From cutting taxes to working with President-elect Donald Trump’s leadership picks, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul spoke on his priorities and thoughts on a host of trending topics Monday in Bowling Green.

Some were presented to the audience of an event hosted by the Realtor Association of Southern Kentucky, and others to the media after.

He doubled down on his stated opposition to Trump’s stating last week that he plans to use the military to conduct a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

“It’s not because I don’t want these people to leave,” he said. “It’s because we have history in our country in a tradition of not using the army in our streets … There’s a difference between the local police and the army. If the army is in Iraq, as (Rep.) Brett (Guthrie) will tell you, you don’t get a warrant … It’s a different situation. … But there’s also the symbolism of: Can you imagine what it’s going to look like if we had 5,000 troops in uniform with semi-automatic weapons?”

Asked about budget reconciliation – a Senate procedure capable of circumventing a filibuster with a simple majority-vote on certain bills related to the budget – Paul said he thinks it should be used to make tax cuts permanent.

“I think we will use our majority very quickly within the first couple of months to make those tax cuts – some of them permanent – and to extend others, and maybe even expand upon it,” he said.

Asked if he opposes or especially supports any of Trump’s leadership picks, Paul said he’s excited to work with Robert Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard, respectively, picked to be the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the director of national intelligence.

Paul said he believes Kennedy’s leadership would help shed light on information related to COVID.

“I’ve been investigating our government’s funding of this research that went on in China that many of us believe spilled over and became an accident,” he said. “The (National Institutes of Health) has not revealed a lot of documents to me, nor Health and Human Services, and I think having Robert Kennedy over there will finally get some sunlight shed on these things.”

Pointing to the usage of food stamps for unhealthy food, Paul added that he thinks Kennedy has “the courage” to address a need for healthier food.

Paul also called himself a fan of Gabbard, adding that he believes she’ll look at intelligence agencies for bias and overreach of power.

“We don’t need to replace them with people who are biased against Democrats, but if you’re in the top level of intelligence, and you’ve been using your office to go after people you disagree with politically, no matter … who you disagree with, they should be removed from office,” he said.

Asked if he supports calls to close the U.S. Department of Education, Paul said he favors more local control.

Nixing the USDOE would require congressional action. If that occurred, department responsibilities, such as the administration of federal funds, would fall under a different entity. Opponents to its axing say that, at minimum, it’d disrupt important responsibilities of the department, which hires around 4,100 employees. Supporters of removing it – who, since its 1979 creation, have largely been Republicans that consider the department bloated – generally say that closing it wouldn’t hinder the administration of responsibilities.

“I think that the Department of Education were gone tomorrow, you wouldn’t know it’s gone,” Paul said.