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- [00:00]
Senator Rand Paul
J. Edgar Hoover's got nothing on Anthony Fauci. It's hard for me to accept the argument that Democrats are going to do something terrible, so we should do it first. Some of the voices on the Republican side need an opposing voice, and I try to be that voice when I can.
- [00:17]
PodForceOne Host
Welcome to podforceone. Today's guest is Senator Rand Paul, the longtime senator from Kentucky, the libertarian and female advocate for civil liberties and reducing the debt and a lot of other good things, and also sworn enemy of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Welcome to PodForceOne, Senator Paul.
- [00:38]
Senator Rand Paul
Thank you for having me.
- [00:39]
PodForceOne Host
I want to get to Anthony Fauci later on because I'm just intrigued about why you really are the only person in Congress who seems to understand the gravity of what he did during COVID and before COVID his responsibility, his culpability. But before that, more topically, on the Iran war, you've always been against war and the forever wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and so on. And you were pretty dubious about Donald Trump's what he calls his excursion into Iran, but you have been supportive of his current memorandum of understanding to reach a deal to end the war permanently and remove the nuclear threat of Iran. So walk us through that. I guess it's not a change of heart, but your attitude and do you differ from your Senate and House colleagues?
- [01:42]
Senator Rand Paul
We know you're right. I do prefer peace to war. Peace is better for commerce. Nobody has wanted Iran to get a nuclear weapon or to get a nuclear bomb or to enrich uranium. But we've struggled, you know, over decades trying to control this. Not a brand new problem. People have told us probably as long as 20 years ago, they're a week away from getting a nuclear weapon. So I think some of that has been hyperbole and some of that accurate. Why wasn't excited about starting the war now that the war has gone on? Diplomacy sometimes advances more rapidly when people have been chastened by military action. We won a huge military victory. We basically decimated what they had in defense of their country. Their leadership was all eliminated. And so this is a time when I think they may feel enough pressure that they actually may negotiate more than they have in the past. The first thing that the president has offered is something that gets us back to where we started, but is still worthwhile, and that is to open the Strait of Hormuz. The way it's going to be opened is, I think, essentially a fairly equivalent trade where we'll quit blockading you if you quit blockading us. And hopefully that gets it open and flowing. Once that does, it stabilizes the world's economy and the price of oil and then we move on to the next stage. Now, there are many members of my party that are against all negotiations. They want regime change. Well, you know, in a perfect world, I wish Thomas Jefferson were going to be elected to Iran's leadership and they would renounce their evil ways. I, I don't think that's going to happen. In fact, I think the next layer of people are maybe more hardcore than the first. Think about it. If your dad was killed and then they blew your leg off and disfigured you and then called you names in the media and insinuated things about you, you may not be that happy about. You know, the people that have done this to your family. So I don't think the new people are going to be more cooperative. They may be chastened because of being defeated to, to a certain extent. But I think there has to be negotiation. If your goal is not to have a nuclear weapon and to get rid of the enriched uranium, you will still have to deal with them. There's a great book written by a guy named Fred Icklay and he was an under defense secretary under Reagan. He wrote a war, he wrote a book Every War must End. And he said, we talk so much about the first battle, but we rarely talk about the last battle. We rarely talk about that. Even when you win a war militarily, there still has to be negotiations to get what you want. So Iran is defeated, but they're still not giving up their enriched uranium unless they get something. What they want, I think is, and what we can give them and should trade is relief of trade sanctions. And you don't have to trust them on this. I would say I would release all the trade sanctions in exchange for all of the enriched uranium and a promise. Now will the promise be kept? If the promise isn't kept, you can put the sanctions back on, you know, or as president said, I'm not a big fan of this, but we start bombing them again if they, if they don't pay attention to the treaty. But they have never before really offered to get rid of the uranium, the, the enriched uranium. In fact, it's been getting worse. We got out of the Iran agreement and they actually started enriching to 60% in response to us leaving the Iran agreement. So it's gotten worse in recent years. It is more dangerous. But if they will now trade removal of that, I think we should be very forthright and, and, and make that exchange and People say, oh, we shouldn't give them anything. They're evil people. Well, you always negotiate with bad people because it's not like we're fighting a war with Britain or France or one of our NATO allies. This is a, you know, it's a war with people we have serious disagreements with, if not warlike sentiments. But you still have to trade, and I think we need to get there and that some of the voices on the Republican side need an opposing voice. And I try to be that voice when I can.
