CLAY: We are joined now by Senator Rand Paul, who I am told is with his wife right now, Kelley, who has phenomenal taste not only in who she married, but also in her radio show preferences. So, shout-out to your wife, Kelley. Senator, congratulations on reelection to represent the great state of Kentucky. And as we look towards…

SEN. PAUL: Kelley’s a big fan of the radio program and she’s also a big fan — she follows Clay on Twitter. And so, you can catch her on Twitter giving all kinds of insight and critique on a daily basis.

CLAY: That is fantastic. All right. So, we are soon to be out of this lame duck session, but I wanted to start with the lame duck session, Senator. It seems like there is a great deal of activity that is trying to be rushed through between now and when the new Congress will be sworn in. How nervous do you think Republicans should be about what is going on right now in the lame duck session? How much is likely to get pushed through? Where are we? Let’s start there.

So how do the Big Spenders (from BOTH parties) in Congress respond to the Pentagon failing to track $2.1 trillion? Increase the Pentagon budget! https://t.co/ni5mAtQzdJ

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 4, 2022

SEN. PAUL: If you are a conservative anywhere in the country, you should be worried and you should be alarmed that Republicans are going to give away the House. There’s going to be an enormous spending bill by Pelosi and Schumer, and most of the establishment Republicans up here will vote for it. So, if we want to have any hope of, you know, trying to control this debt and this monstrous spending, people need to call their legislator and tell them absolutely, under no conditions, vote for the Pelosi-Schumer monstrosity.

It is going to be over $1 trillion in new debt. It’ll be thousands of pages. It’s being written in secret, and it will be divulged a couple of hours before we vote on it. And then they’ll say, “Oh, take it or leave it or shut down government.” But I’d say leave it because they’re going to fund 87,000 IRS agents. And I think Republicans should fight. We should take back the power of the purse. And I think we should fight. I think our voters expect us to put up a fight and not to just roll over and give the Democrats everything they want.

BUCK: Senator Paul, what would that fight look like? Where could we take this? And what would be, in your mind, a successful outcome here to stand and hold back all this crazy spending and the Democrat agenda with it?

SEN. PAUL: If 41 Republicans stood together in the Senate, we can stop any spending plan coming from Pelosi and Schumer. It takes 41 of us, but there’s 10 to 15 of us who will vote with the Democrats and do every time. So really, this makes a nationwide effort of everybody determining who those 10 to 15 are that are going to vote for the Pelosi Schumer bill and tell them not to. But we have the votes. It’s like we are not a majority, but we have 41 votes. And that is the beauty of the filibuster, 41 Republicans can stop this and then there will be a negotiation. I think it should be a very short-term spending package.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy wants Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to hit the brakes on working with Democrats to produce an omnibus government funding bill before the holidays. https://t.co/tt3TEMcQbt

— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) December 6, 2022

And then let’s let the Republicans that were just elected to take over the House, have some power, have some say in this. Right now, the Big Government Republicans are negotiating with Democrats to spend a year’s worth of money. And here’s what they’ll do to the debt ceiling. You know, it used to be they would raise the debt ceiling by a dollar amount. Their plan is to do exactly what they’ve been doing the last couple of times and raise it whatever amount of dollars can be spent in a period of time.

So, if the bill is a year’s bill, they will say a year from now you can spend as much money as you can possibly spend. There is no limit on the debt ceiling for one year. That is extraordinarily bad. This is a big, terrible deal and people have to rally and say enough’s enough. You Republicans say that you are worried about spending on the debt and yet you play games and vote for the Democrats to spend more money. So, this is a big deal and we do have the votes to stop it but it would take 41 Republicans in the Senate with the courage to say no.

CLAY: Senator Paul, there is also another very courageous thing that needs to be done and I think you’ve been one of the foremost proponents of this. We need to let everybody who lost their jobs, certainly in the military, be able to come back and get back pay. Buck and I’ve been arguing about this. You’ve been on the forefront of making this argument for a long time. Where do we stand on that as a part of the Defense Department bill and what is likely to happen going forward in that negotiation and in that vote, in your mind?

ICYMI: Yesterday, I hosted a press conference with other Senators to call for an end to the Biden Administration’s unscientific military vaccine mandate.

Our young men and women in the military deserve better. pic.twitter.com/g5yNHJRXXM

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) December 1, 2022

SEN. PAUL: Well, the conservatives in the Senate we wrote a letter last week, 20 of  us signed a letter saying we won’t vote to get on the defense authorization bill unless we have a vote first on getting rid of the mandate, the mandate that says in the military you either get vaccinated for covid or you are discharged from your job. And many thousands of people have been let go. And every day new people don’t sign up. I have a family member right now that would like to go to a camp to prepare himself and to see what it’s like to go to a military academy but he doesn’t want to go because he has to be vaccinated and he’s already had covid.

And so, this is the ridiculous nature of this. But 20 of us signed a letter and then we heard the good news that leadership had heard us and leadership was negotiating on our behalf and that they had a deal that the vaccine mandate would be gotten rid of in the defense authorization bill. Then Biden stood up and said no, and the Republicans blinked, and apparently the story we’re hearing now is that the military mandate to be vaccinated for covid stays in the bill. And what people need to know about this is, number one, the vaccine doesn’t stop infection. It doesn’t stop transmission.

And for young people, they don’t get very sick from this. It doesn’t really affect whether they’ll be sick or not. The last thing and this is most important, the risk of an inflammation of the heart is greater for males 16 to 24, that’s probably nearly 95% of our recruits are males between the ages of 18 and 24. And they’re at higher risk for getting an inflammation of the heart than they are for having complications from covid. The risk of the vaccine for young males actually outweighs the benefits. And so, the science isn’t with them, but also it’s deterring people.

