Rand Paul accuses GOP colleagues of not giving a ‘s–t’ about people killed in boat strikes

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., accused his “pro-life” Republican colleagues of not caring about people killed in boat attacks near Venezuela, which the Trump administration alleges were smuggling fentanyl without providing evidence.

While appearing on “The Joe Rogan Experience” airing Tuesday. Paul said GOP lawmakers “failed to provide necessary information” about people who died on the ships and criticized his colleagues for not accepting the presumption of innocence.

“I look at my colleagues who say they are pro-life and they value God’s inspiration in life, but they don’t give much information about these people on the boats,” Paul said. “Scary people on the boats? I don’t know. Probably poor people in Venezuela and Colombia.”

“I think what I don’t feel connected to my Republican colleagues is that these lives didn’t matter and we just blew them up. And against all justice, against all the laws of war, against all the laws of just war, we never blew up the shipwrecked people,” he added, referring to the report that the administration had targeted and killed people who had survived the initial attacks and were clinging to the wreckage.

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The Libertarian Republican said “doing so was against the rules of military justice.”

“We do this and everyone says, ‘Oh, those are drug dealers,'” he said.

Paul criticized GOP lawmakers who repeated the administration’s allegations about boats carrying fentanyl. He also objected to his colleagues’ view that “We are at war with them. They are making war by bringing drugs to America.”

“They don’t even come here,” Paul explained. “They’re going to these islands in the southern part of the Caribbean. Cocaine – and it’s definitely not fentanyl – cocaine is going to Europe.”

He emphasized that “these small boats cannot come here.”

“No one has even asked the common question: These boats have four engines on them. They’re outboard boats. You can probably go about 100 miles before you refuel. Two thousand miles away from us, they’d have to refuel 20 times to get here,” Paul said.

Sen. Rand Paul said GOP lawmakers “withheld information” about people who died on the ships. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc.)

The senator accused the administration of orchestrating the boat attacks to create “a pretense and a false argument” ahead of the operation to attack Venezuela and arrest president Nicolás Maduro.

“This was all an excuse to arrest Maduro,” he said. “So we need to form the predicate. We need to show you that we care about drugs.”

Paul helped the Senate pass a resolution last week that would limit Trump’s ability to launch further attacks against Venezuela after the U.S. military’s latest move to strike the country and capture Maduro, which the Kentucky Republican said meant war. The Upper House could pass the measure later this week, although it faces an uphill battle in the House despite some support from Republicans.

“I think bombing the capitol and removing the president is, by all definitions, war,” Paul told reporters before last week’s procedural vote. “Does this mean that we have full authority that the president can make the decision at any time, anywhere, to invade a foreign country and eliminate those we accuse of crimes?”

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Senator Rand Paul accused the Trump administration of orchestrating the boat attacks to create “a pretense and a false argument” ahead of a move to attack Venezuela and arrest its president. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP via Getty Images)

The lawmaker has repeatedly criticized the administration’s boat attacks on alleged narco-terrorists in recent months and has frequently expressed concern about people being killed without due process and the possibility of innocent people being killed. The senator had previously cited Coast Guard statistics showing that a significant percentage of boats embarked on suspicion of drug smuggling are innocent.

Paul said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that he believes the administration could attack Mexico next, and Trump has signaled that could be a future target.

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“This is what they want to do next. They want to bomb Mexico,” Paul said.

Trump said the cartels “run Mexico” and that “something has to be done” because Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is “so afraid” of the cartels.