MSNBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript: The Role of Libertarianism in the Republican Party

Interview

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DAVID GREGORY: We'll hear from all of you more as we move forward, but I want to turn now to Kentucky's Republican Senator, Senator Rand Paul, who joins me now. Senator, welcome.

SEN. RAND PAUL: Glad to be with you.

DAVID GREGORY: Let me pick up on this point. You have questioned the president's moral leadership at points along the way. Is there an area where you feel you can work in common cause with him this year?

SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I think the thing we make the mistake of up there is we try to agree to too much. I'm the first to acknowledge the president and I don't agree on every issue, but if you took ten issues I think there are two or three that we agree on, and we agree firmly on, and why don't we go after the issues that we agree on?

It's like immigration reform, for example. We don't agree on the whole comprehensive package with the Democrats, but I'll bet you about half of it we agree on. And the question is are we willing to narrow our focus and go after things that we can agree to, and get them done, or are we going to stay so polarized that we always have to have our way or the highway? So I think there is a way to pass legislation.

When I was at the White House a couple of weeks ago, I said to the president, "I want to increase infrastructure spending, and I know you do. Let's let companies bring back their profit from overseas at 5% and put it all in infrastructure." And I've been talking with Senator Durbin, others in the Senate on the Democrat side. I think we could agree to that tomorrow, but we have to go ahead and just narrow the focus and not say, "Oh, we're going to do overall tax reform," because we don't agree on overall tax reform.

DAVID GREGORY: The future of the Republican Party and, frankly, your place in it is a big story. Just this morning, the front page of The New York Times has this headline: "Rand Paul's Mixed Inheritance: Senator Looks to Move Libertarianism from the Fringe to the Mainstream." How big of a hurdle is this for you, if you're going to run for president?

SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I think there always are perceptions of what is extreme versus what is mainstream. I've always said that, you know, spending what comes in, balancing your budget, is actually the very reasonable sort of proposal, and spending $1 trillion you don't have is an extreme proposal.

So, really, it's a matter of getting our message out. But I think it's also-- you know, we've been talking a lot about poverty. It's about debating not who wants to cure poverty (Republicans want to help people who are unemployed, we want to help people get jobs) but it's about what policies work.

And the reason we don't think government grants work, we spent $1 trillion in the stimulus and they said it was $400,000 per job, because you give it to the wrong people. Nine out of ten businesses fail so if government picks who they're going to give the money to, to create jobs, nine out of ten times they're wrong and they pick the wrong person.

So what I would do, and what I have asked with my economic freedom zones, is dramatically lower taxes but don't pick who you give it to. Give it to the businesses that are already started and that consumers have already voted for. But that's different than what we've been doing in the war on poverty for 50 years.

DAVID GREGORY: But it's interesting, the role of government, you've often referred to the tyranny of the federal government. So, again, it comes down to mainstream versus extreme. Fellow Republican, and maybe he's one that will run against you for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz has described your strident libertarianism of your father as an issue that will always be a shadow over anything you try to do.

SEN. RAND PAUL: You know, I think one of the things-- and, you know, don't be trashing my dad too much. That's my dad, you know? But the thing is I would say that my dad was extraordinary in Washington in being genuine, being really liked by people on both sides, being close to people from the conservative wing of the party but also very close to the Congressional Black Caucus as well.

He went to Berkeley and had 7,000 kids on their feet. He went to Liberty University and had 7,000 conservative Christian kids on their feet. So that's a rare figure in politics. And I would say I'm proud of my dad. And what I would say I'm trying to do is to try to bring that message to an even bigger crowd.

DAVID GREGORY: But, Senator, do you think that--

SEN. RAND PAUL: You know, so I think there's a lot to be said for it.

DAVID GREGORY: Is the federal government guilty of tyranny?

SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, you know, Montesquieu talked again when the executive branch tries to assume the legislative powers, that that's a form of tyranny. So, yeah, there are times when we lose our checks and balances, when government grows, and when government's not obeying the rule of law, that that is a form of tyranny. Tyranny is a strong word, but it makes people sit up and take notice. But I would say that there are times when we are going beyond what we should be doing, when we're exceeding the restraint of the Constitution, that there is a form of tyranny. And we need to be aware of that.

