Rand Paul: I am GOP "whipping boy" for opposing Trump tariffs, Venezuela drug boat strikes

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he will be supporting fellow liberty-minded lawmaker, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., as he faces a primary challenge from a candidate backed by President Donald Trump.

Trump endorsed vocal loyalist and former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein last week after calling for a 2026 challenger to Massie, who continues to pressure the administration to release the remaining files related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.


Massie has stood up to Trump and bucked his party on other issues, including by voting against the president's spending bill over the summer and affirming that Trump needs congressional approval for a war declaration. Paul, who has also stood up to Trump, voted against the bill in the Senate and has criticized the administration for moving forward with military strikes without authorization from lawmakers.


"Thomas Massie is going to win," Paul told POLITICO. "I’m going to help him. I’m going to be with him every step of the way."

Paul said Massie represents an "independent voice" within the GOP after his repeated splits with the party, but stated that both Massie and himself support Trump’s agenda "significantly more" than other Republicans who have sought to remain close allies of the president.

"The people who’ve gotten close to him who want regime change in Venezuela and want to send more advanced weaponry to Ukraine, those are the interventionists from the interventionist wing of the party who have never been the ones really closely allied," Paul said. "These are the people who have always opposed Donald Trump."

Paul said he and Massie will continue to push for "enumerated powers" as well as "balanced budgets, low taxes and less foreign war."

The Kentucky senator said Trump’s efforts to single out Massie should raise concerns for all Republican lawmakers, stressing that there are potential political consequences for opposing the president’s agenda.

"It’s a warning sign," he said. "'Oppose me or any of my policies, and I’ll come after you.' And I don’t think that’s good for the Republican Party, nor do I think it’s good for the country."

The senator said he is also tired of being the Republican Party’s "whipping boy," as many of his colleagues always want him "to do their job for them" when they are afraid to tell Trump if his nominees do not have the votes in the upper chamber.

"They say, 'Oh, well, you’re not afraid of the president. You go tell him his nominee can’t make it,'" Paul said. "So, I’m just tired of always being the whipping boy. I’m tired of the only one that has any guts to stand up and tell the president the truth."

Paul has also been met with Trump's ire in recent months, but continues to hold his ground. Most recently, he has criticized the administration's military strikes on boats it accuses, without evidence, of carrying narco-terrorists.

Paul raised concerns about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people. He cited Coast Guard statistics that show a significant percentage of boats boarded for suspicion of drug trafficking are innocent.

rlier this week, Paul revealed that he had not been invited to a White House lunch with other GOP senators over his tiffs with Trump. But Paul said he had a previously scheduled "Liberty Caucus Lunch" with Massie during that time anyway.

Paul also campaigned with Massie last month and said he plans to do it again in the near future.

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"We had big rallies and a great deal of support. So people think they can waltz into Kentucky with a bunch of New York money and buy a seat. They’ve got another thing coming," Paul told POLITICO.

Massie easily won the GOP primary for his district in 2024, securing 76% of the vote before running unopposed in the general election.


Most recently, he was concerned over his Republican colleagues’ hesitation to confront Trump about his now-former nominee to lead Office of the Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia. Ingrassia withdrew from the Senate confirmation process earlier this week after POLITICO’s reporting on texts that showed him making racist and antisemitic remarks.

[b]“I hear a lot of flack from Republicans and they want me to do it. They say, ‘Oh, well, you’re not afraid of the president. You go tell him his nominee can’t make it,’” says Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “I’m just tired of always being the whipping boy.”

In this week’s episode of The Conversation, Paul joins POLITICO’s Dasha Burns — just hours after he was snubbed from a presidential luncheon —

“If I’m given the choice of President Trump versus Harris or versus Biden, without question, I choose President Trump over and over again,” says Paul. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and just say, ‘Oh, I’m leaving all my beliefs on the doorstep. I’m no longer going to be for free trade. I’m no longer going to be for balanced budgets. I’m no longer going to be opposed to killing people without trials, without naming them, without evidence.’ No, I have to remain who I am.”

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed late Thursday that roughly 20 Republican senators are privately critical of President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade war with China, but are too afraid to voice their dissent publicly.

In an interview released late on Thursday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) told Politico’s Dasha Burns that 20 GOP senators are “grumbling” over President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, but that they “don’t have the guts” to criticize the president.

“There are probably eight farm states — maybe there are ten farm states. That means 20 senators have always believed in free trade,” Paul said, “and they’re all grumbling, and they’re all like, ‘China’s not buying any of our soybeans this year!'”

Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy has hit U.S. farmers particularly hard, with China essentially cutting off U.S. soybean purchases outright. In September 2025, Beijing imported no U.S. soybeans, marking the first time since 2018 that the figure hit zero.


He specifically cited China’s cut-off of U.S. soybean purchases, noting that Beijing imported no U.S. soybeans in September 2025—a zero figure not seen since 2018.

READ: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul Says He ‘Will Support’ Paying Federal Employees But Draws Line On Debt

"The tariff war with China has led to this," Paul said, before explaining their silence: "They don’t have the guts, because it’s their president, and frankly, they’re afraid. They’re afraid that he will do to them what he’s trying to do to me."

This isn’t the first time that Paul has broken with the president on trade policy; in March, he blasted Trump’s tariffs as “bad for America” and warned that they could lead to a “1930s-style Republican wipeout.” Most recently, he condemned the president’s order to destroy suspected drug-running boats off the coast of Venezuela, calling it “summary execution” and warning that “blowing up foreign ships is a recipe for chaos.”

Paul’s remarks follow a recent escalation in his feud with the President, with Trump attacking the Kentucky Senator on Truth Social last week, writing, “He was never great, but he went really BAD! I got him elected, TWICE (in the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky!), but he just never votes positively for the Republican Party. He’s a nasty liddle’ guy.”