Ron Paul MSNBC Interview 06/06/07

Transcript:

TUCKER CARLSON: It isn‘t easy standing alone as one of the last true small government conservatives in today‘s Republican Party, even your colleagues are apt to call you names: eccentric, odd, crazy. Congressman Ron Paul of Texas doesn‘t seem to care.

He was at it again last night at the presidential primary debate in New Hampshire, reminding his party and the country what it used to mean to be a Republican. In previous debates, Dr. Paul has gone after frontrunner Rudy Giuliani and his lack of foreign policy experience. He even gave the former mayor a homework assignment on what he and the CIA see as the true causes of terrorism and ill-will toward America.

Some were offended. To others Ron Paul rose instantly to the level of folk hero. He himself joins us now. We are glad to be welcoming from Capitol Hill, physician, presidential hopeful, and Republican Congressman Ron Paul.

Dr. Paul, thanks for coming on.

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you, Tucker. Good to be with you.

CARLSON: I noticed that a number of different candidates in last night‘s debate went after President Bush. President Bush is still really popular among Republican primary voters. Is that a wise strategy, do you think? And why do you think the president is still popular with people who define themselves as conservative?

PAUL: Well, of course, the first two debates, they didn‘t do it. They did it more last night. But maybe his numbers are getting so low that they think there is an advantage to it. I‘ve generally tried to stay away from personalizing things. I usually try to stick with the philosophy.

And as you said in the introductions, it is sort of strange that they call me eccentric and strange when I defend the Constitution. But I think that‘s the point where we‘ve gotten to where defending the constitution is a little bit different.

But just why they have started to pick on George Bush, they must think it is better strategy than ignoring him.

CARLSON: But what does it tell you about the condition of the party? That it is not just people in Washington. The conventional explanation is the party in D.C., the Republicans here are corrupt and they have been corrupted by power. But ordinary republican voters, primary voters still like and approve of President Bush and his performance. What does that tell you?

PAUL: Yes. Well, I think the party is in shambles. You know, they asked questions to the other candidates last night about what we might do and how we can put the party back together. And unfortunately I didn‘t get to answer that. But I am considered pretty conservative.

I vote for the least amount of spending and taxes in the entire Congress. So that makes me pretty conservative. And yet they think that I don‘t fit in and I‘ve even been asked to leave the Republican Party. But they won‘t admit that the foreign policy is flawed and that the war is the real issue.

And if they don‘t admit to that, I don‘t see how they can come up with a candidate that is going to be electable unless they decide to pick me and have an anti-war candidate. But right now, it looks like they won‘t admit that the spending that has been involved with foreign aid and foreign spending and foreign militarism, and all the deficits plus the entitlements, I don‘t know how they can salvage the Republican Party here in a short time.

CARLSON: But there isn‘t really an option. I mean, it‘s not like the Democrats are against nation-building or foreign aid. They are neocons too, they just are against the war in Iraq. But they are for sending troops to Darfur, for instance. So if you are not for neoconservativism, where do you turn in this election?

PAUL: Well, that‘s the real problem. And that‘s why I have been working hard to bring the conservatives and the non-interventionists and the anti-war people into the Republican Party, because we do have a tradition in the Republican Party that represented these views.

But I have to admit in the last six years, it has been undermined. But there is a pretty good tradition. So I think the message that has to be gotten out is that conservatives can be opposed to military adventurism and wars and huge spending that entails operating an empire. And if we don‘t accept that message, I don‘t know where they are going to go.

I think many of them are going to just flat out stay home, because you‘re right, the Democrats don‘t offer a real option. Last night the issue of taking options off the table, like nuclear first strikes against Iran, the Democrats haven‘t offered to take that off the table.

So a lot of people are annoyed and very upset. So I‘m afraid that if we don‘t get a candidate in either party that represents these views, I think there are going to be a lot of Americans that are going to take a walk.

CARLSON: You—about Iran, you said last night, no candidate here is willing to remove, as you just said, the preemptive nuclear strike option against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security, Iran.

But there is evidence actually that Iran funded the bombings of the barracks in Beirut in 1983 that killed all those U.S. Marines. And they do fund terrorism. And it‘s not like Iraq circa 2002. We know that Iran has funded terror. They are not a threat at all to us?

PAUL: Not really. I—sure, what I was thinking in my mind there when I said that was they are not a threat to our national security. This idea that they are on the verge of having a weapon and we have to put anti-ballistic missiles up in Europe because the Iranians might attack us, I mean, that‘s a bit of a stretch.

You know, they are not capable of it. They don‘t have an air force. They don‘t have a real military. They have essentially no navy. For them to be a threat—and you say, well, they‘ve said nasty things against Israel. Israel could wipe Iran off the face of the Earth with few nuclear weapons in no time.

And the Iranians are not going to attack. I mean, they talk belligerently, but so did Khrushchev. I mean, they talked about burying us, and yet we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons.

So this idea that we have to be so bold and so intimidating and looking for another war or to spread the current war—I mean, we have enough problems on our hands and yet here we are threatening to spread the war into Iran. I think it‘s very, very dangerous and doesn‘t make any sense to me.

CARLSON: Rudy Giuliani had a line last night that I‘m not sure many people noticed. But it had to do with the national ID card. It was within a context of a debate about immigration. And he said, we need a tamper-proof ID card and a database that figures out why—who they are, immigrants, why they are here, and whether or not they are legal. That‘s a national ID card. Are you for that?

PAUL: Absolutely not. I voted against the Real ID. I think the Real ID is the national ID card. It‘s essentially going to be introducing the notion that we will be carrying our papers.

You can‘t do that—gather that much information on an ID card for illegal aliens or Hispanics and not include everybody. It just doesn‘t make any sense. So the age of carrying our papers and national IDs, it is here.

And I‘m concerned about that. And it is all done in the name of safety. Everybody is frightened to death. And if you don‘t sacrifice your liberties, you can‘t be safe. And yet the dangers exist but they‘re not quite bad enough and they never should be bad enough to sacrifice liberty. There‘s no reason to sacrifice liberty in thinking that you are going to be safer.

CARLSON: So just sum it up for me in three sentences. If you get in an argument with someone about the national ID card, the response you‘re likely to get is, well, gee, the credit card companies have a lot of information on you. And you don‘t feel like your liberty is being abridged because of that. Why is a national ID card a threat to liberty?

PAUL: Well, one is private and one is government. I don‘t want the government snooping on me. I would give my fingerprint to Continental Airlines, the airlines I fly, in order to get through the line and to be assured that I‘m a safe passenger.

But I don‘t want to do it with the government. The government is there to protect privacy, not to invade our privacy. Now our government, it does more to protect their secrecy and they violate our privacy.

So there is a big difference between a credit card company—if they violate our privacy, then you can use the government to enforce laws because they promise me to keep my privacy confidential. So there‘s a big difference. It‘s sort of like the government should not have your medical records, but I, as a physician, can have access to your medical records, but I had better not violate that confidence.

CARLSON: Amen. Yes. I hope you can come on regularly, just for a tutorial on what it means to be free, Dr. Paul. I really appreciate your coming on, it was a great explanation. Thank you.

PAUL: Thank you very much.