Our white house coverage continues this week with president ial announcements. Dr. Ben carson expected to launch his campaign tomorrow in detroit. That will be right here on cspan. And Mike Huckabee announces his candidate the candidacy in arkansas. That is tuesday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Josh good evening. Welcome to our conversation with the candidates. Our guest this evening, rand paul of kentucky. We will get to know senator paul and where he stands on the issues. I will be asking the candidates of questions. After a short break, we will have our audience join in to ask questions of their own. Before we start, lets get a quick look at the candidates biography. Rand paul was born in pittsburgh in 1963. The u. S. Senator from kentucky is the son of ron paul. Like his father, he is a doctor. He graduated from dukes school of medicine. Is a practicing ophthalmologist and founded an organization that provides eye exams to the needy. He is a vocal advocate for term limits and believes debt is a major threat. He has been married for 24 years and has some three sons. Josh senator paul, thank you for joining us. At this point, it seems like the decision is made. How close are you . Mr. Trump very close sen. Paul very close. I have been trying to spread a message that people may not have heard of, trying to gauge whether or not the message has resonance to have a chance to stand. Josh it seems like there is a ceiling. How do you branch out and bring in more people to the conversation . Sen. Paul i think the message i am putting forward has a constituency among independents and some democrats. I am one of the few candidates who is not only fiscally conservative but also who has reached out and worked with criminal justice or sexual assault. I think it is a mixture of issues. A lot of people are not neatly republican or democrat. A plurality of people are neither. Statistics in New Hampshire, maybe about one third of New Hampshire is independent. Josh a lot of people attach to the word libertarian. But the definition varies a little bit. Are you a libertarian . Sen. Paul i like to use the word libertarianish. I am a conservative but a libertarian in that i believe in a right to privacy. I think the government has no right to look at your records unless they have a court order and probable cause, signed by a judge. I have had some objection to this collection of your phone calls. The warrant revealed by Edward Snowden said verizon. I do not know mr. Verizon. They do not have a right to release my records. You put the individuals name on it, and you should have probable cause. I have a objection on privacy issues. On criminal justice issues, i think i can attract people beyond the Republican Party and not offend people in the Republican Party. The kid who makes a mistake with marijuana should not go to jail. A kid who makes a mistake with marijuana should not go to jail for 55 years. There was an article not too long ago. A kid named Timothy Tyler was caught with lsd at 23. She is 46 and will spend the rest of his life in prison. I do not approve of that. I do not want to put you in jail. Particularly, these horrendous things where people are in jail for decades. When you look at the statistics of who is going to jail, disproportionately black hispanic poor. There is an inadvertent racial outcome from this. It is real. If you look at surveys of whites and blacks and drug use, whites are using just as much as blacks. The people in prison are black because of the way we do our policing. Police happened to show up in cities in urban environments. It adds up over time. We have a real problem with criminal justice. I think issues like this reach beyond traditional republican ceilings. Josh id like to ask you about the controversy surrounding a recent letter that you put your name on, sent to iranian leaders. He later explained that you did this you later explained that you did this to help president obama. Help me understand what that meant. Sen. Paul the constitution gave the powers to write laws to congress and execute laws to the president. The president cannot write laws. I have voted for sanctions against iran with a hope we would negotiate. I do not want war. I think it is a tragedy and the last resort. But i also do not want an iran that is nuclear and will threaten neighbors and allies. I voted for sanctions. The sanctions have been passed by congress. They are a law. The president cannot sign a separate agreement with iran. He has to ask permission. The reason we separated the branches, so there would be checks and balances. No one branch would be too strong. We had debates with the president on whether he can amend health care law, immigration law. Now, whether or not he can undo sanctions without approval. We have also had a debate over war. I think that is the most important vote any legislator makes. The constitution is very clear that war is to be initiated or declared by congress, not the president. The president agreed with me as a candidate. He said no president should unilaterally go to war without the authority of congress. That is what the const touche and says constitution says. The leather furthers what i believe. To undo sanctions, it will have