“If it’s any consolation, I kept 'em up 'til 3 o’clock in the morning, haranguing them and telling them, ‘You know what, I’m not for adding one penny in debt,’” Paul said at the Iowa GOP’s Growth & Opportunity Party in Des Moines on Saturday.

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The two-year budget deal passed the Senate by a 63-35 vote on Friday. Paul and other conservatives opposed to the deal had only limited power to delay the vote on the floor.

The Kentucky senator and presidential candidate said his opposition to the budget deal — which was negotiated between GOP leadership and the White House — separates him from the pack in the 2016 race.

“The right and the left got together, and this is important to understand, because it also goes to the uniqueness of my candidacy,” he said. “The left wants more welfare, they want more domestic spending, but some on the right say we’ve got to have more military spending.

“So you know what? They both get together and they raise both, but as a consequence, we go further and further into debt,” he added.

Paul said defending the country is “the most important thing we do in Washington,” but stressed that the military should not be given a “blank check.”

He said America does not project power to the world “if we do it from bankruptcy court.”