Sen. Rand Paul, that sentinel of good sense and comity, hopped aboard the Never Nikki express running through the Republican presidential primary this week and did so in a way that provided him with an opportunity to take a nasty shot at an erstwhile compadre – Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
Paul, R-Bowling Green, for some reason felt compelled to publicly declare he won’t be voting for Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, for any number of purported sins. In so doing he skipped the traditional part – announcing who he would endorse among those remaining in the field, which has been whittled down to Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the man with a Secretariat-like lead heading into the far turn, former President Donald J. Trump.
“I don’t think any informed or knowledgeable libertarian or conservative should support Nikki Haley,” he said by way of explanation. “I’ve seen her attitude towards our interventions overseas. I’ve seen her involvement in the military-industrial complex.”
He has even launched a website, nevernikki.net, where folks can line up to trade insults about her.
It was a typical Paul performance. He made it clear he was against something but failed to say he was for anything, a perfect encapsulation of his worthless political career. The man tears down and then proudly gazes at the destruction he has wrought without moving a millimeter to build anything back up. And the good people of the Commonwealth keep sending him back to do it again and again.
Now, Rand Paul declaring that he is against something is so common it isn’t usually newsworthy. What made his ire interesting this go-round is the wording found in one particularly statement.
“Nikki Haley is from the wing of the party that’s the opposite of everything I believe in,” Paul said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “This is sort of the McConnell-McCain, Dick Cheney wing that says deficits don’t matter and the border of Ukraine is more important than U.S. border.”
The McCain referenced, of course, is the late Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, who once astutely characterized Paul as a “wacko bird” while Cheney is former Vice President Dick Cheney, the primary instigator behind the nation’s sad misadventure in Afghanistan. So, the bile from our boy Rand regarding that pair should be taken for granted.
McConnell, R-Louisville, is another matter. It’s been firmly established that bad blood exists between the two Kentucky lawmakers. That became apparent in July 2022 when Paul put the kibosh on President Biden’s intended appointment of a Federalist Society right-winger to the federal bench in Kentucky as part of an arrangement between the White House and McConnell.
Paul fumed he was not informed about the deal and, therefore, gave it a thumbs down. He has proved cranky about it ever since. Now he’s proclaiming that McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, hails from “the wing of the party that’s the opposite of everything I believe in.”
McConnell, in Paul’s view, thinks “deficits don’t matter and the border of Ukraine is more important than U.S. border.”
There’s a lot to pick apart in this rumpus, including whether, as some have speculated, that Paul favored Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, over McConnell in the election for Senate Republican leader in January 2023. And it raises questions about the policy matters that McConnell embraces that Paul finds so heinous.
The McConnell-Paul relationship got off to a rocky start when in 2010, during Paul’s first Senate campaign, McConnell supported Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the primary. McConnell immediately sought to make amends after Paul’s victory and the pair entered into something like a non-aggression pact, with McConnell endorsing Paul in his unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign.
“Rand Paul and I have a close relationship,” McConnell told Politico in December 2014. “We didn’t start out that way, but we ended up being big allies. He was very helpful to me (in Mitch’s 2014 re-election campaign) and obviously I’m going to support somebody from my own state. And everybody understands that.”
Close relationships often turn into messy divorces and there sure doesn’t appear to be any sign of reproachment between the two particulars here, which could lead to a bit of awkwardness in Kentucky’s GOP political salons.
Regarding the current brouhaha, Paul is a bit off base when he maintains McConnell celebrates federal budget deficits, although Mitch doesn’t wear the issue like a hair shirt ala our boy Rand. McConnell has, more to the point, always been an advocate of deal making, save for his unexplained reluctance during the eight years of the Obama administration, and seeks out agreements to keep the government operating as inefficiently as ever. That often results in deficits because he, and his hidebound party won’t raise taxes to pay for necessary programs.
Do you think Rand would support a tax hike, perhaps on wealthy citizens who walk away scot-free on April 15, to pay off some of the debt? Didn’t think so.
McConnell, to his credit, has advocated for sending billions of dollars to Ukraine to defend itself against the unwarranted and inhumane invasion by Russia, logically viewing it as a way to undermine Russian expansion plans that doesn’t cost American lives while sending out a message to rogue states like China that the United States won’t sit on its hands if they seek to improperly swallow up territory.
He also wants to send a check to Israel as it seeks to quash Hamas, the Palestinian outfit responsible for a brutal and inhumane attack in Gaza late last year. Israel, it should be noted, hasn’t been especially discerning in how it has reacted militarily to the attack, but it has consistently received support for such endeavors from the federal government in the past.
The aid to those two nations is caught up in a domestic squabble over immigration on the southern border, which has emerged as the issue of the month among Republicans who hope to carry it to the finish line, that being the November election. Sensing, correctly, that aid to Ukraine and Israel was in jeopardy because of the border dispute, McConnell is hashing out an agreement with Democrats on broadening protections.
The deal itself hasn’t been unveiled because some details remain under discussion. The Washington Times reported that “the current framework includes a right to government-funded attorneys for illegal immigrant children struggling through the immigration courts and an expansion of legal immigration, which are priorities of President Biden. In exchange, Republicans would win new limits on attempts to claim asylum and expanded speedy deportation powers but no significant new restrictions on The Homeland Security Department’s power to ‘parole’ illegal immigrants directly into the U.S.”
McConnell and his Senate lieutenants insist it includes some of the most significant concessions on immigration that Democrats have offered in many years.
While the package likely will pass the Senate, it faces problems in a House of Representatives overrun by the crazies. McConnell has warned the lower chamber that the deal is the best available and it’s unlikely those supporting stronger restrictions can reach a more restrictive settlement by opposing it and looking forward to move something in the next Congress. Democrats likely will filibuster any draconian immigration measure if Republicans take the Senate as expected in November and Democrats may very likely capture the House.
Thus far, House Republicans look to be nixing the offer, perhaps preferring to retain immigration as an election-year issue while depriving Biden a policy victory. Enter Rand Paul, who generally is no friend to foreign aid and doesn’t believe the negotiated bill goes far enough on immigration.
“Now McConnell has been sort of boxed in that he has to do something on the border,” Paul told Breitbart New Saturday. “What they’re offering on the border is going to be a sellout. What they’re offering on the border is that they’ll let 5,000 migrants come across every day. And then they’ll have some rule they’ll institute after they get to 5,000. So essentially, they allow 1.8 million migrants to come in a year. And then they try to kick in some rules after the fact.”
Good, old Rand. You can always count on him.