Rand Paul has fired a surprise shot across Marco Rubio’s bows two days before the next Republican primary debate, calling the Republican rising star “a neoconservative”.

Until now, Paul has not attacked Rubio by name on the campaign trail. Asked on CNN on Sunday how he saw Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, the Kentucky senator repeated a charge he made earlier when he said: “I see her as a neoconservative.”

He added: “I see her and Rubio as being the same person.”

Rubio, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, is seen as a relatively experienced voice on foreign affairs in the 15-strong Republican field. He has risen in polls recently, still some way behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson but seen by many as the actual politician most likely to win the Republican race.

On Saturday, Rubio attempted to deflect another line of attack from rivals when he released statements regarding his use of a Republican party American Express card while speaker of Florida’s house of representatives.

Pre-debate attacks against Rubio also have focused on his work in the Senate on attempts at comprehensive immigration reform, a toxic issue in Republican circles.

“Look at Marco’s stance on illegal immigration,” Trump said at a press conference last week. “It is really trouble for him. I don’t see how he can win.”

On Friday, the Democratic New York senator Chuck Schumer also piled on, seeking in an interview with CNN to link the Florida senator indelibly with the issue. Rubio was “not only totally committed” to the reform effort, Schumer said, but he was in the room with the so-called “Gang of Eight” senators who authored the legislation.



“His fingerprints are all over that bill. It has a lot of Rubio imprints,” Schumer said. “He understood it, he molded it, he made it a tough path to citizenship … he was all for it.”

Asked if immigration would be a problem for Rubio in the primary, Paul agreed.

“It was a Rubio-Schumer bill. So, he does have to explain it,” Paul said. “I think it will be a big part of things.”

The Kentucky senator added that much of the attention thus far had been directed toward one candidate – seemingly referring to Trump – but signaled more fire was heading Rubio’s way.

“I think we need to sort of start distributing the argument some, so we can know about all of the candidates and where they stand,” Paul said.

By contrast to Rubio, Paul has consistently returned poll scores in the low single digits, and therefore only just managed to secure a place on the main stage for the next debate. He has been urged by many in his native state to focus solely on re-election to the Senate.

Developing his point on Sunday, he said: “[Clinton and Rubio] both want a no-fly zone [in Syria]; they both have supported activity in Libya, the war in Libya that toppled [Muammar] Gaddafi, an intervention that made us less safe; they both have supported pouring arms into the Syrian civil war, a mistake that I think allowed [Islamic State militants] to grow stronger; and they both have supported the Iraq war. So what’s the difference?”

CNN host Jake Tapper, surprised, asked how Paul defined a “neoconservative”, a label which lost much of its lustre in world politics thanks to the Bush administration’s launching and handling of the Iraq war.

“Somebody a lot of times who likes big government both domestically and internationally,” answered Paul, the son of libertarian Ron Paul.

“And so many of the big neoconservatives came out of a movement, they were Democrats mostly, they were some Marxists and socialists, but they were people who came to believe we needed a big government internationally as well.

“And I think Hillary Clinton actually fits the bill. I think she’s the most likely of all the candidates to get us back involved in another war in the Middle East.”

Rand Paul speaks at the University of New Hampshire. Photograph: Zuma Wire/Rex Shutterstock

Discussing the 2011 US-led intervention in Libya, which he said was now a failed state, Paul criticised President Obama for acting unilaterally, without congressional approval.

He added: “I fault Hillary Clinton [who secretary of state at the time], I fault President Obama, but I also fault the neoconservatives in my party, like Rubio, who have been eager for war in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq, and want a [Syria] no-fly zone in an airspace where Russia’s already flying.

“It’s a foolhardy notion and this is really stepping it to a debate people need, about who do we want to be commander-in-chief of our country.”

Earlier in the interview, Paul was asked about Bush defense secretary Dick Cheney’s refusal to say if he trusted Paul or Clinton more on foreign policy.

In an echo of the generational Republican infighting which broke out this week over comments contained in Pulitzer-winner Jon Meacham’s new biography of President George HW Bush, Paul said: “Dick Cheney’s been wrong about most of the foreign policy of the last several decades.”