Republican Sen. Rand Paul is blasting Speaker of the House Mike Johnson for his failures on the deficit and support for a bill that allows intelligence agencies to spy on some Americans without a warrant.
Paul told Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” on Sunday that he’s, “not so sure there’s a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and Democrats being in charge.”
Paul’s remarks come in the wake of the House of Representatives on Friday passing a two-year renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
According to NBC News, the renewal passed 273-147, with 126 Republicans and 147 Democrats supporting it.
Section 702 allows government agencies to spy on foreigners overseas without a warrant. The danger with FISA Section 702 comes from its ability to allow warrantless spying on Americans who may communicate with foreigners.
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Paul criticized Johnson after he had a change of heart regarding Section 702 saying, “… he’s completely changed and lost all his principles on the idea that we shouldn’t spy on Americans without a warrant.”
Fielding questions on Capitol Hill in a video posted to X on Thursday, Johnson explained how his views shifted after he became House speaker.
“… I saw the abuses of the FBI, the terrible abuses over and over and over, the hundreds of thousands of abuses and then when I became speaker, I went to the staff and got the confidential briefing from sort of the other perspective on that to understand the necessity of section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security and they gave me a different perspective,” he said.
Speaker Mike Johnson explains why he flipped his stance on FISA after an Intelligence briefing.
Sound legit?
I tend to agree with Snowden on this one…
“This is a textbook case of Congressional capture. With a single briefing, the intelligence agencies routinely transform their… pic.twitter.com/AFAzEvsBoL— RoamingRN (@roaming_rn) April 11, 2024
After Johnson reversal, Paul did not mince words.
Rand Paul has had enough:
“I’m not so sure there’s a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and Democrats being in charge.” pic.twitter.com/ROIPeR6BGt
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 14, 2024
While Section 702 was the hot-button issue, Paul also criticized Johnson for his support of adding trillions to the federal deficit.
“… The deficit this year will be $1.5 to $2 trillion and that’s Mike Johnson’s bill. He put it forward. He supported it with a minority of Republicans, with a majority of Democrats,” he said. “This is not using the power of the purse. This is abdicating the power of the purse.”
Paul is referring to the new 1.2 trillion dollar pending bill signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 23. The bill, supported by Johnson, passed in the House of Representatives 286 – 134 and 74 – 24 in the Senate.
Notably, Paul mentions victories for Democrats with money for welfare programs and a bigger budget for the military pushed by Republicans.
“The Democrats got everything they want in the spending and all the hawks got what they want, too.”
Clearly from the clip, Paul is frustrated with Johnson as speaker.
He isn’t alone.
When former Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker, it was clear conservative lawmakers were tired of business-as-usual in Washington.
Surely the exorbitant spending bills would cease and the next person to do the job would take a more hardline position against inflation and be less inclined to agree with Democrats.
Do you agree with Rand Paul?
As Paul’s interview makes clear, many conservatives are convinced that hasn’t been the case during Johnson’s speakership.
When criticisms like this from an outspoken conservative like Paul are making headlines, Johnson is getting a reminder that being speaker doesn’t mean accommodating Democrats, making inflation worse, and spying on the American people.
Surely, he knows the last guy got fired for doing a bad job, right?
