Rand Paul has finally found a use for Donald Trump.

During last year’s Republican primaries, Paul referred to Trump’s popularity as a “loss of sanity,” dubbing his rival “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag.” “We’ve got an empty suit here,” he said, “full of bravado but not full of anything really meaningful for the country.” After Trump suggested the government should surveil mosques in America, the libertarian senator pushed back hard. “Yes, we should follow people who are a risk,” Paul said. “But should we target mosques and have a database of Muslims—absolutely not.” Paul, like most of the vanquished Republican primary candidates, backed Trump after he became the party’s nominee, but it was hardly a ringing endorsement. “You know, I’ve always said I will endorse the nominee,” he said. “I think it’s almost a patriotic duty of anyone in Kentucky to oppose the Clintons...”

Paul continued to criticize Trump, saying in January that president-elect was wrong for claiming torture works, but he has warmed considerably to Trump since inauguration. He defended the president from attacks by Senator John McCain, and said Trump’s cabinet picks “have exceeded my expectations.” “Not everyone is perfect,” he said, “but I think there’s a lot of good things—and we shouldn’t lose sight of the good things from a conservative point of view of what’s happening in Washington.” The two had a dustup over the American Health Care Act, the GOP’s Obamacare alternative, which Paul opposed—“I feel sure that my friend @RandPaul will come along with the new and great health care program because he knows Obamacare is a disaster!” Trump tweeted, to no avail—but as CNN’s Chris Cillizza put it on Wednesday, Paul has suddenly become “Trump’s best buddy.”

After the pair went golfing together, Cillizza wrote that Paul “has emerged as the chief defender of the President’s unproven claims of being wire-tapped by the Obama administration.” This is “a marriage of political convenience,” he noted. “He clearly sees a chance in this Trump-Russia controversy ... to score political points on the idea that the government is listening to everyone all the time and that it is a very bad thing indeed.” Not just political points, but legislative victories. As Reason observed, “Shifting away from this ‘deep state’ fight between the Trump administration and the intelligence community, Paul said he wanted to reform the surveillance authorities themselves, and wants more restrictions on unmasking names and information.”



“Shifting away” is the key phrase here. Paul, who is drafting new legislation to reform the nation’s expansive surveillance authorities, is attempting to shoehorn his anti-surveillance agenda into a non-controversy Trump invented out of whole cloth: