Senator Rand Paul is tired of being the only Republican senator willing to stand up to President Trump.
The libertarian spoke with Politico’s Dasha Burns just days after being deliberately left out of Trump’s gathering of GOP senators in the Rose Garden. “We have everybody but one person here,” Trump said Wednesday. “We’re just missing one person. You’ll never guess who that is. Let me give you—he automatically votes no on everything. He thinks it’s good politics. It’s really not good politics.”
Paul addressed the rift between himself and Trump in an interview with Burns, released on Friday.
“The president considers it to be bizarre and weird, but I believe that we should have less debt, and we should balance our budget…. I take it as a badge of courage, really,” Paul said. “There has to be someone left. What if there’s no one left who actually believes in balanced budgets? To me, I’m worried about the demise of a conservative voice within the Republican Party if we all become rubber stamps.”
While the Kentucky senator is certainly a supporter of the president, he has made a string of decisions that make his commitment to a more traditional brand of conservatism clear. He has come out against the extrajudicial Caribbean drug boat bombings, was “not a big fan” of Trump’s military parade, and most notably was one of only three Republican senators to vote against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the grounds that it would increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion.
“If I’m given the choice of President Trump versus Harris or versus Biden, without question, I choose President Trump over and over again,” Paul told Burns. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and just say, ‘Oh, I’m leaving all my beliefs on the doorstep. I’m no longer going to be for free trade. I’m no longer going to be for balanced budgets. I’m no longer going to be opposed to killing people without trials, without naming them, without evidence.’ No, I have to remain who I am.”
Paul also expressed discomfort with Trump’s willingness to attack any Republican who may disagree with him, like Representative Thomas Massie, who the president wants primaried, or even Paul himself.
“It’s a warning sign: ‘Oppose me or my policies and I’ll come after you.’ And I don’t think that’s good for the Republican Party, nor do I think it’s good for the country,” Paul continued. “I think what made America great is capitalism … it’s a fallacy to say the nation’s being hollowed out by trade,” referring to Trump’s trade wars.
Paul also shed light on a deep fear of challenging the president on anything within the party.
“I hear a lot of flack from Republicans and they want me to do it. They say, ‘Oh, well, you’re not afraid of the president. You go tell him his nominee can’t make it,’” Paul said. “I’m just tired of always being the whipping boy.”
The full interview is available here.
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