Rand Paul accuses his GOP colleagues of not giving a ‘s–t’ about people killed in ship strikes
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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., accused his “pro-life” Republican colleagues of not caring about people killed in boat strikes near Venezuela that the Trump administration, without providing evidence, said were smuggling fentanyl.
During an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that aired Tuesday. Paul said GOP lawmakers “don’t give a –” about the people who died on the ships, blasting his colleagues for not giving a presumption of innocence.
“I look at my colleagues who say they support life, and they appreciate God’s inspiration in life, but they don’t give – these are the people in the boats,” said Paul. “Are they bad people on boats? I don’t know. They are probably poor people in Venezuela and Colombia.”
“I think what I feel connected to my Republican colleagues is that those lives don’t matter at all, and we just blow them up. And against all justice, and against all the laws of war, all the laws of war, we never bombed the people who were shipwrecked,” he added, referring to the administration’s report directed at the killing of survivors of the first strikes of the crash.
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Sen. Rand Paul accused his Republican colleagues of not caring about the people killed by the boat strikes off Venezuela. (Getty Images)
The liberal Republican said it was “against the military code of justice to do that.”
“We do it and everyone just says, ‘Well, they’re drug dealers,'” she said.
Paul criticized fellow GOP lawmakers who repeated the administration’s claims about boats carrying fentanyl. He also argued with his colleagues in office saying, “Well, we are fighting them. They are fighting by bringing drugs into America.”
“They don’t even come here,” Paul explained. “They go to these islands in the southern Caribbean. Cocaine – and it’s not fentanyl at all – cocaine goes to Europe.”
He emphasized that “those small boats cannot reach here.”
“No one has ever asked this common question: Those boats have these four engines on them. They are outboard boats. You can probably go about 100 kilometers before you have to fill up with fuel. Two thousand kilometers from us, they will have to refuel 20 times to get here,” said Paul.
Sen. Rand Paul said GOP lawmakers “don’t give a damn” about the people who died on the ships. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
The senator accused the administration of attacking boats to create “pretense and a false conflict” ahead of a campaign to invade Venezuela and arrest its president, Nicolás Maduro.
“It was all a pretense to arrest Maduro,” he said. “So, we have to set the precedent. We have to show you that we care about drugs.”
Paul helped the Senate advance a resolution last week that would limit Trump’s ability to continue attacking Venezuela after the US military’s latest move to invade the country and arrest Maduro, which the Kentucky Republican said amounted to war. The Upper Chamber could pass the measure later this week, though it faces an uphill battle in the House despite support from Republicans.
“I think that bombing and removing a head of state, by all definitions, is war,” Paul told reporters before the procedural vote last week. “Does this mean that we have carte blanche that the president can decide anytime, anywhere, to attack a foreign country and remove people we suspect of crimes?”
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Sen. Rand Paul has accused the Trump administration of striking boats to create “pretense and false contradictions” ahead of a move to attack Venezuela and arrest its president. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images)
The lawmaker has repeatedly criticized boat attacks on suspected drug lords in recent months, with frequent complaints of extrajudicial killings and the killing of innocent people. Earlier, the Senator cited Coast Guard statistics showing that a large percentage of the boats involved in suspected drug trafficking are innocent.
Paul said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that he believes the administration may attack Mexico next, which Trump has signaled could be a future target.
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“They want to do that next. They want to blow up Mexico,” Paul said.
Trump said that the cartels “run Mexico” and that “something has to be done” because Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is “very afraid” of the cartels.
