Rumors are circulating that President Biden will issue preemptive pardons for many people he believes Donald Trump will go after as president, including Dr. Fauci. Sen. Rand Paul, who has been trying to bring the truth about Fauci to light, joins Glenn to explain how devastating a pardon for Fauci would be. Sen. Paul also comments on why he’s excited for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and Trump’s cabinet picks, including RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. Then, Glenn and Sen. Paul discuss the war in Syria and Sen. Paul’s plan to end the endless emergency declarations.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: We have Senator Rand Paul on with us. I have to talk to him about a couple of things. A, staying out of war in Syria. Two, Anthony Fauci, is he going to be pardoned?

But let's start with DOGE. The Senate Republicans, hopefully are ready to just slash government spending, and hopefully we do it in the fashion that Calvin Coolidge did it back in the 1920s.

Senator Rand Paul, welcome to the program.

RAND: Hey, Glenn, thanks for having me.

GLENN: You bet. So how serious do you think this DOGE thing is?

RAND: You know, I think it's very helpful. Because, you know, the problem is not just Democrats in Washington, it's big government Republicans. And I think Elon and Vivek bringing attention to this, we've already offered up. I've been for ten years, collecting and arguing that we should get rid of waste.

We sent them 2,000 pages worth of waste that can be addressed immediately. Some can be done through executive action.

I think you can let people go. You can fire people. You can fire people for cause. You can also change the contracting.

You know, one of the things that Elon did at SpaceX, was he started bidding on things. They started doing it through competitive bidding as opposed to cost lost.

The big companies, Boeing and Lockheed would get their contracts, and would say, oh, we bid a billion dollars.

Oh, sorry, we came in at 2 billion. Well, you get 10 percent of whatever you came in at. So, in fact, there's an incentive to come in over budget. There's a lot of things that can do. And will do.

On spending reductions, there's a special procedure, where if we send a billion dollars to the administration to build a ship, and they build it for 800 million, they can send the 200 million back to us. Through a special procedure called rescission.

And it gets an immediate vote. A privileged vote. And it's a simple majority. Most of the problems we have is getting to 60 votes, to undo bad things the Democrats have done. But with this case, rescission, reducing -- that sent back to us by the president.

It's a simple majority. However, we tried to do this in the first Trump administration. With a very small bill. 15 million-dollar cut, and it failed because Republicans voted with the Democrats to keep the spending.

So we have to do this. We will have 53 in the Senate. And only one or two majority in the House. We have to see if we can actually get the majority of Republicans to vote for spending cuts. If they all do, we can as you sit here significant spending.

GLENN: Would you agree with me that Donald Trump is different than he was in 2020. If we would have had him in 2020, it would have been a different situation entirely.
RAND: I think he's much more focused now. His picks for his cabinet I think are light years ahead of what was going on in 2016 for sure. And he really wants to disrupt. He's not going to allow the status quo.

He saw the status quo use the apparatus of government to come after him individually. And he realizes that in 2016. But again through 2020. That our intelligence agencies were being used against him.

Both retired. And I go I believe active. Went after the whole Hunter Biden thing to say it was Russian propaganda.

And it turns out, the propaganda was actually US propaganda calling it Russian propaganda.

And the FBI needs to clean house.

Kash Patel, I think, can do it. DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, I think can do it over there.

And he hasn't picked, you know, moderate, weak-kneed Republicans.

He's picked strong people. On the COVID front, picking Marty Makary, a doctor from John Hopkins. And Jay Bhattacharya, a doctor from Stanford.

Who have been leaders in pointing out this nonsense. These are people I would have picked. So I'm over the moon. I'm over the moon with some of these picks.

GLENN: So what do you think is going to happen?

I mean, you know, the White House is saying that Fauci may be pardoned in advance of anything, which doesn't seem like you could do that.

But they'll try it anyway. The -- I mean, at least it has to be -- everything just has to be dumped and exposed.

RAND: I've said referrals. Criminal referrals on Anthony Fauci twice to the Department of Justice. Without really response. Merrick Garland hasn't done his job. He's probably the most partisan attorney general we've ever had.

