Tom Woods Show.
Hey everybody, Tom Woods here.
It's episode 2746, The Tom Woods Show.
And I'm just delighted to have Kelly Paul with me.
She is co-author with her husband,
Senator Rand Paul of The Case Against Socialism,
as well as, well, this one's from over a decade ago,
true and constant friends, love and inspiration
from our grandmothers, mothers and friends.
And we're gonna talk a little bit later
about a couple of children's books she has forthcoming.
But, you know, I just thought, I follow you on Twitter
and I agree with all your posts and all your reposts
and I thought we would have a good conversation.
So thanks for being here.
Thank you, Tom.
I'm delighted to be with you today.
Now, I wanna ask about your professional background,
but I first, I can't help saying,
this is not quite the life I suppose you were expecting
when you first met Rand Paul, all those decades,
several decades ago?
Yes, yes.
We've been married for, well, it'll be 36 years in October.
October 20th, 1990, we got married.
And yeah, I just thought I was marrying
this wonderful physician, which he is.
I knew he loved politics of course
and I knew about his family, but, you know,
at the time he really said he didn't have any intention
of running for anything because his dad, Ron Paul,
had always said, you know, you put all of this time
and energy into medical school and residency,
you need to practice for at least 15 or 20 years
before you even think about it, which we almost made that.
You know, but I also believe as Rand says,
timing is everything.
And when Jim Bunning decided not to run for that seat
and it was an open seat, suddenly, you know,
our life made a pretty abrupt turn into politics
from small town doctor in Bowling Green, Kentucky
to US Senator.
Can you share with us a little bit
of what the conversations were like when it came up?
I think I'd like to run for US Senate.
I mean, surely it had to have had at least
some inspiration from the success of his father.
Yes, it was, obviously, I wasn't super for it right at first.
You know, we had all of our kids were still at home
and it's a daunting thing to even consider running
for statewide office, national office.
So I was a little skeptical.
Rand is an extremely optimistic person.
He's an extremely persuasive person.
His persuasion tactic on me was that he,
because I said, you know,
I thought we were going to do this later in life.
He said, well, we are in our, you know,
mid to late forties now.
And I was thinking like, I don't know,
60 you'll run or something.
He said, but the time is right for now.
And he said, you know, Kelly,
this is just going to set the stage.
He said, I have less than a 5% chance
of winning this seat.
You know, Mitch McConnell's handpicked candidate,
Trey Grayson, Secretary of State,
paid all his dues, has had statewide office now for,
I don't know how long he'd been in,
but you know, Rand had zero name recognition.
He was, you know, an ophthalmologist
in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
And he said, I'm not going to win.
I have less than 5% chance of winning,
but let's do this.
And it'll set up my name recognition,
will be good exercise for later
when the kids are all out of the house
and I'll run maybe in my fifties or sixties.
And I remember looking at him,
I knew in my heart of hearts,
I said, if you do this, you're going to win.
I know you're going to win.
When people hear you, they're going to love you
and you're going to win.
So we have, you know, I'm going into this
knowing that you're going to win.
And I did.
And even though it was a crazy race,
I don't know if you remember back in 2010,
the national attention it got,
it was definitely a trial by fire for me
to experience that from just out of the blue
to Rand being literally on every single cable news channel,
24 seven.
I remember sitting in my kitchen and I had the remote
and I would just go from CNN to Fox to MSNBC
to all the different things thinking, okay,
let me find somewhere where they're not talking about Rand
that year.
And I never would.
I mean, it would be constant.
Well, that, so it so happens by a bizarre coincidence
that I was in the same college graduating class
with Trey Grayson.
So I knew him a little.
Oh, okay.
And he, the thing was, cause I, you know, I thought,
well, let me see if I can tell Rand anything.
And I was thinking back and the thing that stood up,
stood out about Trey was that nobody really knew
what his political allegiances were.
He was the guy who was always hanging out
at the Kennedy School of Government.
But we didn't know, was he?
I mean, we thought probably he was like
a conservative Democrat, but nobody exactly knew.
And so I thought that is the fact that he never
kind of poked his head up and took a stand
on anything that any of us would remember
was almost like he was planning a political career
even then.
