Best of the Program | Guests: Sen. Rand Paul & Sheryl Attkisson | 2/8/22

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Oh my gosh, was today a great show?

Today was filled with happiness, sunshine, and unicorns.

Let me tell you, today we started with the most in-tune president I've ever seen.

Joe Biden has his fingers on the pulse.

Man oh, the people.

He really is.

We start with that and it goes downhill to a crazy train.

The entire episode, Here's the Podcast.

You're I'm gonna say in for Don't Forget, get the said Here's the Podcast.

That's me, that's the sign that we go to the podcast.

That's how that works.

I could tell people about the audiobook that's available now, it's available now.

I mean, you go to Audible and get it, it's up there now.

I mean, but we don't have time to get it back because they already said, Here's the podcast.

I know, forget it.

You're listening to

the best of the Blenbeck program.

So, Stu, when you think of Joe Biden, what is the first thing that just leaps to your mind?

Well,

Lunch Bucket Joe.

Lunch Bucket Joe, which, you know, everybody in the press has called him that freak.

Middle-class Joe.

Middle-class Joe.

Why would you call him middle-class Joe?

Because everyone calls him middle-class Joe.

He tries to say, come on, stop, but just keep doing it.

He doesn't necessarily want that nickname, but he'll admit it if he has to.

Yeah, now let me ask you this.

When people went to the polls, now you're going to have to do some speculation.

Okay.

But when people went to the polls

and they actually voted,

what do you think when they said, I'm for Lunch Bucket Joe?

Right.

What do you suppose they were thinking and hoping would happen?

Well,

they would probably think, you know, there's this guy who was president.

Orange Man Bad.

He was tweeting all the time.

Do you remember that?

Yeah, you remember him?

I do.

And he was thinking about.

He's about him often.

He's getting in fights with people all the time.

And what we want here, Glenn, is a return to normalcy.

Return to normalcy.

Something that is, you know, very American.

Something that we all recognize as, oh, well, that's...

That's not unusual.

Right.

Something to go back to the way we all understand this country should work.

Oh, my gosh.

And thank goodness we have him.

He's got into office.

And yesterday, the Biden administration talked about how they are going to

start handing out crackpipes to drug addicts in underserved communities.

That's not exactly the return to normalcy.

I was thinking.

The Department of Health and Human Services fiscal year 2022 has a harm reduction program.

And they're going to, the crack pipe plan is,

well,

it's a kit that will provide safer pipes to drug addicts when they smoke crack cocaine or crystal meth.

Safer pipes?

Safer pipes.

Yeah.

See, you know, a lot of times they'll use glass pipes, and sometimes they can crack, and then they'll lead to an infection in the crack user.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Yes.

So

here's the thing.

The grant, not everybody gets this.

Okay, good.

Not everybody gets this.

This is where it really centers right into the American people.

You know what I mean?

Sure, any president you could see saying, hey,

freak crack pipes.

You know what I mean?

Very common.

That's the normalcy we've been talking about.

That was the unspoken thing.

George Washington did this.

If you don't know, George Washington, when they were going across the Delaware, they were smoking crack.

But this is where it gets even more uniting.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

The grant money will be prioritized for selection if they promise to use the funds in underserved communities.

So you'll get the free crack pipes if you're serving a large African-American or LGBTQ plus population.

Are they saying that black people smoke crack?

No, I don't think they're saying that.

That seems to be what they're saying.

No, they got to be saying something else.

They're prioritizing delivery to African Americans of crack pipes.

Okay.

That's the

post-racial presidency we all expected.

If that's not a Democrat policy from the 1950s and 60s or from the 1860s, I don't know what is.

That is unbelievable.

And right

in

line with what I think America was thinking.

Because when you say lunch bucket Joe, you think of the guy,

you're on the construction site.

It's time for lunch.

You're sitting

on the side of the building

on the ground in your work boots.

Lunch bucket Joe comes over.

He's a normal guy.