You know, some people have started to say that really this is a master plan for getting rid of conservatives and religious people from our military ranks. And it’s a master plan for preventing them from ever joining. Think about it and think who are the young people who are joining our military. They’re predominantly from rural communities, religious communities. They’re patriotic. They’re willing to put their lives on the line. And then these woke folks at the Defense Department are now saying, no, you have to do as you’re told, even though it won’t prevent infection or transmission.

BUCK: Speaking to Senator Rand Paul. Senator, I’m wondering if you can weigh in on the reporting that your colleague on the Republican side, Senator Tillis and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, are trying to get some kind of immigration package through right now. Is that a no-go or is that going to be a serious thing going forward?

Thousands of troops have been kicked out for refusing the Covid vaccine. Undoing the 2021 policy would be a win for Republicans who argue it’s exacerbating a recruiting and retention crisis. https://t.co/3CDWesOYJ7

— POLITICO (@politico) December 4, 2022

SEN. PAUL: I’m actually not aware of the deal that they’re working on. I think it’s very unlikely that any big things pass in this Congress. You know, come January, it’s a brand-new Congress. So, all the bills start over in January. I think what’s going to happen to this in the next two weeks before Christmas time and then we’re out for a week or so at Christmas, is there’s going to be probably a defense authorization bill. My guess is that they will continue to have the mandate for a vaccine in the military. And my guess also is they won’t allow any amendments from conservatives. So, conservatives will be completely boxed out of this. I think they’re also extending the draft to women in this bill as well. But the thing is, is they’re going to do that bill and they’ll probably do the spending bill. And I think that’s all that gets done. I’d be very, very surprised if an immigration bill came forward unless were talking about next year sometime.

CLAY: We’re talking to Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He won reelection last month. The Twitter files that were released on Friday evening by Elon Musk having to do with Hunter Biden and what I think most people listening to us right now would agree is collusion between Big Tech and the Biden campaign so far proven, also maybe the FBI involved. What should happen? What was your reaction to those revelations from Elon Musk relating to Twitter?

SEN. PAUL: You know, I love seeing the inside story of what, you know, the left-wing folks at Big Tech have been doing to censor speech. I have always been worried, though, about some conservatives thinking that we should regulate Big Tech and tell them what speech they have to put on their forums. I do think, though, there is an avenue for us. But the avenue is going after the government and the First Amendment cases have shown…there’s a First Amendment case by the name of Lugar vs. Edmondson Oil and it says that the government cannot sort of commandeer a private actor if they are working intimately with a private actor to have the private actor be sort of the surrogate, that censor speech that then they are acting as an arm of the government.

This is what will have to be debated in court. But in Congress, what I’m proposing is that we put limits consistent with the Supreme Court cases that say the government cannot collude with Big Tech. This isn’t really so much a rule on Big Tech. We’ll still be free to do what they want. But the government, the FBI can’t be having weekly meetings, and this is what’s going on.

The FBI’s having weekly meetings, but it’s not about preventing terrorists from organizing on Facebook. It’s about preventing people from discussing the election, complaining about the election, complaining about covid, complaints about masks. People like me who have said a million times that cloth masks don’t work, that, according to the government, is disinformation, and that will be blocked. But once this happens, we’re in a real problem and the government is actively working with Big Tech to do this. We are going to get to the bottom of this. We are going to explore this.

I’ve told my staff, “I want to know about these meetings.” We are going to insist on the documents that record these meetings. We are going to insist on being included at the FBI’s meeting with Big Tech. People from Congress should be in the room. First of all, these meetings shouldn’t happen. But if they’re going to happen, if they’re going to completely defy us, then we are going to be present and find out what’s being discussed there. This is a big deal and we’re going to do everything within our power. I’m going to be introducing legislation that makes it against the law for government to collude with Big Tech, not only collude to censor speech but I don’t like the idea of Big Government buying our anonymous information such as our buying habits.

And then this is what I asked Ray, but he wouldn’t answer, the penetrating the anonymous mail of data and attaching individuals to it. I asked him this directly, and he wouldn’t answer the question. But I suspect that the government buys up reams and reams of information, but then uses their databases on people to connect information and habits. What you read, what you buy, what you’re interested in on online is then connected to individuals. That absolutely is illegal, but we have to get to the bottom of whether they’re doing it or not, and so far, they have not been forthcoming.

CLAY: Last question for you, Senator Paul. Runoff election for people listening to us in Georgia right now, what’s the difference in the Senate between 50-50 and 51-49?

The error in judgment was to fund gain-of-function research in a totalitarian country- fund research that allowed them to create super viruses that, in all likelihood, accidentally leaked into the public and caused seven million people to die… https://t.co/1bxUwgv7rT

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 3, 2022

SEN. PAUL: It’s a difference between whether or not I have a voice in investigating the covid origins. I am pushing hard to get Democrats to investigate this, but a 50-50 Senate allows us equal representation on the committees. So, if you’re a libertarian in Georgia and you think both parties stink, which is often true, and you vote for a libertarian, this time there’s no libertarian. The choice is Republican versus Democrat. And I’m a libertarian-leaning Republican.

If they want me to have more of a voice, it really isn’t so much about the candidates. It’s about which one is the Republican who’s going to give me more power within the committee system, will make my voice stronger in Washington. And, look, I’m an equal or ecumenical complainer about both parties and their spending habits. And if people want to hear that many libertarians do, and many people who are frustrated with the system, who don’t vote, they need to know that a vote for Herschel Walker is actually a vote to help me have a bigger voice.

BUCK: Get out there, Georgians. Get it done today. Senator Rand Paul, appreciate you being with us. Thank you so much.

SEN. PAUL: Thanks, guys.