No one knew anything about him.
Was it the perfect guy for Mitch McConnell?
Yes, you're exactly right.
And, you know, isn't that the case
with so many people in government,
literally from high school on, they want this path.
And Rand always describes it as,
they wanna be someone rather than do something, right?
They want this role in government.
And so they're very cautious.
They never take a stand too much on either side.
And that's part of the problem that we have in government.
People want to just protect their role
and be seen as, I don't know, reasonable or whatever.
And so they don't ever take any hard stands.
And that's probably why we're $38 trillion in debt.
Let's go way back.
How did you guys meet?
We met at an oyster roast in Atlanta, Georgia in 1989.
We were, I was there with friends from work
and he was there with a bunch of other residents
from Georgia Baptist.
He was doing his internship in general surgery
at Georgia Baptist.
And yeah, I was just there.
I was kind of bored.
I had gone up to a bunch of girls from University of Georgia
that were having a good time.
And I was like, I'm gonna meet some new people.
And before I knew it, I was having fun with these girls
from University of Georgia.
They graduated a few years before
and I turned around and there was Rand.
And he was manning the keg and asked me
if I wanted a beer.
I was like, yeah, and we talked for a while
and he was smart and interesting,
but we were just kind of talking vaguely.
We were actually talking, if you can believe this,
I know this sounds crazy,
but we were talking about Dostoevsky.
And he was smart.
He was like, I got my favorite books,
Brothers, Caramots, I don't even know
how we got into all of that.
But anyway, at first I thought
he was really too young for me.
I was like, gosh, he looked really young.
I mean, I was 25, he was 26
and he looked younger than that at the time.
And then there was this crazy thing.
I always talk about it.
Like it was like a divine intervention or something
because about 20 minutes later,
I was back talking to the girls from University of Georgia
and there was this dramatic event that happened
that there were a bunch of people sitting on a low deck
at this party and it collapsed.
And all these people spilled out into the grass.
And it wasn't like it was 20 feet high or anything.
It was like four feet or something.
So it was like, no, thankfully no one was really hurt,
but in that moment it was dramatic
and everyone's like, oh my gosh,
these people are laying in the grass
and I see Rand and these three other guys going over there
because he hadn't told me he was a doctor when we talked
and I see him like, you know,
doing all these manipulations on people
and this girl goes, oh thank goodness
we have all these doctors here from Georgia Baptist.
And I'm like, that is a doctor.
I thought he was like still in college or something.
And so anyway, after that,
like Rand was definitely surrounded by a lot of girls,
including me, but he was like, hey, we started talking again.
And I gave him my phone number
and went out to dinner the next night.
That is, all right, that's a great story.
But what is your professional background?
Don't you have a background in political consulting?
Not political consulting.
I did a little bit of it, tried it.
And you know, I decided it wasn't really for me.
My background is marketing communications.
I wrote executive speeches for Sprint,
Nortel Networks.
I did their corporate magazines.
I did corporate newsletters.
I did all that kind of stuff.
So I was marketing communications with Sprint
and then Nortel.
Then I freelanced for a long time as a writer,
just in the telecommunications industry.
And I did a brief stint.
I worked a little bit.
Actually, Ted Cruz was one of our clients
when I did a little bit of political consulting
but I just decided political consulting for Rand was enough.
Yeah, well, that's just it.
Because obviously if you have these skills
and you're in communications,
that's valuable for a political candidate.
So would you say like,
did the two of you really work together on the campaigns?
Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely.
I edit all of his speeches, give him ideas,
work together on two books.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how anyone in politics
does this world if they don't have a spouse
that is extremely into it.
Maybe not everyone has the background I do,
but it definitely helps that, I think I help him a lot.
I do have a background in writing,
in persuasion, in communication.
So sometimes it's hard.
You don't wanna criticize your spouse,
but obviously sometimes I tell him what he does great
and I tell him when I think,
oh, we need to work on that and it's good.
We sound off on each other back and forth
and I think it's helpful.
So where are you from originally?
I'm originally, well, I'm an Air Force brat.
So I grew up all over the world until I was nine.
