CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript "Interview with Sen. Rand Paul"

Interview

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TAPPER: I want to bring in Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He sides with the president on pulling U.S. troops from Northern Syria. He's also out with a brand-new book called "The Case Against Socialism."

Congratulations the book, Senator. We'll get to that in a second.

REP. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Thank you.

TAPPER: I do want to ask you about this. You might be President Trump's biggest supporter when it comes to withdraw U.S. service members from Northern Syria, what advice did you offer the president before he made this decision?

PAUL: He and I didn't talk one-on-one on it. This was his decision, but I agree completely that it was the best thing not only for our troops but it's also the way to adhere to the Constitution. The Constitution says you don't declare a war unless Congress votes on it, and who are we going to declare war against? Our ally Turkey? The Free Syrian Army that used to be our ally? Assad?

It's a sort of a messy situation, but he was told by the Turks that they were coming one way or another and they have 50 troops, 50 troops don't stop 10,000 troops. You don't got to war with 50 troops.

I think he made the right decision. I'm reminded of Beirut when we made the wrong decision had 300 marines in a barracks that weren't well protected. I think if 50 troops had been massacred in there, then we'd be in an enormous war. So, I think he made the right decision.

TAPPER: You really think that Erdogan would have sent the Turks across the border with U.S. service members. I mean, that's the only thing that kept them from attacking before.

PAUL: Well, no, I don't think so. I think what you found is in the early footage, you saw and I think you all showed some of this footage, that you saw the special operations teams having bombs still dropping very close to them --

TAPPER: Right.

PAUL: -- so they didn't seem to be deterred even though we still have soldiers in the region.

So I think it was strategically the best thing to do. But also here's the thing that may end up happening. This may be the best thing that ever happened to the Kurds, because they need a protector in Syria that's willing to stay. We had been preventing having them talk to Assad and now they made an alliance with Assad and the irony of this is, it may end up being the best thing that ever happened to them. If Assad and Erdogan can now have a truce and Assad will agree to patrol the Syrian side of this, there's a possibility that the Kurds could have an autonomous region similar to what they have in Iraq.

TAPPER: That seems like very wishful thinking, if you don't mind my saying.

PAUL: We'll see. We'll see, Jake. Nobody knows.

TAPPER: So, the president's former point man on ISIS said today, that, quote, U.S. personnel had been scrambling to evacuate positions surrounded by hostile Turkish backed oppositions forces. They're evacuating under duress and then bombing positions so nobody can seize them.

Do you have any concerns about -- forget the idea of withdrawing U.S. forces. We understand that you support. Do you understand about the way many people feel this was rash, it was sudden, it was not done in consultation with the Pentagon. It was not done in consultation with the State Department, with U.S. allies, and there are Kurds who are innocent civilians who have been killed by the Turks and the Turkish- backed militias.

PAUL: He said from the very beginning our goal was to wipe out ISIS and we did. Our goal was not to create a homeland for the Kurds.

TAPPER: By ISIS prisoners are getting free, the prisoner -- prisoners.

PAUL: Well, if you want to have a homeland for the Kurds, it might take a hundred thousand troops. That's not what we signed up for.

TAPPER: No.

PAUL: That's not what we said we were for, and I'm not for putting that kind of troops into an area.

So, here's the irony. The left hated the Iraq war and hated George Bush for it. A Syrian war where we created a homeland for the Kurds would be just as messy as the Iraq War.

So I think the left needs to get over their hatred of President Trump and say, you know what, do we want another messy war in the Middle East? It used to be the left who was against war in the Middle East. What happened to the left?

TAPPER: But what -- what I'm asking about though is if there wasn't a better and more measured and more programmatic way to do this with planning as opposed to just like get them out right now?

PAUL: I guess I have never seen so much hyperventilating over moving 50 soldiers. Normally, the Lindsey Grahams of this world would say, Article 2 gives the president the authority to do whatever he wants and we don't -- [16:30:00]
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SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I have never seen so much hyperventilating over removing 50 soldiers.

Normally, the Lindsey Grahams of this world would say, Article 2 gives the president the authority to do whatever he wants, and we don't question the president because he has latitude.

Now Lindsey Graham and all the war caucus are up in arms on both sides of the aisle, saying, oh, my goodness, President Trump moved 50 soldiers.

