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Texas Police on Alert for Biker Gang Violence; FBI: Amtrak Train Not Hit by Gunfire; Shiite Fighters Mobilize to Try to Take Back Ramadi; Plains Near Record Rainfall; Presidential Hopeful Rand Paul Weighs in on Issues. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired May 19, 2015 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SGT. W. PATRICK SWANTON, WACO POLICE: We were prepared and we were able to handle any threat that comes towards us.

[05:59:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Officials warning law enforcement that members of two bikers gangs have been, quote, "instructed to arm themselves with weapons and travel to north Texas."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The bonds for each of the people who are being arrested, $1 million each.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A mass action lawsuit against Amtrak.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A sharp focus on the engineer and his experience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His conduct right now is inexplicable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm still in shock. I can't believe it.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Four people killed in a Washington, D.C., mansion.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The fire has turned into a case of suspected arson and murder mystery.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CO-ANCHOR: If you were president and you saw ISIS encroaching on Baghdad, what would the U.S. role be?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota and Michaela Pereira.

CHRIS CUOMO, CO-ANCHOR: Good morning, welcome to your NEW DAY. It's Tuesday, May 19, 6 a.m. in the East. And there is a major biker war playing out in Texas. Police fear it's only the beginning, and they report hundreds of bikers are there. More are on the way, that they're armed to the teeth, and all this after that deadly shootout in Waco. We have what this war is about. And it ain't about parking spots, as first reported. CAMEROTA: Yes, that's for sure. Sunday's gun battle at the Waco

restaurant left nine bikers dead, and it appears that four of them may have been taken out by police. We begin our coverage this morning with CNN's Nick Valencia in Waco, Texas.

Tell us what we're learning, Nick.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn. Police say they have seen an increase in bike gang members in the city since Sunday's incident, but so far all police officers are safe.

Meanwhile, this morning, police continue to gather evidence from the scene as more motorcyclists are taken in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SWANTON: I'm still at 170 individuals that we have arrested and charged.

VALENCIA (voice-over): In custody this morning, 170 suspected biker gang members, their bond totaling $170 million after a dispute in a restaurant bathroom on Monday led to nine people dead and 18 injured, over 100 weapons found at the scene.

SWANTON: Shell casings, weapons, knives, clubs. We're talking chains with padlocks on the end of them.

VALENCIA: Cell-phone video captures the aftermath. Bodies lying outside Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas. The fierce gun battle with rival motorcycle gang members turned within moments into a gun battle with officers.

A memo going out to local police, warning officers that members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks have reportedly been instructed to arm themselves and travel to north Texas.

SWANTON: We would encourage biker groups to stand down. There's been enough bloodshed. There's been enough death here.

VALENCIA: Aerials show members of one of the biker groups, the Cossacks, being arrested. Many of the others, part of the notorious Bandido Motorcycle Club.

CHRIS OMBODT, FORMER CAPTAIN, HENNEPIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: In Texas the Bandidos are at the top of the pile. Everybody wants to be at that top level. That's all this is. It's king of the hill.

JIMMY GRAVES, STATE CHAIRMAN FOR THE COC: We're not like that. The '60s are long gone.

VALENCIA: With a faded swastika tattooed on his arm, a Bandido member high up in rank says the police and the media have it all wrong.

GRAVES: We didn't do nothing here. We're fighting for our rights. They're saying lies on TV and telling everybody that the Bandidos are after police officers. That's never been.

VALENCIA: The U.S. Justice Department identifies the Bandidos as one of the top two largest outlaw motorcycle gangs in America, with at least 2,000 members in the U.S. and 13 other countries. And the Texas Department of Public Safety still lists the Bandidos as a tier two gang, the second most dangerous classification.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VALENCIA: According to a law enforcement source preliminary information indicates that four of the bikers were shot and killed by police. Though local police say they still haven't determined who is responsible for the nine deaths -- Chris.

CUOMO: Obviously, the big question, Nick, is what happens next. Thank you for staying on it.

To be sure, the situation is as dangerous as it is bizarre. Think about it. This is a turf conflict playing out in plain sight.

