The Senator From Kentucky (Rand Paul) Is Now Working For... Putin

Rand Paul, once accused by Senator John McCain of “working for Vladimir Putin," who delivered notes from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin like an errand boy, made an outrageous pro-Putin statement while questioning Secretary of State Anthony Blinken today. Paul said that when Russia attacked Ukraine, It was really attacking a country that was “part of Russia.” No, Rand it wasn’t. Cliff Schecter provides you with with the breakdown and the takedown.

Rand Paul's statement

McCain on Rand

Rand Paul message boy from Trump to Putin

**transcript generated by third-party transcription software, please excuse any typos**

Trust me, much like Rand Paul's neighbor, most of Rand Paul's colleagues in the senate and really everybody who's ever met Rand Paul we would rather not be talking about Rand Paul. But we have to talk about Rand Paul because he does so many things that seem to be contrary to the very interests of this nation and in the interests of a different country known as Russia. Today there was a senate foreign relations committee hearing, Paul is on the committee, with secretary of state Blinken and were talking about Russia and Ukraine. This should be pretty straightforward, a lot of Republicans are jumping into bed with Vladimir Putin and loving Russia as recently as six months ago, but now most of them are hiding and pretending they never said anything like that about this terrible autocrat and this murderer because they've realized the, where public opinion is and that's all that matters to them in the end.

But man you got to give credit to Rand Paul, he's still hanging in there and he's been doing Russia's bidding for a long time. What did he have to say, secretary Blinken pointed out that the countries that were attacked, in this case were talking about Ukraine and I believe he may have been referring to Crimea before this, these were not part of NATO, which is true. I wish they were. The response that Rand Paul gave was but you could argue they were part of Russia, to which Blinken sort of shockingly and I think probably most others in there said, uh, no, it's up to these countries these sovereign countries to decide their own fate. You could not argue they're part of Russia. And then, you know, Rand Paul tried to save his ass by jumping in and claiming something, oh, they're part of the soviet union. Okay. So now we're, we're just, are we handing back to Russia everything that was part of the soviet union? I mean who would even think that way? Who in the Republican party, did this guy ever read anything written by Ronald Reagan or anybody since?

This was the party that at least pretended to be anti-communist. This guy now is saying that these countries that were once part of the soviet union, forced to join the Eastern Bloc, Russia has the right to attack them. And, you know, this would be bad enough but what makes it worse is Rand Paul's history and the reason why so many are suspicious that much like Kevin McCarthy said about Dana Rohrabacher and Donald Trump when he didn't think anybody was listening to Paul Ryan back in 2015, he said, well I think those are the guys that Vladimir Putin owns. Well a lot of us think the same thing about Rand Paul and there's good reason. First of all, it's a Paul family tradition. Back in 2015 when Ron Paul who had previously run for president and had been a congressman was asked about the Crimean attack he said, well uh, aren't they really part of Russia, I think that was pretty much his exact quote. It was along the lines of they're not really a different country than Russia, let me get it exactly right.

Crimea is not exactly a foreign country, according to the Russians. According to the Russians, as if they have any say in whether somebody else's sovereignty belongs to them, which is exactly what secretary Blinken pointed out to his son Rand Paul today. But it gets worse. A couple years ago Rand Paul was one of the few that fought against voting and blocked the senate from voting on sanctions to which then the late senator John McCain said we, it can be said now that this is, this senator is working for Vladimir Putin, that senator Rand Paul is working for Vladimir Putin. He came right out and said it and this was in his own party. I wish there were more who were speaking out like that about Rand Paul today. Later in 2018, I mean, Trump's been in office for a bit, Rand Paul literally served as a message boy, a messenger from Trump to Putin. I don't know if this is like a high school romance, it was love letters, passing notes from one part of the classroom to the other, but he went over and I want to make sure I get this right, he went over and he met with one.