CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Police Brutality and the Islamic State

Interview

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BLITZER: Evan Perez in Cleveland, thanks very much.

You can see the live pictures still coming in from New York and here in Washington, D.C., the protests apparently growing right now even as we speak.

The distrust between African-American communities across the country and local police certainly has drawn the attention of a Republican prominently mentioned as a possible candidate for president in 2016.

We're talking about Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky who is joining us now live from Capitol Hill.

Senator, thanks very much for joining us.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Glad to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: I speak to you because I know you've been very, very passionately involved in trying to improve relations between the Republican Party and African-American communities across the country. A few weeks ago we spoke when you were in Ferguson, meeting with the NAACP and others.

So given your interests and your passion on this specific -- in this specific area, what was your reaction to the grand jury decision in Staten Island following that stunning video all of us have seen now?

PAUL: You know, when I first saw the video I was horrified, and still am horrified every time I see it. As you know, Eric Garner is gasping for breath and saying, "I can't breathe," I -- I just can't believe this goes on. So I'm as shocked as anyone by the verdict, but I'm also shocked really, as there been no statement from the police about whether or not this is acceptable or whether or not they will continue to be policemen.

There obviously are different legal standards. You know, there's a legal standard for a grand jury indictment, but there's also a standard the police department should have for what kind of force is acceptable or unacceptable.

And I think really, to calm -- to calm down the reaction to this, one thing that could happen is the police could say, this is unacceptable for a policeman, and we can't have this type of an individual on the police force.

BLITZER: And I want you to clarify what you said yesterday, getting some publicity, that this was in part the result of the high cigarette taxes in New York. Just explain what you meant by that.

PAUL: Well, the same way the war on drugs is created, policemen that are everywhere I think being too aggressive with enforcement of the law, such as throwing a concussion grenade into a home near Atlanta last year, the same way high taxes draw people and push people into an underground.

When the tax is over -- think of this, a $5.85 tax is almost 60 percent of the price of cigarettes. If I tell you tomorrow that I'm going to put a tax on bread that is $4 and bread becomes $6, what happens? A black market develops. But then, are you going to arrest people or going to throw them to the ground for selling bread on the corners?

There is a black market because we have made the price of cigarettes so onerous that people are going to sell it illegally. So, yes, I don't think it's justified what the police did, but I also think it's bad policy that puts the police in an untenable position.

BLITZER: But --

PAUL: The war on drugs does that, and so does an erroneous and excessive tax policy as well.

BLITZER: But even if Eric Garner were selling cigarettes illegally, not charging tax or whatever, on the street, did he deserve to be treated the way he was treated in that video?

PAUL: No. None of it justifies it. All I'm saying is that we put people in a bad position by -- this came as a directive. This came as a directive from city government in New York, and they specifically told policemen, go out there and aggressively look at people selling illegal cigarettes. So it is a mistake, and it is a politician who ultimately made the mistake that hey, we're going to go after people selling these untaxed cigarettes.

So I think politicians are responsible for creating a situation and putting, I think, police sometimes in an untenable position but I think there's no excuse for what happened.

BLITZER: When we spoke, when you were in Ferguson, after your meetings there with local community leaders, the African-American community, you made it clear that you were worried that there was a justice system in the United States that was not equal. There was one set of justice for blacks, another for whites.

You still -- you still believe that?

PAUL: You know, I wrote in "TIME" magazine last week that when you look at shootings of the police upon individuals, that if you're a young black male you're 28 times more likely to be shot than a young white male. So there is a problem. And part of it is this war on drugs, but part of this is over zealousness to do everything that gets the police involved in every aspect of our life.

And the other problem I have, and this is one of the important things people haven't been talking about with New York, do you remember Michael Stewart? In the mid-1980s, I think it was 1983, Michael Stewart was painting graffiti or spraying graffiti on the subway walls in New York. He was strangled by 11 transit cops. He was black, they were white. And the same thing happened. A chokehold was performed and they were indicted, but never prosecuted. So this is not a new phenomenon. This is a 25-year-old phenomenon, at least in New York.

BLITZER: All right. I want you to stand by, Senator. We have a lot more to discuss.

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BLITZER: Do you agree with her?