I will send those referrals again. If they preemptively pardon Anthony Fauci, it will seal his fate as the architect, author, and godfather of the pandemic. He's the one who funded it. He's the one who funded the research in Wuhan. He's the one that allowed the research, not to be scrutinized.

I don't get this. There was a safety committee that was supposed to scrutinize dangerous research. It was set up because of fear of exactly this happening. There have been scientists talking about this for 20 years, worried that this is going to happen. Anthony Fauci side-stepped the safety committee. And allowed this research to go on.

Then when it came forward, that he had done.

He said, oh. Nothing to see here. We didn't really do it.

Oh, well, we funded EcoHealth. And they funded Wuhan. But, oh, nothing to see here.

And then he had the gall to say, it wasn't gain of function, and it wasn't dangerous. That's all a lie. All that's come out. And really, we haven't -- we have him in private saying, we know it's really dangerous there. We know they do gain-of-function research. We have them dead to rights. If the president pardons him. I think it will just cement his role in history as being the architect of gain of function surgery.

GLENN: So, but will we release?

This is the one thing that I'm hoping Kash Patel does.

I hope he releases just the raw evidence that's been gathered. Kind of like the Twitter files.

Where we can see all the stuff that has been classified. That should be seen by the American people.

RAND: With regard to COVID. We voted unanimously. To declassify all of it. This was over a year and a half ago.

The FBI did do their job. They did a report. And they said that they thought COVID came from the lab. That the virus and the pandemic started with the lab leak. But they haven't released their report.

They were told to declassify it. I truly believe Kash Patel will look at it.

And the way you declassify it. If there's a name in there. You don't want someone to have a name or source.

Take that out of the report.

In fact, you know when I read and see classified things. I almost have never seen a name or a source.

Which I think is good. You protect your sources.

But I think you should get to see all the information. And really, in this case, the American public should see all of the information.

Anything to do with Russiagate, anything to do with the abuse of the FBI to go after Donald Trump. All of that has to be publicly released as well.

GLENN: Well, on Friday, here in Fort Worth, Texas, there was a judge that ordered Pfizer, to release and produce all of its emergency use authorization file. To a group of scientists, that want to look through it. And they have been saying, well, we can't do it. We can't do it.

The judge finally just said, do it now.

VOICE: Yeah. We've never had someone like Donald Trump. Or like these appointees.

That's why first line of battle is getting them through. There are many established Republicans. You know who they are.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Who are weak-kneed, or frankly just no better than Democrats, who are looking to destroy Donald Trump's picks.

And so I'm going to be working very hard for Robert Kennedy. For Tulsi Gabbard. For Kash Patel.

These are -- you know, those three -- at the tip of my mind, have a lot of establishment Republicans, questioning. And we have to make sure that we get them through.

We have to make sure everybody listening to the radio.

Everybody out there. Is calling their particularly Republican senators. And saying, Donald Trump needs his team.

GLENN: How long do you think -- I mean, do you think he's going to get these -- what do you call them?

Out of session appointments? Where -- because it took him like two years to get all of his appointments. He didn't even get all of them in two years. He needs them right now.

But I hate the precedent that that would set.

RAND: The vast majority would be very quickly. I can tell you, I'm hopeful I will be Department of Homeland Security. So Kristi Noem's nomination will come to my committee.

My plan is, if elected in the next couple of weeks in January to be the chairman, I will have a hearing for her before the inauguration, as soon as he officially appoints, or after the inauguration. I maybe have an appointment that day.

Sometimes we will -- so while some of it was slow in 2016, the Secretary of State, Homeland Security. Several of these important positions were filled pretty quickly.

We plan on doing that again. I would be surprised in the first week. If we don't have four or five cabinet level people. Appointed and voted on in the first week.

GLENN: Let me switch topics to Syria. The president made it very clear, that this is not how -- you know, I went back this weekend. And look at a story from 2016.

Where the CIA was supporting one side. And the Pentagon was supporting the other side in Syria. And they were fighting each other.

Now the president, the current president. Whoever that is.

You know, bombed Syria over the weekend.

