Fox News "The Story with Martha MacCallum" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Rand Paul

Interview

Now, Iran's Foreign Minister firing back by tweeting that the U.S. military has no business in the Persian Gulf and has a "thirst for war." Joining me now Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, good to see you. Thanks for coming back on to THE STORY tonight.

SEN. RAND PAUL, R-KY.: Thanks for having me.

MACCALLUM: You bet. What's your -- what's your reaction to these sanctions, good idea?

PAUL: You know, I'm really proud of President Trump for showing restraint. I think it shows -- it really takes a statesman to show restraint amidst a chorus of voices for war. Whether the sanctions will work I think it's another story.

Currently, from the Iranian perspective, they see the sanctions as an act of war cutting off their ability to sell any oil to Asia which the previous sanctions actually allowed them to sell some oil. It's actually I think becoming so stringent that they have a couple of possibilities. They say, oh we're sorry and we're going to negotiate or they say we're really, really mad and we're going to fight.

Unfortunately, it looks like we've got their back up against the wall and I think we're more likely to have more military confrontations that we are to have diplomacy. I'm very open and would like to have diplomacy. I know the president said he would talk without preconditions.

The problem is right now because we pulled out in an agreement that Iran was actually adhering to, the Iranians feel like you know, we're not acting in a good-faith manner.

MACCALLUM: So you believe that we should have stayed in that agreement?

PAUL: You know, I didn't agree with the fact that we gave up the money early. When I -- you know, the President has said this repeatedly. We gave him $150 billion up front. I think that was a mistake. The problem is that's already done.

That was a carrot, but we gave up the carrot too easily. Now that it's gone, we have no other carrots, all we have is stick. And so we're adding -- you know, we're adding the stick which is more sanctions but I don't know if that's bringing them -- you know, they came to the negotiating table initially because they had a carrot and the carrot was the money. We gave it up too easily but they were still complying.

I would have built upon the nuclear deal to try to get a ballistic missile deal. Instead, getting rid of the nuclear deal, we've got to start over on the nuclear deal and the ballistic missile deal. And I think we also have to realize that if you want the Iranians to agree to a ballistic missile, conventional ballistic missile deal, the Saudis would have to be part of it.

They're not going to give up their weapons with the Saudis not giving up any. And I agree with the president. I don't want them to have nuclear weapons but I also don't want the Saudis to have nuclear weapons. I wouldn't give the Saudis nuclear technology. I think that pushes the Iranians to breakout from the nuclear agreement.

MACCALLUM: Interesting. This is a quote from an article in the American Spectator which is titled Trump is winning the little cold war with Iran. And it says the best approach to this ideological war against Iran is through containment, deterrence, and multilateralism. The same tools that the United States effectively used to defeat the Soviet Union's global threat in the Cold War. Do you see that as a similarity?

PAUL: Well, you know, I'm a big fan of George Kennan who was the original author of containment of the Soviet Union. And containment is a much better way of looking at the world rather than thinking like John Bolton and we're going to topple every regime we don't like in Thomas Jefferson is going to be elected the next time around.

Containment is a much more realistic approach to foreign policy. And yes, they need to be contained. We need to do everything we can to convince them not to break out to get nuclear weapons, but that's going to have to involve some kind of carrot. And so one carrot that could be offered is letting go of the additional tariffs, they're cutting -- additional sanctions that are cutting off the flow of oil to the east.

I think that should be something that's not getting rid of all sanctions, but if you put that on the table and say look, maybe we've gone too far on that but we're going to have to have something in response and that means we got to be done with all this sort of military confrontation that Iran is sort of provoking with us now.

But I think there is a deal to be had but they're not going to come to the table without some sort of offer. But right now I don't think we even have adequate channels to have a conversation. I think we're not talking at all.

MACCALLUM: No. I mean, it doesn't seem like they want to talk. You know, I mean, unlike the North Koreans who actually have expressed some interest in talking and has -- you know, I mean that's obviously slow progress on that front but they said they want to talk.

I mean, in fact in the parliament today in Iran they were chanting death to America you know, standing up as we would in Congress but these guys are standing up and you know, pounding their fists and shouting death to America.

I want to play this from President Trump from the interview on Sunday about what he would do -- you know, why he's not looking for war but. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm not looking for war and if there is it'll be obliteration like you've never seen before. But I'm not looking to do that, but you can't have a nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: What do think?

PAUL: Well, you know, I think they're without question the U.S. has incredible military dominance over any country in the world at this point and with Iran, it wouldn't be an even match. We have you know, 1,000 fold military superiority. So we do have the ability to do all that.

But out of that chaos what happens? If we were to do that and we were to go all-in with a war against mainland Iran, you get chaos again. What comes out of chaos? Terrorism and you know, struggle, and civil war, and chaos, and famine.

MACCALLUM: Senator Rand Paul, always good to see you, sir. Thank you very much.

PAUL: Thanks, Martha.

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