- [05:43]
PodForceOne Host
It's interesting. You talk about every war ending in negotiation. That's exactly what J.D. vance has been saying and to great scorn from these sort of erudite likes of Lawrence O' Donnell on msNow, who described JD Vance, the vice President, as ignorant of history and gave this great rant, World War I, World War II, they didn't end in negotiation. I mean, yes, they did. And as you point out, that's exactly. I mean, you win militarily and then you negotiate the peace and the same with, you know, Japan, et cetera.
- [06:23]
Senator Rand Paul
So, yeah, if I could just add to that, I think the example of Japan is an incredible one and people who are ignorant of history really should read about it. After two atomic bombs have been dropped on their cities, about 100,000 or more killed in each city, half of the Imperial cabinet still wanted to fight on. They were going to fight to the bitter end. The emperor finally came in and he rarely responded, he rarely spoke unless he was responding to a question. He came in and said, no, we're going to take the unconditional surrender. But unconditional surrender is very, very rare. And it happened only with his intervention after atomic weapons. So while Iran's been defeated, they are not going to unconditionally surrender. You still have to have negotiations. And the value of sanctions, if there is a value, is in trading them for behavior. Almost never does a country get sanctioned and say, oh, we're sorry, we're going to now quit misbehaving. What happens is you got to trade relief of the sanctions for new behavior. And that's really what our goal should be, is better behavior as well.
- [07:29]
PodForceOne Host
I mean, there. It's more than sanctions, isn't it? It's Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has this devilishly Machiavellian sort of full court press in Operation Economic Fury where he's going after every inch across the board of their. Their wealth, the regime sort of crypto currency accounts, secreted away their secret bank accounts, every aspect of their economy and their personal wealth. He has locked up and, you know, with Economic Fury 2.0 ready to roll if they don't play ball. So surely that is just as effective as bombs.
- [08:16]
Senator Rand Paul
Well, I haven't been a big fan of the war. The war probably has increased our leverage as far as where the negotiations are. So I think we're in a different place right now. But it would be a mistake to say no negotiations. And really it is the flat earthers in the Republican Party who say we will never negotiate with the enemy because enemies are untrustworthy. Yes, enemies always are. But most wars end with negotiation. And look, if in a perfect world, do I wish that there would be a democratic uprising in Iran? Absolutely. I would much rather see that. But I'm not sure I want to wait 45 more years and have the possibility. If we can remove the possibility and remove the enriched uranium, that is really what our goal has to be. And we can still hope for the best for the people to rise up. But why don't we try to reduce the one thing that is destructive to the world, and that would be a nuclear war from a rogue nation.
- [09:11]
PodForceOne Host
There are reports out of Tehran of women riding around, driving themselves around on motorcycles without their hijabs, wearing skirts. And the morality police, which, you know, a year ago would have been pulling them off the motorcycles and savagely beating them and throwing them in jail, are nowhere to be seen. It seems like they're incapable of enforcing their laws.
- [09:36]
Senator Rand Paul
Now. I grew up in the height of the Soviet era. I was born in the early 60s and the cold War was going on. And I always thought as a kid, gosh, there's so many people and so few dictators. Why can't the people just go into the streets and take over? And it never happened. Never happened. Never happened. And then when the Iron Curtain fell, it did happen. And you had rallies in Germany and different places where hundreds of thousands of people showed up. They tore down the wall. I mean, it just so occasionally it can happen even without weapons. They were just overwhelmed by people. I keep hoping that will happen in Iran as well, that there would be this uprising. I just don't think that we can wait for that to happen before we try to eliminate the nuclear risk, if we can.
