Rand Paul Is ‘Worked up’ About Tax Cuts, Lack of Conservatism in the GOP

“I want a big, big, very bold tax cut,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) declared earlier this week. “I’m for ‘the bigger, the better.’”

Republicans used to care about limited government. What happened? If you’re also frustrated about the size of government and out-of-control spending, don’t miss Paul’s epic rant from today’s show. He had some special words for Republicans who say sticking to a budget isn’t important – even though limiting government spending is supposed to be a party principle.

“Why don’t we put that we’re for single-payer in our platform because it ‘doesn’t matter’ what it’s in our platform?” Paul asked. “We’re turning out to be a bunch of hypocrites who say we care about the debt, yet the debt gets bigger and bigger under us.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Here is Rand Paul on Tuesday, talking about the G.O.P.

RAND: I think the biggest holdup is not people like me. I want a big, big variable tax cut. I'm for the bigger the better. And I will settle for less than I want. But I do want the biggest. And I will agitate to make sure that everybody across-the-board gets a tax cut. I think the problem really is on the other side. There are three or four people that don't want this to be a tax cut at all. They want it to be exactly revenue neutral, meaning that we will cut taxes on half the people and we will raise taxes on the other half to make it neutral.

I've always been a believer that you make it deficit neutral, by not raising other people's taxes, but by cutting spending.

So I have many entitlement reform bills that are out there. I can't get a Republican to sign on, because they give lip service to smaller government, but they're afraid of their shadow. And not a damn one of them really are for cutting spending.

GLENN: Rand Paul joins us now. Hello, Rand, how are you, sir?

RAND: Good morning, Glenn. Yeah, they got me kind of worked up on this. I'm kind of annoyed that Republicans forgot what it's like to be conservative. And they put things through that they have no intention of doing. So, yeah, I'm riled up.

I mean, it used to be there were some conservatives who believed that we should try to restrain spending. We capped it. We put these self-imposed restraints. And we exceed them all the time.

So we got Lindsey Graham and John McCain have now spent nearly $2 trillion off budget, and they're insisting on more. They will not put it on budget. It exceeds the spending caps. It's a game. It's a charade. And Lindsey Graham and John McCain are bankrupting our country. We have a $20 trillion debt. It's the biggest threat to our national security. And thank John McCain and Lindsey Graham for doing it.

GLENN: So help me out on this. There's no one in the Senate or the House -- there's -- I mean, is there a group of you guys that are standing together?

RAND: I think there has been in the past. And I think what they've been sold is a bill of goods by leadership that, oh, it doesn't matter anymore what's in the budget. It's toilet paper. It's basically, the budget is just a vehicle for doing Obamacare repeal. Well, then they didn't repeal Obamacare, because we lost like six or seven Republicans who said they were for repeal, and then they changed their mind. So now they say, oh, the budget doesn't matter. Well, the budget is what we stand for. It's like our platform. It's like saying, well, we don't care what's in our platform. Why don't we put that we're for single-payer in our platform, because it doesn't matter what's in our platform. No, it matters. It's what the Republican Party stands for. And what I'm so upset about, is that the Republican Party -- we're turning out to be a bunch of hypocrites who say we care about the debt. Yet the debt gets bigger and bigger under us.

GLENN: Yeah, you've already pointed this out, it's not only the debt. It's small government. It's constitutional principles. It's, you know, freedom of the press.

It's everything.

So what is the future of the Republican Party?

RAND: Well, I'm going to give them a chance to vote on a couple of things. But I can tell you I'm getting pressure and my arm twisted not to introduce any amendments to the budget. But I'm going to introduce my First Amendment will be this, there's $43 billion in it that's above the spending caps that's put in an account that is immune to any kind of surveillance. The account that spent 2 trillion, the overseas contingency account.

GLENN: Wait. What does that mean? Where does that money go? What is that money?

