Transcript: Sen. Rand Paul on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," March 23, 2025
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we turn now to Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. He is the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, and he joins us this morning from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Good morning to you, Senator.
SEN. RAND PAUL: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Sure, because of your role in Homeland Security, I want to follow up where we left off with National Security Adviser Waltz. There are legal questions around using these authorities to send out detainees without giving them a day in court. But there's also just questions of how it's being handled in regard to these individuals who were rejected by El Salvador, one for gender, one because they weren't Venezuelan at all. Do these concern- does any of this concern you? Along with claims from their family members that many of these people weren't gang members?
SEN. PAUL: There are some big legal questions here. On the one hand, the Bill of Rights applies to everyone, to persons. The Bill of Rights doesn't specifically designate citizens. It's really anyone in the United States the Bill of Rights applies to. On the other hand, the Alien and Enemies Act simply says, you really don't get much process. The president can simply declare that you are somehow a problem for foreign policy and opposed to our foreign policy, and you can be deported. So really, ultimately, this goes to the court, and then the court is going to have to decide, are they going to declare unconstitutional a law that's been around for a couple hundred years, or are they going to defer to Congress? If you look at the TikTok decision recently, which I don't agree with, but in the TikTok decision, the court basically said we're going to defer to Congress. Congress says this is about national security, and who are we to question Congress--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Right and then the president issued executive order that defied the- what Congress did--
SEN. PAUL: Right, right. But my- my point is- is I think the court should have ruled on the First Amendment with regard to TikTok and not said, oh, well, whatever Congress wants. But if you look at the TikTok decision, and you had to guess what the Supreme Court is going to do, my guess is they'll uphold the Alien and Enemies Act. It's not necessarily my position, but I think the court will uphold it. So it's at least debatable on both sides, who's right or who's wrong here. And I think it's not correct for Democrats to simply say, oh, it's constitutional chaos. There's no leg to stand on. There actually is legal authority. On the one hand, it's been around for over 200 years.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But, but just- we're not talking about partisan politics. We're talking about the courts right now. And what the judge said he had questions about and talks about this being done, you know, essentially in the cover of night, this seems to be an argument the administration wants to have go to the Supreme Court. Are you comfortable with bypassing what you described as, you know, what's guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, a day in court, or at least some verification that some of these people actually are guilty in some way of what they're accused of, which is membership in a gang?
SEN. PAUL: So we have a contradiction. We basically have the Constitution that says everyone, persons in the United States have due process rights, have the Bill of Rights on their side, but we also have law that has been in power for 200 years saying, oh, well, except for when the president wants to deport people. So these are in conflict. There will have to be some decision making. On the question of whether or not a district judge can make a ruling for the whole country, that's also a very big question, and I suspect, as this works its way up to the Supreme Court, when you get to the Supreme Court, I do believe the Supreme Court is going to limit district judges from having nationwide rulings. So I think that's also in the offing. But these are huge legal questions, and the only way they begin is by a challenge.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah
SEN. PAUL: If the president doesn't challenge these, they never have standing and never get to court. So on the one hand, the president is generating this, but it's the only way to generate a final conclusion from the court.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It just sound- I mean- these are debates for law professors, certainly, but in the meantime, there are individuals who may have been sent wrongly to these facilities that are outside the U.S. jurisdiction. Are you comfortable as the man with oversight, as chair of the committee, with what's being done?
SEN. PAUL: I think the courts will rule that there has to be some process. I don't think you are going to be able to deport people--
MARGARET BRENNAN: So, yes, you are comfortable with it?
SEN. PAUL: So no, I- well, I think you're answering for me. I think there is going to be some process afforded by the courts for representation before you're deported in most cases. I don't know about the ones under the Alien and Enemies Act, and I'm not sure anybody knows that. And while I love constitutional law, I'm not a constitutional lawyer.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah.
SEN. PAUL: I do think it goes to the Supreme Court. And there are arguments to be made on both sides of this question.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Got it. I want to ask you about some congressional business. I've seen it reported that you have pitched to Elon Musk a plan to claw back $500 billion in federal funding that Congress has already approved. There was an effort back in 2018 to do something like this, and it failed. Do you think you can actually get this done in a rescission package, and how much money do you think you can get back?