- [10:26]
PodForceOne Host
Hi everyone. Miranda Devine here. If you want unapologetic conservative coverage from outside the beltway, check out the Tony Kinnett cast from the Daily Signal. Every weeknight at 7pm Eastern, Tony brings a common sense Hoosier perspective to the biggest stories of the day with reporting, analysis and interviews that actually explain what Washington's decisions mean for your life. In his signature snarky style, if podforce One gets you the conversation straight from the people in power, Tony breaks down exactly what it means for you and the rest of the country. You can watch the Tony Kinnett cast live on the Daily Signals YouTube channel or listen on your favourite podcast app. Just search the Tony Kinnit cast and subscribe.
- [11:16]
Senator Rand Paul
Hey, Bill O'Reilly here. Please check out my new interview series. We'll Do It Live. Each Thursday, I sit down with the most influential people in America. We're a no spin chat, no script. Anything could happen. You can find We'll do it live on BillOriley.com YouTube or wherever you download your podcast.
- [11:44]
PodForceOne Host
You mentioned your some of your colleagues who are, I guess, for want of a better term, war hawks who, you know, I mean, I remember Mitch McConnell, when he was the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, saying that Ukraine was his most important issue, that it was his priority. Nothing else mattered as much. This was when Joe Biden was president and kind of they were friends. What do you and Lindsey Graham, of course, famously has never seen a war he doesn't love. What is it that drives him? Is it a Cold War hangover? Why?
- [12:22]
Senator Rand Paul
You know, I think it's funny how people define conservatism. To me, conservatism is belief in limited government and maximal liberty. So it's keeping government small. To the people who grew up in the Cold War and it was all about containing the Soviet Union, they don't care how big government is. They don't care how big our debt is. They feared the Soviet Union so much and the domino theory and all of this stuff that they feared. Some of them still are in the Cold War era. They have not left it. And some of them also believe in this stark black and white, good and evil kind of world. And the world's much messier than that. And I think you can also have sympathy for causes without thinking that we have to always be involved with them. So if you ask me who I'm sympathetic with, Ukraine or Russia, it's Ukraine. They're the aggrieved party. They're the attacked country. Russia had no international right or any kind of rationale for being allowed to invade another country. And yet I don't think it makes economic sense for us to borrow money from China to send it to Ukraine. I mean, we're $2 trillion short on everything, food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, all the stuff that we spend money on. We're $2 trillion short. And the left hates it when I bring this up, but I say it would be equivalent to, you make $50,000 a year, you're walking down the street and all your money goes to rent, food and taking care of your kids, and you see a homeless guy and you go, oh, my goodness, this is terrible. I'm going right to the bank to borrow a thousand dollars to give to this homeless man so he can get off the street. Nobody does that. It doesn't mean you don't have sympathy for the homeless man, but you have to take care of your own house first. And I think that's the same way with wars that we have of choice and be involved in. Look, Europe has every reason to be concerned about Russia and that Europe should be doing everything possible. And I meet these European ambassadors all the time, and I say, by all means, the Baltics need your help. I'd like to see 5 or 10,000 Polish troops in Lithuania tomorrow. You know, base them in there, rotate them in and out. French troops, German troops, you know, Swedish troops. You want to keep the Baltics and keep Russia at bay. Absolutely. Yalls troops need to be in there. But this fight with Lindsey Graham and others, they're trying to make it impossible for President Trump to move any troops around in Europe. They say they believe completely in his unitary power to create war, but then they say he's not allowed to move troops around. It's the opposite. He really should be somewhat constrained by Congress to initiate war. But once war has started or in the deployment of troops, I think Congress really should have very little to say in where the troops are. That is sort of a commander in chief prerogative.
- [15:05]
PodForceOne Host
It's interesting that President Trump has had problems, or is particularly now having more and more problems with the Senate. You know, there may be a limited time left that the Republicans control both houses of Congress. And his signature piece of legislation he wants to get through is the Save America act for Voter Integrity Voter id, which is hugely popular in the public. I think polls show 85, 90% popularity, particularly among Republicans, but even Democrats love it. So why is it that I know that there's a problem with getting Democrat votes, but there are ways. Mike Lee, one of your Senate colleagues, has put forward ideas of, you know, you don't even have to scrap the filibuster. You just talk for ages on the floor. There are ways, if you really want to, that we've seen these same senators pull out all the stops to get money for Ukraine or their other pet projects. But when it comes to voter Integrity. They just seem to roll over to the Democrats.