RAND: Starting 15 years ago, we started saying, you know what, we're at war, but we're not going to account for the money. We're not going to appropriate it, as we should through the defense budget. We're just going to put it into an account that exceeds all the caps, and then we're going to pretend like we're fiscally conservative. And the liberals said, well, you can do that, but then you got to give us more emergency money for welfare. So we got the welfare and the warfare crowd coming together.

GLENN: My gosh.

RAND: Look, George Bush -- the debt went from 5 trillion to 10 trillion under George W. Bush. Under Obama, it went from ten to 20 trillion. And now we're going to do it again because Republicans are not serious and honest about really wanting to cut spending. So in the budget, in the first year of this budget -- this is a good thing -- there's a $96 billion entitlement cut. And I asked them: Okay. Who has the bill that does that? Which committee is studying entitlement reform? There is no bill. There is no one studying it. And there is absolutely no intention of doing it. So I'm going to introduce an amendment to --

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Wait. You're moving too fast. Wait.

So they said that they were going to cut, but then they took no action after they passed that?

RAND: Well, it hadn't passed yet. This is going to be voted on today. But my point is, why don't we have budget reconciliation instructions? These are the instructions that through simple majority, we can do entitlement reform. There's nothing stopping us. Just our will. So I'm going to give them a chance today. I'm going to put an amendment forward today, that says, to a simple majority, through the budget process, we can do entitlement reform.

And you know what's going to be fun to watch? To watch them squirm. Because I guarantee all of leadership will vote no. And most of the Republicans will vote against doing entitlement reform. I'm also going to give them the chance to vote on Obamacare again. I guarantee, most of them will vote against, considering instructions to do Obamacare repeal. Then I'm going to try to cut the money that they've put in that's above the spending caps. And I will lose probably overwhelmingly because Republicans are not serious. And basically, they are hypocrites.

They say they want to cut spending. They go home, and they say they have a problem with the debt. And the debt gets worse under Republicans because they're not serious.

GLENN: So this to me sounds like a -- gauntlet being thrown down at the foot. What is the if not, then?

RAND: I think what happens is they're going to get their budget through. Because I'm the sole and only voice that says, we should stay within the spending caps. So I don't have anyone else to join me. But I'm going to raise hell doing it anyway.

GLENN: You can't get Mike Lee to even help you on this?

RAND: You have to ask him on that.

GLENN: Okay. I will.

RAND: The thing is, is that, I'm going to stay where I am. Because the thing is, is, look, they tell me that the budget means nothing. They tell me it's a piece of toilet paper, and it doesn't mean anything. It's just a vehicle for tax reform. And I say, well, if it doesn't mean anything, why don't you let me put into it a conservative vision that we shouldn't spend too much money? Why don't we put that in the budget?

And they say, oh, no. We can't change it. Because John McCain and Lindsey Graham want unlimited military spending. And I say, well, that's bankrupting us as well, because then the liberals come back and want unlimited welfare spending. And so they say, we can't give -- there's more of those who want unlimited spending than there are conservatives.

If I had one or two other persons, two other senators to stand with me, we could dictate what's in the budget. But they refuse to do it.

GLENN: Okay. Who is most likely to help you? And we can have the audience to call them.

RAND: Right now, there isn't anyone. And so that's the problem. And that's a sad fact is that nobody cares about the budget. Nobody cares about the debt. And we're just going to do this to get to a tax cut.

And, look, I'm all in on the tax cut. The bigger, the better.

I told the president this weekend, I will vote for the biggest tax cut that comes down. I will also vote for the small one. But I am all in on the tax cuts. But just I can't just give up on being a conservative and say, oh, I'm not for spending cuts. That's my whole principle, is the way we would balance a tax cut is with spending cuts. We're not going to do the spending cuts, then we're just dishonest.

GLENN: Yeah. In fact, the Roaring Twenties was caused by the spending cuts and the tax cuts second. It's the way it should be done.

