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Rand Paul said Wednesday that he met with the Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson this week while Mr. Adelson was in Washington for a congressional address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

Mr. Paul and Mr. Adelson are not especially close — personally or in their world views. Mr. Adelson, a staunch supporter of Israel, favors a robust, activist military policy. Mr. Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky and a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has advocated a more restrained approach overseas.

In an interview on the radio program “Jewish Moments in the Morning,” Mr. Paul said that Mr. Adelson had assured him he would not fund an effort by Republicans to defeat him. The New York Times reported last week that Mr. Adelson had told associates that he was open to the idea of underwriting such a campaign. Many hawkish Republicans are worried about the prospect that Mr. Paul could gain traction in the primary and are already attacking him as ill-equipped to lead a country at war with extremists.

In the interview, Mr. Paul said that he met with Mr. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, and that “they assured me there was no truth to that.”

Someone briefed on the conversation said that the two discussed, among other things, Mr. Paul’s legislation to prohibit certain financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority, the spread of the Islamic State and the senator’s losses at the craps tables during a recent trip to Las Vegas.

In the interview Mr. Paul also said that Republicans have an opportunity now to pick up more Jewish votes because of the growing rift between President Obama and the Democrats and Mr. Netanyahu’s administration. “With the Democrats’ sort of resistance to Netanyahu speaking here,” he said, “I think that should send a message to a lot of American Jewry that really the time to think about who supports Israel is now.”