- [16:18]
Senator Rand Paul
You know, I'm for the SAVE Act. I'm a co sponsor of the SAVE act and would like to pass it. But I would argue that President Trump's signature achievement happened in the first couple months of this term, and that was closing the border. And he did it really basically by sheer force of personality and policy that he instructed. I mean, everybody said, oh, we need bipartisan legislation, we need this and that in order to control the border under Biden.
- [16:47]
PodForceOne Host
James Lankford famously, and it turned out
- [16:51]
Senator Rand Paul
we didn't need legislation, we needed a new president. We got a new president. It was. And then I would say, three weeks ago, through my committee, we passed out the border funding for border security and for ice. I think those are going to be the signature things he will be remembered for, and we shouldn't forget that in him. Looking at other things, that's fine. But controlling the border. Eight million people invaded our country under Biden, and that has stopped now. They also came in and they're abusing, sometimes legally, the refugee. Well, the refugee program has brought in hundreds of thousands of people who are allowed to be on welfare. That should stop. And I've been fighting to say we need a wall around the country, but we need a wall around the welfare system. We should not offer. The American dream shouldn't be, you come to America and some of these Somalis have been on welfare for 10 years. 85% have been on welfare for 10 years. The American dream is a job, not welfare. I'm for ending all welfare for refugees right now. You're not supposed to get any welfare in the first five years of legal immigration, except for the special refugees and the special visas. So we need to end welfare for the refugees. I'm for the SAVE act, but the only other thing I'd say about the SAVE act is everybody should show an ID and everybody should be a citizen. But a couple of things that states that really matter, like Arizona, it's been in the mix. We usually lose Arizona. They have a law there already. You have to show proof of citizenship to register. What they don't have is they don't have voting in person. I would argue that voting by mail is more nefarious even than the numbers of non citizens voting. I don't. You know, Utah looked at 2 million people and they found one non citizen. So it may be more pervasive in California. We should look, we should examine it. But encouraging people to vote by sending them 10 ballots when they haven't asked for the ballots and then finally showing up, filling it out for them and helping their hand scrawl their signature on there or paying them. Yeah. Or inducements of some kind. That's not legitimate elections. And you know, The Democrats spent 60 million trying to redistrict and gerrymander in Virginia. We should spend that kind of money in Arizona trying to say you don't get a mail in ballot unless you've got an infirmity, you're a soldier overseas, or you request it. If we cut it down from 50% of them voting by mail to 5 or 10%, I think the elections would have more integrity.
- [19:24]
PodForceOne Host
Is that something that's within the power of the federal government and Congress to change that?
- [19:31]
Senator Rand Paul
Maybe. Really the problem is there is a role for the federal government in federal elections, but most of the history, the time, place and manner has been the states. But the Constitution does allow the federal government to be involved. But I would argue it's also a political question. So the Democrats spent all that money on a referendum. You know, I think Arizona has referendum. We, we need to do a referendum and spend a lot of national Republican money trying to get rid of the unsolicited ballots, you know, and the harvesting of ballots. And because like I say, they've already got the citizenship requirement in Arizona. I think they have a pretty good requirement. But we, we, we can fight things federally. And when we lose, we get disappointed. And everybody wants to get rid of the filibuster. I would rather again go state by state and let's fight these state battles. The filibuster does protect us from bad legislation. I mean, Calvin Coolidge at it best. He said there will always be more important to kill bad bills and pass good ones because there's a preponderance of bad bills and almost all bills. Take your liberty. So we got to try to stop bills. And the filibuster does help, but the
- [20:40]
PodForceOne Host
Democrats, the Democrats are going to get rid of it so that they can put in two new states and pack the Supreme Court and any other kind of nefarious plots that they have.