Let me go to -- let me go to health care. It was amazing to see you standing behind the president as he signed -- I hate to describe it as an executive order because it was just a clarification of the law, that allowed people to buy insurance in ways they had never been allowed to buy before. And the reason why it was amazing is because you and people like you were the biggest enemy of Donald Trump, according to his side. You know, it was the Freedom Caucus and the -- and the small government constitutionalists that were causing all the problems. And in the end, you were the only one that could get anything done.

RAND: This is going to be bigger than many people imagine. There's up to 50 million people in our country who could possibly get insurance through health associations. Some of these are pretty big. National Restaurant Association has a couple of million restaurants. Fifteen million employees.

Can you imagine if you worked at McDonald's and right now you have no insurance, but then they said, oh, you can join to be part of a 15-million person group insurance plan, and you're going to be able to get the leverage of having 15 million people to tell big insurance that they're going to have to come down on their prices? This would be an amazing thing. There's 28 million people right now under Obamacare, who don't have insurance.

I think this allowing individuals to join groups could potentially help a lot of that 28 million. There's 11 million people in the Obamacare individual market. Many of them have had 100 percent increase in their premiums. This is a good chance of letting them get insurance that isn't so expensive.

GLENN: Now, how long does it take for these -- like the Restaurant Association to be able to do it? Are they motivated to do it?

RAND: Well, I think they are. A lot of the associations are excited. The realtors, the retailers, the franchisees, a lot of them are excited by it. Unfortunately, the government is so damn slow.

So the regulations probably won't come out for a couple of months. When they do, it will be too late for 2018. Because people buy their insurance in 2017, for 2018. So, really, we're looking at unfortunately 2019. But we have to do this kind of stuff. We have to allow more people to have freedom. And on whether or not it's executive order, I think it's important to know that an executive order that undoes -- an executive order that was overreach is a good thing. So I think you have a natural right, a natural liberty to associate.

And the Supreme Court has upheld this several times. You have right to peaceable assembly. But you also have the right to associate for economic means, and the Supreme Court has upheld that too. So if you and I want to get together and in association to get purchasing power, I think there's actually a First Amendment protection of that.

Either way, what President Trump has done, is looked at the original health care law from the '70s, read it closely, and said, guess what, the regulators of Clinton, Bush, and Obama got it wrong. We're rereading the bill, the original bill, and this is the interpretation we think is most consistent with the bill. I think as long as that's allowing freedom and not creating a new government program, but allowing you the freedom to buy something, I think that is an appropriate use.

GLENN: So quickly, I've only got about a minute and a half left. Let me play this audio and get your reaction. This is testimony from Jeff Sessions yesterday.

VOICE: And I'll ask the same question, will you commit to not putting reporters in jail for doing their jobs?

JEFF: Well, I don't know that I can make a blanket commitment to that effect. But I would say this, we have not taken any aggressive action against the media at this point.

GLENN: So it's a pretty easy answer for me. How would you have answered that, Rand?

RAND: My answer to his answer is, oh, my God. I can't believe that was his answer. No. Nobody is going to jail. Nobody in the press should go to the jail.

In fact, the thing about the First Amendment is it protects all speech, even offensive speech. And probably most particularly offensive speech, because good speech, nobody complains about.

If I tell you I loved Glenn Beck, you're not going to want to censor that. If I say something mean, that's what people want to censor. But you have to have dissent and criticism in a free society. My goodness, if you can't defend the First Amendment, where are we?

GLENN: Right. Right.

It is terrifying the road that we're on. And, Rand, I appreciate all your hard work and the hard stances that you take. And I'm sure you get a lot of -- a lot of trouble on Capitol Hill and maybe some trouble back home. But we're a fan. Thank you so much for your hard work.

RAND: You bet. Buh-bye.

GLENN: You bet. Rand Paul.

See if we can get a hold of Mike Lee. Ted Cruz. Ben Sasse. See if we can get any of them to go on the record of why they won't stand with him on this. I can't believe there's nobody in the Senate. But, you know.

The double standard behind the White House outrage

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Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

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The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

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The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

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The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.