And when I was nine years old,
my father, they're tired
and we moved from Izmir, Turkey to Russellville, Kentucky.
That's a bit of a change.
Yeah, my brothers and I laugh.
I would bet money that we're the only people
in the history of the entire world
that moved from Izmir, Turkey to Russellville, Kentucky.
Probably so.
And that was in the 1970s.
And so, yeah, it was definitely a culture shock
because I was still very young.
I was, I guess it was 10 when we moved to Russellville.
And so we were in this little town.
It's only about 7,000 people.
And we lived there until,
well, our parents lived there
until they moved to Bowling Green a few years ago,
but I graduated from high school there
and then I went to college out of state
and then lived in Atlanta, then met Rand.
Then we went to Durham for him to North Carolina
for him to complete his residency
in ophthalmology.
So the first three years of our marriage
were at Duke in Durham, North Carolina.
And then when he finished that,
we moved to Kentucky in 1993.
So I really wanted to be close to my mom and dad
when our first son was born.
So we settled here and decided to make this our home.
I was wondering how Rand made it to Kentucky, actually.
Now I know the answer.
But what were your political,
were you politically aware as a young person?
Not particularly.
I would say like a typical college student,
I didn't think too deeply about things.
And I was probably, I'll admit it.
I mean, it was more cool to be left leaning.
And so I was like, oh, yeah, okay.
And was a little bit more left leaning.
And then I got my first job
in Atlanta and I'll never forget this job.
I was working for this really tiny ad agency
and I made $18,000 a year.
And so I did the math.
Well, first I contracted.
So my first job out of college was for a software company
and I was a contractor.
So I would bill them for my hours
and I would get paid that amount.
So I didn't really think too much about taxes.
And I got my, about eight months later,
I got a real job at W2 income
and they said, you're gonna pay you $18,000.
I'm like, oh, that's not bad.
I typical English major, I did $18,000 divided by 12,
divided by two.
So I figured out what I would be making.
That's fine.
Get my first paycheck.
It's a lot less than what I'll pay off.
And I'm like, you know, I'm 22 years old
and I walk in and knock on the door of our person
that did the payroll and I'm like, I'm sorry.
I still remember her name.
She was super Southern from Atlanta.
I said, May, I'm so sorry,
but they've made a mistake on my paycheck.
Oh, geez.
And she died laughing.
I'm showing it.
She said, honey, have you never heard of FACA?
And I'm like, FACA, what is FACA?
She's like, FACA.
She was saying FACA, but it sounded like FACA.
She said, honey, that's your taxes.
And I'm like, oh my God,
if they're taking this much from me at $18,000 a year.
So yeah, I voted Republican the very next one.
So a lot of times people say that,
that you get your first paycheck
and it changes you politically
and you're living proof of that.
Yes.
It's like, if you're taking this much from everyone,
including someone who's making $18,000 a year,
why are we out of money all the time?
Why can't we balance our budgets?
Why are we in debt?
Unfortunately, my years of voting Republican
haven't changed anything.
Well, okay, that's a whole separate conversation.
I couldn't agree with you more,
but so in other words, when you met Rand,
you were at least approximately of like mind
on political questions.
Yeah, I was leaning, yeah, I was definitely,
definitely leaning more right.
And he was obviously already extremely knowledgeable
and his political beliefs being the son of Ron Paul.
And I loved hearing about it.
I mean, I learned a lot from Rand
from the moment that I met him.
I thought he was one of the most thoughtful, interesting
and introspective people that I'd ever met.
And he had an incredible knowledge of history
and not only American history, but world history.
And he was just a seeker and a thinker
and he still is.
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I assume the 2010 Senate campaign kicked off in 2009.
Yes.
Okay.
So how old were your children then?
They were 11, no, 10, 13 and 16.
Okay.
So this is maybe none of my business
but what was the conversation like with them?
Because of course there's something very glamorous
about running for the US Senate
but at the same time,
there's something that they have to be aware
for the unbelievable nastiness,
the attention of sometimes unwanted.
So did you guys prep them for this?
We did but being the ages that they were,
I think they were kind of like,
oh, I don't think they really understood the spotlight
as much as it really is.
I would say though they were all so into their own lives.
