GLENN: Senator Rand Paul is joining us right now, a friend of the program, or we're a friend of his, at least. And glad to have him on, and glad to hear that he is able to continue to do work and to be on the phone with us.
Rand, we've been really concerned. This audience has been very concerned about your health. How are you feeling?
RAND: You know, I'm starting to get better every day, and I appreciate that. And I appreciate really -- [indistinct] -- across the country being concerned about my health.
GLENN: You know, I've only had a bruised rib. What, do you have three broken ribs?
RAND: Actually had six broken ribs. Three of them, three of them displaced. Meaning that I --
GLENN: Oh, my gosh.
RAND: -- not really aligned anymore. Fluid on the lung, I had pneumonia twice, and, you know, five or six weeks just to really excruciating pain trying to even sit up. I had to have assistance just to sit up.
GLENN: So, Senator, this has been bothering me. Since this story broke, first it was like, no big deal. Then it was like, oh, maybe a little bit, and then the details started to trickle out.
Why -- what happened with the media where we weren't getting the story? It was -- I mean, did you not know you had those broken ribs right away?
RAND: I think the media was obsessed with sort of trying to make it my fault somehow.
So the major liberal rag in Kentucky, the Louisville Courier, presented stories that Rand Paul is apparently not a good neighbor or sort of had it coming, deserved what he got. And it's really kind of stuff that the left -- [indistinct] -- for victims, until the victims happen to be conservatives.
GLENN: I've never seen -- I've never seen anything like it, and I don't know why this guy -- I don't care -- I mean, I do care if you're a Senator. To me it makes it much, much worse, especially if it was politically motivated. I don't care if you were a guy living on the street. That's a major attack! Why isn't this guy having major legal problems?
RAND: I think in the end there will be legal consequences. The machinery of justice sometimes is slow, but I think in the end it will be a just outcome, and some punishment for this.
But I guess the thing is, and I don't know if you remember, but about a month ago my wife finally just had enough, and she said, I can't stand -- [indistinct].
GLENN: I'm sorry. Your phone is kind of weird. You said she said what?
RAND: She just couldn't stand them attacking me every day. I got mugged once in the yard and then I got mugged by the media every day implying somehow that I sort of had it coming and that violence was justified. I guess they don't realize that it is -- [indistinct] -- think it's kind of funny, but I was on the ball field being shot at by a gunshot, over 100 shots at us, almost killed Steve Scalise, and I was attacked in my yard. And it's not that funny.
GLENN: I cannot believe -- we were on the air. If this would have happened to anyone on the left, the country would have stopped.
And the media just kind of took it like, yeah, well, it was a lawn mower thing.
No, it's not! And even if it was, there's a problem here!
Anyway, yesterday the President tweeted that the FISA thing that was going through the House was the -- the kind of stuff used with the -- he said, bogus dossier from Fusion GPS to surveil him and spy on him, and it was horrible. Two hours later he says, well, I put the right language in there, so it's all good and it's patriotic and you can do this. Let get smart.
I think this is a nightmare.
RAND: Yeah, the people in the swamp I think try to convince the President. The swamp is kind of pushing back. Paul Ryan and others, they push back and say well, we're putting reforms there and all the problems where people abuse the system, to go after -- [indistinct] and their mistress, and Bruce Orr, we fixed that, and it isn't at all. They did fake reform. There really isn't going to be a warrant requirement. So here's this program. It's supposed to be collecting information on foreigners and foreign lands. And I agree with that. Mike Lee and I are the two biggest advocates for getting a warrant, and both of us said we're fine with the program as long as the millions of Americans who are caught up accidentally in this program, those in the database, as long as you don't go trolling through the database looking for IRS problems or looking for campaign, you know, finance problems or looking for just people you don't like because they're the opposite party, and that stuff happens.
Senator Lee mentioned this the other day. He said, since FDR every President has used the intelligence against their opponents, all the way through Nixon. And Obama did it to attack the Tea Party, and they're still doing it now but not at Trump's behest. It's to attack Trump.
GLENN: So is there a chance that you and Mike Lee and I understand there's some, you know, good Democrats that are talking about joining you guys. Is there a chance this doesn't pass in the Senate?
RAND: We had the initial vote and we had four Republicans and 23 Democrats. The Republicans are Mike Lee, myself, Jerry Moran, and Steve Daines. These are the only four Republicans that have shown any interest in trying to stop this.
So to us, the American people, if we asked your audience, I know what kind of answer we'll get. But lets just say we ask everybody, out there listening to public radio we say, do you think that the government should be able to look at your personal information, listen to your phone calls, without a warrant? It would be a hell no from everybody. 80% of the public. But in Washington? The 80% of the public, they just don't listen to us.