And I just had this bad feeling, that the industrial complex, the military-industrial complex wants to have a war, somewhere.

And Donald Trump is coming out and saying, it isn't any of our business. I know where you stand on war. What do you see coming?

RAND: I agree completely with Donald Trump on this.

And the people who took over. The rebels who won. Their new name say new name given to an old, old group called al-Nusra, which were associated with al-Qaeda.

So they were Islamists. Meaning, they were for a radical, fundamental sort of nature of Islam. That doesn't treat women well. Doesn't treat Christians well. Et cetera. A very primitive form of Islam. Well, they have been fighting there for a long time.

There's also another group called ISIS, that is actually somewhat the same. Fundamental Islamist.

And then there are also other groups there as well. There have been the Russians there. There have been Iranian proxies there.

There have been answered there. Caught in the mix are hundreds of thousands of Christians who have always had sanctuary. Since the time of Christ frankly. And are at risk.

And so we have 900 soldiers. 900 soldiers isn't enough to organize a parade. I mean, 900 soldiers is not -- you can't go to war with. You want to go to war in Syria.

You can put five, ten, 100,000 troops in. You don't put 900,000 troops in there.

They become targets, not -- they're not deterring anything. But if someone were killed. And I hope this doesn't happen. Then maybe all of a sudden, we're drug into the middle of a Civil War, where there are no good people on either side of it.

GLENN: Let me ask you one final question about -- you have a bill coming out, similar to the South Korean law. Which I don't know what happened in South Korea.

I'm still confused by that. Where the US Senate would allow presidential emergencies to continue only with a majority vote in Congress. Which I 100 percent back.

What does this mean, to all of the emergencies that we have dating way, way back. That are still in effect.

RAND: They expire. And currently, if a president has an emergency, the emergency can only be stopped by Congress.

If Congress votes to stop it.

But then the president would veto it.

So it really takes a two-thirds vote of Congress to stop an emergency.

My bill would actually change it. It's a simple majority. We don't to have vote to stop it.

It stops automatically by statute.

GLENN: Right.

RAND: We had this in Kentucky. Our state government. Our government shut down hotels. Made it illegal to travel. Made it illegal to go to church during COVID.

And legislature couldn't stop him because they were in session. So when they finally came back in session, our Kentucky legislature said governor's emergencies last 30 days, then they expire, unless affirmed by a majority of the legislature.

So this reverses it. Instead of needing two-thirds to stop a crazy governor or a crazy president, it actually takes a civil -- you have to have a civil majority to affirm it! So it really completely flips it on its head. And it's what we all wanted. And some people will say, oh, this is against Donald Trump. No. I've had this under Harris. Under Biden. I've had this bill for years.

And both Mike Lee and I fought on this, out of principle. Nothing to do with who the president is.

GLENN: I don't want any -- I don't want any president to have this kind of power.

We have got to reduce the power of the president of the United States.

And if he goes in, and does everything by executive order, we lose!

Because the next guy will come in, and do exactly what -- what Biden did. And just cancel it all.

We've got to get back to a debate, to reason. And to Congress. And the Senate. Actually doing their job.

RAND: This is something that people need to realize. It's not new. Because people get caught up in the situation. They think it's one person or another.

The you Constitution position of conservatives and limited government advocates have always been that as Madison said. We divided the powers.

We separated the powers.

And we wanted to pit ambition against ambition.

In other words, the ambition of people trying to take power. Would be pitted by the people trying to keep them from taking power.

Over the last 100 years. Since FDR. The power of presidency. Has gradually expanded.

What we need now is a stronger legislator. And less power for the central authority. To balance that power again.

This was sort of Montesquieu saying, that when the executive legislates -- when he has the power to execute and legislate, that's when liberty fails. That's when tyranny arrives.

And so I don't know. People just need to realize.

This has nothing with an individual. A new president. An old president.

It has all to do with constitutional principles, that have always motivated those of us who believe in limited government.

GLENN: I think there are a lot of people awake to exactly that message.

And your time is right now, Rand. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Senator Rand Paul, from the great state of Kentucky.