It was all sort of like, okay,
like our youngest was really excited about it
he even after Ren was elected,
he was always interested in going up to DC.
He went to several,
he ended up going to high school in DC.
And so he was into it.
Our middle was all about like,
I'm fine with whatever you do
as long as I don't have to change high schools.
He was already making the soccer team,
varsity soccer team for his freshman year.
And he was like, I don't wanna move my high school
and we promised him that he wouldn't have to do that.
So that was his concern.
And our oldest was on his way to college.
So we just kind of, as a family,
they were excited about it.
And it's, it is what it is.
You get on that roller coaster
and you have to take the ups and the downs.
But there are a lot of downs.
I don't mean to sound like a downer,
but I remember years ago,
during the GOP presidential campaigns of Dr. Ron Paul,
I would on Facebook,
Carol Paul used to be much, much more active.
And you would see she would get hoppin' mad
when somebody would say something untrue
about her husband or unkind about her husband.
It just drove her crazy.
It was one thing for him to be a congressman
who probably wasn't the most famous congressman.
You can get away with a lot
and nothing really happens to you.
But you run for president
and Rudy Giuliani attacks you on TV.
That was a whole different kind of life.
And now, even since just then, that was 2008,
but just in the 18 years since then,
the nastiness has gotten so much worse.
I mean, I don't know how you endure it, honestly.
I don't know how you endure it.
Well, you sort of, you know, you get used to it, I guess.
You can tune it out.
I mean, I do, yes, some of it does affect you.
And sometimes, not from the random people on Twitter,
I don't, that really doesn't affect me.
But, you know, there are people that you know, actually,
people in media who suddenly will turn on you
or say things that are untrue.
And that does hurt.
But, you know, you just gotta keep going.
You just gotta keep going.
I think you have to be made of a certain kind of stuff
to be able to withstand it.
Because Rand takes it from all sides.
I mean, it's one thing your Republican,
the Democrats, don't like you.
Rand is a much more complicated case
where he speaks his mind in all situations.
And in principle, everybody loves that.
In principle, that's what we want.
In practice, it isn't.
Yeah, they really don't like it.
They don't like it when their own flaws
and their own hypocrisies are revealed.
And we're seeing that right now.
And that is harder.
I will say that is harder.
It's always harder to be attacked
by your erstwhile friends or your so-called friends.
And then suddenly, you know,
they're calling you out just because you have revealed
their own hypocrisy or their own,
when they're straying from the values
and the principles that they claim to represent.
People don't like that.
All right, now look, I gotta ask you a question
that you don't want me to ask,
but I have to ask it.
You've talked about it a million times.
It's a terrible memory,
but I would be a terrible interview if I didn't ask you.
And that, of course, is the terrible episode
in the yard in 2016.
To me, the response to that over the years is,
well, it's easy for me to say,
I didn't endure the physical pain.
It's almost worse than the physical pain.
The physical pain sounds unbearable,
but that we're living in a society,
you know, let me start this again.
In the 1950s, there was a,
I bring this show up all the time,
everybody's sick and tired of hearing about it from me,
but the 1950s is a TV show called What's My Line?
And the object was the panel had to guess
the occupation of the contestant
by asking yes or no questions.
And it's the 1950s, so everyone is smartly dressed,
debonair, sophisticated, smart, funny, witty, clever,
you know, the exact opposite
of what a panel would be today,
you know, bluish, crass, you know?
So you get a glimpse in these old little shows,
you get a glimpse into the old America.
And it would have been inconceivable
if something like that had happened then,
which even something like that happening
would have been inconceivable,
but if it did happen,
you couldn't imagine anybody on that panel,
and I'm sure they leaned left
by the standards of the 1950s
who would have engaged in this crass behavior
in effect, cheering on the attack.
That would have been unthinkable.
We live in a completely different America
and that in particular is what disturbs me so much about this.
Yeah, no, it's that's probably the one area
when you say, does this bother you?
Ugly comments, that has bothered me a lot, you know,
to see, you know, someone you love,
your family member, your husband suffer
extreme, extreme physical pain
and suffering for over a year
and then have people laugh at it
or dismiss it or joke about it or lie about it.
