He blasts the government for trying to block vets from visiting their memorial. Paul: 'Goons' blocked WWII Memorial

Sen. Rand Paul blasted the federal government for trying to block World War II vets from visiting their memorial, saying “some idiot in government sent goons out there to set up barricades.”

“If Harry Reid and the president want to keep the parks closed — I mean did you read the story today? Some idiot in government sent goons out there to set up barricades so they couldn’t see the monument. People had to spend hours setting up barricades where there are never barricades to prevent people from seeing the World War II monument because they’re trying to play a charade,” Rand (R-Ky.) said Tuesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.”


Paul’s attack comes after reports that a group of World War II veterans had to break down barricades to access the National World War II Memorial, one of the sites that was closed due to the government shutdown.

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Paul also said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama are “going to play a game” and that they “like the shutdown.”

“They’re going to play a game with us to say, ‘Oh, you can’t see the monuments?’ That’s ridiculous, they’re doing it because they just aren’t serious about this; they like the shutdown,” Paul said.

Paul continued the attack Wednesday on Mike Huckabee’s radio show, saying Obama had more guards at the memorial than at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

“The president has assigned 7 security guards to guard the World War II monument. That’s two more than he sent to Benghazi. We’ve got more people guarding the WWII monument than we had guarding the ambassador,” Paul said.

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Paul also accused Democrats of stopping funding and rejecting Republican proposals because “they think it’s a parlor game.”

“We’re trying to fund government and they’re trying to stop any funding because they think it’s a parlor game and they’ll win politically, but they’re not willing to negotiate and I think that’s an untenable position,” Paul said.

Meanwhile, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also suggested that the closure of the memorial was a kind of theater aimed at dramatizing the shutdown for the public.

“There were barricades around something that 24/7, 365 I could” visit on previous occasions, Grassley said. “The show of putting barriers around because of the shutdown and spending all the money to do it … causes me to be a little cynical.”

Josh Gerstein and Tal Kopan contributed to this report.

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