Vance post on boat strike 'really ticked me off,' Rand Paul says

Source: Politico



The Kentucky senator lashed out at the vice president over the weekend.


Jennifer Scholtes 09/08/2025, 7:35pm ET

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he was compelled to publicly dress down Vice President JD Vance, ...............

After Vance said the strike on a small Venezuelan boat was the “highest and best use of our military,” Paul lashed out Saturday night: “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial,” he wrote on X.

Paul told reporters Monday that the message was in keeping with his long criticism of unchecked U.S. military power and questioned whether the attack, which reportedly killed 11, was legally or morally justified.

“Maybe [the boat] was coming here. Maybe it wasn’t. But nobody’s even asking whether we need to prove that. We just blow them up,” he said, adding: “I got no love lost for these people. But at the same time, is this the new Coast Guard policy? ... Almost none of the boats we’ve interdicted does it end up with us blowing up the boat.”

“But I think what really ticked me off and got me going,” Paul continued, referring to Vance, “was for someone to glorify the idea of killing people without any due process and saying he just didn’t give a shit what anybody who was going criticize him was going to say. That to me was a disdain for human life and a disdain for processes.”................................


Read more: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/09/08/congress/rand-paul-jd-vance-boat-strike-00551368