Rand Paul: Obama is trying to ‘scare people’ on debt ceiling
Today on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, in an EXCLUSIVE interview, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) spoke about the rapidly approaching federal debt ceiling deadline, and the congressional negotiations to end the government shut down that are currently taking place.
A transcript and videos are available after the jump.
CROWLEY (on-camera): Good morning from Washington. I’m Candy Crowley. We are 13 days into this partial government shutdown and no signs of a deal. Democrats met with the president last night and say they’re united. They will not negotiate until Congress ends the shutdown and lifts the debt ceiling.
Senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, is here. Jim, take us inside last night’s meeting. What was the purpose?
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the purpose was really, Candy, to get Democrats on the same page, and they have been very united through all this. You’ve seen some of the fracturing inside the Republican Party. That has not really been the case with Democrats.
And the sense that we’re getting today, Candy, as you know, Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, and top Senate Democratic leaders were here at the White House, but that followed a very important meeting that occurred yesterday between Senate majority leader, Harry Reid and Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell. That is essentially the first time these two leaders have met over these negotiations to reopen the government and to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
There is another meeting expected later today, although, one is not scheduled at this point. But interesting to note, Candy, one new development in all of this, we’re hearing from Senate Republican sources that Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is now insisting on changes to the sequester as part of a larger deal to reopen the government and raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
Of course, Republicans are balking at that at this point, and that is not a good sign as to where the negotiations are headed. Although, as you know, Candy, perhaps, Senate Majority Leader Reid is just taking a harder position at this point. He’s driving a hard bargain.
CROWLEY: He is, sequester being those forced budget cuts. Has the White House now farmed this out to the Democratic leader in the Senate? Where do they go from here?
ACOSTA: Well, I think where it goes from here, Candy, of course the global financial markets are going to start weighing in on what’s happening here in Washington later today. The stock market is open on Monday because of the — in spite of the Columbus Day holiday, I should say. And so, once the markets start reacting to this gridlock in Washington, that may force the hand of both Democrats and Republicans.
But, of course, Candy, whatever comes out of the Senate if something comes out of the Senate, the key question is here, can House speaker, John Boehner, get it through the house? That caucus of conservative Republicans, that is where things really hinge. And, at this point, we’re waiting to see what the White House and President Obama have to say about these latest talks, but we do expect them to continue later today, Candy.
CROWLEY: Jim Acosta at the White House, thank you.
House Republicans dropped out of negotiations with the President Saturday leaving their members in the Senate to try and cut a deal that will re-open the government and resolve the debt ceiling before the deadline next week.
Joining me now is Republican senator, Rand Paul, who met with the president on Friday along with the group of Republicans. Senator, thank you for being here. Do you have a bottom line below which you will not go in accepting something that would end this standoff?
PAUL: You know, I think compromise is in the eyes of the beholder. I’m willing to compromise. We’ve offered 13 compromises this week to open the government. The Democrats rejected each one of them. To me, there’s a big picture problem. We have a $17 trillion debt. We’re borrowing more than a million dollars every minute.
So, we do have to address that. I think the one thing I cannot accept and the one thing that I think is really not even a compromise at all is the Democrats want to exceed the sequester caps, these things that we put into law to restrain spending already. And it’s funny, they’re all about Obamacare being the law of the land, but so is the sequester.
The sequester is the law of the land, and if we exceed that, it’s a real big step in the wrong direction.
CROWLEY: And just for our viewers, the sequester are forced budget cuts that unless there is some agreement on Capitol Hill about spending, they go into place. And the next round is expected to go into place in January. So, now —
PAUL: Yes. And to clarify —
CROWLEY: Go ahead.
PAUL: And to clarify what the sequester cuts are, they’re a cut in the rate of increase of spending, because over ten years, even with the sequester, government will grow. It goes down for a year or two, but over 10 years, it grows.
If we get rid of that, it’s a terrible step in the wrong direction, but it’s also a different position because the Democrats were saying, oh, we want a clean CR. We want a spending bill with no writers. Now, they want a spending bill that increases spending and dramatically will increase the debt. It’s a non-starter.
CROWLEY: And is it a non-starter, do you think, with the rest of the Senate Republicans?