- [20:53]
Senator Rand Paul
We need to fight that with every bone in our body. And I guess it's hard for me to accept the argument that Democrats are going to do something terrible, so we should do it first. And so it's just hard for me.
- [21:06]
PodForceOne Host
Why not?
- [21:08]
Senator Rand Paul
Well, because I think the filibuster has value. I think the filibuster has value in trying to slow down the juggernaut of legislation. And most legislation's bad. I mean, frankly, it is Both parties put forward bad legislation, and most of it takes away your liberty. So anything that slows down the process and doesn't let immediate passage of simple majority. You know, our founders didn't want a democracy. They. The Senate's not Democratic. All the senators have the same vote, despite the population of their states. The super majorities in the Senate slow down. I mean, look, if we get an AOC presidency and no filibuster, can you imagine? So I will fight tooth and nail against the Democrats, you know, getting rid of the filibuster. But if we do it in advance, they'll say, yeah, Republicans started this, and yeah, sure, we're gonna do it, and then we'll get D.C. and Puerto Rico as states.
- [22:05]
PodForceOne Host
You famously used the filibuster. To my great admiration. Once upon a time, speaking for hours and hours on the floor against the nomination of John Brennan, the CIA director. Tell me about that. And were you surprised that he turned out to be such a malign figure in the end?
- [22:28]
Senator Rand Paul
He probably turned out to be worse even than I imagined at the time. And I did filibuster against him. I was one of the few Republicans who actually voted against him at the time. I voted against Comey. I voted against several of these people who I thought were big government, pro surveillance of American citizens. And I still fight this battle. I fight this even though the President has lost some of his enthusiasm for fighting the battle against fisa. You know, in his campaign, he famously said, let's kill it. And he's been for the warrant requirement. All it would take is a little help on his part and we might be able to get it.
- [23:03]
PodForceOne Host
He has stymied it right now because he's trying to get his nominations up.
- [23:08]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, but I wish he would stymie it in exchange for the warrant requirement. Let it go forward with the warrant requirement. We had it 212 to 212. Mike Johnson had always been for the warrant requirement. He was a reformist. He gets elected speaker and he switches his vote. And he voted against the reform, but I think he would switch back if the President would push him. I think the president is, is an effective, you know, person on getting votes and counting votes. And if he were back with us on the FISA reform, we could do something about it. But what they did to him in 2016, I know he hasn't forgotten it, but that whole Russia hoax was perpetrated on him by the intel agencies, and it's worse than people think. It was directly orchestrated by President Obama. He got his People together in January of 2016, and they said, this guy Trump is dangerous and we're going to go after him. We're going to put evidence all throughout the intel agencies, and we're going to go after him and prove this Russia conspiracy thing, which really was a hoax. But they use the intel agencies to do it. And these intel agencies temporarily are under our control now. But as soon as it's the power that's a problem. It is. You can't always have good people in charge of them. You've got to constrain their power legally. And I would hope, I hope someday the president will come back and say, you know what, we do need a warrant requirement. Let's don't abuse Americans with this foreign intelligence surveillance court.
- [24:33]
PodForceOne Host
And so what were your objections briefly to Brennan and Comey initially?
- [24:39]
Senator Rand Paul
Well, with Brennan, some of it was the objection to the Obama drone policy of just droning individuals. They used to have flashcards, say, oh, yep, kill him. Yep. They had drone Tuesdays where they would look at flashcards of people around the world. Some of them ended up being American citizens. I think there's a great danger to that. Now, the American citizens. Al Waqi was a terrorist sympathizer and probably a terrorist, and I'm not have no sympathy at all for him being gone. But there's a danger to having no sort of legal apparatus for killing an American. Al Walkie's kids were both killed as well. They were 16. And were they over their clothes? They weren't in a battle. They were in a camp somewhere in the Middle east, probably near bad people. But they were actually targeted. And Brennan was sort of responsible for these targeted killings. And I objected to that. And over time, I came to learn that Brennan was just an awful person. I didn't know it at the time, but I think Brennan was the one who actually admitted in his CIA interview when he began that he voted for the communist candidate for presidency in 1976. You would think that would have been a problem for somebody in charge of our nation's secrets to have been sympathetic to having communists run our country. I'm like, my goodness, Comey. I worried that he was an apologist. He. I think Comey was a prosecutor in New York early on. And didn't he go after some of the insider trading where he targeted people? Is he the one that did Mark, did he do Martha Stewart's case?
