Sen. Rand Paul has been receiving a lot of praise recently for stating the obvious. And he deserves all the credit being tossed his way.
Appearing on the once-great CBS program 60 Minutes on Sunday, the Bowling Green Republican acknowledged to interviewer Scott Pelley that the chaos inflicted on Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in its Javert-like pursuit of undocumented aliens, particularly in relation to the shooting and killing of protester Alex Pretti, is straining public faith in the system.
“You seem to be saying trust is broken,’’ Pelley said.
“Without question,’’ Paul replied.
Now, it’s pretty obvious the American public is taking a dubious look at the machinations of the Trump administration over the handling of the Pretti incident, not to mention the ICE killing of Pretti Renee Good, shot three times while sitting in her car on a Minneapolis street. But congressional Republicans, for the most part, have either remained mum on the issue or backed the horse manure rationalizations emitted from the Department of Homeland Security.
Given all that, Paul’s claim of broken trust stands as a profile in political courage.
As chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Paul is in a position to do something about it. He has requested the presence of the heads of ICE, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to a hearing on Feb. 12 to sift through the muck.
And, while he’s not calling for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at this time, he’s not exactly ruling it out, either.
“I think we have to get to our hearing Feb. 12 and we have to see what the people who work for her say,’’ Paul told Pelley in regard to Noem, who oversees the entire bloody mess. “But my advice to them, if they’re watching, and they come to testify, is, if you come in and you’re going to justify that this man was aggressively assaulting your police officers, that cannot be acceptable and that’s why they’re lacking in trust.’’
Since the Pretti killing, Paul has made it clear that an independent investigation is necessary given the justifications offered by officials within the administration of President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump that seem to change with every news cycle. Noem, for instance, characterized Pretti as a “domestic terrorist’’ and presidential advisor Stephen Miller called him an “assassin.’’
“We have to get some rules of the game and we can’t have the government justifying this type of behavior because the vast majority of Americans think this was unfair what happened,’’ Paul told the Fox Business channel.
“We need to know going forward there will be some rules,’’ he added. “There needs to be an independent investigation for goodness’ sake. If this happened on a police force the officers, whether or not they committed anything wrong, would immediately be put on administrative leave and there would be an investigation. But I don’t know who trusts an investigation to be done by DHS when they’re the ones calling this person an ‘assassin’ or would-be assassin, a ‘domestic terrorist,’ saying he was assaulting police. How can they be in charge of an independent investigation?
“Something’s gotta happen here,’’ he said.
Paul is probably the most notorious libertarian serving in Washington these days and, therefore, he has a tendency to go off the deep end every now and then, particularly when it comes to issue like foreign aid and his legendary confrontations with Dr. Anthony Fauci, former President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor over COVID policy. His notions often make you want to tear your hair out. That hasn’t changed.
But Paul is displaying a fortitude that seems to have bypassed his Republican colleagues in Congress – he is willing to confront and criticize the Trump White House when the situation warrants. Most GOP lawmakers, including Paul’s fellow Kentuckians like Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, and Rep. Jamie Comer, R-TheFrankfortLoop, have displayed the backbone of an earthworm when it comes to dealing with the Lord of Mar-a-Lago. In fact, some of these dopes have thoroughly degraded themselves in that regard.
Take a bow, Andy.
Paul, on the other hand, has consistently displayed a devotion to standing up for what he sees as right. Sometimes what he sees is right is skewed. But he is openly displaying the courage of his convictions. In that way he is standing with his compatriot in the House, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, who likewise can be maddening but can at least be counted on to follow his own code.
Both Massie and Paul have endorsed Trump in the past and support his initiatives a majority of the time. But both consistently find themselves on the easily irritated president’s bad side. The animosity rose again on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast where Trump took yet another opportunity to play the fool.
“No matter what we do, this moron, no matter what it is, we could put them all together, like, what would you say the top five things? Name ‘em, we’ll put ‘em in one bill and we’ll put it before ‘em and we’ll get a 100 percent vote except for this guy named Thomas Massie,’’ Trump said. “There’s something wrong with him. We call him Rand Paul Jr. You know, it’s like, they just vote no. They love voting no. They think it’s good politically. They guy’s polling at like 9 percent.’’
The two lawmakers do, indeed, oppose administration funding bills, like the horrible One Big Beautiful Bill that passed last year that adds to the federal debt – which is now at almost $39 trillion. And recently Paul has found himself in conflict with Trump on several matters.
Since reassuming office in January 2025, Trump has arbitrarily and without congressional consent raised tariffs, throwing the world into an economic tizzy. The Supreme Court is slated to determine whether he has the authority to do so since only Congress, supposedly, can raise taxes, and what’s keeping them so long from rendering a decision in the case is anybody’s guess.
Last April, Paul introduced the No Taxation Without Representation Act, which would strengthen the nation’s system of checks and balances by requiring congressional approval before any new tariffs are imposed.
“The rallying cry of ‘no taxation without representation’ sparked a revolution — and it’s just as relevant today,’’ Paul said in a statement. “Unchecked executive actions enacting tariffs tax our citizens, threaten our economy, raise prices for everyday goods, and erode the system of checks and balances that our founders so carefully crafted.”
He has also thrown cold water on Trump’s desire for the federal government to grab control of or, in his words, ”nationalize’’ the country’s elections system, which is now essentially in the hands of the individual states.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least ‒ many, 15 places.'” Trump said on a recent podcast. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that are so crooked.”
Paul responded by saying there’s one, big problem, with Trump’s plan – it’s unconstitutional.
“…as far as the time, place and manner of elections, that, under the Constitution, is a state activity,” Paul told Stephanie Ruhle on MS NOW. “So, I’m not for nationalizing it.”
And there was the entire kerfuffle over Venezuela – the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers leaving Venezuelan ports, the military assaults on Venezuelan vessels suspected of carrying drugs, resulting in more than a hundred deaths, and the invasion and subsequent capture or Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
None of that met with Paul’s approval.
“Congress alone decides when America goes to war,” Paul wrote on X on Monday. “Calling a military strike ‘law enforcement’ does not change the Constitution. If a foreign power bombed our defenses and seized our president, no one would deny it was an act of war. The standard has to apply both ways.”
And, of course, he joined Massie in calling for the release of the so-called Epstein files, documents related to the legal case against financier Jeffrey Epstein, the child sex offender, rapist, human trafficker and one-time Trump BFF who had pals in high places who may have been aware of his nefarious dealings. Trump supported the release during his successful 2024 presidential campaign, changed his mind upon assuming office and ultimately bowed to the inevitable, calling for the release. It was Massie, supported by Paul, who led the campaign to open the spigot.
“You know, I’ve supported transparency on the Epstein files from the beginning,’’ Paul said on ABC This Week back in December. “I voted repeatedly to release them.’’
Paul has his faults. But, unlike most of his GOP confederates, he’s not afraid to confront the sociopath running the country into the ground.