DAVID GREGORY: But it's interesting, and the issue of Edward Snowden has been very much in the news this week with calls potentially for a deal with the United States government, you've called him a hero. You've said that perhaps he would face penalties that would be too harsh and that's why he's not returning. The Wall Street Journal editorial--

SEN. RAND PAUL: Actually…

DAVID GREGORY: Go ahead.

SEN. RAND PAUL: I was just going to say that's not exactly what I've said. I've said that I have sort of mixed feelings. I think he's brought forward something, and I think his motives are noble in the sense that I think he believed that government was doing something unconstitutional and he was bringing this information forward. And I don't think we'd have any of this debate over the N.S.A. had he not done it.

But I've also said what he did was against the law, and that we do have to have laws to protect national secrets. You know, captains in the military, sergeants in the military, we do have to obey orders and we can't reveal secrets. So, having said that he shouldn't be punished, I've just said that the death penalty is excessive, life imprisonment is excessive, and that he has brought forward a very important debate and--

DAVID GREGORY: So what would you call on the attorney general--

SEN. RAND PAUL: --of worth.

DAVID GREGORY: What would you call on the attorney general and the president to do in terms of fashioning some kind of plea with him? What would be appropriate?

SEN. RAND PAUL: I'm not sure what the answer is. I've been responding not so much in a legal fashion, but I'm responding to some I think overheated rhetoric by people saying, "Let's string him up, let's shoot him, he's a traitor," this and that. I don't assign bad motives to Snowden. I think his motives were good. And I'm not sure he did the right thing or did it in the right way.

But I also don't assign bad motives to James Clapper, but James Clapper did break the law. And he has exposed himself to five years in prison for perjury. So you can't have it both ways. You can't say, "Oh, we're going to throw the book at Snowden, and we're going to ignore perjury to Congress by James Clapper." I think they both-- if you want to apply the law, the law has to be applied equally.

DAVID GREGORY: What about your colleagues, the chairs of the intelligence committees, namely Mike Rogers in the House, strongly suggesting that Snowden (on this program last week) was a spy for the Russians, that he had help from the Russians? That he went into the open arms of the Russians to seek refuge there? How do you react to that? Do you think that's fair?

SEN. RAND PAUL: You know, I don't have details to know, you know, what the situation is there. I think it's complicated the way history will treat him, because it's a little hard to be over there in Russia talking about privacy and the Bill of Rights in a country that has persecuted journalists and doesn't really have the same degree of freedom that we have in our country. So it has complicated it. But I don't know what he has released, and exactly what they're referring to.

DAVID GREGORY: Let me ask you more about some of the debates within the Republican Party. Former candidate Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, got in some hot water this week with comments he made, I'll play a portion of it, as he talked about a war for women. Here's what he said.

MIKE HUCKABEE: The Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it. Let us take that discussion all across America because women are far more than the Democrats have played them to be.

DAVID GREGORY: Is this helpful?

SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I think we have a lot of debates in Washington that get dumbed down and are used for political purposes. This whole sort of war on women thing, I'm scratching my head because if there was a war on women, I think they won. You know, the women in my family are incredibly successful.

I have a niece at Cornell vet school, and 85% of the young people there are women. In law school, 60% are women; in med school, 55%. My younger sister's an ob-gyn with six kids and doing great. You know, I don't see so much that women are downtrodden; I see women rising up and doing great things. And, in fact, I worry about our young men sometimes because I think the women really are out-competing the men in our world.

DAVID GREGORY: My question, about whether you think it's appropriate for the party, key figures in the party, to be talking about women, women's health, women's bodies, and the role of the federal government related to those things?

SEN. RAND PAUL: I try never to have discussions of anatomy unless I'm at a medical conference. But what I would say is that we didn't start this sort of I think glossy and sometimes dumbed-down debate about, you know, there being a war on women. I think the facts show that women are doing very well, have come a long way.

And, you know, like I say, I have a lot of successful women in my family and I don't hear them saying, "Oh, woe is me. This terrible, you know, misogynist world." They look out and they're conquering the world. The women in my family are doing great, and that's what I see in all the statistics coming out. I have, you know, young women in my office that are the leading intellectual lights of our office.