Now, our next guest spent five years infiltrating bikers gangs for the DEA and ATF. We agreed to protect his identity, because he fears, and reasonably so, that he is still a target. His name is Charles Falco, and he's the author of "Vagos, Mongols and Outlaws."

Charles, thank you for joining us, and appreciate it even under these conditions. Appreciate you taking the risk to talk to us.

CHARLES FALCO, AUTHOR, "VAGOS, MONGOLS AND OUTLAWS": Thank you, Chris. Thank you for having me.

CUOMO: All right. So to be very clear, the early reports were this is about parking spots, and that's why these hundreds of guys showed up and have decided to fight to the death. What's it really about?

FALCO: It's about territory. It's about the Texas state bottom rocker that members wear on their vest. The Cossacks decided to step it up and challenge the Bandidos for Texas, and this is a result of that challenge.

CUOMO: The bottom rocker, you mean the patch that you wear along the bottom of the vest. The top one is your name. You have your symbol in the middle and then you have your location on the bottom. Now, why is something like that so important? What does it really mean?

FALCO: That means you're claiming that state as your state or your territory.

CUOMO: To do what?

FALCO: To be the top echelon of the biker world for that state. It's not really to control drugs or criminal activity. It's just to be the biggest man on the block. It's to say, "This is ours."

CUOMO: But if it's not about -- if it's not about money or crime or anything like that, then what is there to the ownership?

FALCO: They like war. They like participating in war. They like acts of violence. And they want to just be able to say, "This is our state, and we stopped any other motorcycle gang from coming into our territory."

CUOMO: What is the word about how big this is, how serious this is?

FALCO: Well, any time a biker gang war starts, it never stops. So, I mean, 30, 40 years from now you'll still be reporting about these two biker gangs fighting each other. The war will never end between the two.

[06:05:06] CUOMO: But is it -- so it's the Cossacks and the Bandidos. Now isn't this something that you usually hear about later on, like as opposed to playing out in plain sight, where they're telling the police, "We're coming." They're telling people to arm themselves, and they're going to come in there. "And we're going to settle this once and for all." How unusual is this?

FALCO: It's pretty unusual. There have been some shootouts in the last decade on the West Coast. But they're usually -- they usually like to stay low key and not be in the public eye so that they can kind of fool the public into thinking that they're not a gang.

CUOMO: And what do you hear in terms of what may happen next here with all these big numbers of people? I mean, it's very unusual for us to observe this, and the police are kind of like the referees in this situation, as opposed to just locking everybody down.

FALCO: Yes. I think -- I think the Bandidos and the Cossacks will stand down for now, and then I think you'll see a retaliation in about nine months to a year. Biker gangs are very patient, and they'll wait and then they'll strike again.

But I think they'll back off now because of the media attention and law enforcement being out in high numbers. They'll wait for it to die down, and they'll do a counterattack.

CUOMO: And what do you make of these big numbers that are going there, though? If they're planning to kind of keep it on the down low for a while, why are they amassing such big numbers in state?

FALCO: I think they're preparing for any other actions that could happen. I think they're trying to mass numbers so they can protect each other, especially in areas where they might have less members.

So, I mean, both the Bandidos and Cossacks have hundreds of members in Texas. And both of them I would consider that their home state. So I think they're just massing to make sure that they can protect each other to get a game plan for the future, to meet and discuss this ongoing war with each other.

CUOMO: Is there anything the police can do to stop something like this? Again, I mean, you understand the dynamics of the cultures very well. But for these -- basically, you saw the scene play out for yourself. The cops were just kind of ringing around the situation and letting it play out. I mean, it was very weird. All these locals were showing up with their own weapons to kind of defend what was going on there, and they wound up getting arrested. It's very unusual.

FALCO: Yes. I think if we stop giving concealed weapons permits to gang members, that would have definitely reduced the amount of guns that were at this restaurant.

I think second, any time a restaurant or bar or club has a biker event, they should make it so it is no colors. No colors meaning they're not allowed to wear any gang-affiliated clothing.

CUOMO: But how do you enforce it?

FALCO: These gangs won't...

