Sen. Rand Paul says he wants a secretary of state who agrees with President-elect Trump’s non-interventionist views on the Middle East, unlike several high-profile possibilities under consideration.
“What I want is somebody who understands that the Iraq war was a mistake, that nation building has been a mistake and that regime change has been a mistake,” the Kentucky senator said Monday to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “These are things that Donald Trump has expressed and I believe and agree with completely.”
Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, expressed distate for Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, and John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations. He said he doubts Giuliani and Bolton “have come to understood the historical significance” of the mistake of the Iraq war.
Asked about Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, Paul vowed to question the former Massachusetts governor on that issue if Romney is selected for secretary of state.
When asked about retired Gen. David Petraeus, who is also being considered for secretary of state, Paul cited Petraeus’ guilty plea last year of improperly revealing classified information to his former biographer and mistress.
“They spent a year and a half beating up Hillary Clinton over revealing classified information and then they would appoint somebody who the FBI said not only revealed it but then lied about it in an interview and purposely gave it to someone who did not have the clearance to have that?” he said. “I think that’s a potential problem.”
Paul also took issue with Trump’s tweets claiming he would have won the popular vote if it wasn’t for the “millions of people who voted illegally.”
“There is fraud sometimes, but typically it’s not illegal people voting, it’s a bad judge,” Paul said. “It’s a judge who decides to vote for people who never showed up.”
