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The Rubin Report
Rand Paul Makes Dave Rubin Go Quiet with This Chilling Warning | Rand Paul
00:24:05
Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” talks to Rand Paul about Washington’s failure to address the national debt; his opposition to reckless spending and debt ceiling increases in the Big Beautiful bill; concerns over emergency powers and tariff...
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- [00:00]
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- [00:55]
Unknown
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Senator Rand Paul
Senator Rand Paul Whatever will we talk about on our every few month chat today? You got anything going on over there.
- [01:16]
Unknown
In D.C. you know, it's just hard to find any issues anymore because it's so, you know, just kind of slogging along. No war, no wars, no budget problems? No. Now there's plenty to talk about. There's a lot of serious problems going on and happy to chat with you.
- [01:33]
Senator Rand Paul
All right, well, I'm always happy to have you on and. Well, you know, why don't we. We're obviously gonna talk about the Israel, Iran situation, but why don't we hold that for a moment and first just get into some of this big beautiful bill stuff, the budget stuff. There's been a little tension between you and Trump. Then he kind of sort of brought you back in. Obviously everyone knows your feelings on fiscal responsibility. Why don't you kind of just get us caught up on maybe where you are, where you think Trump is, where the bill will land and then we'll hit other stuff.
- [02:01]
Unknown
Well, we're in counseling right now. The President and I are working together and we're trying to work out our differences. I call it the big not yet beautiful bill. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff in it. A lot of stuff I'VE always supported and still do. The tax cuts are most of the tax cuts from 2017. I voted for them then. Big supporter of them. I was in the Oval Office working with the president at the time to make those tax cuts, make sure that they applied to the entire middle class. I'm happy to make those permanent. I accept the understanding that you can cut tax rates and get more tax revenue. The idea of supply side economics, Art Laffer and I think over the seven years that we've had those initial tax cuts, they actually did bring in more revenue. In the end, we didn't lose revenue from those tax cuts. We actually increased economic growth and ended up getting more revenue. There's some additional tax cuts added for those too. So I really am for that part of the bill. I do think the deficit's a problem though. And we're running about a $2 trillion annual deficit. The question is, should we use this simple majority bill? There's very rare opportunities when a simple majority without a filibuster can pass a bill. Republicans only should we use this to cut spending? Because we know Democrats will, will never vote to cut spending. So I think we shouldn't miss this opportunity. So far, I would say the spending cuts included in the bill are wimpy and anemic. And what do I mean by that? You know, work requirements for Medicaid. I'm all for it, but you know, when the initial bill was going to have the work requirements come in 2029, after the Trump residency was over, I mean that's, that's just, that is so wimpy as to be embarrassing. Now. The House Freedom Caucus argued it wasn't enough. They moved them up to 2026, but the work requirements still don't start till December 2026 after the next election. Still pretty wimpy. We could have the states pay more their fair share, which could save maybe a trillion dollars, but they refuse to do that because we have weak kneed Republicans unwilling to cut any kind of, you know, healthy people off of Medicaid and saying healthy people ought to get a job and, and get their health insurance beyond the government. But really what bothers me the most about the bill and what keeps me from supporting it is raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion. This will be the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever. It is not conservative to raise the debt ceiling that much and it is rewarding profligacy with an expanded credit line. This is like telling your teenager who you gave a credit card, they run up $2,000 in debt and they say, mom, Dad, I need more credit.
- [04:42]
Senator Rand Paul
And.
- [04:43]
Unknown
And you give them $10,000. No parent would ever do that. Well, Congress is like a reckless teenager with their spending. We should be giving them narrow tranches of debt ceiling a little bit at a time, and then asking them, what are you doing to restrain spending? So I can vote for the bill, but they need to remove and separate the debt ceiling and let the Democrats vote for that. I'm not voting for raising the debt ceiling. $5 trillion.
- [05:06]
Senator Rand Paul
So does this strike you as a now or never moment? I mean, to the backdrop of everything we've learned with Doge and the amount of government frau abuse and waste and several other adjectives, that if we can't pass, whether it's big or beautiful or both or whatever, if we can't pass something now that would cut a little something, it seems to me the ship has fully sailed. Maybe you think it sailed 20 years ago and this is all just putting band aids on things. But. But what do you think of that, that notion?