It's constantly lied about.
I mean, that is the most horrible thing about it all
is not only are people so cruel and so callous,
but that they twist it for their own political means.
I mean, this case in, you know,
when it went to trial,
all of that information is readily available
to any journalist who wants to look at it.
This man, they love to call in the neighbor
and that they were quote unquote, that it was a fight,
which was not at all
and that they were having some kind of yard dispute,
total lie.
This person who, we live on almost three acres
so it's not like we can really see his house for my hours
and this person admitted to the police,
they're like, why did you attack Rand?
Oh well, yard waste,
we were having an argument over yard waste.
When did you talk to him?
I haven't talked to him.
He doesn't talk to anybody, this guy said.
They're like, so he admitted in court
that he had not spoken to Rand in nearly seven years.
Rand never had any difficulty with this person.
Their daughter used to babysit for my kids.
I liked his wife.
He was a sad, mentally disturbed, I believe.
I believe he went on steroids.
His wife left him, his kids left him.
He had lived in that house alone
for almost seven or eight years.
I think he was left leaning,
had all this hatred of Trump.
But if he had been convicted of assaulting
a member of Congress for political reasons,
it would have been 10 to 20 years in prison.
And the journalist never asked why suddenly
this person who is admitted,
he hadn't spoken to Rand,
hadn't complained about us in any way
to the Homeowners Association, nothing.
That suddenly he violently attacks Rand,
runs down a hill, slams into him from behind,
breaking his ribs, and then he says,
oh, it's because he had limbs in his lawn.
And the media repeats it over and over again.
All the headlines were Rand Paul,
less than perfect neighbor.
Rand Paul has a messy yard.
Meanwhile, it's like, of course,
he's gonna come up with some reason
other than he hates Rand Paul politically.
I know, hello.
Because he went from looking at a 10-year sentence
to I think eventually he only got like nine months.
But no journalist said that.
They literally took, even though we put out
press releases, we talked to the media,
we said, look, we haven't talked to this guy.
Rand has never had words with this guy.
This guy's never emailed Rand.
This guy's never called Rand or Kelly
or the Homeowners Association.
Nothing, but they took it as gospel,
what the felon, what the assaulter,
what the evil person did.
And that has probably made me lose my faith
in our media more than anything.
It's because they allowed that to be the narrative
and they allowed that to be, quote unquote,
the truth that everyone laughs about it
and acts like Rand wasn't doing the right yard work
and he got in a fight with someone.
That's not what happened at all.
But that is such a pervasive lie
that it makes people be so cavalier about joking,
like, ha ha, he got what he deserved or whatever.
And it's just sick.
It is just sickens me to my very core
when I hear anyone say that or make light of it.
But it also really angers me about the media
because the media pushed that narrative too.
It's like, wow, you hate this guy
who only just wants to stand up for the Constitution,
who's one of the best people up there
and you allow this complete lie
about his assault to go forward.
Why?
Why would they do that?
I don't understand it.
Well, it all, of course, got dredged up again recently
because of the nomination of Senator Mullen
for Homeland Security and Rand's statement there.
I watched that.
I made all my kids watch it,
in which he described in detail,
and shame on me for not having known
just how severe the situation had been for him.
But he described that and then demanded that this man
justify his remarks,
that I can understand why Rand Paul's neighbor
would have assaulted him in that way.
I mean, so I thought,
well, this is a home run for Rand.
I mean, that's absolutely fantastic.
And then I forgot how degraded the Republican Party is
or a lot of Republican voters.
And they're all saying,
oh, Rand Paul's got to get over it and move on.
If AOC had said,
I can understand why somebody shot Donald Trump
and Trump got upset about that,
would they say to Trump,
you've got to get over that, man, move on.
They have no principles at all.
Zero. Zero.
It is, yeah, that really sickened me.
And frankly, it sickens me
that we have the head of DHS,
a man who tried to get in the fight,
literally tried to jump over the dais
and get in a fist fight with someone in a Senate hearing
and never apologized for that,
went on all the news shows
and tried to act like a big, tough cowboy
saying, sometimes people need to get punched in the face.