- [26:10]
PodForceOne Host
He did, yes. Really malicious.
- [26:13]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah. And I think a lot of the insider trading are, find me a person and I'll create the crime. And so I'm not a big fan of most of that stuff. I know of one case from my hometown in Bowling Green where the person who stole the information from Goldman Sachs and then distributed it all the people who received the information, they prosecuted, but the actual thief got off. And that's where the real crime of insider trading is, is stealing and disseminating that information. The first person is the most guilty, you know, but if. If I tell you and you tell somebody who washes your car, who tells his cousin's brother, you know, prosecuting all the way down the line that it was some kind of insider information is not really justice. It's the guy who stole the information or woman who stole the information issue he prosecuted. But Comey was a part of that. I thought he was an abusive prosecutor. And just like a lot of them to make a name for himself.
- [27:12]
PodForceOne Host
Every major story has a version the news gives you and then a version that's actually true. If you're a critical thinker, if you're somebody who's not tribal, if you're somebody who just wants the facts so you can make your own decisions, Keeping It Real with Jillian Michaels is the show for you. Subscribe now, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [27:33]
Senator Rand Paul
Hey, this is Mike Slater. I have a podcast called Politics by Faith. I would love for you to listen. We take the news of the day and we run it through the Bible. What does the Bible have to say about this? Because there's nothing new under the sun. You read the headlines. Everything's all crazy. World's coming to an end. It's all in the Bible. And after every episode, hopefully you leave with a proper perspective and a biblical piece. Please join us wherever you listen to podcasts, and we also have a YouTube page as well. YouTube.com politicsbyfaith
- [28:05]
PodForceOne Host
Now, I think your shining moment has been with Dr. Anthony Fauci. And you pretty much certainly were the head of the pack in terms of congressional oversight. And you are like a dog with the bone over Fauci, who, of course, was pardoned by Joe Biden on his very last day. The pardon inexplicably going back to 2014 with no crimes listed, just a blanket pardon, just like Joe Biden did for his son Hunter. What was that all about? Firstly and secondly, Anthony Fauci is now 85. Is there any point trying to prosecute him?
- [28:50]
Senator Rand Paul
I referred him twice to the DOJ under Biden for criminal prosecution. They never acted on it. I've referred him twice to the Trump DOJ without action on it. They may Say because of his pardon, they can't prosecute him. I think that's an open question. I think the courts in all likelihood probably will side with the pardon. But there are some questions. Can you pardon somebody for a non specific crime? Is it too vague to say I'm going to prosecute you for not prosecute you and pardon you for anything you did in the last 10 years? I think there's a possibility. The court says that's vague and not specific and you can't prosecute, prosecute, give people some kind of pardon for everything. And over such a long period of time, I think there's a chance we'd win that. I think it ought to be fought. We have two clear cut cases against him lying to Congress, which is a felony, but also destroying public records. We now have emails that he distributed to Francis Collins and others saying, hey, read this and then destroy it. That is against the law. You're not allowed to do that in the executive branch. It's clear. You know, his only argument is, oh, it wasn't about government and it clearly was. And I think a jury would decide so I still would prosecute him. I plan on bringing him in. We've been negotiating a voluntary testimony for almost a year now as he continues the slow drip, drip, drip of giving us records. But I suspect in the near future you're going to be hearing about us bringing him back in here, probably not voluntarily. The only other way that I think that there's a potential that he is indicted or prosecuted IS There are two big indictments right now. David Morenz was his 20 year senior assistant. He's been indicted for conspiracy. Vincent Munster is a virologist from the Rocky Mountain lab, close confidant also, but also part of the COVID up of the danger of this gain of function research and the government's participation in it. In China, he's been indicted for illegally bringing in viruses into the country, mislabeling them and then lying about it. If I were a prosecutor, I would think I might be listening to plea bargain from either one of them. If they have useful information about the COVID up that Anthony Fauci was involved in. Whether he goes to jail or not isn't as important to me as whether or not history will remember him as someone who abused his power, funded dangerous research that led to the deaths of 15 million people, and then tried to get away with it by saying didn't happen, didn't meet the definition. And really he orchestrated a cover up that involved, if not dozens, hundreds of people in government that were loyal to him, that went to bat because they also were part of the funding stream going to Wuhan, China, and they would suffer the same sort of culpability. They all circled their wagons and they all said, nothing to see here. And there's a lot to see. And I hope people will eventually come to the same conclusion I have is that he's very much shares culpability in the origins of the pandemic.
