Sen. Rand Paul: Government Overreach Threatens Us All

BUCK: We got Senator Rand Paul from the great state of Kentucky with us now. Senator Paul, thanks for being here.

SEN. PAUL: Glad to be with you. Thanks for having me.

BUCK: What are we supposed to make of the recent words of Dr. Anthony Fauci that now boosters for all adults — not just those at high risk, not just the those with compromised immune systems — are going to be necessary? And, oh, by the way, we’re hearing from the CDC that there are concerns about a major spike after Thanksgiving in covid cases. I thought that the Fauciites had this under control or so they told us?

SEN. PAUL: You know, I would discount anything he says because he hasn’t been honest with the American people. He’s not considering the science at all. Over a hundred million Americans have had covid and have immunity. They won’t release any of the data. The people who’ve had covid, are they getting it again? What numbers are getting it again? Are they spreading it? Are people going to the hospital who’ve had the disease in the past?

Is the vaccine safe for people who’ve already had the disease? Frankly, there is some element of myocarditis in teenage boys. It’s small, but is it higher in those who have already had covid? Is somebody asking people when they take their kids in, “Have you had covid? When did they have it?” I think this is irresponsible medicine, and Fauci and anything he says should be completely discounted.

I think that he’s actually a danger to public health in many ways. Because he’s discounted natural immunity, he says everyone should be vaccinated, to countries like India where there’s not enough vaccine for the people, what he’s done is he’s delayed getting the vaccine to the elderly who are at high risk by vaccinating everyone unequal. By telling us cloth masks work when they don’t work, he’s putting you at risk.

If you have an 80-year-old person taking care of their spouse who may have had covid and they wear a cloth mask instead of an N95 mask, you’re actually telling them to do something that risks their health. So he’s been wrong on every front, and he should be completely discounted.

CLAY: Dr. Paul, the newest battleground. This is Clay; I appreciate you coming on. The newest battleground is certainly going to be vaccinating children. I’ve got a 7-year-old I’ve got an 11-year-old I’ve said on the show I’m not going to get this vaccinated because the medical data I think 94 kids between the ages of 5 and 11 out of 28 million have died with covid.

They’re under more statistical danger from the seasonal flu. I understand individual parents can make their own decisions. I believe your children are outside of that age range now. What would you be doing if you had kids ages 5 to 11 right now when it comes tovaccinating your own children if you had to make that choice?

SEN. PAUL: The individualized, depends on their individual history, their medical history, their illness history, et cetera. But all things being equal, if the children didn’t have any special problems, I wouldn’t vaccinate them. And I think what you’re gonna find is there’s going to be a mass exodus from schools. There’s gonna be a growth in homeschooling, a growth in private schooling.

There has been in the last year because people refuse to show up to teach your kids in person but now it’s gonna be even more. The other thing is what they’re not telling us is, “What are the risks of vaccinating someone who’s already had covid?” We do know that you get a thousand times greater response if you’ve already had covid. Now, if you’re 80 years old that might be a good idea to get a really strong immune response and it may protect you.

But if you’re a 15-year-old kid you get a thousand times greater response ’cause you already had covid, could that be part of the autoimmune disorder that is myocarditis? So there are a lot of unknowns, and I think they have not really had samples large enough nor have they even separated it out. They didn’t even bother to separate out people who’ve had covid. In fact, if your child has already had covid they won’t put them in the studies for the vaccine ’cause they know they’ve already got immunity.

So they actually tacitly admit that your child has immunity because they can’t put them in the study but if you don’t put kids in the study that have already had covid and you don’t factor it in as a factor, we don’t know if it’s actually safe for kids who’ve already had covid to be vaccinated.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Senator, the numbers about breakthrough cases seem to be a little bit hard to find and, if nothing else, they’re certainly not being talked about regularly in most of the places that are news organizations. We also don’t seem to have very reliable numbers on hospitalizations of those who are fully vaccinated, although “fully vaccinated” is changing. Are you able to get more insight as a member of the United States Senate into that? Do we know how many people are having breakthrough cases and where they’re occurring?

SEN. PAUL: Not necessarily from the government because the government tries to obscure the truth because the government wants you to do as you’re told. They want to you submit to the will of the central authorities. They don’t really care about you individually. They’re looking at the beehive, and they’ve decided vaccinations easiest way to go. Don’t worry about whether you’ve he ever had it. Don’t worry about immunity. Don’t worry about side effects. Just do as you’re told.

But there are some certain things that we have learned in the last couple of weeks Lancet had an article that said if an infected person comes into your household — whether they’ve been unvaccinated and infected or vaccinated and infected — they spread the disease about the same. So all this hogwash about, oh, we needed to put the unvaccinated people in concentration camps, we need to not let ’em have the normal freedoms of travel and this and that because they’re a danger,.