PAUL: I can’t imagine you’re going to get Senate Republicans to vote for something that exceeds the sequester caps. I think it’s a huge mistake for the country. The number one problem we face is our debt. We have to do something about our debt.
CROWLEY: Let me read you something that Eric Cantor, the majority leader in the House, had to say when the House sort of gave up negotiations with the president. He said “I know the president is trying to see which Republican senator he can pick off in the Senate. I hope that the Senate Republicans stand strong so we can speak with one voice.”
Do you think at the end of the day, Senate Republicans are more eager for some sort of resolution than House Republicans are and will, indeed, sort of give up on what some of the things the House Republicans have been pushing for?
PAUL: You know, I’m not positive. I think every member of our Republican caucus is concerned about the debt. We’re concerned about giving him a blank check to borrow more, and I would say that goes through every member of the Republican caucus has a real concern for what the debt is doing to our country,
Now, we’re also concerned about the government being closed. None of us likes the government being close. I didn’t want to be here in the beginning. And I’ve been advocating more talk on a weekly basis when we’re not — from deadline to deadline. I’ve been advocating a bipartisan lunch for over a year and a half now on a regular basis where we talk about these problems. And so far, we haven’t had enough discussion. I think that’s what’s led to this impasse.
CROWLEY: Senator, let me play you a couple of quick bites from a variety, some of them are your Republican colleagues, one of them, an international financier talking about what would happen if next Thursday, I believe, is the day, if next Thursday, the Congress has failed to lift the debt ceiling. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM PAWLENTY, (R) FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: We have a real deadline with potentially, you know, cataclysmic consequences.
CHRISTINE LAGARDE, IMF MANAGING DIRECTOR: To raise the debt ceiling would cause serious damage to the U.S. economy but also to the global economy.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) ARIZONA: I know some people on Wall Street that are telling me that the markets would react in a very, very negative fashion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: Senator Paul, I know you said that you don’t think the debt ceiling increases is that big of a deal, but the more you listen to people, the more you read to economists, read what economists have to say, do you think it’s worth the risk not to raise the debt ceiling?
PAUL: I think it’s not a good idea to go through the debt ceiling deadline. I think we should go ahead and have an agreement in advance. That being said, though, I think it’s also irresponsible for the president who when he was a senator actually voted not to raise the debt ceiling. It’s irresponsible for him to scare people. He should be the opposite.
The leader of the country should be soothing the markets and saying we will always pay the interest on our debt. And we do have plenty of revenue. We bring in $250 billion a month and we have $20 billion in interest payment. There’s absolutely no reason ever to default. And a good leader will be saying we will never default.
CROWLEY: Would a good senator be saying we won’t never default?
PAUL: Absolutely. And I’m trying to be that. We should never default. We should never miss a payment, but people have to realize that not raising the debt ceiling means you have to balance your budget. It doesn’t mean you default. And people are conflating these two and they’re not the same thing.
CROWLEY: So, your best calculation, do you think there are enough Republicans in the Senate to join with Democrats to pass an increase in the debt ceiling? What if it came down to the wire and the only thing available was a clean debt ceiling increase, nothing on it, just increase the debt ceiling?
PAUL: You know, I think at this point, you know, we had a vote on Saturday, yesterday, and it was to just raise it without any restrictions. And we all voted solidly against raising it without limit and without restrictions. That’s what the Democrats offered us yesterday. No limit over the next year, year and a half. We raise it as high as it goes. No limits. The American people don’t want that.
The vast majority of people are afraid of what this huge growth in our deficit is going to do to us. And so, no, I think we have to restrain. And there are two problems. And they’re both problems. It is a problem for the marketplace to see us go through a deadline. But in 2011, when we were downgraded, we were downgraded because of the burden of how big our debt was, not because of getting close to a deadline.
The S&P 500 said we did not do enough to cut spending and not enough to act fiscally responsible. That’s why we were downgraded. It can happen again if we don’t wake up and do something to manage this debt.
CROWLEY: I want to play you a little bit of a conversation that you had with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, on the Senate side that was caught by cameras and then ask you a question on the other side.
PAUL: Candy, that was private. You wouldn’t play a private conversation on TV would you?
CROWLEY: No, but I sure wouldn’t talk when I had a mic on.
