AP Photo Paul rips Rubio over terror attack response

Seeking to contrast himself with an increasingly hawkish GOP presidential field, Rand Paul accused Marco Rubio of voting to make the country “less safe” and warned that as president Rubio would take the United States closer to war.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Paul made clear he has no intention of backing away from the non-interventionist stand he's long advocated after the terrorist attacks in Paris. His position is at stark odds with his GOP rivals: Rubio is slamming Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for not voting to extend the PATRIOT Act’s bulk data collection without reforms, Jeb Bush wants to declare war on the Islamic State and Lindsey Graham is calling for more ground troops in the Middle East and an open-ended war authorization.


For Paul, it’s a tricky balance: The GOP has a significant libertarian wing but much of the party is sounding more hawkish after last week’s killings in France. But as he continues to lag in the single digits in the polls, he said it’s a no-brainer to embrace his unique position: “I don't have any choice. You know, this is who I am and what I stand for."

“People like Marco, I think, will argue to continue giving up your liberty for security until we have no liberty. The argument is every time there’s a tragedy we need to give up more liberty. But there’s no evidence that any of these surveillance programs have captured anybody,” Paul said after a briefing on the terrorist attacks. “The French are doing bulk collection 1,000 times over. It still didn’t stop the attack.”

Paul is inserting himself into a brouhaha between Cruz and Rubio this week over the USA Freedom Act, which was adopted this spring and reformed the PATRIOT Act. Paul forced the expiration of PATRIOT Act provisions for a few days while Rubio advocated for preserving them; Cruz tried to thread the needle by supporting the plan that ultimately became law.

Brooke Sammon, a spokeswoman for Rubio, said that "Rand is only attacking Marco because Rand's own record on national security and intelligence is weak."

In interviews this week, Republican leaders sounded like they were siding with Rubio over Cruz; they had already blasted Paul as irresponsible in May when surveillance laws briefly lapsed.

“The tools that were available under the PATRIOT Act were good tools that should have been reauthorized,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “We could have done better.”

Yet Paul found some defense from fellow surveillance skeptic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat who teamed with Paul six months ago to press for more privacy protections in surveillance programs during the PATRIOT Act debate.

“People just rush to judgment. It’s almost knee-jerk kind of reactions when the country wants more safety and they want to protect their liberty. There’s a real prospect that you get policies that do neither,” Wyden said of the row this week among the Republican presidential hopefuls.

The debate has, at least for now, made national security a central theme of the GOP race. On Monday, Rubio singled out Cruz for voting to “weaken” intelligence gathering capabilities by opposing a straight extension of the bulk data collection. Cruz fired back on Tuesday that Rubio merely wants to distract from his earlier support for comprehensive immigration reform.

Paul launched a similar attack on Wednesday, accusing Rubio of making the country “less safe” by voting down Paul’s amendment to increase scrutiny of refugees in 2013. Paul argued that while Rubio is trying to portray himself as brawny on national security, he is actually vulnerable on the issue.

“He’s going to explain to the American people how he’s weak on border security and how that threatens the nation,” Paul said. “I fear he would have us back at war in the Middle East.”

Rubio aides did not immediately respond to Paul’s accusations, other than to point out the Kentucky Republican wouldn’t have supported the immigration bill no matter how it was amended.