- [05:33]
Unknown
Well, if you put it into perspective, there's about $400 billion in new spending in the bill. So this isn't all about cutting. This is about new spending. So it's about 150 billion for border and 150 billion more for military. Then there's 100 billion, just miscellaneous. Somebody said, oh, wow, we can just start adding some crap in here and here and here. There's more agricultural subsidies, all kinds of stuff stuck in this bill.
- [05:56]
Senator Rand Paul
You're going to be busy on Festivus this year, huh? I thought it would be a little easier for you.
- [06:00]
Unknown
There's 400 billion in new spending. But to put that in perspective, the Doge spending that they've actually found and documented is about 200 billion. So they've taken the DOGE spending cuts, which can't go in this bill for technical reasons, and they've actually put twice as much spending in here. In fact, I found out today, even in my committee, they're spending $6 billion and they're calling it reimbursement to the military for the border. So they're getting 150 billion. Now they're sneaking another 6 billion into the military through the border. If you look at the specifics of the border, they want $46.5 billion for a wall. I'm for a wall. I'm for more border security. And yet, if you look at the CBP website, the Border Patrol website, it says that a fence or a wall costs $6.5 million per mile. That'd be about 6.5 billion for 1,000 miles, and yet they want 46 million. So I asked Secretary Noem about this, and she responded and said, oh, no, the website's wrong. We're gonna have to change the website. Which I had to point out to them is on their website.
- [07:06]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah.
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Unknown
And so she said, no, it's 12 million. I said, well, 12 million per mile times 1,000 miles is 12 billion. Where's the other $36 billion going to? We can't just forget that we're conservative, that we're fiscally conservative, just because we're for border control. I'm for border control, but I'm not fiscally irresponsible enough just to take whatever number is thrown at me.
- [07:29]
Senator Rand Paul
So you actually kind of answered my next question, which was, how do we. Who actually decides the veracity of the claims that's in the bill? So you just laid out why the numbers don't quite match up. But when they. When they tell you it's 6.5 million per mile or whatever it might be, how do you know that that number is even legitimate? How do you know that they've gone out and done the proper things so that that estimate is even appropriate? Even if they screwed up the numbers on the website? Like, when you get a bill, how do you know that what you're looking at is true?
- [07:59]
Unknown
It's how we know about anything in public policy. You have to question it as an interviewer, I have to question it as a legislator, and people have to kind of do the math. And so my questioning started very simple. I Googled how much does a fence cost? How much does a wall cost? And I got the government website and I thought, well, the government's a fairly reliable. This is. The Trump administration should be a reliable number. But there is some trusting. But then there's some estimates. Now, what a wall has cost in the past should be a fact. They should be able to give you a fact. How much per mile? Right now they're saying it costs more because they were replacing fence. So, you know, I'm open to believing that, but that means a 6.5 number might not be right. But she told me 12 to two weeks ago, and now they. But they want like 25, 25 million per mile, something like that. So I don't know. We've got to be, you know, we have to be honest about this. We don't have money to throw around. We bring in 5 trillion in taxes and we spend 7 trillion. This bill won't materially change that. So think about it. It's hard to get your mind around the numbers. They said we're going to cut 1.5 trillion. You go, my goodness, that's historic. 1.5 trillion. But it's over 10. So that's 150 billion a year. The deficit this year is going to be 2.2 trillion. Subtract 150 billion, you got 2.05 trillion. You still have over a $2 trillion deficit. So nothing in this bill is materially changing our drowning in debt. And even with that, I would vote for it. I would vote for it without the debt ceiling. I am not, adamantly not. I've told him this for six months. But I can vote for it. Just make it a separate vote. Then the Democrats can vote to raise the debt ceiling that way. They always have. Democrats have, historically, every time, voted to raise the debt ceiling because they're for the spending. I'm not for the spending and I'm not for the raising the debt ceiling. 5 trillion.
- [09:50]
Senator Rand Paul
So I don't know how many dozen times we've chatted, but I think I always ask you some version of this question. How do you deal with when that puts you on the outside of your party? Because I told you years ago when I was coming around, I didn't vote for Trump the first time. Obviously, I was a huge supporter last time and now. But it was partly because of you, because I thought, well, here's the senator I respect the most.
- [10:12]
Unknown
You're blaming it on me now.
- [10:13]
Senator Rand Paul
You're blaming right now. Now, now that's blame, I suppose, from a certain set of people on our side. But nonetheless, you guys kind of came. You were always defending him, and I thought, all right, that gives me a little angle on why I can understand Trump. But now you're sort of on the outs with that. How do you constantly negotiate that? It's one thing to go after the left and okay, the Democrats spend too much, but having to deal with it kind of on the internal side, I.
