The Kentucky senator said the former UN ambassador was ‘out of touch’ and also expressed concerns about Giuliani as attorney general in Guardian interview

Senator Rand Paul reiterated his opposition to both former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former UN ambassador John Bolton as secretary of state in an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday.

The interview follows an op-ed in Rare, an online conservative publication, where Paul condemned Bolton as “out of touch”.

The Kentucky senator grounded his opposition in the importance that Donald Trump “pick people who agree with his foreign policy”. Trump repeatedly argued on the campaign trail that the Iraq war was a mistake and condemned what he saw as an overly interventionist foreign policy from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. As Paul phrased it, Trump was “standing up not just to Woodrow Wilson” but also “a whole line of neocons in both parties”, and the senator believed such policies were “a big part” of Trump’s campaign.

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Paul, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee, insisted “there is no way I could vote for someone who is an unrepentant supporter of the Iraq war and regime change. I think that is a disaster for the country. It has made us less safe and so categorically I can’t support anybody that supports regime change.”

He noted in particular that Bolton, who wrote an op-ed in support of bombing Iran in 2015, was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq war and pointed out that Giuliani agreed with the former UN ambassador on Iran.

Instead, Paul suggested Senate foreign relations committee chair Bob Corker as an alternative. He’s “much more of a realist, not likely to be loading the bombs to go to Iran tomorrow”. In contrast, he suggested that Bolton’s hawkish stance was perhaps because he was trying to “assuage guilt” over “not serving in combat”.

The Kentucky senator, who has been one of the leading advocates for privacy issues in the Senate, also expressed concern about Giuliani as a potential attorney general, pointing out the former New York mayor had far fewer disagreements with the president-elect on the subject than he did.

Paul noted that while “Trump wasn’t as concerned about privacy as I am, he still very consistently said regime change was a mistake”. The result was that Paul found Giuliani as attorney general to be “less objectionable but still a concern for civil liberties”. When asked if private companies should purge user data in advance of a Trump administration, Paul said: “I just don’t know yet, but having Giuliani or Chris Christie in charge of information would be very worrisome.”

Paul also made clear he would continue to work across the aisle with Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee, as bipartisan privacy watchdogs. One privacy battle taking shape early in the next administration concerns the reauthorization of a critical surveillance provision, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that permits the widespread collection of Americans’ international communications. Paul said he was preparing to contest the reauthorization of 702, the legal wellspring of the NSA’s controversial Prism program.

The Kentucky senator’s criticisms of Giuliani come nearly a decade after the former New York mayor attacked Rand Paul’s father, Ron, when they both ran for president in 2007. During a presidential debate, Giuliani interrupted Ron Paul and attacked him after Ron Paul suggested that the United States’ interventionist foreign policy was a contributing factor to the terrorist attacks of September 11.