He's been working normal, real hard jobs his whole life.

And he's just going to have a normal conversation about what's bugging him.

You might see him at the end of a bar, maybe having a beer after work.

And here's what's getting at him today.

Yeah.

And it'll express the same thing.

He's like,

crackpipes that are safe for African Americans and gay people.

That's what I'm looking for.

You might actually see that one at the end of the bar, but that's not what we're looking for out of a president of the United States.

Yeah, it's so, yeah.

Anyway, Seattle and San Francisco had the crackpipe thing.

It didn't work out so well.

No.

Yeah.

And so they're getting rid of it, but Joe knows that's an injustice.

So we've got that one.

By the way, Justice Department, they've already been thwarted once.

The court said, now you can't do this, but they're thinking about doing it anyway.

You know, crackpipes are one thing, but what about those who inject heroin?

Okay.

The government is now,

I am not making this up.

They are

now

putting,

considering putting vending machines in

where if you needed a clean needle you could get one a needle vending machine

that is what the american people are demanding

i mean doesn't it make you just feel so american you're like we are on the right track We are going to restore ourselves to the great nation that we really are.

What's been holding us back?

Those damn glass crackpipes in the inner cities.

I mean, you know, the people in the suburbs, they can get their own damn

wooden or metal crackpot, you know, because they're a dime a dozen out in the suburbs.

But this has been an underserved community and crack pipes.

That's true.

And I will say, you know, he did promise to shut down the virus.

And as we know, when has a virus ever spread through intravenous drug use?

Yes.

That's never been an issue.

Never been an issue.

Never.

Never, never, never.

By the way, speaking of shutting things down, Lunchbucket Joe strikes twice.

Now, lightning doesn't usually strike twice, you know, in the same place.

But yesterday at the White House, It struck more than two times, actually.

But the second time, they made an announcement yesterday.

And who hasn't been calling for this?

Can we please, for the love of Pete, release the 20th hijacker

from 9-11?

Can we please

just release him?

Do you remember those big protests before the 2020s?

The truckers, the truckers here in America.

Oh, okay.

I don't know about those crazy Nazis up in Canada, but the truckers here, I'm sure they're like, we want the 20th hijacker released.

And Gitmo shut down.

Huge priority for the American people.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Huge priority.

Oh, people, there are some people that are like, oh, my money situation is a little tight.

Yeah, but what about the 20th hijacker?

Yeah.

Okay.

What about him?

And what happens if that 20th hijacker can't get a crackpipe for free?

Or a needle out of a vending machine.

It's hard.

This is a horror.

This nation

is a horror show.

My gosh.

And this is the sort of stuff Lunch Bucket Joe can relate to the people with.

What do you guys want?

Come on, man.

Well, they wanted, you know, sure, we all wanted the 20th hijacker release and the crackpipe and the needle thing.

Yeah.

But, you know, I think a priority, and he got it right, because day before yesterday, you know, he released $25 billion of frozen assets to Iran.

And that was my priority.

Yeah.

You know, and I think a lot of Democrats, you know, I'm a little on the edge on this.

I think a lot of Democrats would agree with me.

You know, not probably a lot of the conservatives.

You know, but hey, can we just please give the Ayatollah and Hezbollah another $25 billion?

What we landed in the middle of the night on that tarmac.

That was

not enough.

And it was that sweet spot right between 26 and 24 billion that we were all talking about.

Yeah, the conservatives were saying no, only 24 billion.

Yeah, the liberals were saying no, 26 million.

He found a way to compromise.

Yeah, wow, that's brilliant.

Everyone was demanding billions go there.

It was just a matter of how many billions.

So a lot of people are saying, you know, I'm just talking about the winers.

What are we going to do about the economy?

Oh, geez.

Yesterday, the White House came out with yet another new plan.

Oh,

the problem with the economy

is that,

well, the unions aren't very strong.

And so they announced a goal yesterday of unionizing 50% of America.

Oh,

just the 50%.

That's all they want?

