Rand Paul Says GOP Hawks Are To Blame For ISIS


The Senator and Republican presidential candidate, Rand Paul, says that hawks in the GOP created ISIS. Speaking with Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the junior senator from Kentucky said that politicians within the GOP were responsible for the creation of ISIS.

“ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most these arms were snatched up by ISIS.”

In an apparent attack on his fellow Republicans such as Senator Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul alleged that members of the GOP that supported arming groups in the Middle East were to blame for the terrorist organization ISIS.

Senator Lindsey Graham had previously asserted that people like Rand Paul are responsible for the rise of the Islamic State group. When Scarborough brought up Graham’s words in his interview with Rand Paul, Paul claimed that the opposite was true.

“ISIS is all over Libya because these same hawks in my party loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya, they just wanted more of it.”

As the New York Times points out, Senator Paul is doing his best to differentiate himself from other Republican presidential candidates. So far, Rand Paul has done just that at nearly every opportunity. The freshman Senator takes stances on issues, like war, that are in stark contrast to that of traditional Republican stances.

Paul’s non-traditional stances on issues have upset many of his Republican colleagues. Another likely Republican presidential candidate, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, railed against Rand Paul’s comments through his Twitter account Wednesday. Governor Jindal said that Paul’s view is the “most liberal, Dem position” and that his recent “illogical” comments show that he is unfit to be president.

In an article published by the Wall Street Journalin response to Paul’s interview, the author refutes the claims made by Paul.

“Mr. Paul seems to think he can win the GOP nomination on an anti-interventionist platform, though we think he’d be better off focusing on his domestic agenda. But if he wants to run as an Obama Republican on foreign policy, he shouldn’t also adopt the Obama trick of rewriting history.”

Others, like Joe Scarborough–who identifies as a Republican–seem to agree with Rand Paul’s comments. Scarborough came to Paul’s defense Thursday after the Wall Street Journal’s piece was published. Joe Scarborough asserted that if we had followed Rand Paul’s foreign policy, there would be no ISIS.

[image via Scott Olson / Getty Images]

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