In fact, when they hear that, they do what is very common in Washington, they did fake reform. They do some stuff -- [indistinct] -- fix the problem. In realty, this bill is worse than the current law. You should this bill, they say that data that is collected on foreigners that accidentally gets Americans can be used against Americans in a court of law. So imagine this. Imagine they just feel like they can go through there, and they -- [indistinct] -- office you brought home and painted your house, this would be a tax violation because you deducted the paint for the business. All of a sudden, they can -- it can be used in court now. That's what this law says. And I think it is worth filibustering. The Bill of Rights, the fourth Amendment, your right to privacy, so sacred and important, and it's what John Adams said it was the spark that led to the revolutionary was James Otis fighting against General Lawrence --
GLENN: Yep. I will tell you this. That I think -- I've been asking for a while, E Pluribus Unum. What's our unum anymore? It's really is the Bill of Rights. Those common sense things that you ask yourself, you know, should the government be able to just spy on you and listen to your phone calls? The unum is, no. We all agree. I don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, independent, left, right. 90% of Americans would say, no, they don't have a right to do that that's our unum. And we've taken our unum, our Bill of Rights, and we're just dismantling it, to have a group of Republicans and Democrats stand up in the Senate and filibuster on that right, on that unum, I think we'll connect.
RAND: And here's the good way to look at it, a lot of people get sort of -- they get caught up in this, and they're not sure which way to think, because they think, I know my local policeman and FBI agent, and they're good people. I would say exactly the same thing. Every individual nonagent I've met out in the field has been a good person that I think tries to apply the law. The local FBI agents and the local police understand the Fourth Amendment much better than Washington. But what should scare us all, we see Strzok, his girlfriend's -- mistress talking to somebody named Andy, which is probably the second in command at the FBI and plotting at work, their work phone, on how to stop Donald Trump being President and then talk about some kind of insurance policy. And then you flip over the Department of Justice, and the Bruce Orr's wife works for the opposition research that hired a British spy that is paid for by Hillary Clinton and all of a sudden we're supposed to believe that all these people are angels and they're not going to spy on us, if we don't have extra scrutiny on what they do?
GLENN: [Sighs] There are so many distractions now, that it's hard to concentrate on the important things. We had another one yesterday. A lot of people said what the President was doing two days ago when he was sitting down with members of Congress and saying I trust you guys to come up with a plan, a lot of people who supported him said he's just playing Congress and he's playing the media and he's going to play, you know, good cop. Well, he just flushed all that down the toilet last night with the comments being released, you know, why do we let all these people in here from craphole countries. I personally am just disgusted by that.
Any comment on that, Senator?
RAND: Not that in particular. But I would say that I think something is going to come out of this. And I've always blamed -- [indistinct] immigration, when it's border security or figuring out who can come to the country. And the Democrat's unwillingness to compromise. Right now there's a bunch of kids, and I do have symptom for the DACA kids, and I -- [indistinct] compromise. The democracy -- [indistinct] they're going to have to vote in favor of having a more merit based where we admit the people to the country who need, want, and will work. And then we -- I think the chain migration is going to --
GLENN: You know, that is the defenders of Donald Trump on the craphole country thing, which I'm sorry I don't buy into any of the discussions, but what we'll say, we need to know if these people are any good because they come from a craphole country. You can come from Denmark and still not want to work and still want things for free. Denmark is giving away things for free much more than Haiti.
RAND: -- justify that --
GLENN: -- no, no.
RAND: Can't have all 700 million. And here's the thing about merit based. We need people who are -- [indistinct] -- years and EMT -- workers. If we had no immigration into our country, if some of the people want to close the borders, we have no tomatoes, we had no vegetables, we have all of the things that have to be picked in the field. Unfortunately, we have destroyed the work ethic in our country. And the people who are --
GLENN: Yes --
RAND: -- for nonwork, but our country would come to a standstill without allowing some immigration. It can be a strength. It needs to be done legally and appropriately. I'm more for legal immigration and less illegal immigration.
GLENN: I agree with you on that, and I want to point out that I think what you were saying was, that the Democrats will have to compromise on merit base, which every country on the planet does, except for us.
And do you think that they will actually go and look -- I mean, we need -- we need AI visas. We need a Manhattan project, quite honestly, for safe ASI. We need the greatest minds to come here so we can develop that and it's not developed over in China or elsewhere. But that requires merit-based stuff. Would the Democrat ever do it?
RAND: I think part of merit-based applies, and one of the things that we need to do that we used to do, we should link it to work and sponsorship. When my wife's grandmother came over here from Ireland in the 1920s, she came over, and -- [indistinct] -- she was required to work. And if she didn't work she was sent back. We had some tough rules, but people knew they wanted to come, and people did. They were hungry for work. And hard work at the lower wage was better than the other country, but there's a hope of progress, a hope of success and moving up the socioeconomic ladder.
GLENN: Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky. We're glad you're feeling better. If there's anything that any of us can do to help you, let us know, besides our prayers. We appreciate the hard work you're doing, and thanks for joining us. God bless.
RAND: Thanks, Glenn.
GLENN: By the way, just want to point out, he said his grandmother, in the 1920s came from Ireland. At that time, many said Ireland was a craphole country, and why are we letting those people in?
Well, because some of them turn out to be really good Constitutional Senators.