CUOMO: How do you enforce that? If you have like five big dudes come in with these vests on, you know, you expect some, like, waiter to come up to them and say, "I'm sorry. You'll have to leave"?

And how do you keep them from getting concealed weapon permits when, unless they're felons, you know, or they trigger any of the requirements, they're as able to get them as anywhere else in a place like Texas.

FALCO: I know. You would have to change legislation. Because all these gang members are known gang members. The feds and the local police department have files on them. They're in the system as gang members. So you simply would just have to flag these folks in the system, so when they did apply for a concealed weapons permit it came up they were a known gang member and then you don't -- you don't allow them to get a concealed weapons permit.

CUOMO: When you talk to law enforcement, they see these gangs as kind of, like, getting away with the worst of what we have in society. They believe that they are responsible collectively for over half the drug trafficking in the country, that they believe that they are responsible for a large percentage of unsolved murders. What was the big lesson that you learned in your time infiltrating that you think people should know?

FALCO: That biker bangs are much more sophisticated and structured, much more structured, than your average street gang. They know what they're doing. They have bylaws and rules and a highly sophisticated way of conducting war. They keep files on their enemies. They do counter-surveillance and surveillance on their enemies and law enforcement. They're very smart. They're not what we picture as our average biker.

CUOMO: Charles Falco, thank you very much. Thank you for agreeing to come on, even with your concerns. And we'll stay in touch off television so you can let us know what's going on. Appreciate it.

FALCO: Thank you, sir.

CUOMO: Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Another top story we're covering. There are new developments in the Amtrak crash investigation. The FBI finding no evidence of bullets being fired at the train before that crash. The engineer's actions remain the key focus. CNN's Erin McLaughlin has the very latest live for us from Philadelphia.

What are we learning this morning, Erin?

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn.

[06:10:01] Well, at the heart of this mystery is why the train accelerated. And so the focus very much is on 32-year-old engineer Brandon Bostian. A source with knowledge of the investigation say the possibilities range from human error to something more intentional.

Let me take you through some of the NTSB's latest findings. Yesterday the FBI looked at that circular marking on the windshield and concluded it was not from a bullet. Bostian also did not tell the dispatch the train was hit by an object prior to the crash. And so far, there's no indication of mechanical failure. But authorities say they are not ruling that out.

Now, today we are learning that a conductor on the train filing suit against Amtrak yesterday, the first four passengers filing suit, as well. But there is a cap, a federal cap on compensation for all victims and any claims of $200 million. And legal experts say that's simply not enough to cover the damages in this case. And now lawmakers are trying to increase that cap -- Michaela.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CO-ANCHOR: All right, Erin, thank you so much for that.

We turn now to Iraq where thousands of Shiite militiamen are readying for battle. Three thousand fighters mobilizing east of Ramadi in a desperate bid to take that key city back from ISIS. CNN senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh joins us live from Beirut with more -- Nick.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The clock really is ticking on whether or not the Iraqi government can mount a convincing counterattack to take back Ramadi. It is so utterly vital to the security of Baghdad, frankly. And for the long- term fight to try and win back so much of Iraq's population.

It sits on a main highway, frankly, from ISIS's heartlands in Syria right down to the capital. And it seems slowly ISIS are kicking government control out of there.

We learned last night that 25,000 people fled in the days of the assault itself. There are many questions being asked as to how was it possible -- (AUDIO GAP).

CUOMO: All right. We lost Nick. We'll get him back later on. We appreciate his reporting there for you.

We have other news. The State Department says it won't finish reviewing and releasing thousands of pages of Hillary Clinton's e- mails until January 2016.

We're also learning Clinton's lawyers handed over the e-mails in hard copy. It's like a dozen boxes. Now they need to be rescanned.

One thing Hillary Clinton is not handing over is her private e- mail server she used exclusively to conduct State Department business.

All of this as memos about Libya e-mailed to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal. He's a member of Clinton's inner circle. They're under scrutiny now. A GOP committee investigating Benghazi's attack says they want to subpoena Blumenthal and get those e-mails, which are supposedly private.

CAMEROTA: Rescue crews searching for more bodies following that deadly mudslide in northwest Colombia. Officials say at least 62 people were killed, dozens injured. Crews working tirelessly to bring aid to hundreds of survivors. Heavy rains swept away dozens of homes there. And more rain is expected in the next few days.