Well, he may will prevented them from being -- from dying in a massacre and drawing us into a big, huge war with five different parties in it.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: It wasn't -- it's not just the -- we should just note, it's not just the war hawks, the way you describe Lindsey Graham.

There was just this major vote in the House in which it was overwhelmingly rebuking President Trump, including the majority of House Republicans.

PAUL: I would say that the majority of leadership on the Republican and the Democrat side are interventionists.

They are people who believe, for example...

TAPPER: Not just the leadership, the entire -- it's like -- it was like 360 to something.

PAUL: Oh, I know.

But here, I will give you an example. The president said, we should leave Afghanistan. Mitch McConnell and all the Republican leadership and the Democrat leadership voted to rebuke the president, saying it would be precipitous to leave after 19 years.

This is the prevailing swamp opinion. Republican and Democrats are unified in being in support of war, support of intervention, and support of never going home. TAPPER: Do you have any concern about the ISIS prisoners that we're

now told there is a great risk of them escaping?

PAUL: Right. Right.

TAPPER: And President Trump's response was, well, they're not going to come here. They're just going to go to Europe.

PAUL: Well, here -- here's my response.

Everybody says, well, the Kurds are going to use this, and they're going to release them on purpose now.

Why?

TAPPER: No, no. President Trump said that. I'm not saying that.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Why would -- no, why would the Kurds -- the Kurds live there.

The Kurds are the ones who have seen the way ISIS behaved. Why would the Kurds release these people? They're not going to release them.

TAPPER: I'm not saying they would purposely release them.

But do you not any concerns?

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: No, I do.

But I'm actually a little bit reassured with the alliance with Syria and with Assad that it will be less chaotic. And I predict...

TAPPER: Whose alliance with Assad?

PAUL: The Kurds allying with Assad.

TAPPER: The Kurds?

PAUL: My prediction is this -- and I may be wrong. Predictions are wrong.

But I think the Turks are going to slow their advance. And I think it's going to come to a standstill. And I predict that there actually will be a discussion between Erdogan and Assad.

And I think there's a possibility we can get the Turks to pull back within Turkey.

TAPPER: But last question. I mean, the Russians and Turkey and Assad could have done something about ISIS to begin with, and they didn't. And that's why the U.S. went in.

PAUL: But here's the thing, is, the U.S. has been preventing any kind of discussion, because it's been the policy of the war caucus to have Assad removed.

This is the John Bolton, this is the Lindsey Graham move. They believe in regime change. They want to get rid of Assad. And until Assad goes -- but also the Hillary Clinton group wants this too. So it's really left and right saying, we have to have regime change.

TAPPER: Well, the troops weren't there for regime change. They were there to fight ISIS.

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: Initially, they were, but everybody kept changing their point of view on what they were there for.

TAPPER: I will get a nasty note from your publisher if I don't ask at least one question about the book "The Case Against Socialism."

PAUL: All right.

TAPPER: You write in the book that the poor are better off under capitalism than socialism because they're motivated to work.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You write: "If government destroys this incentive, it also destroys productivity and economic growth."

But you note in the book, you acknowledge that younger people are no longer as enthralled with capitalism as the older generation.

Do you think that you're losing this argument?

PAUL: I think that we have to be concerned that the younger generation isn't appreciating where all the great wealth of America came from.

Our GDP has doubled eight times in the last 200 years. In 1820, poverty was 90 percent of the whole world. Now poverty is less than 10 percent, measured in extreme terms, less than $2 a day.

Capitalism is working. Capitalism has created enormous riches. Just in the last four years, under President Trump, the median income has gone up $4,000. There is a lot of good news out there.

And people get, I guess, obsessed with the Sturm und Drang, and they think, oh, it's a terrible world.

It's the best time ever to be alive, longevity, childhood mortality, infant mortality, everything is down. It is a great world to be alive in.

TAPPER: Wow. Listen to you, an optimistic Rand Paul.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: I don't think I have ever heard you sound that way before. The book is "The Case Against Socialism."

Come back. We have lots more questions about Syria and not to mention Ukraine.

PAUL: Thank you.

TAPPER: I do have more questions. Congratulations again on the book.

We're going to wait -- continue to wait for Republican congressional leaders to speak outside the White House any moment.

Plus, President Trump defending himself when it comes to the impeachment inquiry. Why the testimony today on the Hill matters.

Stay with us.

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