Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul feared that he and his wife would have been “pummeled” by protesters if police had not intervened as they left the White House and walked to a hotel following President Trump’s acceptance speech to end the Republican National Convention.
He told Fox and Friends on Friday morning that the city is no longer safe for Republicans like himself to be out walking.
“I regret that I made this decision, but I said we’ll walk the two blocks. We walked one block, but as we walked one block, we could see some police in the distance, but we also saw a mob of about 30 people marching and yelling. They all of a sudden saw me — right as we got to the police, fortunately, or I don’t think we would have survived,” Paul said.
The senator said the crowd swelled to more than 100 protesters, some of whom shouted profanities and threats at the couple. At least one officer used his bike to push back the mob.
“They were shouting threats, you know, to us, to kill us, to hurt us, but they’re also saying, shouting, ‘Say her name, Breonna Taylor.’ And it’s like, you couldn’t reason with this mob. But I’m actually the author of the Breonna Taylor law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots that they’re trying to kill the person who’s actually trying to get rid of no-knock raids. […] You’ve seen the pictures of what they do to you,” Paul said.
“If the police are not there, if you defund the police, if we become Portland, if America becomes Portland, what’s going to happen is people are going to be pummeled and kicked in the head and left senseless on the curb. That would have happened to us — I promise you — had we not had the D.C. police to support us. We are thankful that we have police. And we’ve got to wake up. We can’t have Joe Biden rule the country and have no police,” he added.
Paul said he believes that at least some of the protesters involved in the “attack” were from out of town and paid. He also called on the FBI to investigate. “This is an organized interstate racket,” the senator said.
