Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s navy mission off Venezuela’s coast, calling the seizures of a number of oil tankers within the Caribbean Sea “a provocation and a prelude to conflict.”
“I am not for confiscating these liners. I am not for blowing up these boats of unarmed individuals which are suspected of being drug sellers. I am not for any of this,” Paul advised ABC Information’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Paul additionally described the administration’s coverage of dealing with suspected drug traffickers as “weird and contradictory.”
“After which why is the previous president [Juan Orlando] Hernandez of Honduras, who was in jail for 45 years, why is he launched?” Paul requested. “So, some narco-terrorists are actually OK and different narco-terrorists we will blow up. After which a few of them, if they are not designated as a terrorist, we’d arrest them.”
Sen Rand Paul walks via the Senate subway on Capitol Hill, on Dec. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Heather Diehl/Getty Pictures
Listed below are extra highlights from Paul’s interview:
On Erika Kirk and Marco Rubio’s 2028 Vance endorsement
Karl: Is JD Vance the inheritor obvious right here?
Paul: I feel there must be representatives within the Republican Social gathering who nonetheless consider worldwide commerce is nice, who nonetheless consider in free market capitalism, who nonetheless consider in low taxes. See, it used to separate conservatives and liberals that conservatives thought it was a spending drawback. We did not need extra income. We needed much less spending. However now all these professional terror protectionists, they love taxes, and they also tax, tax, tax, after which they brag about all of the income coming in. That has by no means been a conservative place. So I will proceed to attempt to lead a conservative free market wing of the get together, and we’ll see the place issues lead over time.
Karl: And that is not JD Vance.
Paul: No.
On retaliatory strikes in Syria
Paul: , it is laborious to not wish to hit again after they kill a few of our personal. However I wish to return, actually, to the primary Trump administration when he mentioned he did not need the troops there. There’s like 900 troops, possibly a thousand, possibly 1,500. They are not sufficient to battle a conflict. They are not sufficient to be an efficient strategic power. What they’re is a goal and a tripwire.
So we have executed this retaliatory strike. Now, now, Donald Trump must do what Donald Trump proposed within the first administration, what Ronald Reagan did after the 1983 bomb. He left. There is no purpose for us to be in Syria. We have to go away Syria and never be a visit wire to getting again concerned in one other conflict.
On the potential for a one-year extension for ACA subsidies
Paul: Look, we’ve got well being care in our nation for poor individuals. It is known as Medicaid. The entire relaxation of these things has not labored. Obamacare has been a failure. President Obama mentioned it will convey premiums down. Premiums gone via the roof. Each time we give extra subsidies, the premiums go larger. I’ve a plan that claims all people on this market, and it is solely about 4%, all people on this market ought to be capable of go to Amazon or Costco or Sam’s Membership and as a gaggle, a big group — hundreds of thousands of individuals within the group — negotiate with Massive Insurance coverage to convey costs down. It is the one proposal on the market that — that has an opportunity of bringing costs down.
