On CNN Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) responded to the insinuation by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that he and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) weren’t real patriots because they criticized the Trump administration’s rationale for military action against Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, and backing a Democratic resolution to constrain presidential war powers.

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“You heard what he said,” said anchor Wolf Blitzer. “He’s accusing you and Sen. Lee of ’empowering the enemy’ by supporting this war powers resolution. I need your response.”

“I think it’s sad when people have this fake sort of drape of patriotism and anybody that disagrees with them is not a patriot,” said Paul. “I love my country. I have many family members that serve in the military and continue to serve. I love my country as much as the next guy. For him to insult and say we’re not as patriotic as he is — he hasn’t read the Constitution … he insults the Constitution, our founding fathers, and what we do stand for in this republic by making light of it and accusing people of lacking patriotism. I think that’s a low, gutter type of response.”

“He’s saying you and Sen. Lee are ’empowering the enemies’ of the United States. Sen. Lee also said the message in the classified briefing that you and your fellow senators got, he said that the message was you need to, quote, be good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public. Do you feel the administration wants you to fall in line and be good little boys and good little girls?”

“To me, this is much bigger than the Trump administration,” said Paul. “This question we have about who has the war making power, this goes back to Truman in 1950. We fought war after war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, without having them authorized by Congress. It’s been a tug-of-war. Many people have written that Congress and senators have abdicated their role in declaring war. That’s true. What Sen. Lee and I are doing is standing up and saying the power resides in Congress and we’re going to fight for it.”

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