Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has yet to confirm whether or not he will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2016, but he recently wrapped up a trip to Silicon Valley in which he met with industry heavyweights. On radio this morning, Paul joined Glenn to discuss his trip in addition to current events like immigration, Israel, and Russia.
Glenn praised Paul’s trip to Silicon Valley because he believes many of those in the tech industry right now are not the leftists they are believes to be. Instead, they are much more in line with the libertarian principles Paul espouses.
“Senator Rand Paul was just out in Silicon Valley and had a great reception… I think that these guys – and they always have – support the Democrats and are liberals. But they’re really not,” Glenn said. “The ones that I know are much more libertarian… Here comes Rand Paul. Rand Paul is talking to them as libertarians, and they are connecting with him.”
Paul explained many of the people he spoke to are inventing things that back up against big government. He used the car service Uber as an example.
“One of the things I learned when I’m out there and I think you learn if you look at the high-tech industry, is a lot of their new invasions back up against big government,” Paul said. “So like Uber is this miraculous thing that gets around cities in such an easy fashion for a good price, but big government and protectionism of old business and rackets is up against them.”
“So I think you’re right, many of them are for freedom in the marketplace,” he continued. “They are fiscally conservative and much more conservative than the President. They don’t neatly fit in any box. They’re not neatly in the Republican box or the Democrat box. They may be more libertarian.”
Paul has received criticism as of late for the position he has taken on some issues, and Glenn ran through a series of current events to get the Senator’s thoughts.
Immigration
“I think what’s going on down there illustrates the whole problem in a microcosm. It shows you why that if you want to vote for immigration reform, you have to secure the border first. You can’t have sort of the granting of a beacon or a magnet or an amnesty or any kind of forgiveness without a secure border. That being said, if I felt like the border were secure and we did that, would I be for some kind of accommodation for those who want to work in our country and have been here for years and they want to be taxpayers and work for maybe some of these kids that were brought here? Yes, I can be for some form of forgiveness, but only after we have secured the border… If you secured your border, I think there are ways that we can try to figure out a humane solution to this, but it can’t be without securing the border first.
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[W]hat does it mean to secure the border? To secure the border means that when people are apprehended coming across the border, when they’re apprehended in the process of a crime that if they’re kids or whoever they are, we hold them in a humane fashion. But we hold them, we adjudicate it in a very expeditious way that they broke the law and that they’re going home. And then we have a very big public display with the countries of returning them and the countries will cooperate or we shouldn’t, frankly, trade with the country. So Guatemala, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, all these countries need to very visibly step and up say, ‘We will protect these kids. You will put these kids back into our care. We will protect these kids and find their parents and find their families and return them.’
But it needs to be one of these tough love kind of things that is 100% and done in a humane and compassionate way.”
Israel
“The first thing I would do is absolutely say no money goes to Hamas and no foreign aid should ever get into the hands of Hamas. And I have legislation to do that. I would also say that there’s a report out there now that the U.N. found missiles in schools in Gaza and made sure that they turned them back over to Hamas. What kind of international relief organization is turning missiles that they find in a school back over to Hamas? So I would make sure no money gets to Hamas, and I would make sure that Israel has an adequate defense to defend themselves. I’m a big supporter of the Iron Dome. In fact, I’ve gone one step further saying, you know what, maybe we need an Iron Dome in the United States as well.
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[T]he other thing I wouldn’t do is I wouldn’t question what [Israel needs] to do to defend themselves because the decisions they have to make have to be based on living under a barrage of missiles on a day-to-day basis. So really, there are difficult decisions people make in war when someone attacks you. It’s not our job to second-guess how they defend themselves. Can we be facilitators as far as trying to convene people if we can have influence on a cease-fire? Yes, but ultimately the decisions of what Israel decides is acceptable have to be made by Israel and those in Gaza.”
Russia
“It looks there’s a lot of evidence [the missile that took down Malaysia flight MH17 came from pro-Russia separatists]. The trajectory looks like it comes from the separatist controlled area. Most people are saying [the separatists] would have had to have some sophisticated training by the Russians to be able to do this. I’m sort of amazed because I don’t see how you can be part of the civilized world and, you know, shoot a missile at a commercial airliner. And so I’m really amazed that Putin hasn’t tried to distance himself from this.
The only way we can have an effect short of war – and I don’t think war is the answer at this point – but short of [war] the only way we can have an effect is we need a unified European Union, NATO, and U.S. response to the Russians. And would that include sanctions? Yes. Would that include sanctions probably on the country of Russia? Yes. Would that involve trying to develop alternatives very quickly for Europe as far as natural gas and things like that? Yeah, and there’s a lot the President could do to expedite that. Most of what this President has done has gotten in the way of exports, gotten in the way of the oil and gas industry. So there’s a lot that we can do.”