I mean, some of his quotes just blow me away
and Rand showed them and the hearing
and everybody's just kind of like, whatever.
Here's a man who said sometimes
people need to get punched in the face.
Or he also said, I like to bite
and I don't care where I bite people.
It's like, we have an entire agency now
that has been, you know, riddled with problems,
riddled with problems with overuse of force.
This is why Kristi Noem left.
And then who do we put in?
Someone who says he likes to bite
and someone who is so dumb, literally so dumb
that he thinks that dueling still exists.
He's using that as an example.
Oh, well, this is how we solve problems.
Dueling and caning and Rand's like,
remember dueling's been illegal for 170 years
and he, the dumb look on his face.
I mean, this man is a neanderthal.
So I'm not surprised he decided to yuck it up
and make a big joke about his colleague
and don't ever forget why he said that too.
I mean, he was being asked by the media
why he voted against an additional,
he voted against Rand's amendment
to stop giving an additional $5 billion
in refugee welfare.
I mean, the last couple of months
through brave journalists like Nick Shirley,
we have seen the incredible levels of fraud
that's being perpetrated against the American taxpayer
by these refugee communities,
the Somalis in particular,
the 9 billion that we know of
and then we're seeing all of these fake daycares
and fake hospice.
So, and what does the U.S. Senate do?
It hands them another 5 billion.
Rand got in there, tried to stop it,
literally carved out this amendment said,
we can do something about this, right?
Let's not send an additional 5 billion.
And then what are all these fake MAGA Republican?
They say they're all MAGA
and yet they're the worst
in terms of appropriating spending
and he voted against Rand's amendment
and Rand had called out several of the Republicans that did.
He's like, it wasn't Democrats
that destroyed his amendment, it was Republicans.
So when he's asked by the media,
he can't defend his own position and what does he do?
He resorts to childish juvenile name calling
and then to add to that says, ha, ha,
I'm glad he got assaulted
or I just, you know, says I understand
which basically means he justifies it.
He justifies violence because he is a violent man.
He's a freaking Neanderthal.
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But yet, isn't it funny?
He's got the tough guy routine,
but when it comes time to vote on something,
he's a mouse.
This is the simplest thing to vote on in the world.
Well, why would you hesitate on this?
Right, I have no idea.
I forget what he said.
Oh, the White House didn't want us to.
Well, actually, Rand had talked to Trump
about that amendment.
And Rand's like, yeah, he was for it.
So I don't know.
They all run cover for each other.
They all sort of give all of these word salad responses
about why we can't stop all this insane spending
and none of it makes sense and they know it.
So I think he was just trying to change the subject
by making this attack on Rand personally.
And it was disgusting.
It was absolutely disgusting.
And I think he's a disgusting person.
I'm not seeking to put you on the spot with this
because I would ask Rand himself this kind of question.
So I'm not looking into what's the state of Rand's relationship
with the president, nothing like that.
That's a separate thing.
But have you met Trump?
And if so, what was your impression?
Yes, I've met Donald Trump many, many times.
And I've always liked him.
The same as Rand always says,
the first time he met Donald was before Donald
was running for president.
Rand had reached out to him.
Rand was doing a medical mission trip
to do eye surgery in Guatemala.
And he reached out to Donald Trump to raise funds
for this medical mission trip.
And Donald wrote him a $10,000 check
and then said, hey, do you want to play golf?
And they played golf together.
And Rand said, he was very charming and engaging
and friendly and everyone liked him
and he had a great time with them.
And I think that's been his experience
every time with Trump and mine as well.
I've met him many, many times.
And he's personally a very warm person.
And I always felt like he was being so unfairly attacked
by the media.
I voted for him three times.
But no, I don't like some of the things we're doing now.
But in person, Trump is very different than he is
than he comes off.
Yeah, that's the impression I've gotten
from pretty much everybody.
I'm going back again,
because I have another curiosity informed question here.
What was it like joining the Paul family?
Because that's one interesting family, isn't it?
Yeah, that is the best.
I mean, I love the Pauls so much.
Oh my gosh.
I just run and Carol are amazing in-laws.
What was it like meeting them for the first time?
It was fun.
It's a huge family, right?
So Rand's been a five.
