NBC News " Meet The Press" - Transcript: Paul On Iraq War And The Threar Of ISIS

Interview

CHUCK TODD:

And welcome back. Moments ago, we talked about Jeb Bush's challenging week. Joining me now is one of his chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who, by the way, has a brand-new book coming out, Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America. It'll be released in just over a week. We got an exclusive, first look at it. And we'll be talking with the senator about it. Welcome back to Meet the Press, Senator Paul.

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

Thanks, Chuck. Thanks for having me.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with-- the issue that got brought up by governor-- essentially by some-- with Governor Bush this week, and it's the war in Iraq. Are you satisfied after Governor Bush's sort of fourth answer on this, saying that he wouldn't have gone into the war in Iraq, knowing what we know now? Are you satisfied now that Governor Bush won't be taking us back to the Bush foreign policy? You had said that that was an important litmus test for him.

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

Well, I think it's an important question and I don't think it's a historical anec-- anecdote. I don't think it's-- something that's a hypothetical question. I think it's a recurring question in the Middle East. Is it a good idea to topple secular dictators? And what happens when we do?

I think when Hussein was toppled, we got chaos. We still have chaos in-- in Iraq. I think it emboldened Iran. I think-- we now have the rise of radical Islam in Iraq as well. But I think the same question, to be fair, ought to be asked of Hillary Clinton, if she ever takes questions.

They should ask her, "Was it a good idea to invade Libya? Did that make us less safe? Did it make it more chaotic? Did it allow radical Islam and I.S.I.S. to grow stronger?" So I think the war in Iraq is a good question and still a current question, but so is the question of, "Should we have gone into Libya?"

CHUCK TODD:

You know-- Senator Marco Rubio, in being asked this same question about Iraq, gave this answer. He said, "Presidents don't have the benefit of hindsight. And the fact of the matter is, the world is a better place 'cause Saddam Hussein is not around." You're sort of implying that you disagree with that. Do you believe the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein were still the strongman in Iraq?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

I don't think that's exactly how I put it. But I would say that I think that we are more at risk for attack from people who are training, organizing, and fighting in Iraq than we were before. So, for example, I.S.I.S. is-- more of an aberration than even Hussein was. So you have this radical brand of jihad, this radical brand of Islam, that is now strong and growing stronger because of sort of the failed state that Iraq is.

You have the same thing going on in Libya. So this is a valid debate and we're gonna have to have this debate, not only in the Republican primary but in the general, as to whether or not it's a good idea. Is intervention always a good idea? Or sometimes does it lead to unintended consequences?

CHUCK TODD:

You know, you laid out in your book very clearly, your foreign policy; basically a peace-through-strength foreign policy. Essentially saying, you know what, intervention, and-- and making a strong case against intervention; that intervention over the years has only served to create more problems than it was designed to stop.

But, I guess, let me ask you this. If-- would you consider going after a country that was trying to put together a nuclear weapons program? Right? That was the reason to go in, in Iraq, as far as George W. Bush was concerned. And that is a reason some people say we might have to have the-- that military option on the table with Iran. Is that a viable reason to go to war? To prevent another country from starting a nuclear weapons program?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

I think that we always have to have the threat of military force behind diplomacy. But I would prefer diplomacy. I think we can still have negotiations. And the thing is-- is that we negotiated with the Soviets for 70 years and we ended up coming to a peaceful outcome. I think, with Iran, we need to be steady and firm that they cannot have a nuclear weapons program. There has to be the threat of military force. But my hope is really that negotiations continue. There are some in my party who say, "Oh, I don't want any negotiations." They're ready to be done with it.

CHUCK TODD:

Right.

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

But once you're done with negotiations, the choices are war, or they get a weapon, and I don't wanna have just those two binary choices.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, you also imply in your book-- I thought it was a fascinating quote. And you were connecting Libya and Iran. And you say this: "The problem is, we've already sent the wrong message. The last time a leader gave up his desire for weapons of mass destruction, we bombed his country and took him out."

