Last week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was making a Profiles in Courage–style stand for his principles, threatening to block Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, in order to protect the Fourth Amendment. At issue for the staunch civil libertarian was Kavanaugh’s controversial opinion in Klayman v. Obama in support of the N.S.A.’s bulk metadata-surveillance program. The objection was ostensibly in character for Paul, who previously established himself as a G.O.P. gadfly in 2013 with a 13-hour filibuster to protest extra-legal drone strikes, and again in 2015 with a 11-hour filibuster to oppose the renewal of the Patriot Act. “This is not a small deal for me. This is a big deal,” Paul told Politico, explaining his resistance to Donald Trump’s judicial nominee. “Kavanaugh’s position is basically that national security trumps privacy. And he said it very strongly and explicitly. And that worries me.” The declaration sent a minor chill through the caucus. With John McCain on medical leave, and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski gesticulating at impartiality, the Republicans would have needed to win over red-state Democrats to confirm Kavanaugh.

In the 18 months since Trump was elected, however, Paul has developed a new reputation. And so it wasn’t entirely surprising when the libertarian senator’s worries suddenly evaporated. On Monday, Paul announced on Twitter that after a meeting with Kavanaugh, his thinking had evolved, and he would now judge the candidate on the “totality of [his] views character and opinions.” Sure, there was the pesky issue of Kavanaugh’s ruling in favor of bulk data collection. But to hear him tell it, Paul came away convinced that if such a case comes before Kavanaugh in the future, the judge will rule in line with the senator’s views. (Paul seemed to conveniently forget that back in 2014, he sued the federal government himself over the N.S.A.’s bulk metadata program, joining Larry Klayman and a handful of plaintiffs in their lawsuit against the government.) Trump responded to the news by hailing Paul as a patriot and a friend:

Paul should be dizzy from all the pirouettes he has executed of late. In November, Paul suggested he would vote against Trump’s tax bill, only to reverse himself on that. Though he voted against the Senate’s budget resolution in February, driving the government into a brief shutdown, his “no” was more performative than anything; the budget eventually passed with ease through the G.O.P.-controlled chamber. And in April, he flipped his opposition to Mike Pompeo, a noted fan of bulk warrantless surveillance, eventually voting to confirm him as secretary of state.

Along the way, Paul has built an unlikely relationship of sorts with Trump, whom he once called “a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag.” In the case of Pompeo, Trump himself offered some not-so-subtle encouragement, telling reporters at a press conference preceding the vote, “Rand Paul is a very special guy, as far as I’m concerned. He’s never let me down. And I don’t think he’ll let us down again.” And indeed, the president’s friendship appears to be a powerful motivator for Paul. Though Trump beat him in 2016 after a volley of personal insults, the two have reportedly become simpatico, chatting frequently and occasionally golfing together, Axios reported in October 2017. “They’ll talk on the phone and Trump will go on about Bedminster and golf and whatever else is going on; and Rand will drop in his libertarian ideas,” a source close to Trump told Axios. “And Trump will laugh and say, ‘This guy’s crazy. He doesn’t care about anything. Doesn’t care about Mitch [McConnell]. Doesn’t care about anybody.’ They won’t even argue. He’ll let him speak his mind.” This friendship has afforded Paul a certain amount of influence with the president: last week, he reportedly suggested that Trump revoke the security clearances of his critics in law enforcement and intelligence agencies.