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I caught up with Rand Paul at Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum convention in St. Louis over the weekend, and he was in a feisty mood. While he was there to introduce his 80-year-old mother before she accepted an award from Eagle Forum, he was primed to discuss this week’s upcoming GOP debate and Donald Trump. “Someone has to bring him down,” he told reporters in the lounge of the St. Louis Marriott. “I’m not going to sit quietly by and let the disaster that is Donald Trump become the nominee. Do you want someone who appears to still be in...

"Paul later told me he thinks he has found an approach that will separate Trump from the rest of the GOP field: eminent domain. “A hallmark of Republicans is that they respect private property. But Trump runs roughshod over it,” he said. “He is a serious abuser of taking property for his private benefit.”

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump poked at rival Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Twitter on Saturday, calling him a “lightweight” who shouldn’t be allowed in Wednesday’s CNN presidential debate. Trump needled Paul in a series of tweets: (see below) Trump’s shots came hours after Paul joked about the GOP frontrunner in an interview with Politico. “I think I was a little too easy on Donald Trump last time,” Paul said in the interview, referencing a heated exchange the two had in an August Fox News presidential debate. “That’s given in jest," he added. Later in the interview, Paul unfavorably compared...

House Republican leaders are facing a revolt by GOP lawmakers over plans to vote on a measure to disapprove of the Iran nuclear deal. Speaker John Boehner and other GOP leaders got an earful Wednesday morning from lawmakers who say President Barack Obama has not disclosed so-called "side deals" between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, and therefore is crosswise with the law that gives Congress review power over the accord. GOP leaders are likely to change their approach Wednesday, and are now considering a vote on Rep. Peter Roskam's (R-Ill.) resolution that would delay a disapproval vote because...

Faced with a potential mutiny on a procedural vote to bring up a disapproval resolution on the Iran nuclear agreement, House GOP leadership is considering delaying the anti-deal vote and taking up different legislation stating that the president has not held up his side of the bargain. GOP leaders emerged from the Republican Conference’s weekly meeting Wednesday morning expressing some uncertainty about whether they should proceed with the anti-deal resolution. “We had a very healthy conversation with our members this morning,” Speaker John A. Boehner told reporters. “Certainly some interest amongst the ideas offered by [Rep. Mike] Pompeo and [Rep....

Gannett paper, link only: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/09/05/iowa-poll-lanes-analysis/71712670/

From the moment he walked onto the Republican debate stage in Cleveland, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has been Donald Trump's most relentless critic. He has called him a "fake conservative," a "chameleon," a man who "buys and sells politicians." Long before former Florida Jeb Bush hit Trump with a video of his most liberal statements, Paul had his campaign team on the case. Yet in a Friday interview with Michael Smerconish, first spotlighted by Mediaite's Matt Wilstein, Paul got a chance to mock Trump's stumbling "commander in chief interview" with Hugh Hewitt. He did not take it. Instead, he defended...

Rand Paul said he supports a county clerk from his home state for standing her ground against granting marriage licenses for same-sex couples, saying there should be room "for people to exercise their religious beliefs and not be told they have to do something they find morally objectionable." "I have never been opposed to contracts between consenting adults," Paul told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Bill Hemmer. "But I am very much sympathetic to the idea that an individual shouldn't have to sign or give their stamp of approval that they object to." There is an easy way out for...

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina offered her take on the growing controversy of the Kentucky county clerk who is refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses because it violates her religious conscience. Fiorina spoke on Hugh Hewitt's radio show Thursday saying that religious liberty is clearly under attack but that rights of religious conscience is less clear when an individual is an "arm of the government." "First, I think that we must protect religious liberties with great passion and be willing to expend a lot of political capital to do so now because it's clear religious liberty is under assault in...

Sen. Rand Paul's (R-KY) said on Thursday it was "absurd" that Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis had been jailed for contempt after refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberties," the GOP presidential candidate and outspoken advocate of states' rights told CNN on Thursday, shortly after Davis' fate was decided by a U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning. "This is really the problem when from on high we decide to get involved on a federal level with something that has always been a local issue," Paul...

Washington (CNN) CNN is amending the criteria for its Republican presidential debate on September 16, possibly opening the door for Carly Fiorina to join the other top-tier candidates on the stage. The cause: a lack of national public polling following the August 6 debate has so far provided only three new polls to determine the lineup for the Reagan Presidential Debate, according to a CNN statement. As a result, CNN reevaluated its criteria and decided to add a provision that better reflects the state of the race since the first Republican presidential debate in August, the network announced Tuesday. Now,...

