How Rand Paul made Trump his BFF

The Senator from Kentucky wants to nurture the president's non-interventionist inclinations

Rand Paul and Donald Trump at the White House
(Image credit: Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images)

Sen. Rand Paul's trip to Moscow this week amid heightened concerns about Russian interference in U.S. elections was one of the most audacious gambits of his political career. The Kentucky Republican's rivals in his own party are certain to accuse him of cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but the real objective of the trip was to get closer to President Trump.

Paul was practically the only major figure in Washington to defend Trump in the aftermath of his disastrous joint press conference with Putin, praising the president as a man of peace. "Trump Derangement Syndrome has officially come to the Senate," he said in response to new sanctions against Russia proposed in July. "The hatred for the president is so intense, that partisans would rather risk war than give diplomacy a chance."

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.