The following is the transcript of the interview with Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Nov. 23, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Republican Senator Rand Paul, who joins us from Bowling Green, Kentucky. Welcome back to the program, Senator. A lot to get to, but on this concern about political violence or angry rhetoric, I know the President himself has survived these two attempts on his life. You talked to us about those risks to him. And then we had this killing of Charlie Kirk just a few months ago. Is the President holding himself to the same standard that he is asking of others when it comes to dialing back dangerous rhetoric?
SEN. RAND PAUL: You know, everybody knows that the President is famous for his unfiltered social media. But if you take at face value the idea that calling your opponents traitors and then specifically saying that it warrants the death penalty is reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible, there are a number of other ways to describe it, but it’s not something that is helping the country heal wounds. I think it stirs things up and- and really, I think we can do better.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, on the homeland security front, I understand you are chair of that committee, and so you have some insight into some of these domestic threats. It’s not just these Democratic lawmakers. We saw out in the state of Indiana, four Republican state senators were targeted by swatting threats amid President Trump’s public pressure on them to redistrict their state. Just a few weeks ago, we did see one of the convicted January 6 rioters who was then pardoned by President Trump arrested for threatening to kill Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Are we at the point here where it’s not just unfiltered social media posts, but truly dangerous rhetoric?
SEN. RAND PAUL: Well, you know, I’ve been on the receiving side of this. Even my father, who’s been retired for some time, has been on the receiving end of swatting. Police are called. Says there’s an emergency in the home, and the goal is to, you know, have someone draw a gun and be killed as the police come in, supposedly to rescue someone who’s not really in need of being rescued. So, I think both sides have been doing this, and I think the language on treason and traitors, both to Republicans and Democrats, is, as I said, reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that- so one of the other developments we’ve seen just over the weekend is that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia, just a staunch supporter for so long of the President, has said she is going to step away because she’s paid such a public price for some of her positions. Do you think there is room in your party for disagreeing with President Trump?
SEN. RAND PAUL: I think it’s important that we have independent voices. So, I’m sad to see her voice go away, or potentially go away. I think that she brought up something in the last week or so that was very important. What is the Republican plan for health care? So, I’ve engaged the President on this, and I’m putting forward my own plan. But in my plan, what it allows for is people to buy their insurance through a collective. Basically to buy their insurance through Costco or Sam’s Club or Amazon. And mine is the only plan out there that would actually drive prices down. But that’s what an independent voice will help in our country. Independent voice within the Republican caucus, not to see things always inside the box, but to think of some out of the box solutions. So, I think independent voices are important in the Republican Party.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you, because of your position on Homeland Security, you may have some insight into the drug cartels. You are also on Senate Foreign Relations, and it is tomorrow that the Trump administration officially will designate the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. That’s the cartel the Trump administration says is linked to Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Secretary Hegseth, says it gives the administration new tools. Nothing’s on or off the table, he says, militarily. Legally, what changes tomorrow? What becomes possible?
SEN. RAND PAUL: I think by doing this, they’re pretending as if we are at war. They’re pretending as if they’ve gotten some imprimatur to do what they want. When you have war, the rules of engagement are lessened. So, for example, we normally don’t shoot boats that we suspect of being drug dealers. In fact, if the Coast Guard tomorrow started shooting all vessels that are off of Miami or off of San Diego, about one in four of the vessels that they normally board doesn’t have drugs. So it actually would be unlawful if the Coast Guard started blowing up boats. But for some reason they say, oh, we’re at war off the coast of Venezuela. And so it’s different rule of engagement. It’s one of war. But you know, Senator Kaine and I brought this up, and we said, if it’s war, let’s- let’s declare it as war. Let’s have this discussion. Is it war or not? And the administration refused that. They want to have it both ways. They want to say, Oh, we can just say these people are terrorists, are narco-terrorists, so we can blow them up. But it’s extraordinary that when some of them survive, they pluck them out of the water. They don’t prosecute them for drugs. They don’t collect drugs. They don’t tell us if they were armed or not. They just send them back to their country, most of the time, not being Venezuela. They’ve sent one back to Colombia and one back to Ecuador, but nobody’s making any pretense of even interviewing them to find out who’s selling you the drugs. Maybe we could find out who the kingpins are if they’re involved in the drug trade. Not a word. And I’ve been given zero, not one briefing, because I’m skeptical of what they’re doing. They don’t brief me or the general Senate at all. A few hand selected people may have gotten a briefing, but I have not been invited to any briefings on Venezuela.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that’s fairly unusual, given your homeland security role, and that the premise for some of this action has to do with both immigration and drug policy, according to the President. I know the DEA administrator recently spoke to our Nicole Sganga and told her that they have seen between a 30% to 45% increase in cocaine prices per kilogram due to these DoD boat strikes and a shift towards land routes for delivery of those drugs. In other words, there’s still demand for the drugs and the cartels are just finding different routes to deliver them. Have you seen any evidence that the President’s actions to date are winning a drug war?
SEN. PAUL: You know, I think we should be trying to work on the demand side, treating it as a health problem, as an addiction problem in our country, and trying to lessen the demand. And that is part of the overall solution, the war on drugs, though, to capture all the people selling drugs. The price goes up and more people are attracted to it. You know, a couple of the people that have been identified as being on these boats are simply down on their luck, people with no prospects who are offered $500 to get on a boat and race across the ocean, and so there always will be those people. There’s probably a limitless number of those people in South America. There’s been some benefit when we’ve cooperated with countries and with governments. But that’s not what this is, and I fear that this is not going to do anything for the drug trade, but it is really going against the rule of law in the way in which we interact with people on the high seas, and it has no precedent.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I’ve seen you quoted as saying there are people in the administration who have wanted to go to war in Venezuela for some time. Who are you talking about?
SEN. PAUL: I think it’s clear that Senator Rubio, as a senator, was very much an advocate of regime change. This was at odds, really, with President Trump, and so when he was picked, a lot of people who had been supportive of President Trump were- oh, my goodness, they’re picking someone much more hawkish and much more eager to be involved and to intervene in other countries. And so people worried. And then the first year or so, people are like, oh, well, Rubio has done a good job on foreign aid, and they’ve cut back on all of the abuse of these NGOs around the world. And I think the people supporting the President have been very supportive of the Secretary of State. But I think once there’s an invasion of Venezuela, or if they decide to re-up the subsidies and the gifts to Ukraine, I think you’ll see a splintering and a fracturing of the movement that has supported the President, because I think a lot of people, including myself, were attracted to the president because of his reticence to get us involved in foreign war.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, to date, they say nothing on or off the table, no specifics. We’ll continue to track all the reporting on that. Senator Rand Paul, thank you for your time today. We’ll be back in a moment.