Yeah, we're at 14%.

So it's not a big deal.

So we're at 14%.

But tripling it would still leave it 8% short.

Yes, it would.

Okay.

Yes, it would.

They want to triple it

and then add another half and then a little more.

Well, it's gone down.

Actually, I was wrong.

It's not 12%.

It's gone down.

It was a whopping 30% at the height of the unions in the 1950s.

Okay.

30%.

It's down to 10.3.

So they want five times as many people in the unions as percentage of the population.

That shouldn't work.

Well, they want to take a couple weeks.

Look, they want 71 million people.

Just the

people.

71 million.

I mean, that's 75 million.

No, $71 million.

Membership is $14 million today.

So they want $71 million.

And that is half of the workforce.

So I think this is, I mean, that's what I was looking for.

And why are they doing it, you ask?

Well, I'll tell you why.

Whether it's fighting COVID-19, advancing social and economic equity for underserved communities, i.e.

crackpipes,

tackling climate change, and building a modern sustainable economy, i.e., death of the free market, we need a vibrant labor movement.

So that's good.

That's good.

Now,

you know, there are reports out there that saying doing this

would increase the infrastructure projects that the White House is working on from anywhere from 12 to 20%.

But

who cares?

We can print more, okay?

What do you care about, money or people?

People, says Joe Biden.

You're probably one of those haters that don't think we should be handing out free crackpipes.

Right?

Am I right?

Am I right?

You're darn right I'm right.

Hmm.

This is him.

This is Lunchbucket Joe, though, connecting to the people.

This is

on top of it, of all the concerns.

I mean, when you look at the polls, the number one concern is always crackpipes for underserved communities.

You know how we always say the president shouldn't read polls?

Yeah.

I think we got that.

I think we have a president.

We got that one.

We have one.

He does not read the polls.

Or he reads them upside down.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It could be that.

It could be that.

Yeah.

And has no advisors that are really in touch with the American people.

at all.

You know, he wants it to look more, you know, like Supreme Court.

I want it to look more like America.

Well, handing out crack pipes, union jobs, you know, and needles, I don't think gets us there.

I don't, I, no,

I don't, I don't.

You know what he should do is he should appoint the first

crack-smoking Supreme Court justice.

Because he apparently thinks that it's in the inner city.

So maybe you'd get, you know, a black person as well, which he's really in favor of.

He's already said he's going to do that.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, smoking crack, you could get white or black, but if he does it in the, what did he say?

Underserved communities, I think that's what he's saying because it's racial equity.

So maybe he can get somebody from that underserved community that's smoking crack that's also qualified, but nobody pays attention to for Supreme Court.

You're really threading a needle with.

wrong, really wrong words.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program and we really want to thank you for listening.

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So one of the best investigative reporters in the country, if not the best, and the one is still doing her job.

I mean, there used to be some other good ones, but now nobody's doing it anymore.

Cheryl Atkinson, she is an investigative reporter.

She is the host of Full Measure with Cheryl Atkinson and the author of The Smear.

Welcome to the program, Cheryl.

How are you?

I'm great.

It's good to be here.

So, Cheryl, I've been thinking about you ever since this thing with Joe Rogan started because you literally wrote the book on

how this happens.

And I'm watching this unfold

and it's bringing back uh very vivid memories it's wave after wave after wave it started with you know he's giving misinformation giving misinformation about covid and then it was he's a racist and now it's he's a transphobe

how does this end you know yeah it's uh it's by the playbook in my book the smear where i dissected what was done to you what was done to don imis actually i would say the joe rogan plan looks almost exactly like what Media Matters and the left propagandist there and the interests behind them, what they did to Don Imus, if you remember.

And it's it's when they find an enemy of whatever they're advocating or their money interests don't want discussed or exposed, they find other reasons to smear the person and try to remove him.

And I talked about, well, what's the difference between a smear and just telling the truth?

Because Joe Rogan acknowledges he said some objectionable things that are very hard to hear today.