SEN. PAUL: Well, this goes to another huge legal question. Can the president impound money, or does he have to send it back and we approve the cuts through rescission, and this is going all the way to the Supreme Court also, because I think the Trump administration believes they can just not spend it. There's another question within the question, can the president and his people, can Secretary Rubio pause the spending. On that issue I think they will win. You will be able to pause spending as long as you don't go through the end of an appropriations year. If you get through that, I believe it's impoundment, and I think the court so far has said it has to come back, and less as the Trump administration argues that the empowerment Act is unconstitutional. So this was headed to the Supreme Court also. It is my personal belief we should adhere to the law as it is now, and that is, send it back and have Congress confirm it. It's a simple majority vote. It's called rescission. I did mention this to Elon Musk. He seemed enthusiastic. It can be done. No Democrats- you have to realize, no Democrats will cut one penny from any spending anywhere. But can we get all the Republicans, is the real question.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You can get 51 Republicans, you think, to get on board with this?
SEN. PAUL: Well, I think the president's gonna- the president is going to have to use effectively his bully pulpit and his popularity to convince all Republicans to do it. It's not a given that Republicans will stand, will will vote for this. We tried it once in the first administration it was only--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Right, I remember--
SEN. PAUL: --15 billion, and we we lost. We lost two Republicans. But my suggestion to the Trump-, my suggestion to the Trump administration is come to the Republicans who you suspect might have misgivings and convince them, in advance, don't put it in their lap. Bring them 500 billion. If they say this, 10 billion, I can't deal with, I can deal with the 490, you're gonna have to pre negotiate the rescissions package. But I think you could get there.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about the Department of Education. States, as everyone I think knows, provide the majority of the funding and oversight for your local schools. But Kentucky, when we looked at the numbers, gets the fourth most federal education funding per student of any state in this country. You have over 900 schools that have these Title One programs, which are low income schools who need that federal subsidy to continue to operate. How are schools going to get that money if the president closes the Education Department?
SEN. PAUL: I think the bigger question, if we're sending all this money to Kentucky and all the other states, why are our scores abysmal? Why do two thirds of the kids not read at proficiency? Why do two thirds of the kids or more not have math proficiency? So it's an utter failure–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Isn't that up to the state?
SEN. PAUL: What I'd like to- let me finish, I'd leave it back to the States. It has always been a position, a very mainstream Republican position, to have control of the schools by the states, send the money back to the states, or better yet never take it from the States. About half of our budget in Kentucky goes to education, and that's the same in a lot of states. I think we can handle it much better. When I talk to teachers, they chafe at the national mandates on testing they think are not appropriate for their kids. They think they waste too much time teaching-
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Right--
SEN. PAUL: --teaching to national testing. The teachers would like more autonomy, and I think the teachers deserve more autonomy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But when we look at the budget in Kentucky, the state receives 2 billion in federal education funding. Do you have a guarantee that the federal government, federal taxpayers will still provide 2 billion in education funding? That seems important to your state.
SEN. PAUL: I'd rather well, no, what I'd rather is a guarantee that my kids can read and write and do math. The amount of dollars, look, the number of dollars has gone up exponentially, and our scores have gone the other way. So dollars are not proportional to educational success. What I want is success, and I've talked a lot about this, I think there are innovations we can do where there's more learning via some of the best teachers, and we pay them more. I would like to have an NBA or NFL of teachers, the most extraordinary teachers teach the entire country if not the entire world--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Who would run that? The education department?--
SEN. PAUL: --And some of them- no what you'd find is they'd be selected out state by state across the nation. Look, people say, oh, without the department education, we'd have no testing. I was- I was in school before then, we did achievement tests in the sixth grade, the fifth grade, the eighth grade, and we compared ourselves across state lines. There were international testing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Yeah--
SEN. PAUL: --You don't need the Department of Education for any of that. But what I can tell you is--
MARGARET BRENNAN: --Okay--
SEN. PAUL: --the best teacher in the world is not teaching the kids. What we need to do is have the best teachers and pay them more, but they wouldn't teach 30 kids. They might teach 10 million kids at a time, because it would be presented to the internet with local teachers reinforcing the lessons.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I'm sure we'll be talking more about this. Senator Paul, thank you for your time today. We'll be right back.
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