HOUSTON, Texas — The filibuster against the National Security Agency (NSA) bulk data collection program that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) led in the U.S. Senate earlier this year was “fantastic,” his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), tells Breitbart News exclusively.

“I think it was fantastic because it called attention to a very, very important issue,” Ron Paul said in an interview at a fundraiser in Houston for his son’s presidential campaign that many members of the Paul family—whose home is just an hour from here in Lake Jackson, Texas—attended. “It hit a chord because it helped wake up the American people. I think it was great and that kind of stuff goes a long way.”

The senator’s mother, Carol Paul, told Breitbart News that her son’s leadership reminded her of what her husband used to do before he retired.

“I’ve seen that before, so I’m pretty much attuned to that,” Carol Paul said when asked about the filibuster.

Sen. Paul’s mother says he’s the choice Republicans need as their nominee in 2016 because he’s the “smartest” candidate in the field.

“He’s the smartest. That’s one good reason,” Carol said.

I have to laugh—they sent me some shirts, some Rand Paul shirts, and I do some quilting so I wanted to make it into extra. They messed up the order a little bit and sent some extra shirts, and one had his picture on it and it said: ‘Fearless.’ He is. Because if you always say the same thing to the same people, you don’t get in any trouble. But Rand doesn’t do that. He has an open mind, he will listen to people, and he’s so honest about that. If he’s wrong, he will admit it. Maybe they can say he’s not a dogmatic person, but he’s not someone who’s just going to swing the way the breeze goes.

Paul’s father, Ron—a three-time presidential candidate once as a Libertarian Party member and twice as a GOP member—said Rand Paul is the candidate Republicans should pick as their nominee for president because he’s the only one who understands the issues most important to the nation.

“His philosophy is close to my philosophy,” Ron Paul told Breitbart News of Rand Paul. “It’s for less government, for liberty, and nobody else even has the vaguest understanding if you compare what his understanding is for free markets and Austrian economics. Nobody else even comes close.”

Several other Paul family members, including Rand’s wife Kelley and at least one of his brothers, gathered together here in Houston as the senator rallied hundreds of supporters downtown on Saturday ahead of a few key upcoming presidential campaign developments.

In just a few weeks, Paul—along with most of the rest of the GOP field—will appear at their first debate in Cleveland. Shortly thereafter, Paul—along with a massive contingent of doctors and media—will travel to Haiti to perform pro bono surgeries on people with eye conditions like cataracts. Paul, in addition to being a U.S. Senator now, has for the last several decades been an ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and this will mark his second trip to an impoverished nation to perform pro bono surgeries as a doctor since his election to the U.S. Senate. Last August, Paul traveled to Salama, Guatemala, to perform such surgeries on hundreds of patients there.