Well, I described that in the smear and there is a line that

explains this.

These people, when this happens, are targeted not because

of the information and views that they're being smeared for, but because of the other influence they have.

over issues that aren't even being talked about now, which is the COVID, you know, putting out factual information that some didn't want heard.

And I think Rogan was clearly targeted because he had large followings that showed ordinary people not fringe or alone when they're thinking of certain thoughts and views or reading certain scientific studies.

So do you think it really is just that?

Or is it they can't tolerate someone who won't bow to them?

They got to take him out.

Well, yes, they do, but only because he's not on the right side of the money interests that people may not understand are behind these efforts that look like they're sort of grassroots efforts, but they're very well organized.

You and I know Media Matters and other groups, once they targeted Rogan, started combing through every word he ever said over time and had probably already been gathering on him.

They listened to everything you say, everything I say, everything we write, hoping to find that one little grain they could amplify into a smear for the power of destruction to get rid of voices that are off the narrative on these topics that their money interests care about.

So, when they did this to me or my good friend Don Imos,

God rest his soul.

I forgot he's not in heaven.

Anyway,

when they did it to us, it was new to the American people.

And they, you know, you'd be like, no, these people are financing this.

And a lot of people are like, yeah, right.

And it was kind of a conspiracy theory.

Now everyone knows.

Everyone knows.

They've seen it over and over and over again, and they're sick of it.

Does this just, does he, how do you think this ends?

Well, I think that's a great question.

You know, I think Trump was the one who didn't crack when this stuff happened to him.

Everybody else, there's some pressure to

apologize to crack.

Once that little bit of weakness is there, as I wrote about, it's not as though the apology is there and then they go away, meaning the propagandists.

That's when they really sink their teeth in because they sense weakness and opportunity.

And their goal isn't really to get an apology.

Their goal is to destroy the person who's harmful to their interests.

So they keep going.

How this ends, I'm not sure, because I think you raise a good point.

Have they gone too far?

People now recognize this.

When they're going after, I use the example, when everybody's anti-vaccine and people know they're not, but when they're all called that, when everybody's called racist and people know they're not, and when Joe Rogan, who's not a radical conservative or giving misinformation and his listeners know that, when he's accused of that, it starts making people go, uh-huh, so they think something's going on and it's less effective.

Maybe they've overplayed their hands by broadening the net of the people that they attack and getting more and more bold.

But I think that's a sign on their part of the propagandists of desperation because people like Joe Rogan are very effective in piercing the narratives, often the false narratives narratives that they have, you know, they make sure is all over the media.

I've been saying this for, I don't know, last couple of months.

I've had increased hope that things are going to turn because people seem to be waking up and not just the ones that were maybe asleep or, you know, weren't active on, you know, the more conservative side of the spectrum, but Democrats, not leftists, but Democrats.

Democrats are starting to say, you know, I don't want any of this stuff.

This is ridiculous.

And I sense that there is a change in our society because

everything's accelerating so rapidly that it's easy to see now.

Right.

And I think, yes, again, have they overplayed their hand

several years ago?

And I liken it to everybody says the pendulum swings.

Well, the organized efforts and the well-funded efforts, they've dominated since about the 2016 time period in a big way.

But I don't think they're the majority.

And the majority of people who feel differently, they're not organized and well-funded, so it takes a little longer.

It kind of simmers, but I think it's simmered enough and enough important things have happened, and enough people have been attacked that maybe you're correct, that it's starting to maybe swing the other way, or enough people want to do something about it that's reaching critical mass.

And what stops these people, Cheryl?

I always say the truth finds a way to be told.

So ultimately the facts come out.

You hear, I thought it was kind of funny.

I heard today some of these states are lifting mask mandates and people were speculating, well, maybe

they're looking at science.

And no, it's the fact that I think

the vaccine mandate cultists have all gotten COVID now, so they're suddenly starting to say we should recognize natural immunity.

I mean, ultimately, the truth is the truth, and it may take longer to get out in the sea of this disinformation, but I think ultimately it does.

And you find that people can find facts and good information as much as others try to hide it from them.

It may not be easy, but people naturally seek it.

And so I think that's how it ends.

The best advice I give, Glenn, that I...

I think some people have actually taken,

every time someone says, you know, online or trying to to

that you shouldn't see, hear, or read something, that should make you go look at it, listen to it, or read it.

And that's how you defeat the cancel and the propagandist when you say, when you're censoring something, that means it's important.

It doesn't mean it's necessarily true, but it might be true, and you should go and investigate it.

And that pretty much makes their strategy or tactics moot.

Yeah,

I think that's exactly what's happening too, is they are so freaked out because they're becoming reckless

and so overt.

And, you know, this thing from CNN, I mean, just on the bandwagon,

beating the drum and tooting the horn about how these people need to be canceled is crazy.

It's crazy.

Well, as I wrote about the most effective propaganda campaigns and smears are the ones that are invisible to the public, that you don't see the hand behind them.

You're influenced in a subtle way.

But you're right.

This has gotten so obvious, I think, in the face of desperation on the part of the interests that really want to sway us, you know, to look a different to a different place.

I think it's gotten to be where people are looking at it, like you say, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, whoever you are, and starting to go, what's harmful to the propagandist is they're starting to say, beyond COVID and beyond Joe Rogan, what else have they done this with that I just didn't think about?

And I think back to the vaccine autism issue.

You know, there's been scientific studies, lawsuits and settlements, admissions by the government and their own experts that vaccines can cause autism for years, but that's just considered over and over again, debunked, debunked, debunked.

Think of what they've done to these parents, some of the same public health agencies for decades, portraying them as crazy while behind the scenes, settling and paying lawsuits and knowing that their own experts felt differently.

So you start to apply,

what else does this apply to what we're seeing today?

How damaged is the,

I mean, I think the media is just imploding.

And unfortunately, the government credibility has imploded.

And now science and medicine is imploding.

I mean,

that's not a recipe for a healthy country in any way, shape, or form.

Aaron Powell, well, it's not.

And step one is to recognize that, but I don't know how you get back to a place where those influences aren't still at play.

You know, they're there.

They're accomplishing their goal.

In some instances, if they simply confuse the situation, let's say there is medical information that a company doesn't want you to have about their medicine.

Well, if they simply confuse it and you don't know what to believe, that's better than you believing the truth.

And we're in this confused environment where everybody's putting out all the conflicting information.

And so, yes, people know to be skeptical.

They're starting to understand all of that, but that's not necessarily a healthy situation either.

And, you know, I'm going to be reporting stories that discuss in the near future.

I mean, does CDC need to be, and I don't think it will be, but does it need to be blown up and restarted?

Very few people have the kind of faith in CDC that they used to.

Right.

And, you know, to have the biggest pandemic challenge that they've supposedly gotten trillions of dollars to prepare for over the decades and to so utterly fail and make so many bad decisions at every turn.

I mean, what is that agency all about?

And, you know, I still look at the fact that of all the things we know that has gone that have gone wrong, the same people are still in charge.

They haven't even made it.

I'm not saying punish and imprison these experts that were wrong.

Someone else can decide all of that stuff.

But these these people are still wrong and we're still listening to them.

I mean, that's just stunning to me.

And it's like that in almost every department.

I mean, I've said to President Trump in an interview recently, if you're going to run again,

you're going to have to clean house.

I mean, everywhere, top to bottom.

And you're going to need

the House and the Senate to go along with you.

And I don't know if anybody is interested in actually cleaning out the swamp, but every single agency

is kind of like the CDC, where, okay, some good people in there, but there's also some really bad people, some people that are misreading, and other people that have their own agenda.

Well, this veers into an expanded topic, but you know, in

four to eight years, no one can clean all that out.

This operates independently of the president, this mechanism you're talking about, I call it persistent bureaucracy.

