Republican Sen. Rand Paul on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s military mission off Venezuela’s coast, calling the seizures of a number of oil tankers within the Caribbean Sea “a provocation and a prelude to warfare.”
“I am not for confiscating these liners. I am not for blowing up these boats of unarmed individuals which might be suspected of being drug sellers. I am not for any of this,” Paul informed ABC Information’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Paul additionally described the administration’s coverage of dealing with suspected drug traffickers as “weird and contradictory.”
“After which why is the previous president [Juan Orlando] Hernandez of Honduras, who was in jail for 45 years, why is he launched?” Paul requested. “So, some narco-terrorists are actually OK and different narco-terrorists we will blow up. After which a few of them, if they don’t seem to be designated as a terrorist, we’d arrest them.”
Sen Rand Paul walks by means of the Senate subway on Capitol Hill, on Dec. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Heather Diehl/Getty Photographs
Listed below are extra highlights from Paul’s interview:
On Erika Kirk and Marco Rubio’s 2028 Vance endorsement
Karl: Is JD Vance the inheritor obvious right here?
Paul: I feel there must be representatives within the Republican Occasion who nonetheless consider worldwide commerce is sweet, who nonetheless consider in free market capitalism, who nonetheless consider in low taxes. See, it used to separate conservatives and liberals that conservatives thought it was a spending drawback. We did not need extra income. We needed much less spending. However now all these professional terror protectionists, they love taxes, and they also tax, tax, tax, after which they brag about all of the income coming in. That has by no means been a conservative place. So I will proceed to attempt to lead a conservative free market wing of the occasion, and we’ll see the place issues lead over time.
Karl: And that is not JD Vance.
Paul: No.
On retaliatory strikes in Syria
Paul: , it is exhausting to not need to hit again once they kill a few of our personal. However I wish to return, actually, to the primary Trump administration when he mentioned he did not need the troops there. There’s like 900 troops, perhaps a thousand, perhaps 1,500. They are not sufficient to combat a warfare. They are not sufficient to be an efficient strategic drive. What they’re is a goal and a tripwire.
So we have completed this retaliatory strike. Now, now, Donald Trump must do what Donald Trump proposed within the first administration, what Ronald Reagan did after the 1983 bomb. He left. There is not any purpose for us to be in Syria. We have to depart Syria and never be a visit wire to getting again concerned in one other warfare.
On the potential for a one-year extension for ACA subsidies
Paul: Look, we’ve got health care in our nation for poor individuals. It is known as Medicaid. All the relaxation of these items has not labored. Obamacare has been a failure. President Obama mentioned it could deliver premiums down. Premiums gone by means of the roof. Each time we give extra subsidies, the premiums go greater. I’ve a plan that claims all people on this market, and it is solely about 4%, all people on this market ought to be capable of go to Amazon or Costco or Sam’s Membership and as a gaggle, a big group — thousands and thousands of individuals within the group — negotiate with Massive Insurance coverage to deliver costs down. It is the one proposal on the market that — that has an opportunity of bringing costs down.
