Why Senator Rand Paul Voted to Limit Donald Trump’s War Powers

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3:04I'm David Remnick. There was a time when libertarians in politics seemed extreme somehow, their concerns esoteric. The core libertarian principle of a small, even minimal government aligned with the Republican platform, but just to a degree. At the same time, libertarians have often taken a very distinct approach on civil liberties and many other social issues. But as Donald Trump tries to impose a more and more authoritarian style of government, one of the most consistent critics within his party has been Rand Paul. the libertarian-leaning senator from the state of Kentucky. Senator Paul was the sole Republican to vote in favor of restricting Trump's power to prosecute war in Iran.

3:51One of the few remaining deficit hawks, he's bucked Donald Trump's priorities on tariffs, funding the Iran war, and the ballooning budget for ICE. During a fight over the tax bill last year, Trump said Rand Paul, quote, loves voting no on everything, unquote. He's called him a sick wacko. Rand Paul ran for president in 2016, and he may well be a contender in 2028. And we spoke this past week. Senator, we're going to talk at some length about the war in Iran and about President Trump. But before I engage the war itself, it's not gone unnoticed in a lot of circles, whether left, right or center, that the nature of the things that the president has said and how he said it, whether it's about wiping out a civilization of 92 million people or just how he's conducted himself in the course of these wars has been very worrying to a lot of people, whether in the Republican Party or Democratic Party.

4:55What is your sense of his behavior, his utterances, his language? Are you confident in his ability to carry out his office? You know, I think when we talk about diplomacy or how you achieve peace after you're at war, there are a lot of people have commented over time things that are necessary. You know, one is to recognize that your enemy or your adversary needs a way to save face. They need a way to come to peace. And that if you insult them or make this about a religious nature or that, you know, make this about unconditional surrender or an absolute desolation of a civilization, that it makes it harder for an enemy to come to peace.

5:41And I think most of the things that I've heard that trouble me and worry me about trying to find peace in Iran is that, you know, people quoting the Old Testament about smiting the enemy. If this becomes Christians versus Muslims, I don't see a quick end to a war. I see a war that if you're a religious zealot and people tell you that we're attacking you because of who you are or they mock your religion, I think it makes it much more difficult to find peace. And I want peace the sooner the better for many different reasons. And so my advice would be that talk is good, diplomacy is good. But if I want something from you, I wouldn't start out by insulting you or I wouldn't continue to provoke you by saying something about your religion.

6:26We're unlikely to find peace. So I think these things all make peace less likely and make war more likely. For a lot of people, the fact that Donald Trump declared himself an America first, non-interventionist politician was attractive. I think that was attractive to you, despite whatever other policy problems you had with Donald Trump. What happened? He seems to have turned on a dime. Well, I've spent too much time with Lindsey Graham, you know. But the irony is that I would say Lindsey Graham and John Bolton are somewhat the same creature. They're both neoconservatives who almost always believe in intervention, almost always believe war is the answer, that diplomacy is not, and that strength is the way we should present ourselves to the world.

7:14But the interesting thing is John Bolton was cast out. Lindsey Graham remained. But really, John Bolton's ideas are winning this White House in a way that to me probably contradicts so much of the rhetoric and the campaigning of Donald Trump over the years. It really is what drew me to his campaign and drew me to support Donald Trump was the idea of less intervention overseas. I don't know if I'd call him a non-interventionist, but I'd certainly say he's from a more restrained foreign policy, less intervention, less chronic war. And the interesting thing is if he were sitting here right now, I think he'd still say he is.

7:53And I think he would argue that it doesn't mean I'm not going to use force. I'm just going to use a lot of it for short periods of time that I'm going to come home. and it's why my hope still is that there will be a fairly quick end to the war. I wasn't for the war. I'm not for the war, but I think the war could end quickly if that's still what he wants, but that's why it's useful maybe for someone like me to point out that unconditional surrender rarely happens in war. Was there an imminent threat to the United States preceding these attacks? I've seen no evidence of that. The intelligence reports show no evidence of a change or an increase in the centrifuge activity, a change or an increase in the enrichment of uranium.

8:34We were told last summer by the Trump administration after the 12-day war and the bombing of the nuclear facilities that they were obliterated. So either they were or they weren't. Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. Most of us said at the time that enriched uranium isn't really obliterated. It probably remained. It could have been spirited out before the attack, or it could have been found in the remnants of the wreckage of the attack.

9:15But no evidence, and this was reported, you know, when Tulsi Gabbard testified recently before the House, One of the lines that was in a report was there was no evidence of enhanced nuclear enrichment. It's not to say it's not a risk, but it's about the same risk that it's been for decades. So there was no imminent reason. And a lot of people misinterpret the War Powers Act to say that it's just a reporting requirement after 60 days. It actually says in the beginning of the War Powers Act, you don't go to war at all unless it's been authorized by the Congress, declared by Congress, or there's an imminent threat.