And they fight back with either just not implementing what the president wants if it's not what they want or they launch lawsuits and subterfuge and they can they can carry that on for a long time until the next person comes in so I don't know how even if you clean house you get you get something done in a meaningful way I think Trump came the closest to it yeah I do too despite the fact that he was fought at every step but he did do some things like reducing regulation and after the lawsuits ended finally starting to accomplish what he wanted with the wall.

I mean, it's amazing he got anything done.

Those are big changes in a bureaucracy like this.

I would be very interested to see his approach if he were to get reelected.

Yeah.

Cheryl, thank you so much.

I know you're really busy, but thanks for coming by.

I've been thinking about you recently, and you were one of the people that had been targeted.

And then, you know, you have no place here on network television.

So you went out and you did your own thing, and it's wildly successful.

And now many of us feel like we're going to be chased off of our own platforms, which is bizarre.

Just bizarre.

We've got to turn this around soon.

Well, thanks for having me anytime for you.

You got it.

Thanks.

Cheryl Atkinson.

She is the investigative reporter and the host of Full Measure with Cheryl Atkinson.

She's also the author of The Smear, which if you want to understand what's happening, This really is the go-to book.

This explains it in great detail.

She took about a year, year and a half to research all of the facts on all of the big smears.

And she explains, and you will understand, and you'll be able to watch the pattern.

I mean, that's what she was saying, and I was too.

It's just wave after wave.

It comes and they do the same thing over and over again.

And when is America going to say, shut up?

Just shut up.

You don't like it.

Don't listen.

And I'm not listening to you because this is all, what did Nancy Pelosi call it?

AstroTurf.

This is all AstroTurf.

The best of the Glenn Beck program.

The Great Reset is now out in audiobook.

You can get it from Audible or Amazon right now.

Look for it, Glenn Beck, The Great Reset, read by me.

Man, I bet it's good.

I don't know.

I wasn't there when I recorded it.

Let's go to Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky, who is joining us now.

One of the few senators that is actually involved and paying attention to the big board, the restaurant in the District of Columbia that, for some reason, is being singled out.

And they've shut them down.

Senator, welcome to the program.

Hey, Glenn, thanks for having me.

You bet.

So what is happening in D.C.

You have the mayor making a rule, hasn't even gone through city council, and they're not shutting down restaurants that aren't checking.

But these guys said we're not going to check because it's not really even a law.

And they have come at them with a bag of bricks every day.

Yeah, within hours of expressing dissent, they went after the owner.

They took their alcohol license away within 24 hours, and 24 hours later, they padlocked the building.

I mean, this is the kind of world we're living in now.

These people are out of control.

I mean, there was a poll the other day that said about 50% of Democrats are willing to put you indefinitely in detention, to basically put you in jail if you're not vaccinated.

I mean,

this is a completely insane.

And we now have a vaccine that I still think protects you from getting sick, but it doesn't protect you from transmitting it or receiving the illness.

So it's really of nobody's concern other than your own.

If you want to get vaccinated, do.

I think it's still advisable, particularly in certain age groups and certain people who are overweight.

But you make that decision.

It should be nothing about you trying to force it on other people.

I have to tell you, thank you for signing the pledge to not agree to any spending tomorrow

if it involves mandates.

I don't know know what every single Republican, if they don't sign that,

they should, honestly, you should take a hard look at those Republicans that won't sign this.

What is your possible reason?

And if they don't give you a good reason,

don't re-elect them.

Yeah, and there is a shift going on, though, because you're even seeing Democrat governors saying, gosh, we're going to live like this forever.

So I think now is the time to be vocal and to push back, particularly on masking on our kids.

We need to push back on the masking on airlines.

There's no evidence that the masks are working at all.

You want evidence that the masks on the airlines don't work?

You saw that plane that went with the, I think, mostly Mormon missionaries back to the Pacific Island.

Everybody tested negative before they got on the plane.

42 out of 54 had the disease when they landed.

