Americans need a good political feud to keep us occupied while Donald Trump concentrates on his tedious beef with Fox News, and on Tuesday second-string candidates Rand Paul and Ted Cruz stepped up to the plate. A day after Cruz was burned by his Senate colleagues over his push for a government shutdown, Paul rubbed some salt in the wound during an interview on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade & Friends.”
“Ted has chosen to make this really personal and chosen to call people dishonest in leadership and call them names which really goes against the decorum and also against the rules of the Senate, and as a consequence he can’t get anything done legislatively,” Paul said. “He is pretty much done for and stifled, and it’s really because of personal relationships, or lack of personal relationships, and it is a problem.”
“I approach things a little different,” Paul continued. “I am still just as hardcore in saying what we are doing is wrong, I just chose not to call people liars on the Senate floor and it’s just a matter of different perspectives on how best to get to the end result.” (Cruz called Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar in July, just days after he claimed that he never attacks the character of fellow politicians.)
Paul and Cruz were once friendly, as they both rely on tea party support, but despite his occasional disagreements with the Republican leadership, Paul has allied himself with McConnell, who also represents Kentucky. When asked if the majority leader has let him down, Paul answered, “I would say we have disagreements on tactics.”
Still, if it seems odd that master troll Rand Paul is offended by Ted Cruz’s lack of decorum, that’s because there’s more to the story. Earlier on Tuesday, Cruz picked up the endorsements of nine former Ron Paul supporters, and released this video in which they explain why Cruz is the true heir to the retired Libertarian congressman.
So Rand Paul is basically telling Cruz that he may have won over his dad’s pals, but everybody in the Senate still hates him.
