Rand Paul is just controlled opposition to give legitimacy to the whole sham. He assumed that role with good intentions, still has them, but compromise entered his life on these matters like slow cooking the frog.
I am beginning reluctantly to get that impression of Rand—he has served a function, surely, and is one of the higher profile Republicans, but put him alongside the likes of Kash, Hegseth, RFK, even Tulsi, not to mention several others who seem to have a killer instinct Rand lacks, and we see why he still seems to be operating “independently” and doesn’t seem to have an essential function within the Trump Administration.