- [32:05]
PodForceOne Host
Yes. His culpability in funding gain of function research when it had been banned by Barack Obama's administration and outsourcing it via this cutout eco health alliance to a terribly run Chinese lab. That's his culpability in the pandemic. But there's a secondary thing, which is that after Covid broke out in early 2020 in the United States, he was in a position where he should have. I know Pino Navarro said he sat across a table at the White House from him and Anthony Fauci pretended he knew nothing about this virus when he. He must have had knowledge. I mean, he knew in his bones that this was the virus that he'd helped create, and yet he said nothing about it. And then you've famously gone to bat against him over his very unscientific attitudes towards immunity, masking vaccines, et cetera. Why did he do tell us the worst of what he did? And remembering that you are a doctor, you're a real doctor, medical doctor, so you know at least as much about immunity as he does, you know.
- [33:33]
Senator Rand Paul
So I wrote a book about this deception, the Great Covid Cover Up. In it, we begin with an exchange from January 26, where it's a timeline of his phone calls. Has like 15 phone calls. They go until 3 in the morning. You can tell by the sequence of this he's not sleeping because he's worried. But who's he calling at 3 in the morning? He's calling someone who is head of the oversight committee that was supposed to prevent dangerous research from happening at 3 in the morning. He's sending them a paper, influencing them, saying nothing to see here. This came from animals.
- [34:07]
PodForceOne Host
January 2020.
- [34:08]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, January 26, 2020. February 1, he has a meeting with all these virologists and all the virologists are. We have the emails that we exchange. Oh my goodness. It looks like it's been engineered. I'm 80% certain. It has this special furin cleavage site. We don't see that in nature. Oh my goodness, they're all saying this. Three days later, he has him write a paper that he Commissions that he edits, that he helps write, saying there's absolutely no way it came from a lab. It's not plausible. And then this conspiracy continues to go on their part to say, oh, there's not a possibility of this happening at all. And he has all these people writing letter to Lancet saying, you know, that nothing to see here. This is a conspiracy theory. The right wing crazies have developed this full, full circle a couple of years later. Now virtually everybody believes the scientific community has become convinced. The CIA now believes, the FBI now believes, the Department of Energy now believes that this was manipulated in the lab.
- [35:12]
PodForceOne Host
And you had a CIA whistleblower come and testify just last month about the manipulations behind the scenes with the CIA's original decision that, oh, it wasn't, you know, it's, we don't know if it was a lab or if it was a wet market. Tell us about him.
- [35:32]
Senator Rand Paul
Well, he's an honorable, honest and brave person to come forward. He's had a long career at the CIA. He has been commended for obtaining firsthand information in the field related to 911 and those who perpetrated 9 11. So he's somebody who deserves a lot of accolades and has received those. But he couldn't sit by and see this happen. So one of the things he brought to us was that the CIA voted early on. They said, we convene our scientists, seven scientists come forward and they vote like five to two or six to one to say that they believe the preponderance of evidence is that it came from a lab, not nature. They're then overruled by political people. These political people are also found to have met with Anthony Fauci. And that Anthony Fauci has been influencing the process. And it from, from the very beginning looks like his interference in a lot of different segments. His interference in the scientific journal articles, interference in intel. But he had a 40 year abuse of power career. You know, people talk about J. Edgar Hoover. J. Edgar Hoover's got nothing on Anthony Fauci. 40 years of placing all his lieutenants in all the positions. And then after 9 11, the funding for bio research and bioterrorism went through the roof and he became the kingpin that had access to all of that money. So it just, you know, I go on for hundreds of pages in my book talking about this because the abuses of power and what he did are, you know, endless.
