with those countries. It'll be more catastrophic than any tariff we've ever had in the history of this country.

[Kibbe]

Speaking of mean tweets, as we speak, there's kind of an ex war going on between Elon Musk and President Trump because Elon came out, I think, yesterday and said this bill echoing everything that you've been saying. This bill is a big spending boondoggle and it undermines everything that we said we were going to do. And now President Trump is shooting back, but at least he's not shooting at you anymore.

[Rand Paul]

Maybe he's redirected your target. I don't know. I don't fear controversy or the interaction with the president. I think that the fact that you're getting flack shows that you're over the target, as they say. And the principles are too important. And this is never really book. This isn't about me. This isn't about Donald Trump. This is about principles that pre existed before any of us. These are about basic principles of do you want more power centralized? Do you want more division of power? Do you want checks and balances between the branches of government? Our founding fathers struggle with all that. So when we fast forward to tariffs, there's a. I think they're terrible economically, and there's a great economic argument against tariffs, but there's also a constitutional separation of powers argument that presidents shouldn't have so much authority, that by emergency they can pass taxes. Tariffs are a tax. They're supposed to go through Congress. Even more specifically, they're supposed to start in the House. And a lot of people forget this. So many people really liked me during COVID because I stood up to Anthony Fauci. I stood up to emergency powers. Our governor took emergency powers. He shut down churches, he shut down gyms, restaurants, hotels. He asked you to present papers if you left the state. You had to present papers to get back into the state. Most of these things were struck down by court. But almost every Republican said no one man should have that kind of power. So we passed emergency reform in our state. Emergencies last 30 days unless reaffirmed by the legislature. Interestingly, I've had that same bill in Washington for several years now, and many of my Republican colleagues were for it when Biden was president. But now that Trump is president, they don't seem to be. But it's the same principle. Any kind of no rational, limited government, conservative or libertarian, should be for emergency powers. And yet you have all these people seem to just say, oh, well, whatever, it's Donald Trump and he's going to be strong. We're going to make America great again. Well, yeah, but there's this Constitution thing. There is this separation of powers. And so I think that I don't know how many people are hearing that argument or not, or how many people are just so blindly, literally loyal they don't want to hear the arguments anymore.

[Kibbe]

I have this theory that maybe someday a Democrat is in the White House again, possibly, and all of those expansions of emergency powers and success in growing that can be turned against the same people that are celebrating it now.

[Rand Paul]

Exactly. And I try to remind them, what if AOC wins? You think she might do a climate emergency? Do you think you might be forbidden from driving a gas car immediately under an AOC climate emergency? Well, nobody would be for that. And all the Republicans are storming back and they'll all be with me next time. But we have to have a little bit of consistency between the administrations and it doesn't have to be, oh, you hate Donald Trump. I don't. I voted for him. Look, I support him. I've supported most of his Cabinet. Some of them have been amazing from a libertarian point of view. Tulsi Gabbard, the biggest, most significant skeptic of intelligence, power and men misuse of it ever in our country's history. Robert Kennedy, most skeptical of the connections between big Pharma and big government. I mean, these are amazing. Marty Makary at fda, a great reformer. So a lot of good things. Jay Bhattachary at nih. But it's funny, I have to kind of recite those things because people think, oh, you're just always against the president. Even the president. I had to remind him, you know, you remember, you were impeached twice and I defended you both times, you know, but it's, what have you done for me lately?

[Kibbe]

So I think we can craft a compromise right now. As you probably know, President Trump is a big fan of President McKinley. And McKinley was a huge advocate of tariffs. So if we take the McKinley model and repeal the income tax because there wasn't one yet, and then reduce the size of government to whatever it was, it was probably in a shoebox back then. Yeah, you might support tariffs then.

[Rand Paul]

Well, I see the comments online saying I just don't understand. And the President's repealing the income tax and we're going to replace it with a tariff. And it's like, give me that choice. I'm, sign me up. You know, tariffs are just a tax. They're a sales tax and there's sales tax on imports. So if you told me the sales tax was 500%, there's going to be no more trade, I'd worry about that. Interrupting all international trade would be terrible for, for America and terrible for Americans. But if you told me 10% across the board tariff and no income tax, sign me up, I'll vote for that. It's not what's happening though, and people need to be aware of that. No one's presenting a reduction in the income tax. They're doing no tax on tips, you know, and maybe no tax on senior citizens, things that I'm okay with. But it's not revealing the income tax. And if you repealed the income tax, it's $2 trillion in reduction in revenue, much bigger than the tax cut that we're looking at. But I'd be all for getting rid of the income tax. But you'd also have to vote for less spending at the same time.

[Kibbe]

I think to get to back to McKinley levels, we'd have to not do a penny plan. We'd have to do a dollar plan.

[Rand Paul]

Well, somebody, yeah, 99. The 99 penny plan. Yeah, somebody asked me about that the other day and they're like, well, we funded the government in the 19th century with it. We could do it again. I said, well, yeah, your government was 3% of GDP in the 19th century. Now it's 20% of GDP. So we can fund tariffs right now. Could fund a 19th century size government, which I'd be all for. But people just need to think through some of these things and there's a lot of people out there agitating without really thinking through exactly what, what we're trying to do.

[Kibbe]

I know some, some MAHA activists are frustrated with the lack of progress happening with RFK Jr at HHS and Jay Bhattacharya at NIH and Marty Macari at FDA. I happen to think they're moving quite quickly. What's your assessment of their Success so.

