The Republican Party is going through a spell of infighting. But some are trying to clean up the mess.
And a GOP Senator was pummeled for making these back-stabbing comments about this Trump official.
In the world of politics, where alliances shift like sand, it’s eye-opening to see how some Republicans flip-flop when it comes to backing strong leadership. Back in 2015, when an Obama-era drone strike accidentally took out several Americans in a hit on al Qaeda, who stepped up to defend it? None other than Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky libertarian known for his anti-drone rants.
“I do think that there is a valuable use for drones,” Paul said during that time. “And as much as I’m seen as an opponent of drones, I think in military and warfare, they do have some value.”
A decade later, Paul’s tune has changed dramatically now that Donald Trump is back in the White House. The Trump administration recently launched a decisive strike against a Venezuelan drug speedboat that was manned by the brutal terrorist group Tren de Aragua. But instead of applauding the move to protect American lives, Paul is blasting Vice President JD Vance for standing firm in its defense.
It all kicked off when leftist agitator Brian Krassenstein labeled the strike a “war crime.” Vance fired back without mincing words, saying he didn’t “give a s***” what Krassenstein referred to it as. That straightforward response triggered Paul, who accused the vice president of ignoring due process for the suspected terrorist drug runners and branded him “despicable and thoughtless.”
“JD ‘I don’t give a s***’ Vance says k*lling people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military,’” Paul said in a post on X. “Did he ever read To K*ll a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify k*lling someone without a trial.”
Vance isn’t backing down from Paul’s outburst. A source close to the vice president slammed the senator for picking and choosing his battles, especially when it involves criticizing Trump.
“The Vice President believes in the Trump doctrine and using overwhelming force to protect core American interests and save American lives,” the source tied to Vance said to The Daily Wire. “That p*sses off hypocrites like Rand Paul, who during his failed run for president defended Obama droning American citizens without due process, but now is sticking up for foreign terrorists thanks to his debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Remember April 2015? Paul shrugged off concerns about Obama’s drone strikes, noting that “you really don’t get due process or anything like that if you are in a war zone.” Those strikes eliminated two American al-Qaeda operatives and tragically k*lled an American and a French aid worker held hostage. Obama owned up to the mistake, blaming bad intel.
“I tend not to want to blame the president for the loss of life here. I think he was trying to do the right thing,” Paul said when talking about the strike. He also praised the “valuable use for drones” during that same interview.
Paul built his reputation as a drone skeptic earlier, staging a marathon 13-hour filibuster in 2013 against John Brennan’s CIA nomination. He hammered Obama for not explicitly ruling out drones being used on U.S. citizens. Paul leaned on that history when responding to The Daily Wire, claiming he’s been the “foremost critic of drones being used on civilians, especially Americans” in the Senate.
Yet, Paul insists the Trump team’s recent action falls short. He argues it wasn’t in a “declared war” and violated Coast Guard protocols. Plus, he gripes that the administration hasn’t named the boat’s occupants yet.
“The recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement which include: warnings to halt, non-lethal force to capture, and ultimately lethal force in self-defense or in cases of resistance,” Paul stated.
President Trump announced the strike last week, revealing that 11 narcoterrorists from Tren de Aragua perished in international waters as they headed toward the U.S. from Venezuela. This move points to rump’s commitment to crushing threats before they hit American shores.
“K*lling cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vance stated. Those were the comments that angered Paul.
The Trump administration has ramped up the heat on Tren de Aragua relentlessly. In February, they slapped the gang with a foreign terrorist organization label. The State Department detailed their atrocities: kidnappings, business extortion, bribing officials, attacking U.S. cops, and even assassinating a Venezuelan opposition leader.
Trump then activated the Alien Enemies Act to fast-track deportations of these thugs caught in America. The White House warned that the gang had sneaked in and was waging “irregular warfare” against us, using drugs as a tool to erode our strength from within.
Following the boat strike, Venezuela escalated tensions by sending two armed F-16s buzzing over the USS Jason Dunham, a powerhouse guided-missile destroyer. The Pentagon called it a “highly provocative move” aimed at disrupting the United States’s anti-narco-terror efforts.
This whole saga exposes the cracks in the Republican ranks, where some like Paul seem more interested in nitpicking Trump’s successes than uniting against real enemies. While Paul plays armchair quarterback, the Trump-Vance team is out there delivering results, safeguarding Americans from foreign poison peddlers and terrorists.
At the end of the day, actions like this strike send a clear message: America under Trump won’t tolerate invaders or drug lords exploiting its borders. Paul’s hypocrisy only highlights how far some have strayed from putting America first.
