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Paul Diagnoses Romney Op-Ed: 'It's Virtue Signaling'

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Kentucky’s junior senator is coming to the defense of President Donald Trump following the release of a scathing op-ed penned by incoming Utah Senator Mitt Romney, which raised red flags about the president's leadership abroad and at home. 

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul cast Romney’s Washington Post editorial going on the offensive and promising to speak out against statements that are “divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions” as a misstep. The Trump ally on foreign policy, criminal justice reform, and other issues said the president doesn’t deserve to be attacked by the former Republican presidential candidate. 

"I think essentially it's virtue signaling," Paul said of Trump's critics. "They say 'Oh, look at how terrible the character of the president is,' but by doing so they're building themselves up to say in contrast 'Look how virtuous I am' and I just think it rings hollow. It's not useful. It's not good for the country. It's not good for the Republican Party." 

The libertarian-leaning lawmaker urged colleagues to stick to policy debates and steer clear of character attacks. 

"I've opposed the president actually more than any other Republican in the Senate if you look at the voting record, and yet I keep good relations with him because I treat the president with dignity," Paul explained. 

Pressed on the president's own proclivity for ad hominem attacks, Paul said: "The president is the leader of the party and I don't say that I give him a pass, but what I would is that I think it's more important for us to look at what we have in common." 

The remarks highlight the shift in the senator's stance toward Trump, who once singled Paul out for ridicule on the debate stage during the GOP presidential primary. In response, the lawmaker lobbed his own share of verbal volleys against then-candidate Donald Trump. 

"How could anyone in my party think that this clown is fit to be president?" he told CNN in 2015, later doing a bit on Comedy Central's The Nightly Show where he called Trump a "delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag."

But now, the senator says it's Romney who may find himself out of sync with his Senate colleagues. 

"Really in public or private, you don't hear them questioning his (Trump's) character," he reported. 

Romney has said the president has not “risen to the mantle of the office” and that his comments have caused “dismay around the world.”

Josh James fell in love with college radio at Western Kentucky University's student station, New Rock 92 (now Revolution 91.7). After working as a DJ and program director, he knew he wanted to come home to Lexington and try his hand in public radio.
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