Sen. Rand Paul Wednesday ripped President Donald Trump's assertions that torture "absolutely" works, noting that such methods remain illegal under U.S. law.

"I'm alarmed by anybody that wants to go back to torture," the Kentucky Republican, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Jake Tapper on CNN. "The people in the Senate who have been tortured, mainly John McCain, don't think torture is a good idea.

"It's currently against the law and I hope it will remain against the law."

McCain, 80, the six-term Arizona GOP senator, spent nearly six years after his Navy plane was shot down during the Vietnam War.

He was held in North Vietnam's "Hanoi Hilton" prison, where he was repeatedly tortured.

Trump told ABC News Wednesday that he believed that torture "absolutely" works but that he would defer to intelligence officials on whether to reinstate such illegal tactics.

Paul also told Tapper that he voted against Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo as CIA director because he remained open to using "enhanced interrogation techniques" and because the agency needed more oversight.

Pompeo was confirmed 66-32 by the Senate on Monday and was sworn in immediately afterward.

"Our intelligence community has very little oversight," Paul told Cooper. "There's only eight members of Congress that truly know what's going on in the CIA, that truly know what's going on as far as covert war around the world.

"I really think that war really, unless there is extraordinary exception, should be fought with the approval of the Congress and the approval of the American people.

"That's what our Founding Fathers thought," the senator said. "They took that power away from the president and they gave it to Congress.

"They specifically precluded the president from going to war without the approval of Congress."