Rand Paul Attacks Hilliary Clinton Record As Secretary Of State
Rand Paul on Saturday attacked Hillary Clinton,
the only declared Democratic candidate for president so far, over her
record as secretary of state under Barack Obama, her use of a private
email server while in that job and the human rights records of some
donors to her charitable foundation.
The Kentucky senator also asked Republicans
to help him take the party’s message to “new people… rich, poor, black,
white, brown” as he campaigns for the presidential nomination in 2016.
Speaking in Nashua, New Hampshire, at the Republican Leadership Summit
– where most of the declared and potential GOP candidates for president
were scheduled to speak on Friday and Saturday – the libertarian-tinged
candidate largely focused on foreign policy, an area in which he has
been vulnerable to attack over his supposedly isolationist stance.
He named radical Islam as the enemy of the US and focused again on
the Benghazi attacks of 2012 and Clinton’s role in the US response.
“Libya was a mistake,” he said, referring the Obama administration’s military support of rebels who toppled Muammar Gaddafi
in 2011. “One thing that is probably true in the Middle East: every
time we have toppled a secular dictator, a secular strong man, we’ve
gotten chaos and the rise of radical Islam. If we want to defend our
country, we have to know the enemy and we have to name the enemy.
“The president won’t name the enemy, but I will: it’s radical Islam.
Until we name it we can’t defeat them, and I will tell you this: if I
were commander in chief I would do everything it takes to … defend the
country against radical Islam.”
Paul also emphasised his supposed appeal to a wider section of the
populace than most Republicans, particularly on social issues like
sentencing laws and the legal status of some drugs. Not for the first time, he invoked an unlikely inspiration: Robert Henri, the founder of the early 20th-century Ashcan school of American social-realist painting.
“I think we need to stay true to principle,” he said. “I don’t think
we need to dilute our message, but I do think our message needs to be
carried to new people. We need to talk to business owners, we need to
talk to the workers. We need to talk to the rich, poor, white, black,
brown ...
“I like to think of the image of Robert Henri, who said to young
painters: ‘Paint like a man coming over the hill singing.’ I think if we
proclaim our message with the passion of Patrick [sic] Henri … then I
think we’ll be the dominant party again.”
Opening up to questions from the audience – “We have time for two or
three questions, as long as they’re easy questions,” said the senator,
who has had a number of tricky interactions with the media since announcing his run for the White House last week – Paul was asked whether he thought the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who has repeatedly said she will not run for president despite appeals from the left, would become Clinton’s running mate.
Rand Paul meets his public after his speech in Nashua. Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters
Paul largely avoided the question, choosing instead to milk supportive laughter while attacking Clinton on familiar lines.
“I’m starting to worry that when Hillary Clinton travels there’s
going to need to be two planes,” he said. “One for her entourage and one
for her baggage. And the plane for the baggage is really getting heavy.
“The whole email thing,” he continued, in reference to Clinton’s contentious use of a private email server while secretary of state,
“is she sort of above the rules? She doesn’t have to use a government
server? ‘My server was protected by the secret service’ – does she think
there’s, like, floppy disks in her basement? I think there’s a lot more
going on; there’s more coming.”
Paul also repeated a common attack line, mentioning donations made to the Clinton Foundation,
which is run by the candidate, her husband, former president Bill
Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, by countries with questionable
records on women’s rights.
“Do you know a woman was gang raped by seven men in Saudi Arabia and
they arrested the woman?” Paul asked. “Probably gave her 90 lashes for
being in a car with an unmarried man.
“Does anyone remember South Africa and apartheid and how everybody
rose up and people quit investing? You’d think she’d be leading a
disinvestment programme against Saudi Arabia, instead of taking their
money.”
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