Rand Paul: Lindsey Graham ‘Needs to Mind His Own Business’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “mind his own business,” during an interview Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” after his colleague asserted he is a definite lost vote on repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Paul has been a staunch advocate for completely, rather than partially, repealing Obamacare. The Kentucky senator did express dissatisfaction and disappointment with both the House GOP’s American Health Care Act and the Senate’s progress on its own version of a health care reform bill. But he made clear Wednesday he has not made a final decision.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the week, Graham asserted Paul is “irretrievably gone” on health care and won’t support the Senate’s version, complaining that Paul would not “vote for any bill that has refundable tax credits to help low-income people buy health care.”

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“We have informed Lindsey that we are advertising in our press shop for a spokesman, an assistant spokesman, but he has not applied for it,” Paul said in response Wednesday. “And so far, Lindsey is not my spokesman and he needs to mind his own business and needs to try to present his view of the world. But he needs to leave me out of what he thinks my view of the world is.”

Noting that he has “not made a final decision” yet regarding the Senate’s health care reform attempt, the Kentucky senator said that he is “still trying to push it toward a repeal bill because I promised to repeal Obamacare.”

“But I did not promise to keep 90 percent of the subsidies. I did not promise to keep 90 percent of the spending,” Paul said. “The Republican plans that I’ve seen so far do not fix the death spiral. They subsidize the death spiral.”

Paul also noted that he has talked to President Donald Trump “many times” about allowing individuals to join an association for their health insurance provider.

“There’s 11 million people that are plumbers, farmers, carpenters, welders — they buy insurance for them and their spouse. It’s a terrible place to buy insurance,” Paul insisted. “I want them to be able to join … an association, and then you will become part of a large pool. You get a cheaper price. You also get all of the guaranteed issues that people want where you can’t get dropped if you get sick.”

Paul said he is dissatisfied with the Senate’s progress.

In addition, Paul said he is advocating for “more oversight” in Congress regarding the continual flood of both “unmasking” and the rampant surveillance carried out by the intelligence community. In particular, these leaks and unmaskings have targeted Trump as part of what Paul dubbed to be a “witch hunt” investigation of any potential ties between Trump and Russia.

“If it turns out to be true that the Obama administration used the intelligence agencies for political purposes, this will probably be the greatest abuse of power in recent history. And it is an underreported story. But we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Paul insisted. “This power is such an extraordinary power. We have to have more oversight. And really, frankly, the intelligence agencies should not be spying on the legislative branch.”

Both Paul and Graham have alleged they might have been under U.S. intelligence surveillance and potentially might even have been unmasked.

“We have to have control of agencies that are able to listen to all of our phone conversations and read all of our emails,” Paul said. “Only eight people in Congress are ever told anything. Only the top eight officials in the House and the Senate know anything about what’s going on, who they’re spying upon. We need more oversight because it tends to be the top people overseeing the intelligence committees who tend to be apologists for the intelligence community. We need some skeptics.”

The Kentucky senator also blasted former U.S. director of national intelligence James Clapper’s Wednesday remarks in Australia in which he insisted “that Watergate pales, really, in my view, compared to what we’re confronting now” in the Russia collusion investigation.

“Realize how partisan some of these guys are. Clapper is over in Australia spouting off, saying this is ‘worse than Watergate.’ This is an inflammatory, partisan position, and he supposedly was the nonpartisan head of intelligence, and he’s over there spouting that this is ‘worse than Watergate,'” Paul said.

“These people are partisans. Clapper was a partisan. Clapper was also a perjurer, someone who came to the Senate and lied about what the intelligence community was doing,” Paul added, noting that Clapper came under fire in 2013 for falsely insisting that the NSA was not collecting data concerning millions of Americans.

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“I think this is a partisan witch hunt,” Paul said of the ongoing Russia probe. “A lot of [the Democrats] that used to be concerned about privacy are now just concerned about making this a partisan witch hunt … But the goal of a partisan witch hunt is not to get to the conclusion — it’s to stretch it out as long as possible.”

Noting that former FBI Director James Comey will give highly anticipated testimony Thursday, Paul downplayed the Left’s theories the president committed an impeachable offense in pressuring Comey to “tell the truth” of the Russia investigation.

“If the president is putting pressure on someone to tell the truth, there’s nothing wrong with that. So if the president is pressuring Comey to say, ‘If you have no information that we’re linked to this, say it,’ that is putting pressure on him to tell the truth,” Paul said. “If the president is putting pressure on him to say, ‘If you’ve gone through all this and you’ve concluded it, find all the information and be done with this silly investigation,’ that is the president pressuring him to do his job and to tell the truth. So there’s nothing inappropriate about that.”

“I don’t think at any point in time … do I think the president ever said, ‘Don’t do the investigation.’ I think he said if there’s nothing there, let’s conclude this thing,” Paul added. “That is not obstruction of justice. That is, let’s come to a conclusion and tell the truth to the American people.”