One-On-One With Senator Rand Paul; Rand Paul Interview.
BLITZER: Senator Rand Paul's run for the White House, the focus, a lot of speculation among political pundits these days, but the Republican senator from Kentucky says he's in this race to stay. Senator Paul is joining us here live. Thanks very much for coming in.</s>SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks for having me.</s>BLITZER: We'll talk politics, your race for the White House, in a few moments. Let's get your reaction, first of all, to the president's decision today to a reversal. Earlier, all U.S. troops basically were going to be out of Afghanistan by the end of next year. He says 10,000 are going to remain next year, 5,500 the year after. It's going to wind up costing U.S. taxpayers $15 billion a year to keep those troops there. Good idea or bad idea?</s>PAUL: I think it's a mistake. It's also not what our founding fathers intended. Our founding fathers intended that when we were to go to war, that Congress would debate this and this would be approved or disapproved by Congress. I don't know what our mission is. I would have voted for the original mission to go after bin Laden and those who attacked us on 9/11. We have bin Laden. We have the people who attacked us on 9/11. What is our mission? To build a nation? Well, frankly, we're not very good at building nations and I'm not for having our military stay indefinitely in Afghanistan to build a nation.</s>BLITZER: The mission presumably is to make sure the Taliban or al Qaeda or ISIS in this particular case don't take over Afghanistan from which they could build terrorist plots to do what they did on 9/11.</s>PAUL: Why don't the local people defend themselves against the Taliban?</s>BLITZER: But they're obviously not yet capable. So the U.S. is being asked to stay there and train them and equip them.</s>PAUL: How long? It's been a decade. You know we've spent -</s>BLITZER: It's been 14 years.</s>PAUL: Yes, more than a decade. We've spent more in Afghanistan using equivalent dollars than we did in the Marshall Plan. How much time and how much money is it going to take? I think people will not stand up and defend themselves until they're asked to. And I think the people who live in Afghanistan should stand up and say, do you want to let the Taliban, these thugs, run you over? Are you willing to stand up and fight? And, you know what, I think they would stand up and fight and we can aid them in a way, but I don't think we need to have troops there.</s>BLITZER: So you would get out right away?</s>PAUL: Yes, I don't think we need to be in Afghanistan.</s>BLITZER: Immediately?</s>PAUL: Yes.</s>BLITZER: OK. Let's talk about some other issues. A little controversy, Hillary Clinton criticizing your comments about same-sex rights in the workplace. You were asked if LGBT employees should be allowed to sue if they were fired over sexual - their sexual orientation, and you said, "I think really the things you do in your house, if you could just leave those in your house and it wouldn't have to be part of the workplace, to tell you the truth." And then you said, "I think society is rapidly changing and that if you are gay, there are plenty of places that will hire you." So the criticism is that you're not - you're preventing these people from going to court, if you will, if they are fired or terminated or exploited because of their sexual orientation.</s>PAUL: OK. You know, I don't think anybody should be fired for being gay. I do also, though, believe that your personal life should be personal and shouldn't affect anyone firing you. So I don't think the decision whether to hire or fire you should be based on things from your personal life. So when I say that it should remain in your house, yes, I don't think it should be part of the decision making of the business. So I might have been able to word it better, but I don't think it should enter into the decision at all.</s>BLITZER: So how would you have worded it because the implication is let's -- let's say -</s>PAUL: Well, exactly how I did.</s>BLITZER: Let's say you're gay and your employees don't like the fact you're gay so they fire you.</s>PAUL: Yes, I don't -</s>BLITZER: Should that employee be allowed to go to court and sue? If you're an excellent employee -</s>PAUL: Right.</s>BLITZER: You haven't done anything wrong. The only thing the employer doesn't like is you're gay. Shouldn't that employee have a right to go to court?</s>PAUL: Right. I don't think that anybody should be fired for being gay and I don't think that their personal lives should enter into whether we hire or fire anyone. Whether or not that should be a federal law, I think that these things should be decided at the state level. When our country was founded, we said that most criminal justice and most civil action would be performed at the local level. The federal government didn't have anything to do with it. So I don't think the federal government should weigh in on things like this. It should be decided state by state. And if state's want to make that an action for cause, that's fine. I do worry about a workplace, though, where every sort of classification, a person then becomes something where, oh, I lost my job, maybe I'll sue because I also happen to be gay.</s>BLITZER: But if you could prove it was because the employee hates gays -</s>PAUL: It's always - it's always - I know, it's always a he said/she said. Nobody puts signs up saying that. And if they do, then I think you would have an action or a cause for action. What I'm saying is, I think it should not enter into the workplace, in the sense that you shouldn't be hired or fired because you're gay.</s>BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about your quest to become the Republican president nomine. Last quarter you raised $2.5 million. That's down from $7 million the quarter before. Is the money drying up?</s>PAUL: The interesting thing is, is we've raised about $20 million between us and our super PACs. So that's not an insignificant amount of</s>BLITZER: How much is the super PAC and how much is -</s>PAUL: I think it's - I don't know the exact number. It might be 14 and six. Something like that.</s>BLITZER: Fourteen for the super PAC?</s>PAUL: Yes. No, 14 for us and six for the super</s>PAC. BLITZER: All right.