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"I hear someone's been saying they're rigged," former 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul said. "I don’t think they’re rigged, but they are biased. And intentionally so." | AP Photo Paul: GOP primaries are intentionally 'biased'

The Republican primary process is not rigged, but rather "biased," and intentionally so, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday.

During an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," the former presidential candidate, who declared his candidacy a little more than a year ago, referred back to his father Ron Paul's 2012 run when asked what he thought of Donald Trump's complaint that the process by which delegates are allocated and selected is "rigged."

“Well, no, I hear someone's been saying they're rigged. I don’t think they’re rigged, but they are biased. And intentionally so," he said, going on to explain, "rigged would mean that it was illegal, that it was somewhat shady. No, it’s done somewhat in the open. But they are biased in favor of the establishment."

Such was the case in the 2012 primary, he remarked, when the rules committee passed a rule that specified that a candidate could not be nominated without winning eight states. "And interesting, now, if you talk to all of the Republican establishment, they're saying, oh, yeah, your votes can be counted," Paul said. "This is a big deal because, think about it: [John] Kasich's votes cannot be counted. Under Rule 40(b) they should not be counted. And if it was not Ron Paul, they were not counted in 2012."

"When you think about it, both [Ted] Cruz and Trump have a great deal of incentive not to let anybody else have votes," Paul added. "That's what the rules currently state. However, 110 people are going to be very important. That's the rules committee. They're going to decide what the rules are. I think you want to see a contentious room, it's going to be those 110 people."

Asked whether he could have done anything differently to overcome Trump, Paul said, "Not really," blaming disproportionate media coverage.

"I think virtually everybody got trumped in the sense that I mean, he was getting 25 times more coverage than all of the other candidates combined. It was overwhelming," he said. "And Cruz was able to stick around and make his way through that, and that’s a good strategy. But I’m not so sure it necessarily worked for me, either, because our coalition was a little bit different than others’, and but I do think that on an intellectual plane, our ideas are winning, whether or not we should always intervene in civil war. I think we’re winning some of those battles, at least among the public."