to be voted on. Josh we will take a short break. But not wanting something and preventing something are entirely Different Things when it comes to a nuclear iran. How far do you think the country should go to keep that from happening . Sen. Paul in order for diplomacy to work, there has to be an ultimate threat of force. I think that the iranians need to know we are serious. The sanctions have worked. I have seen the sanctions as a way to not have or war. I want there to be an agreement. Some people stopped and said how can that be . I do want a negotiated settlement, not a war with iran. I do not want to see a nuclear iran and becomes a menace to the world. Josh coming up, we will bring the audience into the conversation. Stay with us. We will be right back. Conversation with the candidates continues. Josh welcome back. Tonights guest, kentucky senator rand paul. It is time to bring in questions from the audience. I will follow up if needed, but lets get right to it. Our first question coming from lauren. What would you do differently with isis . How do you stop a terrorist group whose main goal is to destroy as much as possible and ultimately bring about mass destruction . When we go to war, we have to go to war in an orderly fashion and running to the cost according to the constitution. That is that a legislator would declare war. Right now, we have been at war for eight months. The president is doing it on his own. When he ran in 2007, he said no president should unilaterally go to war without the authority of congress. I do not think we are doing it in the appropriate fashion. Had i been president in august i would have come before congress and laid out the reasons i think isis is a military threat and what we need to do. I think we need to respond militarily to it. We need debate over when America Needs to be involved and where. For me, it becomes a personal debate. I have three teenage boys. I debate as if i would be sending one of them to war. It is a important debate. With regard to isis, what persuades me that we should do something is that they quickly took mosul a city of 1. 5 Million People. They were within a day of our consulate. I have been critical of Hillary Clinton for not to that defending the consulate in benghazi. It would be inexcusable to do the same thing under our watch. We should defend our consulate the embassy in baghdad. I tell people that i am disappointed we are fighting against our own weapons. Many weapons that were sent into the Syrian Civil War simply went to isis. Almost without hesitation. Some were probably given directly, if not inadvertently isis. I warned against it. I voted against sending those weapons because i set the irony is, we will be back to fight our own weapons in a year. A year after i voted against giving the weapons to the syrian rebels, sure enough, we are fighting our own weapons. There are times when innovation makes things worse intervention makes things worse. I think hillarys war in libya makes things worse. Give there is one thing that is true in the middle east, when we have toppled a dictator we have gotten chaos and radical islam. Libya is a disaster. Jihadists run amok. Qaddafi was a secular dictator and suppressed radical islam. He was no jeffersonian diplomat, but he kept peace and order. When he was toppled, it is worse for us now. The same thing in syria. Assad was a horrible dictator. But when president obama wanted to bomb, i oppose that also. If we had dislodged assad, isis would be in damascus. I will intervene when an American Interest is at stake. I think we need to have a Strong Military to deter attacks. But we should use it wisely and reluctantly. That is what reagan meant in easter strength. Peace through strength. Josh lets go to keenan. Senator paul, you address this earlier but these address please address your philosophy when confronted with an issue regarding the balance between individual privacy and government provided security. Such as law enforcement. Any of those other contacts as well. Sen. Paul Benjamin Franklin said that those who give up their liberty for security will have neither. I believe that. I do not think it is a tradeoff. I think we can capture, deter, and protect our nation from terrorists and use the constitution to do it. The reason i am hesitant to allow blanket surveillance or police to go in any house in america without werent warrant is that is what we fought the revolution over. The british were writing their own warrants. Under the patriot act, we allow that in our country. I think that is wrong. I want to have a separation between the police and the judge because people in government are not all perfect angels. I know my local fbi agent and he says, dont you trust me . Yes, you are my friend. But the reason i want you to call a judge, there was a time in our history, particularly the south, where you might have people that decide they want to go in because it is a black person or a jew or a gay person. I want there to be a separation between police and judiciary so that some sort of bias or ill feeling that is a rational could not ever occur. Where the person writing the warrant is just writing their own. They have to call a judge on the phone. If someone in