Fox News "The Story" - Transcript: Paul: Trump sees Mueller probe as 'accusation of collusion'

Interview

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MACCALLUM: So first of all, the president said that he misspoke when he talked about whether or not he thought Russia would have been involved in meddling.

He said, "I meant to say that they would have been not that they wouldn't have been." How did that register with you? Do you think that, that washes?

SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY., FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, I thought -- I have thought all along that because we've conflated two sort of different things in the Mueller investigation, that the president's reaction is typically, because he sees the Mueller investigation as an accusation of collusion that somehow the president colluded with the Russians.

And there's another aspect of the investigation that has to do with who hacked into Hillary Clinton's e-mails, and who released those to the public? And so, I think those are two sorts of completely different aspects but they're in the same investigation.

So I think, his instinct is to push back and say, "You know, there was no collusion. I was never involved with Russia," which I believe to be true. And I think, there has been a partisan witch-hunt to go after him to try to say, somehow there was collusion with Russia. But that is separate from whether or not Russia actually hacked into Hillary Clinton's e-mails, which I think he accepts. And I think was somewhat muddled in the initial comments from the press conference. But I think he's made more clear today.

MACCALLUM: Alright, John Brennan, as you know, came out and said that the president's performance was treasonous in his opinion. Here is the president responding to John Brennan in an interview that will air later tonight with Tucker Carlson. Watch.

TRUMP: I think Brennan is a very bad guy. And if you look at it, a lot of things happened under his watch. I think he's a very bad person.

MACCALLUM: Your thoughts on that Senator?

PAUL: You know, I agree completely. I think, John Brennan is completely unhinged, and you see him now calling the president treasonous. And what should worry every American is John Brennan was in charge of the CIA the most powerful intelligence gathering -- you know, group on the planet.

They can absorb every bit of information you can imagine. Your phone calls, your metadata, your bank records, your visa records. They could destroy any person's life. The person at the head of that turns out to be a very much, a partisan, a Trump hater. And very much -- just someone who is -- you know, a Trump hater. I guess that's the best way to put it.

But, you know, I really am worried that he was head of the CIA for so long harboring all that bias.

MACCALLUM: Well, well, let me ask is because you're concerned about all of that and I know you are. That is one of the big concerns as we move forward because Dan Coats has said that he believes that the attempt to meddle in the -- in the midterm elections is probably more intense than it was during the presidential election.

So, it almost feels like perhaps, rather than -- you know, kind of revisiting and rehashing what happened in the last 24 hours, we need to make sure that our cybersecurity is stronger. That feels like something that the president could really be coming out very strongly on that might go more to actual policy.

PAUL: Right.

MACCALLUM: And fixing things than fixing -- you know, a weak performance in Helsinki.

PAUL: This has been exactly my point. The integrity of the election is the most important thing, and what we should do is learn that countries do hack into elections and try.

This isn't the first time. I mean, Dov Levin study this from Carnegie Mellon University and said that the USA hacked or tried to get involved with 80 different elections over the last 50 years. The Soviet Union has, China does.

And so, the rule that we should learn or the morale we should learn from this is we need to protect our elections. And there are a lot of things we could discuss but people are so intent about making this, about their hatred or Trumped arranged in syndrome, that we aren't talking about really what we should do.

MACCALLUM: Yes. Very true.

PAUL: And I had some things like we should decentralize the elections. They are already decentralized, we should ensure that they remain decentralized, that there is a paper trail for every precinct that there is a Republican and a Democrat judge, there supposed to be that signs off on the precinct returns. And if the vote was a thousand to 800.

By the time that gets into a computer system, someone could always call back and say, "What was the vote you signed off on? And do you have a piece of paper to verify that vote?

MACCALLUM: Yes. Yes, I think that's the biggest point. I also want to just bring up one more thing because there -- you know, to that end, if the FBI is so concerned as they should be with figuring out meddling in United States elections, you would think that they would have wanted to get their hands on the actual DNC server?

Here is the exchange, because there's a lot said about this because the president brought it up the other day. And it was kind of poo-pooed by a Democrat who I had on last night. He said it didn't matter that they didn't actually have the server. But watch this moment between Congressman Will Hurd and James Comey.

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MACCALLUM: What do you say to that?

PAUL: Well, and you're taking the word of someone else who's investigated it. Now, I would think the police would only take the word of themselves when they actually investigate and look at the servers. So, I don't think there's any excuse for them not having done their job better.

And the thing is this, a lot of this stuff's more complicated than people would think. When you're trying to trace who actually hacked into it, because there are people who can actually put the, the type of a fingerprint on what they are doing to make themselves look like someone else.

They can make them by going through several different servers, obscure where they're actually coming from. And so, I don't think it's always as black and white when we say so and so did this hacking or didn't? And I think it would be very important that the FBI should have looked directly at the Democrat servers.

MACCALLUM: Yes. I mean, you know, I can see people being concerned about some of what they saw yesterday. But boy, if this happens again, I mean, you point out North Korea, China, there's a lot of bad actors out there. That would be real genuine embarrassment that the United States should be very concerned about. Senator Paul, thank you, sir. Always good to have you with us.

PAUL: Thank you, thanks.

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