U.S. Sen. Rand Paul has a major disagreement with former President Donald Trump, and that is his confidence in House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)
The Kentucky Republican called ut the GOP leader for being “incredibly wrong” with his voting record and essentially being no different than Democrats, taking a visibly different stance than that of the former president who said Johnson was “doing a very good job.”
“Speaker Johnson was incredibly wrong,” Paul told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, speaking of Johnson forcing a tie vote on an amendment to the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requiring the government to get a warrant before spying on Americans.
“He broke the tie. He voted with the Democrats. Here we have the leader of the Republicans in the House votes with the Democrats against a warrant requirement,” Paul said on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“We also have Speaker Johnson voting for the spending package once again with a majority of the Democrats. As I see it now, I’m not so sure there’s a difference between Mike Johnson being in charge and the Democrats being in charge,” the senator told Bartiromo.
His rebuke came days after a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida home where the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee backed the speaker and said, “I stand with the speaker. We’ve had a very good relationship.”
Former President Trump on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) threat to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA): “He’s doing about as good as you’re going to do, and I’m sure that Marjorie understands that … I stand with the speaker. We’ve had a very good relationship.” pic.twitter.com/R5E7Q3vbJl
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 12, 2024
Paul challenged the speaker to “do something” to win the confidence of Republicans who don’t feel he has represented the GOP’s interests.
“Johnson hasn’t held his ground,” Paul said. “He has power. He has a majority. Use the power of the purse. Speaker Johnson, do something to make us think you are different than the Democrats. But so far I don’t see a lot of difference.”
After initially being against the surveillance powers of FISA Section 702, Johnson did an about-face after picking up the gavel.
“When I was a member of Judiciary, I saw all of the abuses of the FBI — there were terrible abuses, over and over and over,” Johnson said last week. “And then when I became Speaker, I … 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.”