Sen. Rand Paul’s abrupt decision to support Mike Pompeo’s nomination for secretary of state won him praise from President Trump, but roiled his libertarian base.
Erstwhile Paul supporters itching for a fight over Pompeo railed against the Kentucky lawmaker on social media, calling him a “coward” and worse. One activist tweeted, “I’m sorry I ever supported him.”
Others were more measured in their response. “A bit disappointed, but if Sen. Paul received a strong assurance that this administration would work to end the war in Afghanistan, then the switched vote will be worthwhile,” a Paul-friendly conservative told the Washington Examiner. “I have always thought the better ground for libertarians to fight on is Gina Haspel’s nomination to run the CIA. She can be defeated.”
Paul, R-Ky., had pledged to block Pompeo, currently the CIA director and formerly a Republican congressman from Kansas, because of his hawkish foreign-policy views. Instead, he voted Monday to advance Pompeo’s nomination from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“He’s a good man,” Trump said afterward, adding Paul has “never let us down.” The president had predicted as much last week. “Rand Paul is a very special guy as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “He’s never let me down.”
“A Republican senator is not going to be the deciding vote to block a Republican president’s nominee for secretary of state, period,” a GOP strategist said. “I don’t care if it is Rand Paul or anybody else.”
Except three Democratic senators up for re-election this year in states where Trump is popular — Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — announced their support for Pompeo. Paul’s continued opposition would have meant a negative report in committee but Pompeo would have had the votes in the full Senate.
“He would have never gotten out of committee without Sen. Paul,” said Paul spokesman Sergio Gor. “Sen. Paul got multiple assurances from both the president and the director that our foreign policy will reflect what President Trump campaigned on. Less intervention, getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan and no more nation-building across the globe.”
“President Trump believes that Iraq was a mistake, that regime change has destabilized the region, and that we must end our involvement with Afghanistan,” Paul himself explained in a statement. “Having received assurances from President Trump and Director Pompeo that he agrees with the president on these important issues, I have decided to support his nomination to be our next Secretary of State.”
Yet some found those assurances unconvincing given that the Trump administration has increased troop levels in Afghanistan, twice bombed Syria, and has generally not represented as dramatic a break from the recent past on foreign policy as his campaign rhetoric suggested. John Bolton’s ascension to national security adviser, a position that does not require Senate confirmation, increased the appetite for Paul to take a stand.
Paul has weathered these controversies in the past, as he has carefully balanced fighting for his foreign-policy views within a generally hawkish GOP with political considerations. He was criticized for joining fellow Republicans in a procedural vote against Chuck Hagel’s nomination for secretary of defense under President Obama, though he ultimately voted to confirm Hagel.
“Everybody is really excited about Hagel, but the most important question and the most important constitutional issue is whether or not the president can kill American citizens through the drone strike program on U.S. soil,” Paul said at the time. “That’s a much bigger question than Hagel.”
“You would think by some of the comments I get that Hagel is really Harry Browne,” he added, referring to the 1996 and 2000 Libertarian Party presidential nominee.
Ultimately, Paul’s drone filibuster was a more significant political event than anything concerning Hagel’s confirmation. But his about-face on Pompeo, which surprised even Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee, has drawn comparisons to when Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was sharply critical of Trump’s nomination of Rex Tillerson for secretary of state only to support him.
Rubio and Paul have been opposites both on foreign policy and in their reputations for delivering on promises to stand against the rest of the party.
Paul’s defenders still hope his good relations with the president — and willingness to reinforce his less interventionist foreign-policy instincts — will pay dividends in time, perhaps giving him influence over other appointees. Trump’s hawkish personnel — he reportedly faced unanimous opposition when he wanted to pull troops out of Syria — is viewed as being as big an obstacle to change as the president’s own ideological inconsistencies.
The senator also represents a state where Trump is relatively popular. Trump ran ahead of Paul in Kentucky in 2016.
Paul also learned the limits of running hard against Trump during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, when some of the senator’s compromises on foreign policy — he signed the Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., letter against the Iran nuclear deal, for instance — diluted libertarian enthusiasm for his candidacy but the visceral connection Trump and to a lesser extent Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, enjoyed with the GOP base was a larger problem.
The Senate is expected to vote to confirm Pompeo this week.