They’re no more danger than a vaccinated person. Now, the one thing we do know and people started saying this, that your private health is improved by being vaccinated. I do agree with that. I think that you’re less likely to die, less likely to be hospitalized if you’re vaccinated. But we don’t have evidence that it’s actually stopping the spread of the disease. What we’re finding is that both vaccinated and unvaccinated can get it and can spread it equally.

So I think what we need to do is try to give people the persuasive knowledge that if you are at risk, the vaccine can reduce your risk for being hospitalized or dying. But we also need to acknowledge if you’ve already had it you probably have as much or better immunity now than the vaccine provides.

CLAY: Senator Paul, do you hope…? I’m sure you’ve read the Fifth Circuit’s opinion striking at the heart of the OSHA requirement from Joe Biden. Do you hope that other courts also strike down this vaccine mandate? And as the bigger picture here, if Joe Biden trying to get congressional authority for his vaccine mandate, not only I would imagine would this fail, but I think it would fail pretty overwhelmingly which is why he’s using OSHA, a federal regulatory agency as opposed to interacting in any way with another branch of the government. How would you analyze this? I know you’re not a lawyer. But you are a medical doctor. What did you think of the Fifth Circuit opinion? Do you think other courts will have the same bravery that they did?

SEN. PAUL: My hope is that it gets an expedited hearing before the Supreme Court. I’d love to see this heard before the mandate goes into place. We heard a couple things at the Republican lunch today. One of the things is they’re asking the different agencies — like Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, these enormous government bureaucracies — how many vaccinated and unvaccinated they have in their midst, of their millions of employees. They don’t know.

The government, they want small business to do this, to police, to be the vaccine police. The government doesn’t know how many people are vaccinated and unvaccinated, and they say they can’t do it on time. So even the mandate on federal government, the government can’t adhere to it, and they want private business to.

We are also circulating a petition that is going to have a privileged vote to overturn the mandate. So there will be a vote in the Senate and in the House. It’s a privileged vote, and this is to overturn the regulation at OSHA. We have 48 Republicans in the Senate signed on; so all but two Republicans have signed on to overturn this mandate.

CLAY: Who were the two…? Sorry to cut you off. Who were the two Republicans that have not signed on to overturn the mandate?

SEN. PAUL: I don’t know who that is yet. You should contact —

CLAY: Have your staff contact us to let us know, ’cause we will let our audience know for sure. And what’s the impact…? Sorry to cut you off on that, but what’s the impact of that kind of vote? I’m not familiar with the procedural posture there.

SEN. PAUL: The interesting thing that will happen is: Are there any Democrats that are going to vote against the mandate? Small businesses, employers, I mean, my sister’s a doctor in Houston’ she says that up to 50% of the nurses and doctors she knows around are not vaccinated. The hospitals will shut down, and so there’s going to be great problems.

There’s gonna be problems with air traffic controllers problem with pilots, there’s going to be problems with police and fire. You talk about disrupting society? Even if it’s only 25% of each of these essential services if they don’t show up. But if it passes, it has to be signed by the president so Biden’s unlikely to sign a disapproval of his own regulation. If it passes, it will be an amazing rebuke that he has to actually veto the will of Congress. So we’ll see what happens if —

CLAY: I love this.

SEN. PAUL: — we can get a few Democrats on board to vote, if we get all the Republicans — we have two more Republicans — but we also have to see. I think the mood of the country is such that there may be a few Democrats that are gonna have to think long and hard about this.

BUCK: Senator Paul, the infrastructure bill which just got signed by Biden yesterday, the Build Back Better agenda, Nancy Pelosi as of today on the House side is saying they’re gonna get that passed before the Thanksgiving break. What do you think is gonna end up being the most important takeaway, assuming that that does get through and that the Senate’s gonna have to reconcile a version of it with the House side? But if Biden ends up signing a BBB, how bad will it be — I don’t want this to rhyme, but it will — for the economy?

SEN. PAUL: There’s 6% inflation right now from all the borrowing and spending of last year. We’re gonna borrow as much or more if this passes, we’re gonna borrow dramatically more this year. That means you’re gonna have higher inflation next year. Inflation is not complicated. When you go to the grocery store or you go to the gas pump, the prices are up because we’re printing up money to buy our debt.

The Federal Reserve buys our debt, but they buy it with money that’s created out of thin air. What happens then is prices rise. So this is sort of the bait-and-switch. People who want your vote, they promise you free things: Free college, free health care, free school, free cell phones. It’s not free. You’re gonna pay for it through the insidious tax of inflation, and we’re gonna get more of it. If this passes, we’ll have added more debt in two years than we’ve ever added in the history of our country and the ramifications, the repercussions of this I think cannot be overstated.

BUCK: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, sir, we always appreciate you stopping by with Clay and Buck here. Thanks so much.

SEN. PAUL: Thanks, guys.