Top 558 Quotes & Sayings by Rand Paul - Page 8

I think Republicans will not win again in my lifetime ... unless they become a new GOP, a new Republican Party. And it has to be a transformation. Not a little tweaking at the edges.

Really, while gas is an awful thing to watch - the death is painful - to even watch these deaths - it's also bad to die from a bullet, a hand grenade, or a machete.

I think the entire world knows, and North Korea knows, that if they used any weapons on our soldiers they would be obliterated. And it would be an overwhelming response.

The GOP of old has grown old and moss covered.

I think that, most importantly, when I see issues of war, I see them in a personal vein, and I am reluctant to go to war unless there's a real, valid American interest because I've seen the wounded soldiers.

Our legislative victory - an end to earmarks.

You can see why there are more people wanting to come from economically-distressed areas, and they can't all come to America. So it gets into the valid, legitimate debate over immigration as to how do we choose. Do we have a diversity lottery and take people from everywhere, do we base it more on merit?

I would set aside all these budget cuts that are going to devastate the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and the N.S.A. Sequestration, cuts, are not only gutting the military, they're gutting the F.B.I. So if I were president, I would set these cuts aside. I would reinstate the N.S.A. program as robust as possible within the constitutional limits.

I will tell , though, that Donald Trump got 70 percent in eastern Kentucky and I don't think it had anything to do with the Russian. He got 70 percent because in eastern Kentucky we didn't like what President [Barack] Obama or Hillary Clinton wanted to do to our coal jobs. It didn't have anything to do with the Russians.

Actually we're very lucky John McCain is not in charge because I think we would be in perpetual war.

John McCain's complaint is we're either not at war somewhere, or if we're at war, we leave too soon. So we're not there soon enough, and he wants us to stay forever wherever we send troops.

I think we can all agree [Bashar] Assad is a bad and evil actor, but I'm not so sure that we want the Islamic rebels to be in charge of Syria either.

I think the problem with John Bolton is he disagrees with President Trump's foreign policy. He would be closer to John McCain's foreign policy. John Bolton still believes the Iraq war was a good idea. He still believes that regime change is a good idea. He still believes that nation-building is a good idea.

I think that by arming the allies of ISIS, the Islamic rebels against [Bashar] Assad, that we created a safe space or made that space bigger for ISIS to grow.

How would you possibly sell 700 companies in a fire sale and hope to get what they were worth?It's just an unrealistic sort of standard they're trying to hold [Donald Trump] to.

I won't support any budget, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat budget, that doesn't lead to balance.

I think that there is a bipartisan consensus that's incorrect that we should have the whole world be in NATO. For example, if we had Ukraine and Georgia in NATO - and this is something McCain and the other neocons have advocated for - we would be at war now because Russia has invaded both of them.

We should understand the limitations of war. We should understand the sacrifices our young men and women go through losing lives and limbs. And they should only do it for the highest of purposes.

I am pleased though that there's a possibility of a diplomatic solution [in Syria]. I remain somewhat skeptical, but I am pleased that it's a possibility and I think people like myself who've been arguing for delaying this bombing, have allowed this diplomatic possibility to occur.

Overall do I believe exchange with other cultures is good, people going back and forth is good, trade is good. Yes, all of these things are good. But I think you have to make sure the system's working. We need to know, virtually 100 percent of the time, when you come and when you leave. It's called entry and exit.

I also think regime change in Syria is a bad idea. And that's an ongoing question. It's one of the things I like about Donald Trump, one of the reasons I endorsed him is he thinks regime change is a mistake. But John Bolton thinks completely the opposite. They are diametric opposites.

The separation of powers is about legislative powers. It isn't about discussion or words.

I think if Russia is really an honest signatory to the chemical weapons ban, if Syria wants to be, ultimately someone has to be responsible for killing civilians. And that's the hard part out of this.

I think when people voted for Donald Trump, they realized he owned a lot of stuff with his name on it. I think the concern over conflict of interest seems to be higher in the media than the public. People saying, oh, he has to sell all of his stuff.

Benjamin Netanyahu said that ultimately, they will be stronger when they're independent. My position is exactly the same. We shouldn't borrow money from China to send it anywhere, but why don't we start with eliminating aid to our enemies.

The more we can have peaceful trade both with Russia, with China, and with others, you know, there's a self interest in this for everyone.

I think if we ban certain religions, if we censor the Internet, I think that at that point the terrorists will have won.

, I'm going to reserve judgment on [Rex] Tillerson. But I'll ask him the same question I've asked the others: do you understand the historic lesson that the Iraq war was a failure, a strategic mistake, that's what Donald Trump says.

I just can't vote to go to war unless I think there's a real clear-cut American purpose in the war, that we're going to win and that we're not going fight for stalemate.

For example, the use of chemical weapons [in Syria]- some on the Democrat side have said well, this encourages the North Koreans to use chemical weapons against our troops.