His sister Lori, who sadly passed away about five years ago,
but she has five children and his sister Joy has six children.
So my kids have cousins by the dozens.
Literally, there are two dozen of them down there.
And now there's like the whole generation of great-grands.
But the first time I met them,
I was a little intimidated, to be honest,
when we were engaged because his dad,
I'd never really met anyone that had been in Congress before.
And so I was a little bit like, wow,
and they're the most warmhearted, completely humble,
natural people.
I just fell in love with them immediately
and with Rand's siblings, who I'm very, very close to.
And we never miss a Paul family Christmas
because it's the best.
It's literally like 50 people.
I mean, I'm not kidding.
And that is just immediate family
because everyone has so many kids
and there's just tons of great food.
Carol's always large and in charge in the kitchen
and everyone's cooking together.
And I always say the great thing about a big family
like that is no matter what you're into,
there's like somebody doing it, right?
So there'll be a big card table with people doing a puzzle.
There'll be people outside playing basketball.
There'll be some people that have set up a pickleball game
going in the driveway.
There's somebody else playing with all the babies
and there's always tons of, there's always a baby,
there's always a bunch of toddlers.
And it's just an amazing family, amazing, amazing family.
I just, I love, and I'm so close to all of Rand's siblings
and our nieces and nephews that are now,
mostly in their 20s and 30s.
And then there's a whole new crop of grand.
So for Ron's 90th birthday,
where we were all down there in August,
was really fun because we got to bring our new grandson
down there and my daughter-in-law made matching
in the fed hats for our son and our grandson
and for Ron and Rand.
And so that was really fun.
We just had a great big family party
and took a huge picture.
I'll send it to you for the show
of all the extended Paul family under the Liberty tree
in the Paul's front yard.
So it's, it's, they're great people.
And, you know, Ron always takes the time
to sit and talk to, to anybody, any of the grands,
any of the great grands about what he does
and what he believes.
He's just an incredible, incredible man.
Now this question though is gonna sound like
Whoopi Goldberg interviewing Hillary Clinton.
It is such a softball.
Like it's such a softball, but I have to ask it.
What would you say is a misconception
about your husband that drives you crazy
and you wish people knew him better
so they wouldn't have that misconception?
Oh gosh.
Well, I think that people think that Rand is,
I don't know that he doesn't have a sense of humor
or I don't know, I've heard him described
as being sort of like dour, which I don't really get that.
I mean, I think that he has an amazing sense of humor
and he has tons of friends and people love his stories
and he's also, he doesn't really like to argue very much.
He'll sit and listen to it.
Frankly, if we get into it with like somebody
that has a different point of view,
I'm the one that usually gets a little bit more feisty
or irritable if someone is making a point
that I think is way off.
And Rand is extremely, he's extremely calm.
He always wants to like listen to the other person's side
and he'll almost like repeat it back to them.
He does that sort of, I think it's Ben Franklin
that had that admonition that you need to always
like really take a step back
and almost repeat the other person's point of view
and try to learn from it.
And Rand is very much like that.
He doesn't like a lot of political back and forth.
When he's with friends or family,
he always just kinda wants to understand
that other person's point of view.
Tell us about the children's books you have forthcoming.
I'm so excited about those.
They're inspired by our grandson, Pierce Ashby-Paul.
He was born, he's about 15 months old.
He's born in December of 2025.
And he-
I guess 2024.
Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, 2024. Sorry.
Yeah, so he's about 15 months old now.
So my books, my daughter-in-law was over one day last summer
and she was like, you know,
there aren't very many patriotic children's books,
especially for like babies, like board books.
She's like, you know, she's very,
my daughter-in-law is very conservative.
So she married into the right family.
And so we were talking,
we were playing around with Pierce.
We're sitting on the back deck and I'm like,
she's like, you need to write one.
I'm like, yeah, maybe I will.
And she's like, you should write a book
for little Republicans.
I'm like, yeah, I don't wanna do that.
I wanna write a book for little Americans.
So then that night I was like,
we came up with the idea, good night, little Americans.
So that's my board book for babies and toddlers.
And it's a very lyrical book.
It's in rhyme.