- [10:36]
Unknown
Guess for me it's very easy because I don't think I've changed. Any of you know me. I've been interviewed by you for several years. I've been interviewed by people for 10 years now. I've never said anything different. I am the same, whether as a Republican president or a Democrat president. I'll give you an example. I believe that the separation of powers is important legislation, and taxes should originate in the House of Representatives, go to the Senate and then to the presidency. I don't think we should be run by emergency rule. And I worry about emergencies right now. The tariffs, regardless of your position on the tariffs, are being done by emergency rule. One court has struck this down. But I think they're unconstitutional. They're a tax, and taxes have to originate in the House. And I, Even though, even if I did agree, and I don't think they're economically good either, but constitutionally, you can't have a president writing the law. And the reason is this. The next president could be aoc. We could be living under a climate emergency, and there might be no cars. Cars might be illegal next week if AOC uses an emergency. You cannot let any president run it by emergency. And so people think I'm anti Trump because of that? No, that was my position under Biden. I had a bill to reform the emergencies, and I had 15 Republicans with me. Well, when the vote came up to end the emergency recently, because, like, four Republicans, all the, the people that used to be on my bill voted against it, but they did it because they're Republican and they're going to vote with their team instead of with their principals.
- [11:59]
Senator Rand Paul
So let me ask you something. I know it's a little in the weeds, but if, If a tariff is a tax, is it a tax when he's just using it as a leverage point of negotiation, do you think? Or is it a. Does it become a tax only when it's signed into law? In other words, if he's talking to China or to any other country and say, hey, we're going to tariff you, in essence, that's not a tax until it's put into law. He's using that as leverage. That's been the way I've seen it.
- [12:21]
Unknown
Well, actually, it becomes a law immediately upon him saying it and writing it down. Because it's not even a law, though, because it never passes Congress. Congress never votes on it. But I'll give you an example. I had a guy come in the other day, and he makes detergent in these little cardboard packages. And it's, you know, biodegradable. He's avoiding plastic. And he also has a market for it. He was making it in China, but he wanted to make it here. But the only equipment he could buy, he had to buy from China to make it in America. So when he bought the equipment, remember when Trump said, you know, I thought it was only a threat to the 140% tariff on China, I thought that was a threat. That was actually a law for the week this guy bought his equipment, he paid 140% tax on his Equipment that week, and then next week it was 80, and then next week it was 30. It's chaotic because you don't know what it is, which week. But it's never a law, it's never passed by a law, and it is a tax. He's in American business. He paid the tax. When the president gets mad and sells, Tim Cook, I'm going to punish you, and you'll pay a 25% tax.
- [13:24]
Senator Rand Paul
You.
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Unknown
He's not saying, hey, Mr. China Person, you're going to pay the tax. China doesn't pay the tax. Tim Cook, an American company pays the tax. Tariffs are paid by Americans, their taxes, but they shouldn't be instituted by emergency rule. Is it useful to do what you're saying, to use them as reciprocal to lower tariffs? Absolutely. But that would be a threat of a tariff, not necessarily the tariff. And I've always agreed if Trump can use the threat to lower barriers and reciprocally bring things down, that would be good. But look at the craziness of the U.S. mexico treaty. We had NAFTA. He replaced it with U.S. mexico. It expanded trade exponentially by lowering tariff barriers between us and Mexico and Canada. It was a huge success of Donald Trump. But now Donald Trump is screwing up his own success by screwing up this treaty. We've got cars being made here, Mexico, Canada, parts in all three. The parts are going back seamlessly with no tariff. The car companies come to me and they say we got 3,000 tariffs on 3,000 parts in the car. We got to know where every bolt came from, when it was put on, when it wasn't put on. It's insane. And he's screwing up the thing that was one of his best achievements, which was this agreement from his last term.
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Senator Rand Paul
Okay, so then, then last thing on this, and then we'll move over to the Middle East. So would your hope be in that he's obviously not turning or he's not taking your approach, let's say, on the tariff. But would your hope be that as the rest of the deals come in, however many countries are just kind of in the midst of figuring it out, that, that everything will basically get more equitable and that you guys will then sign it into law? It sounds like that's what, that's what the best case scenario is, right?