Tonight, Public Policy Polling gave the Rachel Maddow Show a sneak peek at their results of their August 28-30 poll to be released tomorrow. While the findings at the top of the poll are what we've come to expect from the Republican field - Donald Trump and Ben Carson - securing the top spots - what is more surprising is to find beltway-favored candidates Chris Christie and Rand Paul floundering at the bottom with barely any support. The poll also shows the tea party character of the Republican Party, with strong birther views and a dubious grasp of some key...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (AP)— a Republican candidate for president — today warned his party risks its worst electoral beating since 1964 if frontrunner Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination. “It would probably be the worst defeat we’ve had since (Barry) Goldwater, I’d predict, if Trump where the nominee,” Paul said in a Boston Herald Radio “Morning Meeting” interview, referring to the 1964 race during which the Republican from Arizona carried only six states against Lyndon B. Johnson. A recent Quinnipiac national poll showed Trump lapping the field with 28 percent of those surveyed saying they support him. Paul, who...

A nice catch by Sam Stein of HuffPo from Rand’s interview with Boston Herald Radio. Skip to around 11:00 for the key bit.I … did not expect a competition between Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul over who could conjure up a better Nazi allusion for Republicans. Or rather, I didn’t expect it until the election turned to foreign policy. “There have been a lot of dumb ideas put out,” Paul said, speaking with Boston Herald Radio. “One that the Mexicans will pay for a wall, [which] was probably the dumbest of dumb ideas. But putting a wall up between...

OREM — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul had one word for the Donald Trump phenomenon that seems to be sweeping the country: "Insane." Asked if he thought Trump would eventually flame out, the freshman Kentucky senator said, "We can only hope so." Paul's comments came Saturday after a raucous rally at Alder Home Security that attracted about 600 Utahns who waved red and white towels and clamored for "President Paul." He only disappointed supporters when he declined to crowd surf after his speech saying, "Maybe next time." In Utah on the last day of a five-state western campaign swing, Paul...

Orem • Rand Paul brought his message of limited government and strict observance of the U.S. Constitution to Utah Saturday. A crowd of several hundred applauded his call to stand up for all 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights — not just the one protecting gun rights. "You can't support the Second Amendment unless you protect the Fourth," the GOP presidential candidate said, referring to the constitutional prohibition against unlawful search and seizure. That applause line was the Kentucky senator's segue into his intense opposition to blanket data-gathering on U.S. citizens — a key pillar of his long-shot campaign....

The national beauty contest, which the three have lost at this point, will give way to a state-by-state slugfest. Walker is still betting on a strong showing in Iowa to reignite his campaign. Paul is hoping that caucuses, especially in the Western states, can give his campaign a delegate boost. Rubio seems to be placing a firewall in South Carolina and his home state of Florida. At some point he will have to decide whether he wants to be the establishment alternative to Bush or the second-choice of other more conservative candidates. He’s tried to be both, but that strategy...

People are gathering in the BSU Student Union for Rand Paul’s rally this morning, which has been moved to the Hatch Ballroom from the smaller Barnwell Room. The 258 chairs are mostly full, and a few are starting to gather in standing room in the back for the “Stand With Rand” rally. The audience appears to be mostly students, along with a mix of other Boiseans. Linda Pfister, a Boise retiree, said, “I’ve been a Rand Paul supporter for quite some time now. I think if anybody can get rid of the trash in Washington, D.C., I think he can.”...

SPOKANE, Wa. – Rand Paul was 2,487 miles away from the Beltway journalists who had written off his campaign, and he was loving it. A riverfront hotel ballroom had filled early, latecomers grabbing chairs from the hallway to add more rows. Seven hundred people stood for a prayer, then the Pledge of Allegiance, then the Star-Spangled Banner, then for two amen-filled endorsements from local legislators, then a video message from the senator’s wife Kelley — and then, finally, for Rand Paul. “Looks like the liberty movement is alive and well and packing itself into the room!” said Paul. He wore...

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul said Tuesday that government workers who were outed by hackers as members of AshleyMadison.com - a website created to facilitate extramarital affairs - should not face punishment. Before he could register that opinion, though, he had to figure out what the heck "Ashley Madison" is. "I keep seeing that headline, but I'm terrible - I don't know what it is," he confessed to a Washington Post reporter when he was asked about the hack of the risqué website, which exposed the contact information of millions of its users. The senator asked, "So, she has done...