And I'm not balding anybody, and I'm chuckling because they were all wearing masks for 12 hours on that plane, and yet everybody on that plane got COVID.

Now, fortunately, I don't know that any of them are actually sick, which is sort of another question we have to say.

Are we going to continue to have all these mitigation, masks, and separation that don't work for something that is largely not making people sick?

Let me ask you, let me switch topics to Ukraine.

It feels as though, unlike anything I've ever felt, that our government, our administration, is kind of pushing for a war in Ukraine with Russia.

Am I is it just me?

You know, you feel it among the members of Congress up here, too, and many of them are sort of from the Never Trump camp, the Liz Cheneys and the Adam Kinsingers.

These are the people who think war should be the first resort, not the last resort.

And there are ways to have a more nuanced position.

I think we should do things to try to deter Russia from invading Ukraine.

And I think there's both carrot and stick that could be put forward.

I actually would be stronger than saying, oh, we'll put a few sanctions.

I would work with Germany and say, look, this is what Biden tried to do yesterday, but Germany hasn't been as forthcoming, is to say, if you invade Ukraine, we're not going to buy your natural gas.

I mean, in a big way, not just sanction it, but it really requires Germany's cooperation because we just don't buy that much natural gas

from Russia.

We don't have that much trade at all with Russia.

So I think that would be on the deterrent front.

But on the other side of this, I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to say that

we're not going to put Ukraine in a military alliance against Russia.

I asked the Secretary of State this the other day, I said, how do you think we would respond if Mexico were joining a military alliance with Russia?

You know, what do you think we might do?

We might mass troops on the border with Mexico.

We would be so unhappy.

We wouldn't tolerate it for a moment.

I mean, this was somewhat of the Cuban missile crisis.

We didn't tolerate them putting missiles on a nation close to us.

We wouldn't tolerate a military alliance.

So we have to understand that that's their perspective as well.

So I would do carrot and stick.

I would tell them, look, we're going to have a veritable embargo if you invade, but we also will offer the carrot of saying, you know what, maybe Ukraine would be better neutral country with one foot in the east and one in the west.

And actually, I think it would be better for Ukraine to try to see the model of Switzerland being more their model than the model of becoming

a military presence with NATO.

The idea that

we are living under a regime, and I don't think I've ever used that word before for America.

Living under a regime that is

almost as if they're rooting against us in every possible way.

The things that they did

this weekend and the $25 billion

that they unfroze and gave to Iran,

it's a group of people that are completely out of step with the American people.

Well, it's also a group of people that, I mean,

to know how bizarre and far out these people are, these are people that think Thanksgiving is a terrible holiday.

I mean, these are the people who think America is a terrible place, and we shouldn't be celebrating Thanksgiving because everything America did was horrible and everything Americans did were horrible.

And I think that this is just a bizarre sort of world we are in.

I mean, these are the people who think that we are in the wrong by saying that government schools should not medicate our children and shouldn't be giving

our girls testosterone at the age of thirteen without our permission.

This is a bizarre world, but they're also it's going to come home to Roost because as people understand and know how far out Democrats are, defund the police, give our kids sex hormones without our permission, give them even surgery, sex change surgery or sexual appearance change surgery without our permission, I think they're going to paint themselves so far out on a limb.

And it's happened, like in Kentucky.

We used to be a majority Democrat registration state.

We've now switched.

Good church-going Democrat families are like, heck no, I'm not for the government giving my kids sex hormones at school without my permission.

These people are so bizarre that I think they're losing America.

And hopefully the next election will show that.

Talk to me a little bit about SCODIS and what's happening there.

You know, I think the one thing that I'm going to say over and over again, and I was told the media yesterday as I came up to them, is that the one thing we will not do is we will not treat their nominee the way they treated Kavanaugh.

I think what they did was reprehensible, it was despicable, and we will show in contrast that we can have a debate over someone's qualifications.

And, you know, I'm not voting for somebody who's for abortion up to the time of birth.

