President Trump warned Republicans to fall in line behind last-ditch legislation in the Senate to repeal and replace Obamacare, tweeting that any GOP lawmaker who votes against the bill will be remembered as “the Republican who saved Obamacare,” Politico reports.
He specifically singled out Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who is publicly opposed to the bill.
“It’s sad, in a way. We control all three branches and yet we’re not interested or able to do what we’ve pledged.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by the Washington Post.
“He will not have the votes. Everybody is being nice to everybody because they want us to vote for this, but we’re not going to vote for it.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), discussing Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan to replace Obamacare on Face the Nation.
Sen. Rand Paul blasted Sen. John McCain over his criticism of President Trump, saying the nation is “lucky” the Arizona senator is not president considering his foreign policy views, ABC News reports.
Said Paul: “Everything that he says about the president is colored by his own personal dispute he has got running with President Trump [over foreign policy], and it should be taken with a grain of salt because John McCain is the guy that has advocated for war everywhere. He would bankrupt the nation.”
He added: “Actually we’re very lucky John McCain is not in charge because I think we would be in perpetual war.”
“I just don’t think it’s useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party. We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do, like repealing Obamacare, if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by CNN.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)) said that “he would oppose the budget measure Republicans are counting on to begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act, leaving the effort in danger of derailing if any other GOP senators defect,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Paul said he would vote against the budget measure because it adds too much to the federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2017.”
Washington Post: “Paul, who was reelected last year, expects to cast the only ‘no’ vote in his conference. In a letter to leadership, released Tuesday, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) joined Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in pledging their support for the new budget resolution, with the caveat that they do not endorse its spending outlays.”
“I will tell you something I haven’t told anybody else. I’ve had some conversation with some other Republican senators and I’m not the only one with some misgivings over both Giuliani and Bolton. And I haven’t met a Democrat that’s for either one of them. But I’ve met several Republicans that aren’t.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), in an interview on Hardball, on who might be the next Secretary of State.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he would support whoever the Republican nominee is, even if it’s Donald Trump.
Said Paul: “I think we never get the candidate we exactly want unless you’re the candidate. Think about it from this perspective. I’m from Kentucky, and Hillary Clinton recently said she would put coal miners out of business, and she would put coal companies out of business.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is teasing a “major endorsement announcement” that he plans to give tomorrow, The Hill reports.
“Paul has maintained that he won’t endorse during the primary season after dropping out of the bitter GOP race on Feb. 3. A spokesman told The Hill on Wednesday that Paul still planned to wait until after the primary season to endorse, despite a narrowing Republican field.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who dropped out of the Republican presidential race earlier this month, says he won’t be endorsing anyone in the race, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Sen. Rand Paul will drop out of the race for president, Politico reports.
“Paul had become an increasingly marginal figure in the still-sprawling GOP field. He finished fifth in Iowa, with less than 5 percent of the vote, but is projected to do much worse in next week’s New Hampshire primary, with recent polls showing him in ninth place.”
Sen. Rand Paul argued that Republicans are in for their best presidential debate of the cycle with front-runner Donald Trump absent from the stage after refusing to participate, The Hill reports.
Said Paul: “It’s sort of a double-win for me: not only am I on the main stage, but we don’t have to put up with a lot of empty blather and boastfulness and calling people names.”
Sen. Rand Paul says he thinks he will be on the main stage of Thursday’s Republican debate, Politico reports.
Said Paul: “We’ll make that decision as it comes, but we think the polling data as it shows — look, yesterday, one of Fox’s own polls, we were ahead of two of the three people that were on the stage the last time.”
New York Times: “Now, Mr. Paul’s presidential campaign is in the tank, with poll numbers so dismal he was kicked off the main stage of the Republican presidential debate last week in North Charleston, S.C. But even if Mr. Paul were to drop his presidential bid, his name would remain on the ballot in the Kentucky caucus on March 5. Some in the state say he risks losing a contest that he himself engineered — a development that could prove embarrassing in his other race, the one for the Senate.”
Sen. Rand Paul lobbed a new attack at Sen. Ted Cruz “in the form of an unusual web video the Kentucky senator wants to go viral,” Politico reports.
Sen. Rand Paul says he’s going to spend “every waking hour” trying to stop Donald Trump from getting the Republican nomination, BuzzFeed reports.
Said Paul: “Think if we, the Republican Party, becomes the party of angry people, that insinuate that most immigrants are drug dealers or rapists, that’s a terrible direction for our party. We are never going to grow as a party, we are never going to increase our vote among the Hispanic population, the black population, among women, all of those things we need to expand our party, Donald Trump takes us in the wrong direction.”
He added: “He would be a disaster. We’ll be, we’ll be slaughtered, in a landslide. That’s why my every waking hour is to try to stop Donald Trump from being our nominee.”
Sen. Rand Paul’s sputtering presidential campaign has lost a top foreign policy staffer as Elise Jordan left to take a job with NBC News, Politico reports.
“The departure comes amid widespread consternation in Paul world that his presidential bid may be nearing an end.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) “will not appear at either of Thursday’s Fox Business-hosted debates in South Carolina, after the network’s polling analysis denied him a spot on its prime time stage,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Paul: “I think they’ve made a mistake. I’m not willing to accept a designation as a minor campaign. We’ve raised $25 million. We’ve gotten on the ballot on every state. It’s kind of ridiculous to arbitrarily rate the campaigns based on national polling.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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