PAUL: Well, you know, I have six different bills to reform the criminal justice system, and we would welcome Hillary Clinton if she would like to come and help us to promote this agenda. I've been working with Senator Cory Booker, Harry Reid, and other Democrats. And if she wants to join me and help to support these bills that I'm pushing on criminal justice, we would welcome her support.

BLITZER: So it sounds like you and her, at least on this -- in this narrow area might be on the same page, right?

PAUL: Well, I think she needs to have a little more concrete proposals. We have quite a few. We think the war on drugs has gone too far. We think that many of these things could be addressed as misdemeanors, not felonies. But we also think that, you know, taxing cigarettes $5.85 criminalizes otherwise law-abiding people. And so the question specifically to her is, would she try to make

the sale of cigarettes not such a burdensome thing that it drives people into the black market? And my guess is that her notion of sort of the busy-body nature of government is that she wouldn't support reducing taxes.

BLITZER: All right. Let's talk about some other issues while I have you, Senator. You want to vote in the Senate limiting the U.S. military in this war against ISIS. You want a resolution, a declaration of war if you will. On this issue, are you on the same page with Democrats?

PAUL: Some. But what I would say is that nobody's been doing there job up here, the president included. When the president ran for office, he said no president can unilaterally take the nation to war without the authority of Congress, but now he seems to have forgotten that campaign promise. But for five months, I've been asking for a vote on this, and every other Democrat in Congress has forgotten this promise also because there's been no vote.

So we came to the committee today and there was an unrelated bill, and I forced my amendment forward and said, I want a vote on whether or not Congress is going to authorize this war, and they all objected. But in the end, I was able to force the issue, and they promised me a vote next week in committee.

BLITZER: You know that Republican Senator John McCain, one of your colleagues, obviously, in the Senate, he thinks that what you're doing is telegraphing the U.S. punches towards ISIS, that in effect helping ISIS. I'm sort of paraphrasing what he says. Your response?

PAUL: I think that's sort of a confused understanding. I mean, the Constitution's very explicit that war should be initiated by Congress. There has to be a vote. George Washington believed this, James Madison believed this, Thomas Jefferson, and really for nearly 150 to 200 years, everyone in America believed that Congress would initiate war.

So I think the position that Congress shouldn't vote on it or that this somehow has anything to do with telegraphing anything is just wrong-headed and ignores the Constitution.

BLITZER: You know there hasn't been a declaration of war since World War II.

PAUL: I'm aware of that. That's one reason we brought it forward. But also, I would also support a use of authorization of force, but I think it's better to use the language of the Constitution because that's where ultimately the power was given to the Congress.

BLITZER: The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, said this week the U.S.-led airstrikes are not working. Your response?

PAUL: Well, ultimately there has to be ground troops. I've never said that would work without ground troops. But the ground troops need to be people who live there and people who are invested in this. If the Iraqis will not fight for their own cities, I'm not for sending any American G.I.s there to do it. So if the American -- if the Iraqis won't fight for Mosul, they're not taking back Mosul. The Iraqis on the ground will have to fight.

There are many other interested parties there that could fight as well to prevent this menace of ISIS. Turkey has a 650,000 person army. I'd like to see the Turks engaged in preventing this menace, ISIS. But I'd also like to see the Kurds engaged, the Iraqis engage. The Kurds have been engaged and have been fighting, but I'd really like to see the Iraqis step up and do some of the fighting.

BLITZER: I know you support what's called the Military Justice Improvement Act to combat sexual assault, violent crimes in the military. Do you believe you have the votes this time?

PAUL: You know, we were very close. I've been working with Senator Gillibrand on this, and she's really been the leader on this. And I think we got to 55 votes and we required 60 votes. One thing is to get enough votes, the other thing is to actually be allowed to vote. And there will be a vote on the Authorization for the Defense Bill. Usually or typically that's been open for amendment.

The rumor around here, though, is that they're not going to allow any amendments, including Senator Gillibrand's amendment.

BLITZER: And when will you announce whether or not you're running for president?

PAUL: You know, we're thinking about in the spring sometime. We still have family discussions to go through. And also to try to decide whether the message is resonating, whether or not there's a big enough momentum for a candidate like myself to actually win the nomination.

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

PAUL: Thanks, Wolf.

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