Paul plans to talk up his resistance to 'unneccesary' overseas spending. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Rand Paul talks Graham, Egypt

On the eve of a fresh trip to the early presidential state of South Carolina, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said in an interview he is “unlikely” to get involved in the brewing Senate primary there between GOP incumbent Lindsey Graham and several would-be conservative challengers.

Paul has clashed with Graham in recent months over the Kentuckian’s support for reducing U.S. foreign aid, specifically to Egypt. Paul proposed cutting off aid to the North African nation after the military seized power there, while Graham initially opposed that proposal.


Paul will appear at a barbecue hosted by South Carolina Congressman Jeff Duncan (a “friend from playing on the baseball team together,” Paul said) and plans to keep talking up his resistance to what he views as unnecessary overseas spending. But that doesn’t mean he’s about to dive into a potentially messy Senate race.

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“The message I’ve been talking a lot about lately is we don’t have enough money to be sending it overseas and squandering it,” Paul told POLITICO, suggesting military assistance to Egypt would be “counterproductive.”

“If you’re an Egyptian and you’re protesting your government in the street and you’re facing down an American tank, it doesn’t give you a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart for America,” Paul said. “I don’t know what more tanks are going to do for them, or more fighter jets or more tear gas.”

Multiple Graham challengers have criticized his general support for foreign engagement: State Sen. Lee Bright blasted Graham as a “community organizer for the Muslim Brotherhood,” while Citadel graduate Nancy Mace criticized the incumbent earlier this month for standing “with our president to support a failed foreign policy.”

Graham revised his views on Egypt over the last week in response to spiraling violence against protesters on the ground there and has called for a suspension of aid.

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Without naming names, Paul said he’s not entirely convinced by his fellow Republicans who have shifted stances on aid to Egypt, questioning whether they’d seek to continue sending cash to Egypt by backdoor means. But, he said, “It’s a debate that ultimately is coming in our direction.”

Of the South Carolina primary, Paul said: “I’ve met, I think, all three of the challengers, and like I said, I haven’t made a decision and I think it’s probably unlikely that I’ll get involved.”

The first-term senator has toured South Carolina and other early 2016 states — including New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada — throughout 2013, and has raised his national profile by speaking out in a series of Washington debates related to the size and national security powers of the federal government.

While Paul has spoken out against expansive government surveillance programs — and the hypothetical domestic use of drones — he declined to join his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, in praising military leaker Bradley Manning, who was sentenced this week to 35 years in prison for handing over secret documents to the website WikiLeaks. Manning this week took the name “Chelsea,” announcing plans to become a woman.

Ron Paul said the country needs “more Bradley Mannings” to blow the whistle on abuses of government power; Rand Paul said he disagrees, though he said he doesn’t “know enough about military law or what the sentencing is to know what’s fair and what’s not.”

“I think we need to have laws against leaking national secrets,” he said. “It has to be punished.”

“My dad and I are very close, but we don’t agree on everything. He’s my dad and I have a great deal of respect for him.”