manchester is accused of rape and you did not see them go into their house the police will stand outside the house, call a judge on the phone. You will get a judges permission to go in. We need separation of power. That is why checks and balances are so important to prevent abuse or bias. Josh thank you for the question. Another one from barbara. Will you take steps to end the corrupting influence of money on politics . If so, what would they be . Sen. Paul it is a good idea. We have tried to do Campaign Finance reform. It has been struck down by the courts as an infringement on First Amendment rights to buy speech. I think there is a way consistent with the constitution that you could limit the effect of special interests. I think special interest has too much money in washington. One way of trying to fix it that i think would pass the Supreme Court that i have been thinking about is, when we give out contracts, lets say we give you a billiondollar contract. When you sign the contract i think we can put limitations in that say you agree to limitations on using any money to lobby government for more money. The thing that makes me mad is a contractor gets a billion dollars, they take the first million and come back and ask us for more. It is a vicious cycle. We would not preemptively say, you cannot do this. We say, if you get a contract, you cannot do this. There is a precedent. If you are in active duty, you are not allowed to run for office in uniform. So we already have limitations that you voluntarily agree to. If i join the military, i sign a contract where i am limited in what i do campaign was. I think we should do it for contractors. The only way you would ever get it passed is you would have to limit big business contractors and unions. If both were limited equally and you had preventions built into the contract. If there is a Government Union that has 2 Million People working for it, they would have the same restrictions as a big contractor. That is the only way you would get both parties to agree to it. I am in favor of doing something. Josh lets go to the back of the audience. Another question from mike. As president , how would your ministry should address our energy economic, and climate security . Sen. Paul i think the main thing we need to do is to become energy independent. One of the good things that has come from technological advances now is we are getting to the point where we can export oil. In the 1970s, we passed a law because of opec and the embargo that we would have no export of oil. Now we have so much natural gas that we are the greatest, maybe the largest producer in the world. We have come a long way towards energy independence. I think you can have both a Clean Environment and economic growth. But i think you have to have a balance of both. I have been saying that the epa the balance has shifted in one direction. You need a Clean Environment and a robust economy. I will give you an example of how sometimes we have gone too far. The clean water act says you cannot discharge pollutants into a navigable stream. I agree with that and would have voted for it. Somewhere along the way, over 40 years of rule after rule, we have to find dirt to be a pollutant. And my backyard to be a navigable stream. That is wrong. The government is wasting time harassing private Property Owners and not doing what they should do. I want them to police the ohio river. Do not come into my backyard because there are some leaves with black on the bottom of it. Determined that my backyard is a wetland and put me in jail. Im not making this up. Ken lucas from southern mississippi went to jail for 10 years. His crime was conspiracy to violate clean water act. We have gone too far. We are doing better as far as energy independence. Josh how much of an issue do you think Climate Change should be in this election . Sen. Paul i think there needs to be a balance. We have had rules. This is where everything in washington gets dumbed down. You are either for or against the environment. Maybe we can be for the same time. This is for the economy at the same time. John stossel asked this question before. People are like, the polar bears are drowning. It has to be worse. Its getting better. Have you seen pictures of pittsburgh in 1919 . Pittsburgh in 1919, your shirt would be covered in soot. Were doing a lot better. There have been rules on omissions from smokestacks since the 1930s. Everything that comes out of a smokestack has gotten better in the last 40 years. Sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, mercury, have been trending down. Where people go too far on the other side is they want to make the rules so low that you have no business. 