Rand Paul on Maduro: ‘Glad He’s Gone’, But We Don’t Use Force When We Think Elections ‘Haven’t Gone Our Way’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) discussed the ouster of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and stated that “if you talk to Bolsonaro, he’d probably say da Silva is an illegitimate leader in Brazil. If you talk to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump was illegitimate in 2016.” And “we typically don’t believe in force as a way of getting our way when we think the elections haven’t gone our way.”

Paul said, “I’m not opposed to the result. I have been a big opponent of Chavez and Maduro, of socialism in general in Venezuela. … I’m glad he’s gone. I hope for the best for the people. My discussion is over who gets to initiate or declare war. Our Founding Fathers debated this, and they were virtually unanimous, from Hamilton to Jefferson, saying that Congress decides when we initiate war. This administration, like, really, every other administration, defends presidential power, and they say, oh, well, it’s not really a war here. And so my point is, is if another country comes to D.C., bombs all of D.C.’s air defense, kidnaps the president, removes him, and blockades the East Coast, hell yes, we’d declare that war. And even I would vote to go to war at that point. That would be a war of defense. That would be an absolute need for a declaration of war. So, logic only works if it goes both ways. If a logic only works when the U.S. says so. That’s not logic.”

He continued, “It’s the same with arresting somebody who is an illegitimate leader. Well, if you talk to Bolsonaro, he’d probably say da Silva is an illegitimate leader in Brazil. If you talk to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump was illegitimate in 2016. Jimmy Carter said the same thing. If you talk to Donald Trump, he said Biden was illegitimate in 2020, but we typically don’t believe in force as a way of getting our way when we think the elections haven’t gone our way. So I think it’s important that we talk about this. Look, Netanyahu has been indicted by the International Criminal Court. We don’t — we didn’t join the International Criminal Court because we would never let our people or our soldiers be tried by some crazy left-wing body. But we also shouldn’t acknowledge that Maduro’s guilty of a machine gun violation. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of.”

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