FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 12, 2024
Contact: Press_Paul@paul.senate.gov, 202-224-4343

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), in a continuation of his efforts to protect America’s borders instead of Ukraine’s, spoke on the floor as part of a talking filibuster to force debate on the foreign aid spending bill. Dr. Paul spoke once this afternoon, and again this evening. He is also scheduled to speak again later this evening.

Below are excerpts from his remarks this afternoon:

“I care about the bankrupting of America. I care about the looting of our Treasury. There can be an honest debate over national security or what is in our vital security. But there never is a debate. If you look closely at what people say, they’ll simply declare it’s in our national security to send money to Ukraine. There isn’t really a debate.

“I actually think it’s the opposite. I think sending you money to Ukraine actually makes our national security more endangered. I think it threatens our vital national security to send more money to Ukraine. Why? Because I think it threatens the fiscal solvency of our country. I think it, along with so much of the rest of the spending, is dragging America down and threatening a day of destruction.”

…

“Only two thirds of the spending in Washington is paid for. An entire third of it is borrowed. And yet they want to send money to a foreign country to deal with their problems. Shouldn’t we try to take care of our own country first? Shouldn’t we try to do something to actually, you know, quit the destruction of our own currency?

“How do they get away with it? It’s incredibly unpopular. If you were to take this position in my state and ask everybody in Kentucky, how many of you think that we should send $100 billion overseas and do zero for the southern border? Not a penny. Not one policy change, nothing for the southern border. How many people believe that?

“In my state, it’s close to zero. Very few people believe that. So how does it happen up here? It happens because there’s not enough sunlight. There’s not enough transparency. So that’s part of what a filibuster is. This is a talking filibuster today. And the reason we talk is to try to broadcast this message, to get the message home so they can send us better people.”

You can watch his full afternoon remarks HERE.

Below are excerpts from his remarks this evening:

“What we have here is a Ukraine first bill. This bill was never really about securing our border, but about securing another country’s border. 

“What we have here is a failure of the elites of Washington on both sides of the aisle, the leadership of the Democrat Party, the leadership of the Republican Party. What we have here is a failure of these elites to understand that the American people want to put America first.

“61 percent of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck, and they want to put Ukraine first. I want you to talk to your constituents at home, the ones who live paycheck to paycheck and tell them why you’re shipping $60 billion to Ukraine. This will be $170 billion. We have never before in the history of the United States blooded so much money into another country.”

…

“What about tackling the problems of America first? Instead, this bill is a Ukraine first bill. It’s a Ukraine first policy. According to the Ukraine first party, which includes elites of both parties. War is good. War is useful. War profits make us stronger. Sounds a bit Orwellian.

“They say that war profits will build the defense industrial base. This is the part they used to say quietly. They used to whisper this. They used to never say it out loud that war profits fund the defense industrial base…According to the Ukraine first party, war is not so bad, war profits make us stronger.

“Lost in this reprehensible argument is any sense of grief over the 500,000 dead. For the mothers and fathers weeping graveside. Little sense of grief, little sense of understanding that supporting and lauding grief is supporting and lauding the death of war.”

…

“There is no money to give to Ukraine. It’s not like we’ve got a pot of money. There is no surplus. There is no rainy-day fund. This money will be printed up or borrowed from China to send to Ukraine. It makes us weaker.

“Once the border bill failed and they decided that this wasn’t really about the border, that this was about Ukraine’s Border. The American first was plowed out, plowed on with a more intellectually honest proposal. Nothing for America. Everything for Ukraine.

“That’s what this bill is. Nothing for America. Nothing to stop the invasion of nearly a million people across our southern border. They offered a border bill that would have said, well, if we have an emergency – the emergency has already happened. Nearly a million people came in in the last two months. That is the emergency. This is a bill that is Ukraine first and America last and ought to be defeated.”

You can watch his evening remarks HERE. 

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