CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With Kentucky Senator Rand Paul

Interview

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TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Jake Tapper in Helsinki, Finland.

And we are live from Allas Sea Pool in Helsinki. You can see the Presidential Palace behind me. That's where tomorrow's historic U.S.- Russia summit will take place. The meeting is causing some anxiety among some Republicans, fears that President Trump might give too much away or not be tough enough.

But Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky says that President Trump doing the right thing by meeting with Putin face to face.

Senator Paul -- thanks so much for joining us, as always.

Just 48 hours ago the U.S. government, the Trump administration said that top Russian military intelligence officers orchestrated a massive hack to affect the U.S. election. How much do you want President Trump to try to hold Putin accountable for that?

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I think really we mistake our response if we think it's about accountability from the Russians. They are another country. They are going to spy on us.

The do spy on us. They are going to interfere in our elections. We also do the same.

Doug Levin at Carnegie Mellon studied this over about a 50-year period in the last century and found 81 times that the U.S. interfered in other country's elections. So we all do it.

TAPPER: It sounds as though you are saying that the United States has done the equivalent of what the Russians did in the 2016 election and it might sound to some viewers that you're offering that statement as an excuse for what the Russians did.

PAUL: No, what I would say it's not morally equivalent but I think in their mind it is. And I think it's important to know in your adversary's mind the way they perceive things.

I do think that they react to our interference in both their elections. They were very -- one of the reasons they really didn't like Hillary Clinton is they found her responsible for some of the activity by the U.S. in their elections under the Obama administration. So I'm not saying it's morally equivalent --

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TAPPER: But certainly Senator Paul, the United States has never --

PAUL: I'm not saying it's justified -- yes, go on.

TAPPER: -- done -- the United States has never done what Russia did.

Yes. Go on, I'm sorry.

PAUL: I'm not saying -- I'm not saying -- yes, I'm not saying they're equivalent or morally equivalent but I am saying that this is the way the Russians respond. So if you want to know how we have better diplomacy or better reactions, we have to know their response.

But it's not just interference in elections that I think has caused this nationalism in Russia. Also, I think part of the reason is, we promised them when James Baker at the end when Germany reunified, we promised them that we wouldn't go one inch eastward of Germany with NATO. And we've crept up on the borders.

We still have neo-cons in both parties who want Ukraine and Georgia to be a NATO. That's very, very provocative and it has stimulated and encouraged nationalism in Russia.

TAPPER: I want to get to NATO in a second but just to underline this point about what the United States should do in response to the Russian election interference. In a new interview just this morning, President Trump said he -- quote -- "hadn't thought of asking Putin to extradite those 12 Russian military intelligence officers."

Do you think President Trump should ask for the extradition when they meet tomorrow? PAUL: I think it would be a moot point. I don't think Russia is sending anyone back over here for trial. The same way we wouldn't send anybody over there for trial.

No country with any sovereignty or sense of sovereignty is sending anybody to another country for trial. I think we have to protect ourselves.

So because we waste time saying, well, Putin needs to admit this and apologize, he's not going to admit that he did it. And we can't take with -- on face value anything they tell us.

We have to assume and if we have proof that they did it, which it sounds like we did, we should now spend our time protecting ourself instead of sort of having this witch hunt on the President.

If the President was involved by all means put the information forward. There is no evidence so far of the President's involvement at all in this.

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So I think we need to be done with this so we can start actually protecting our elections from foreign countries.

TAPPER: Well, you just called this a witch hunt but if it were not for this probe, if it were not for Robert Mueller, the American people would not know about the Russian military intelligence officers who are hacking American e-mails, stealing voter information, releasing stolen information to influence the election. I'm not sure how you can call it a witch hunt. Isn't it a good thing this probe has continued?

PAUL: Yes. I would say that this is a Department of Justice investigation and that would still have ensued in either way. I wish President Obama had been more aggressive in pursuing it during President Obama's term. But I think the Department of Justice can get to the bottom of this without sort of a special counsel.

I think the Mueller investigation, the problem with special counsels is exactly what happened in the Starr investigation and that is that they run far afield of it.

But I do think the Department of Justice would have investigated the Russians and I think indicting these officers that were hacking the elections is a good thing.

TAPPER: This week in the Senate -- I want to talk about NATO now because you brought it up. This week the Senate voted 97-2 in favor of a motion that supports the NATO alliance. This was a nonbinding motion expressing the Senate's support for NATO, calling on negotiators to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO.

You were one of the two in the 97-2. You voted against it. There is consensus that NATO has served an essential role in stabilizing Europe which ultimately has prevented the United States to need to take military action and to also check Russian aggression.

You talked about how NATO has moved closer and closer towards the Russian border. A lot of experts say that's because Russia has continued to expand and take territory in Ukraine, in Crimea, in Georgia. Do you support NATO?

PAUL: I think it's sort of chicken and the egg. Which happens first -- either NATO's expansion or Russia pushing back or vice-versa.

I will say that when you look at NATO, what I voted against was an ironclad commitment to defend any nation in NATO and they also said that they want an open door policy in NATO to admit any aspirant. So I think that is very foolhardy to say we're going to defend any country in the world that wants to be a NATO and we're inviting any country that meets the requirements to come into NATO.

That is a recipe for disaster. NATO has had historic achievements and has been part of, you know, what was deterrence to Russia.

But the interesting thing now is that European forces are 13 times bigger than Russian forces. European plus U.S. forces are probably 30 times bigger than Russia forces. So right now there's a disproportionate advantage to the west with NATO.

I'm not saying we disband NATO but I don't think we should have an open door policy.

TAPPER: I just think there are a lot of people out there who would be surprised to hear a sitting United States senator describe Russia versus NATO in terms of confrontation and expansion as a chicken or egg proposition given the fact that NATO protects sovereign countries while allowing them to remain sovereign while Russia invades other countries and takes over those countries. I don't think it's chicken or the egg.

PAUL: Right. Well, what I would say is that there were people -- probably the greatest diplomat of the last country was -- of the last century was George Kennan. And he did predict as NATO expanded that you would incite militaristic tendencies and nationalism in Russia.

I'm not justifying Russia's aggression in Ukraine or in Georgia. I'm not saying they are equivalent. I'm saying though that the provocation of pushing NATO forward after we promised -- James Baker promised Gorbachev in 1990 when Germany unified that we would not go -- the west would not go one inch beyond Germany. And yet a couple of years later, under the Clinton administration we kept pushing, pushing, pushing.

And so for every action that we put out there, there is a reaction. And I think we need to think this through. And it's not a moral equivalency.

It's not justifying Russia's behavior. But it is realizing that from Russia's perspective, they see NATO expansion as a threat and that part of their militarism, part of their nationalism may be inherent to the tides of the current century there. But it's also in reaction to policy from the west as well.

TAPPER: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, we thank you for your time as always, sir. Good to see you.

PAUL: Thank you.

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