CNN "Wolf" - Transcript: Middle East, Ban the Box, Taxes

Interview

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BLITZER: Let's discuss this other -- other topics with the Republican presidential candidate, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Senator, thanks very much for joining us.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.

BLITZER: The U.S. and its allies, they're continuing airstrikes against the Islamic State, ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. If you were elected president, would you continue to participate in those kinds of airstrikes?

PAUL: The first thing I would do is obey the Constitution. I think what President Obama is doing is unconstitutional. Our Founding Fathers were very clear that the initiation of war, the beginning of war, the declaration of war should be from the people's House, from Congress. And so even President Obama agreed with this when he ran for office in 2007 when he said no president should unilaterally go to war without the approval of Congress. He doesn't agree with that so much anymore. But that's a real problem for me. I think Congress should debate and vote on whether we go back to war in the Middle East.

BLITZER: If you were president, would you seek such authorization?

PAUL: I wouldn't send boots on the ground. I am against sending American - the sons and daughters of America back over there. I think the last war in Iraq actually made it more chaotic and made us less safe. So I think if we want to be safer as a country and safer as a people, I don't think sending 500,000 troops back into there is a good idea nor do I think sending 50 is, in fact. I think if you are going to war, sending 50 people to war at a time is sort of a recipe for being surrounded and somehow having a disaster on your hands. So I would never put underwhelming force. If we went to war and there was a declaration of war, I would put overwhelming force. I wouldn't mess around.

BLITZER: Let's talk about some other issues. President Obama says he will order federal employers to "Ban the Boxes," it's called. That's the box which asks job applicants if they have a criminal felony record on job applications. He says it makes it way too difficult for prisoners who have served their time and want to the start all over to get a job with the federal government. Are you with him on that?

PAUL: I'm with him on a lot of the criminal justice reform, and on individual companies advising them to do it voluntarily, yes, I'm for that. For the federal government doing it, you know, mostly yes. I think there can always be exceptions to every rule. Obviously, you know, federal child care and things like that, there have to be more stringent rules on who can be hired, but I think a guy who smoked pot or sold marijuana when they were 20 years old deserves a second chance and so I'm a big believer in second chances, and I think that if we want people to be employed and not back in the drug trade, we should allow their records to be expunged and go away, give them a second chance, particularly if we're talking about non-violent crime.

BLITZER: Did the president do the right thing releasing several thousand prisoners who had non-violent records serving long-terms largely for drug sales or drug use, drug abuse or whatever, or do you agree with Bill Bratton, the New York City police commissioner, that releasing all these prisoners poses a danger to the public?

PAUL: No, I generally favorite it. I don't want to say I know every instance of everyone who got released, because I don't want to be responsible for that because I haven't looked at their records. But in general, yes, I think they should be. Many of these people are minorities, African-Americans who got sentenced, sometimes two, three, four, five times longer than their white counterparts because there is a disparity in sentencing in between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

There are some people in our prisons who are black, primarily, who were given sentences of 10 and 15 years where as a white kid that was going to college and using powder cocaine got six months or probation. That's still not fair, and the fact that the president is correcting some of that, I commend him and would support that. I do not want to support every individual instance because I haven't have time to look at every file to make sure it was the correct decision.

[13:40:24] BLITZER: Your friend, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, he posted a viral video of you doing that filibuster the other night, trying to stop the budget deal from going through. You failed because the final vote was 64-35, you need 60 to break that filibuster. But just explain, what would you have done with the all those debts that the U.S. has accumulated? Would the U.S. have defaulted on those debts potentially undermining America's credit rating, which would have cost the American public a lot?

PAUL: One of the things that is extraordinary that I still don't completely understand about the internet is that, you know, I filibustered raising the debt ceiling. My friend Senator Lee put up a snippet of that and 21 million people saw this snippet. This is more people than watched the last Republican debate. So it is fascinating to me that you can stand up, make your stand at 2:00 in the morning when no regular news coverage covered me at all, and yet 21 million people saw this.

If I were in charge, I wouldn't raise the debt ceiling. That means we'd balance our budget. We would have to spend what comes in. We have about $250 billion that comes in every month. Our interest payment ranges between 30 and about 60 billion a month. We always have plenty of money for interest. There's no reason to default. In fact, I have a bill that specifically says we should pay the interest, we should pay Medicare, Social Security, soldiers' salaries and Veterans Affairs all as a priority and then we should debate, we should have a long drawn-out debate on whether or not we should reform our government.

But I think it's irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling and also raise the spending caps. We went exactly the wrong direction and I have been traveling the country and I have not met a Republican yet who supports raising the debt ceiling and raising spending at the same time.

BLITZER: 24 million people saw the last Republican debate. That was on CNN. 25 million saw the first Republican debate. So your 21 million that saw your viral video is close, but it is not more than saw the Republican debates. Just want to point that out.

PAUL: We are still working on it. Maybe we'll get there. We'll see.

BLITZER: Maybe you'll get there if you keep people - keep going, take a look at that video. I'm sure after this interview more people will take a closer look at that as well.

Ben Carson is now ahead, at least in the second national poll, of Donald Trump. This new NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll shows Trump now trailing Carson by six points. Marco Rubio is in third, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, all in single digits. You are down there, but you're struggling right now. Why are you still struggling?

PAUL: You know, I think it is still early, believe it or not. We've been talking about this for a year or more, but it is still pretty early in the decision-making process. Every one of the polls that you have cited, 2/3 of the people are undecided and the pollster says, well, no, who are you leaning towards? So it is still a poll of leaners among undecided voters. It will crystallize in January. If I'm here in the third week in January, we'll be worried. But we still think there is a great deal of movement to have. I think many Republicans don't believe that Ben Carson or Donald Trump will ultimately be the nominee. So we still think there will be a reshuffling of the deck.

We have a lot of support among students and a lot of support among independents. We don't think they show up or we think they're underrepresented in these polls because I have yet to meet a college kid that ever answered a presidential poll. So we think we still have a chance. We are working very hard with students. Also, I think I represent a position that is not represented by anyone else in the field in that I am not going to send us back to war in Iraq, and I'm the only Republican saying we won't go back to war in Iraq. I'm the only Republican saying, you know what, if you are really a fiscal conservative, you have to save money on the military side and on the domestic welfare side.

BLITZER: Very quickly. We are out of time. But is it true, you don't want a moderator or moderators at these Republican presidential debates?

PAUL: Not exactly true. I just suggested it as an alternative. I think it might be an interesting debate to put five candidates around the table, and then put another five candidates around the table, let them have an hour long discussion, but let each of them speak their mind. For example, we all have tax plans and I had to really bully my way in to get 30 seconds to present my tax plan and I was the first one out there with a flat tax that gets rid of the entire tax code and gets rid of the IRS and I want to be a part of that discussion, and because we do too many gotcha questions, we don't get a chance for a full discussion, I think, of the issues.

BLITZER: Rand Paul, thanks very much for joining us.

PAUL: Thanks, Wolf.

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