Rand Paul: If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realiz...

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.

Rand Paul

russia somewhere-else way

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.

Rand Paul

russia want thinking

I think if we want to defeat terrorism, I think if we truly are sincere about defeating terrorism, we need to quit arming the allies of ISIS. If we want to defeat terrorism, the boots on the ground - the boots on the ground need to be Arab boots on the ground.

Rand Paul

allies isis thinking

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.

Rand Paul

islamic evil thinking

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.

Rand Paul

islamic war thinking

I think we have a Tea Party mandate, and that Tea Party mandate is for good-government type of things, things like term limits, things like a balanced budget amendment, things like read the bills for goodness sakes, things like that maybe Congress should only pass legislation that they apply to themselves as well.

Rand Paul

party government thinking

I think there is some overreach in the sense that the EPA now says: if Congress doesn't pass greenhouse emissions regulations or testing, we'll simply do it on our own. I think that's an arrogance of a regulatory body run amok.

Rand Paul

arrogance running thinking

I'm a Reagan conservative. Reagan did negotiate with the Soviets. But you have to negotiate from a position of strength.

Rand Paul

conservative position

I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans. The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over! John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence, and I'm proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights.

Rand Paul

independence rights war

I think it's a huge mistake. I think regime change in Syria, and this is what - I've been saying this for several years now. In 2013 when we first went in, I said, you are going to give arms to the allies of al Qaida, to radical jihadists? That's crazy.

Rand Paul

crazy mistake thinking

Every gun regulation that President [Barack] Obama has advocated for, California has already. And it didn't stop terrorism.

Rand Paul

california gun president

Let's make the haystack smaller. Let's say for a while, until we can figure out who's coming, who's going, and who's overstayed their visa, let's have extra scrutiny and figure out what's going on, because there's a whole segment of the world that is intent on sending people here to attack us.

Rand Paul

scrutiny people world

I think ultimately that the rules that you make for gun control, people who are intent on killing themselves aren't too concerned with the rules. Law-abiding citizens are.

Rand Paul

gun law thinking

The other thing to realize is that almost all these shootings, including this shooting [in San-Bernardino], happened in a government building where people are not allowed to defend themselves. While it's not the ultimate answer, the ultimate answer would be no violence, part of the answer is saying, "We need to allow people to defend themselves."

Rand Paul

government would-be people

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.

Rand Paul

peaceful russia self

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.

Rand Paul

risk israel thinking

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.

Rand Paul

arguing people thinking

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.

Rand Paul

bullets awful hands

[John] Bolton is so far out there, he`s advocating bombing everyone in the world.

Rand Paul

bombing advocating world

I am all in favor of the President calling Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and the whistleblower, and if( White House Intelligence Chairman) Adam Schiff thinks Adam Schiff can veto defense witnesses, then it is a complete sham and a farce and I would advise Republicans to not participate in anything that doesn't allow defense witnesses.

Rand Paul

politics

If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realize that there's something called the Geneva Convention we're going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America.