Sen. Rand Paul says that in the most recent Des Moines Register poll, he leads Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina, so he sees no reason why his campaign should be reduced to second tier.

“At this late stage, we just can’t accept any sort of false designation,” Paul told host Stephen K. Bannon on Breitbart News daily. When asked about the GOP debate tomorrow night, which is he boycotting, Paul notes: “we beat Bush, we beat Kasich, I think we beat Christie we beat Fiorina,” he said.

Paul has a point. From the Des Moines Register, after re-capping the front runners:

Everyone else is in single digits: Rand Paul at 5 percent; Jeb Bush, 4 percent; Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee, tied with 3 percent; John Kasich and Carly Fiorina, tied at 2 percent; and Rick Santorum with 1 percent.

Asked about last night’s State of the Union address, Sen. Paul said, “I’m really not sure I heard any new solutions last night. I heard sort of the same old stuff.” Paul then went on to discuss his five-year push for auditing the Federal Reserve, pointing out he did just secure a majority vote in favor of that in the Senate.

Paul said his biggest complaint about Congress is that Republicans have the power of the purse and they haven’t used it. “We basically admitted defeat, did surrender in advance and we basically just gave him (Obama) the power of the purse.” Paul then pointed out that the passing of the omnibus bill weakened Republicans so much they can’t even fight Obama on gun control without passing a defund bill.

“This is the worst thing going on in the country as far as Republicans,” said Paul. “Everybody works hard, we elect Republicans. We get them in Congress and then they give up the only power they have and what we elected them to do which was to restrain the president.”

Paul then went on to discuss how he would turn things around if elected President.

The rest of the interview can be heard below.