I'm not voting for somebody who has no concerns for the Constitution.

But I'm also not going to stand up and make up stuff about their high school dating or saying they were rapists in high school, that kind of that was so insulting and so demeaning.

And the Democrats should be reminded at every step.

We should also show the American public that we can disagree with someone on principled nature and maybe even vote against that person, but without making it a personal flander.

So that I agree with that.

And I don't want to be ⁇ I do not want to become everything that,

you know,

that we despise on the other side.

So I'm glad to hear that and i agree with you however there's a debate going on right now especially with spotify and joe rogan about apologizing and i think there's a place for apologizing uh there's a place to be you know um decent but but that doesn't mean that you uh surrender

you know it's not that you know you you have to fight a good fight and a fair fight

but i i people look at apologies or or

being more statesmanlike.

They're starting to look at that as a sign of weakness.

I don't think it is.

Well, I am tired of all the sort of Mao kind of apologies where you read your statement, you look like you've been tortured all night long, and you read it, and then you say stuff that, you know, like, you know, they make people apologize all the time for saying, I'm sorry for being transphobic.

You know, I'm sorry for this.

You know, they call me transphobic.

What adults do is not my concern.

If you want to do that, do it.

My concern is about the law and about kids and about consent.

But the thing is, is I'm not going out and making some malwasque apology.

But it doesn't mean we have to be rancorous as far as

personally attacking people.

And frankly, I don't think we do that.

But

we're going to see what happens as this thing moves forward.

you know, I, for one, on the Spotify thing and on this,

I'm, I guess, confused that people who went to Woodstock and didn't want to have any rules or clothes

somehow now they believe that speech is dangerous and they want to shut down people they disagree with.

It's sort of the most infantile, juvenile proposition.

And I don't get how they can't understand the irony of people who are free spirits now being against speech.

I know.

You ran for president once before.

Any thought of running for president?

America is starting to look like she's shifting back to a small government.

Hey, let's follow the rule book kind of thing.

Any thought about running for president again?

You know, sometimes until my wife says, why in the world would you want to do that again?

But,

you know, I think so much of it depends on,

you know, if there were a free-for-all, you know, with an open, open race, that's one thing.

If Donald Trump runs again, I just don't know that there'll be anybody that will be able to compete with Donald Trump in a primary.

And so I think it depends on what happens over time.

Right now, I'm mostly concentrating.

I'm running for reelection in Kentucky, and so I'm up in November and concentrating on that battle.

And

I'm not thinking beyond that.

I would assume it's going well.

I think pretty good.

What we're finding in Kentucky is that, like I say, the Democrat Party has left conservative Democrats.

My in-laws were conservative Democrats, church going, God-fearing, conservative Democrats.

But they saw the party leave them, and that's what's happened happened to so many.

I mean, we've had party officials now switch parties.

We have people changing registration.

And so we're now on even footing.

And the Democrat areas that were Democrat going back to the time of Andrew Jackson, I've actually switched and become Republican.

So we're in a better place there.

We have a few cities that vote Democrat, but they're not as dominating as like, you know, Atlanta sort of dominates the population of Georgia now.

They're probably equal to the rest of the state.

And so it's becoming more hard when we don't do as well in the cities.

Fortunately, in Kentucky, we have a significant, strong rural population that's able to more than counterbalance the city vote.

Rand Paul, thank you so much, Senator.

I appreciate it.

Thanks, Claire.

You bet.

We are better off having him in the Senate, Kentucky.

You better.

You better re-elect him.

Interesting answer on the

presidential thing.

It seems like, you know, no Trump, and he seems like he'd be...

He's being running.

I think there's a lot of people that

if Trump's running, I'm out, right?

If he's, you know, if he's not, you're gonna start with a 50-point deficit, and no one wants to do that, yeah, yes, and you'll be he'll find something about you, and you'll forever be labeled that.

I mean, he's good at that, yeah, he's very good at that.