Rand Paul: Trump Should Pick A Secretary Of State He Agrees With
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Kentucky Senator Rand Paul weighed in on Donald Trump's selection process for the cabinet position of Secretary of State, telling Dom Giordano during an interview on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the President-elect should pick someone who agrees with his foreign policy pronouncements.
"I'm just trying to do what I can to promote that Trump should be Trump and Trump should pick somebody as Secretary of State that he doesn't have to be at odds with. We'll see what happens. Ultimately, he gets to make that decision."
He said he's agreed with Donald Trump's positions on military intervention in the past and believes Trump's selection should share those views as well.
"I think it's important that Donald Trump picks somebody for Secretary of State who actually agrees with Donald Trump. One of the things I liked about Donald Trump was that, when he ran for office, he must've said it a thousand times, the Iraq war was a mistake, nation building hasn't worked, regime change hasn't worked. We toppled Saddam Hussein, but we, in essence, created a chaotic vacuum and Iran became stronger and emboldened and it didn't help our national security. Same thing with toppling Qaddafi in Libya and the same argument could be made for Mubarak failing in Egypt, that we didn't, necessarily, become safer as a country.
Paul wants the next administration to focus on extricating the nation from foreign military expenditures and balancing the federal budget.
"We're going to spend $100 billion in Afghanistan. There is not enough money left to do nation building at home. You can't both nation build abroad and at home. So, it is important that the Secretary of State understand that because the foreign policy, ultimately, is intertwined with the domestic policy of how you pay for things. But, I'll continue to be somebody, and I may be the only Republican in the Senate, who votes against a budget that never balances...The current spending caps, which we don't even seem to be able to adhere to the current caps, they never lead to balance. That's not what I'm about. I've promised that I was for balancing budgets and I'm going to continue to vote that way, whether it's a Republican President or a Democrat President."