- [37:18]
PodForceOne Host
There was also, there's a lot of connection between Anthony Fauci and the intelligence community. And we see that there was Department of Defense funding for Eco Health Alliance, a lot of it during that period when they were funding the research in Wuhan. And Peter Dasak was protected, I know, at his home in upstate New York. He had police guarding his house, stopping journalists from getting in there, which was highly unusual, I think, for a guy who's just a, you know, scientist. And also Anthony Fauci seems extremely cocky and confident that nothing will ever happen to him. And again, as if he has the protection of the intelligence services. So do you think that part of the reluctance by the CIA, for instance, the intelligence community to investigate more fully, to sheet the blame home to China is because in effect, America funded some of the very research that led to the pandemic?
- [38:34]
Senator Rand Paul
You know, one of the key aspects of the COVID up is that when they went to investigate whether it came from the lab and they sent people to investigate, they sent people to investigate who were already partners with the lab.
- [38:47]
PodForceOne Host
Peter Daszak.
- [38:48]
Senator Rand Paul
Peter Daszak is a partner. He's been funding $100 million worth of funding went through EcoHealth to Wuhan. He's been funding it. And they send him to be the investigator. We also know that the our intel agencies, when they need an expert, we're paying people who are involved. So we know Ralph Barrick, Dasak, all of these people are paid government informants for our government. So how can you get an objective reading from someone who actually is involved with the dangerous research going on in Wuhan? One of the biggest revelations came from a whistleblower who reported that in 2018, a project called DIFFUSE was advocated for by Daszak, Dr. Shi Zengli. Zengli, she from Wuhan, Barrick and others. And it was a proposal to create a coronavirus with a special cleavage site called the furin cleavage site, which has not been found in nature in this particular family of coronaviruses, which turns out was in Covid. So to create a virus that looks very similar to Covid, they had a research proposal and it wasn't funded. But you would have thought that when Covid turns up in January of 2020, a year or two later, and it looks exactly like what they were going to create, you would have thought all of the investigators would have immediately called the White House, called Anthony Fauci and said, holy crap, they did it, they did it. We didn't fund them, but they did it anyway. This is exactly what they were going to do. I was part of the proposal, but I want to make sure you know that this is evidence that they end up doing it. Nobody called. We've asked Ralph Barrett this. Did you ever tell anyone about the defuse project? Oh, no. Just slipped my mind. I have a lot of grants. Well, how many grants do you have to create a virus that's exactly the same or very, very similar to Covid? None. And you told no one. So we know. Ralph Barrett. Matt with Anthony Fauci February 11, 2020 and I've asked both of them, did it come up the diffuse project? In fact, it never came up between them that they'll admit to. But it also never came up in public until a brave Major Murphy came up and revealed this to us once again at the risk to his career, revealed that this was going on. It was hidden in a folder, had disappeared from a folder, showed back up in a folder and he found it because he knew where to look and was smart enough to look for it. But it never would have been known. There was a vast cover up and no one's gone to jail. But I continue to try every day to reveal more of this with the hope that justice will be done.
- [41:39]
PodForceOne Host
Now the statute of limitations is running out, has run out on some perjury charges that you wanted to bring or be brought against Fauci. What have you got up your sleeve?
- [41:50]
Senator Rand Paul
Now there's a possibility that there are things that still are within statute of limitations. And there is also the possibility that the pardon's not perfect.
- [42:00]
PodForceOne Host
All right, thanks so much, Senator Paul.
- [42:02]
Senator Rand Paul
Thank you for having me on your show.
- [42:05]
PodForceOne Host
Thanks for watching Podforce One. We'll be back with another big interview next week. And please don't forget to like and subscribe and leave your comments. I read them all.