You're referring to Gaddafi, who gave up nuclear ambitions. And then, two years later, in a different administration, the Obama Administration, they ended up taking him out. You're implying that the Iranians shouldn't trust the United States in these negotiations, are you not?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

I think it's more a criticism of Hillary Clinton because I think she should've thought through the repercussions of the invasion and toppling of Gaddafi. Because Hillary Clinton made the decision to do this, with President's Obama assent, what you end up having is-- is that now it does send a signal to Iran and it makes them question whether or not we will honestly be a good broker or a good negotiator with-- eliminating of nuclear weapons. Because Gaddafi did give up his nuclear ambition and was toppled anyway. So it's an-- it's an argument for not doing what we did in Libya.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me move to the Patriot Act. We have reauthorizations coming up before June 1st. It's unclear whether it's gonna get reauthorized at all before you guys go on your Memorial Day recess. Senator McConnell's talking about a two-month extension. I know you want to filibuster any Patriot Act extension. Would you even support a two-month extension?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

Well, the court has ruled that the bulk collection of all of our phone records, all of the time, is illegal. So, really, it oughta stop. If the president's obeying the law, he should stop it immediately and we shouldn't be doing this. I don't want to replace it with another system.

I really think that we could get along with the Constitution just fine. We did for over 200 years. You can catch terrorists. Judges will grant warrants. In fact, if you look at the history of our country, judges are actually very much-- it's not a difficult lift to get a warrant for most activities that you want to be investigated.

But the warrant should have someone's name on it. Shouldn't say, "Verizon," and then we shouldn't collect all of the customers of Verizon. That's a general warrant and that's one of the things we fought the Revolutionary War over-- is that we wanted individualized warrants.

CHUCK TODD:

You know, you're so critical of the N.S.A. in your book. I have to ask, would you eliminate it if you were president?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

No, I would actually-- keep the N.S.A. In fact, I would have the N.S.A. target their activities, more and more, towards our enemies. I think if you're not spending so much time and money collecting the information of innocent Americans, maybe we could've spent more time knowing that one of the Tsarnaev boys, one of the Boston bombers, had gone back to Chechnya.

We didn't know that, even though we'd been tipped off by the Russians. We had communicated, we had interviewed him, and still didn't know that. Same with the recent-- jihadist from Phoenix that traveled to Texas, and the shooting in Garland; we knew him. We had investigated him. We had put him in jail. I wanna spend more time on people we have suspicion of, and we have probable cause of, and less time on innocent Americans. It distracts us from the job of getting terrorists.

CHUCK TODD:

All right, let me go with one last question here. And it goes-- it's an idea that's in your book; perhaps the most intriguing idea I-- found, reading your book. And that is-- is-- if you-- you say if you find the best teachers on a subject, perhaps in the country, that the idea is we shouldn't have smaller classrooms. We should have a classroom perhaps of a million students, meaning the best calculus teacher oughta teach calculus to anybody who wants to learn calculus in America, and the-- the-- the teacher on the ground implements the curriculum. It's an intriguing idea. But two pages later, you say there shouldn't be a national curriculum. How is that not in contradiction with being against common core but for, like, nationalized teaching like what you described?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

What I'm talking about is something truly extraordinary. One of the big leaps forward for America was when we started becoming a meritocracy and everybody was open for education. There are still some people in America, but particularly in other countries, that are trapped in poverty and don't have access.

When the internet expands this access and someone in the-- the recesses of the jungle can learn from the-- the best calculus teacher on the planet, we're going to discover genius that's going to allow progress and mankind to improve at-- at-- and I think it's gonna be a huge leap for technological progress.

But it's by having larger classrooms. It's counterintuitive; not smaller. And it will be virtual classrooms and it will be extraordinarily cheap. But I'm not saying this comes from government. I think this comes, really, more l-- more than likely, from the innovators that you meet in Silicon Valley or the innovators you meet in Austin, Texas. I think that's where it's going to come from; not from government.

CHUCK TODD:

But it's not gonna be local control?

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

Well, I'm not advocating against-- something that is-- transmitted even worldwide or international. I'm not arguing against any kind of-- national communication, or even national testing. I took national tests when I was a kid. What I'm arguing is against centralized control in the body of one government.

I'm arguing for something where someone in Madagascar, who's a genius, who's in the street, living in poverty, and we never discover that genius, is gonna be connected to someone at Harvard or M.I.T. or Baylor or some great university. And they're, all of the sudden, going to-- have that knowledge awaken something in their mind that we haven't seen before. That's the real beauty of the internet. We aren't quite there yet.

But people have misconstrued that intelligence is gonna come from smartphones. It's gonna come from connecting intelligent people to intelligent people, and great teachers to the masses. But I think there's extraordinary possibility for progress.

CHUCK TODD:

Senator Paul, I gotta leave it there. A lot more in your book, including your tax plan; some other things in there. Hopefully, I'll get you on again and we'll go through that as well. Stay safe on the trail, sir.

SENATOR RAND PAUL:

Thank you, Chuck.

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