CAVUTO: Congressman, let me ask you. You talk about the amount of money you have raised over the Internet and for your campaign in general. And it is staggering, last Sunday alone, $6 million-plus.
There are reports, sir, that your campaign has received a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist in West Palm Beach. And your campaign had indicated you have no intention to return it. What are you going to do with that?
PAUL: It is probably already spent. Why give it back to him and use it for bad purposes?
You know, I don't even know his name. I never heard of it. You know, when you get 57,000 donations a day, are we supposed to screen them and find out their beliefs? He sent the money for my beliefs. And if he is promoting my viewpoints and my attitudes, why give it back to him if he has bad viewpoints?
And I don't endorse anything that he endorses or what anybody endorses. They come to me to endorse freedom and the Constitution and limited government. So, I see no purpose for me to start screening everybody that sends me money. I mean, it is impossible to do it. It is a ridiculous idea that I am supposed to screen these people.
CAVUTO: All right.
So, Congressman, when you find out that it's this Don Black who made the donation, and who ran a site called "Stormfront, White Pride Worldwide," now that you know it, now that you're familiar after the fact, you still would not return it?
PAUL: Well, if I spent his money and I took the money that maybe you might have sent to me and donate it back to him, that does not make any sense to me. Why should I give him money to promote his cause? That doesn't make any sense to me.
CAVUTO: So, what do you think, Congressman, of the candidates who do this? Either they say, ah, we got money from a group now we're aware was - - was kind of sticky; we don't want to give it — Hillary Clinton has had to do this, a number of other candidates have had to do this. Do you think that just is a bad practice?
PAUL: I think it is pandering. I think it is playing the political correctness, so that they — when you quiz them, and then they can say, oh, Neil, yes, I did exactly what you are suggesting I should do, and brag about how pure they are.
You know. I think that is a bit of pandering. There's no way that I'm not going to institute a policy of looking at 100 — 200,000 of these donations and find out. What about the people who get donations, want to get special interests from the military industrial complex? They put in — they raise, bundle their money, and send millions of dollars in there. And they want to rob the taxpayers. That is the real evil.
I mean, it is the evil that buys influence in government. And this is, to me, the corruption that should be corrected, not to pick out one of my donors out of 100,000 donors and say, oh, Ron Paul is not doing the right thing because he has not sent the money back.
I mean, I think you are missing the whole boat — the whole boat, because it is the immorality of government, it's the special interests in government, it's fighting illegal wars...
CAVUTO: All right.
PAUL: ... and financing, and taxing the people, destroying the people through inflation, and undermining this prosperity of the country.
CAVUTO: OK.
PAUL: Now, there is a moral problem that we should be dealing with. And that should be the responsibility of the government. That is what I stand for.
And, if people send me money and I spend it for that purpose, I feel good about it.
CAVUTO: All right, Congressman.
And, to be fair, your campaign has raised well over $10 million in just a little more a week. Kind of hard to keep track of contributions as little as $500. Thank you very much.
PAUL: People — people believe in our message.
CAVUTO: All right. Thank you. Very good seeing you.