PEREIRA: Shocking video to show you out of China. Captured the moment when a retaining wall under construction toppled, crushing pedestrians. It's believed a strong gust of wind brought the wall down. Bystanders immediately rushing to help those that were trapped under the heavy debris. We understand at least two people were killed. Several others were injured. This happened in the eastern province of Chendong.

CUOMO: Can we see it again? Just to see how quickly it came down on those people.

PEREIRA: There was apparently a steel girder or something that was close by. The gust hit that and knocked it...

CUOMO: A makeshift wall, right?

PEREIRA: Yes. And then knocked that wall down.

CAMEROTA: Just terrible.

CUOMO: Lucky that people came there. Who knows?

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh. Right. It's always happy to report good Samaritans came rush in and try to get people out.

PEREIRA: It's lucky more people weren't killed actually.

CUOMO: All right. Back here at home we've got some weather concerns to worry about, rain really. Most of the country. It's going to bring the threat of flooding as a result. We could be looking actually at historic levels of rain for the month of May, at least in the south central states. That's what Chad Myers says. Let's bring him in. PEREIRA: Are you questioning Chad?

CUOMO: You know, look, I'm a fan in general. But I always try to like sell him on any propositions of the worst just in the sake of optimism.

CAMEROTA: Prove it, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Christopher Charles, you're just -- you're so difficult to work with.

CUOMO: I hear that.

MYERS: You always got that "does not play and work well with others" when you were in kindergarten (ph).

Rain showers coming into New York, but this is not what we're talking about. What you're talking about is Texas. Texas right now is approaching their entire yearly rainfall, and it's only the middle of May. It's already raining there. And it's still raining, and it has been raining. There are flood watches, and there are flood warnings from Kansas down into parts of Mexico.

This is what last week looked like. Everywhere that's red is four inches or more. Everywhere that's purple six inches of rain or more, and it's still raining.

This is what Texas looked like last year. The drought monitor said there's nothing growing. You have to get rid of your crops. You have to get rid of your cattle. There's nothing we can do about it. This year, almost completely gone. Now I know, there's still some drought, but this is how it sets up.

[06:15:09] The Gulf of Mexico moisture gets into Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, and it just rains. And it rains day after day after day. And then the next five or six days we are going to see another six or seven inches of rainfall. And some of that could come with hail, tornadoes and also wind damage.

Once you're in this pattern, guys, it's hard to get out. And they are stuck for a few more weeks.

CAMEROTA: Oh, boy. All right, Chad, thanks so much for the warning for folks there. Great to see you.

Meanwhile, up next, we have a one-on-one interview with Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky presidential hopeful separating himself from the pack on a number of issues. He has a different take on ISIS, on Iraq and the NSA. All that plus his new book next.

CUOMO: All right. We also are reporting on a deadly fire at a mansion in Washington, mainly because it's now being called a homicide. These mysterious texts and voice mails surfaced that we'll tell you about, especially the content of those messages, now piquing investigators' interests.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:20:00] CAMEROTA: Republican presidential hopeful Senator Rand Paul trying to separate himself from the growing field of GOP candidates. I sat down with the Kentucky senator at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, where we talked about everything from his plan to fight terror to his new book, "Take a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Senator Rand Paul, thanks so much for being on NEW DAY.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: OK. So let's start with the question that has tripped up a couple of your GOP other presidential hopefuls this week. And that is, and let me boil it down to its simplest form, was the Iraq war a mistake?

PAUL: Yes. And I think the reason it's a mistake is still an important one for us going forward, because we've had the same question repeatedly. Is it a good idea to go in and topple a secular dictator and try to build a nation? Are we good at building a nation? And can we build nations in our own image?

I think, really, every time we've toppled a secular dictator in the Middle East, we've gotten something worse and something less stable.

CAMEROTA: Why is it so hard for others who are running for president, like Marco Rubio and probably Jeb Bush to answer that question?

PAUL: I'm not sure why it's so hard, but it shows some differences between the candidates. And I think if people want another Iraq war, they know who they can vote for. If they want someone who's not very likely to have another Iraq war and will only go to war when we have to, when it's the last resort, when we have to defend America or American interests, there are going to be some other alternatives.

CAMEROTA: Twelve years later, as you know, the U.S. is still grappling with the chaos in Iraq. On Sunday, the key city of Ramadi fell to ISIS. In your new book, you write, quote, "The onus of defeating ISIS is squarely on Iraqis and Kurds." That sounds good, of course, but it doesn't seem to be working. The Iraqi army was not up to the task in Ramadi.

PAUL: Well, that's the real question. Because people are saying we should have just stayed.

But we stayed for a decade, we've trained them for a decade. We've given them billions of dollars in weapons. And I jokingly said, "You know what? What we should have bought them was tear-away uniforms, so when they run they can tear their uniforms off quicker."

However, the Kurds are a different story. Kurds are good fighters. I would go one step further. I would arm the Kurds, and I would also offer them a homeland. If you will fight -- if you will fight to keep people out and to push out these marauders, I'd give you a homeland.

CAMEROTA: But then why isn't that working in Ramadi? And what about Baghdad? I mean, would you do if Baghdad were in danger of falling?

PAUL: Yes, I'm all for the U.S. helping and supporting the Iraqis. And we have been. And I'm all for the air power, and I'm for continuing to help the Iraqis and the Kurds with arms and with air support.

Ramadi is different. It's not a Kurdish region. You're now talking about a Sunni region. This is ultimately why Iraq has devolved into a failed state. Because what we've got is a government that's almost entirely Shiite aligned with Iran, and the Sunnis feel left out.

It's also why Americans or Shiites can't -- can take the cities, but we can't ultimately hold them and have a lasting peace, unless the Sunnis are involved. So it's a very, very complicated situation with many different players. But if the Sunnis are not involved, there will be no lasting peace.

CAMEROTA: But if you were president and you saw ISIS encroaching on Baghdad, what would the U.S. role be?

PAUL: Right now it would be air support. But the one thing I would be doing in addition to that would be arming the Kurds to a much greater extent than we have been, recognizing the Kurds as a nation.

But the other thing I would do is one of the things we did during the surge. People talk about American troops during the surge. The other thing we did is put a lot of money into assistance to the Sunni chieftains to encourage their support.

And if you weigh that amount of money versus what we're spending on other things, I think it would be money well-spent to try to encourage the allegiance of the Sunni chieftains once again. I think they will discover if they haven't already discovered that life under ISIS is not the greatest for your women, for Christians, for minorities of any sort. I think it doesn't take long for people to grow tired of ISIS.

But we also -- the only way to get the Sunnis onboard is to include them. The Shiite government and Baghdad needs to be more inclusive.

CAMEROTA: It would be nice if people rejected ISIS and that just solved that, but the problem is ISIS is growing. I mean, let's talk about here at home that there's interest in ISIS. And in fact, let's talk about the attack in Garland, Texas. If

that attack had been successful, in other words if the ISIS-inspired terrorists had actually killed the people inside that cartoon drawing contest, what would President Rand Paul have done in retaliation?

PAUL: Well, the same thing we do all the time, and we should continue doing is to try to prevent this from happening. If it happens, people have to be punished.

I think the one mistake that President Obama made has sort of been downplaying maybe what happened at Ft. Hood in saying this is workplace violence when it was obviously an act of terrorism.

I also think that, because we've been so enamored at collecting all Americans' records, we haven't spent enough time specifically going after the people that attack us.

[06:25:06] The Tsarnaev boys, we knew that one of them was potentially a plotter. The Russians tipped us off. We interviewed them, but we didn't know he went back to Chechnya. So I don't think we're spending enough time actually looking at and going after and isolating and looking at the records of people who we have suspicion for. I'm all for that. I think we take our eye off the prize when we look at all Americans' records.

CAMEROTA: So when you say that you would have dealt with, if there was an ISIS attack on the homeland, you mean in a criminal justice way? Or you mean in an antiterrorism way?