(LAUGHTER)
CROWLEY: Let me play this for you. Hang on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: I think if we keep saying we wanted to defund it, we fought for that. But now, we’re willing to compromise on this, I think we’re going to — I think — I know we don’t want to be here. But we’re going to win this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: You still think you’re going to win this? And what does winning this look like?
PAUL: Well, you know the interesting thing about that conversation is I was on CNN about three minutes before that and I said exactly the same thing on television. Not exactly in the same words, but pretty close. I’ve been saying all along we don’t want to be here. We don’t want to be in a shutdown. I was against shutting down, and it is a failure of conversation to be in a shutdown.
And what I mean by winning this is not that I think it’s a political battle, but that I think it is untenable for the president to say he won’t negotiate. And he still repeated that when we were in the White House the other day, he is talking to us which I think is negotiation, but he’s also saying I will not pay for raising of a debt ceiling if American people are just — I have to get this without any conditions which is sort of him saying unconditional surrender which is not negotiation.
So, really, in 2011, we added the sequester. That was a good thing. We need to add more controls and restraint to government spending and this is precisely the time to do it. He’s unlikely to negotiate when he doesn’t have a deadline.
CROWLEY: I want to show our viewers a recent NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” poll which asked people if they had a positive opinion of the Democratic Party. Thirty-nine percent said yes, Republican Party, 24 percent, Tea Party, 21 percent. lowest favorables for the Tea Party and the Republican Party ever in NBC/”Wall Street Journal” polling.
Do you think as many have now started talking about — I grant you a lot of them are democrats, that there has been some irreparable harm done to the Republican Party? People talking about how this is the beginning of the end of the Republican Party as we know it.
PAUL: I think our demise is a little bit overstated. I would say that both parties are going to catch a lot of blame on this. This is not good —
CROWLEY: Do you agree that Republicans are taking a lot?
PAUL: Well, I think both are. And I think democrats who think this is a parlor game, who think this is fun — here’s what the Democrats think. They think we’ll send a bunch of government workers out there to close off the roadside viewing of Mt. Rushmore because that will be funny, you know? So, I think it isn’t funny.
And I think that Democrats and Republicans are going to catch blame. So, I don’t want to be here. I don’t see this as winning or losing. This is a lose-lose situation. We need to open up government, and it does require conversation. But the president is the one saying he won’t negotiate.
And now, it’s Senate Democrats saying, we don’t — we used to want to clean CR, but we think you’re squirming. So, now, we want to raise spending and break the budget caps. I think we’re seeing that the Senate Democrats are getting greedy about this whole thing.
CROWLEY: Do you see yourself at any point in the future being anything other than politically a member of the Republican Party?
PAUL: You mean — you’re implying a third party or some other party?
CROWLEY: Or, if you want to become a Democrat. There are lots of parties out there. Just wonder if you see yourself being anything other than a Republican?
PAUL: No. I’ve always been a Republican. And I’m one of those people who actually is a real lover of the history of the Republican Party from the days of abolition to the days of civil rights. Republican Party has a really rich history. In our state, I’m really proud of the fact that the ones who overturn Jim Crow in Kentucky were Republicans fighting against an entirely unified Democrat Party. So, I am proud to be Republican. I can’t imagine being anything else.
CROWLEY: Last question, you can answer no to this if you want. A lot of people have referred to Senator Ted Cruz as the de facto head of the Republican Party. Do you agree?
PAUL: I think that he’s done a good job drawing attention to Obamacare. And, that Obamacare is something that is going to be damaging to people. And, for that, I think he’s done a great service in bringing attention to I think something that’s really going to be bad for a lot of Americans.
CROWLEY: But you don’t necessarily see him as the de facto head of the Republican Party?
PAUL: Well, you got 46 of us. We all have a little bit of ego. So, I think most of us kind of think we’re one of the leaders.
(LAUGHTER)
PAUL: You know, we have an official leader. We have official leadership. But I don’t think any of us are ready to say oh, my fellow senator, he’s my leader and I follow him — there is no one leader other than our official leadership that we have.
CROWLEY: That’s why we love the senate. Senator Rand Paul, thanks so much for joining us.
PAUL: Thank you.
CROWLEY: Ahead, compromise falls short.