9:51So the first obstacle you have to meet is imminent threat. And when they say, well, they declared war on us 47 years ago, well, that's a stretch, but that also wouldn't be very imminent if it was 47 years ago. So I don't think there was an imminent threat or an imminent change. It's not to say I don't think they're a threat or to say that a nuclear weapon is a threat. It's just to say that there was no imminent threat and there was plenty of time. Look, it took two weeks to send all of our ships and planes over there. during that period of time, there was going to be no surprise, and there was plenty of time for Congress to meet to vote on this.

10:24I talked to a lot of analysts in Israel, in the Gulf, in the United States, and a number of them say, independent of their politics, generally speaking, that the original sin here, what's caused the problem is that because Donald Trump couldn't stand to see a success from the Obama administration stand, that his decision in 2018 to get rid of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, is the origin of this disaster. Do you agree? I don't know if it was made out of petulance towards Obama or towards trying to mete out a failure to President Obama. I do think that it was a miscalculation to think that maximum pressure and more sanctions would change their behavior.

11:13I've been of the opinion, and I ask people from the State Department and from every administration, I ask them, what behavior has Iran changed because of sanctions? Or what behavior has China changed because of sanctions? What behavior has Russia changed because of sanctions? I don't think sanctions work. In fact, I think sanctions are only of value at all if you're willing to trade removing them for a behavioral change. So I think if you want China not to sell dual-use parts to Russia to use against Ukraine, you might be able to trade relief of sanctions on China for that, but you can't tell China we're going to put five more sanctions on you if you sell dual-use parts.

11:52It doesn't work. But I think you could do the opposite. I think you could reduce or repeal sanctions in exchange for behavior, and it actually might work. So sanctions actually only work in reverse. They don't work when you put them on people, because unless you're an incredibly weak country, you're going to react badly to someone telling you what to do. But if someone comes back and says, oh, the carrot is I'll take off the sanctions, you might actually get some behavioral changes. I began by asking you about the behavior of the president. I want to ask you another question in that realm. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that the president was excluded from the planning session about the rescue mission for the U.S.

12:33pilots who had been shot down over Iran because he was being too disruptive, that he was getting in the way, that his temper was such, and he was acting erratically. What credence do you give to such reports, and doesn't that present a danger to the nation? I have no information about it. I don't know if it's true or not. My first suspicion would be that it's not true. I know Donald Trump pretty well, and I know him not to be a shrinking pilot, and I don't see him being excluded from any meeting in his administration. So my first thought would be not true. But what about the description of his behavior as erratic?

13:11You know, I haven't seen any evidence of that. If you look at back, if you look for consistency, I'm not saying I agree. I've been an all parts critic, you know, of a lot of things for the administration. But if you look at Donald Trump, there are several things I think that have been true for 30 or 40 years. He felt like the southern border was a problem. We had to do something about it. He did. And I think that was largely a success in the first couple of months. He did something Biden could never do, control the Southern border. I think he also has been against trade and feel like we're ripped off on trade.

13:42I think he's wrong, but he's always been that way for 30 years. And I think he's always been a little bit of, even though he's been restrained and against land war, he's always been a little bit of a hawk and taken Israel's line as far as Iran being this imminent threat. So I don't know that any of that has changed really. People were surprised by the Iran war, and I was hopeful that it wouldn't occur. But I think if you look at his rhetoric over time, he's all, you know, he's been sort of all in that Iran is this dire threat for a long time. You were a pretty lonely voice in Congress, especially in the Republican Party, about insisting on approval for this action.

14:21Why are you such a lonely voice in your party? Is your party really the cult that it's described to be? is it far too obedient to the president? I think to be fair, both parties are. And so I'll give you an example. During the Biden administration, I was opposed to national emergency power of the president and thought that when a president declares it, it should automatically expire after 30 days unless affirmed by Congress. And this is a reform of emergency power. I had mostly Republican supporters. Many of them have fallen away as we have a Republican president, but I also have more Democrat supporters now than I had during the Biden administration.

15:01So I think both parties are guilty of judging behavior based on who is in the White House. And so, for example, on trade and on presidential authority, you know, Biden continued some of the trade policy of Trump. Some of the tariffs continued through executive order. There wasn't a whole lot of Democrat pushback in the last administration. Now there's considerable, and I'm glad that there's a number of people for it. But I would say there's guilt on both parties. It's not a one-way street that only Republicans defend a president of their party. Democrats do likewise. There's no question that Donald Trump has insisted upon a stronger and stronger presidency.

15:42And he's not the first one in American history, but he's a dominant voice in this. When people describe him as having authoritarian tendencies, do you agree? I would lump all the presidents together. And really, our founding fathers looked at it that way, too. They didn't look at one bad president, one good president, one authoritarian, one non-authoritarian. They looked at that every individual, by the very nature of their imperfection, one of the imperfections of men and women is that they, once given power, want more. That power is a corrupting force. And so you'd say that's no more in Donald Trump than it is in Barack Obama or George Bush?

16:24Well, I'll give you an example, a more recent example. So Biden, during his administration, through executive authority, got rid of the student loans and says you don't have to pay them. The court told him no, and he just simply kept doing it. You know, he really was acting outside the law in a unilateral excess of executive power. You can argue President Trump has done the same, and I have made criticisms of that, but I don't see a lot of difference between the two on that. I think Trump is a more activist president because he's a more active person. I think you had President Biden in his decline, and I don't think he was nearly as active, but he was active in the sense of breaking the law, particularly on the student loan problem, in a similar way that Trump has been active.

17:14But on war, they've all been the same. There's been not a dime's worth of difference between Republicans or Democrats on usurping the war authority. There's been almost none. You know, I criticize President Obama for bombing and setting up air patrol over Libya in 2011 without the authority. Now, the only difference was is we had enough of a rally of people then that we did chasten him, and he didn't go further into that. But I think he still did act illegally in setting up the no-fly zone over Libya. Yeah. Although during the Bush administration— And also the results turned out to not be so good either.

17:48The run-up to the Iraq War, as chaotic and horrendous as it was, and the result being the misery that we know, there was a vote in the Senate. Absolutely. And so I do point back to that, that yes, we did actually vote in Congress both after 9-11 for the war that became the Afghan war, and we voted again for the Iraq War. It was almost unanimous after 9-11. I point that as the time when we were attacked, when even someone like myself, as against war as I am, I would have voted to go back and fight the people who attacked us. During the Iran, for Iran, there was absolutely nothing. And that's why it's incredibly important that we do have voices that stand up on both sides and say, this isn't what our founding fathers intended.

18:34This isn't what the Constitution dictates. I understand that. But to compare it, it seems incomparable. It seems like President Trump's behavior was far more sudden. There was no justification or explanation for the war to the American people or to our congressional representatives. There was a negotiating process that went on. And overnight, at 2 o 'clock in the morning, there was a taped announcement they were going to war with Iran. That seems radically different than the past. It's without question a war of choice, and it's not my choice. I don't support it.

19:17I'm speaking with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. We'll continue our conversation in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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22:39This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I've been speaking today with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He's the chair of the powerful Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Rand Paul was a doctor, an eye surgeon, before entering the Senate in 2011. he followed in the footsteps of his father, Ron Paul, a Texas OBGYN who went to Congress and then campaigned three times for the presidency. Rand Paul himself entered the presidential primary in 2016, and now he's weighing a run again in 2028. And if he does run, he would carve out a lane as a Republican who's notably disagreed with Donald Trump on a wide range of issues, causing the president to rebuke him in his inimitable way.

23:26We'll continue our conversation now. Do you get punished by President Trump for disagreeing with him? We have separate branches of government. I can't be told to go to my room. It doesn't work. It didn't work well when I was a teenager and certainly doesn't work well now. But there is no form of punishment that will probably work. The thing is, is the more I am in a small minority, the more from my point of view, I figure it's necessary. And so I continue. Look, I had a good job before I came here. I can go back to being a physician. And there isn't some sort of permanence that is I am here and, you know, that getting rid of me is not something that can happen.

24:11It could happen. It may happen. But I think someone has to speak truth to power. And it's even more important when it's from the same party. People expect the other party to do it. It's less expected when it's from within a party. But there's so little of it from your party. It's almost absent, so much so that you are seen as this radical exception. And therefore, we hear discussions about cult-like behavior in the Republican caucus in Congress. How do you react to that? I think it's important for the future of the Republican Party to remember that we believe in principles, that we aren't a part of a person.

24:49I say this all the time. We were and had a large portion that was for free markets, free trade, the more libertarian wing of the party, even among traditional Republicans, of believing that trade makes us richer as a country. In fact, most economics departments for the last 70 years have taught that, Republican or Democrat, that trade is good. It makes us all richer. So it is important that we not lose that. I don't want the Republican Party to be lost either to blindly following one person, but also to lose our bearing in the sense that the things that made America great, that made America rich and made us great beyond belief were capitalism and our capitalism and free markets and the ability of innovation to occur and international trade.

25:33So I continue to fight for those every day. Senator, how do you feel about the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of War, whatever he's calling himself, Pete Hegseff conflating his job as a warrior, as he puts it, with religion in his rhetoric, which is not an exceptional thing. It seems to happen in loads of his public utterances. And I say the same to every American who wants peace through strength. May Almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again, to the American people, please pray for them. Every day, on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ.