Durrati already has a diary up on Wolf Blitzer’s interview with Rand Paul. Check it out here….
But I couldn’t believe what Rand Paul said on this evening’s PBS NewsHour…..
Judy Woodruff:
I think a number of your Republican colleagues are saying they agree with that, but they are arguing the president went farther than that today.
Senator John McCain called it the most disgraceful performance he’d ever seen by an American president.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.:
Well, John McCain’s been wrong on just about everything for the last 40 years.
And I will give you an example. He’s such a loose cannon and so emotional about issues that, when I opposed the expansion of NATO, which many have opposed, George Kennan among them, the most famous diplomat of the last century, opposed to the expansion of NATO as well, when I was exposed — opposed to the expansion of NATO, McCain said I was working for Putin.
And so that kind of comment really doesn’t even deserve to be countenanced. And, really, I think polite company or informed company shouldn’t even countenance someone McCain, who basically calls someone who has an intellectual opposition to expanding NATO, calls them a traitor.
So I don’t think much of McCain’s opinions on really any foreign policy.
So much for comity in the Senate…. I may not agree with a lot of what John McCain has stood for for the past 40 years, but Paul’s statement is beyond the pale. I only wish that Sen. McCain could return to the well of the Senate and beat Mr. Paul to a pulp. That would be good for John McCain and America.
Paul wasn’t finished:
Judy Woodruff:
Do you think President Trump, Senator, was right to essentially accept the Russian version of events? Vladimir Putin’s said, no, we didn’t interfere in your election.
And yet the entire intelligence community in this country has concluded the Russians did interfere. The president today was siding with the Russians. How do you read that?
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.:
I’m not so sure I would describe it as siding with the Russians.
I would say that President Trump has healthy dose of skepticism towards our intelligence community. And I — I share some of that.
I mean, James Clapper came before the Senate and lied. He said they weren’t collecting our information. That’s the biggest bold-faced lie that we have had in decades, and nobody did anything about it. James Clapper lied to the U.S. Senate about collecting our data.
You now have John Brennan, whose first vote was for the communist party, now calling President Trump a traitor. And so these people have really exposed or revealed themselves as great partisans. And yet they had the power to snoop on any American, to snoop on any person in the world.
And believe you me, they were scooping up everybody’s information.
Paul had to stoop to the “first vote was for the Communist Party”? WTF? Does Paul have a list of Communists in the government on a piece of microfilm he found in a pumpkin?
Judy Woodruff tied to push back a bit...but not enough. It’s time for her to go. How could she let the McCain comment slide?
Judy Woodruff:
So, Senator, you don’t think Vladimir Putin got the best of President Trump today?
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.:
No, not at all, because the thing is, is that we dwarf all other powers now.
Europe’s army, I think, is 13 times bigger than Russia’s army. Us plus Europe, we’re probably 30, 40 times bigger. We spend more on the military than the next 10 countries combined.
There’s not even a real comparison between the two. We are the sole remaining superpower. But I still think engagement is good, even when you are the sole remaining superpower.
From a sitting US Senator. What is in the water in Kentucky?