And my books and the Good Night Young American
is for ages four to eight.
So it's a more involved picture book.
But both of them seek to sort of instill a sense of pride
and wonder in the American story.
And they both start with a little boy and his dog
and his family celebrating the 4th of July.
And the little boy asks his parents, you know,
why are we, what are we celebrating?
And his dad explains to him
about the Declaration of Independence.
And in 1776, and that's why we're celebrating.
That's why we have fireworks.
We're singing the Star-Spangled Banner.
And that night he's reading a book to his little boy,
the mom and dad, and the little boy starts to dream.
And the books take all of American revolutionary history
through the dream of a little boy.
He starts out on the Mayflower.
He is a colonist.
He makes friends with Sam Adams and he goes to the Tea Party.
He makes friends with Ben Franklin
and he flies the kite and learns about electricity.
He rides the midnight ride with Paul Revere.
He and his little dog are on their old little horse
and he's experiencing all of the things
that our founding fathers experienced.
He crosses the Delaware with George Washington.
He is at the Continental Congress.
He watches George Washington be elected.
So it's the goal and what I hope the books do
is to inspire a sense of wonder and astonishment
at the American story and really how brave,
how utterly brave our founding fathers were
and the risks that they took
and how miraculous our story really is
that we became this country.
And all told with a beautiful art,
the artist for young American is an American artist.
The artist for little American is an Italian artist.
They both have gorgeous, full color paintings,
bringing it all to life,
bringing the American story to life.
So I'm so proud of them and excited for them.
And they're just in time for America's
250th birthday this summer.
They'll be out in June.
Well, try to remember to drop me a line.
I'll include links to them in my email newsletter
for what it's worth, get the old Woods Boost on them.
That would be great.
They're both available for pre-order on Amazon right now.
And they'll, like I said,
they'll be out June 2nd is the official pub date.
One more thing, speaking of books,
you and Rand co-authored the case against socialism.
And I don't know that I can think of
any other example of a political couple.
I mean, well, no, not political couple,
like we are both office holders,
but where the wife and the husband write a book together.
I don't know of any US Senator doing that.
What, how did that come about?
How did it come about?
He got the idea and he had a publisher interested in it.
And he got it started.
And, you know, I just sort of took,
he kind of like, we kind of divided it up.
Like he's like, you know, why don't you write the sections
on what they do in Denmark and Sweden?
You know, at the time, of course,
that was when Bernie Sanders was non-stop
about how we need to be more like Sweden and Denmark.
And so I took over those sections doing the research
on really how much taxes they actually pay
for the so-called free healthcare and free university
and really debunked a lot of the myths about those countries
because they're not socialist countries.
And while they do have an enormous safety net,
it's because the people are paying for it.
And, you know, people just don't realize that,
you know, at $60,000 a year,
they're paying 60% of their income in taxes for those things.
And this is why they're having so much problem now
with all of the refugees that they've brought in
because, you know, those extensive social benefits
were predicated on everyone, a high-trust society,
everyone is paying the same amount
and that's not happening now.
I don't go into that in the book, of course,
because at that point,
that hadn't really happened so much yet, it was beginning.
But yeah, so it was kind of fun.
I took over that side of it and then I tried to,
you know, just add a little embellishments here and there.
We worked together.
We'd sit around at night, you know,
going off ideas on each other
about how to make this chapter more interesting or that one.
So he'd fly off to D.C. on a Monday morning
and fly back Thursday night.
And during that time, I would be at home
writing up different things in the chapters,
writing up new ideas that we needed to go on.
And I'd just show him my pages when he got in
and we'd talk about it all weekend.
It was really fun.
It was a good time working on that together.
Now it sounds like it's not boring in the Paul household.
No, it's never boring.
Never boring being married to Rand Paul.
That's for sure.
I can imagine.
It's been an amazing journey and I feel very blessed.
Well, Kelly, Paul, I appreciate your time.
I'm looking forward to the release of your books,
which as I say, I'll be happy to boost out to my audience.
So do let me know.
So thanks so much again.
Thank you, Tom.
I enjoyed it.
And thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Don't forget to join me this year
for the best vacation ever at TomWoodscrews.com.
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