- [15:04]
Unknown
Well, no, they never will be signed into law. They never will be a law. They're an executive edict. He does them under emergency power, something called ipa. He sets the rates, and they never come back to Congress. There is no provision for Congress to ever pass so it's not that they're going in the wrong order. There is no order. We have these massive, these taxes will bring in a couple hundred billion dollars in revenue. So how can you have a tax that brings revenue? It's paid by Americans, primarily Americans goes into the revenue and it's part of our revenue stream. But there never is any vote of Congress. It's just wrong.
- [15:37]
Senator Rand Paul
So what would you want him to do right now? If he was watching this right now, what would you want him to do at this moment?
- [15:42]
Unknown
I think tariffs should pass Congress. They should go through Congress as any other legislation, not. They shouldn't be done by executive order and they shouldn't be done by emergency. If we accept the concept of emergencies, we will rue the day when a liberal Democrat gets in the White House and says that they're going to do emergencies for whatever crazy left wing thing they want to do.
- [16:04]
Senator Rand Paul
Right. For, for climate change or, or whatever else. All right, all right. Let's spend the remaining time on what's going on in the Middle East. Well, I won't even. I'll just give you the most broad question. We're at this moment, whether we all like it or not or anything else, what do you think America is supposed to do?
- [16:20]
Unknown
I think there are two questions. There is what does the Constitution tell us we can and cannot do? Those are the rules. And then there's what's prudent, pragmatic, or will bring the best result. I would start with the Constitutional argument. The Constitution is explicit that if you want to drop a 10,000 pound bomb on another country, you have to ask for permission. So the President wants to do this. It's not like it's a secret. It's on every. It's on our show. We're talking about it now. It's on. It was on the front page of every newspaper. It's not a secret that he's contemplating it. He should come to Congress. He should call a joint session of Congress and he would say, it's my intention to declare war on Iran and we should vote on it. That's what the Constitution contemplated. No other contemplation by our founding fathers.
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Senator Rand Paul
All right, wait, I'm trying to interrupt, but is part of the problem with that that the ship has somehow sailed on that like Obama did Libya? Without that, I'm not defending it. It's just the way the machine works. I'm not defending the concept, but we.
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Unknown
We never, we never really repealed the Constitution. We still have it and those people don't obey it. But doesn't mean we should acknowledge that we're just. Well, everybody else disobeys it, so we'll disobey it. So that's the first thing we have a debate on that. I mean, I don't think the President will come to Congress, so I think he will ignore it. Also, if he, if he does bomb, I still my hope that he will not bomb. And the reason is this. What is unknown with the bombing is what happens next. So there are two distinct possibilities, maybe three or four distinct possibilities. One possibility is you bomb for now and it's completely successful. Iran unconditionally surrenders, as the President's asking them to do. We want to be part of the community of nations that we've been wrong, we're sorry, and we're going to try to do better now. Given their behavior over the last 20 or 30 years, and given the behavior most nations that are, you know, bombed repeatedly, it typically get the opposite reaction. Usually it breeds nationalism. Even the people who don't like the mullahs, they all run together to hold the flag. They actually have a national unifying moment. If that happens, one they give up, that'd be great and that'd be the intended result. But if they don't give up, what if they decide that they are gravely humiliated by this and their only way of saving face is to create the bomb as soon and as quickly as possible and that they race towards it? For months now, or actually for years, people have been saying they're only weeks away from having enrichment capability of having a bomb. There is one possibility that the bombing promotes them and provokes them to going ahead making a bomb. So that's a possibility. There is a possibility that there is an upheaval. There is a possibility. I don't think there is really a possibility of occupying Iran in any way. I don't think Israel could or wants to. I don't think the US could or wants to, or I don't even think there's a capability of occupying a country that big. But I know that when we've tried to sort of force on nation building or nation changes, even in tiny countries that were really backwards, like Afghanistan, we weren't very successful. But I guess, I guess my bottom point is is that I think it's unknown what the response to this is. It could be one, but I think virtually equally could be the other response could be, I think it's actually less likely that they give up and capitulate. I think it's more likely they make a rush And a mad dash towards getting a bomb.
- [19:36]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I'm completely with you on the Congressional authorization part, which is also consistent with everything I've said for years. Unfortunately, it just doesn't seem like the system operates like that. But, but that aside, what do you think the proper way for America to be the world leader or to be an ally is? So if America is to not get involved, which I think you can make a completely cogent argument around that, what do you think the best way to be just an ally is? I mean, Iran had terror proxies that killed at least 46Americans on October 7th. Like, how do we. How do we negotiate that?