40 of our electricity comes from coal. I come from a coal producing state. So i have interest in this. But we should not shut them down tomorrow. Lets have reasonable rules where we can still have electricity. The only other thing i tell people about the balance of this, the countries that produce the 10 largest amounts of electricity versus the countries that produce the least amount of electricity, the top 10 live 25 years longer than the bottom 10. We need to not be so alarmist because we do not want pollution. Lets try to balance the environment and civilization. Josh thank you, senator. Lets go to a social media question from facebook. Where do you stand on gun control . Sen. Paul gun control is a freedom issue in the bill of rights. You would have to change the bill of rights if you want to have gun control. I think we have had some terrible tragedies and emotional debate about this. I can understand. If my kids got shot at school, i would be emotional. I understand the emotions of it. The thing is, we do have a problem. Either through Mental Illness or spiritual brokenness, there are young teenage boys committing these crimes. The interesting thing you will see about these crimes, not one of them happens at a police station. These kids are crazy, mentally ill or whatever is wrong, but they do not try to shoot policeman. They will shoot back. What we have done in our society is say, at all our schools there are no weapons here. That is like assigned to a crazy person saying, come shoot our kids. We should have an Armed Security guard whether you do or dont. For a teacher has a gun in a desk. There should be a message to crazy kids that you do not get a free shooting spree. The Second Amendment is in our bill of rights. I am a big believer in the freedom to bear arms. Josh time is flying. But owing has the next question. Do you think the hobby lobby decision was a win or loss for liberty . Sen. Paul a net win. Guest josh we will leave it at that . Sen. Paul you told me to go shorter on my answers. [laughter] the thing is that religious liberty is important. It is very important to me. It was also sort of a bizarre case in that people were trying to insist i think there were 15 forms of Birth Control available at hobby lobby. They were asking for three more or something. A lot of these decisions should be outside the governmental realm. For all the craziness, there is no republican that wants to ban Birth Control. Through Community Health clinics, you can get Birth Control anywhere in the country. It is not a huge issue on Birth Control. If you own hobby lobby and have a profound religious belief that certain types of Birth Control you have an objection to, that is your right. Josh about 30 seconds. Do you consider this topic a distraction from the issues that are important . Sen. Paul religious liberty is an important issue. Josh as we have the discussion about Womens Health care and the Affordable Care act, these have a place. In 2012, folks thought this was sen. Paul the one reason it was a ridiculous issue was insinuating that anybody in america wants to ban Birth Control on either side. After a while, people see these ads. They did this in colorado. They try to go after the candidate out there and went on and on. People finally ran an ad saying he did not want to allow condoms. They finally voted the other guy out because his ads were so ridiculous. The underlying issue of images liberty is important. Josh that is all the time we have. We will sign off on television, but the conversation will continue online and our mobile app. You will find 30 minutes of more questions from our studio audience. Thank you for watching on tv. Have a great night. The road to the white house continues to get more crowded. Monday, dr. Ben carson is expected to announce his plans to seek the republican nomination. We will have his announcement live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Tuesday, former talkshow host Mike Huckabee is expected to announce he is taking another shot at the nomination. Watch that at 11 00 a. M. Eastern on tuesday, also on cspan. Remarkable partnerships. Iconic women. Their stories in first ladies. She painted a portrait of washington, which was one of the things that endeared her to the nation. They would find out what she was wearing, what she was doing. Who she was seen. She takes over a Radio Station and starts running in. How do you do that . She exerted in normans influence. Enormous influence. First ladies looking inside the personal life of every first lady in american history. Based on original interviews from cspans first ladys series. Learn about their unique partnerships with their president ial spouses. First ladies president ial historians on the lives of american women, filled with stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house, sometimes at great personal cost. Cspans first ladys is an entertaining and inspiring read. Now available as a hardcover or ebook. Here are a few of the book festivals we will cover on cspan2s book tv. We will visit maryland for the gaithersburg book festival with tom davis and martin frost and david axelrod. We will close out may at book expo america, where the Publishing Industry showcases upcoming book. Then in june, the printers row lit fest with lawrence wright. That is this spring on cspan2. Tonight q a with Walter Pincus. Then, questions with Prime MinisterDavid Cameron and other Party Leaders ahead of the election. Brian this week on q a, our guest is Walter Pincus of the Washington Post. He writes about National Security and defense issues. He talks about his recent articles and events in the news. Brian how long have you been writing for the Washington Post . Walter i started in 1960. Ben bradley hired me in 1966. I left in