"I'm not gonna make it easy on them because I think this is terrible for the country," Rand Paul said. | Getty Despite threats, Paul can't filibuster budget deal

Rand Paul is vowing to filibuster the bipartisan deal to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling.

Unfortunately for him, Mitch McConnell just made that impossible.


Paul said he would filibuster starting Thursday afternoon after speaking to students at University of Colorado Boulder before the GOP debate.

"I'm not gonna make it easy on them because I think this is terrible for the country," Paul said at a press conference after the meeting.

But on Wednesday, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell set in motion votes for later this week or early next week to pass the budget agreement. The deal is loathed by conservatives, including Paul and his Senate rivals for the GOP nomination, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

Paul, Cruz and Rubio all missed budget briefings in Washington this week, declining the opportunity to give McConnell input while they campaigned and prepared for Wednesday’s debate. In Colorado, Paul argued that he was “right in the middle of, I think, the biggest news story right now in our country,” the budget deal.

“Republicans have made with this president … a rotten to the core deal,” Paul said. “I'm going to filibuster, as soon as I get done with this presidential debate thing. I'm going back to Washington and I will commence filibustering it starting tomorrow afternoon."

But if Paul really wanted to filibuster the bipartisan deal to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling, he needed to be in Washington to halt McConnell from greasing the procedural skids. It would have been very difficult, physically, for Paul to speak continuously through the weekend to edge the country toward a Nov. 3 default. But after McConnell’s action on Wednesday, it's impossible.

Alternatively, Paul could marshal 41 votes against the measure to stop it, an incredibly unlikely outcome given bipartisan support for the package. Sergio Gor, a spokesman for Paul, said that McConnell is taking action to end debate because of Paul's objections.

"Senate leadership has filed cloture. The reason that is happening is because Senator Rand Paul is already objecting and forcing them to," Gor said.

Paul raised his filibuster plans immediately in Wednesday's night's debate.

Paul can complain about the deal and may even be able to receive consent to speak for an extended period. But it won't have the tangible effect he caused in the spring, when he forced a two-day lapse of anti-terrorism laws over privacy concerns after he objected to McConnell’s attempts to fast-track a revival of the law.

If he wants to, McConnell can seek to limit Paul’s time to fume against the budget agreement, as he did to Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) last month. But since McConnell has endorsed Paul, he may treat his Kentucky colleague more gently than Cruz, who has made his war with McConnell a theme in the presidential campaign.

Paul couldn’t say exactly how his “filibuster” would play out. Asked if it would be a "Rand Paul filibuster" or a regular filibuster, Paul responded: "We'll see.”

Collins reported from Colorado.