So I don't really see this, that there's some sort of war that's, you know, keeping women down. I see women doing great and I think we should extol that success and not dumb it down into a political campaign that somehow one party doesn't like women or that. And that I think that's what's happened. It's all been for political purposes.

DAVID GREGORY: Elsewhere in Republican politics, Chris Christie of course in New Jersey is facing troubles over the bridge scandal there, and you've had your own feud with him. Here's a little bit of tape that brings people up to date on that.

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DAVID GREGORY: I understand you two have been working through some of your feud, but my question for you is do you think that Chris Christie could get the Republican nomination?

SEN. RAND PAUL: You know, I think that's yet to be determined. The nomination goes through some very conservative primaries. I think there's room for more moderate Republicans in the party, and I really am a believer that we should have an expansive and diverse party ideologically, and diverse in many ways.

But the primary's a very conservative process. And my understanding is that it will be more difficult for a moderate to make it through because we truly are fiscal conservatives in our party. We don't want to spend money we don't have. If we are going to spend something on-- such as Sandy, which is I think something the country was going to take a responsibility in, we think we should pay for it.

You know, I offered an amendment on Sandy to take the money from foreign aid and say, "Look, if we're going to repair bridges in New Jersey, I'm fine with that. And if we're going to repair houses and roads, let's take it from repairing roads in Pakistan," because there's a limited amount of money. And actually, really, we're borrowing about $1 million a minute, a lot of it from China and Japan. I don't think we should do that. And we need to set priorities and say if we going to help New Jersey, it ought to be paid for.

But that's why I think that there was a debate over him sort of lecturing Congress and saying, "Gimme, gimme, gimme all this money," and all I was asking for, and many other Republicans were asking for, is that it ought to be paid for through spending cuts in overseas spending.

DAVID GREGORY: Final political question for you. Whoever the Republican nominee is, there's a good chance, as we look at it now, that one candidate on the Democratic side who'll have a lot of momentum, whether she gets the nomination or not we don't know, is Hillary Clinton. And an interesting profile in Vogue magazine, including this analysis.

"While her husband jokes," meaning you, "that his gut feeling is that Hillary Clinton will not run for president is good a thing since all the polls show her trouncing any opponent, Kelley, the wife of Senator Rand Paul practically cuts him off to say that, 'Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky should complicate his return to the White House, even as first spouse. I would say his behavior was predatory, offensive to women,' she tells me." Are these issues something that you really think will be fair game and an appropriate part of a campaign, should she be the nominee?

SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I mean, the Democrats, one of their big issues is they have concocted and said Republicans are committing a war on women. One of the workplace laws and rules that I think are good is that bosses shouldn't prey on young interns in their office.

And I think really the media seems to have given President Clinton a pass on this. He took advantage of a girl that was 20 years old and an intern in his office. There is no excuse for that, and that is predatory behavior, and it should be something we shouldn't want to associate with people who would take advantage of a young girl in his office.

This isn't having an affair. I mean, this isn't me saying, "Oh, he's had an affair, we shouldn't talk to him." Someone who takes advantage of a young girl in their office? I mean, really. And then they have the gall to stand up and say, "Republicans are having a war on women"? So, yes, I think it's a factor. Now, it's not Hillary's fault. And, I mean--

DAVID GREGORY: But it should be an issue--

SEN. RAND PAUL: --but it is a factor in judging Bill Clinton in history.

DAVID GREGORY: Right, but is it something that Hillary Clinton should be judged on if she were a candidate in 2016?

SEN. RAND PAUL: Yeah-- no, I'm not saying that. This is with regard to the Clintons, and sometimes it's hard to separate one from the other. But I would say that, with regard to his place in history, that it certainly is a discussion. And I think in my state, you know, people tend to sort of frown upon that. You know, if there were someone in my community who did that, they would be socially-- we would dissociate from somebody who would take advantage of a young women in the workplace.

DAVID GREGORY: All right, Senator Rand Paul, a lot of ground covered, a lot of ground still to cover, and we hope to have you back. Senator, thank you as always.

SEN. RAND PAUL: Thank you.

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