Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is doubling down on his place that the current U.S. navy strikes on alleged drug vessels within the Caribbean Sea are unlawful, a place that has earned him the ire of President Donald Trump — who known as Paul a “nasty liddle’ guy” final week.
“We have dangerous people in a lot of American cities, but we just don’t just go in and shoot them,” Paul mentioned Tuesday on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” “I mean, we have trials. They get legal representation. And even on the high seas, it’s been that way for generations.”
Paul first spoke out final month after the Trump administration blew up a suspected drug boat off the Venezuelan coast. Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Wednesday that the U.S. has now carried out its eighth strike towards an alleged drug boat.
This newfound navy marketing campaign has killed at the very least 34 individuals since September, Hegseth mentioned.
“If you go off the coast of Miami, the Coast Guard will be stopping boats today,” Paul instructed Morgan. “And about 25% of the boats that they stop that they’re suspicious of drugs, there won’t be any drugs on board. So 25% of the time, the suspicion is wrong.”
“And that’s why we don’t shoot and just blow up boats off of Miami,” he continued. “But neither should we be blowing them up off the coast of Venezuela. No. 1, there is no fentanyl made in Venezuela — not just a little bit, there’s none being made in Venezuela.”
The criticism of this bombing marketing campaign has been ill-received by Trump.
He wrote Friday on his Reality Social platform, “Whatever happened to ‘Senator’ Rand Paul? He was never great, but he went really BAD! I got him elected, TWICE (in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky!), but he just never votes positively for the Republican Party.”
The president added on the time, “He’s a nasty liddle’ guy.”
Paul notably broke with Trump over the GOP’s “big, beautiful” invoice earlier this yr, displaying no real interest in serving to him fulfill marketing campaign guarantees by voting for the huge tax and spending invoice. Paul known as it “just not conservative” on Fox Information on the time.
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“I’ve known President Trump for over a decade, I’ve played golf with him a couple dozen times,” he instructed Morgan on Tuesday. “I actually enjoy his company and his personality most of the time, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to be a rubber stamp or agree with everything.”
The senator added that he doesn’t take Trump’s insults “too seriously.”
Paul continues to seem most disturbed by the rising use of lethal navy power in Caribbean waters. He pleaded for a return to due course of after the primary assault final month and reiterated as a lot on social media following his look on Morgan’s present.
“We can’t just kill indiscriminately because we are not at war,” Paul wrote on X, previously Twitter. “It’s summary execution! Everyone gets a trial because sometimes, the system gets it wrong. Even the worst of the worst in our country get due process.”
He continued, “The bottom line is that execution without process is not justice, and blowing up foreign ships is a recipe for chaos.”
