FOX "Hannity"- Transcript: Debate Recap

Interview

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Here to react to all of this is 2016 Republican presidential candidate, Kentucky senator Rand Paul. Senator, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.

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

CARLSON: So what do you make of this New York Times report today that the FBI is very upset with President Obama specifically for talking down, in effect, their investigation? He said this on "60 Minutes" -- "I don't think it," Hillary Clinton's private server, "posed a national security problem," says the president, before the investigation is even wrapped up, before we know the facts.

They took that as political pressure against their investigation, him sending a message, Look, we don't want Hillary Clinton indicted. Do you think that's what it was?

PAUL: Possibly, but actually, I have a great deal of respect for the FBI being independent of the administration. They're part of the administration, but I think they actually will continue to investigate this.

And you know, the Clintons have always sort of had this aura that they think they're above the law. I think this time, they may actually be tripped up in this because to me, it seems very similar to what happened to General Petraeus when he allowed privileged or classified documents to get into the hands of those who didn't have access or should not have had access to them. It sounds very similar to that.

It's sort of a carelessness, but a carelessness that could potentially harm our national security. And it also goes to wisdom, ultimately, of whether or not she has the wisdom to be able to be in charge of all of our national security.

CARLSON: But isn't that exactly the point? So in the case of General Petraeus, the FBI, when it completed its investigation, suggested felony charges, a possible prison sentence for David Petraeus. The president comes out, says, No, I don't think it's a big deal, and then the Justice Department, which, of course, decides whether charges will be pursued, decides to charge him with a misdemeanor.

Isn't that the point, that the president exerted political pressure, his Justice Department ignored the FBI's recommendations. Do you think that could happen in the case of Hillary Clinton?

PAUL: I mean, anything can happen, and I think she's far enough up the food chain that they'll do everything they can to protect her. But I also think that there's a possibility that there is a legitimate investigation going on.

I was surprised initially that it even got started because I thought they would have quashed it before it even began. But the fact that they are looking seriously about whether or not she revealed secrets or didn't use the appropriate protection to protect national secrets -- I think all of it goes to judgment. It's just like for me, Benghazi, it goes to bad judgment and not providing the adequate security that they needed in Benghazi.

CARLSON: So Hillary Clinton has said she does not believe any of the information on her servers was viewed by people who shouldn't have access to it, namely, foreign governments. Do we know that? Are we certain that none of that information was hacked by, say, the Chinese military? She was, after all, secretary of state, presumably a target of their hacking efforts.

PAUL: Yes, I think they're unlikely to sort of send us a message and say, Hey, we hacked into Hillary's e-mails. So I don't think they're going to let us know. It's really the fact that she did not use appropriate caution in protecting that and she didn't obey her own rules.

One of the greatest bits of hypocrisy was that she let go one of the ambassadors that worked for her because that ambassador had a private server. So I think it's the height of hypocrisy that she thinks, Oh, my goodness, you know, I'm going to actually fire an ambassador, but for me, there's a different standard.

It's this whole idea that the Clintons think they're above the law, that there's sort of a different law for them. And then for the ordinary people, the rest of you guys, you will obey ordinary law, but for the Clintons, there's some sort of exalted law that they're allowed to entertain.

CARLSON: Well, exactly. The administration just put a CIA officer in prison for giving classified information to a reporter that never was even publicized. So -- I want to ask you about Benghazi. All of the attention-- most of it has been paid to the deaths, I think rightly, of those Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Very little attention, however, has been paid to why all those CIA officers were there in the first place. There have been reports that the Obama administration was collecting arms from Gadhafi's stockpiles to send them to forces in Syria who opposed the Assad regime.

If that's true -- A, do you think it is true? And B, if so, isn't that a scandal? That was never approved by the Congress or the public.

PAUL: I'm still convinced that's what was happening. I asked her that question in the committee hearing, and she acted, like, Oh, I know nothing about it. I don't think that was an honest response. I think she did know something about it, and it may well have been classified, but I do believe that there was an arms trading going on.

Now, I think, ostensibly, the purpose was to get dangerous arms out of radicals in the hands of Libya because when Hillary Clinton promoted the war in Libya, one of the untoward things that happened is, is they bombed Gadhafi. 15,000 surface-to-air missiles went missing. This is one of the bad outcomes of Hillary's war in Libya.

They were trying to then recapture those weapons, but then instead of disabling them, they were going to send those weapons to a new set of jihadists that are in Syria. And so none of it made any sense to me. None of it that I know of was approved by Congress. And yes, Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for that.

CARLSON: You think? If that's true -- let's just replay what you just said -- and they sent those surface-to-air missiles to a new set of jihadists in Syria -- if that happened, why is it not a crime, and why aren't people yelling about it and demanding answers to it?

PAUL: Well, I think there's a question of whether or not it's approved at some level by the CIA or the intelligence committees. But no one's been honest about this.

And it's kind of like the bulk collection of all our phone data. They lied to us and said they weren't doing it. And even though this is in the past, that's my question. Should we not bring the intelligence officials forward and ask them, What was the CIA actually doing there? And did that potentially cause the risk and cause the attack because the people who saw the arms being shipped to one side or the other in Syria were maybe upset with the arms program in the CIA annex?

That may well be the root cause, and nobody's really asking or searching. Is that or was that the root cause of why people, the ambassador, was ultimately assassinated?

CARLSON: Bob Gates, the former secretary of defense, who I don't believe is a Hillary voter or an Obama supporter, said in an interview with Bret Baier yesterday -- he described the Obama administration's efforts at arming various groups within Syria, groups about whom they know basically nothing, as insane. I wonder why more Republican candidates aren't pointing this out.

PAUL: Well, you know, I've been trying to have this debate because the thing is, is I don't think we should be allied with al Qaeda. And they ask about, How are you going to stop ISIS? First thing we ought to do is stop funding them, stop sending arms to them, stop sending arms into all of these different jihadist groups that are opposed to Assad.

That doesn't mean that I think Assad is a good guy. I just think by funding al Qaeda and the remnants of al Qaeda and the friends of al Qaeda that we've created a space, and in that space, ISIS has grown. So yes, absolutely, we should quit sending arms into there.

The whole idea of training these moderates, the so-called Syrian moderates -- moderates we spent $250 million to train 60 of them, over $4 million per fighter, and they were immediately captured when we put them back in there, and all the equipment went to ISIS and al Nusra and other al Qaeda fronts.

CARLSON: For an administration supposedly staffed with geniuses or Harvard degrees, they learn nothing. It's remarkable.

Senator, thanks for coming on tonight. It's great to talk to you.

PAUL: Thanks, Tucker.

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