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Unknown
You know, I think that we have been a good ally to Israel over time. I think that there's. There's, you know, there are some people who I think recently got for our country who, you know, are somehow cheerleading for hamas and thought October 7th was not a big deal. Most people, including myself, were horrified by what happened October 7th. And there's no sympathy at all for the other side. In fact, there probably goes close to zero once you see what they did to women and children. And they're still trading off not only maybe living hostages, but dead hostages. You know, what kind of people do that? What kind of barbarism actually would trade hostages? I actually don't understand people that would support that and say, oh, well, they have such a great cause. It's like, well, a great cause, but they kidnap women and children. They do these horrific things to people. So I think in some ways, we have been very solidified in response to that. The question of a preemptive war, though, or a preventative war is whether or not it works and whether or not it's justified. Because the. What if the shoot were on the other foot? Would we say that because Israel has nuclear weapons, it would be justified for Iran to attack Israel and get them before they drop a bomb on. On Iran? You see what I mean? Nobody would say that that's okay. We'd all say that's ridiculous. You know, and when is it okay to launch attacks? For 20 years, people have said they're that close to a bomb. But then our intelligence estimate only a month ago said that they weren't that close. They. They're close to being able to enrich, but they weren't actively pursuing a bomb. That was our intelligence assessment, you know, three weeks ago.
- [21:46]
Senator Rand Paul
So. All right, so as it stands right now, your preference, obviously, is we don't get. If we don't get involved what does the end of this look like? Like what? What's the, what's the best end right now? Because there is a war, Khomeini's in a bunker, most of the leadership is dead. What's the end?
- [22:00]
Unknown
Yeah, I, you know, before this, Donald Trump was saying he was willing to negotiate. I think he still is willing to negotiate, and he's announced that he's willing to negotiate. I think it's less likely they will after this. And one reason is, is that while they were negotiating, some of them will say that America did this as a ruse to put them at ease before the attack happened. So I think there will be some resistance from Iran. But let's say Iran is so militarily defeated, and I think they have been in many ways by these attacks, and they say we will negotiate. Right now we're at an inflection point where there might be some possibility. The moment it's our plane and our bomb that drops on them, I think the small possibility of a negotiated settlement goes away. And I think we're back to where we are. We may be back to this sort of problem. And the other thing about bombing countries is just amazing militarily, what, what the Israelis have been able to do and the sophistication we have and showing our Israel's dominance over the skies and everything else. But there is a question in order to actually have a transformation of Iran, does that happen without any kind of boots on the ground? And I don't think anybody's really contemplating that there could be an occupation of ir. So I think you could go back to the same sort of hot, you know, Cold War where we've been having forever, and it sort of resets itself and it goes on. Maybe I don't know the answer as to what happens, but I know one possibility is they race onto a bomb, and that's the solute. That's the one thing we've all been united not wanting to see.
- [23:39]
Senator Rand Paul
Yeah, well, I appreciate the nuance. You know, I don't know how much you're paying attention to what's going on on X or Twitter these days, but it's getting a little. It's getting a little hot on our side, so I appreciate a little of the subtlety that you offer there. You stay out of those fights. It's good for you.
- [23:54]
Unknown
My wife has told me not to look at Twitter, so I've been forbidden. She said then I'd have to be medicated if I looked at Twitter. So I'm not looking at Twitter, but.
- [24:02]
Senator Rand Paul
She hits, like, on my stuff every now and again. So I'm like, all right, she gets it. She gets it. Appreciate.
- [24:07]
Unknown
I think that we do need to have. Look, you and I probably don't completely agree on everything, but we've just had a pretty reasonable conversation. And I don't mind you challenging me in any way, but I have no intention of yelling or screaming or. And I'm also clear that I don't know what the future is. Nobody does. Anybody who thinks they knows exactly what Iran will do, that's the unpredictability of foreign policy. We don't know what they're going to do and like, and I'll be the first to admit it, if they capitulate and they negotiate and we can get to a better place. Israel made the right decision. If they race to a nuclear bomb, it'll have been the bad decision. But Israel won't have known in advance that. But there will at least be people like me saying it was a possibility that an attack could push them in the wrong direction. Not the right direction.
- [24:51]
Senator Rand Paul
Senator, that's why I love having you on the show. That's why we do this every few months. And we could use a little bit more of that. So let's keep doing it.
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Unknown
Thanks.
- [25:00]
Senator Rand Paul
Anytime.