Rand Paul (R - KY) called out Trump for declaring emergencies to rule by fiat and Congress for failing to do their duty in American democracy and 3:00 specified the Republicans. He talked at length about how America is not about one person ruling over all and called the House cowards.
Here is his 15 minute speech and everyone should watch it. He also called out Congress for giving the Executive powers over the past few decades and specifically the power of taxation (tariffs).
Is this the start of MAGA breaking that a Republican as noted as Paul is publicly calling out the dictatorship/cult of personality this government has become? I hope so. And maybe he should run for the Republican nomination in 2028 to give non-MAGA Pubs a voice.
Undoubtedly we’re now seeing the results of an ever-expanded executive authority when that authority suddenly decides to not play by the rules. What I doubt is that this will convince anyone to rein in the powers of the executive; they just want a “friendly” dictator in the White House. Which is a shame.
I don’t expect the GOP as a whole to rebel against Trump. As a whole, they seem perfectly willing to abrogate their responsibilities and surrender their power to him. When Rand Paul of all people starts making sense, you know you’re in trouble.
Nope. No love for him. But at least I respect that he’s holding to his beliefs. The more Libertarian wing of the party is rolling over but he hasn’t changed his view on the role of government.
Thanks for sharing this, @Saint_Cad . One doesn’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill, but this is somewhat heartening. I looked on Fox to see if they’re running it before I realized it’s a week old. I’m sure they didn’t run it when it was new, either.
I have a general idea of what a boob Paul has been in the past, but never paid enough attention to feel any particular hatred. I sure appreciate and respect the words he spoke that day. Because
I / we are adults and can agree and give praise even when it’s an adversary who gets something right.
Its not his first criticism. He was very clearly against the tariffs. I haven’t followed everything he has said but he doesn’t seem to be hesitant in going against Trump.
Rand Paul, and the rest of the supposedly libertarian wing of the GOP, can f**k right off. Really?! We are almost a decade into the presidential career of the most flagrantly anti-liberty constitution-disdaining president in US history. We haven’t heard a peep (except the clicking of heels and the rasping of fascist buttock kissing) from them. Now all of sudden because Trump is crashing the economy (where they keep their money) they decide to grow half a spine, and come up with this kind of statement. Too little, too late, you coward.
I do think we’ll probably see more GOP politicians jump off the Trump train as the economy takes a nose dive. But it will amount to a bunch of hand wringing and buck passing that will have no effect on Trump’s ability to do terrible things.
But with slim majorities in both houses, if economy/staff cuts/? stay bad, GOP incumbents can lose to backlash from voters, hence no rubber stamp Congress
I’m glad he’s saying it, though saying I felt any love for him for it is several orders of magnitude more generous than I feel.
Seriously, he knew what Trump was saying he would do on day one. Yet somehow, Biden then Harris was always worse. And I’ll bet a starship’s worth of quatloos that if we have open and free elections in 2028, that somehow, someway he’ll decide that the (D) candidate will in some way be “worse” than Trump’s autocracy.
One way to take on trump is build coalitions around only a specific issue. Avoid the personal odious history, and purity tests. Align enough single issue voters on enough single issues that in aggregate get to the goal of stopping the trump coup. Heck, from a single issue, may improve political discourse and expand to more than one coalition. The enemy of my enemy isn’t my friend, but can be useful to get to the goal.
I mean, Rand Paul’s neighbor could have done us all a favor and pushed him under the lawn mower instead of busting some ribs.
Yeah this. The GOP response to their great leader crashing the economy will be a lot hand wringing and concerned words like Rand Paul’s in the OP. It is aimed at distancing themselves from Trump’s economy in the minds of their constituents, not actually stopping Trump from doing fascist stuff
He’s a goddamned senator. He clearly has no interest in resisting Trump and standing up for the constitution and “libertarian” principles he allegedly believes in,. If he did he would have actually resisted Trump in a way that actually mattered, with his vote on the Senate floor.
Rand Paul voted against conviction in both impeachment trials of Donald Trump and persisted in propagating claims of electoral fraud that led to the 06 January insurrection and continued denialism of the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. Now he’s whinging because he doesn’t like tariffs.
Total horseshit from Paul, as usual. It’s after-the-fact whining when it’s too late to do anything — opposition-but-not-really.
It’s the same stuff we see from Susan Collins, where she votes against some “troubling” initiative or other only when she’s confident the measure has enough votes to pass and her Nay can be merely symbolic in order to burnish her “centrist” image.
Paul waited until the bus had careered off the cliff and is now sitting in the back screaming that the driver didn’t use his turn signal as we all plummet to our fiery end.
Love? Absolutely not. Not even anything close to like. But it’s a sign of how truly fucked up things are that he’s the only Republican senator pointing out on the senate floor that tariffs are taxes, and that this is something that used to be an obvious fact that conservatives didn’t have to try dancing around.