PAUL: Well, I'm not sure how it's different. If Simpson had shot somebody, and we didn't kill him on the spot there, he would have been tried in a regular American court for murder. And he would have gone to prison or been put to death.

CAMEROTA: Sure. I mean, the argument is getting to the root of the problem. So not just dealing with them as they pop up in a criminal justice way; trying them, getting them to stop the problem.

PAUL: That goes to what I was referring to as to how we go after terrorists. I think we need to spend more time. I would go deeper into the woods.

This is what people misunderstand sometimes about my position. I'm all for going after terrorists. I'm all for the NSA looking at records. But they need to look at records of individuals. This is about the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment says the name has to be on the warrant. You can't put "Verizon" on a warrant and look at all Verizon customers. You put that gentleman Simpson's name, and then you look at his phone records and the next set.

I don't care how many hops into the records you go. As long as you have suspicion, someone's name on the warrant and a judge signs the warrant.

CAMEROTA: Of all the GOP presidential candidates, you are the most vocal opponent of the Patriot Act. Some of your fellow candidates say that it has been a great tool. It's been a great tool in protecting the homeland.

PAUL: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Do you disagree with them?

PAUL: Yes, they're wrong. I mean, the privacy commission recently came out, and the government said, "Oh, 52 people have been captured through this bulk collection of records." But when the privacy committee looked at this and when -- then with the Senate committee looking at this, they found nobody that was actually captured by the bulk collection of records.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, what the House Intelligence Committee has said and the former chairman of that Mike Rogers who's now a CNN analyst. And he stands by this today, is that there were 54 terror attacks around the world that were stopped by this metadata collection. So terror attacks thwarted including the 2009 New York City subway.

PAUL: There are people who disagree with him. There are people who disagree with him, including the Privacy Committee, that looked at all of this and disagrees with him. So you can have disagreements.

The people on our side, who believe in Constitution, the Bill of Rights and privacy, we have a more difficult time, though, because they don't give us the intelligence information.

I get to see very little. The Intelligence Committee gets to see 100 times more than I get to see. And the thing is you getting the information given to you by people who believe in this bulk collection of records.

So you're only getting one side. We don't get a two-sided evaluation of any of this.

On the Intelligence Committees in recent history Ron Wyden has been a champion for privacy and the Bill of Rights. There have been very few others that I think have a balanced or nuanced approach as far as protecting the individual's right to privacy.

CAMEROTA: Let me ask you the question from the flip side. And that is, do you know any innocent Americans or know of any innocent Americans who have been caught up in the dragnet of phone record collection?

PAUL: I don't get any of the information. So if there were, no one would tell us.

CAMEROTA: Do you fear that? Is that what you fear...

PAUL: Let me finish the point. The point is, is that the director of national intelligence came and said the program didn't even exist. So how could I ever trust them to actually reveal if they're abusing the system?

Now, there were some press reports that some people who worked at the NSA were spying on their girlfriend and their boyfriend to see where they were. There have been some instances.

But even if there were zero, what Madison said about government, what Madison said about laws is that if government were comprised of angels we wouldn't have to worry about giving them power. Government will never be comprised of angels, and that's why, whether there's been an abuse or not, I worry about restraining power and making them obey. He was -- Patrick Henry said the chains of the Constitution were to bind the politicians. That's what I worry about, that we enforce it.

CAMEROTA: Quickly, I want to ask you about the vote to authorize the Patriot Act. It's coming up this week -- or the House version of it, called the Freedom Act. This week in the Senate all eyes on you. Are you going to filibuster this?

PAUL: I will do whatever it takes to stop it. Whether or not I'm allowed to filibuster is another question. There's a sort of a paper filibuster that you can always do demanding 60 votes and objecting, not giving them consent to proceed. That I will do.

I will do a formal filibuster. Whether or not that means I can go to the floor, some of that depends on what happens, because you're not always allowed. You don't realize this, but you have to get to the floor when the floor allows you to come. So whether that happens or not, I will filibuster the Patriot Act, and I will do everything I can to try to adhere to the course.

[06:30:00] The courts have now said the bulk collection of records is illegal. They should stop immediately.

CAMEROTA: If you're allowed to filibuster, you plan to talk for 13 hours or...