I think it's fair to point out that there is bias in the media on both sides, both right and left. And that it's very hard to find objective news because we have gotten, particularly as you watch cable news, it's so dominated by opinion.

I don't think we're doing an adequate vetting process of those who are coming to our country.

I was very, very concerned about President Obama and how much executive order and how much executive power he tried to exert. But I think I want to be, and I think congress will be, a check on any executive, Republican or Democrat, that tries to grasp too much power. And really, a lot of the fault is not only presidents trying to take too much power, it's Congress giving up too much power.

We didn't create ISIS - ISIS created themselves, but we will stop them, and one of the ways we stop them is by not funding them, and not arming them.

The source of the problem is in Syria. Raqqa is the headquarters of ISIL, which is a lethal terrorist organization, now army. If you don't go after them over there, they're going to hit us over here, and there's no substitute for that in my view.

America does not need to continue to have regime change throughout the world, nation-building.

John McCain is the guy that has advocated for war everywhere. He would bankrupt the nation.

Gun control is not part of a strategy to defeat radical Islam or take ISIL down. However it is a problem back here at home. A million people have been adjudicated a danger to themselves or to others at the state court level.

I think it's a mistake to downgrade and say surveillance is no big deal. It is a huge deal that we are collecting millions of Americans phone calls and that someone can go to a keyboard and put your name in and search it without a warrant.

I don't think he fully analyzes the situation. If you destabilize [Bashar] Assad and punish Assad, you do embolden terrorists. You embolden al-Qaida because al-Qaida is on the other side of this war. So, one side wins if you destabilize the other side. So, he will be emboldening al-Qaida and the Islamic rebels. And I'm not so sure they're better than Assad.

I don't know about [Rex] Tillerson, but I do know that John Bolton doesn't get it. He still believes in regime change. He's still a big cheerleader for the Iraq war. He's promoted a nuclear attack by Israel on Iran. He wants to do regime change in Iran. So, I think John Bolton is so far out of it and has such a naive understanding of the world. If he were to be the assistant or the undersecretary for Tillerson, I'm an out automatic no on Bolton.

We should offer the American public less expensive insurance.

We are more polarized. And some of that comes from the people and some of that comes from the media.

This is an ongoing threat from a variety of sources around the world. And actually I think it works both ways. I'm not privy to it, but I think all of the various country that have the ability are invading each other's computers all the time. But we have to protect our data. It's very important.

One of the things that came out of the campaign, as I recall, was a high ranking [Hillary's] Clinton official, I believe, sent their password via email. We also need to learn how to protect our own information. And I think that's important as well.

I think we need to get to the bottom of it. And I think there should be an investigation [of hackers attacks] because in order to defend ourselves against other adversarial countries, we have to protect our information.

We don't have enough money to rebuild our own country if we're rebuilding everyone else's countries.

We're for the balanced budget amendment and yet the budget we're going to introduce, that we're going to repeal Obamacare with never balances.

I do want to see an immigration compromise. And you can't have an immigration compromise if everybody's out there calling the president a racist.

If someone tries to put limits on the press, I'll be the first one standing up for the right of press, left and right, to continue saying and being part of the discussion and forwarding the discussion.

I think [Donald Trump] has to do everything he can to set up a firewall between him and his businesses. But I think it's unrealistic for people to be saying, oh, he should just sell all of his businesses.

Every chance at destabilizing [Bashar] Assad... the bombing campaign causes a flood of refugees into Jordan, there's already half a million in Jordan. I think a bombing campaign - I think it's hard to argue that a U.S. bombing campaign is going to cause less refugees. And I think it causes more refugees and more of a humanitarian disaster. I think it causes, or allows, the risk of Israel being attacked with a gas attack to go up, if we attack Assad. So there's all kinds of bad things.

The president's rattling the saber and beating the drums may have an effect.

We do not project power from bankruptcy court. We're borrowing a million dollars a minute.

We've had presidents that have put their stock into account and they didn't know what their stock mix was and I like that. And I think Donald Trump has agreed that he would do the same on his stock. He's either sold it or will do it.

The one way, possibly, out of this is for [Bashar] Assad to abdicate and plead, perhaps to Russia or somewhere else. Would save another wave of civilian casualties if we could get him to abdicate.

There's a sense of urgency that the president does not possess, that there is a 9/11 in the making.

40 percent of people who come to visit America on a visa overstay their visa and we have no idea where they are. On 9/11, at least 2 of the hijackers were here on visa. They were traveling back and forth to the Middle East. And we really had no idea where they were or what they were doing. And they were overstaying their visa. So there are problems I think in the immigration system that need to be fixed for our safety.

Hardened terrorists are coming here to hit us hard if we don't hit them first.

[John] Bolton was an advocate for regime change in Libya, so was Hillary Clinton actually. And Donald Trump said it was a mistake. I agree it was a mistake to do regime change in Libya. We became more endangered and actually worse people took over afterwards.