[Rand Paul]

Far, I'm nothing but pleased. I mean, nothing. Think of the establishment, what we've had forever. No one would have ever questioned or lessened the COVID vaccine mandates. And they have. They finally came out and they said they didn't get rid of it. Some people say, oh, it's terrible because they're still allowing it. No, I think it's reasonable. You don't have to take the COVID if you're not mandated to take it anymore. They're actually saying it's not even recommended for your children to take or for pregnant women. That's a big step forward. And for the rest of the people, take it or leave it. It's up to you. So we're, we've gotten away from the mandates. We've come a long way. We actually voted towards the end of the COVID probably a year after the pandemic was really over. We voted to get rid of the mandate on the military. But no, everybody always wants things to work faster, but they're actually going in the right direction. In the past, we just didn't want people to harm us too much and take away too much from us. Kennedy and Artie Makary and Jay Bhattachary, they're all going in the right direction. They're also giving me information for the first time about the COVID cover up. I'm trying to determine who voted on sending the money, who reviewed whether it was gain of function or not, because we have Anthony Fauci telling me in a hearing it's not gain of function. But then we have a letter from the people getting the money, Eco Health that took the money to Wuhan saying, oh, thanks for releasing the pause on our gain of function research. So the people getting the money, we're caught in gain of function. Anthony Fauci saying we never ever have funded any gain of function in China, but there are things we're discovering on that. But it's a slow pace too, because even with the friendly administration, I'm still waiting and waiting. I try to set up interviews, but eventually I'm going to get to the point where once I've interviewed everybody on the Gain and Function Committee, we are going to ask Anthony Fauci to come in. We're not quite ready because we haven't assembled all the information, but we will. And my, my goal is to interview him sometime this summer, and I mean fall. Sorry.

[Kibbe]

And to remind people like we, we talked about a year ago for my series the COVID up, and you were the ranking Republican on Homeland Security frustrated that the chairman wasn't cooperated, frustrated that the Justice Department, the Biden, Justice Department wasn't cooperating. You now have the gavel. You're the chairman, and you've issued a number of subpoenas.

[Rand Paul]

Yeah, we got the gavel and we changed the rules. I don't have to have my members vote to give me the subpoena power. I have it. So we issued immediately. When I got subpoena power, we issued, I think 14 different agencies got subpoenas from us. Some have responded better than others, but we're still looking for some communications, email communications between vital players in this. And the loop goes from North Carolina to the Rocky Mountain Lab to China and back up to Minnesota to Singapore. I mean, there's a big connection of scientists that were involved in this. And we really want to get to the bottom of how this happened. And we think there are going to be some surprising findings when we put this all together.

[Kibbe]

Speaking of what they're doing at HHS and nih, you have legislation, the Risky Review act, that would do the kinds of things we're asking Congress to do with doge, which is to actually codify the law so that whatever reforms, they do actually stick.

[Rand Paul]

And we have a chance of getting this. It passed out a committee last year, and we're getting ready to do it again this year unanimously. Every Republican, every Democrat, voted for the Risky Research Review Act. It's a presidential council that has the power to remove funding from scientific projects if they're thought to be gain of function. Now, President Trump, to his credit, came in and they have banned. Right now there's a ban on gain of function. Here's the problem. Anthony Fauci said all that stuff in Wuhan wasn't gain of function. So let's say you get a Democrat and they appoint someone like Anthony Fauci. In three years, they're just going to say, oh, yeah, the ban is fine, but that's not gain of function. So they can do it. So you have to have somebody enforcing what the definition of gain of function is. So we, we want a group of scientists, and they will be a group of scientists who do not receive NIH funding because we don't want them beholden to somebody else giving them money. That's what Fauci was doing. He was like, oh, well, how are you going to vote? I'll give you an $8 million grant. Oh, I'm for you. So people like Christian Andersen privately had doubts and thought that the virus had been engineered. Publicly, they wrote A paper for Anthony Fauci, and a month later got an $8.1 million grant approved. So we want to try to avoid that, and we want to try to get. So we have that one, and we also have one that says that scientists should have to reveal their royalties from Big Pharma. Both of those, I think I can get bipartisan vote. And our goal is to get those, hopefully into law this year.

[Kibbe]

So when you spoke to me about a year ago, you were frustrated, but you also said you weren't going to quit until you got this done. I want to close out by pointing out to all of my Maha brethren that the pandemic industrial complex is this massive thing. It's all of these universities, it's all of these agencies, it is pharmaceutical companies. It's a whole ecosystem that has been feeding off of this dangerous research. Can you unwind it? Are you optimistic?

[Rand Paul]

If it were just me, no. But I think there's been a debate in the scientific community for a long time. Anthony Fauci was actually an extreme. He had a lot of power, but he was an extremist. He is quoted as saying in 2010 that even if a pandemic should occur, someone gets bitten in a lab or there's a lab leak, even if a pandemic should occur, the knowledge is worth the risk. That's an extreme position. At least half the scientific community is not where he is. Many of them are very concerned. When they reconstituted the Spanish flu back in the 90s, then again in 2000 when they took the avian flu and tried to modify it to make it more transmissible to mammals and more transmissible through the air, they purposely mutated it. Aerosolization of Ebola. What's going on with COVID So there's a whole group. Group of scientists. It's not just me, and it's not just Republicans, really. It's frankly a cross section of scientists who are believers that we've gone too far. So I think we have a real chance of making a dent in that and actually getting something done. So we'll see. But I. I'm optimistic that we are going to get something done.

[Kibbe]

Okay, your staff is pacing over there, so I assume you got to get.

[Rand Paul]

We've got to go vote again.

[Kibbe]

Okay, thank you, Senator.

[Rand Paul]

Thank you.

[Kibbe]

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